For the Best (6 page)

Tanner opened the driver’s door and I
noticed the way his biceps and forearms glistened and bulged from
lifting the heavy plants. He had bulked up to a ridiculous mass
sometime around junior year. Now his physique seemed more normal.
The lean, sinewy muscle fit his narrow frame better.

We drove north. Forty minutes later we
pulled up to the guard gate. We were waved through and he
maneuvered the truck back to maintenance.

I watched him struggle with the 10 gallon
shrub containers. I started to help him to speed us up, but he
wouldn’t let me.

The moon hung low, full and bright white in
a clear dark sky. Finished, he settled into his seat and turned to
me with a smile. “Thanks for coming with me.”

“Thanks for asking. Will you have to get the
truck back soon?”

“No.”

“I’d like to take the scenic return trip.
Maybe cross on the ferry.”

“Sure.”

He drove as silence and secrets hung between
us. We crossed a low bridge from Amelia Island to Talbot Island
State Park.

I needed to tell him but couldn’t decide
when. “Can we stop a minute?”

He pulled the van off the side of the road
and I hopped out. The gate was down preventing cars from entering
the parking lot, and driving onto the sandy beach. I ducked under
and kept walking.

“Where are you going?” he called after
me.

“To the shore,” I yelled back and began
walking fast hoping for courage.

He caught up at a fast clip, following as I
made my way to the white sand deserted beach. On the horizon, the
moon rested on the water casting a glow on the waves like a Wyland
mural.

“I miss this. You and me on the beach at
night.” He smiled.

I shivered involuntarily and the
conversation I’d prepared died in my thoughts. I stared at the
waves crashing and folded down to the soft, forgiving ground.
Tanner took a place beside me.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply,
listening to the boom as the waves crested and broke, the gurgle of
the water sucking at the air in the sand, the tranquility. The
sounds mirrored the beach I walked on every day, but here there
were no residential lights, no noise forcing you back…just
peace.

“Hanna,” he whispered close to my ear.

“Hhmmm?” I didn’t open my eyes.

“It’s three a.m.” I looked up at his face
looming over me and realized my head was resting on his jacket.

We walked quietly back to the truck. I slid
into the driver’s side and across instead of coming in my own door.
Once he settled, I slid down, no seatbelt - the back of my head
resting on his thigh. I looked up at him the whole drive home
trying to summon the words that wouldn’t come.

Tanner

Ankle deep in lapping waves, she beckoned. A
weak curl swirled up behind me and I rode it in close enough to
hear her words.

“I want to go out,” she called above the
roar of the crashing surf.

“Seriously?” I was skeptical. She hadn’t
gone out since we’d spread her Mom’s ashes, and she’d done so
sparingly before then. The current temp of the Atlantic was frigid.
She didn’t have a wet suit.

“Yeah. Can I hitchhike a wave with you?” Her
slow smile caught at my insides.

I nodded.

She stripped from sweats down to a bikini,
running them back to a beach towel she had discarded away from the
tide. She shivered pinioning her arms to her body as she jumped
into the surf reaching waist depths where I pulled her on the
board. She crouched at the front of the board, ass to heels
shoulders hunched. I paddled us out past the breakers.

“Keep going please,” she begged.

“How far?”

She shrugged. “The pull is south.”

Guiding us to deep calm waters, we both
straddled the board. I looked down at half her long legs submerged
wondering where she was finding her courage. She was afraid of
sharks, and legs descending from surfboards looked confusingly like
sea turtles, enticing to the common bull and lemon sharks sometimes
in the area.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“Bucket list.”

“Come again.”

She turned her head back to search my eyes.
“I found my mom’s bucket list. Things she wanted to do before she
died. She never got around to them.”

“Ohhh.” We grew silent. She turned back
staring out to the horizon.

“I’m going to do some of her list. You know,
in case her spirit is waiting around. Kind of give some closure.
She wanted to surf. Since I can’t, I thought I’d catch a wave with
you.”

“Sounds good. What else is on the list?”

