The Living

by Matt De La Peña

  “Yeah, what was that about?”

  Addie shrugged. “It’s one of the reasons we decided to do a little snooping.”

  Right then everything came together for Shy. “Do you know a guy named Bill?” he asked her out of the blue.

  “I know a lot of guys named Bill.”

  “On the ship, I mean. Curly black hair. Always wears a black suit.” Earlier Shy was unable to picture his own mom’s face, but the suit guy was burned into his memory. “He had a mole on his nose.”

  “Oh yeah,” Addie said. “That’s one of my dad’s security people. I didn’t know his name was Bill, though. Why?”

  “He asked me all kinds of questions about the suicide. Right after you and your friend left the Honeymoon Deck.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said.

  “You’re not?”

  “They seemed really paranoid about what happened. The guy who jumped was named David Williamson—”

  “Yeah, exactly,” Shy interrupted. “He told me right before he jumped.”

  “He was one of the top guys in the company.”

  Shy thought back to his brief conversation with the comb-over man, or David Williamson. At the time he thought it was just some drunk rich guy rambling. Little did he know he’d be analyzing every word a week later while stranded at sea.

  “Know what’s strange?” Addie said. “He used to come over for dinner when I was little. He and my dad were friends.” She shook her head. “I remember he seemed so normal. Don’t you have to be a little unbalanced to jump off a ship?”

  “He was definitely unbalanced when I talked to him on the Honeymoon Deck. He kept saying all this crazy shit about corruption and how he was hiding from people.” It occurred to Shy that this was the most he’d ever shared about that conversation to anyone. Including his own family.

  “I wonder what happened to him,” Addie said.

  “I wonder why your old man was so paranoid about it.” Shy looked up at the moon, amazed at how everything now seemed to connect. The suit guy stalking him and his room being trashed and Addie’s dad asking him to dinner—all of it went back to the suicide on his first voyage. And now him and this girl in the boat. “Hey, Addie,” he said, wiping a hand down his face, “I still need to ask you about—”

  “The picture my dad had,” she said, finishing his sentence. “Right?”

  “Uh, yeah, actually.”

  Addie reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a folded photo and held it out to Shy. “You mean this one?”

  Shy took it from her and unfolded it, stunned. The picture was wet and creased, but he could clearly see himself sitting alone beside his grandma’s grave back in Otay Mesa.

  “I took it from my dad’s room,” she said. “Never got a chance to put it back.”

  “How’d you get it?” Shy said, looking up at her.

  “He left a key to his cabin with us,” Addie said. “So we could have two showers. When they made us all leave the dining room early because of the storm, me and Cassie ditched my dad’s security people and snuck into his cabin to look around.” She pointed at the picture in his hand. “We found it just lying on top of his safe. You can understand why I was so weirded out when I saw you during the storm, right?”

  Shy looked down at the picture again and the memory of that moment came flooding back. It was the night before this second voyage. He’d ridden his bike across town and through the cemetery gates to lean a sunflower against his grandma’s small headstone. Her favorite flower. Then he’d just sat there, thinking about the last few hours of her battle with Romero Disease, and about his family’s future. Not only had a great person been stolen from their lives, his grandma also paid half the bills. He had no idea how they were going to make it without her.

  It made Shy sick knowing there was someone watching him that night, spying on his mourning.

  He looked up at Addie, remembering what Supervisor Franco had said just before Shy went out into the storm to help clear the Lido Deck. “Does your dad by any chance work for a company called LasoTech?”

  “Does my dad work for LasoTech?” she said, repeating the question. She scoffed a little. “More like my dad owns LasoTech.”

  34

  Mr. Henry’s Strange Request

  They talked a while longer—about the company and what they were hoping to find out about Shy’s conversation with the guy who jumped off the boat, David Williamson, and why everyone seemed so concerned about a guy who was already dead—and then Addie said if she didn’t sit down she was going to pass out standing up.

