More muffled voices. “You worked on Fourth of July, she says. Surely you get some holidays off.”
Anders was about to explain the way a daily newspaper worked for the hundredth time, when his sister said: “You what? Mom.”
“What?” Anders said, growing impatient with the mediation.
“She says she invited Celeste.”
He nearly choked on another sip of soda, the froth sputtering out of his mouth. “What? Why?”
“She’s not practically family, Mom. They broke up.”
Anders cringed. His mind flashed to Celeste in her white sundress last year, her hair swept up in a messy knot. He preferred it that way, her perfect neck on display. There was something vulnerable about it, sexy. He sighed again.
“Look, Kels, I’m working. I’ve got to go.”
“OK—well, just look at the website. Maybe you’ll meet someone and can bring her to—”
Anders hung up and slunk down in his chair. He glanced at the Wikipedia page and then clicked off of it, not caring anymore about Frick Island. He navigated to his email and wavered the pointer over Kelsey’s newest message before hitting delete. Then, in an effort to forget about his exhausting conversation with his sister and Celeste’s perfect neck, he opened Jess’s email and clicked on the Humane Society link, which took him to a series of pictures of homeless dogs with names like Chip and Pepe and Stella staring at him with sad, hopeful eyes. Maybe he would get a dog. He could be a dog person like Celeste’s new boyfriend, couldn’t he? He had no idea what the guy looked like, but he pictured him as one of those Ken doll Bachelorette contestants from Kelsey’s favorite show—a guy with coiffed hair and skinny jeans and K-Swiss sneakers tossing tennis balls at the park for Lola, showing off a row of perfect toothpaste-commercial teeth when he threw back his head in masculine, effortless laughter.
Movement on the wall drew his attention, and Anders jumped up, letting out a squeak and grabbing the can of Raid he kept out for this purpose. With lightning-quick speed, he popped the top off and directed the nozzle at the offensive target scurrying across the beige wall, leaving a trail of God knows what disgusting diseases in its wake. The cockroach dropped to the ground on its back, its fibrous legs still twitching, as if looking for purchase. Heart thudding, Anders sprayed it again in disgust, waiting for the poison to take effect. He glanced back at the screen of virile dogs and noticed it had gone black, so all he was looking at was the vague reflection of his own freckle-painted pale skin and unmanageable cowlick that refused to be tamed no matter how much he smoothed it. He thought of the coiffed hair, the tennis balls, the teeth.
And he sighed for the third time that evening.
* * *
—
Once, in a fit of paternal (and scotch-induced) bonding at his high school graduation party, Anders’s father gave him three pieces of advice. Anders couldn’t remember the first two, but the third made so much sense, it stuck with him like a piece of gum to a shoe: Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
Which was how Anders found himself sitting on a fiberglass bench in the middle of a passenger boat destined for Frick Island wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt and khaki pants as if he were heading into a budget meeting at the New York Times. Unfortunately, the August sun blazed like a furnace in the cloudless sky, raising the temperature of everything it touched to burning, causing his shirt to feel more like a stifling down coat by the second.
At least he had forgone the tie.
The boat rocked heavily as it churned through the water, and the motion roiled the Pop-Tarts still digesting in Anders’s stomach. That plus the familiar tang of the sea air conjured vivid and unwelcome recollections of his last deep-water venture on a boat. He closed his eyes.
An old man stood at the helm, speaking into a handheld mouthpiece tethered to the dashboard by a spiraled cord, but Anders couldn’t hear him. The latest episode of This American Life filled his ears, with the goal of drowning out everything unpleasant around him—the crackling voice distorted by the boat’s ancient speakers, the vague lurching in his stomach, and the all-too-top-of-mind realization that Anders was smack in the middle of the ocean, at the mercy of an ancient boat captain on an even older boat, with no control over the destination or his motion sickness or the strength of the sun’s rays.
After thirty long minutes, a strip of trees appeared on the horizon, and Anders breathed a small sigh of relief that the end was in sight. That is, until the boat chugged closer and he had a better view. Shacks—about ten of them—sat on the shore, each with its own wooden dock reaching into the water like a crooked finger, the planks like the keyboard of a broken-down piano. Anders knew these were crab shanties he’d read about in his research—the shelters where watermen sorted through their catch and stored supplies—but he did not know they would have all the craftsmanship of a clubhouse nailed together by a child. Each one looked less sturdy and in a greater state of disrepair than the one before. After the last shanty, the ferry pulled up alongside a small dock parallel with the shore, rather than perpendicular. Just beyond the dock sat another small white shack with a hand-painted sign:
Frick Island Marina
Captain BobDan Gibbons
555-6728
Anders blinked. Marina? This tiny building with one dock and a couple of benches? It was like stumbling upon a lone apple tree and calling it an orchard. When the boat was secure, Anders stood, Ira Glass’s voice still blaring in his ears, and followed the other passengers shuffling forward to disembark. When it was his turn, Anders stepped off the boat, dug a crisp ATM-fresh twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket, and dropped it in the bucket proffered by the captain, but then froze. He had no idea where he was going. He stepped to the side to let the last few passengers walk around him and pulled out his phone.
He knew the day’s festivities took place in front of the Methodist church, but when he punched in the address and nothing came up, he realized he had no service. He looked up to ask someone where the church was, but the passengers that had been near him had already dispersed, halfway down the road leading away from the dock. Before he could decide whether to follow, a rumble of a deep voice caught his attention. He removed one of his earbuds and turned his head, coming face-to-face with the captain, still holding the bucket.
“Straight down the road there, take a right at the general store. Sign says Blue Point. Can’t miss it.” The man’s voice was as grizzled as his skin and his accent warbled, as if he were talking around a mouthful of marbles. Anders just stared at him.
“You going to the Cake Walk, ain’tcha?”
“I am,” Anders managed.
“Well, go on, then. Although, weather like this—prolly get canceled anyway.”
Anders looked up at the cloudless sky. For the heat? he wondered.