That was the thing. What do you do when the girl you love is suffering a brutal compression from this impossible weight, but she doesn’t love you back? You could help, you’re sure of it, with some time on the problem, you could fix it, you’d like to, but it’s not your problem to solve.
I was her best friend though. Now it looked like her only friend. Isn’t that person—her best friend, only friend, guy who loved her—supposed to help her? Somehow?
I went around and around trying to decide what to do, but all I could come up with was this: Go surfing tomorrow. Listen. Take it from there.
Eighty-Seven
Sid
We were early enough that we found parking spots right next to each other. Me and Scott in the truck with all the boards. Teddy and Lori in Teddy’s car. I assumed Lori had given Teddy a talking to about Samantha and school, because he was quiet when they drove up and stepped from the car, but as we unloaded the boards, he and his dad warmed up and started talking. This was one of my favorite times on these surf trips—Teddy and his dad, pulling on wetsuits, waxing boards, watching the water, talking about the waves and surf reports and wind directions. Scott’s hair was greying and clipped short, but they both had the same faces, wide shoulders and intense focus on surfing. Scott turned to me, “Ready?” He kissed Lori on the cheek, “Back soon. Don’t miss us too much.”
“I have my coffee and a camera, I’ll take photos.”
The three of us grabbed our boards and ran, plunging into the water.
Eighty-Eight
Teddy
It was so good having Sid go surfing with us. Like fantastic. I didn’t want to screw anything up, or upset her, so I had put myself into a timeout, no talking, just letting Mom and Dad run the show.
The waves were big, so we had to work to stay in position. We didn’t talk, just paddled and duckdove and caught the occasional wave. Sid didn’t take as many waves as she usually did, and Dad mentioned it. She answered, “I’m choosing my waves, it’s all about patience.”
Dad teased, “Teddy, you hear that, Sid is schooling us on patience—”
Sid spun her board toward the beach and paddled. Dad called, “Sure you want to take that one?”
Sid paddled hard catching a big one. She flew down the line, ejecting with a flying kick-out at the end. We both cheered for her as she flopped to her board and returned to us. “And that fellas is how you do it.” Sid even laughed, not in the Through-Her-Tears way of last night, but carefree, like before she lost her mom.
After two hours of surfing, we each caught a wave to the beach.
Mom poured us mugs of coffee from a big thermos and we had choices of three different kinds of muffins. We watched the surf and the surfers riding the waves and drank coffee. Mom asked, “Sid, how’s your screenwriting class?”
I turned to see Sid answer. “Good, I mean, different. Okay.”
My dad chuckled. “That’s vague.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s how I feel about it, vague.”
Mom asked, “Oh. You don’t like your professor?”
“I like him okay. It’s just not very . . .” Sid’s voice trailed off. She stared out over the ocean. “I just don’t . . .” Her voice caught, like she would cry. “I don’t want to talk about it if that’s okay.”
Mom said, “Maybe it’s not the right time for you, you know your own heart best.”
Sid nodded and blinked a lot.
I swigged from my mug and tried to keep from blurting out, you’ve been writing this screenplay for years, how can it be vague, heartbreaking, cry-inducing? What good would that do though? It wasn’t my place to blurt things.
We all went out and surfed for another couple of hours, and returned to the beach exhausted, spent, done.
Sid stripped out of her wetsuit and put on her traditional winter After-Surf gear, sweatpants and a hoodie. She collapsed to the towels and sprawled. “I’m tired.”
I pulled my wetsuit down past my shoulders my eyes on the ocean, the wind had changed direction, trashing the waves. I leaned to my right and started to flick my wet hair on Sid but stopped mid-shake. I looked down and from her sprawl she was watching me through lidded eyes.
Eighty-Nine
Sid
Teddy stopped himself from flicking water on me.
I missed him, that, everything, so much that I felt heartsick thinking about the sunny days gone by. He pulled his wetsuit down past his waist to his hips and dried his hair with a towel showing off every plane and angle in his shoulders and arms and the curve of his lower back to his—I turned away.
I wished I could have this again—our surf sessions, his family’s adoration, him. Especially him. But he was so cold and quiet, and he had a girlfriend now. I had blown it royally. I sighed and threw my arm over my eyes.
Lori said, “So Sid, Scott and I were thinking about going out to lunch, like a date, would it be okay if Teddy drives you home?”
“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with Teddy.”
He said, “Of course,” and began wrapping the leash around my board.
Ninety
Teddy
On the way home we were quiet. Sid punched buttons on the radio until she found The Killers, Mr Brightside, a song we usually sang along to, together, loud, but now she sat singing quietly, staring out the window, as melancholy as anything I ever had to deal with. I couldn’t take it. At the next red light, I turned the volume down. “You have to explain that earlier—vague. You’ve never been vague about Mary Queen of Scots in your life. You have a vivid idea. How did your screenplay become vague?”