  “Go rest,” he said. “We can talk more about it tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Time to go freeze my ass off,” she told him as she started over to her side of the boat. After she sat down she called to him: “Hey, Shy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sorry you got mixed up in all this.”

  She seemed like she genuinely meant it. “Same with you,” he told her.

  Shy moved over to Mr. Henry, who was sound asleep. He put his hand under his nose to make sure he was still breathing, then went to his own spot against the side of the boat. He sat down in the ankle-high water, leaned his head back and thought some more about everything he and Addie had just talked about.

  Shy was so cold and hungry he had trouble falling asleep. He stared up into the star-filled night, letting his mind go wherever it wanted.

  He pictured the man in the black suit cornering him in the Luxury Lounge. Pointing as Shy made his escape down the stairs. He pictured the look on Addie’s dad’s face when he stepped up to Shy’s pool stand, offered to toss the foul-mouthed Muppet kid off the ship. Maybe that was some kind of vague reference to the comb-over man’s suicide. Maybe he thought Shy was to blame. He pictured his grandma opening her scrapbook in the hall, pointing to the article about sharks. Then Shy found himself picturing something else, the sliver of Carmen undressing he’d seen through her bathroom door.

  Shy closed his eyes so he could focus on that last image. He liked thinking about all Carmen-related things, including stuff that had nothing to do with her beautiful naked body. But right now, as he sat shivering against the side of the boat, all he wanted to do was think about her curves and her skin and the tattooed words below her belly button. It probably said something deep, he decided. A quote from some philosopher or a saying that he’d understand on the exact same level.

  He missed how it felt to be around her. How his stomach would get butterflies when she even walked into a room. He wondered if she was on another boat right now, in some other part of the ocean, slowly dying by herself, the same as he was. And what if she had her eyes closed, too, and she was thinking about him? Could they be together in their thoughts even when their bodies were apart? He held himself for warmth and drifted off wondering about that.

  Carmen showed up in Shy’s dream, too.

  She was walking up to his towel stand. Smiling. “Come with me,” she said.

  “Now?” he asked. “I can’t just leave work.”

  “What are you talking about, Shy? It’s your dream, isn’t it? People can do anything they want inside their own dreams.”

  The sky suddenly shifted from morning to night. Supervisor Franco was there now, too. He was telling Shy his shift was over, to take a break, go get himself some dinner.

  That was when Shy understood. He was somewhere between consciousness and sleep, where you can partly steer the story of your dreams.

  He followed Carmen down the stairs, into the Southside Lounge. The butterflies in his stomach flapping like crazy. Because maybe she was bringing him here to confess her love. To explain how she was leaving her lawyer. The guy didn’t understand her. Not the way Shy did. She’d finally realized how empty it was being with someone who never asked how she felt about things, who would never understand how bad it hurt to lose someone to Romero Disease.

  But as they sat down at a table, he knew the look on Carmen’s face wasn’t the love-professing kind
.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said. “About me and you, Shy.”

  “Me too,” he said, though it was obvious their thinking wasn’t the same.

  “I believe the reason it’s so complicated between us is ’cause I’m the only one in a relationship. If we were both committed to other people, we could be way closer as friends. Don’t you think?”

  The butterflies in his stomach stopped flapping.

  They keeled over and died.

  “Look,” Carmen said, “you know I care about you, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well,” she said, “over the past couple days I’ve gotten to know someone a little better. And I think she’d be perfect for you.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yes, Shy. A girl.” Carmen turned around and called out: “You can come join us now, Addie.”

  Shy looked up, shocked to see Addie approaching their table. She sat down, smiling, and gave him a little wave.

  “You don’t even like her,” Shy said to Carmen.

  “That’s not true,” she said. “Once you get past that bitchy front she puts up, and you ignore all her snobby tendencies, you’ll discover that Addie’s a pretty decent girl.” Carmen then turned to Addie, said: “And I’m gonna be honest about Shy, too. He can be a little selfish and girl crazy. And he’s into corny shit like hand-holding tests. But he means well.”

