All Things Different

by Underhill, Shawn

  At home we unloaded the truck with the last of our energy and went inside to change. The lake was calling to us.

  With our towels slung on the dock, we were alive again the moment we touched the water. I swam out a ways and went under where it was cooler, letting myself glide until I surfaced. I came up and my old man was swimming up beside me. He winked when I looked over and that was the signal for the start of a race to the big rock that was fifty or so yards off the end of the dock. The truck-sized boulder barely protruded the surface at its highest point through all but the driest summers, when it might be exposed a few more inches during the hot season before the fall rains raised the lake. We’d been racing to that rock for years. Not once had I beat my old man.

  We were resting on the rock, the small waves lapping around us, when we spotted Sara. In her bathing suit she was running to the beach so excitedly and so much like a girl that I couldn’t help but laugh; my old man smiled his squinty smile. Her gait was a light bounce, like a squirrel, but instead of a twitchy tail flowing behind, she had long hair dancing in tow. To look at her then, she seemed far removed from the night before, so much different now in the day, and it made me wonder about her—if this was the real her, or vice versa. At the beach she dropped her towel and stood unevenly on the grade of the sand, one hand on her hip, the other raised to her face blocking the sun as she looked out. She had a figure starting in that bathing suit, like Kate on a smaller scale. It hadn’t been clear before in those baggy sweatshirts.

  “Can I come out with you?” she called.

  “Can you swim?” Dad called back, trying not to laugh.

  “I’ve only ever swam in pools!”

  “City girls,” he said quietly to me. “I’ll go get her.” He stood and dove in heavily.

  I stayed on the rock and watched him swimming in. He moved so effortlessly through the water that I was near jealous. Sara was watching him too. The light wind was on me and I was almost cold, so I got down lower so that all but my head was under the water. Dad was to the beach now. The swimming had brought out his muscles. With the sun shining in on him, his back was wide and detailed between the shoulders, his chest squared when he turned, and his waistline still narrow in contrast, even at his age, with his thick arms hanging heavily at his sides. Standing beside Sara, he looked to be about three of her. Something about that scene made me smile.

  Then they started out together. Sara waded until the water was at her waist and then sprang forward, kicking and splashing. Dad was at her side. At the deepest point, the water was at his neck and he walked alongside of her so that she could see him as she swam. She was breathing hard and excitedly when she reached the rock, smiling like she’d just climbed the podium to receive the gold medal.

  “Hi, Jake,” she said, pushing her wet hair back as she floated. Apparently she held no grudges from the night before.

  “Nice swim, Goldilocks.”

  “Thanks.” Her shoulders rose and fell.

  “With practice you’ll be a great swimmer,” Dad said. “You’ve got the long limbs for it.”

  “None of us will ever beat him,” I told her.

  “She might,” Dad said.

  “No, I won’t,” Sara laughed, delighted.

  “I can beat him with the dives,” I told her.

  “Can’t argue that,” Dad conceded.

  “Let me see,” Sara said.

  “I’m too lazy right now.”

  “Do a dive, Jake. Please? Jump way out.”

  I got up and went to the highest edge of the rock. Bending my knees, I took a breath and sent myself up and out as far as I could, straightening out sharply before I hit the water. I went down deep into the cold dark on the far side of the boulder and floated up in a turn so that I was facing them when I surfaced.

  “Yay,” Sara clapped when I appeared.

  I drifted back over toward them.

  “Can I try?” Sara asked, looking at Dad.

  “Of course,” he said. “Why not?”

  “You won’t let me float away if I jump too far, will you?”

  I scoffed and then apologized quietly.

  “I won’t let you float away,” Dad laughed.

  “I might jump half across this lake. I’m an athlete, just to warn you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Does cheering count as an athlete?”

  I bit down on my tongue to try to stifle my laughter.

  “Watch it.” She pointed at me as she stood.

  “Sorry.”

  She kicked water at me and wobbled, making a “Whoa,” sound. She teetered, raised her arms, and regained her balance. Once she was secure she laughed at herself.

  At the rock’s edge she looked down a moment into the clear lake. Then she straightened, breathed, and sprung out lightly. It was like watching a small animal hop. Her subsequent splash was small, and when she came up, she was laughing because we were clapping and cheering for her, compelled somehow by the strange influence of her enthusiasm. I guess it was infectious.

  “I’m ready for some food,” I said to Dad.

  “Will you come out to eat with us?” he asked Sara.

  “I should ask Mom,” she said, floating up beside him.

  “Yes, she’s invited too.”

  “To eat what?”

  “Lobster,” my old man smiled.

  I stood and dove toward the shore. Being cooled had brought on a vicious hunger. I came up, rolled over, and swam on my back to the beach. Looking back out while drying off, I watched my old man walking beside Sara. He was very good with her, and I could tell even if she hadn’t told me that she was falling for him. It was a strange scene for me to behold, then. My old man wasn’t usually this gentle with anyone but me, and never so much as he was with her now. But I could understand it.

