Devil Sharks

by Chris Jameson

  She didn’t have to use Harry’s name for Alex to know who she meant.

  “I agree, but don’t worry, honey. He’ll remind me why I hate him soon enough. He always does.”

  * * *

  The phrase “coconut mojitos” had inspired a certain amount of dread in Sami’s heart. It sounded like the kind of drink someone had invented just to sound trendy and that people had claimed to like for the same reason. She changed her mind as soon as she’d had her first sip. Luisa smiled knowingly at her and nodded, like they’d both just been caught lusting after the same handsome coworker on an elevator.

  “I’d better eat something if we’re going to just sit on the deck and drink,” she said, mostly to Alex but also to Luisa.

  “Why?” Luisa said, sliding closer to her. “What are you afraid you’ll do if you have too much to drink?”

  The woman’s grin had annoyed her before, but now it just seemed playful. It occurred to Sami that maybe Alex hadn’t been the only one who really needed to unclench and unwind.

  “Life makes you uptight,” she confessed, taking another sip of coconut mojito. “If I relax too much, I might unravel.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Luisa said.

  Alex laughed and sipped at his own drink. “So would I.”

  Sami glanced at him. “Careful what you wish for, sweetheart.”

  One by one the others joined them. There were two lounge chairs and a hammock just forward from the cockpit, in view of the wheelhouse windows above, and they all gathered around these. She admired the colorful surfboards strapped to the back of the cockpit, additional testament—if any might be needed—that Harry had dedicated his boat to fun and adventure.

  Sami had to admit that she was, indeed, having fun, and she knew Alex was, too. But it felt strange to be so far away from their daughter, Tasha, to look at the water and think of the thousands of miles separating them. It would only be a week, and Tasha was only six—likely too young to remember much about their absence as she got older—but Sami still felt guilty. She had called her mother earlier and asked her to put Tasha on the phone. The little girl had sounded happy enough to play with her grandmother, and excited to know that her mommy and daddy were going to bring surprises back from Hawaii for her, but that didn’t completely erase Sami’s guilty feeling. And it didn’t keep her from missing her little girl.

  Coconut mojitos were helping.

  Nils and Patrick claimed the hammock together and Alliyah and Dev landed in the loungers while the rest of them sprawled on the deck, seated on cushions Harry kept packed away for just this purpose. While Gabe got the dinghy hoisted up at the back of the boat, Harry had gone below to prepare dinner. Sami drank and laughed, but her thoughts drifted to their host. The guy had gone to great expense and great trouble for this trip. It was only the first day, but he had to be exhausted already, and now he was down in the galley making dinner. Maybe he didn’t know how to talk to people without coming off like an arrogant prick, but if he truly was as selfish as Alex remembered him, it hadn’t shown today.

  When Gabe had secured the dinghy, he passed them on the way to the wheelhouse. Luisa leaped up from the deck, spilling a few drops of mojito, and practically sashayed over to him. Whatever her relationship might be to her home-alone husband, she seemed intent on forgetting his existence on this trip. Quiet as Gabe was, Luisa’s head tilt, hair flip, and girlish laughter drew a smile from him.

  “Like a lion on the veldt,” Alex said, nuzzling at Sami’s ear. “Luisa stalks her prey.”

  “He’s not unattractive,” Sami noted with another sip of her drink.

  “Hello? Husband sitting right here.”

  She smiled. “Wife just stating the obvious.”

  Alex sighed and spread out on the deck, enjoying the breeze as the sun slid toward the horizon. Sami ignored him. They both knew she wasn’t about to try to seduce the first mate, or anyone else for that matter. But Gabe did draw the eye, and not just hers. She’d noticed Alliyah watching him as well. Cat, however—the only single woman on the boat—didn’t seem interested at all. That was all right, though. Sami would check him out on Cat’s behalf. Bronzed and blond, Gabe would have looked like an aging surfer if not for the scars on his hands from ropes and fishing line and the weathered wisdom in his eyes.

