The Secret of Othello

by Sam Cameron

  He started to walk toward his car and was startled when Denny dashed forward and blocked him.

  “I screwed up, and I’m sorry,” he said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Brian said, “It doesn’t work like that. There’s no magic fix-it when you hurt someone.”

  “But I want to try,” Denny insisted. “Let me try.”

  “Don’t go to your aunt’s party,” Brian said. “Skip it. Spend the day with me.”

  It was a terrible thing to ask, because Sean had said and Brian knew for sure how much family meant to Andersons. At the same time, Brian needed to know that he was important, too. That he mattered as much as family, especially if Denny was going to start throwing a word like love around. For a moment he thought Denny might even agree, and hope flared in his cold chest.

  But Denny said, “I can’t back out.”

  “But you can back out on me,” Brian said, stung. “Thanks a lot. Get out of the way.”

  Denny didn’t move.

  “Go,” Brian said, more sternly. Denny stepped aside. Brian got into his car and drove off and didn’t look back; he didn’t want to see Denny’s expression, and at that moment didn’t even care if he ever saw him again.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Steven decided that no trio of girls was ever going to scare him from his own turf. With Denny off in the bathroom, he got up from the booth and sauntered over to the round table. Well, sauntered as much as he could with a slightly gimpy knee. He ended up standing between Kelsey and Melissa, both of whom resolutely ignored his most charming smile.

  “If it isn’t Fisher Key’s most amazingly beautiful ladies,” he said.

  “I hear a gnat,” Jennifer said blithely.

  “I hear a flea,” Kelsey returned. “Maybe a flea on the back of a gnat.”

  Melissa consulted her phone. “I hear a tick on a flea on a gnat. Maybe we can get some pesticide with our salads.”

  Steven didn’t let his smile dim a single watt. “Whatever microscopic insect I am, I can’t stop thinking about any of you.”

  Kelsey picked up her glass of water. He eyed it warily, hoping she didn’t throw it, but she only took a delicate sip.

  “It’s not a flea or a tick or a gnat,” she said. “It’s rat.”

  Melissa flicked Steven a disdainful gaze. “A large, smelly, diseased rat.”

  He thought that was harsh—he certainly didn’t have any diseases.

  “A rat that should sink with its ship,” Jennifer added, and that didn’t make much sense at all.

  “Can’t I sit down and explain?” he asked, using his best puppy-dog eyes. “Or are you just going to condemn a man without knowing the full story?”

  The three of them exchanged silent looks.

  “You can stand there and explain,” Jennifer said archly. “You’ve got sixty seconds.”

  Steven dipped his head. “I guess it started when the tree fell on our house and I lost everything I owned. Then the SEALs told me I didn’t pass the vision test, and they’re not going to let me go to boot camp. Then Denny hired us out to this guy and his daughter, and they’ve been driving us nuts all week—”

  Kelsey perked up. “Tristan! Jen, I told you about her. One minute she’s completely nice and the next you think she’s going to rip your head off.”

  Confused, Steven asked, “How do you know her?”

  “I’ve been babysitting her little brother all week,” Kelsey said. “I’m completely happy they’re leaving tomorrow.”

  Melissa was giving Steven a sympathetic look. “I heard about your house. I didn’t know you lost everything.”

  Jennifer asked, “Why didn’t you tell us about the SEALs? They can’t just not let you join now!”

  Soon he was sitting at their table, sharing more of his woes, basking in some well-deserved sympathy. Several minutes passed before he realized that Sean and Brian had left and Denny had never come back from the bathroom. Louanne Garrity had brought his cheeseburger to his new seat, but Denny’s food was untouched back in their booth.

  Steven really hoped Denny wasn’t hiding in a stall.

  “Have you seen my brother?” he asked Louanne when she refilled their drinks.

  “He left,” she said. She hadn’t completely warmed up to Steven, but was at least not frosty cold anymore. “I saw him crossing the highway a few minutes ago.”

  “Headed which way?”

  “I am not your brother’s keeper,” she said.

