The Starboard Sea: A Novel (21 page)

Taze insisted he had a killer day planned. I was barely awake and not interested in leaving campus. “Thanks for the invite,” I said. “I’m just not up for it.”

“Well, then get up for it.” Taze studied himself in my mirror, raking his fingers through his thick hair. “Since when did you become Captain Buzzkill? You used to be fun. You and Cal were the two coolest guys I knew.”

Taze and I had never spoken about Cal’s death. Since my arrival at Bellingham, neither one of us had even mentioned Cal. The three of us had grown up together in New York, had gone off to Kensington together, smoked pot for the first time together, shared a history, a boyhood. One summer, we’d even spent two weeks in Wyoming doing NOLS mountaineering training, surviving the Wind River Range on rainwater and granola. I wasn’t the only one who’d lost a friend.

“Cal loved a good time.” Tazewell looked at me.
I felt this hurt pass between us. “You miss him too?” I asked. “Of course,” Taze said. “He was our brother.”
When Tazewell left the noose in my closet and locked me in my

dorm room, I blamed his meanness on my accident with Race, but maybe the meanness had more to do with losing Cal. I’d been selfish with my grief. Unable to see that Cal’s friends felt their own sense of loss. Tazewell was reaching out to me. I needed to make things right between us.

I climbed out of bed and got dressed. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Kriffo’s parents had sent a white Mercedes sedan along with a driver, an older guy with slicked-back silver hair. “This is Gus,” Kriffo said. Gus nodded and opened all of our doors. Taze and I sank into the white leather seats while Kriffo rode shotgun. “Thought your dad was sending a BMW.” Tazewell played with the electric windows. “Not this pimpmobile.”

“Your dad would have sent bus fare and a subway token.” Kriffo collapsed his front seat onto Tazewell’s knees.
Tazewell slapped Kriffo’s head. “My dad would have sent a Bimmer.”

For me, the Head of the Charles always signaled the end of something, the last great day outdoors before winter descended. It was warm enough that Taze, Kriffo, and I all wore long khaki shorts and untucked polo shirts in slightly different shades of blue. We looked like spectators.

On Kriffo’s urging, Gus drove to a McDonald’s drive through. Without asking anyone what they wanted, Kriffo ordered two dozen greasy breakfast sandwiches and challenged all of us to an eating contest. “Whoever slams ten Egg McMuffins first wins.” It was never made clear to me what would be won, but as I bit into the first of three McMuffins, I felt myself begin to wake up. Kriffo belched, tossing the waxy wrappers at Taze and me. Taze kept repeating, “They should call it ‘The Give Me Head of the Charles.’” He laughed like he was the first guy to ever have made this joke.

“We need to find a dude named Charles,” Kriffo said. “Make sure Charles gets blown.”
I asked Taze, “What’s the game plan?”
“Don’t worry. The party will come to us.”
Staring out the window at the passing trees, I told himself I was just along for the ride.

Gus dropped us off in front of The Charles Hotel. “Promised I’d say hi to Bok,” Tazewell said. “We do this quick, then we’re Audi 5000.” I didn’t know who Bok was but I assumed he was one of Taze’s drug dealers. We rode the elevator up to a penthouse overlooking the river. When the elevator doors opened, we walked out into a cocktail party, and a much older crowd than I’d expected. The men at the party were a mixture of tall, leathery yachtsmen and short, rumpled Henry Kissinger types. One of them probably was Henry Kissinger. The women were decades younger than the men. Second or third wives with perfect peroxide hair and graceful malnourished bodies. Tazewell led us through the room, striding across the carpet with great purpose, a kid in shorts muscling past grown men in thousand-dollar suits. Kriffo and I helped ourselves to Bloody Marys garnished with monster stalks of celery. Outside, teams of eight-men sculls sliced effortlessly through the water.

At the center of the room, a man with salt-and-pepper hair commanded the kind of attention reserved for heads of state. Taze called out, “Hey, Bok,” and the man excused himself from his cluster of admirers, greeting Taze with a hearty slap on the back. The man asked after Tazewell’s father, then drew Taze in close and begged him to come to Harvard. The man insisted, “Princeton’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Tazewell didn’t bother to introduce Kriffo or me. I didn’t care. No matter how important this guy looked, he was no more important than the dozens of important men my own father had introduced me to. I turned to Kriffo, who was busy sucking down his second Bloody Mary.
“Who are these geezers?” I asked.
“That’s Derek Bok,” Kriffo said.
I stared blankly.
“You know.” Kriffo snorted. “The president of Harvard.” Kriffo

walked over to the bar and pilfered several Amstel Lights, sliding the brown bottles into the deep pockets of his cargo shorts.