She turned to look at me again. “Make up a
story about the one that got away, travel, volunteer for someone or
something in need, forgive Dad, and fall in love again.”

“You plan on carrying out her wishes?”

She hesitated. “Some.”

Hanna

I had been thinking that life should be
easier, more basic. My dad’s life, Tanner’s life would be simpler
without me. After high school there wasn’t much I would take with
me if I moved on, some favorite jeans, a few photos, Gator and a
whole lot of memories.

When I used to intend on going to college I
wanted to be a veterinarian, four years to get a bachelor’s degree,
four years of Vet school. I wouldn’t have graduated until I was
twenty-six. None of that was important anymore.

With no aspirations besides Mom’s bucket
list, I began to research. I’d found a couple of huge dog rescue
ranch type organizations out West. They didn’t pay but I could get
by in other ways, I’d learned how to survive.

Lainey and I grunted at each other in
greeting across the breakfast counter. I deposited a bag of bagels,
cream cheese, and a jar of peanut butter near the gallon of milk
that was sweating on the surface.

She rubbed her eyes. “You just getting
in?”

“Yeah, dog walking across town.”

“You do more by noon than most people do all
day.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I’m like an armed forces
promo. Help yourself.”

“What did you get?” She peered inside.

“What do you want: sweet, salty, or
tangy?”

“Hook me up with what you’re having.”

“You might want to reconsider that. I got a
salt and vinegar bagel, and I’m putting peanut butter in the
middle.”

“Jeez, are you pregnant?”

I grimaced. “Not possible,” I replied.

“I’m still game.”

I toasted our two. She crunched into hers
and I waited. It was an acquired flavor. “I like it. It’s like
peanut butter pretzels with a bite.” She put her hand over her
mouth to talk trying to swallow all that bread. “Where did you stay
last night?”

“Tanner’s.” I actually slept at the storage
unit with Gator. There was a pull switch for a bare bulb light in
the 10X10 room. It was climate controlled. The closure was a garage
door. I liked to go there and crawl over the vestiges of my old
life. Lying on the couch that my mom picked out, trying to
re-stimulate the smells of the past.

Lainey stared as if she sensed my lie.

“Are you seeing anyone?” I asked.

“I was. We broke up or rather he did with
me. We had only been together this year and he wanted to leave for
college with no girlfriend. Seems like all my friends are ending
their high school commitments behind.”

I nodded. Tanner had told me at least five
couples we knew had basically made the same decision.

Tanner was following me around Sox’s
backyard, studying me. I think he was trying to read between the
lines, see what was going on. “Want to go fishing?”

“Not really. Why?” I bent down and massaged
Sox’s fur across his rib cage and hips hoping to loosen up his old
joints.

“The bucket list.”

I laughed. “The one that got away.”

“Come on. I borrowed a truck and a boat from
my boss.”

I watched Tanner steer the vessel off the
boat trailer. Once clear I spun the wet truck up the algae covered
boat ramp. I parked and he maneuvered around to pick me up on the
floating dock.

He smiled one of those breathtaking smiles,
the kind where you get a little flutter down deep. “I like.” He
pointed to my suit.

My eyes dropped to my aquamarine board
shorts and a somewhat matching Hawaiian bikini top. “Thanks.” I
peered into the brackish water watching for submersed objects that
could cut the hull as he motored us through the shallow no wake
zone.

We stayed on the intracoastal river passing
100’ yachts with tinted windows. The vessels were moored up to
docks connecting beach mansions perched on the dunes between the
slivers of land separating the inner water from the ocean.
Alligators sunned themselves on coquina shelled islands, while
great white Egrets stood on knobby stick legs submerged in salt
water.

We anchored in a quiet cove near a protected
area. He cast my line for me.

“Lainey is growing on me.”

“That’s good.”

I continued. “But I just don’t understand
how Lainey accepted what happened. Did she not care that her mom
was with a married man whose wife was dying of cancer? Did she ever
wonder about me, his daughter? Did she ever worry he’d break her
mom’s heart? Or did she always know he would choose them over his
other family.”