  Steven checked his phone—no messages—but didn’t chase after him. He was still starving, and his cheeseburger tasted great (if a little charred), and Denny could take care of himself. Plus he couldn’t be rude and leave the girls, right?

  “What about the test tomorrow?” Jennifer asked. “Is anyone going with you?”

  “The master chief recruiter will be there,” Steven said.

  Melissa volunteered, “I have to go up to Miami—I could drive you.”

  “No, I could drive him,” Kelsey said.

  “You have to babysit,” Jennifer said sweetly. “I can do it.”

  Kelsey’s gaze narrowed. “You promised not to push him.”

  “I’m not pushing,” Jennifer said. “He can decide on his own.”

  “I can leave whenever you want, and I’m going up anyway,” Melissa said helpfully.

  Both Jennifer and Kelsey turned on her with venomous looks.

  “I have to find Denny,” Steven said, pushing back his chair. He dropped twenty dollars on the table. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Call who?” they demanded.

  He fled before he had to answer.

  *

  Denny started walking. He didn’t have any destination or goal in mind, just the urgent need to get away from all the bleeding pieces of his heart in the Li’l Conch parking lot.

  You did this to yourself, he thought.

  You shouldn’t have lied.

  He decided that relationships sucked. They tricked you with promises of happiness and milestone events (eighteen days might as well be a thousand now, might as well be eternity) and ripped you up and spat you out. He’d been better off when he didn’t have anything like a boyfriend. He should have stayed that way rather than risk the kind of pain he was experiencing now.

  Denny walked and he walked, on roads he’d known all his life, past buildings and landmarks and trees burned into his brain, and felt relief that he’d be going away. Huge, incredible relief that he wouldn’t have to stay and revisit the scenes of his own mistakes, over and over. Maybe he could even go to New London early. Take a bus up, find someplace cheap to stay… Brad’s money would be put to good use, and make the whole week of diving worthwhile.

  It was dark by the time he found himself standing outside the Bookmine. The lights were on in the upstairs apartment. He could see his mother up there, standing by the sink. He wanted to be mad at her for telling Brian but she hadn’t known any better. Aunt Riza moved into his line of sight, bustling about with frying pan full of something. It was a lot easier to blame her. She’d forced him into a compromise he shouldn’t have made. But he’d gone into it with his eyes open, and it wasn’t her fault he’d screwed it up by lying to Brian.

  Still, when Brian had essentially said choose me or choose your family, Denny hadn’t been able to do it. Couldn’t say he’d cancel the party. It was too important to both Aunt Riza and Mom.

  With a sigh, he let himself into the closed store and punched the security code into the panel. The stacks were all dark except for some red emergency exit lighting. He got a flashlight from behind the counter and headed for the aisle about the military. Not history, not photography, but here, books about famous and not-so-famous Coast Guard rescues. He’d owned most of them but lost them when his and Steven’s bedroom got drenched.

  Denny sat down on the rugged floor, his back against the shelves, and started reading.

  His phone beeped with a message from Steven: where r u?

  Nowhere, Denny typed back.
Don’t worry.

  Upstairs, a pair of footsteps moved across the floor. He ignored them. It was nice and dim and cool in the aisles, and he was happy to be alone.

  r u sulking? Steven asked.

  Denny ignored him.

  He tried to concentrate on the story in front of him—two tankers sinking in a New England hurricane—but he kept thinking about Brian, and where Brian was right now, and if Brian really meant for him to go away forever, and what if Brian did end up dating Sean? That would be reason enough to never come back to Fisher Key.

  A circle of light appeared at the end of the aisle, and then a flashlight beam found on him.

  “What are you doing, Denny?” his mother asked.

  Blinded, he raised a hand up. “Nothing.”

  Mom shifted her beam away and came to sit on the floor beside him. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing the pink Coast Guard Mom T-shirt that Denny had bought her last Christmas.

  “I was really quiet,” he said. “How’d you know I was here?”

