The Dysasters

by Cast, P. C.

Charlotte giggled softly. “Yes, Grandma Myrtie. We are definitely besties. But, thank you. You saved me, you know.”

  “My dear, we saved one another. You are, after all, my favorite granddaughter.”

  “I’m your only granddaughter.”

  “Just so. When did you say fall semester officially begins?”

  “August twenty-ninth.”

  “Perfect! You’ll have plenty of time to settle in and find your way around. Just remember, there’s more to the city than the Gulf.”

  “Don’t worry, Grandma Myrtie. I’ll get good grades and make you proud. No one will ever be able to say you wasted your money on me.”

  “Charlotte Myrtle Davis, how could I ever waste money on you? You, my dear, are priceless.”

  “Did Mama call you? Did she say anything after she saw me?” Charlotte hated that she still wanted her mother’s approval after all this time, especially because she knew she would never get it.

  “Now, you know I’m too polite to repeat any nonsense your mama spouts, bless her mistaken heart. My dear, you just focus on yourself and that bright, beautiful future that stretches before you,” said Grandma Myrtie.

  “You’re right. You’re always right. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “That’s why I’m here—to remind you of how special you are.”

  Charlotte’s blue eyes began to fill with tears, but she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. This was the first day of her new life. She was not going to let her mama spoil it.

  “I love you, Grandma Myrtie.”

  “I love you, too, my dearest one.”

  A roadside sign announced that a truck stop was a mile ahead. Charlotte glanced at her almost-empty gas gauge and merged into the right lane.

  “Hey, Grandma Myrtie, there’s a truck stop comin’ and I need to get gas. I’m going to go, okay?”

  “You stay safe, Charlotte. You have your pepper spray gun, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “And your police whistle?”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “And you’ll lock your car.”

  “Yes, Grandma. I promise. I’ll take care,” Charlotte said as she took the exit to the rest stop.

  Grandma Myrtie sighed. “That bathroom situation. It frightens me.”

  Charlotte wanted to say “me too,” but she hated the worry that made her beloved Grandma’s voice sound suddenly old and tremulous. “It doesn’t scare me at all. I’m just going to go in, get gas, and then get back in my car.”

  “After you check to be sure no one’s in the backseat?”

  “Grandma Myrtie, if I have to leave my car, I promise I’ll lock my doors. I have to go. I’ll call you when I get back on the road so you know I’m okay,” Charlotte said as she pulled up to a gas pump marked by a faded number seven.

  “That would give me peace. Thank you.”

  “Bye-bye, Grandma Myrtie. I love you!”

  “And I you,” Grandma Myrtie said, followed by two soft kissy sounds, which was how she always said good-bye to Charlotte, whether she was kissing her cheeks or kissing the air at the other end of a telephone.

  Charlotte quickly checked herself in her rearview mirror, fluffed her blond bangs, and straightened the spaghetti straps on her little sundress, taking a moment to appreciate the way the blue embroidered flowers on the bodice brought out the turquoise in her ocean-colored eyes. She was checking to be sure her pepper spray gun was easily accessible in the side pocket of her red Kate Spade purse when there were two sharp raps on the car’s window. Charlotte jumped and turned to see a youngish guy in a faded uniform. She rolled her window partway down.

  * * *

  “Fill ’er up?”

  “Y-yes. Please,” she said.

  “Okay, but ya gotta go inside and pay.”

  Charlotte’s stomach felt suddenly queasy. “All right. Yes. I can do that,” she babbled. Then she drew a deep breath, steadied herself, and opened the door. She smoothed her sundress and nodded to the attendant, who was already undoing her gas cap, before hurrying toward the door of the little truck stop.

  “Tell Floyd it’s pump seven,” he called after her.

  “Thank you. Will do,” she said.

  The door chimed as Charlotte opened it. She was instantly overwhelmed by the scents of overcooked hotdogs and underwashed humans. Taking shallow breaths she went to the island that held the cash register. Behind it was one of the underwashed humans whose nametag read FLOYD.

