Way to Go (7 page)

“I'm not so sure about that,” I said. As much as I appreciated him trying to make me feel better, I felt like a total loser. I should have been faster…better…more efficient. If I couldn't even do this right, it was no wonder I couldn't figure out what to do with my life.

Finally the last customers left, the door was locked, and the servers finished clearing the dining room. While I washed the last few pots and pans, Lisa and Maisie hung out in the kitchen, laughing at JP's jokes. Ken had taken off immediately after work.

Denise came in from tallying up the night's receipts and sidled up next to me at the sink.

“This is why I wanted JP to come work for me,” she told me, tilting her head toward them. “Not only is JP a damn good chef, he can make the most insane kitchen a fun place to work.” She slapped me on the back. “Don't worry, Dan. You'll get better as time goes on. It's all about the learning curve, buddy.”

She yelled across the kitchen. “All right, guys, that was a good first night, and we only had a few fires to put out. Now everyone go home and get some sleep. We're going to do it all again tomorrow.”

NINE

I hated washing dishes with a passion. At night in bed, I'd close my eyes only to see food slops and dirty dishes flying past my head into an endless sink of grimy water, full of soggy bread crusts and slimy lettuce leaves. It was disgusting, unrewarding work, and to top it all off, my legs and back were killing me.

The only thing that got me through the days was the promise of hanging out with Lisa after work. Once the restaurant was cleaned and locked up every night, we'd get in Old Bessie and drive around for hours, listening to Lisa's mix tapes and talking about anything and everything, although it was usually Lisa doing the talking. The more she described living in New York, the more I wanted to get there as soon as possible.

Lisa seemed to feel the opposite way. She loved how quiet and remote Deep Cove was, and she always wanted to explore old dirt roads or hidden beaches that I'd taken for granted my whole life. A couple of times she asked if I wanted to meet up with any of my friends, but I made lame excuses about how busy they were. The truth was that both Jay and Kierce had left messages at my house, but I hadn't called them back. I wanted to keep Lisa to myself, at least until I figured out what was going on between us.

We'd been working together for almost two weeks, but I still couldn't tell how she felt about me. I wasn't in a huge rush to find out. I liked things the way they were. I wished this was all there was to being her boyfriend: totally connecting, but no stupid sex stuff getting in the way. Sometimes I thought she might be into me, other times, I wasn't so sure. She talked about old boyfriends, guys she'd slept with, men she had major crushes on. One night she even told me that she thought Ken was hot.

“Oh god,” I said. “Do you really? He's such a dick.”

“Yeah, but girls like jerks. They're sexy. Too bad he has a girlfriend. Don't worry though, Danny, I still think you're cuter,” she said, reaching over to ruffle my hair.

What did she mean,
cuter
? It was so confusing, trying to figure out what was going on in her head.

Worst of all, I knew what she meant about Ken. He was a total asshole, but he
was
pretty hot. His muscles filled out his T-shirt, he had a great tan and his hair was perfectly tousled. I wondered what he'd look like with his shirt off. In his underwear. Naked. I hated myself for thinking about him that way. I was supposed to be thinking about Lisa instead, but that just wasn't happening. I knew I had to turn things around. I refused to admit defeat—the alternative was too awful to think about.

ON MY FIRST DAY
off since starting my job, I got on my bike and rode to the Spot. I didn't know if I'd find what I was looking for, but sure enough it was there, rolled into a tube and wedged into a crack at the upper edge of the back wall.

Luscious
. A sleazy porno Jay had stolen from his uncle and brought to the Spot a few years back. Most of the magazine was familiar to me. I'd sat around with the guys pretending to find it exciting, back when we all still had the same number of notches in our belts—which was none. Really though, I'd hated it. Porn was so stupid. Why the hell would a naked girl on a bicycle need a fur hat?

The magazine had been forgotten for at least a couple of years. It was damp and mildewed, and when I unrolled it, wood bugs scurried out from the pages. I smacked it against the cement to knock them off, and flipped through it, trying to understand what it was that got other guys hot and horny.

