The Starboard Sea: A Novel (27 page)

The only time I really saw Race was in Mr. Guy’s class. He’d arrive early, sit in the front, and complain about the sailing team. How he was stuck with amateurs. The SeaWolves had suffered their first losing season since Race had started at Bellingham, and he was happy to blame Coach Tripp for the losses. “Coach has no vision. If I could have him fired and replaced before spring season starts, I would.”

Earlier when I’d complained about Race, Aidan had told me that she felt sorry for him. “We’ve got something in common,” she said. “Neither of us has a father.”

I’d pointed out that Race was lucky enough to have known his dad, and Aidan said, “That must be even worse. I never knew mine. Imagine how much it must hurt to have your dad taken away.”

Often in the hours before curfew, I would drop in on Yazid and watch him get high. I didn’t smoke much myself. Yazid loved playing video games and arguing politics. There was still some chance that the U.S. would start bombing Iran, and Yazid was convinced that any war would be unwinnable. While Yazid battled through the Legend of Zelda, collecting the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, I’d nod, sleepy from my contact high, as Yazid insisted that America was already a casualty of war. “This is not your United States,” he would say. “Your Manhattan is my Manhattan. Real estate invasion. That’s Saudi Arabia’s war.”

“I surrender,” I said. “Just leave me a few blocks on the Upper East Side.”

Every few days I called Chester. He was anxious for details about Diana. I told him that her father had lost everything on Black Monday. “Couldn’t pay tuition.” I tried to say this as though it weren’t gossip, but what little I learned came filtered through Brizzey’s rumor mill. “Di’s mom bailed. Guess her dad’s having a ner vous breakdown. She’s stuck on some farm in Vermont taking care of him.”

“Should I call her?” Chester asked. “Could you track down her number for me?”
I told Chester I’d try to figure out a way for him to reach Diana. “Here’s the latest sensation,” I said. “Diana left a little something behind.”
At lunch Brizzey had explained that she’d gone into Diana’s empty dorm room the night her friend left. She bitched and wailed, “Di borrowed all these dresses. Norma Kamali. Promised she’d dry-clean them, but those fuckers weren’t hanging in her closet.”
Instead of borrowed dresses, Diana had left behind a sterling silver picture frame with an 8 × 10 glossy of herself. The photo had made its way over to Whitehall and was currently on display in Tazewell’s room. In the picture, Diana stood in her dorm room posing with her back to the camera. Looking over her shoulder, throwing a coy smile to an unknown photographer.
“What’s so crazy about that?” Chester asked.
“Well . . .” I was out in the hallway talking on the pay phone. I lowered my voice. “Diana’s naked. In the photo you can see her ass, the side of her bare breast. She’s standing by a mirror so you can see her front reflection too. It’s something else.”
“You’re killing me,” Chester said.
Chester and I small-talked about college applications. He hoped to get into Columbia but worried that he’d wind up at the University of Chicago, “Where fun goes to die.” I’d already been wait-listed at Princeton but was keeping this news under wraps. I hadn’t bothered to apply anywhere else.
Every time we spoke, I promised Chester that I would kneecap Kriffo for him. After a few weeks of hearing this, Chester joked that I was the procrastinating hitman.
“I’m just waiting for the right opportunity.”
“It’s okay,” Chester reassured me. “Kriffo did me a favor.”

As my father predicted, Lorraine had been laid off from Kidder, Peabody. Chester suspected that playing nursemaid had kept his mother from being depressed about losing her job. “Plus, I needed a break from training. I’m not sure I even like tennis. Not anymore.”

Chester asked me if I missed sailing, and I had to stop and think about whether or not I did.
“Every day my body gears up for it. My muscle memory kicks in, then my body gets confused when I don’t head out to the water. I miss sailing, but what I really miss is sailing with my friend Cal. I miss waking up in the morning and going out in the freezing cold and being miserable together. I miss how we used to stretch out across the bottom of the boat and just shoot the shit. I miss him a lot.”

A month or so after Black Monday, Mr. Guy assigned our class an additional paper. He wanted us to compare the recent stock market crash to the big crash in 1929, but instead of a typical footnoted essay, he insisted we do some creative research on ourselves. Determine where our own riches came from. “Find out how your families were impacted by these seismic events. How your fortunes rose and fell.”

It was a curious assignment, one I might have aced. I had my father and Riegel as resources. While none of us wanted the extra work, Race immediately launched a minor revolt. “That’s an invasion of privacy,” Race challenged. “He can’t ask us to do that.”

Race and Stuyvie conspired to send around a petition. I didn’t take Race’s outrage seriously, didn’t put my name down on any protest. When Mr. Guy was late to our next class, I waited like everyone else, watching the clock. “Ten-minute bag rule.” Stuyvie picked up his knapsack, ready to ditch, when his father, Dean Warr strode into class. One of his loafers was missing its tassel.

