Missed Connections (9 page)

"Next week, Chuck," Jack said. "Weren't we going for a hike about now?"

"Just waiting for you, kid," Charles said. "Let's go."

Rob fell into line with a sudden grin on his face. It was such a relief that he no longer had to think he was privy to intergenerational hanky-panky between his mother's best friend's husband-to-be and his own most recent crush. It was still a problem that Jack didn't like him, but not a serious one, as it would have been witnessing the groom and a grad student not even sneaking around on the eve of the wedding.

But he didn't have to do any of it. All he had to do was enjoy this scorching Sierra day within yards of a guy he liked to look at—never mind that the sentiment was not returned—and listen to another very pleasant guy tell the story of the land around them.

It was pleasant to show off a little himself as well. Charles seemed to be deliberately setting up the conversation to encourage it. Like when they were overlooking a slope covered in loose rock of varying sizes and Charles asked Rob what he'd expect out here. He couldn't very well just say
marmots
in an unembellished, flat way, could he? So he said "whistling pigs," and only followed it up with "yellow-bellied marmots" after it had a chance to sink in. Then he and Jack seemed to enter a competition over who had the most outrageous marmot story. Jack definitively won with a story about one that had hitchhiked all the way to a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, where it lived on scraps and garden plants for almost two months before being rescued and returned to the mountains.

"Nope," Rob said afterwards, "I don't know a better marmot story than that. I shot my wad with the radiator hose feasts."

"Should we be worrying about our cars?" asked one of Charles's friends.

"No, they don't like to come into human settlements," Charles said. "It's only cars that are parked out of the way for a long time. Some people put chicken wire or dryer sheets in their engine compartment to discourage them, but we don't have to bother down at the campsite."

By the time they got back, everybody was tired and hungry and several, including Rob, were slightly sunburned even though they had all taken precautions. But they were all in pretty good moods. When they broke up for lunch, Charles said, "If I don't see you before then, you boys remember the bachelor party."

"Gross, Chuck," Jack said. "You'd think the fact that you two have been living together for years would mean you'd let go of these stupid old traditions."

"This is not like other bachelor parties," Charles said mysteriously. "You do not have to be worried about me subjecting you to strippers of either the lady or gent persuasion."

At this point, Rob fled, seeking out a lunch meat sandwich and a tin cup of lemonade.

Dinner break

Stanny talked Rob into a couple of hours of cards, on the grounds that he had gotten through the whole morning without even one unfortunate idea and therefore Rob owed him some time that was not outdoorsy. Soon enough they both dozed off and then they were being rousted by Jaime to go do their dinner chores. Stanny got salad prep and Rob got table setup again. Jack had the same assignment, so Rob got to ogle him a bit when he bent over and reached down the length of the tables to place the condiment baskets. And then he had to pretend that he wasn't doing it when Jack straightened up. By the way Jack glowered when he passed Rob, Rob was pretty sure he had been caught. But he shrugged it off. He had to admit he'd rather make Jack smile than frown, but if he couldn't please the guy, at least he'd enjoy looking at him and not worry about the consequences.

Then Rob got commandeered into the serving line and only got to sit down after most of the seats were filled. The closest one was right across from Jack. Rob eased into the space and mentally counted off the seconds—nine, ten, eleven—till Jack noticed he was there and his easy smile turned to a scowl again. Rob couldn't help laughing.

"What?" Jack demanded.

"I don't know what I did to you or when I did it, but whatever it was, I'm sorry, I guess," Rob said, shrugging as he shoveled food into his mouth.

"That's a weird thing to say when you've been laughing."

"I was laughing because it's kind of funny that I can make you frown just by sitting down. I wonder if I could make you smile by popping up and walking backwards away from the table."

"Nope," Jack said, and to Rob's surprise he was actually smiling right now, "You'd have to be facing away from me."

"That wouldn't be satisfying. I wouldn't get to see you smile. Your smile is one of the best ones I've ever seen. Which is why it's so sad I can't get you to do it for me."

