When we finally pull ourselves together, finally drag our hearts back into our chests from where they have gone in search of our young, our eyes are swollen and our noses are red. I smile at her and she smiles at me, and I understand for the first time that the babies have been the rift between us. It is because we didn’t want to talk about them, we couldn’t talk about them, we were frightened to even think of them in any real way, that we have not been able to really connect since I’ve been here. We’ve been pulling and tugging against each other instead of leaning on each other.
The marina is two blocks ahead off Talbot Street. As I drive the rest of the way to the marina, I am awed by the city around me. San Diego, near the harbor and sea, is opulent. The buildings are low and clean with orange tile flashing color against the concrete of the roads and sidewalks and the sea. The palm trees are like fireworks exploding overhead. The marina on Anchorage Lane turns out to be a freaking yacht club. I pull into the parking space between a Mercedes and a Lincoln Town Car, and for the first time since I bought my car, I feel embarrassed, ashamed that my little car is faded and older than I am.
“Let’s not do this,” I say with my hand on the key, unwilling to turn the engine off and seal my fate. A woman dressed in white slacks and a floppy white hat is making her way into the building, the gold latch on her purse catching the light and flashing.
“What?” Cici already has her hand on the door handle. She has brightened over the last few blocks, like the weight has lifted, or her ibuprofen has kicked in. The emotion of the drive, the complete ripping out of souls and hearts has left me exhausted, melancholy
“Look at us,” I hiss, indicating the fray of my cut-off shorts and my simple blue t-shirt. “We don’t belong here.” I grab her arm, tugging her back.
“You belong anywhere you think you do,” she says, all the softness washed out of her. It is an echo of Warren’s voice, that first time he took me to dinner. I was overwhelmed then just like I am now, by a steakhouse, by people who had enough money to go out for dinner and not just slather peanut butter on a piece of bread. He had said pretty much the same thing to me then, but this is different. These people are money.
“This is the freaking yacht club,” I say, and that should explain it, but she just looks at me with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “I’m not dressed for this.”
“And you’re dating a boy who owns a yacht.” She leans close, her words rolling over me.
I am dating a boy who owns a yacht. A small smile plays around my lips. If Kelci Bancroft could see me now. “You got college? I got a boyfriend with a yacht. Oh, and a modeling contract.” I laugh out loud at the little conversation in my head.
I smiled and say, “If only I had a floppy white hat.”
“Come on,” she says, getting out of the car. “You have a better ass than any of these old women, and I definitely have better tits.” As proof, she shimmies her breasts, one of her new dance moves, then she arcs her back and does a slow three-sixty turn, letting her hips lead. I shut the engine down and get out of the car. If I don’t, she’s going to start a full strip-tease demonstration.
The building takes up a whole block, and we make our way past the main club house and turn left onto the docks, which are floating platforms set against the sea wall, shifting as the water undulates. From this main dock, there are several long legs turning out into the harbor, and boats are docked in a most of the spaces. There are legitimate yachts with their reflective glass echoing the sky. We ogle as we pass the sleek and pristine boats, our reflections flashing in the glass. There are sailboats and speed boats of almost every variety imaginable. The high masts of the sailboats rise up against the blue of the sky. We work our way down the slips until we approach a boat parked in space 56. Trey is carrying a cooler from the dock onto the boat.
“There she is,” Trey calls, and David jumps from the boat to the dock and comes toward us. Trey sets the cooler down, and we converge.
“Glad you came,” David says, dimples breaking the planes of his cheeks as he smiles.
“I was going to give you a call, thought you had changed your mind.” Trey leans in and plants a small kiss on my cheek, his arm folding around my back, slightly lifting my feet from the dock.
“Sorry we’re late. Just ran into some traffic.” I give him a small smile.
“Glad you’re here now,” he says, and he drops an arm over my shoulder, so familiar. I walk up the plank to the boat, and he holds my hand, leading me. “You okay?” he asks, looking down into my eyes.
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just allergies.” I sniff, dropping my face away from his searching eyes.
