Sharks & Boys

by Kristen Tracy

  Whether or not I continue to trail the guys all depends on what I find when I finally reach my phone. Once inside my car, I am devastated by what I find. There is no text from Wick. I see additional calls from my parents, and toss the phone in the backseat again. I need to trail the guys. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get to Gretchen’s, but I have to follow them. I love Wick. Even if we’re on a break. Even if he doesn’t text me. I want to make sure that he’s loyal. Because a break shouldn’t mean that you get to travel out of state and start hooking up with anybody you want. A break means that you stay home and play reflective music and stew over the person you broke away from.

  Doesn’t he get that? Doesn’t anybody in that stupid group of guys understand how a heart works? I know they don’t read romance novels, but haven’t they seen a movie or two about it? Women need to be reassured. Women need to feel cared about. Women need men in their lives who treat them like they matter.

  I watch them climb into the van, completely unaware that I’m here. All of them are accommodating Burr and Skate. The group never had ringleaders before. The power was spread evenly. Even I had power. But it’s not like that anymore. The tragedy shifted everything. Burr and Skate, on the heels of their exodus from Vermont, are acting macho and reckless. Burr more than Skate. Burr could ask the guys to do anything and they’d agree. Grief has cast a spell on them.

  The van cruises right by my car. Wick is driving, and he doesn’t even see me. His mouth is moving. It looks like he’s singing along to the radio. He appears absolutely happy. I feel completely betrayed. How can Wick be happy? How is that possible? I pull out and follow the guys. I want him to prove to me that he’s not anything like my father. I want Wick to show me that I made the right decision to love him. And that everything between us is going to be okay.

  The guys drive toward the coast. I glide down a small hill and notice how the twinkling lights of the city abruptly end; the water spreads out beyond the land like a dark blanket. It’s chilly out. Even though it’s August, I flip on the heater. I didn’t dress appropriately for a reconnaissance mission. I should have brought a jacket. Man-catching attire and spy attire are two totally separate fashion statements.

  The guys race through two yellow lights and roll through a four-way stop. Didn’t they listen to the radio on the way down? Didn’t they see the jackknifed truck near Wilmington? I did. Police lights. Ambulance sirens. Fire truck. Seeing mangled metal on the freeway should slow down their full-throttle approach to life. The news report on the radio said that the driver had been critically injured. I got there right as everything was being cleared. But they could have been there right after it happened. Doesn’t hearing about that stuff make the guys feel frail?

  I bet that it made Wick feel frail. He’s one of the most emotional guys in the van. This isn’t something I suspect simply because we’ve dated. There’s scientific data supporting it. All of us have had our emotional reactions tested in the twin studies. I wonder if Wick has thought about what it’s going to feel like going to twin studies as a broken-up couple? The testers might figure out a way to incorporate our situation into one of their experiments. The thought of this makes me feel even more panicked. I don’t want my heartache documented by university researchers.

  Wick and Dale’s mother works in the psychology department at the University of Vermont. So does Sov and Munny’s mother. It’s their mothers who started the group. The Jarboes have lived within walking distance of our house since before Landon and I were born. When we turned eight, my parents approached Landon and me with the chance to be part of a study for twins. It was supposed to help collect information about twin responses. And our participation would be compensated with contributions to a college fund. At that age, I didn’t understand the importance of a college fund. But I did like the idea of meeting other twins. I was brokenhearted when it turned out that I was the only girl.

  Once a month, on Fridays, for the past eight years, Sov, Munny, Wick, Dale, Burr, Skate, Landon, and I have participated in twin studies. Usually, they separate us from our respective twins and have us fill out questionnaires, or eat interesting foods, or play games; they’ve even poked us on various parts of our bodies. The whole point is to test the psychic connection between twins.