She looked shocked. I expected that though, I was barging in unwanted and unasked. “It’s not like that, it’s not that I’m giving up . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Then she said, “I haven’t said this out loud, yet, to anyone, so let me work out the way to say it.” She twisted to face the front. “I’m not giving up, the screenplay, it’s more formed than ever, but the class sucked. I’ve always thought I needed a class, and maybe I did or do, I don’t know. I needed to know formats and conventions, but I could have bought a book, you know? Watched a Youtube video. I can’t say that to most people, without sounding idiotic, but you—I took this class and the professor wanted us to write from screenplay exercises. He chose them. The final project was to take our idea and he would tweak what we wrote. I didn’t want him to touch my screenplay. I didn’t want to churn it out while they all discussed and critiqued. The screenplay is more important than that. So I’m not quitting, I will write it—maybe I’ll hire an editor or someone to help me polish it.”
I nodded.
Sid turned to me. “I mean, that sounds good right? It doesn’t sound like I’m quitting? I’m not, I just think my idea is—”
“Your writing, your ideas, are great—yes, that sounds good. I was worried for a second, but that sounds good.” I turned the music volume up, then turned it down again. “Thank you for coming surfing, it meant a lot to my dad. And me.”
She paused, I could feel her gaze on the side of my face. Then she said, “I’m glad I did, I really missed you.”
I turned to look at her and missed the light turning green; the car behind me honked. I waved and said, “I’m going, sheesh,” and drove through the intersection, taking a left onto her street. “Do you mean that?”
She nodded as we pulled up in front of her house.
I fiddled with the keys overly long. “Me too.”
“Yeah.” She pushed open her door and unstrapped her board from the roof. I sat in my seat for a second and then climbed out of the car to help.
Ninety-One
Sid
When I got home from the Black Friday Surf, I did nap just like always. Something about the chilly air and the post-feast early morning exercise conspired to make me sleepy. No amount of coffee helped. I crashed hard, sprawled sideways across my bed, but it wasn’t deep and senseless. Nope, I had an all hot and bothered fantasy dream:
In it Teddy wa
s dropping me off at my house, twisted in his seat saying, “Bye, Sid,” when I lunged, grabbed him by both sides of the face, and pressed my lips against his.
His arms went around me and up inside my shirt and we kissed like that, me above, him below, his hands in my wet hair. My Uggs flipped off onto the floorboards, my whole body in his lap.
He asked, “Is your dad home?”
“No, he went to the office. Want to come upstairs?”
Somehow we effortlessly got out of the car, even though I was on top, and he was carrying me up to the front door. (I was weightless because: Dream.) And somehow as he climbed the steps, arms wrapped around me, he was kissing me—on my lips, my cheeks, to my ear, and down my neck.
Suddenly we were in my bedroom. My arms wrapped around his head, kissing him, deeply. Teddy’s hands were up inside my hoodie, rubbing all over while we kissed, and I was so hot for him—I wrapped both my legs around his waist.
Okay, that was a mistake, fantasy-wise. For a second Teddy turned into Gavin and we were at the concert, but I was able, in my half-sleep, to imagine him into Teddy again. Climbing on me saying something like, “You’re going to have so much sand on your bed.”
I pushed down the back of his board shorts. He said, breathlessly, “Sid, do you have a condom? I don’t carry them in my shorts.”
“Um . . .”
And then I woke up. Seriously. As my mom would have said, “I always did have terrible timing.”
I wiped the drool off my mouth and tried to wrap my head around the time. I was starving. I had been sleeping for hours. Dad would be home soon and the dim light almost looked like sunset.
I looked around thinking about the dream. The truth was I didn’t have a condom here. Four years ago the Moms had sent a whole bunch of us to a Sex Ed 101 class and then enlightened and encouraged the Moms had bought small boxes of condoms for each of us. Teddy had one under his bathroom sink. I had one under mine. But guess what? I had used them up during my relationship with Cameron, and Mom wasn’t here anymore to restock them. Sucked to be me. Glad I hadn’t truly dragged Teddy up to my room. I doubted he carried condoms in his board shorts and imagine explaining, Oh no Teddy, I ran out of all those condoms.
Note to self: Buy more condoms.
Why had I been dreaming about Teddy? I was supposed to be in London with Gavin in a week, my departure date moved earlier because the US Passport Agency returned my passport in a tenth of the time. I wanted to go, right?
I was just confused because I spent Thanksgiving sitting across from Teddy and his new girlfriend. Also, the morning with Teddy in a wetsuit.
And my boyfriend was out of town, equaling: horny.
That was probably what it was.
Except Teddy.
I thought about his wide shoulders huddled against the cool air that morning. His smile when I caught that perfect wave in front of him and his dad. And then last night when he sat at a dinner table and talked about how much he missed my mom.
Ninety-Two
Texts
You got the ticket?
Yes.
Only a little over a week away
;o)
I can’t wait to see you.