“I’m glad you came.”
“Me, too,” I say, feeling Dylan everywhere around me.
Cici and David follow us onto the boat, and she has him caught in her tractor beam. She is luminous, and her back is angled for the best profiling of all her assets, and poor David is just putty in her hands. I doubt that I will ever be able to do that.
It takes several minutes more before we are ready to leave the dock. He shows me around the boat, down the stairs into the cabin, where there are two bunks on one side and a small “galley,” a kitchen, on the other. There is even a bathroom, and I am relieved because I always worry about things like that. Trey talks in that laid-back way that comes from being a person who has what he needs. He has the nice clothes, the nice cars, the good food, the social training. He has all of the things that make him a person who believes that whatever he wants to do, he can do. I have had none of those things, but I do have determination, and I’m beginning to understand that is a big thing, too. Surely his life hasn’t just been easy. Is there some tragedy that he keeps well hidden? I catch myself looking for the signs. I study his face while he is steering us out of dock, looking for some telltale scar. Dylan had the scar above his eye that I saw for years but never thought about. Unlike Dylan, Trey is unblemished.
“Why the Jenny Sue?” I ask about the name emblazoned on the side of the boat.
“That’s my sister,” he says with an easy smile on his lips.
“That’s sweet. Is there another one named for you?”
“Naw, only Jenny Sue got a boat named after her.” He chuckles, his teeth shining out from his tan, completely unfazed that his sister got the boat named after her. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“No, it’s just me,” I say, the little latches on my doors beginning to close. “How ’bout you? Anybody besides you and Jenny Sue?”
“No, just us.” He turns and looks over his shoulder toward the harbor. I follow his eyes but stop at Cici sitting in the V of David’s lap, his legs and arms holding her fast. She has her head back, her throat pale and exposed, and I hear David say something, but not the words. Cici laughs, a high, girlish laugh that I only hear when there are boys around.
“That was fast.” I catch Trey’s eyes and tilt my head toward our friends. I almost say that I had to tell her which one was David when I asked her to come along, but stop myself. It would only make me sound petty.
“I prefer to take my time. You?” He holds my eyes for a long minute, and my stomach flips.
“Me, too.”
I lean into him and feel the heat of his skin through his shirt.
“What do your parents do?” I ask, “I mean, this isn’t a cheap boat.” I cock an eyebrow.
“No, it’s not.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and draws me around in front of him, guiding my hands up to the wheel. “Well, my dad’s a doctor. My mom’s a psychiatrist.” He says it like, Dad’s a plumber and Mom’s a waitress.
I swallow. “Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Well, for them, I guess.” I feel him looking at me, and when I look back, there is something in his eyes that I almost know. “It’s not who I am, though. You know what I mean. I’m not my father. He’s a great man, and all, but that’s doesn’t really say anything about who I am. Do you know what I mean?”
“You don’t believe we repeat what we know?” I ask, holding his eyes, refusing to look away.
“No, not really. I mean, I think it’s easier to do what your parents did, you know, because there is a path, but that doesn’t mean you have to, or that you can’t do something different if you want.”
I feel the slightest pressure behind my eyes and blink hard, looking away. My back is resting against him, and we sway and shift with the rocking of the boat.
“What do your parents do?” Trey asks. It is the first time we’ve done this, the getting to know your past conversation. We’ve talked about where we are now, but not where we have come from.
“They’re gone.” My head tilts back until I feel the muscles of his shoulder. When I glance up, he is looking at me with the most forlorn expression. “I have grandparents, though. They’re really wonderful, and an uncle and cousins.”
“That’s good,” he says, letting a little relief show on his face.
“Yeah. It’s good.” I bite my lip and look away at the coming sea, at another boat unfurling its sail ahead of us.
“I’m sorry about your parents, though.” His voice is low, just a whisper, respectful. I am in dangerous territory here, and I know it. I could seriously fall in love with this boy, who makes me think so much of Dylan but doesn’t know any of my baggage.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” I reach up and kiss him, nestling deeper into the curve of his body.