  Floyd was tall, somewhere south of middle age, and his gut said he liked beer and disliked exercise. A lot.

  “Hey there, missy. What can I do you for?” he drawled as his small eyes scanned up and down her body, without once stopping at her face.

  “Please fill it up. Pump seven.” Charlotte opened her baby blue wallet and handed him her credit card.

  He took it, and finally looked at her face. Floyd grinned, showing dirty yellow teeth. But instead of running the card he twirled it through his fingers.

  “Haven’t seen your pretty face ’round here before. Where you from, sis?”

  “North Carolina. Um, is that the key to the ladies’ room?”

  He glanced to his left at a key on a block of wood stained with peeling pink paint. “Well, it sure ’nuff is.” He took it off the hook and held it out to Charlotte, but as she reached for it he jerked it back. “Not so fast there, sis. How ’bout a smile first? You’re pretty—I’ll give you that. But you’d be lots prettier if you’d smile.”

  Charlotte’s stomach roiled. She wanted to tell him to keep his damn key, and she’d keep her smile, but she knew she couldn’t. The stupidest thing she could do was to make a scene—or piss off this bubba. So, she steeled herself and smiled, saying, “I’ll take that key now, sir. And my credit card, too.”

  But he didn’t give her the key. Instead he glanced down at her card. “See, I knew your smile would be pretty, and it sure is. So, let’s see if your name is as pretty as your smile.” He paused, staring at the name on the card. When he looked up at her, his expression had hardened. “You don’t look much like a Charles, sis. I’m gonna need to see your driver’s license.”

  Charlotte tried to keep her hands from shaking as she held her license up for him to see.

  “What the hell? That picture do look like you. Kinda. And it says your name is Charles Mason Davis, but that there’s a boy. And you don’t look like no boy to me. You’re gonna have to explain yourself.”

  “Charles was the name I was given at birth. This is who I am today. That’s all there is to explain. May I have my card now, sir, and the key to the ladies’ room?”

  “You can have your card back, sis.” This time he sneered the word. “But you don’t need no key. The boy’s room ain’t locked. It’s the dirty one, just to the left outside there.” He flicked the card at her and it fell to the grimy floor.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte retrieved the card from the floor. When she stood she saw that the man had obviously been trying to look up her dress when she bent over.

  His smile was cruel as he rubbed the bulge in his crotch. “I’ll bet you give one hell of a b.j.”

  Charlotte fled with his mocking laughter following her. She didn’t want to go to the men’s room, but she was certain she was going to be sick. She rushed inside, closing the door after her. The stench of the urinal hit her and she doubled over, puking into the full trash can. With hands that shook, she went to the sink, running cold water so she could rinse her mouth and as she straightened, Charlotte caught her reflection in the mirror.

  Her makeup was perfect. Her hair was perfect. Her dress was perfect. Everything, everything about her was perfect. Everything except that name on that card, and that name did not define her.

  “Don’t let them win, Charlotte,” she told her reflection. “Don’t let them break you. You’re on your way to the rest of your life. You’re going to be Charlotte by the Sea, not the butt of someone’s joke.” She smiled through her tears—a real smile. One m
eant for herself and no one else. “Remember, you’re priceless, Charlotte Myrtle Davis.”

  Bastien

  “Hey! You can’t sleep here.”

  Bastien’s eyelids snapped open and he grimaced at the sand being kicked onto his naked back.

  “Move it along!”

  Bastien instinctually felt around the beach for the leash of his board before sitting up and scrubbing off the snow white, salty ghosts of the waves that had washed up his shins and lulled him to sleep. For as long as he could remember Bastien had felt at home in the water. His elementary school self had even begged his parents for a waterbed. But that was in the before. All of his happiness was in the before.

  “I have ears, me,” he said, freeing the sand from his inky black hair with a few swift shakes of his head.

  “Then use ’em and listen to me when I tell you to get outta here.”

  Bastien stood and took his time patting down his empty pockets before lifting each of his feet and peering down at the golden granules like he’d lost something. Truth was, he didn’t own anything except the clothes on his back and the board at his feet. Everything else he’d left back in Louisiana.

