“Hey, it’s gainful employment, and I’m in school for my business degree,” he argues. “Do you want my advice or not?”
“Sorry. You were talking about me being some freaky, ring-obsessed goblin.” I toast him with my beer and take another long sip to fortify me through this story.
“Gollum is not a goblin, by the way. Moving on, you are hoarding those coins because you think your dad’s coming back.” He pauses here, and I interject a laugh so sharp and angry, it startles me.
“Fuck that, man. I know that asshole is staying deep in the jungle where he disappeared. I’m not delusional, alright?” When Cohen meets my objection with silence, I feel the need to defend my stance, which is moronic, but I feel like Cohen’s just picking at an old wound to get a rise out of me. “It’s been years. He isn’t coming back. I’m not like my mother, hoping he’ll waltz the hell in and expect her to drop her damn life for him. I get who he is.”
“Yeah, you get him,” Cohen agrees. “You get him because you are him.”
“Fuck you!” I point at my friend, all the fury from before built to a sudden head. “Fuck you and your bullshit, Cohen! That’s some cold shit, right there.” He looks at me steady, no guilt in his eyes this time. “That’s a kick in the balls, you know that? Me? Like him? I’m nothing like him.” He doesn’t say a word, just watches me tantrum like an infant. “Okay, smartass, how exactly have I gone from being some goblin to my fucking loser father? Enlighten me.”
“Your dad doesn’t stick around for the hard shit. He’s always looking for the easier way.” Cohen shrugs like that explains me.
“Look, my dad’s a champion fuckwad, no doubt, but he works hard as hell. That guy has gone places and done things no normal human would go anywhere near.” My father’s medical records alone could fill a week’s worth of World’s Scariest Injuries marathons. The man has been everywhere from the top of icebergs to the rivers in caves thousands of feet underground. Adrenaline is more important than oxygen to him.
“I’m not talking about sticking around for work. I’m talking about people.” Cohen taps his beer bottle against his palm.
“I was there for Whit. That’s the reason I’m here,” I snarl, losing patience with my friend.
“No. You were looking for an easy way through all the shit, and that’s why you’re here.” He picks up his last beer and pops the cap. “You asked me what I’d do if I were you? I’d sell those coins, set up a surf shop, get my life in order, and show up at Whit’s door with my shit in control, ready to be her rock the minute she needs me. Because I think she was waiting for someone substantial enough to lean on. And that just wasn’t you, man. I think she wanted it to be you, but it wasn’t.” When he finishes talking, he takes a long sip and wipes his mouth with his hoodie sleeve.
We both sit and drink and watch the waves crash on the shore, over and over. Finally I ask, “And what if I just can’t my shit together? What if I crash and burn?”
“You wanna hit these while they’re good?” Cohen jumps up and points to the waves with his glass bottle.
“Answer my fucking question, asshole.” I jump to my feet and glare at him. “What if I crash and burn?”
He takes his board down and pulls off his hoodie. “Then I spend the next fifty years bringing you beers and listening to you cry about the girl who got away. Enough talking. I feel like I’m at my kid sister’s slumber party. Let’s get out there before we lose this.”
I follow him out, and for a few hours, it’s just Cohen and me and the waves crashing full force on the sand under the star-strewn sky. By the time we’re soaked, bone-weary, and stone-sober, the sun has been up for at least an hour.
“I’m going to be a zombie at work.” Cohen shakes his hair out and loads his board up.
I raise an eyebrow. “How with-it do you have to be to sell a couple of recliners and end tables?”
“What the hell would you know about selling furniture? Or buying it for that matter? When you sleep in a bed that doesn’t have a bunk, get back to me.” I laugh and he slaps me on the shoulder. “Seriously. When your little surf shack is the hottest place on the coast and you have all the mad dough, Rodriguez Home Furnishings will give you a deal on getting your new pad all set up.”
“Sounds good, man. Just tell them I’m not dealing with that shady-ass son of theirs.”
He jabs me in the ribs and gets in his truck, rolling down the window to catch the cool morning air. He leans out and yells as he’s leaving, “Get her back, man. Next time we hang out, more surfing, less whining.”