I have a lot of meetings
and a rehearsal the day you arrive
I’ll send a car.
Oh okay.
Really?
Where will it meet me?
No biggie, it will find you.
I got to run.
Super busy.
I’ll see you soon.
Ninety-Three
Sid
My mother used to always say, “When in doubt, make a list.”
So here goes:
•Teddy was hot
•Gorgeous
•My best friend
•He grew up with me and Mom
•Shared history
•He loved my mom
•He loves me
•He listens to me
•I broke his heart
•He has a girlfriend
•Gavin
•Hot
•Sexy
•New
•Exciting
•I get to go to London
•Said he loved me (drunk)
•Acts like he adores me
•Troubled
•Kind of an ass sometimes.
Trouble was, I couldn’t parse out my feelings, I loved Teddy, but enough to love, love him? What if I blew our friendship by loving him? And didn’t I already blow it and this was all moot, anyway? He was with someone else.
And here was the thing, if Teddy knew I was making lists trying to decide between him and Gavin, he would be so angry. He deserves better.
Ninety-Four
Sid
I needed to focus on Gavin; I was flying halfway around the world to see him. I should be excited, not making a list comparing him to other guys. What was I a player? Or was Gavin just very, very confusing? I got to go to London though—Mom’s favorite city. I worried about Gavin but Mom would have approved. Oasis poster, seriously.
Mom.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at my sand-covered toes. I stood and walked down the hall to my parents’s room and opened the concert t-shirt drawer in mom’s dresser. Like the weeks just after she died, I stared down into it with no plan, nothing, just staring into one of her drawers. It smelled of her oil—sandalwood rose. A year ago she read a book about simplifying and folded her shirts so they stood on end, vertical, as if they were at attention. In color-coordinated rows (but these were concert tees, so basically black and just a few whites). Mom had touched these, each one, so I hadn’t touched them, not wanting to disrupt the aura. But today I did, I pulled up a white, and checked it to see what it was—U2, from the War tour, 1983. I clutched it to my chest. Mom had mentioned once that she went to see U2 a billion years ago in a small auditorium. I considered that information fairly boring at the time. But now . . .
Who did she go with? What did she wear? Did she go straight home afterward, or hang out after with friends rehashing the night? I would never know and never thought to ask. The millions of memories that made up her entire life, the loves and fears and laughs were all gone. No one would ever know what that night was like for her.
I fell on their bed and curled up around that t-shirt and cried for a long, long time. I don’t know why—this shirt? Any shirt? Or oh my god, every shirt? I was such a mess.
I heard Dad putting bags down on the kitchen counter. He called, “Sid?”
I sat up and hastily wiped my eyes. He appeared in the doorway. “Hey.”
I tried to smile, but red-splotched and smeared was how I’m sure I looked.
He said, “You got brave enough to go in the drawer?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it bravery, more like stupidity.”
He stepped into the room and looked into the drawer. “I’d call it bravery, I haven’t been able to open it. Which one did you pull up?”
“U2, War.”
“Ah, before my time.” He sat beside me on the bed. “She was so lucky to get to go to that show. Did she tell you her seats were about twenty rows from the stage?”
“No, that’s awesome.” He handed me a Kleenex from the nightstand. I blew my nose. “I don’t feel like I even knew her.”
Dad nodded. He put his arm around my shoulders, and we both stared down at the t-shirt in my lap. “I feel that way too. We’re all just travelers and for part of our time we’re walking with other people. We meet up, know them as much as we can, as much as they’ll tell, and then our paths part. That is, sadly, life. Regretting all that we didn’t know, didn’t say, that’s sadly a big part of death.”
“How’d you become so smart about this?”
“I’m living it.”
I opened the shirt and looked at the boy on the front, war, written in red down the side. “Do you mind if I wear it?”
“Nope, those shirts are yours now. Though I do like them standing i
n rows still, is that wrong?”
“Maybe, but also I agree completely.”
He smacked his hand down on my knee, the way he had since I was little, to announce a Big Talk was over. He stood, went to the drawer, looked down, jokingly gulped, and dove his hand inside. He pulled up a black shirt and opened it to show me. “Wear this one, it’s from the Green Day concert she took you to three years ago. She told me it was the best concert she ever saw because you were there.” He tossed the shirt to my lap. “I brought takeout, come down for dinner?”
I nodded, went to my room, switched into the shirt, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
The counter was piled with Chinese food. We served and sat across from each other at barstools pulled up to the kitchen island. We ate a little and then Dad said, punctuating the air with his chopsticks, “Speaking of wrong, I was super jealous that Our Teddy had the audacity to show up with a girl to Thanksgiving yesterday. Who does she think she is?”
“I think she thinks she’s his girlfriend.” I chewed my bottom lip.
He said, “If your mother was here she would’ve thrown the potatoes in outrage, or overturned the table.”
Sid and Teddy Page 13