  Landon and I are the least connected twins. Burr and Skate are the most. If you prick Burr’s finger, Skate can feel it. If you make Skate watch a sad movie, Burr, seated in another room, will suddenly be moved to tears. Not Landon and me. If you show him a picture of a circle and ask me what he’s looking at, I say a square. If you have me smell a banana, and ask him what fruit he’s craving, he’ll say a peach. If you ask me to think of a letter and have him guess it, we’ll usually be as far apart as two letters can get. Once I was thinking of the letter Q and he guessed the letter E. He said he was responding to a feeling he was experiencing concerning the schwa sound. Sometimes I can guess Landon. But it’s hit and miss.

  When we arrive at the marina, I see that the parking stalls have yellow numbers spray-painted on each one. I know that this means that they’re probably assigned, and that if I park there, I risk getting a ticket or possibly towed. But in matters of love, isn’t a tow worth the risk?

  I scan the parking lot for someone who looks like a Gretchen. But there’s no one. The guys climb out of the van and make their way toward the boats tied to the docks. I don’t know much about boats. These look big, like yachts, like you could maybe live on them. The guys are laughing. Under an arm, Skate and Burr are each carrying a brown paper sack. I can’t believe that they’re both going to attend Brigham Young University in the fall. Maybe that’s the whole point of drinking now. Once they enter Utah, they won’t be getting inebriated again for quite some time.

  I hide behind cars, keeping about a hundred yards between me and them. My heart is racing. I glance back at my mother’s Subaru. I parked it in stall seven, because seven is a lucky number. I still don’t see Gretchen. Maybe she’s waiting for them on one of the boats. I consider leaving the guys here and turning back. I keep going back and forth.

  Enid, you’ve come this far, keep following them.

  Enid, you’ve lost your mind. Go home.

  Enid, next time you do something like this, wear better shoes and bring binoculars.

  Enid, what really brought you here: Wick? The llama? Your broken heart? Gary? The rubber-band principle? The story of Moses? Your father?

  I’m so confused. And tired. Stalking requires a ton of mental energy. And muscle strength. My thighs quake from supporting me in a crouched position. It’s time to return to Vermont. But who is Gretchen? I can’t leave until I know. Once I know, I’ll leave.

  “Can I help you?” a voice asks.

  I almost scream. I look over my shoulder and see a middle-aged man and a girl about my age peering down at me.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “This is my car,” he says.

  “Your car?”

  He points aggressively at the silver Lexus in front of me.

  He has a vanity plate. It says RNIXON.

  “R. Nixon?” I ask.

  “Yes, Rich Nixon. It’s a family name.”

  Because I’ve been caught off guard, I remain crouched.

  It takes me a couple of seconds to realize that I’m gripping Rich Nixon’s back bumper. People dislike it when other people touch their cars, especially with both hands. I’m so scared I feel like I’m going to wet myself.

  “Do you need a bathroom?” he asks.

  I turn bright red. He thinks that I was trying to pee next to his car.

  “I’ve lost my car,” I say. I’m standing now, trying to look totally normal. I tug at my blouse and smooth it over my stomach.

  “There’s only six cars in the lot,” he says, sweeping his arm around, gesturing to the other vehicles.

  I’m certain that I look incredibly suspicious, and realize my best option is to lie my way out of this.

  “My brother parked the car, and
I’m trying to find it,” I say. I can’t believe how good that sounded.

  The girl points to my key ring. “Can’t you just press that button?”

  She means the UNLOCK button. “Good idea,” I say. “I’ll try that.”

  Rich Nixon and the girl keep looking at me. They want me to try it now. So I do.

  The Subaru’s headlights flash on and off.

  “It’s over there,” the girl says.

  “Thanks a bunch,” I say.

  “You’re from Vermont?” he asks, pointing to my car’s green license plate.

  “Yes.”

  “Long ways from home.”

  “I know. I’m headed home right now.”

  “Travel safely,” the girl says.

  They watch me walk to the car and I climb inside. They get inside their Lexus. I start my car. They drive off. I try looking around the parking lot, but all I see is my own hair. It’s exploded. This has never happened to me before, and I suspect this condition has been brought on not only by the humidity but also by my nerves.

