Lunch is ordered and just as we’re finishing up my mother calls. I’m not entirely surprised—this is the pattern, after all. I’ve upset Richard and he had to run and tell on me as fast as he could.
I walk over to lean against the railing by the sea wall, because I don’t need the Baileys overhearing that even the woman who brought me into the world thinks I’m a useless screw-up.
She bypasses the whole Hey, how’s it going? part of the conversation entirely. “Did you really call Sandra the c-word?” she demands.
“Cancer?” I ask, squeezing tightly to the rail as a family passes by. They don’t even look at me twice. I wonder how long my anonymity will last.
“You know which word I’m referring to.”
“Yes, we both know,” I answer dryly, “because only one c word fits.”
My mother gives a heavy sigh. That sigh of hers is so familiar to me that I hear it in my sleep. I heard it in my head when I regained consciousness in Amsterdam. When I die, I won’t hear anyone grieving, I’ll just hear my mother’s long-suffering sigh, as if my death is simply one more thing I’ve done wrong.
“Maybe your merry band of misfits throws that word around without a care, but normal people don’t. You lash out at people and just assume all will be forgiven, Drew, but it adds up. Eventually people are going to stop letting things go.”
I slump into the same chair I sat in this morning with Josh, watching the sun come up. “Yeah, I’ve noticed how you all let things go. Which is probably why Sandra asked me to stay sober for this one, as if I’ve shown up rolling at every other family event we’ve ever had. And I don’t assume all will be forgiven. I just don’t give a shit.”
It’s not the first time I’ve said something like this to her. There’s a part of me that wishes she’d just call the time of death on our entire relationship. Block my number, cut me off, stop trying. It seems easier. Less painful.
“I cannot talk to you when you’re like this. But let me just explain this one thing to you: you’re in a downward spiral. It’s obvious to everyone but you. And when your career ends, we’re all you’ll have to fall back on so you might want to be very careful about who you push away.”
I hang up the phone, my heart aching, my head full of all the same vengeful thoughts I’ve had for years: I’ll show them. This album will be so big they’ll eat every word they’ve ever said and they’ll never open their fucking mouths again.
Except…except…there is no album. I hate every demo the label has sent, and even if I liked them, they still wouldn’t be mine. They wouldn’t be my words, my heart. They wouldn’t even be my taste in music.
My stepfather, Steven, texts not even a full minute after the call with my mother has ended.
I spoke to your mother. She said you claimed you “don’t give a shit” about the family. I’m not sure who told you it was okay to speak to a parent that way, but I’m here to tell you it’s not.
I type my reply: I don’t know who told you it’s okay to fuck someone else’s wife, but that’s not great either.
I laugh. Josh says I’m good at holding a grudge. He has no idea.
A chair scrapes the cement of the pool deck as it’s pulled up beside mine. I look over to find Six there. “I feel like getting drunk,” he says. “My family is on my last nerve.”
At last, we are in the same place and on the same page.
The cool and also tedious thing about Six is that he always knows people. Drop him in the middle of the Amazon, and he’ll have some friend there who knows about a party somewhere else, and even though it means wading through a mile of piranha-infested water and getting in a truck driven by a human trafficker, you’re going to that party.
So of course he knows of a party here, and of course it’s clear on the other side of the island where some huge surf competition is occurring.
After a very expensive Uber ride that goes on way longer than I expected, we arrive at an oceanfront house that looks out over the Banzai Pipeline.
“You better text your mom and let her know we might not make dinner,” I tell him. “They had reservations for seven but it’s going to take us an hour to get back.”
He swats my ass. “We are definitely not going to that lame fucking dinner. I’ll let her know.”
The house is full and the deck is too. It’s a music crowd here and I suppose if I ever wanted a shot at morphing into a real musician, the kind I wanted to be, it would make sense for me to talk to these people, but I suspect none of them would take me seriously.