  “I haven’t got all day.” The young man sneered, wrinkles forming across the bridge of his thin nose.

  “There you are!” The cheerful voice wiped the sneer from his face—most of it anyway. Bastien wasn’t sure the guy could get rid of it completely. He’d just walk around the world with that “I smell shit” look wrinkling his narrow features. “You’ll have to excuse my little brother.” She brushed her hand through his sunbleached hair, mussing the gelled strands much to his disapproval. “He fell out of the dick tree and hit every floppy limb on the way down.” She elbowed him in the ribs a bit too hard for a simple joke.

  Bastien just might like this girl, whoever she was.

  “Haven’t I seen you around?” She glanced at his board, at the majestic phoenix stretching its wings from the glowing embers of its past. “Yeah,” she bobbed her head like she’d just received an answer to a question she’d long been wondering. “I’ve definitely seen you out there. You were here when all those waves started. That was like a week ago, wasn’t it, Richie?”

  Richie. Well that just about figured, didn’t it? Wasn’t Dick the nickname for Richard?

  “I guess,” Richie grumbled.

  “Well, anywho, we’re looking for help. A bunch of our staff was seasonal and is headed back to college. How would you like a job?”

  “Josie!”

  The corner of Bastien’s mouth ticked up in a faint half smile. Little Dickie might just have a heart attack and start Bastien’s day off right.

  Josie held up her hand. “Daddy gave this location to me, Richie, to me. Plus”—her long mermaid blue braid slid off her shoulder as she hiked it up toward her ear—“I can tell stuff about people, their auras I guess you could call it, and I can tell that you need a little help. Not that this is charity or anything.”

  Richie snorted, and Bastien just might agree with him.

  “It’s not,” Josie continued, shooting a narrowed side eye at her brother. “There’s work involved. A lot of work. It’s minimum wage plus tips paid in cash all off the books. Plus, there’s a bed in the back where—”

  “A cot,” Richie interrupted.

  Josie pushed on. “Where you can stay as long as you’re okay with closing up the place each night.”

  Bastien mulled over the proposition. He didn’t particularly like the idea that he’d be accountable to someone, someone who was keeping him away from the sweet Galveston waves, but he’d also be on the beach every day, which was no different from how he was living currently, but he currently didn’t have to be somewhere every night to close up shop. However, and this was a big however, a monumental however, he’d have his own money.

  “Who’d I be workin’ for?” His eyes never left Josie’s, not wanting for one second for Richie to think he had any kind of power over him.

  “You’d be working for me as a Seas the Day Team Member,” she pointed to the logo on her brother’s T-shirt that matched her own. “Just like Richie. We’ll be good to you if you’re good to us.”

  Bastien nodded. He figured he could manage if he worked for Josie and not good ol’ Dickie. “Sounds fine.” But it was more than fine. It was a relief. Now he wouldn’t have to go back to that house his mother forced him to call home. He could stay away, far away, forever.

  “Great!” Josie chirped, her face brightening. Bastien knew what she thought. Knew she saw him as a troubled, homeless boy who needed a handout. But that was only half true. He picked up his shirt from the beach where he’d rolled it up as a pillow, shook it out as best he could, though you never could really free yourself from the tiny grains that seeped like lazy stowaways into even the smallest nook.

  But Bastien wasn’t homeless—not by the true definition of the word. He’d chosen to leave. And all that money and fine food and the fancy cars and grand estate—they were all waiting back there behind him, stretched out like a shadow.

  “Richie will get you an official Team Member shirt and will show you the ropes.” She turned to Richie and, lowering her voice, said, “I’m going to go open up. Don’t be…” she sighed. “Just give him a chance. We really need the help.” She jogged back to the straw-roofed hut and disappeared inside the open doorway.