  I dig around in the glove box in hopes of finding a rubber band. Because it’s a new car, I know my chances of finding anything useful are slim, but my mother is quite a clutter bug. There’s a ton of paperwork. And a pair of mittens, which makes no sense, and one of my dad’s baseball caps. As I pull my hair back and slip on the cap, I realize that it smells exactly like my father. Can I stand to wear a hat that smells like him? I take it off.

  In the very back of the glove box, I find a small white gift box. Opening it up, I find a wide silver barrette resting on top of a thin sheet of cotton stuffing. It’s new. On the inside of the box lid are the words: “I can make it up to you.” It’s my father’s handwriting. He thinks gifts can make up for everything. I take the barrette and throw it at the windshield, but it ricochets off the glass and lands in my lap. Catching a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror, I know I can’t continue to stalk Wick while sporting such freaky and uncontrollable hair. I sweep my bangs and long sides into the metal clip and snap it shut.

  With my reinstated peripheral vision, I scan the parking lot again. The guys aren’t anywhere. They’ve escaped. I’m so mad that I hit the steering wheel. Then I think about Rich Nixon and the girl, and I get so angry that I scream. She probably wasn’t even his daughter. I bet the jerk is cheating on his wife.

  I shake off the encounter and look at the empty gift box. My choices don’t feel real. Turn around and drive to Vermont and face my screwed-up life? Or go forward and face the complete unknown? Before I realize it, I’m out of the car. But I can’t run anymore in these heels; I’m developing a blister. Worse than that, my pantyhose are already giving me thigh rash. They keep slipping. I slide them down my hips. I forgot that I’m wearing orange underwear. I leave the balled-up hose beside the car. I’m done with them.

  The lot is completely void of people, and this makes my quest feel dire. Where did the guys go? I move toward the boats. Waves lick against their wooden and fiberglass sides. I could go right or left. The plank dock extends in both directions. The thought of losing them terrifies me. Should I go left or right?

  Out of nowhere comes a howl. It’s Burr. And his howl came from the left. I run down the dock, head held high, trying to step as lightly as I can.

  There’s no sign of Gretchen, but I see the guys. They’re on a boat, and it’s big, almost as long as a school bus. The guys are seated on the front end of it, which is the end farthest from the dock. They’re laughing. Beer cans are cracking open. Even though it might not be the best idea, I move to the back of the boat and jump the railing, dropping down onto the deck. I make a thumping sound, and the boat rocks. Plus, I skinned my knee.

  The laughing stops, and I can hear footsteps moving toward me. I scamper through a doorway and crawl down four steep steps. There’s a kitchen down here. And a bed. And a closet. No, when I open the door I can see a toilet. It’s a bathroom. I get inside and close the door.

  “I don’t see anything,” Wick says. “It must be the wind.”

  “Check below,” Burr hollers.

  “It was the wind,” Wick says.

  “Sometimes people board ships and rob them. It’s happened before,” explains Burr.

  The floor squeaks as Wick comes down the stairs.

  “Hello?” he calls. “Any criminals down here? Thieves in particular? Or persons of interest in unsolved homicide cases?”

  In spite of everything, I can’t help but smile. I really like Wick’s sense of humor. I think it’s, like, thirty-three percent of the reason I find him so stalkable. I silently beg him not to open the door. I doubt he’d find being stalked across state lines a funny situation. He’d probably get all taken aback or outraged or frightened. But really, my following him down here and hiding in this bathroom is a total compliment. It’s a testament to both my love and his desirability. I hold my breath and sit down on the toilet.

  “Drop your weapons if you’re armed,” he says.

  I hear him open a cupboard in the kitchen.

  “I’m packing heat!” a voice yells.

  The voice is low. I’m not sure who this person is.

  Somebody knocks against the bathroom door and falls onto the floor.

  “Real funny, Burr. I could’ve been hurt,” Wick says.