  “Corny can be cute,” Addie said.

  “Mmm, in Shy’s case it’s really not,” Carmen said. “Trust me. But it’s better than him being an asshole, right?”

  Shy was starting to get frustrated. This was his dream. Why was he letting other people tell him what to do?

  “Look at you two,” Carmen said. “You’re both shivering. You need each other right now.”

  Shy looked down at his own arms. Carmen was right. His teeth were even chattering. It was the same for Addie.

  “So, what do you guys think?” Carmen said. “Are you brave enough to give it a try?”

  Shy rubbed the hell out of his eyes, trying to wake himself up. When he dropped his hands, he found himself sitting across the table from Mr. Henry, who was turning on a power hacksaw. Carmen and Addie had vanished.

  “Hold up, man!” Shy shouted over the roar of the saw. “What’re you doing with that thing? And where’d the girls go?”

  The oilman ignored his question and started lowering the blade toward his wounded leg, shouting: “I won’t be needing this anymore!”

  Blood sprayed everywhere. “Jesus, man!” Shy shouted, shielding his face with his hands, cringing at the awful sound.

  After a few seconds the oilman turned off the saw and set it on the table, then he tore off the rest of his leg. “It was just getting in the way,” he said, tossing it onto the floor of the Southside Lounge, where it made a surprising splashing sound.

  Mr. Henry hopped around to Shy’s side of the table and sat down, saying: “I came over here to thank you.”

  “To thank me?” Shy said. “For what?” His dream was so confusing now he just wanted it to be over. He clenched his eyes closed and rubbed them with his fists again, harder this time. Then he opened them as wide as he could, demanding himself to wake up.

  It was still him and the oilman, but they were no longer in the Southside Lounge. They were inside the broken boat, leaning against the side next to each other. Addie across from them, asleep.

  “For listening,” the oilman said. “I needed to admit to someone that Angela didn’t want me. It’s like a weight has been lifted.”

  Shy’s mind was foggy and slow, but he knew he was no longer dreaming. This was real. He could tell because the oilman’s leg was back on his body, giving off a foul odor.

  “You know, I’ve always had a certain belief about women,” Mr. Henry continued, his face filled with pain. “They love to own expensive jewelry. But now I’m starting to believe there’s a second part to that. Something I’d never thought about until I got out here on this boat. Women love expensive jewelry even more when it comes from the right person.”

  Shy watched Mr. Henry stare out at the dark ocean, wondering why he was talking about jewelry when he was in such bad shape. Sweat streamed down the guy’s forehead. His teeth were clenched in pain. Shy would be focusing all his attention on staying alive.

  “It hurts me to admit this,” Mr. Henry said, turning back to Shy, “but even though I can afford any piece of jewelry, from any store, I’ve never been the right person to give it.”

  Shy opened his mouth to argue, but Mr. Henry raised a hand and said: “Now I have an odd sort of request.”

  Shy closed his mouth and listened.

  “I’d like to hug you, Shy.”

  “Hug me?” This was the last thing Shy expected. “What are you even talking about?”

  “I’m coming to the end of the line.”

  Shy was shaking his head now, saying: “Look, man, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened. But I’m not trying to hug somebody out here—”

  The oilman was already leaning over and wrapping his arms around Shy’s shoulders. “I don’t mean anything strange by this,” he mumbled in Shy’s ear. “It’s just a hug. Nothing more.”

  “Get off me,” Shy said, trying to push away. But he felt so weak. And Mr. Henry had a tight hold around his back. And it wasn’t like the guy was trying to molest him. He was just doing a stupid hug, like Rodney might. And Shy felt so bad for the man.

  The whole thing lasted maybe eight seconds. Then the oilman let go and pushed away from Shy. “Be the right person,” he said. “Gifts are more meaningful when they come from the right person.”

