by Graham Reed
The rest of the evening wasn’t what I had envisioned, but it wasn’t bad. A frazzled mental inventory of my reaction to finding out that my mom was with Barb revealed that what I worried might be disapproval was really surprise sharpened by the embarrassment of being the last to know. The real shocker for me was that Captain Constable would flout the Coast Guard’s human resources policy by pursuing a romance with one of her subordinates.
After a couple more drinks, though, I started to understand why. They were good together, bonded in ways I could never fathom, possibly by a shared respect for the sea and Captain Constable. As father figures went, I could probably do a lot worse.
Having my mom crash the party as Barb’s date did still crank up the weird factor. The most awkward moment wasn’t when I came upon them making out in the kitchen, though that was an early frontrunner. It was when the three of us were sitting together and my mom asked me to roll them a spliff.
“What’s the matter, Jake?” she asked.
“Well, it’s just that…Since when did you…?”
“Spit it out. What? Since when have I been gay?”
I shook my head. That, too, came as a surprise. But my mother’s sexual inclinations ranked way down at the bottom of things I wanted to know about. “Since when did you smoke pot? I thought you were totally anti-drugs.”
She chuckled. “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper. Not that I don’t enjoy taking down the occasional drug-smuggler with my best gal by my side.” She smiled at Barb warmly.
Standing a little ways off, but evidently within earshot, Dante made a discrete gagging motion.
“Not that whole opium thing. I’m talking about my, uh…business.”
“House-sitting? Not the career I would’ve chosen for you, but it’s your life.”
“No, I mean growing.”
“What, like as a person? Please don’t tell me you’re going all West Coast spiritual on me. I just couldn’t deal with it if you became a life coach.”
Barb smirked. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
“Are you two being deliberately obtuse or does it just leak out of the uniforms? I am talking about the fact that I grew weed.”
My mom regarded me with a bland expression, so I tried again. “As in pot? Ganja? Marijuana. The stuff I grew over at Granddad’s place on Hornby Island? You do recall bumping into me just off the island one night a while back, don’t you?”
“I’m not senile, Jake. Of course I remember fishing your butt out of the water. But if I didn’t care that my dad grew weed there, why would I care if my son did?”
I shook my head, peering closely at her as I wondered whether she doth protest too much about the whole senility thing. “Granddad grew heirloom tomatoes.”
“Sure, as a cover.” She smiled nostalgically. “And, okay, yes, they turned out to be very good. But it would’ve been pretty hard to raise a family on what he brought home from the Gulf Islands farmer’s markets. And nowhere near enough to buy himself a Greavette.”
Barb inhaled sharply. “You never told me your family had a Greavette. Which one?”
“The Streamliner.”
“Oh, my God, those are works of art.” Barb’s voice filled with awe.
“Don’t remind me,” my mom said bitterly.
“Sorry to interrupt, but what’s a Greavette?” I asked.
My mom wouldn’t meet my eye, but Barb more than made up for it by staring at me in amazement. “How is it possible that Captain Constable’s son doesn’t know what a Greavette is?”
“What can I tell you, the world is full of wonders,” I replied impatiently.
Barb glanced at my mom, who for some reason seemed disinclined to jump into the conversation. “Greavettes are the most gorgeous hand-crafted, mahogany-hulled motorboats ever made. They’re real collector’s items. You’re very lucky to own one.” Before turning back to my mom, Barb hit me with her first full-strength, genuine smile, and I had to admit it wasn’t without its charm. “You absolutely have to show it to me sometime.”
My mom groaned. “I can’t. This numbskull sank it.” She delivered the words as if each one weighed a thousand pounds, every ounce of it unforgivable disappointment.
“I did? When…” The tumblers clicked. “Wait a minute, you’re not talking about that mouldy old hulk of Granddad’s I was driving the night I ran aground, are you?”
My mom’s head dipped in what I took to be confirmation. A vein throbbed in her temple.