The dean held up the assignment sheet Mr. Guy had given us for the Black Monday essay, fanning the paper as he spoke. “It’s been brought to my attention that amendments have been made to your syllabus. While our teachers are entitled to alter assignments, they are not permitted to impose additional work, especially work I deem inappropriate.” Dean Warr tore the sheet of paper in half. “No one has to write this essay.”

Students cheered. Race smiled. That day’s class was canceled. The dean dismissed us, told us to take a free period. He was about to leave when I raised my hand, “What if we want to write the paper?”

The entire class went quiet. I cleared my throat. “Mr. Guy gave us a good assignment. Think I can learn something from it.”
The dean stood in the doorway. He looked me dead on waiting for me to blink. When I didn’t, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief. “Will someone help Prosper,” he asked, “wipe off his brown nose.”
Nadia began shadowing me. Though I didn’t mind the attention, I wasn’t interested in leading her on. We ate lunch and dinner together, and when I learned that she studied piano, I showed her the special room in the library. We played Debussy, Elton John. Nothing too heavy. We didn’t so much talk as chat, and I never mentioned Cal and rarely brought up Aidan. Nadia reminded me what it was like to be young. Maybe it was selfish, but I was desperate for any scrap of innocence, happy to steal scraps from others.
At Thanksgiving my mom visited and was annoyed when I invited Nadia out to dinner with us. “Doesn’t she have her own family?” Mom was confused by Nadia’s Southern accent. “I thought you were seeing some movie star from California?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That didn’t work out.”

Though it was no surprise that Kriffo avoided punishment for his fight with Chester, I was stunned just before Winter Break when Stuyvie was suspended for a week. His mom had discovered the mud-covered jerseys we’d worn to play football. Stuyvie never bothered to wash them or sneak them back into the trophy cases. Instead, he’d stashed the dirty shirts under his bed along with a collection of empty beer cans. Tazewell came to my room one night to share the news. “Sucks for Stuyvie, but at least he did the right thing. Took the fall. Didn’t squeal on the rest of us.” Though I appreciated Stuyvie’s loyalty, I was confused by Dean Warr punishing his own son. The suspension didn’t amount to much—Stuyvie couldn’t go to classes or play sports. Basically, he got to stay home for a week and watch TV. “Goes on his permanent record, though,” Tazewell said. “That shit follows you around.”

“Why do you think Dean Warr did it?” I asked. “Punished his own son.”
Taze didn’t have an answer. He shrugged his shoulders. “Stuyvie’s one of those guys who doesn’t quite know his place. His dad probably wanted to take him down a few pegs.”
The semester was almost over and I was in my room one weeknight, bullshitting my way through a physics problem set, when there was a knock at my window. I thought it was Nadia. The more we hung out, the more I feared she might make some declaration of longing. But when I got to the window, I saw a girl in a fur coat. Brizzey breathed on the glass and drew a heart in the steam. I threw open the sash and let her inside.
“Just passing through?” I asked, as I helped her climb down and into my room.
Under her fur she had on riding boots, black leggings, and a white turtleneck. She wore her hair in a high swinging ponytail.
“I was sitting in my room painting my nails—” she held up her hands, flashing her gold fingernails—“when I remembered that we used to kiss each other. We’ve gone this whole semester without a kiss.”
Heat blasted through the dorm, but it was freezing outside. Brizzey brought in a rush of cold air. We stood together in the spot where the cold and hot air met.
“The least you can do”—Brizzey pretended to chatter her teeth— “is warm me up.”
Brizzey was sexy and I was just bored enough to be interested in playing this scenario out to its logical conclusion. I considered what Robert Mitchum would do.
“Have you really come to see me?” I asked. “Or am I just the first stop on your tour?”
“Oh, you’re on to me,” she said. “You’re not even my first. I’ve already visited Wee House. Those boys live up to their name.”
I reached out, petting Brizzey’s fur jacket. It wasn’t as soft as I’d hoped. The hairs were sharp, barbed, and itched my fingers. My mother had a rich full-length sable coat that her friends were always borrowing for some state function or gala event. The coat had a double lining with secret pockets. Mom had worn it on a ski trip to St. Moritz, our last great family vacation. Mom kept the coat on even during the return flight to the States. She wouldn’t let the stewardesses anywhere near it. Back in New York, after we made it through customs, Mom proudly showed Riegel and me how she’d hidden cash from a Swiss bank account inside the secret pockets. Our mother the gangster.
I was about to tell Brizzey this story when she leaned in and kissed me. I kissed her back, took off her coat, and maneuvered her over to my small bed.
Brizzey wore a padded bra. The foam lining pushed up against me as I pressed my chest firmly onto hers. I didn’t like Brizzey. Wasn’t even attracted to her. Somehow that made me willing and able. We kept our clothes on, rubbing and pivoting against each other, my cock hardening against her belly. I gripped my hand against her crotch and held my fingers there as Brizzey wriggled back and forth. She bit my earlobe, and before long, she came, her face red, her legs twitching. “Goddamn,” she breathed. I finished myself off pumping my body against hers.
Afterward, I held Brizzey, pressuring her head down between my neck and shoulder. She probably thought I wanted to keep her close, but in truth I didn’t want to see her face. It was easier for me to be with a girl I didn’t care about. Rubbing against each other was just a step away from jerking off, though somehow felt lonelier.
When she finally broke free, Brizzey went right to my mirror to straighten her ponytail. “In the future,” she said, “we can have sex. I’m on the pill.”
Brizzey’s fingernails hadn’t fully dried and I noticed flecks of gold paint up and down my pant legs. I felt the sticky come against my thigh, wanted to strip down and change my clothes.
Brizzey snooped around my dresser. I’d looked up the word Marieke had used, “reliquary” and decided to keep Aidan alive through objects. On my dresser, I’d placed the key to the piano room, the stolen library copy of
Sailing Alone Around the World,
the whale in a bottle, the apricot pit, and the tangerine, which hadn’t rotted but rather dried, shrinking into a hard orange globe. Brizzey picked up the key before snatching the picture of Cal from the corner of my mirror. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I haven’t thought about him in ages.” She sat back down on my bed holding the snapshot. “Fuck me, he was handsome.” Brizzey laughed. “I mean you guys look alike.”
“Believe me,” I said. “I know I’m already past my prime.”
“I never think about that,” Brizzey said. “Getting older.” She stretched her neck out and ran her hand across her tight skin. “In a way Cal’s lucky. He’ll always be seventeen.”
I had to stop myself from tearing the photo away from Brizzey. She’d known Cal. Dated him just as she’d dated me, but I didn’t want her remembering him. Her version of Cal was not something that interested me. Cal and I had both predicted that Brizzey would marry young, divorce, then elope with some European slob with a fake title. She was doomed to run around Greenwich, forcing everyone to call her “the Duchess.”
“She’s no dummy,” Cal had said. “She could probably run a Fortune 500 Company what with all of her insights and evil.”

