Always Chloe and Other Stories

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “It’s okay,” I say. It isn’t that okay, but I’m trying to show him how things can be okay even if you don’t think so at the time. “I’ll get my kayak.”

  “Maybe in Earth time,” he says.

  I don’t want to say anything more. Because I have a big secret. I don’t like having secrets from Jordy. But all of a sudden, one is just here.

  I’m glad Kevin has a new boyfriend.

  I know I shouldn’t feel that way. But I do anyway.

  Because it’s been just me and Jordy for so long. And I don’t want that to go away.

  We get back inside and to bed, because it’s cold.

  BLUE BOAT

  It’s day seven of Kevin’s five-day visit.

  Please don’t ask me to explain. I have no idea.

  But I’m pretty bummed.

  I’m standing at the sinks at the restaurant. In the kitchen. Where I work. Only I’m not working. I’m not washing dishes. I’m just standing here.

  I used too much dish soap. So the bubbles are like this white mountain in front of my face. I’m mostly just staring at them, but every now and then, I swat through the middle of the pile of bubbles with one hand. It makes a little trail, but then they sink down again.

  The owner comes in. The Humanist.

  I try to look busy.

  He’s about sixty, with a beard and a pony tail, and he wrinkles his nose when he walks past the grill, where Luis, the short-order cook, is making hamburgers. He always wrinkles his nose when he walks by the grill. He’s a vegetarian. He told Jordy that he tried for three years to make this a vegetarian restaurant, but he almost lost his shirt. I don’t think he meant his shirt for real, because he could have bought another shirt. I think it’s something people say when they’re about to go broke. But I’m not positive.

  He comes over and stands by my shoulder.

  He says, “Why so downcast, Buttercup?”

  Sometimes he calls me Buttercup. I don’t know why. Jordy says it’s because I’m blonde. But I think you would need a better reason for a thing like that.

  I don’t answer. I just sigh.

  “Oh, I know,” he says. “It’s because Jordan took the day off. Right? You’ve never even been here when Jordan wasn’t here. Have you?”

  I don’t answer. Just shake my head. Or maybe that’s an answer.

  “You want to take the day off, too?”

  That wakes me right up.

  “Can I? Really?”

  “Absolutely. Go. I’ll finish these dishes. No sweat.”

  Before I can even get my apron off, he sticks a twenty-dollar bill into the pocket of it. Which is something he does when he comes in, and the kitchen is super extra clean. He says he loves me because the health department loves him so much, now that I work here. But I didn’t make the kitchen super extra clean today.

  “In fact,” he says, “you get the day off with pay.”

  As I’m running out the door, I say, “Thank you—”

  I was about to say, Thank you, Mr. Humanist. But I’m not sure he knows we call him that. I don’t think it’s an insult, but I’m not positive.

  So I just clear out fast before he can change his mind.

  I’m just getting back from a long walk with Ethel when I see Jordy and Kevin on the little dock that’s down the ramp from the restaurant. Where they hope boaters will tie up their boats and come have lunch.

  I’m not sure if I should go down there. Maybe they want it to be just the two of them.

  Now do you see why I hate this so much?

  But then I see Jordy step off the dock and sit down. Like he’s sitting on the water. I can just see his head and shoulders. So then I have to go down there and ask him how he’s doing that.

  When I get there, I find out he’s not sitting on the water at all. He’s sitting on a kayak. It’s blue. It’s really long, like the kind two people can sit on and paddle at the same time. But it only has one seat-back thingy, for one person. The one closest to the back. It’s kind of scraped-up looking. I’m wondering if they rented it. But the ones they rent out around here usually look better than that.

  It’s not the kind that your legs go inside and disappear. It’s the kind that’s open. And you just sit on it. And all of you shows. I can see all of Jordy. Sitting on this blue boat.

  Kevin still has his back turned, but Jordy looks up and sees me.

  “Hey, Chlo,” he calls out. “Look what Kev found on his run this morning.”