One ridiculous-looking girl after another smiled up at me with big eyes and teased hair—coy and inviting, everything out in the open for me to look at. I forced myself to examine the pictures carefully, but all I could feel was embarrassment for them. They had too much makeup on, their hair was too big, they weren't wearing any clothes. Didn't these girls have families? Jesus.

I tried to picture Lisa lying on a bearskin rug with her mouth parted slightly, arching her back with her legs spread, running her hands through her hair, waiting for… Waiting for what? I knew what she was waiting for, but when I tried to put myself into the scene, I wasn't giving it to her. Instead, I imagined running at her with a blanket, averting my eyes, telling her to cover up. I wasn't off to a good start.

I flipped through a few more pages and came to a photo spread that I remembered clearly.
Sapphire and
Chaz: On the High Seas
. Sapphire was a sullen brunette with gigantic boobs spilling out of a wench costume. Totally tacky. Chaz, on the other hand, was a bona fide hunk. Tall and muscular, with a chiseled jaw and a mane of white-blond hair tied back with a tattered ribbon. His pirate costume unlaced to his waist, his gigantic—

“Hey, Danny!”

I heard footsteps above me, and suddenly someone was sliding down the hill toward the Spot. I quickly rolled the magazine up and shoved it back into its hiding place, and a moment later Jay hoisted himself up and joined me on the ledge.

“What's up, man?” he said, reaching over to give me a high five. He looked so happy to see me that I immediately felt guilty about having avoided him for so long.

“How's it going?” I asked, trying to sound casual, although my heart was racing from almost being discovered.

“I saw your bike up there. What are you doing here?”

“Got the day off, thought I'd go for a spin. I was gonna come see if you were home in a few minutes.”

He rolled his eyes. “Trust me, that's the last place you want to be right now. I got into it with my mom. Women are crazy.”

“Yeah,” I said. He didn't know the half of it. “What happened?”

“Oh you know, same old bullshit.” He put on a fake shrill voice, “
You need to get your act together or you'll end
up digging ditches like your uncle!”
He laughed. “What's the big deal, right? Digging ditches isn't the end of the world. Build some muscle, work outside all day, smoke all you want.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit up.

“Yeah, I know where you're coming from,” I said. “My old man's coming home in a couple of weeks. He'll be giving me a hard time too.”

“Yeah, I'm sure that'll kind of suck, but it's not really the same thing. At least you have good marks. You can do something with your life.” His face fell briefly. Weird. I'd never really thought Jay worried about school or his future. A second later, he was smiling again.

“So how's work going anyway, man?” he asked.

“It's good. Well, not the actual work—dishwashing sucks, by the way—but the people are cool.” I hesitated for a minute, wondering if I should say anything about Lisa. “There's kind of a…girl, that I work with, and she's pretty cool.”

“No way!” he said. “I was wondering why we hadn't seen you lately. That's awesome, man!”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What do you mean, you guess so? What's the problem?”

“Well, I don't know if she likes me,” I said.

“Well, give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen? She's not interested? Big deal, right?”

“Yeah, I don't know. Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“When you first—you know—with Della, were you nervous?” Della Klein had been Jay's first. A year ago, they'd gone all the way behind the school ball field. Jay's smile had been even bigger than usual for about a week afterward.

“Yeah, sure, but it's not like it's all that complicated. You just kind of
do it
, right?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“It's easier than English class, that's for sure.” He laughed. “I wish I could have been graded on sex with Della. I don't think I would have gotten an A plus or anything, but I definitely would have passed.” He grinned and stubbed out his smoke on the concrete.

“Here's what I think, Dan,” he went on. “Rule Number One: Don't ever listen to Kierce. I love the guy, but he's a total douche bag, especially about girls, and he doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does. Just relax and let things happen.”

He rummaged around in his backpack and held up two condoms in foil wrappers.

“You got some of these?”

“Uh, no.”