Tazewell continued to nod and smile as the president of Harvard urged him to ditch Princeton and come to Cambridge. I thought of all the valedictorians, National Merit Scholars, and debate team geeks who’d sweated over their Harvard applications. None of those overachievers understood that their real competition for admission was not a genius with a 4.0 but a kid whose most glorious achievement was his recent second-place finish in an Egg McMufffin eating contest.

Taze said good-bye to Bok and nodded at Kriffo and me. “Sorry about the nursing home,” he said. “Let’s bail.”

The streets of Harvard Square were crowded shoulder to shoulder with college students and prepsters pretending to be college students. On our way to the riverbank, the food trucks selling meat-on-a-stick distracted Taze. Kriffo bought us all kabobs. We arrived at the Weld Boathouse in time to hear the drunken crowd erupt into a taunting chorus of “Safety school, safety school” as teams from Dartmouth and Brown rowed by.

All along the Charles River, welcome tents were set up so graduates from every major prep school and college could cheer on their teams. I kept my head down as we passed by the Kensington contingent. Deerfield and Groton had kegs so we crashed and mingled. When we finally made our way over to Bellingham’s tent, we were all pretty buzzed. Race and Stuyvie called out to us and asked where the hell we’d been. Both guys sported brand-new Bellingham sweatshirts. Something about the brightness of the white lettering made Race and Stuyvie seem eager and self-promotional. “Great day to be out on the water, right, Prosper?” Race squinted into the sun.

“Any day out on the water is a good day.”

Taze pulled me aside and said, “We need to ditch these clowns.” He took off, promising to return, leaving Kriffo and me to explain how we’d gotten to Cambridge.

When Stuyvie asked about our plans for the evening, Kriffo acted noncommittal. “Not sure what Taze has in mind.” It was a sad fact that outside of Bellingham, a guy like Kriffo wouldn’t have been friends with a guy like Stuyvie.

I turned away from everyone and watched the rowers. Race was right. It was a great day to be out on the water. Sunny and cool with warm breezes. Guys who rowed crew were usually smart, intense athletes with serious discipline and a deep sense of camaraderie. The best rowers were giants with infinite arms and legs, and the best crew teams had identical giants. I was close enough to the water to hear a coxswain bark out orders as an eight-man team rowed a set of power strokes in unison. Cal would have loved that harmony. “That’s fucking perfection,” he would have said. I disagreed. I thought crew jocks looked like machines. Their precision didn’t seem human to me.

A sharp beeping horn disrupted my moment of peace. Taze and a guy I’d never seen before, a pudgy kid with a curly nest of dirty blond hair, pulled up in a white golf cart with the words harvard security decaled on the hood.

“Get in,” Taze told me.
Kriffo and I hopped onto the back of the cart, ditching Race and

Stuyvie.
“It’s not a party,” I said, “until someone steals a golf cart.” We escaped down Memorial Drive, gunning our golf cart through

foot traffic. Our driver, Howie Cakebread VI, or “Cakes,” as Taze called him, was taking a gap year between graduating from Bellingham and going off to college. “Working on my music,” Cakes said. “Been studying guitar with Livingston Taylor.” Cakes tried to convince us that Livingston was more talented than his big brother, James Taylor.

“Livingston has a much purer sound. Way smoother than James.”