I get a drink and fight my way out to the deck to watch the competition. It’s a single huge wave, curling and unfurling, and the surfers look like ants as they rise up inside it. My heart pounds in terror simply watching them, and that seems like a reasonable response. Until today, I’ve never been to a beach so dangerous that signs warn anyone who isn’t an experienced surfer not to even approach the shore.
I’m leaning on the deck railing watching the competition when a guy walks up beside me and introduces himself. He’s apparently the drummer for a band called The Sweat Monkeys, of whom I’ve never heard. “I’m pretty sure we’re getting a spot at Coachella next year,” he says with feigned ambivalence. He looks over to make sure I’m suitably impressed. I do my best.
“That’s awesome,” I reply. He has no idea who I am, clearly, but it’s fun to be anonymous again, to go back to being some random hot girl an unknown drummer is trying to impress.
“I can get you backstage, you know, if we get the spot,” he says.
I headlined there last year, but I simply bite down on my smile. “That would be really cool.”
I tell him I’m getting another drink, but instead I just wander down to the dunes where the hardcore competition viewers sit with binoculars.
And one of them is Juliet Cantrell.
It’s rare for me to be starstruck these days, but with her, I am. She has the career I wish I had—the one I should have held out for. She writes her own stuff, she chooses her own producer. No one makes her take cocaine before a show to perk her up. No one books her into rehab without asking her first.
She’s watching the competition, focused on it. I should probably leave her alone but I find myself creeping closer until suddenly, I’m right there and she’s blinking up at me, shielding the sun with her hand.
I give a small wave. “Hey, I’m Drew.”
She peers up at me and then her eyes go wide. “Holy shit. Drew Wilson? I didn’t even recognize you. I’m Juliet.”
I laugh. “I know—you have my dream career.”
She raises a brow at that. “Hold on to the career you have. I guarantee your bank statement’s a lot more interesting than mine.”
I glance at the spot in the sand beside her and she scoots over to make some room for me.
“You’re chilling in Hawaii on a Wednesday afternoon,” I reply, sitting cross-legged. “You can’t be doing all bad.”
She laughs. “Fair enough.”
She picks up a pair of binoculars and peers into them before handing them to me.
“It’s terrifying,” I say more to myself than her. They’re so tiny compared to the water. It looks as if they’ll all come crashing down when the wave breaks, but somehow no one does.
“It is,” she says with a sigh, biting her lip. Her worry isn’t like mine. It’s not general and vague, it’s specific.
“You’re here to see someone, huh?” I ask.
She gives me a wary look and doesn’t answer for a moment. “Yeah, but he doesn’t know.” She sighs. “That sounds stalker-y. It’s just someone I grew up with.”
“Don’t you think he’d want to know you’re here?”
Her eyes fall closed, as if even the question is painful. “He definitely would not want to know,” she replies.
“I guess that’s why your songs are so angsty,” I say, and she laughs.
“I’m curious,” she says after a moment. “What is it about my career you envy? You make more money a
nd you’re way more famous.”
I think for a second before I answer. I would like to be less famous, but that’s not why I want it. “I’d rather be well known for singing my own shit than famous for singing someone else’s,” I finally reply. “I don’t even get to play guitar now except as a stunt.”
She raises a brow. “You must have enough money at this point to do whatever you want.”
My shoulders sag. It sounds so easy falling from her lips. But I know it wouldn’t be. “It’s hard to extricate yourself. Even if I could get out of my management deal and my recording contract, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
She looks like she wants to argue but then shrugs. “If you change your mind, give me a call. I might know people who can help you out.”
A shadow falls over us then and I look up to see Six there. “Hey, Juliet,” he says, reaching down his hand to me. “Babe, we’ve got places to be. I’ve got a friend holding a luau back in Honolulu.”
There was a time when I’d have gone anywhere with him, when I’d have dropped anything to see him. Now, I find myself tempted, as I take his hand, to tell him to go alone.