  As soon as Josie slipped inside, Richie crossed his arms over his chest. “My sister has this thing about strays. A few times a year, she’ll pick one up, give it some food, shelter, a place to work, but it never lasts. They always fuck it up.” He buried his foot in the sand as if to say, I’m here to stay, and you’re only temporary. Part of Bastien wondered if he’d whip it out and piss all over the side of the hut just to prove his point. “And you’re no different, just another beach bum preying on good, sweet-hearted people like my sister.”

  Bastien’s stomach swelled with anger, and he did what years of hearing accusations and insults much more cutting than any skinny Dickie could hurl his way had trained him to do: he affixed his gaze on a point just to the side of Dickie’s right ear. Any farther and the person he was trying not to hear would notice, and quick. A slap in the face had taught him that. It had branded the message along with so many others along his left cheek. He absentmindedly rubbed his cheek, sand scraping across his face as his eyes settled on the ocean. The waves seemed to surge in time with the anger churning in his gut. He breathed deeply. He couldn’t release his anger, not on this fool. It’d been with him, simmering for so long, that if he let it erupt now, he’d probably send Dickie to the hospital.

  A seagull braved the roiling waves, splashing into the water, disappearing for a moment, and then reemerging, soaring up, up, up triumphantly.

  The truth of it was, all that anger scared him. That’s why he’d left. At first he thought putting distance between himself and his parents would be enough to quell the heat building in his belly, but he’d discovered after only a few hours outside of Acadiana that he was just running from himself.

  And all that running only made him tired.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, no,” Bastien said, unsure whether or not Dickie had finished proving the point he seemed to so enjoy making.

  “God, you talk funny.”

  Bastien nodded, tucking his board under his arm. “That’s for true,” he said, leaving Dickie behind him, cross-armed and pinch-faced, as he walked to the hut.

  14

  TATE

  “Tate! Damn, boy, it’s good to hear your voice again. How’s it going up there at your, wait, what are you calling it?”

  “Our Fortress of Sauvietude!” Tate said, laughing at his own joke.

  “That’s it. Damn queer name if you ask me, but if you and Foster like it, that’s all that counts,” grumbled Tate’s grandpa.

  “G-pa, queer doesn’t mean weird anymore. You know that, right?” Tate said, leaning against the cool glass side of the phone booth and grinning into the ancien
t black rotary dial dinosaur.

  “Old dog. No new tricks,” G-pa said. “But we’re not talkin’ ’bout me. How’s the air wrangling goin’?”

  Tate blew out a long, frustrated breath. “We’ve been working on it for two weeks now, and let me tell ya, G-pa, Foster’s a lot better at it than I am.”

  “Well, boy, get used to that. Women are better at everything that counts. All we can do is hitch ourselves to a good one and try to keep up. Your mama was the best of the best, and your daddy had the good sense to hitch himself to her.” G-pa had to pause and clear his throat before he could go on. “Your Foster sounds like she’s a good one, too.”

  “She is. Or at least she is sometimes. It’s hard to get close to her, G-pa.”

  “From what you tell me she rightfully has trust issues. Give it time, son. You’ll win her over—if that’s what you want to do. Is it?”

  Tate shuffled his feet, kicking at the pea gravel that littered the little concrete slab on which the phone booth sat. “Yes. No. I dunno.”

  “Better make up your mind. The good ones don’t have much patience for yes, no, and maybes.”

  “She’d freak if she knew I call you,” Tate admitted.

  “Boy! You haven’t told her?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Tell Foster. And fast. Didn’t you say she has air cannon hands?”

  Tate grinned into the phone again. “Yes, sir. She sure does.”

  “Sounds like something you need to remember next time you think about lying to her,” G-pa said.

  “I didn’t lie to her! I just didn’t tell her, that’s all.”

  “An evasion is little different from a lie. You want my advice?”

  “Always, sir,” Tate said.

  “Come clean. Tell her the truth, and explain that the two of you are still safe. You’re calling me from a pay phone to my landline—a number that’s not published and is registered in the name of a trust that’s buried under mounds of corporate paperwork and red tape meant to keep people from knowing it’s me. It’s safe to call me. And not because I knew you’d need to hide from a mad scientist and his evil minions.”