“Fuck you!” I yell back, but he knows that it means ‘thank you.’
It would be cool if I just got my shit together all at once. Like, in the course of one great movie-montage song, I drove home, got up the balls to trade in those coins, found some sweet property, and started doing my thing in a real way.
But years of slacking have made slacking my norm, so I basically sit around eating pistachios with my grandfather and think about what Cohen says while I wait for Whit to possibly call, which never happens.
But my mom calls. A lot. And there are lots of vague, cheery voicemails, which I listen to to make sure she’s okay. But I don’t call her back. I just don’t want to get into it with her about Whit and how I should take advantage of what’s right in front of me and all that.
So, I’m not all that surprised when she shows up at grandpa’s house, a big box of something that actually smells edible in her hands.
“Marigold.” Grandpa gets up and takes her in his arms. “You look gorgeous as always, baby. Did you bake us something?” Even my grandpa, who’s half in love with my mother, can’t do a good job of faking enthusiasm.
“Nope. And that look of relief on your faces says it all guys! These are creampuffs from Colletti’s.” She opens and the box, and Grandpa runs like a kid to the dessert table to get plates set out so we can eat like normal people. Mom bustles to the kitchen and puts on the teapot so we can have tea.
Yes, it may be slightly ridiculous to be scarfing down creampuffs and sipping tea with my mom and grandpa like we’re a couple of duchesses. But Colletti’s is owned by baker/magicians, and if I have to play Pretty Pretty Princess to get to eat their wares, I will.
“Sorry I haven’t returned your calls—Ow! What the hell, old timer!” I just nosedived into my dessert because my grandfather wailed me in the back of the head.
He shakes his plate at me. “You call your goddamn mother back. I swear to God, I don’t know how this saint of a woman wound up surrounded by the shittiest men on the earth.”
Mom blushes. “Oh, Johnny! If you’d been single when I was seeing your son, I’m telling you right now, he would have had a run for his money.” My mom brings Grandpa a mug of tea and kisses his cheek. He takes an extra second to squeeze her around the waist. Suddenly she gets even redder and starts messing with her hair and twirling her bangles, classic guilty Mom maneuvers.
I take a big bite of creampuff, sip my tea, and send a suspicious glare her way. Or, I send as suspicious a glare as is humanly possibly while chewing a fluffy mouthful of pastry. “It was really sweet of you to come over like this,” I say leadingly.
“Yeah, well…no one returns my calls…” She clears her throat, fidgets with her earrings, and, after about two minutes, the pressure is too much for her. “I have to tell you both something!”
Grandpa and I look at each other and put down our treats. The last time Mom told us “something,” she’d used the money she inherited when my great-aunt died to buy her little hippie-dippy store. Mom had been struggling with this long bout of ‘what it all means’ crap as a legal secretary, but it was good money and health benefits. Grandpa and I were both pretty sure the beach-shack-essential-oils thing would tank and burn, but she made a huge success of it. Because my mom has work ethic like a mule.
“Tell us, Marigold.” Grandpa’s voice is soft and kinda old-man-sad. He has that Spidey-sense geezers sometimes acquire, where he knows when some b
ad shit is going down. And his voice sounds pretty prepared-for-doom.
Mom slides the big silver ring my dad sent her from the Ivory Coast off her left ring finger, where she’s always worn it like a holding place wedding band, and she shows us a small, bright ring of purple flowers tattooed on her skin. “They’re tiny irises. My favorite flower.” Mom stops talking while we all wait.
“Nice ink. Was that the big news?” I’m totally confused because my mother has a huge lotus flower thing down her spine among a bunch of other smaller designs, so she’s not exactly new to ink. What’s with all the guilt and creampuffs?
“Don’t be a complete idiot all your life, Deo,” my grandpa snaps. He gets up and gives my mother a tight hug. “Who’s the lucky guy?” he asks gruffly.
“Rocko,” she says softly.
“Rocko what?” I ask, my mind clicking the pieces together way too slowly. My grandpa slaps the back of my head again, and my mother twists her silver-ringed hands around each other.