The silent treatment I was receiving let me hear the penny drop. “Hold on, is that what you’ve been so mad about? Why you’ve barely spoken to me since that night I ran aground? Because I sank an old boat?”
“It was a classic. I was going to restore it when I retired,” my mom whispered.
I was dumbfounded. I stared at her for a moment, drawing a blank on what to say. Eventually, something occurred to me. “Sorry, mom,” I whispered back.
Not long after that, Richard and Dante departed, pleading a post-traumatic Domino’s pizza hangover. Barb and my mom followed them out after I promised to attend her award ceremony, and to come over for dinner on Sunday. Both Barb’s suggestions, to which my mom and I grudgingly acquiesced.
I was surprised when Wendy defied the exodus. After getting us both another drink, I joined her back on the deck.
“So,” she said.
“So.” I smiled.
“Barb and your mom.”
After surrendering my smile to Wendy, I nodded uncertainly. “Can’t say as I saw that one coming.”
Wendy gave me a searching look. “But you’re okay with it?”
I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “I’m trying to be, it’s just that…”
“You don’t like Barb, do you?” She looked disappointed.
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “At first. But I’m starting to warm up to her.”
“Then what is it?”
Before I answered, I softened my lip up with a good chewing. Just in case I needed it later on. “The age difference,” I said at last.
Wendy stared at me for a moment before rendering judgment. “Pathetic.”
“How would you like it if your mom was a cradle-robber?”
“Come on, it’s not that bad. Barb’s thirty-eight years old, the same age as me.”
I studied her suspiciously. “Are you serious?”
Wendy nodded. “Mmm-hmm. And I advise you to choose your next words carefully, Constable.”
I had none to offer, gripped by profoundly mixed emotions. I was relieved that the age spread between my mom and Barb wasn’t so bad after all. Not embarrassingly bad, at least. Finding out that I was actually two years younger than Wendy suddenly made me feel about a decade older. I groaned slightly as I shifted uncomfortably on aching knees. “I think I need to sit down.”
Wendy pulled over a couple of chaise lounges for us.
“Is it the yoga?” I asked, once I was comfortably sprawled.
“Is what the yoga?”
“How you stay so youthful?”
Wendy rolled her eyes. “Such a charmer.”
“I’m serious.”
She studied me for few seconds. “I guess I believe you. But yoga has nothing to do with it. I don’t go in for that hippy-dippy stuff.”
“But all that Lululemon stuff you wear—didn’t you say it was for work?”
“It is. For my job as a vitamin rep. Show up in jeans and good luck selling a bottle, show up in stretchy pants and you’ll sell twenty cases.” Wendy looked over at me. “Well, maybe not you. But you get the idea.”
I nodded happily. Yoga was off the list for both of us.
After a few minutes of sitting quietly beside Wendy, listening to the soft drone of traffic on the streets far below, I gradually became aware of another faint hum
ming sound. As if every cell in my body had resumed the chorus they had been singing the night I met Wendy. Either that, or I was shivering from the damp chill of the West Coast night. Either way, moving a bit closer to Wendy seemed like a good idea.
“I’m getting cold.” She abruptly stood up. Silence reigned as all the cells in my body went mute with disappointment. Until she spoke again. “Does that hot tub work?”
I had forgotten it was even there, so neither of us had our swimsuits with us. Soon enough, we forgot about them as well. The jets were on low, not so powerful that they would bruise the kidneys, but enough to create a full-body buzz.
Unless Wendy’s kiss had done that. I couldn’t say when or how it started. It just suddenly was. Everything, all-consuming. I also couldn’t imagine it ending so much as expanding and evolving into something greater. Until it did end.
Wendy pulled back. “You’re sure this is okay?”
I smiled. “Better than.” I leaned in toward her.
“Not that. I mean us being here, in the tub.”
I pulled back. “Oh, yeah. No need to worry,” I assured her. “The owner isn’t due back for another week.”
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