  Kevin jumps up and turns around. He’s very handsome, Kevin. I wish he would stop being so handsome. It’s getting on my nerves.

  He says, “Yeah, it was sitting out with somebody’s trash. It’s all banged up and dented on the bottom, like somebody tanked it into the rocks. First I thought it must be cracked, or they wouldn’t throw it away. But one or the other of us has been sitting in it for over an hour, and it hasn’t taken on any water. I mean, inside the hull.”

  I just stand there. Saying absolutely nothing. Because what I want to say is so not polite.

  How unfair is that? I’m the one who wants a kayak more than anybody. More than anything. And I’ve lived here with Jordy for a long time, and I go up and down the Embarcadero all the time, and I see all kinds of crappy old kayaks that probably nobody ever uses, but nobody ever throws them away, either, and then when somebody finally does, it has to be in the one week that Kevin is here from Connecticut to find it. Before I can.

  This sucks. This sucks so bad. I wonder what my chances are of living through something that sucks this bad. They don’t feel too good, but I’ve thought this same thing a hundred times before, and I’m still here.

  Jordy says, “Chlo, say something.”

  I say the least rude thing I can think of. I say, “I don’t know how you’re going to get it back to Connecticut on a plane.”

  Kevin laughs.

  “I didn’t rescue it for me,” he says.

  “You didn’t? Who did you rescue it for?”

  “Jordan said you’ve been wanting a kayak. So I thought I should carry it home and see if it floats. That’s all. If you want a nicer one, I understand.”

  I walk closer to the edge of the dock and look at it.

  How could I want one nicer than this? It’s the nicest one ever.

  “It’s perfect,” I say.

  Then I have a terrible thought.

  Kevin is giving me a kayak. Does this mean I have to like him?

  I wish Dr. Reynoso would hurry up and write back.

  “One of the seat clips was broken,” Kevin is saying to me. I wish he’d stop talking, so I can just look at my wonderful new kayak and not have to water down this moment with anything else. “But I fixed it with a piece of wire coat hanger. And it didn’t have a handle in the front—”

  “I don’t need a handle.”

  “Well. You might. I made you one, anyway. I used some rope and a little scrap of old PVC pipe. So now you’ve got one, whether you think you want it or not. I don’t think you can ever use it as a tandem again, though, because there’s nothing to clip a front seat to. But if you just want it for you….”

  I probably shouldn’t be ignoring Kevin. He gave me a kayak. But I still don’t like him, and it’s a little too much for my brain all at once like that.

  I say to Jordy, “Get up. Please. I want to sit in it.”

  I hold the boat to the dock for him, and he gets out. Carefully. And then I get in and sit down.

  Ethel is leaning over the edge of the dock, whining. Before I can even reach my arms out for her, she jumps on.

  There are holes in the bottom of it, which seems weird. Not holes like the kind that would get banged into it if you ran it into the rocks. Perfect round holes that show the water through. Ethel steps over them very carefully and sits in the flat part where the front seat should be.

  “Why doesn’t it sink if it has holes in it?”

  Kevin laughs.

  I think that’s a bad habit of his. Laughing at things that aren’t
even supposed to be funny.

  “Those are scupper holes,” he says. Which doesn’t explain a damn thing. “They’re for letting water out. Like if somebody swamps you with their boat wake. Or a wave breaks over the side. It lets the water back out.”

  Some people can talk and talk and never answer the question.

  “But why doesn’t it sink?”

  “It’s a double-hull construction.”

  I give up. I’ll ask Jordy later. Right now, I have better things to do. Right now, I want to go paddling. The way I see people doing every day on this bay. Estuary. And every single time I see one, I wish it was me. And now it is.

  “I’m going,” I say. “We’ll be back. Later. Maybe much later. I want to see the whole thing. The whole estuary. We might be hours.”

  Jordy and Kevin look at each other. I don’t know what the deal is. But it doesn’t look good.