“Rocko proposed, Deo.” She sucks in a deep breath, exhales, and announces, “And I said ‘yes.’”
“Congratulations, love.” Grandpa pats her back, his voice thick. “I wish it could have been my son who was smart enough to scoop you up. But, I want you to know, you’ll always—” His voice catches and Mom and I both look away to let him get a hold of himself. “You’ll always be my family. Always, sweetie.”
“Oh, Johnny.” Mom wraps her arms around Grandpa and laughs through the tears that are splashing on Grandpa’s shirt.
The silver ring is still on the table. I pick it up and look through the hole, seeing my grandfather and mother through its circled border.
And it’s like I’m seeing my mother for the first time.
I remember her being so sad, so helpless she wouldn’t get out of bed for days on end when I was a kid. I’d have to make my own sandwiches and eat at the scratched kitchen table by myself. Milk went bad, cereal got stale, I spent all day on my skateboard or surfboard, Cohen by my side. Mrs. Rodriguez’s hospitality was the only reason I had decent dinners any night I wanted to stop by their house. That would last for weeks, then, one day, she’d pop up like a daisy and soldier through months without him. Until he showed up again and set it all to shit. The cycle went on for years. Cost her jobs and boyfriends who were decent. She missed a lot, just sleeping and moaning in bed over him. And I guess I just never cleared that image of her out of my head.
Because, maybe I don’t trust it’s entirely gone.
I kick my chair back and stalk to the deck, letting the door slam behind me. I hear my grandfather and mother talking, his voice irritated and loud, hers soft and low. Finally she follows me onto the deck.
“I thought the creampuffs would soften the blow.” She puts a hand to my face, her skin warm and scented with lemon oils, her rings cool and smooth on my cheek.
I grab her in for an awkward bearhug. “I guess this is where I say ‘congratulations’?” I murmur into her hair
“Only if you mean it.” Her voice is wavery, and I feel like a champion asshole for making her sad on her happy day. “I know this must seem sudden. But Rocko and I have been friends for years, and he mentioned this months ago. I’ve had a while to think it all through. And I’m sure about this. I want to be with him.”
I pull away from her and look into her eyes, the same color as mine, but all wide and happy and sure the world is going to be good and amazing and full of positive Karma. I love that she’s so full of hope now, but it also worries the hell out of me. “I do mean it. Only…are you sure this isn’t just a way to get Dad out of your system?” Her mouth goes slack, and I sigh. “C’mon. Be fair. I was with you through all that shit, and I hated it. I hated seeing you that way. But what suddenly changed that made you not need him like you used to? How do I know this isn’t just gonna crash and burn?”
Mom presses her lips together and brushes her hands through my hair. “Oh, Deo, my gorgeous, warped boy. What the hell did I do to you?”
“You taught me to be fucking careful, that’s what.” I jerk back from her touch. “Mom, I almost got serious with Whit. Then things broke off, and, you know what? Sometimes I think it’s for the best. I don’t want to be in a relationship like you and Dad were in. That was pure misery for years. I watched you, and I learned how to let go. Now I’m scared for you, because clinging to somebody was the trouble, Mom. Don’t you remember all that?”
“Oh, honey.” Mom wipes the tears from her eyes with her fingers. “You have it all backward. It’s not clinging to someone that ruins everything. It’s never grabbing on in the first place. Your father and I failed because we let go too easily. It was more him than me, but both of us let go of the love we had and put other things first. It broke us apart. But your father kept letting go. Of this town. Of his father. Of me. Of…of you.” These words come on the cusp of a sob. “Something in him kept coming back and wanting this all, but he didn’t have what it took to hold on.”
“It’s not like that with Rocko?” I ask, putting an arm around her slight shoulders.
Her laugh is wet with all those tears and…happy. So happy, it tugs at my heart. “Rocko is all roots, baby. He’s twined around me and isn’t ever letting go. I’ve never been able to hold on to anyone the way I can hold on to him, and he’s holding right back. I’m happy, Deo. I’m so happy, and I want you to be happy for me, but I understand if you can’t be.”