He tossed them at me. “Keep 'em. Hope springs eternal, or whatever, right?”

“Shakespeare?”

“Who the fuck knows? Listen, don't put any pressure on yourself, dude. Just wait till it's the right time. I kind of regret doing it so early.”

“Really?”

“Nah, not really.” He laughed. “But you're way more sensitive about stuff like that.”

“Do me a favor, will you?” I asked him. “Don't tell Kierce about any of this.”

“Sure, but why not?”

“I just don't want him to know until I can figure out if it's gonna happen or not.”

“Suit yourself. But, Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to take everything so seriously, will ya?”

TEN

Despite Jay's advice, I couldn't stop thinking about Kierce's rules.
Rule 264: All you need is a sick mind and a healthy
body. Rule 15: Girls always want guys to make the first
move. Rule 78: Time waits for no man.
I knew that one was true. If I wanted something to happen, I had to just do it.

The night after I talked to Jay, I directed Lisa to a dark dirt road outside of town and got her to park at the end of an old lane. We fought our way through tangles of wild rose bushes to a little grassy meadow at the top of a hill. There was a full view of the ocean and, off in the distance, the lights of Deep Cove seemed to blend seamlessly into the starlit sky above. It was the most romantic place I could think of, and I knew we wouldn't be bothered there. In my back pocket was one of the condoms Jay had given me.

“Wow,” said Lisa when we got to the top, “this place is beautiful!”

“Yeah. My parents used to take me here to pick berries when I was a kid.”

“No way. You really had a Tom Sawyer childhood, didn't you?” She walked over to the edge of the tall grass and sat down. I followed, and we sat side by side, gazing out at the night in front of us. She lit a cigarette, and for a long time neither of us said anything.

“I never told you about my mom, did I?” Lisa was almost whispering when she broke the silence.

“No. Well, you said she had some issues, or something like that.”

She laughed. Not a happy laugh. “Yeah, well I guess you could say that. Basically, she's fucking crazy.”

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I didn't say anything.

“When I was a kid, she was always normal, or at least I thought she was. She loved to take my brother and me to museums or to the zoo in Central Park, that kind of thing. When she was in a good mood, she laughed all the time, and she and my dad were always kissing and joking around and stuff. Every year we'd go on a big family vacation. France, Japan, all kinds of places. Anyway, as long as she was happy, we were all happy…”

She stubbed out her cigarette and was quiet for a bit before continuing.

“But once in a while, my mom would just kind of—disappear. She wouldn't leave our apartment. She'd just get really distant, and sometimes she'd go into her room and close the door, and we wouldn't see her for a while. My dad never said much about it. He'd be like, ‘Your mom has a headache.' Stuff like that. Usually it would only last a few days, then we'd wake up and she'd be in the kitchen, smiling and making breakfast like nothing had happened. Will—that's my brother—he and I just thought…I guess we thought it was normal.

“So then, one day when I was about eight and Will was almost twelve, my dad went away on a business trip to Chicago. For a day or so she seemed fine, but then she locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out when we were there. Thank god my brother was there. We had no idea how to get in touch with my dad, but Will found her purse and took money out to order us pizza.”

“She didn't come out of her room? Did you try to talk to her?” The whole thing sounded almost unbelievable to me. My parents could be super annoying, but I knew they would never deliberately neglect us.

“Oh, yeah. We'd call through the door. We must have tried the doorknob a hundred times. Nothing. We knew she wasn't dead, or whatever. We'd hear her moving around, and the water would run in her bathroom every so often. But she wouldn't say anything. It was really scary.”

“How long was she in there?”

“A week.”

“Oh my god! Wow. So what happened?”

“Well, we went to school every day because Will was worried that if we didn't show up, our parents would get in trouble or something. Finally our dad came home. He could tell as soon as he walked into the apartment that something wasn't right, and he went straight to the bedroom and banged on the door. She let him in, and he was in there for a long time. The next day, we came home from school and she was gone. Off to a mental hospital. For two months.”