  Jordy says, “Chlo. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “No. I’m ready. Just give me a push away from the dock, okay? I want to go paddling.”

  That’s when it hits me. When the word actually comes out of my mouth. It feels like somebody handed me a bag that weighs about three hundred pounds. It just keeps sinking me further down.

  “Oh,” I say. “Right. I guess I’ll be needing a paddle.”

  I’m lying on my back on the couch.

  Just lying here not paddling my new boat.

  I’m depressed. And nobody better try to talk me out of it.

  Jordy and Kevin are gone anyway. So I don’t know who I think is going to argue with me. Gone where, I don’t know. I never know anymore. I used to always know where Jordy was, and mostly he was here. Now he could be anywhere most of the time.

  I wish Kevin would go home. The five days ended two days ago. Even I can count better than that.

  I love my new kayak, but I hate that I’m supposed to like Kevin for giving it to me. Maybe I should give him a present, and then we’ll be all squared up. I’m thinking about maybe a calendar.

  The door opens.

  The first thing I see is Kevin’s big goofy grin.

  If he tries to cheer me up….

  He steps in, and behind him comes Jordy. Equally goofy.

  Kevin is holding something behind his back.

  “Pick a hand,” he says. “Either hand.”

  This is a stupid game. I even hate stupid games on a good day. Today I’m depressed.

  I sigh.

  “You pick,” I say. “I’m too depressed to pick.”

  He whips out his right hand. In it is half a paddle. It’s white and new looking, with a black metal handle.

  I sit up.

  Can you paddle a kayak with half a paddle? I bet you could. You’d just have to work twice as hard.

  “You found half a paddle in somebody’s trash?”

  Kevin laughs. That’s really starting to grate on me.

  He whips out the other hand. In it is the other half.

  So it’s a whole paddle, but it’s broken in half.

  “You found the whole thing? Maybe we can put it back together!”

  He laughs again. I’m just about to ask him not to do that when he sticks the end of one handle into the end of the other. I hear this nice little “click,” and then it’s whole. A whole paddle!

  “We didn’t find it,” he says. “We bought it for you.”

  For a minute, I just sit there, blinking. Kevin said paddles were really expensive. He said good ones cost over a hundred dollars. I think that was when I started lying on the couch. When he said that.

  “With what for money?”

  First no answer.

  Then Jordy says, “We had a little in the kayak fund. Kev chipped in the rest.”

  Uh oh. I owe him big time. I really might have to like him now.

  But I’d rather think about that later.

  Right now, I’m flying across the room to grab for the paddle. But Kevin is tall, and he holds his arm straight up in the air, and then I can’t reach it. No matter how hard I try. I even try jumping. But he goes up on his tiptoes and then I can’t even reach it by jumping.

  “One condition,” he says.

  I stop reaching and jumping.

  “What?”

  “You have to take the first ride with me.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes. With me.”

  “Why can’t I go alone?”

  “Because I carried a kayak home for you. And I bought you most of a paddle. And this is the one thing I’m asking in return.”

  “You said two people can’t use it.”

  “Well. Not for very long. There’s no front seat. But somebody can sit up there. They just can’t lean back.”

  I think this over for a minute. I can feel my bottom lip sticking out.

  “Who gets to paddle?”

  “You can paddle.”

  “And who gets the seat with the seat?”

  “You can have the seat with the seat. I’ll sit up front and not lean back. Just to the sand spit and back. Twenty minutes. Tops.”

  I sigh.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  I hear Jordy clearing his throat. But I purposely don’t look.

  On our way out the door, Jordy takes hold of my arm for a minute. Says something quiet in my ear.

  “You could say thank you.”

  “I will.” It sounds whiny, the way I say it.

  “I certainly hope so. He’s being pretty damn nice to you.”

  “I know.”

  Believe me. I noticed. It sucks.

  We push off from the dock, and I paddle about ten strokes and then hear a big splash.

  I turn around to see Ethel swimming after us.