“If he’s so talented,” Tazewell cracked, “then why is he stuck giving you lessons?”
In one deft gesture, Howie Cakebread lifted his right hand off the steering wheel and pushed Tazewell out of our fast-moving cart. Taze landed hard but, to his credit, didn’t drop the beer he’d been drinking. He got up, ran at full speed and vaulted onto the front of the cart, turning himself into a human hood ornament.
Kriffo laughed and handed me one of his stolen beers. I thought if I could just maintain my buzz, I could manage to not so much have fun, but to not care. I kept thinking
you’re just along for the ride
.
We drove up to an enormous four-story red brick building I assumed was a Harvard dormitory. It turned out to be Howie Cakebread’s river house. We ditched the golf cart on the lawn and followed Cakes inside. As the front door swung open, “Sympathy for the Devil” spilled out. A party was already underway. Thick-necked sportos and tweedy girls drank heavily under a high domed ceiling. Cakes ignored his guests and led us out to a garden courtyard where more guests swirled around, dancing to the music, waving lit cigarettes above their heads. In the center of the courtyard was a large black-tiled swimming pool. A green and red pedal boat decorated with a huge white swan floated on the surface of the water. The swan looked like something out of a fairytale but it also looked vaguely familiar.
Kriffo whispered to me, “Cakes stole that swan boat right out of the Public Gardens. Total badass.”
A guy wearing madras patchwork pants and a blue sport coat kicked a soccer ball at Cakes, who kicked it back, then introduced us to his friend. Adriano looked like he could have been a professional soccer player. He had sandy brown hair, bright green eyes, and spoke with an accent I couldn’t place. He seemed to be living with Cakes at the river house. “Adriano’s getting his MBA,” Cakes said. “His dad is the lawyer for Brazil.”
Cakes booted a herd of hippies off a banquette of cushy chaises and the five of us got down to getting high. He loaded up a super bong and soon all our eyes were glassy and red. Cakes took out a beautiful Gibson guitar and began murdering “Sweet Baby James.” I stared at Adriano, wondering how his father could be the lawyer for an entire nation.
Tazewell kept heckling Cakes, telling him he sucked. In turn, Cakes tossed the Gibson aside and pummeled Taze. The two tussled, pounding each other into the cushions. I rescued the Gibson and began strumming and singing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Laughing through the opening,
“It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore.”
The song was long but I tore through it, faking my way around the Spanish lyrics. Cal, who couldn’t carry a tune, used to joke that he could throw any instrument at me and I could master it. “You should do something with that talent of yours,” he would say. The most I’d done with it was maybe keep Aidan entertained. I looked out at the black swimming pool and thought of Aidan breathing in dark water.
I played a couple of Bob Dylan songs and Adriano nodded his approval. “You’re very good,” he said. “Did you study?”
I smiled. “Never had a lesson.”
Cakes took the Gibson away from me. He cleared his throat and spat out into his pool. “I know you. You’re that guy.”
I looked at Tazewell and Kriffo for some sort of confirmation. They both shrugged.
“Which guy?” I asked.
“That guy,” Cakes said. “Trust me, I know who you are.” He held up his guitar and walked away.
Maybe the pot was making me paranoid, but I felt like Cakes was threatening me. He seemed angry and unstable.
“What’s his damage?” I asked Tazewell.
“Cakes is a good guy. You shouldn’t have upstaged him like that with the guitar.”
“He was bragging like he could play. Who takes a gap year to study guitar and can’t even play a chord?”
Taze looked at Kriffo for some sort of approval and Kriffo nodded. “Cakes is taking time off because his sister is sick. It’s pretty bad.”
“That sucks.” I shook my head. “How old is she?”
“They’re twins,” Kriffo said. “She looks just like him. Ugly as sin but cool as shit.”

The afternoon drifted into early evening. Tazewell and Kriffo spent hours chatting up Dana Hall and Milton Academy girls, trying to convince them to go skinny-dipping. I pedaled around the pool on the stolen swan boat, wishing I’d stayed at Bellingham. I wanted to sneak back into Aidan’s room and search for clues. Better still, I wanted to go back in time to the first night we’d spent together and have Aidan return to me. I kept losing the best pieces of myself.

I wandered around the house through the library, the dining room, the sunroom. Cakes had a stellar music room with a tricked-out Pearl drum kit. Off the kitchen, I found a parlor that was empty except for an oxygen tank and a tall bronze sculpture of a headless, armless man. The sculpture scared me. Even without a face or arms, the statue felt more human, more alive than I did. I ran my fingers over the indentation of the artist’s signature, “A. Rodin.”

There was some talk of driving into Boston for dinner and hooking up with Adriano’s sisters who were staying at the Ritz. I felt lightheaded and sleepy from the pot, and would have happily sprawled out on one of the cushioned chaises and fallen asleep.