He grew quiet. The silence lulled me to
sleep.

“You got a bite, you got a bite,” Tanner
shouted as a mammoth fish sent my line spinning from the reel. He
was trying to brace the pole against the support bracket built in
the boat but judging from the severe bend of the rod I was guessing
either it or the line was about to break. I grabbed for the fishing
net as the sun glinted off the scales yanked from the water. Just
as Tanner looked like he had conquered it the line broke. I stared
as the thin movement of filament sinking away became apparent.

I laughed. “That’s it. The story about the
one that got away.”

We pulled up dockside at a shack of a place
that was like a bait slash convenience store slash bar. Tanner
jumped down on the dock and gave a waiting server our order, then
he stood guard at a port a john for me.

“How is it?” he teased from the outside.

“It’s non-flushing crap. How do you think it
is?” I stated laughing.

“Use the urinal on the wall.”

“Real funny.” I came out and gulped the less
stagnant air.

He chuckled shaking his head and took a turn
himself. I began walking and he caught up at the end of the graying
cracked boardwalk of the boat launch. A wet lab mix ran to meet
us.

“Hey Tanner,” the Lab’s owner called out.
His dog crouched down on front paws inviting play as his master
joined us. “Hi,” the stranger acknowledged me.

I nodded in return.

“Party at Cochise tonight. You in?” He asked
Tanner while flashing me a surfer dude smile, not bothering to pull
up his board shorts where they were slipping down low on his nicely
indented hips.

“Definitely,” Tanner replied.

Suddenly the good mood of our shared day
melted into the swampy gator filled water surrounding us. I had no
intention of going. It had been 490 days since we’d attended our
last party together.

Hanna

In the darkness of Sunday morning, long
after I’d left Tanner to go find entertainment without me at the
party, I did the internet search of his name, my name, Hanner, “the
it couple”. I got one hit but luckily the video wasn’t of me.

I called him. A sick feeling deep inside, as
I considered if he’d made it home yet.

“Yeah.” His voice was tired, sleepy.

“Have you checked lately to make sure it
didn’t get posted again?”

“I looked for it a couple of nights
ago.”

I wondered what had prompted his search. I
held the cell in the dark. He sighed heavily both of us weighed
down with the weight of what happened.

Finally, he spoke, “I love you, Hanna.”

Garbled I answered, “I love you too.”

I disconnected and fingered the disk. The
one Benny had threatened to distribute for $20 bucks a DVD. I had
given him $1000 to give me what he said was the original and only
copy. Opening the disc drive, the disc scanned and prompted me to
play. There on the screen we appeared.

We were at the home of a senior, some guy on
the football team. There was a 10 gallon trash can filled with some
jungle juice concoction that was being drunk like water. I had two
glasses on an empty stomach and was feeling the effects.

“I need to go home,” I whispered.

Tanner scanned the partygoers focusing on a
couple ascending from downstairs. I watched the guy give a subtle
nod to him. “Not yet.” He placed his hand on the small of my back
and maneuvered me to the staircase.

“Tanner, I need to lie down.” I turned.

He reached for my hand and pulled me down a
step. “You can. Let me find you somewhere less noisy.”

We wove through the rec room to an open
door, entering I tried to calm my stomach with deep breaths. Taking
in my surroundings, I noticed bright track lighting was
strategically angled away from wall art to spotlight the couch. A
dimmer light switch was lowered coating the rest of the room in
shadows.

“Somebody’s been messing with the lights.” I
pointed out to Tanner.

He made an excuse. “Probably just someone
goofing around.”

Pool balls could be heard through the walls
as they ricocheted off the sides of the table outside, as the
sounds of Mario Brothers being played competed in noise.

I turned to find him close.

“You okay?” he asked lowly before brushing a
kiss across my lips.

I rested my head against his chest. “Give me
a second.”

He gently stroked my hair moving onto my
back. Eventually, I raised my head. “You always make it better. You
know that, right?”