  When she gets close enough I lean over and try to grab her around her body so I can pick her up into the boat.

  And then we’re all in the very cold bay. I mean, the estuary.

  When I pop up again, the boat is upside down, and I have water up my nose, and Ethel is swimming in place, and I have to shake my head hard to get the water off my face and most of it out of my hair.

  At first, I don’t see Kevin, and I think maybe he drowned, and I sort of have mixed feelings about that, even though I mostly don’t really want anybody to drown. Not even Kevin.

  Then his head pops up, and he’s laughing.

  But I have to go with him on this one. This really is sort of funny. So I laugh, too.

  He says, “You have to be careful how far you lean over.”

  I say, “Now you tell me.”

  We’re not really sure about getting back on, so we decide to swim back to the dock. Kevin turns the boat right-side up and picks up Ethel and puts her back on. And she lets him. Not that she has many good choices. He holds onto the little rope handle while we swim, so the boat comes back with us.

  While we’re swimming, he says, “Now do you see why you need a handle?”

  “I guess. Yeah.”

  Jordy holds out a hand to help us back onto the dock, and then we start all over again.

  We’re sitting on the sand spit. Me and Kevin.

  Turns out that’s something else you need a handle for. To pull the boat up onto the sand so it doesn’t float away when you get out of it. There’s a lot to know about this whole kayaking thing.

  We’re sitting here in the sand. Drying out in the breeze. With the blue boat right next to my leg. I can see where it’s all dented underneath the front. But I don’t care. I love it anyway.

  We wanted to hike over the sand dune to the ocean side, but it turns out you’re not supposed to go across it. It’s all roped off on account of some endangered bird that builds nests right in the sand. I’m not sure what kind of danger the bird is in. But I guess it has something to do with people like us who want to hike over the dune.

  That was a letdown.

  So we’re just sitting here, looking at Jordy’s and my apartment from the other side.

  Kevin says, “I know you don’t like me very much.�
�

  I say, “That’s true. I don’t.”

  Fortunately, Jordy is not here to clear his throat and tell me to be polite.

  “I want you to know something. I love Jordan. I’ve always loved him. He was the first boy I ever really loved. And I never stopped. And I think he still loves me, too. And I know you want Jordan to be happy.”

  “Are you ever going home?”

  First nothing.

  Then, “Yeah. I am. I’m going home next week. And I’m going to talk to Mark. And then I’m going to put all my stuff in the back of my old pickup. And head back this way. And hope the old piece of trash has one more cross-country trip left in her.”

  I say, “Oh.”

  Nobody says anything for a long time.

  Then I say, “Can we go back now? I want to go for a paddle all by myself.”

  Kevin gets up. Brushes sand off the butt of his jeans.

  I feel sad, and he looks sad. I can’t figure out which one of us I think is sadder.

  Before we get back in Blue Boat, I say, “Thank you. Thank you very much for carrying this kayak home. And for buying me most of a paddle. It was very nice of you. Especially when I’ve been sort of a shit to you this whole time.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he says.

  We paddle home without talking.

  Only this time, I let him paddle.

  I also let him have the seat with the seat.

  This is my paddling story for today. My very first paddling story!

  We’re paddling out near the sailboats, Ethel and me. In that really deep part of the water where they tie the sailboats up when nobody’s using them. Which seems like most of the time. To me, anyway. If I had a sailboat, I’d be sailing it every day. I wonder what it feels like to have a sailboat and then not even sail it.

  But I guess I’m getting off track.

  We see some seals playing in the water. Those big harbor seals. Over near a great big boat with scary shark teeth painted on. I mean, a whole shark, like it’s coming at you, but you mostly see the teeth.

  Ethel sees the seals first. I can hear her making little noises down low in her throat

  I wonder if I could paddle over a little closer without freaking them out.

  All of a sudden, I hear something like a splash, and then this great big seal head is sticking out of the water. Right in front of us. About a yardstick away from the blue nose of Blue Boat.