I make a fist over the fat silver ring Dad gave her and kiss her soft, crazy hair. “Of course I’m happy. So happy. Congratulations. When’s the big day and what do you need your slacker son to do to help?”
***
I’m back outside Whit’s apartment for the first time in almost two months. We’ve had a few close calls coming in and out of the tattoo shop, but I haven’t actually seen her in so long, my throat aches when I think about the Whit-sized hole gouged in my heart.
This may be stupid, but my mom and grandpa and Cohen have all gotten on board with my snail’s pace life change, and I need to close this chapter with Whit properly. And make sure my mom’s and Rocko’s big day is as happy as possible.
I take the steps to her apartment two at a time, and when I get to her door, it takes a few minutes before I manage to knock.
She opens the door slowly, so I know she checked the peephole. I expect to be invited in, but she keeps her body turned slightly, blocking the entrance.
“Hey stranger.” I smile at her, but her face is somewhere between stony and just plain sad. She looks younger, softer than the last time I saw her. Her dark hair is longer, down to her neck now, and it’s wavy again. Her big brown eyes are ringed in shadows. Is she sleeping well? Is she eating right? Suddenly the idea of ‘closing this chapter’ blows up in my face, and I’m left with all the hopeful scraps of possibility Whit always makes me grasp at with the desperation of a drowning man.
“Hello, Deo. Do you need something?” She’s using this professional receptionist-type voice like we’re former co-workers and never held each other all night after having marathon sex in this very apartment.
“I do. Can I come in and talk to you?” I could conduct all this business right here, and actually had plans to keep it short and to-the-point. But now that I see her, catch the sweet smell of citrus on her skin, remember so fiercely that it aches what it felt like to kiss her, I want to stretch this out.
She tucks a wavy piece of hair behind her ear and shifts her dark eyes uncertainly.
“Please?” I keep my voice neutral, safe, calm. “For my mom and Rocko. They’re why I’m really here anyway.”
She wavers for a second, then nods. “Okay. Come on in.”
The apartment still looks the same, maybe just a little more cluttered. I wonder if she kept that anthropology job she tried to get for me. It still makes me feel like an asshole to remember how I blew her off when she went through all that trouble for me. “Place looks good.”
“It’s still the same shithole.” Her sigh is long and su
ffering, and she crosses her thin arms over her chest. “You wanted to tell me something?”
“I did. I do.” I sit at the dining room table, the one where I served her what was supposed to be the first romantic meal of this long, amazing summer. “Come sit?”
She slides into a chair across from me stiffly and her stare is so point-blank, I feel jittery.
“Your tan faded. You haven’t been on the waves much?” I ask. She frowns and doesn’t give me a single inch. “Alright. I get it. So, you know the wedding is in a week?”
She nods and suddenly takes an extreme interest in the place-mat on the table.
“My mom is dying for you to come. I mean, she’s saying all that crap about how she respects your right to do what you need to, but it’s killing her. She wants you there, and I want this day to be amazing, and I know the reason you’re not coming is because I’ll be there.” I reach over to grab her hands, but she pulls them back. I curl them back towards me. “That day, with your parents? I was wrong. I thought I could force you to change your whole damn life when I wasn’t even willing to change one single thing about mine. I want to apologize for doing what I did. It was completely out of line, and no matter how good my stupid intentions were, I should have respected your decisions.”
She looks up at me, her big eyes wide and surprised. “I…uh….I accept your apology?”
“Is it a question?” I try to make my laugh easy, but it comes out shaky.
“No. I do.” She pauses, licks her lips, and adds, “And, even though I was pissed, it got the ball rolling, and I’ve been talking to my parents. I’m not saying what you did was right, but I should know better than to waste opportunities. Wakefield would have been disappointed in me. You remind me…of my brother in a lot of ways. So, you did help.” This time her sigh is one of pure exhaustion. “But I don’t think going to the wedding is a good idea.”
I nod, but my blood is coursing hot and fast with adrenaline. I had zero expectations when I came to see her, but now I feel like things may be better than I thought. That I might have more of a chance than I originally expected. And then I consider that I’m pushing this all too hard, too fast. I need to back off quick.
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