  10

  The old man and me were dressed and ready in no time, and we sat on the porch waiting for the girls. It felt like forever before they showed up, and when they finally did, we couldn’t understand why they’d worn such nice-looking tops—the kind that look almost like a shorter version of a sundress. We were going to a place that required a lobster bib.

  Anyway, we couldn’t all fit in the truck, and Dad and I weren’t about to squeeze into the back of Kate’s Jetta, so it was agreed that we’d meet them at the restaurant.

  At The Lobster House we met up again by the entryway. Overhead the smoke from the center kitchen of the rectangular building was rising and churning in the wind blowing across the road from the beach, and the smell of the seafood and steaks and the barbecued ribs and chicken wings hanging in the air sent my stomach turning over in a hollow, bottomless grumble. Dad held the door as we filed by, then went ahead and told them a table for four rather than our usual two. Sara and I stopped by the big water tanks to see the lobsters. One of them was working its claw that it had freed somehow from the little rubber bands that usually held them closed.

  “Look, he’s warning you,” I teased her.

  “Don’t eat me, girl,” she said in a funny tone.

  “C’mon, kid,” Dad said with his hand on her shoulder. “We won’t be able to eat them if we make friends first.”

  Sara rushed to sit by Dad, and I was beside Kate at a big table. I sat trying not to look at Kate, because she was ridiculously good-looking dressed up like that, and I’d been taught not to stare too much. On the other side of the table, Sara sat beaming beside my old man.

  The girls checked over the menus while we waited for our drinks. For the old man and me there was no need for menus. It was steak tips and lobster for him, lobster and fried shrimp for me.

  “Do you like lobster?” Dad asked Sara.

  She shook her head and shrugged. “I’ve always been too weirded-out to try it.”

  “Try a tail.”

  “She can eat from the kids’ menu,” Kate said.

  “Not with me,” Dad smiled.

  “I’m afraid she won’t like it and end up wasting it. It’s so expensive.�
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  “Both of you get whatever you like. It’s on me.”

  “Really, George, let me buy dinner,” Kate said. “You’ve been so good to us.”

  My old man held up his big hand. “It’s on me, and that’s final.” His voice was deep as always, serious but with a softer edge when he spoke to them, so that both of the girls seemed to hang on his words.

  By the time the food came, I was half crazy with hunger. Smelling it had been killing me, and the appetizer rolls had done little to help. Wearing my stylish bib, I cracked the shell of my lobster and removed the tail, took off the claws, and carefully, one piece at a time, dug the soft white meat from each piece, saving the tail for last. Dipped in the melted butter, there was nothing like it. I was in the momentary heaven of the hungry, while Kate worked more delicately on her own lobster tail and Dad spent as much time helping Sara as he did eating his own food. When my lobster and shrimp were gone, I started in on the pile of French fries, dipping them in tartar sauce rather than ketchup. I was the first one finished, of course, having barely looked up from my plate the entire time, and with the last few fries, I finally felt satisfied. I hadn’t intended to be rude, but God I was hungry. Sara was watching me when I looked up and around.

  “I can’t believe you ate all that.”

  “He’s a growing boy,” Kate said.

  “I was hungry,” I smiled.

  “You’ll be big like your dad,” Sara said.

  “Or shaped like Shrek.”

  Everyone laughed. Sara kept on smiling at me after the laughing. I felt my face going red like the cooked lobster shell, until the waitress interrupted to ask if anyone wanted dessert. We all said no thanks except for Sara.

  “Do you have soft serve here?”

  “We do. What flavor, sweetie?”

  “Chocolate with rainbow sprinkles.”

  “Cone or a bowl?”

  “Bowl, please.”

  Sara had never been entirely won-over on the excellence of lobster and had only eaten about half a tail, so Dad stole the rest of the tail while she ate her ice cream. Kate sipped on her iced tea and I sat back, full and content, pressing a dinner mint up against the roof of my mouth. It wasn’t so bad, having them around. I was getting used to them. My old man had done right, I figured, as usual.

  After some more arguing over the bill, Kate left a generous tip. Outside we parted at the door. Dad and I started across the parking lot to the truck. A moment later Sara ran and caught up with us.

  “Can I ride home with you?”

  “Sure,” Dad said, looking over at Kate standing by her car.

  “As long as you don’t mind,” she called apologetically.

  Of course he didn’t mind. So there we were a minute later, three-wide in the truck for the ride home, Sara in the middle, basking in the glow of another small victory.

  “I like saying your name, George,” she said at one point. “It’s a fun name to say. Is it okay if I call you George sometimes?”

  He laughed a little and told her yes, it was okay. He actually preferred it to Mr. Thornton.

  “What about Georgie?” Sara pressed.

  My old man did a double take and just about swerved the truck off the road. “Now that, young lady, is only allowed on very, very special occasions. You follow?”

  Sara covered her mouth, laughing, and nodded. “I follow.”

  Honestly, if almost anyone else on earth ever dared call my old man Georgie, let’s just say it wouldn’t have gone over so lightly.