Cakes had other ideas. “This party’s dying. Time to ditch.” There were still plenty of people hanging around, but Cakes didn’t bother to kick anyone out of his house. The four of us left together. Adriano promised to meet us later. Outside, our driver, Gus, was waiting. He’d managed to swap out the Mercedes for a sleek black BMW. I was impressed.
“Nice car,” Cakes said. “Are we doing a drive-by shooting later?”
I smiled at Kriffo and said, “Everyone’s a critic.”
We cruised into Boston, stopping off at Cake’s townhouse on Newbury Street just a few blocks away from the Ritz. We waited in the car as Cakes ran inside. All of us were underdressed for dinner at the Ritz. I was annoyed at the thought of Cakes changing his clothes, but he returned wearing the same frayed yellow button- down and torn cargo shorts. He’d wanted to stop by his house in order to pick up some black Sharpie markers. He gave one to each of us. “If anyone passes out,” he said, “we totally get to billboard the guy.”
Drawing on people’s faces in their sleep was a total dick move, and I said so.
“Well then, you better stay awake,” Cakes said.
Gus dropped us off at the Ritz. Despite our scruffy appearance, no one blinked when the four us marched into the hotel. Cakes treated the place like it was his living room. The doorman, the bartenders, the concierge, everyone knew Cakes. “Mr. Cakebread,” the maître d’ greeted us. “Your table is ready.”
At dinner, we ate thirty- dollar cheeseburgers and twenty- dollar chocolate soufflés. We didn’t talk so much as trade insults. Kriffo called Cakes “Fart Bag” and Taze called Kriffo “Fat Bucket.” Cakes predicted Kriffo would brown his shorts before the night was over and Taze predicted I would be the first to pass out. It was mostly goodnatured ribbing. Cakes stunned me by saying I played guitar well. “You lit up that Gibson,” he said. “I haven’t been able to make that kind of music with her.”
Fernanda and Flavia joined us midway through the meal. Adriano’s sisters looked like the result of the world’s most successful gene tic experiment. Each girl had caramel skin, full lips, bright blue eyes. Their straight hair fell like curtains of golden honey. As the girls leaned in to greet us with kisses on each check, I breathed in their perfume. They smelled like sunlight and champagne.
Kriffo tried charming the girls by speaking Spanish 101.
“Portuguese, you ignorant slob.” Tazewell laughed. “No one in Brazil speaks Spanish.”
Cakes pulled me in close. I expected him to whisper something offcolor about the girls having blowjob lips or big tits, but he said, “They’re perfect, right? Like goddesses.”
I’d assumed Fernanda and Flavia were college students, but they turned out to be younger than all of us. Both girls went to Le Rosey in Switzerland. The school of actual kings. I could picture the girls sailing on Lake Geneva and skiing in Gstaad. They were out of my league and I was happy just to admire them. Instead of eating, Fernanda smoked Gitanes while Flavia kept leaving the table to make phone calls. Each girl wore a gold, diamond-studded
F
around her neck.
I was quiet during dinner. The waiters refused to serve us alcohol and it had been hours since I’d had a beer or taken a bong hit. I felt myself coming down from my high, sobering up.
Fernanda looked at me and said, “You are very shy.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I like shy boys.” Fernanda lit another cigarette.
“I’m shy too,” Tazewell said.
“I’m downright bashful.” Kriffo smiled.
“Forget it, Fernanda.” Cakes put his arm around her. “Never trust a guy who’s quiet. He’s hiding something.”
“And what are you hiding?” Fernanda asked me. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Before I had a chance to answer, Tazewell interrupted. “Prosper lost his girlfriend. Tragic case. He’s the one who found her. Couldn’t save her.”
“This is true?” Fernanda leaned forward, grabbing my arm.
Maybe Tazewell thought he was doing me a favor, thought that Fernanda would pity me and that her pity would lead to consolation. I lowered my eyes and looked away.
Fernanda put down her cigarette, reached her hands out and clasped my face. She was a beautiful girl, but I didn’t want her pity. Even so, as I stared at her perfect mouth, felt her warm hands, I knew that later on that night, Fernanda would kiss me.
Cakes sensed this too. When the waiter dropped the bill off on a silver tray, Cakes slid the charges over to Tazewell and said, “Hey, matchmaker, you take care of this.”