“More like it’s Hugh’s worst nightmare to have that many people in a room looking at him,” says Travis. “He wants to elope; I want a little hoopla. So we don’t get married.” He puts his arm around Hugh’s chair in a way that makes me know they’ll figure this out. I can’t imagine either of them with anyone else.
“Ah, romance!” My mother laughs. “What about you, Wyatt? Anyone special out in Los Angeles?” What the heck? I don’t want to know this. I look down at my food and am super-intensely aware of the fact that no one else is uncomfortable but me. I am living in a decade past where my mother wouldn’t have dared mention Wyatt’s name, much less casually ask if he had a girlfriend. I feel a flush of embarrassment at my own thoughts. I want to be a person who has moved on so completely that she’s only mildly interested in the answer to this question. I look up and try to organize my features into neutral. I tilt my head the way dogs do, for good measure.
“Well, ‘special’ is a strong word,” he says. “I’ve dated a singer on and off. Nothing serious.” Wyatt looks satisfied that he’s completely answered her question and bites into a chicken leg.
Granny is looking at me like I’m liquid in a beaker and she doesn’t know what color I’m going to turn. I sip my wine.
“Where does she sing?” asks Jack. It’s a good question. A great question. One that totally follows the thread of this conversation.
Wyatt is wiping his hands and is considering his answer for longer than I think the question warrants. Unless she sings in prison, this is a pretty straightforward question.
“Wherever she gets a gig,” he says. “She’s good.”
“And you write songs?” My voice is small, like it’s testing itself out after a long hiatus.
“Yes. And tinker around with cars. Which is how I got this dinner invitation.” He raises his glass to my dad, and this line of questioning is over.
24
The next morning, I bike to town as soon as Jack leaves for the gym. It’s Tuesday and I’m pretty sure I told my mother we would leave Wednesday. Jack insists I said Thursday, which I can’t imagine I did. Pedaling my bike, I feel like I’m going for ice cream, but I really need a coffee. I’ve already had coffee, of course, but I don’t feel like reading and I don’t feel like staring at the ocean and watching my life story replay behind my eyes.
As soon as I round the corner onto Main Street, I realize that the highlight reel is still playing. The town of my childhood has not been so much as painted since I’ve been gone. The library where Wyatt stood and waited; Chippy’s Diner, where we had a regular table and always shared fries; the ice-cream shop; Ginnie’s Bakery. I stop in front of Chippy’s and lock up my bike on the bike rack. The bike rack in front of which Wyatt ran his hands over my bare back and told me I was beautiful. I really need some coffee.
“Sam!” says Chippy as soon as I walk in. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Hi!” Chippy has lost all of his hair and none of his charm. “I’d just like a coffee please. To go.”
Chippy’s smiling over my shoulder, and I know without turning around. “Hey there, Wyatt,” he says.
I look down at my ten-dollar bill and pretend I haven’t heard. Which is the only way I could have made this more awkward than it already was.
“Hey, Sam,” Wyatt says, positioning himself next to me at the counter. “That was fun last night.”
“Yeah. Thanks for fixing my dad’s car.” I force myself to turn toward him and look him in the eye. He hasn’t shaved and has the faintest shadow along his jaw. This is different, and I can’t look away from it. My hand wants to reach up and see what that feels like, Wyatt all grown up.
“Sure.” He turns back to Chippy. “Can I have a coffee too please?”
Standing that close and looking right at Wyatt makes me feel like I am stuck in quicksand. I don’t know how to be casual with him, like he’s just a regular person. I turn back toward Chippy, and Wyatt and I wait in silence. I steal a glance at his hands, which are resting on the counter, and they are the same. Maybe a little sun-worn, but basically the same. I think there is something I should say to Wyatt, like there’s an innocuous question I should ask, but my mind has gone blank, and it’s becoming evident that not saying anything is more awkward than the awkward thing I might have said.
It takes forever to make these coffees. Chippy starts to fill my cup and the percolator is empty. He grinds more beans, empties and refills the filter, and sets it to brew. We can’t walk away because we’ve ordered them, so we stand there, waiting. When Chippy has finally filled our paper cups and we are almost free to go, he hands them to us and goes into the kitchen to hunt for lids. We are marooned.
