The Infinite Ocean

Scott woke hung over and alone. Emma was teaching her last morning yoga class. Charlie had disappeared. Scott leaned over the upper deck and shook out his sandals, sending a scorpion falling to the ground.

He needed to patch up things with Charlie. Emma wouldn’t trust him until he did. From her perspective, Scott hadn’t defended her by punching out Charlie, whether what he had said insulted her or not. Scott had lost his grip on some grudge. And, he and Emma and Charlie were leaving for Chicago tomorrow.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Scott didn’t understand the dynamics himself. He’d never been in love before and his friends teased him like high school kids. Ha-ha, will you look at that? Thirty-four year old Scott as eager and silly as an overgrown puppy.

When they weren’t laughing at him, his friends said he’d dump Emma tomorrow. A dead-wrong appraisal and they knew it. But if they kept warning Emma about how bad he was, she might believe them. She might run off.

Showered and dressed, he drank water and orange juice. After his concussion, he shouldn’t drink alcohol. Last night he hadn’t drunk much and yet it had proved far too much. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have attacked Charlie. So Emma was right.

At least he knew where to find Charlie. He hurried along paths and called up the huge tree supporting three decks. “Hey, Trevor! All right if I come up?”

Scott yelled twice, before Trevor hollered back, “Shut up!” He was giving Erica a massage, and thanks to the interruption, needed to start over. Scott heard murmuring and could see the marijuana smoke hanging like clouds before he smelled it. He was leaving when a rope ladder tumbled off the lowest deck. Charlie’s face appeared in the branches.  “Are you sorry? Because if you’re not, go away!”

“I’m sorry!” Scott was terribly sorry. But still, a tree house! And here they were accusing him of living a fantasy.

Charlie climbed down the swinging ladder quicker than Scott thought he could. A solid surfer, Charlie nonetheless maintained what a he called “a proud Buddha belly.”

Facing him, Scott winced and said, “I’m really sorry.” Charlie’s lip was split and both eyes were swollen. Scott couldn’t remember why he had refused to play music with Charlie. 

“You’ll go on stage us? You, me, and Emma doing the old songs?”

Scott remembered then; the old songs frustrated him. That was his fault, he told Charlie, and “I’ll get over it.”

Charlie dusted off his baggy shorts and a tight, dark surfer’s shirt. “Trevor lives like an animal.”

They drank coffee in the yoga pavilion and waited for Emma.

“She cleaned up everything,” Scott said. “Did all the dishes and put them away.”

“Hours of work,” Charlie shook his head. “Hours. Where were you, asleep?”   

Scott shrugged and Charlie said, “She loves you as much as you love her. Soon as we get home, you should buy her a ring.”

The yoga class ended and Emma and everyone else lined up for brunch. Charlie stood behind the counter serving everyone. Emma and Scott ate on a separate bench.

“God, Scott, his face!”

He told her that he and Charlie had pounded each other like that since they were kids. “Stupid relapse,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

Soon Charlie joined them with a tray he rested on the railing: pancakes and eggs, cinnamon bread, flan, pineapple crumble, and two glasses of cocoanut milk. Emma was the one who said, “Pig. Are you afraid you’ll never eat again?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered, mouth full, “is an all-day fast. You know those planes. Not even a snack anymore.”

Scott was the one who wanted to walk back along the beach. They could stop at Nando’s on the way. Folded in Scott’s pocket were papers; he had set up a trust for Nando’s baby girl, accessible when she turned eighteen.

It was before one p.m. The light and heat were so intense that Emma clung to the shade. But Charlie plunged into the ocean and Scott waded in after him, telling him to wait; they would go swimming later.

Underwater, Charlie pulled Scott’s feet out from under him. They rose from the transparent waves and shoved each other. Charlie said, “A few minutes, that’s all.”

Scott reminded him of how sunburned he’d gotten when they were surfing. Charlie slapped at his surfer’s shirt. “And I really slathered on the sunscreen. Trevor’s a freak but there isn’t an oil or cream he doesn’t stock.”

“Two minutes,” Scott said and stepped into the shade with Emma.

He played with her hair and asked if she’d go directly to his place tomorrow night. “We can stop by your parents’ later, and get the rest of your stuff.”

Emma shaded her eyes with her hand. She squinted at the ocean. Suddenly, she grabbed Scott’s hand. “I don’t see him! Do you? I was watching him and now I don’t see him!”

Scott ran to the water’s edge. He yelled Charlie’s name. He ran up and down along the shore, shouting. He didn’t see Charlie, either.

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