Way to Go

by Tom Ryan

  Great, I thought, another opportunity for him to lecture me about the importance of education. Same old story, blah, blah, blah.

  “He gets to come home for the rest of the summer though!” said Alma. “That’s good news!”

  “Yes, that will be nice, for sure,” my mom said, reaching over to run her fingers through Alma’s hair.

  “Mom!” Alma said. “‘Take your stinkin’ paws off me, you damn dirty ape!’”

  “He’s very impressed that you’re working so hard at the restaurant, Dan,” Mom said, turning to me.

  “Oh yeah? Cool.” It actually was cool. For once in my life, I could prove I was thinking about my future. So far, I’d only had one payday, but I’d put most of it in the bank, and I planned to keep saving. By the time Dad came home, I’d have a few hundred bucks. I was sure he’d have lots of ideas about how I should spend it.

  WHEN I ARRIVED at the restaurant for my shift later that day, Denise was giving a tour of the place to a couple of people. One of them was a university student named Ken who I recognized as a DCHS grad from a couple of years earlier. He was taller than me and well built, with an earring and bleached tips. Denise introduced him to everyone, and he barely glanced at me and JP other than to give us a quick nod. I noticed that he was a lot friendlier to Lisa, cracking cheesy jokes and reaching out to touch her on the arm a couple of times.

  The other server turned out to be Maisie Thomas.

  “Hey, Maisie! I didn’t know you were going to be working here,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s awesome, hey? I’m super excited!” She giggled. “It’s going to be a super fun summer!”

  Behind Maisie’s back, Lisa caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, smirking. I really liked Maisie and figured she’d be great with customers, but I had a feeling that she wasn’t really Lisa’s kind of person.

  My suspicions were confirmed a bit later when Lisa came into the kitchen to help me polish some silverware. “So are you like, super best friends with Anne of Green Gables back there?” she asked.

  “You mean Maisie?” I shrugged. “I don’t really hang out with her or anything. She’s really nice though.”

  “Nice,” said Lisa. “Nice is what people say when they can’t come up with a better word to describe someone. Maybe you mean boring. Or dumb.”

  “I didn’t say that!” I said, surprised at her suddenly nasty tone. Then she snapped back to her normal self, laughing and flicking a dishcloth at me.

  “Don’t get your knickers in a knot, I’m sure she’s a really sweet person. You and I just have a lot more in common.”

  Denise yelled to us through the window to come out to the parking lot, and I followed Lisa outside, wondering what she’d meant. Was she jealous of Maisie? I decided to take it as a promising sign.

  Denise and JP had hung the new sign over the door, a colorful painting of a sunset with The Sandbar painted above it. JP passed out plastic cups, and Denise walked around filling them with sparkling wine.

  Denise raised her glass and said, “To a lucky first season. Let’s hope it all works out!” We clinked our glasses and cheered, and then JP clapped his hands sharply, twice.

  “All right. We gotta get goin’ or there won’t be any food for the people.”

  We snapped into action, and soon I was in the kitchen tying on an apron, facing a deep sink full of soapy water and a counter that was ready to be stacked with greasy dishes.

  By the time the restaurant had been open for a couple of hours, I was already wondering what I’d gotten myself into. To begin with, the place was packed, and although Lisa, Maisie and Ken were all waiting tables, it seemed as if they couldn’t get to people fast enough. Denise was doing triple duty, trying to pick up the slack in the dining room, running in to help in the kitchen whenever she had a second, and ringing customers through at the front counter.

  The orders came piling into the kitchen in an endless stream, and soon enough the dishes followed. For every carefully arranged plate that was taken away, it seemed as if three came back piled high with garbage. More than once, I had to force myself not to gag as I scraped chicken bones, congealed piles of cold pasta, even spit-out pieces of gum into a revolting pile in the garbage can next to the sink. I did my best to keep up, but it was a tough battle, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Denise had promised to give me a lesson, but we’d been so busy, she hadn’t gotten around to it. Thankfully, JP was totally cool under pressure, and he helped me stay on track by calling firm, clear orders in my direction.

  “I’m gonna need two fry pans and a big stainless bowl in a couple of minutes!”

  Before I knew it, I was up to my eyeballs in dirty dishes. I had just started to get a routine going, stacking dirty plates and dinnerware to the left of the sink and pots and pans and cooking tools to the right, when Denise marched up behind me, picked up a huge pile of dishes and dumped them all into the sink. Then she reached around me, grabbed a bunch of pots and tossed them in as well.

  “You’re wasting time, Danny. This isn’t rocket science. You take the pots and pans, you drop them in the water as fast as they come, you scrub, you hustle them back to JP’s station. You take plates and glasses, you give them a quick rinse, you throw them in the dishwasher, you repeat. Capiche?”

  I nodded, and she stalked away. I dropped my head, focusing on the water as I furiously scrubbed at the dishes, taking out my frustrations on the grease. It wasn’t like I’d done this kind of thing before, and she sure hadn’t given me much of an intro. I didn’t have time to think about it, though, and so I tried to just keep getting stuff to JP as he needed it.

  Unfortunately, it was easier said than done. The dishes kept coming at me twice as fast as I could wash them. Although he stayed calm, I could see that JP was trying to keep things moving and that every time he had to stop to wait for dishes, it ruined his flow.

  The only enjoyable thing about the kitchen in full work mode was the smell. One mouth-watering aroma after another wafted by me from JP’s workspace near the stove. Whenever possible, I tried to turn around and see what he was doing, but I was so busy that I only managed to grab a few glimpses: chicken on rice, smothered with a yellow sauce—curry, maybe?—and topped with chopped nuts and a sprig of herbs; steaks with a pan sauce and a pile of potatoes under a teepee of green beans; golden seared scallops covered with finely diced mangos. I wished I could just stand next to JP and watch what he was doing, instead of being stuck in the disgusting dish pit.

  Lisa came into the kitchen and stuck her head over my shoulder.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  “What does it look like?” I said. “This sucks.”

  She laughed. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry. Nobody out there is complaining. I don’t think anyone in this town has ever eaten real food before. They don’t mind waiting for clean dishes.”

  Ken wasn’t as accommodating. Every time he had to wait for an order because the dishes weren’t ready, he stood behind me with his arms crossed, sighing deeply. The only thing it accomplished was to make me tense. At one point, while waiting impatiently for four orders of mussels, he actually reached behind me and grabbed plates from my drying rack.

  “Get it together, guy,” he growled. “You’d think you never washed a dish before in your life.” I had a feeling he and I weren’t going to be best friends.

  The next few hours were about as much fun as a nail in the forehead, but eventually things quieted down a bit, and the pile of dirty dishes diminished. JP stepped outside to grab a smoke while there were no orders on the line, and when he stepped back into the kitchen, the dish pit was clean for the first time all evening.

  “Look at you, kid. Maybe you’ve got some skills after all.”

  “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.