  Mom said, “Your brother called. He thought maybe you had a fight with Brian and you’d come here.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because, you know, moms are pretty awful when it comes to advice about emotions or love.”

  Denny went back to staring at the pages in his lap, although his vision had gone a little blurry. “You can’t love someone you’ve only known for a few weeks.”

  Mom nodded sagely. “That’s exactly what I told your father. Silly man.”

  Alarmed, Denny said, “You told him I had a fight with Brian?”

  Her face scrunched up. “No, I’m talking about twenty-one years ago. When we met. We dated five times in two weeks and then he said he loved me. I said he was foolish.”

  Heavier footsteps thumped above them. Dad was home.

  “Five dates isn’t a lot,” Denny said.

  “I agree.”

  Denny was quiet for a moment. He could hear Mom breathing and smell her floral perfume, but she was quiet, too.

  “What did Dad say?” he asked.

  “He said that if you’re a bowling pin in an alley, and a big twelve-pound ball smacks into you, you know it.”

  Skeptically, Denny asked, “Dad used a bowling analogy?”

  “He was very big into bowling once,” Mom said, as if sharing a special secret. “That was our first date. A bowling alley in Hialeah. I specialized in gutter balls and he broke two hundred.”

  “And still you got married,” Denny said.

  “After we dated for a year,” she said.

  “So love is like a bowling ball.”

  Mom patted his leg. “Love is what it is. Bowling ball, lightning strike, chemistry—it doesn’t matter if you feel it right away or feel it after a year. You can’t help it. And you don’t want to. When you and Steven were born, I loved you the minute I stopped screaming in pain.”

  Denny winced. “Way to ruin the special moment, Mom.”

  “That’s my job. Are you hungry? There’s food upstairs with your name on it.”

  Denny thumped his head softly against the shelves. “I don’t think I can deal with Aunt Riza right now.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “If that’s the case, I know a pizza place not too far away. You could walk me there, and I can pretend you’re not going to be moving away in three weeks, right out of my life.”

  Mom said that last part cheerfully, but the expression on her face made his vision go watery again.

  Denny reached forward and hugged her. He wanted to remember this: sitting in the bookstore that he’d practically grown up in, him and his small, strong, incredible mom.

  “Let’s get some pizza,” he said. “My treat.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The only person on the island with a worse social life than Steven’s was Eddie, so he went to Eddie’s house and found him doing something completely out of character—cleaning the place from top to bottom.

  “What is this?” Steven asked, standing in a kitchen filled with garbage bags. “Are you being evicted?”

  Eddie was standing at the kitchen counter with his hands covered with dishwashing soap. “Very funny. Make yourself useful and haul those outside, why don’t you?”

  Steven liked being useful. He stashed the garbage bags in the outside bins and returned to see Eddie washing dishes as if his life depended on it.

  “What’s with the clean campaign?” Steven asked.

  “My grandmother is coming from Columbus,” Eddie said. “First time in twenty years. Mom says if we make a good impression, she’ll give us money.”

  As far as motives went, it wasn’t the best that Steven had ever heard. On the other hand, anything that got Eddie off the sofa and actually doing something was something to be applauded.

  Eddie asked, “How do you feel about emptying the refrigerator?”

  “I don’t think our friendship could survive that,” Steven said, frankly. He’d seen the shelves inside, and they reminded him of a toxic waste dump. “How about I do the dishes and you do the refrigerator?”

  Ten minutes later, Steven’s hands were lemon-smelling and starting to prune, while Eddie was tackling the refrigerator with a painter’s mask over his face. Steven told him about the femme fatale trio of Jennifer, Kelsey, and Melissa, and Eddie said it was all very cruel.

  “What’s cruel? That I didn’t call?”

  “That you’ve got three otherwise smart girls fighting over you when they could be fighting over me,” Eddie said.

  The word “fighting” reminded Steven of Jamie Harrison. His knee was still sore, but some aspirin earlier was helping that. He told Eddie about the weather satellite and the Othello II, and how he expected Harrison to show up and cause trouble.