Jack's smile disappeared so quickly Rob could have sworn that it had never been there. Chastened, Rob looked away. His dinner was pretty interesting, and it wasn't frowning at him. "Sorry," he mumbled, almost as if he believed he was really at fault for Jack's ill temper.

Jack apparently didn't think so. "Not really your fault," he said. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"And yet, somehow, I always seem to be pissing you off," Rob said.

"Yeah. Well, like I said, not your fault."

"So now is where you tell me how I piss you off all the time if it's not my fault."

"Well, no, but thanks for trying," Jack said. "It's really not your problem."

"I do have a slight problem with being frowned at all the time," Rob said.

"From over here it doesn't look like it bothers you all that much," Jack said. "Any more than anything else does."

"Look, you don't know me, how can you judge me like that? Just because I didn't create a lot of drama in class? I thought that was a good thing, not something to get pissy about."

"How about we drop this conversation so as to keep your drama-free record?" Jack said. And then he stood up with his plate and stalked away, leaving Rob no more enlightened than before.

The problem was, he wasn't any less attracted than before either. "This is so unlike me," Rob muttered to his mashed potatoes. "I never pine. And if I did, I'd never pine for someone who dislikes me like that. And even that. Never happens. People
like
me."

He sighed and went back to inhaling his dinner.
You just keep telling yourself all that,
he thought.

In Hot Water

It would be an exaggeration to say that Rob's mood was ruined, but he didn't feel quite as sunny after his encounter with Jack. He was certainly not in the mood to endure a bunch of older guys feeling their oats ahead of a wedding. But the non-optionality of the event was   enforced by everyone he ran into on his way to the (mercifully complete) bathroom and he found himself, along with more than twenty others, wending his way to a meadow on the other side of the little river, where supposedly there would be hot springs. He shared the burden of a big bucket of ice and with an old man in a battered pith helmet and threadbare Hawaiian shirt, who he was pretty sure was the head of a geology department at one of the rural State University campuses. Tucked inside the ice were equal numbers of boutique beer and fancy soda bottles. The old guy made a remark about the pretentious beverages, but Charles reassured him that the other bucket, being hauled by Jack and Stanny, had "the piss and radiator fluid you favor, Baxter."

Dear lord, they were expected to get into the hot springs together. And no warning, so no swimsuits. "You can leave your undies on if you must," Charles said. "But you'll thank me later if you take my advice and go down to the altogether."

Rob did not take his advice.

These were not the most beautiful hot springs on the face of the earth. Many years ago someone had thought to "improve" a section of the springs by building cement boxes around them. The cement was not of the highest quality and its finish had worn away, leaving the surface very rough, even painful to lean against. In two or three places there were broken bits, revealing rusty rebar. "This isn't
safe
," Stanny said.

George laughed at his son. "That's funny, coming from the guy who spent an afternoon walking the edge of the middle school roof like it was a tightrope."

"I never said that was safe either," Stanny said.

"No, actually, you did," George said.

There were five of these cement boxes and once they resigned themselves to a much closer intimacy than most of them were comfortable with, they were able to squeeze themselves in. Charles apparently had deputized one of his friends to preside over each box. George and Charles each had one box, and three men of varying and increasing age had the others. Rob thought it would be least embarrassing to get in the one George was in charge of, but George appeared to be only letting in the boys, saying "You guys are going to want to talk about stuff that these guys aren't going to want to deal with." Then Rob decided that the next best one would be one presided over by Baxter: but no, that one was full, and after that, the mellow old guy from Sacramento who had been genially avoiding conversation since he got there, but he was apparently only letting in the over-forties. Rob gave up and asked Charles which box he was supposed to go into.

"Mine or Juan's," he said, but Juan shook his head.

"Full up," he said.

Rob shrugged and climbed in, giving Jack a bright apologetic smile. Of course he'd be in the same box as Jack. Jack wasn't scowling this time. He was looking at Rob the same way that Rob was always trying not to get caught looking at Jack. That was an interesting development, but this was not a promising place to follow up on it. Rob did not regret his decision to keep his 'undies' on. Though another look like that one and he'd wish the water was uncomfortably cold instead of nicely hot.