  Over by the starboard railing, Luisa touched Gabe on the arm and then sauntered back to the cushion she’d been sitting on earlier. She dropped down beside Sami while Gabe walked by, headed up to the wheelhouse. They’d be setting sail now, which meant Harry and Gabe would both be occupied for a while.

  No more drinks till dinner, Sami promised herself.

  “I can’t decide if that guy’s life is sad or romantic,” Luisa said, resting on her elbow.

  “You mean because he never sees his family?”

  Luisa’s gaze wandered to the horizon, where the sun had turned a vivid orange as it touched the edge of the world. “He doesn’t seem to mind. They come see him every few years, apparently. He just told me he never wants to go anywhere he can’t sail to on a boat half the size of this one.”

  Sami took another sip of coconut mojito. “Both.”

  “Say again?”

  Alex spoke up without opening his eyes. “She means it’s both. Romantic and sad.”

  They were quiet for a few seconds before Luisa spoke up. “I need another fucking drink.”

  * * *

  They’d been under way for more than two hours, all gathered under the awning of the outside cockpit. Harry had outdone himself with Kalua pig, slow roasted at home before the trip and prepared with long rice, with a spicy pineapple salsa on the side. Throughout the meal, the drinks flowed and Alex kept stealing glances at Harry, wondering how the guy he’d been so angry at for so long had the patience and generosity of spirit to prepare this food for them. He’d assumed Harry wanted to show off, to swagger around the deck taking credit, but he brushed off every compliment and expression of gratitude, seeming more at ease out here on the water, among the islands, than Alex had ever imagined he could be.

  They all laughed about old times and their spouses put up with it. Cat brought out her guitar at Nalani’s urging and the two of them sang old songs from Paramore and The National. Stories of their college days came out like knives in the Roman Senate, but none of them minded so much, and the knives weren’t as sharp as they could have been. Alex knew stories about his college friends that would have horrified their spouses—if those respective significant others didn’t already know. For his part, he’d told Sami his own ugly truths long ago, the things he wasn’t proud of, but he wasn’t going to assume that about his friends’ lives. Luisa, of course, needed no prodding. She talked freely about the two shy Japanese high school boys she’d bedded when they were visiting the campus for an overnight, trying to choose a college. She’d been a junior. The tale of a drunken blow job that ended with vomit gave the gathering a good laugh, but also a chance to recoil in disgust.

  “Really?” Alliyah said, tucking her legs beneath her on the cushioned bench. “You’ll tell that story but not tell everyone who you puked on?”

  Luisa smirked and shrugged.

  Harry raised his hand. “I confess, I was the puked-on party.”

  “I’ve heard that story a thousand times,” Nils said, curling a bit closer to Patrick. “It’s nasty every time.”

  “Really?” Luisa sprawled back on the bench like a queen among her subjects. “All the dicks you’ve sucked, and you’ve never gagged a little?”

  Alex bristled, thinking they’d all relaxed too much, that spending time with friends from another era didn’t mean they had to behave as if they hadn’t matured in the years since. But Nils only rolled his eyes and glanced at his husband. Patrick leaned his head forward as if to confide something to Luisa, though they could all hear him.

  “Here’s the thing, Lulu,” Patrick said. “The experts never gag. You just need more practice.”

  Harry hooted and clapped his hands. A r
ipple of laughter went around the circle, there under the awning as the Kid Galahad glided across the Pacific, its sails full and ghostly against the night sky. For a moment, it really did feel like they were back in college, all of them together. Alex smiled and took another drink, glancing at Sami and then pulling her close. He kissed his wife, drawing whistles from Cat and Nalani, who snuggled up to her own husband as well.

  “I was twenty,” Luisa said with a comical huff. “Though if I’m drunk enough to be honest, I haven’t had nearly as much practice since then as I’d have liked.”

  “Is that why you left your husband at home?” Alex asked.

  The laughter died. They all stared at him, mouths open in shock like a bunch of Christmas nutcrackers.

  Alex threw his hands up. “What? You were all thinking it.”

  Cat strummed a chord on her guitar, played a few ominous notes. “We were. But nobody thought Alex Simmons would be the one to say it.”

  Luisa touched her nose and pointed at Cat. “There you go.”