“Jack seems like a nice person,” Wyatt says, finally. He reaches for the pitcher and pours milk in his coffee.
“Yes.” I should be filling the air with words about what a nice person Jack is, but I am distracted by Wyatt’s coffee.
“Do you want a sip or something?” he asks.
“No, it’s just that I thought you drank your coffee black.”
Wyatt takes a sip and turns to face me. “Why would you think that? You’ve never seen me drink coffee.”
“That’s not true.”
“I started drinking coffee when I was twenty-five, and I am a hundred percent sure I haven’t seen you since I was seventeen.”
Is that true? Of course it is. When we were teenagers, I drank coffee and he didn’t. He used to kiss me after I had coffee and say I smelled like an old man. And then he’d kiss me again anyway. Why is it that every time I imagined Wyatt drinking coffee, it was black like mine? Why is it that I’ve ever imagined Wyatt drinking coffee? I am on the precipice of mortified.
I shake my head. “I must have been thinking of someone else.”
This wounds him a little; I can see it in the set of his mouth. It would wound me too if Wyatt confused anything about me with someone else.
Chippy comes back with our lids and we secure them. I hope we are putting the lid on this whole conversation.
“You biking back?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
We walk outside and both head to the bike rack. He grabs his, and I kneel down to unlock mine.
“Expecting a crime wave?” he says.
“You never know,” I say. I could fill a book with the words I don’t say about the importance of protecting things that matter. Predictable outcomes.
A man who looks like a young Willie Nelson stops to say hello to Wyatt. “I was just down at the Owl Barn. The place is looking great.”
“Yeah, I stopped by yesterday, I think we’re in good shape,” says Wyatt.
“Thanks so much for doing this, man.”
“Are you kidding? It’s fun to have it here,” says Wyatt. “Sorry, Jason, this is Sam.”
Jason shakes my hand and gives me a big smile. “Sam, like the song!”
“What song?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes in a good-hearted way. “?‘Sam, I Am,’ of course. Good to see you, buddy.” And he walks off.
“I should get back,” I say to the sidewalk. It’s so dumb that the mention of that nickname and that song makes me feel flustered. I steady my bike and, for the first time, consider how different biking with a cup of hot coffee is from biking with an ice-cream cone. The lid’s on tight but there’s plenty of opportunity for coffee to spill out of the sipping hole and scald me. Wyatt’s standing there watching me, and there’s no way to make a graceful exit on this bike. I hold up my coffee to him in a gesture meaning cheers, goodbye, and I give up. “This was a terrible idea,” I say, and he laughs. I start to walk my bike home. I’m not getting burned again.
25
“He’s really part of the family, isn’t he?” Jack says with an eye-roll. Wyatt and Travis are walking up the beach late that afternoon, surfboards under their arms.
“He and Travis were friends when they were kids. They’ve been out of touch for a long time, this is kind of new,” I say.
They walk through the dunes and leave their surfboards at the bottom of the porch steps. Wyatt should be wearing a shirt, I think. It’s not right for him to be standing there, tan and wet and a little sandy. There’s a tiny piece of seaweed on his shoulder, and my hand prickles with the desire to reach over and pick it off. The urge is so strong that I shove my hands in my armpits. This, I realize, is sort of a gross thing to do, and now I don’t know what to do with my hands. This is just the beach, I think. In the city, my body totally behaves itself.
“You should have a shirt on,” Jack is saying. I couldn’t agree more, but what? “All your sunscreen will have washed off in the water and your shoulders are already red.”
Wyatt looks at his shoulder and picks off the seaweed. “I’ve got to get better about that.” He grabs a towel off a lounge chair and drapes it over his shoulders. He tosses another one to Travis. I am relieved.
“So, you helped bring the music festival to town?” I am trying for something in the category “Things a Friend Might Say.”
“Yes,” Wyatt says. “I know some of the people who recruit the bands.”