  11

  Monday night was cool after the heat of the day. Once the old man was asleep in his chair, I pulled on my heavy Carhartt sweatshirt and went outside, walking carefully in the dark while my eyes adjusted. I sat at the end of the dock looking across the big lake and up and around at the bigger sky. With the sounds of night by the water surrounding me, I sat very quietly, listening to the crickets and the small waves on the shore, waiting, listening through those sounds for another, smaller sound.

  Sara’s soft steps on the dock behind me brought on a strange effect. Small and light but also hurried on the firm planks, they brought a relief that I could not make sense of, while at the same time her presence evoked a small but certain tension in me. I looked back when she was near.

  “It’s me again,” she said brightly but not loudly.

  “I figured you’d be out.”

  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No,” I laughed lightly.

  “Just making sure.”

  “I’m glad, actually,” I said once she was settled down.

  “Now you’re making fun,” she smiled.

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “No. See, here’s the thing—”

  “I can take a joke, you know.”

  “But I’m not joking,” I told her. “About last night …”

  “Forget last night.”

  “You were really upset.”

  “I’m not now.”

  “Well, I don’t feel good about it.”

  “It’s not your fault, Jake.”

  “I’m trying to say I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I know that.”

  “And, I guess you were right when you called me a jerk.”

  “I said you didn’t have to be one, because I don’t think you really are one.”

  “Well, whatever happened, it wasn’t intentional.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I know I’m a pain.”

  I could feel her staring at me. I looked down until I felt her eyes leave me.

  “Look!” she said jabbing her elbow into my arm. “Shooting star.”

  I looked up. “I missed it.”

  “I hope there’re lots more.”

  “Sara,” I tried again, “if you’re gonna stay here, I’d like for us to get along all right.”

  “Aren’t we now?”

  “Yeah, now.”

  “That’s all that matters.”

  “Okay. I just figured we should clear things up.”

  “It’s clear,” she said, like nothing had happened, “and it’s a shooting-star night.”

  I looked up and around at the sky, watching, waiting, without understanding her, after very briefly thinking that I had.

  “Do you know the constellations?” she asked after a while.

  “Only the easy ones like the Dippers and Orion. I always forget the rest.”

  “Same with me.”

  “You’d think I would remember, as much as I’m out here.”

  “At least they don’t forget about us. Every night, there they are.”

  “Except when it’s cloudy.”

  “You can’t blame that on the stars.”

  “No?’

  “No!”

  “Silly me.”

  “Maybe now that I’m here I’ll have a good reason to memorize all the constellations.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “I could stay here forever,” she said whimsically. Her legs started kicking faster where they hung over the edge of the dock, like she’d had a sudden shot of energy and couldn’t hold still.

  “Yeah?” I said, watching her.

  “Yeah, it would be great,” she sighed. “It’s so perfect here, you know. I could get an awesome tan during the day like a beach bum, and then at night I could watch shooting stars and memorize all the constellations.”

  “Huh,” I breathed.

  “I’m assuming you’d be here too,” she said to me, but looking at the sky. “We could help each other every night until we knew all the stars like the backs of our hands.”

  “Why not,” I said.

  Sara laughed. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we ended up getting married someday, after you didn’t like me at first?”

  I tried to say that that wasn’t the case, but she just rambled on over me.

  “We could spend every day and every night together, just a couple of beach bums living out here by the lake without a care in the world. Wouldn’t
that be funny?” She looked at me now. “I mean, if it actually happened.”

  “That is funny,” I said. I was starting to like her, in a way, but her head was definitely way off in the clouds.

  “Don’t give me that look,” she said next. “I say funny things when I’m in a good mood. Let me have my fun.”

  “All right,” I said. “But you forgot one thing in your little plan.”

  “What?”

  “Winter.”

  “Shut up,” she laughed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

  “Can you skate?”

  “A little, but I usually fall.”

  “There’s ice fishing.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  “Ever ridden a snowmobile?”

  “No, but that does look fun.”

  “Maybe you can try ours,” I offered. “Or maybe the two of us can say to hell with winter and just transform into unicorns that go leaping over summer rainbows together.” I managed to say most of it without laughing.

  Sara leaned forward, laughing, covering her face. “Oh,” she gathered up her voice, “the sad part is, that’s close to what I thought when I was younger. Back then my goal used to be to find a rainbow to run up so I could go live with the Care Bears happily ever after.”

  I looked away to keep from laughing in her face. After a second I felt a weak elbow jab. She was mock-scowling when I looked over at her, and then she hit me again, harder, but it was still pretty weak. After that, she lost control of the mock scowl and put her hands over her face and laughed, looking through her fingers.

  “Did that hurt?”

  “More like tickled.”

  “I’m so weak.”

  “Care Bears aren’t known for muscles.”

  “I want big muscles, like your dad.”

  “Uh, that might look scary on you.”

  “I am scary.” She held up the arm nearest to me like she was flexing a bicep while attempting a menacing face. It only got worse when she tried making a tough growling sound that came out a very girly “grrr.”

  “Grrr?”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “Stop making fun of me.”

  “Stop making it so easy.”

  “You shut up,” she said, and without any warning, she edged over against me and let her head down onto my shoulder.