  “To be fair,” Dev piped up, “you do have a reputation as the righteous one.”

  Alex laughed. “I’ll take it.”

  Sami kissed his cheek. “Give him a drink too many and you’d be surprised what he gets up to.”

  “Oh, really?” Alliyah said. “Do tell.”

  “That’s enough of that,” Alex said. “Let’s put the spotlight back on Luisa, where she likes it.”

  More laughter, and then Cat’s fingers danced along the neck of her guitar and she played the complicated opening notes of something Alex almost recognized, knew he ought to remember. Something from their glory days.

  Harry cleared his throat. He stood, sea legs easily handling the tilt of the boat.

  “I’ve got to thank you all for coming. You honestly don’t know what it means to me. I’ve got to confess, I really didn’t think you’d all come.” He didn’t identify Alex by name, but a glance said it all. “I’m truly grateful to have you—”

  “And we’re grateful for this gift you’ve given us,” Nalani said.

  Harry nodded. “It’s my pleasure.” He raised his glass. “But you all know there’s one person who should be here but isn’t. I never understood why he left us—”

  “Don’t,” Alex warned.

  “—I think about him all the time. About what I could’ve said, or should’ve said. So after this perfect day, with what I hope are more perfect days to come, I just wanted to take a second to remember Derek Li.”

  Alex shifted on the bench. “Are you serious with this shit?”

  Sami grabbed his arm to keep him from getting up.

  “Come on, Alex,” Cat said, narrowing her eyes. That gave him pause. Cat was the calmest, most rational, of them. If she thought he was the one out of line, he knew he had to rein it in.

  “Cat…”

  “It’s okay,” Harry said, with what might have been faux sincerity or genuine regret. With him it had always been hard to tell. “I was a prick when Derek died. I didn’t know how to handle it and it scared the shit out of me that someone I knew could take his own life. It shook me.”

  “You hid it well,” Alex said.

  Harry sat down, perched again on the edge of his own bench, across from Alex. He kept his glass raised.

  “You don’t have to forgive me, Alex. I’m sure I wouldn’t, if I were you. But I hope we can all agree that Derek deserves to be remembered. I just wanted to toast to the guy, to share a moment with you all so we could shout out to the universe or whatever and say we wish he was here with us tonight. Can we do that?”

  Alex exhaled. He glanced around at the others and then back to Harry, and finally nodded and raised his glass. “Yeah, man. Of course we can.”

  “To Derek,” Harry said.

  They all chimed in, those who’d known their lost friend and those who’d only heard stories about him. Alex drank, and thought of Derek, and wished that Harry hadn’t been the one to make the toast. Derek deserved to be remembered by the people who’d actually grieved for him.

  “Hey,” Harry said. “We good?”

  Alex nodded, raised his glass, and took another sip, as if toasting to the uneasy truce between them.

  “Good, because there’s something else I wanted to talk to you all about.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Nils said.

  “No. Just personal,” Harry replied. “And I hope you’ll indulge me, because as great as it is to have you all with me, it’s not the only reason for this trip.”

  Sami shifted on the bench. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know how many of you ever knew this, or if you’d remember,” Harry said, “but my dad was in the Coast Guard, once upon a time.”

  Cat kept her fingers over the strings of her guitar to keep them silent, as if they had a voice of their own. “I remember.”

  Harry raised his glass to her but didn’t drink. “If anyone would, it’s you, Cat. Anyway, my dad passed a few years back. He was a good man, better than me by a hundred miles. He always talked about his time in the Coast Guard as the most peaceful time of his life, which is ironic, right? He was stationed at a place called Orchid Atoll, said it was paradise, hundreds of miles from anything. The Coast Guard station there has been shut down for years, but if it’s okay with all of you, I’d like us to visit Orchid Atoll tomorrow. Pay my respects and … I don’t know, connect with that part of my dad’s life. We’ll come back to Hawaii the next day, do all of the islands, but if nobody minds—”

  “Nobody minds, Harry,” Nils said, glancing around at the others for confirmation. “Right?”

