She points to a door on the other side of the room. I scoop up my shorts and hit it. Running my tongue over my lip, I taste sweat . . . it tastes good. I feel good. The water runs and I reach for the soap. It’s shaped like a dolphin and it throws me a bit. I use it to scrub my hands and then throw some water on my face. When my eyes scour the counter for a towel, I notice a cartoon toothbrush on it. I swivel my head around the small space and see a fish shaped step stool and an octopus bathmat. ABC foam letters line the tub. Shit, did I just fuck some kid’s mother?
The room is bright when I open the door and she’s still lying on the bed. I toss her the towel I found and shrug my shirt on before coming to stand over her, pulling the blanket over her naked body. “Do you have a kid?”
She pushes up on her elbows. “Yes, Jacob. He’s five. He’s with his dad today.”
I have to swallow. I feel like a shit. “Hey, you probably shouldn’t bring strange men over to your house. It’s a bad habit,” I tell her. Not that she has to worry about me, but you never know about other men and I’d hate for anything to happen to her or her kid. But it really isn’t my business.
“We went to high school together. You aren’t a stranger.”
I start to tell her she doesn’t know a thing about me, but let it go. I glance around the room and feel like the air is being sucked from the lungs.
She tugs on my hand. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just thinking it’s time I head out if you’re cool with that.”
“Sure, you want my number?”
“Buckley. Right? Dawn Buckley?”
She nods.
“I’ll look you up when I’m back in town.”
It’s clear she thinks I’m feeding her a line. “Oh, you’re leaving Laguna?”
“Yes, I think I am. It’s time for me to get the hell out of here.”
The short walk to my car seems like miles and as soon as I get in, I slam the door and veer away from the curb, accelerating as fast as I can. But I can’t shut the memory out. I was five. It was my Dad’s birthday. Mom baked him his favorite cake and I helped—chocolate with white frosting. She let me lick the bowl like she always did. We had gone to a local dive shop earlier that day and bought snorkeling gear for the family for Dad’s present. “How much fun are we going to have?” my mom said. Her eyes were so blue, just like mine, just like Dad’s. We wrapped the gear in pictures I drew of the beach—pictures of Dad and me building sand castles, me making sand angels, and Serena teaching me how to fly a kite. Things we did all the time—things I’ve never done since. Serena was at cheerleading practice and Dad was supposed to pick her up.
I close my eyes for one brief second, trying to shut the memory out. When I drive past the beach, I turn around and park. Grabbing a hot dog with extra mustard and a soda, I sit down on one of the breaker walls and watch the waves as they curl over and form tunnels. I have a sudden itch to ride one. I haven’t even surfed since I got back.
I stare ahead for the longest time, trying to block out the rest of that day, to focus on the surf, but I can’t. The memories come back in pieces, but I recall them all so clearly. Serena called our house. I was icing the cake with a red rubber spatula in my hand. I could hear her yelling at Mom that no one was there to pick her up. My mom took the spatula and let me lick the icing one last time before we left and we went to get her. We picked her up. We went home. We sat. We waited. And waited. And waited. He never came home. Mom started calling around. She called his office assistant; she didn’t know where Dad was. She called Dad’s other employees; they hadn’t seen him, either. She called Adam, Dad’s partner at Blondie’s, their surf shop, and he told Mom he hadn’t talked to him since Dad took the sailboat out to check the sails. He called back and told her the boat hadn’t returned, either. They called the coast guard. The boat was never found. No body was ever found. But that was it. He was gone. No body to mourn. An empty casket just like mine—my mom had to go through that twice. Fuck me.
A sailboat goes by and its giant mast glints in the afternoon sun, reflecting off the water. Looking out there, I know this is where I need to be, on the water . . . the one place that makes me happy. My Styrofoam cup crinkles in my hands as I stand up and grab my trash. I’ve wasted enough time in my life. I need to get out of here for a while . . . to get away from the scrutiny of the press and forget about all the shit.
Chapter 3
Somewhere I Belong