  Mr. Henry scooted his way back across the busted-up boat and leaned against his part of the jagged side, massaging his mangled leg.

  Shy rubbed his eyes again, trying to make sense of what had just happened. But he was too cold and hungry to think straight.

  He sat there for a long while before he realized something important. He was going to die, too. Sure, he’d last longer than Mr. Henry, but how much longer? Would he and Addie survive long enough to find the islands? To be rescued? Would they live long enough to see home again? And what if they no longer had a home to go to? What then?

  He glanced across the boat at Addie. Her arms wrapped around her legs, eyes closed. Her whole body shivering in the cold. The oilman’s eyes were closed now, too.

  Shy was alone.

  He stared up at the glowing moon again, and he listened to the whispering ocean. His thoughts were more staticky than before, but for the first time since the summer started, he felt like he understood the ocean’s whispering. It all came down to this. The darkness. The loneliness. The mystery. The fact that everyone’s days were numbered, and it didn’t matter if you were in premier class or worked in housekeeping. Those were only costumes people wore. And once you stripped them away you saw the truth. This giant ocean and this dark pressing sky. We only have a few minutes, but the unexplainable world is constant and forever marching forward.

  Shy felt nauseous from the realization, like he’d been shown something humans weren’t equipped to see.

  He pushed off the side and quietly moved across the boat to Addie and sat down next to her, slid his arm around her shoulders so they could share body heat.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him.

  Her chest moving in and out with each breath. But she didn’t say anything. Neither did he. And eventually she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.

  Day 5

  35

  Unexpected Good-Luck Charm

  Shy woke up the next morning to the sound of his own chattering teeth, and he was surprised to find himself holding Addie. Her eyes were open, too, and he followed her gaze down the boat to where the oilman slept, except the oilman was no longer there, only his empty life jacket.

  “What happened?” Shy said, struggling to his feet.

  “I don’t know,” Addie said. “I woke
up, and he was gone.”

  Shy sloshed through the ankle-high water to the life jacket, picked it up, looked over the side of the boat. No sign of Mr. Henry. He remembered the strange conversation from the night before. The hug. He must’ve known all along that he was going to throw himself overboard.

  Just like the comb-over man.

  When Shy saw how upset Addie was, he dropped the life jacket and made his way back to her, saying: “At least he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. You saw how bad it was getting.”

  “I know,” she said, rubbing her temples. “It’s not just him, though. It’s everything. I want to go home.”

  “So do I,” he said.

  As Addie looked up at him, Shy noticed how much thinner she looked than when they’d first met on the Lido Deck. And her hair was a blond, tangled mess. Her face sunburned and peeling. For the first time since the ship went down, Shy wondered what he looked like, how much his own appearance had changed.

  Tears started spilling out of Addie’s eyes and running down her cheeks. She brushed a few off and said: “We’re not gonna make it, are we, Shy?”

  The look on her face killed him, and he leaned over and patted her shoulder, awkwardly. “Listen…,” he said, but then he trailed off. He wanted to say something important, something reassuring, but nothing like that came to him because it wasn’t true.

  “All I know is this,” he finally said. “We’re gonna spend the day paddling. Same direction as yesterday. And I’m gonna catch us a damn fish this time. You hear me, Addie? Even if I have to dive my ass in there and choke one out with my bare hands.”

  He thought she might smile at that last part, but she only nodded and looked to where Mr. Henry used to sit, wiping more tears from her face.

  The sun climbed slowly into the cloudless sky, warming the air around them. Shy’s hands were blistered, and his back and shoulders ached. He had so little strength now, he could only make the boat creep forward a little at a time with the oar. But he kept working. And he kept thinking about Mr. Henry and Addie’s dad, and he kept remembering the man in the black suit, Bill, asking all those questions in the Luxury Lounge and then hurrying away from Carmen’s cabin after the ship alarm went off. There was something he wasn’t understanding, something bigger than just a man jumping overboard. But his mind was too slow to put it all together.