  They went around the circle, reassuring Harry, enthusiastic about the adventure and sympathetic over the loss of his father, about which it seemed only Luisa had been aware. Sami told Harry they were honored to go with him and intrigued by visiting an atoll. Alex agreed, though he couldn’t help wondering what their precise heading might be at that moment. They’d left Kauai hours ago and had been sailing ever since. Had they been sailing toward Orchid Atoll all along without Harry bothering to bring it up until now? If so, how much did Harry really give a shit about getting their blessing? Alex didn’t mind the side trip. Sami was right; it was an honor and an intriguing prospect and he’d never have denied Harry the moment he was obviously searching for. But this was quintessential Harry, doing exactly what he wanted and manipulating others into going along, even making it seem like they’d volunteered.

  Alex raised a glass and offered a toast to Harry’s father, for which Harry looked genuinely grateful. Alex meant it, too. However his son might be wired, Alex wasn’t going to blame a dead man for it.

  “Can I just ask…,” Dev began.

  Alliyah smiled at her husband. “He’s nervous.”

  “Terrified, actually,” Dev confessed with a self-deprecating laugh. “I think I’ve been hiding it pretty well till now, but … okay, the Coast Guard station is closed. Is there anything else out there? I mean, how far will we be from civilization?”

  “At least three hundred miles,” Harry said. “But I promise you, Dev, you’re in good hands. I know what I’m doing, and Gabe is the best first mate I could ask for.”

  Sami chuckled. “I know someone who’d like to be in Gabe’s good hands.”

  Luisa shot up her hand to volunteer before anyone could ask. “Me, oh, me.”

  * * *

  Later that night, when Harry had gone down to relieve Gabe at the helm for a few hours and many of the others had gone to bed, Alex stood at the forward port railing and gazed out at the moonlit water. He didn’t share Dev’s fear of the sea, but out here, with only the night and the waves and the hundred-foot boat seeming so very small, he could understand that terror. They were so alone, so separate from the rest of the world, that they might as well be the last people on earth. In that moment, head still a bit muzzy from the drinks, heart soaring with the sounds of the wind in the sails and the clank of the rigging and the power of the wind, it was easy to imagine they truly were
the last of the human race.

  “Hey.”

  Alex nearly missed the word on the wind, but he turned and saw Alliyah sidling up to him. She’d tied her hair back, but a curling lock had escaped its band and whipped across her eyes. She tried to tuck it away but to no avail, so she ignored it.

  “How’s Dev?” he asked.

  She smiled. “He’ll live. Half a Xanax a day will do the job. I don’t want him to take a whole one because I’m afraid he’ll fall overboard.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Listen, Alex, we’re off to bed, but I just wanted to say I’m really happy you and Sami came. I know it’s not easy for you with Harry, but I think it’s good. For you and for all of us. And on a personal note … I thought it might be weird, being here with you and my husband and your wife.”

  He leaned on the railing, giving her a sideways glance. “Alli, you and I dated for a month.”

  “I know. Just a month. But it wasn’t like Luisa hooking up with Harry—”

  “Thank God.”

  She laughed, lifting a hand to hide her smile when she did. “That’s what I’m saying. You and I were a bad idea as a couple, but we did have a romantic something, as opposed to a couple of torrid nights and a vomit-inducing blow job. I just thought it might be awkward, but I’m glad it’s not.”

  “Well, it wasn’t,” Alex teased. “Until now.”

  He glanced past her and saw Dev and Sami talking to Luisa alongside the cockpit. Sami wasn’t the jealous type, but Alex saw her forehead crinkle with curiosity when she spotted him talking to Alliyah.

  “Listen, I think we’re going to turn in, too,” he said.

  “Holy shit, look at that.”

  Alex turned to see Alliyah pointing out at the night-black sea. The moonlight frosted the water, but he spotted the fin immediately.

  “Wow.”

  “Tell me that’s a dolphin,” she said.

  “Nope. They usually surface and go right back down. I’m no expert, but swimming along like that … pretty sure it’s a shark.”

  “Wonderful,” Alliyah said. “I don’t think I’ll be sharing that with Dev.”