For now, though, the tight proximity of all these strangers dampened his interest sufficiently.

Charles started off by making everybody introduce themselves and tell the others how they were connected to the wedding. "Obviously, I'm the insanely lucky guy who's getting married," he said. The next person was his nephew, and then Jack who said, "I'm the son of this mess," and then there was a friend of Jack's, and Rob, who said, "My mother says that the bride is her best friend from high school."

Then Charles made them play twenty questions and won with "peridotite." On Rob's turn he lost on the second question as Jack drawled out "marmot, of course." Jack almost won but Rob got him on the nineteenth question. His word was "terrace," by which he meant the geological sense, of course, which had thrown the others off. Rob was pretty sure he knew what the word was by the seventh question, but he didn't want to be pushy, so he waited until the others had plenty of chances before he ventured his guess. There was a glint in Jack's eye as he conceded. By then they were into it and they went several more rounds, forgetting their alarming surroundings and undignified attire (or lack of it).

George's voice rung out over the meadow, "Keep hydrated, guys, there's water in the buckets too." And then he said more quietly, but Rob could still hear, "No, Stanny, you cannot have a beer."

Jack hauled out and brought back a variety of drinks. He handed Rob a bright blue can of soda. Rob barely remembered to mumble his thanks as he stared at the label. "Wow, I haven't seen one of these in years," he finally said. "I wouldn't even have guessed they were still making them. I had forgotten all about them."

"That's unsurprising," Jack said, taking a sip of beer from a bottle with a picture of a nudibranch on it.

The Second Chance Dance

Suddenly Charles turned serious. "I want to talk to you younger guys about something," he said. "It's kind of important. Not kind of. It's really important."

Here it comes,
Rob thought.
I let my guard down and now it's going to get embarrassing.

"You ever hear that saying 'don't be that guy?' I'm here to tell you,
don't be that guy.
And whenever you find out you're being that guy, stop it, apologize, and do better right away. Don't wait fifteen years or whatever."

He looked around and indicated Jack with a gesture. "I could go all, 'but look what a great thing came out of it, if I hadn't been an asshole I'd never have got this great kid'
,
but that's bullshit. Jack's the greatest thing, but Constance's suffering matters, and Jack could just as well have been born later with all the right things in place. And what-ifs are not the point anyway. Just, don't be that guy. What I did was just straight up wrong. I don't want that to get lost in all the celebration."

Rob hadn't had a drink of beer, but the altitude and sun must have taken its toll, because he was having trouble putting all the little bits of information together to add up to a total narrative. He snuck a glance at Jack, who was staring stonily at his beer bottle. Of course he'd be embarrassed, but that didn't add anything to Rob's understanding.

"So I don't know if you know the story," Charles went on. "Jack, if it bothers you, remember we said you don't have to stay for this part. Anyway, back in high school I went down to the coast for a party at some friend of a friend's cousin's house. I met this awesome girl. I could tell she was the best of the best, even though a lot of the guys were kind of dissing her because she'd slept with a lot of them. I think the thing that pissed them off really was that she hadn't slept with all of them, honestly. Even at that age I thought they were being assholes to slag her for doing what they were always trying to do, but the thing I most got out of that conversation was that if she was freely having sex with whomever maybe I had a chance with her."

He took a swig from his beer—which had a picture of an upside down bicycle and a dancing fox on it, looked around, and went on. "You got to tolerate me for the long story because you have to understand. I wasn't a specially good kid or a specially bad kid; I was a regular dumb kid who hadn't got the message. I'm not making excuses. That's the point.

"Okay, so I found this great girl and I talked to her and she was even more amazing up close. I'm not going to lie and say I was all about her fantastic personality and her devastating wit, though I was really impressed by all that. I was even more excited by the fact that it looked like I was going to get to do it. And then when the time came it turned out she didn't have any condoms. But I talked her into it anyway. I was an asshole. I felt bad about it right away, but it didn't matter, because I went back home and I didn't know her name anyway."