It’s late and I’m drunk.
Dusk had barely fallen when I started telling Six I was ready to go back to the hotel and suggesting we might be able to meet his family for dinner after all. But it’s hours later and we are still drinking. I’ve lost count of how many stops we’ve made along the way—there were bars, there was shopping, there was even some family’s pig roast on the beach. Now we’re in a club, and the flashing lights hurt my head and I’m so tired I can barely manage the words Let’s go for the hundredth time, yet here Six is, still buying everyone shots.
“I’m sleepy,” I tell him.
“Barkeep!” he shouts. “I need a Red Bull and vodka for my pretty friend here.”
The mere thought of it makes my stomach turn. “Gonna go to the bathroom,” I slur.
He hands me a shot. “Take one for the road. I’ve got plans for you later.”
I’ve heard him say that before. I’m too drunk to remind him that isn’t the deal, too exhausted to explain that I care about him but I’m not sure this is working, that I worry I’m getting his mother’s hopes up about something that will never happen.
Or maybe I should stick it out. He hasn’t even been here a full day and I did say I’d give him a chance. And tonight was fun, until it wasn’t. At least he wants me around some of the time, I think. It’s more than I can say for my family.
I leave the bathroom but my stomach starts to swim so I push through an exit for fresh air, standing with my head pressed to the wall, taking shallow breaths.
When I’m finally okay, I turn to go back inside only to discover Six has my ID.
The doorman won’t budge, even when I tell him I was just inside and that my boyfriend has it. “Then your boyfriend can bring it to you,” he says. “No ID, no entry.”
As much as I love not being recognized, it had its benefits.
I pull out my phone and attempt to call Six, and when that fails, I text him. There’s no answer, of course. He’ll see it eventually.
I sink onto the nearest bench and scroll on my phone, opening a text from an unknown number which I’m strangely thrilled to discover is from Josh. I have his number now, I think. It feels like a gift, one I’m likely to abuse.
Are you guys okay? You missed dinner and my mom is worried. Please reply if you see this.
Fucking Six. He said he’d call them. I told him to call them. I wish I’d never come out tonight. I’d honestly have had more fun with Beth and Jim, even with Josh and Sloane. Okay, maybe not “fun” but if I’d just stayed, I wouldn’t have spent the past hours begging to go to bed, and I wouldn’t feel like I’m about to throw up.
Sorry, I reply. It’s all I can manage at the moment.
Suddenly the phone in my hand starts ringing. That same unknown number. Josh’s number.
“Hey,” I whisper. I wish we were sitting by the pool watching the sun come up. I wish he was sitting on this bench beside me.
“Where are you guys?” he asks. He sounds worried, not mad. I don’t know why that makes me want to cry.
“I’m stuck outside this club,” I tell him. “Six has my ID and they won’t let me back in.”
“And you’re sitting outside on the street?” he asks. Now he sounds mad, but it’s just because he has some weird belief that I’m fragile. I spent the three years after I dropped out of school sleeping on people’s floors or at the train station. Sitting outside in Waikiki is child’s play compared to life back then.
“I texted him,” I say, closing my eyes. “It’s fine. He’ll get me in a second or I’ll Uber back.”
“Are you drunk?” he asks. I hear a zipper and wonder if he’s undressing. For a moment, I picture him pulling off his shorts and it has the well-worn quality of something I’ve pictured before. I see abs like artwork, that fine trail of hair leading to boxer briefs.
Jesus, Drew, I can’t believe you noticed his happy trail with that level of specificity. “Bad Drew,” I say aloud.
“I don’t know if that’s a yes or no,” he says.
I blink. “To what?”
“Never mind. Your inability to string words together answers my question. Where are you?”
He sounds slightly breathless, distracted. I wonder if he’s asking me all this while he’s getting busy with Sloane. That is not an appealing thought. “I can’t really picture Sloane having sex,” I tell him. She seems like she’d demand all surfaces be wiped down with bleach or ammonia before commencing, perhaps run a few quick labs to make sure they’re both disease-free.