  “Are you nuts? You can’t ask criminals to surrender themselves. You’ve got to take them by surprise,” Burr says.

  Burr is laughing. I hear them walking up the stairs.

  “It was the wind,” Wick repeats.

  “I guess,” Burr says. “But what about the creaking?”

  “She’s a wooden ship,” Wick says. “Of course she’s going to creak. How long have you owned Gretchen anyway?”

  “My parents got her ten years ago,” Burr says.

  “Oh,” Wick says.

  I think the tone in Wick’s oh sounds sad. I can feel a shift in energy. Normally, Wick would have a fun comeback. He and Burr would banter, and because Wick is smarter and cleverer, he’d pull off the better zingers and wind up on top. A dude version of bonding. But since the accident, Wick handles Burr differently. He pulls back. He doesn’t use comebacks. He absorbs Burr’s jokes and laughs at them. Funny or not.

  “It’s a nice boat,” Wick finally says.

  “Too bad it can’t come to Utah,” Burr says. “I could have my own chick frigate.”

  Wick laughs again.

  They’re so far away now that I can’t clearly hear the conversation anymore. And then their voices are completely gone. I lean my head against a towel hanging on the wall. It’s monogrammed: RMR. Skate and Burr’s mother’s name was Robin Marie Riggs. It sucks that a towel can outlast a person. It shouldn’t be this way. I pull the towel down and fold it four times, trying to make a pillow. The towel smells like the Riggses’ house, so I press my face into the terry cloth and breathe deeply. Even six months after their deaths, it’s still so shocking. Until they were killed, whenever I heard of people dying in planes, I always pictured crashes. Airliners plummeting from the sky into marshy areas. Or slamming into snowcapped mountains. But that’s not what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Riggs. They hadn’t even taken off yet. The plane was sitting on the tarmac in Boston, and they were in their seats aboard a flight bound for San Diego. They were on their way to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. But as the plane taxied down the runway, one of the engines exploded, and debris ripped through the cabin.

  Burr and Skate’s parents were the only people who died. Their wounds must have been massive, because the funeral was closed-casket. It was so surreal. Burr spoke. Skate sobbed. I wore a black pantsuit, sat still, and repeated over and over again: This is part of life, this is part of life. But this strategy did little to help me get on top of my sadness. I felt clobbered by despair. I kept looking in disbelief at the Riggses’ caskets. They were inside of them. People I’d known my whole life—people I loved—were dead. At one point, I heard a man sitting one pew ahead of me whisper into another man’s e
ar that it had been a blessing that the Riggses were taken together and so quickly.

  I find it hard to characterize being mortally wounded while seated in coach class on a commercial airliner the day before your twentieth anniversary as anything other than a tragedy. I mean, they orphaned their twin boys. I can’t imagine what that feels like, to be a teenager and an orphan. Most of the time, I feel totally lost, and I’ve got two parents. Okay, so they’re both pretty flawed. But I have them.

  Mr. and Mrs. Riggs’s deaths shook everyone. My impulsive father even went out and bought an expensive life insurance policy the very next week. My mother started taking me out to lunch at fancy restaurants every other Thursday. The night of the funeral, Landon came into my room. He stood in my doorway blotchy-faced and crying. He just stared at me.

  I said, “I know how you feel.”

  He said, “No, you don’t.”

  Then he told me that he loved me. He said I was the most important person in his life. I remember not being sure if that was true. I’m still not sure. Other people dying has that effect on you. It makes you feel panicked, and depressed, and grateful, all at once.

  The smell of the Riggses’ house is starting to make me feel nauseated. I put the towel in the corner farthest from me. I need to figure out how to get out of this bathroom.

  I see a little lock shaped like a small button on the door, and I press it down. It makes me feel better, like I’ll have some warning before I get caught. God, I hope I can get off this boat without getting caught. I can’t think of a good reason to explain why I’m in this tiny bathroom. Right now I feel very doomed. Gretchen isn’t even a stripper. It’s just the name of this dumb boat.