  Eddie hauled out a plastic bowl of mold. “But he hasn’t?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “Do you think this bowl is worth saving?”

  “I’ll buy you another at the dollar store if you throw it away right now.”

  After a few hours’ work the kitchen looked reasonably clean, although Steven decided that scrubbing the interior of the tomato-sauce-crusted microwave was outside of his job description. They ended up in the living room, moving aside piles of clothing and unopened mail so that they could watch TV.

  “Have you considered the idea that maybe you and your mom are hoarders?” Steven asked.

  “I think we’re just slobs,” Eddie said.

  They watched TV and drank some beer and Steven could almost forget that tomorrow’s vision test would determine his entire future and on Saturday he had to take a black belt test with Sensei Mike’s “surprise” factored into the equation. He thought about telling Eddie about the test but didn’t want to jinx himself. By midnight he was back on the Idle, where Denny was already sacked out and snoring.

  Steven woke him up by shaking his shoulder.

  “What?” Denny asked crankily, without opening his eyes.

  “What if I don’t pass tomorrow?” Steven asked.

  “Huh?” Denny cracked open one eye. “You woke me up for that?”

  It was dark on the boat and all over Fisher Key. Steven thought maybe the two of them were the only ones awake on the whole island. Which was silly, of course, but he couldn’t shake the feeling.

  “Yes, I woke you up for that,” he said crossly.

  Denny blinked at him. “If you don’t pass you’ll do something else. Haven’t I already made five thousand suggestions?”

  “You made three. Maybe four.”

  “Same thing. Go to sleep.” Denny burrowed into his pillow, conversation over.

  The next morning Steven swallowed more aspirin and ran two miles, which was hardly anything at all. His knee twinged once or twice, but seemed overall fine. He was showered and ready to leave by eight o’clock. The drive to Master Chief King’s office wouldn’t take that long, but who knew what might happen on the Overseas Highway—
car accidents, jackknifed trucks, dead alligators, or maybe even a collapsed bridge or two.

  Denny had slept in late and was drinking coffee as Steven triple-checked the directions on his phone.

  “I could take it for you,” Denny reminded him.

  “I think Master Chief King would notice the difference.”

  “All I have to do is drop my IQ ten points,” Denny said.

  “You’re pretty cheerful for someone whose heart got crushed,” Steven said suspiciously.

  Denny’s smirk sobered up. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “You didn’t patch things up yet?”

  “I don’t think he wants to.”

  “Of course he wants to,” Steven said. “Nobody dumps an Anderson. Take him out for a day at sea, do whatever you have to.”

  “I’ll be sure to keep your advice in mind,” Denny replied. His gaze went toward the parking lot. “Dad’s here.”

  Steven squinted at the unmarked sedan the sheriff’s office used. “Maybe he brought doughnuts.”

  “Maybe he wants to wish you good luck.” Denny said.

  When Steven went up to the parking lot, his father was waiting against the hood of the sedan. He was in uniform, no doughnuts, a calm look on his face.

  “I thought maybe I’d drive you up there,” he said. “Make sure you don’t run into any trouble on the way.”

  Steven tried not to cringe. “Dad. I won’t run into trouble.”

  “I didn’t say I’d go to the appointment with you,” Dad continued, as if he hadn’t heard Steven at all. “Just drive you up there, do some work of my own, and drive you back.”

  Steven didn’t know how to tell him it would be embarrassing. He opened his mouth, but Dad held up a forestalling hand.

  “I know you don’t need help,” Dad said. “I know you can do it on your own. And I know you think maybe I’m treating you like a kid. But maybe I’m doing this for me, okay? I haven’t seen you lately. I’d like to see you more before you go off to boot camp.”

  Steven bit back his surprise. “Dad, I might not pass. There might not be a boot camp at all.”

  Dad made a skeptical noise. “Steven, sooner or later, you’re going to end up exactly where you belong. Maybe it’s the SEALs, maybe it’s the Marines, maybe it’s the Coast Guard like your brother. But you’re going to end up somewhere, and no stupid vision test is going to stand in your way.”