“Remember when we went to the Gold and Silver?” Brizzey asked. “Back then, I liked Cal better, but now I’m not so sure.”

She tried to kiss me and I moved away. “You should probably go,” I said.
“And what if I don’t?”
I looked at the photo of Cal. His face smiling, laughing at me, at the trouble I’d made for myself. The more I wanted Brizzey to leave, the longer she would stay. “Have you heard from Diana,” I asked. “How is she?”
“Who knows. It’s embarrassing. I’ve never seen anyone fall so far, so fast, and so hard.”
“So you haven’t spoken to her. Your best friend and you haven’t checked on her?”
Brizzey got up from the bed, put on her fur. “It’s cold in here,” she said.
It was actually quite warm. I felt myself getting sleepy like I always did after I came.
Brizzey sat back down on the bed, the fur itchy against my skin, and asked what it was she was supposed to say to Diana. “I’m not some expert on tragedy. Not like you.”
In her endangered animal fur and riding boots she looked like a character from a Russian fairy tale, like a snow queen who needed to be set on fire.
“Cal was one giant tragedy.” She smiled.
“Cal is off-limits,” I said.
“What about the drowned girl? Didn’t you have a thing for her?”
“You didn’t even know Aidan. You shouldn’t talk about people you know nothing about.”
“I know she’d tried it before. Almost killed herself over some lesbo.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I read her diary. I do that sort of thing.”
Brizzey leaned over and kissed me. This time I didn’t stop her. Brizzey tasted sweet and metallic, like I’d bitten into a chocolate candy still encased in its foil wrapper. I pulled away.
“It’s good,” I said, “that I don’t keep a journal. I wouldn’t want you knowing my secrets.”
“I love secrets.” Brizzey stood up and opened the window, finally prepared to make her exit.
As she climbed out onto the fire escape, it occurred to me that Brizzey didn’t have a single friend. She’d visited my room because she was lonely.
Brizzey leaned back inside. “I know one of Cal’s secrets.” She pulled her fur collar high around her face. A wolf ready to pounce. “Cal always suspected you were secretly in love with him.”
Brizzey paused, waiting for me to respond. I could have raced to the window, pulled her inside, and made her take back her words. But there was no point in arguing with Brizzey. I decided in an instant that the only way to defuse the situation was to confirm all suspicions.
“Of course I loved him.” I walked toward the window. “We were best friends.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“You don’t know what you mean,” I said. “Because you know nothing about love.” I closed the window and pulled down the shade.