“Drew,” he repeats, sterner now. “Where the fuck are you?”
I lean forward to look at the well-lit sign above me, and nearly fall off the bench in doing so. “The Tik Hut.” I look again and realize one of the ‘i’s isn’t lighting up. “Tiki Hut. I just want a glass of water. They won’t even let me get a glass of water. This is America. I should be able to get water.”
He’s preoccupied, talking to someone. I sit, listening to the sounds he makes—his deep voice, a car door shutting, the seatbelt warning. I bet wherever he is the air isn’t quite so muggy. I bet there’s a bottle of water. I bet if I’d come here with him, he’d have been worried when I didn’t return. He’d have looked for me.
“So tell me what happened,” he says gently.
“Happened with what?” I ask. I’m going to be too hungover to run tomorrow. And it might be our last chance.
“Focus, Drew,” he says. “What happened tonight? Why did you guys blow off dinner? I’d expect it of Joel, but not you.”
“Because I called my sister-in-law a cunt,” I whisper.
To my surprise, he laughs. “You did what?”
“I called my sister-in-law a cunt. But she is one. She’s such a cunt, Josh, you would not believe.”
He laughs again. “So you decided to blow off my parents and go on a wild drinking spree because you used the word cunt? No offense, but I pictured you as someone who’d say that word fairly regularly, and with ease.”
A group of guys slow as they walk past and I put my head down. “I didn’t call her a cunt, actually, I asked her not to act like a raging cunt, so I didn’t call her a thing. It was just a simple request. And then…”
My eyes fill with tears. Goddamn shots. They’re the only explanation for why I’m on the verge of crying right now for at least the third time.
“And then…” he prompts.
I want to say it all. I want to say that my stepbrother told me I’d ruin the party, that my mother said my career was ending and I was going to need them, that even my asshole stepfather who destroyed my family thinks he gets to chime in. I want to say all of it and hear a single person agree with me, but the truth is that when everyone is telling you you’re a piece of shit…you’re probably a piece of shit. I’m silent for so long he has to prompt me again.
“My family kind of piled
on,” I whisper.
“Get in the car,” he replies.
I look up to see the Jeep the Baileys rented directly in front of me. He came here to get me. And the zipper was the sound of him dressing because he was already in bed, and he still came here.
I don’t know why that makes my throat swell. I cross to the passenger side of the Jeep. “You didn’t have to do this.”
He hands me a bottle of water and then leans over to buckle me in. “Yeah, I did. Has anyone ever suggested that you are alarmingly unconcerned with your own welfare? It’s late. Anything could have happened to you out here.”
“No one even recognizes me now that I’ve cut my hair.”
He sighs. “I wasn’t talking about the fact that you’re famous, Drew. I was talking about the fact that you’re pretty.”
I laugh. “Oh. MY. God. You actually paid me a compliment?”
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up. And no. I didn’t pay you a compliment. I didn’t say anything you haven’t been hearing since the day you were born. That’s not a compliment. It’s just, like, a line item on a list of assets.”
“You paid me a compliment.”
He laughs. “Whatever.”
The breeze whips through the Jeep and I lean my head back and look up at the sky, slamming the water. It’s ice cold. Josh is kind of a keeper, I think. I consider telling him, but even I’m not drunk enough to think that’s a good idea.
That he came to get me, though, feels like the first embers of sunlight coming out behind Diamond Head, warming a cold gray sky. I hope tomorrow I manage to hold onto this feeling, that I remember what it’s like when someone actually cares. And then I hope I get on a plane and get my ass back home, because I know this situation can’t lead anywhere good. Josh isn’t mine, and even if I wasn’t with his brother, and he wasn’t with Sloane, he’s too smart and too good to ever fall for someone as damaged as me.
18
The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea Page 8