Train Wreck Girl (17 page)

I had no idea how to be a dad. I'd never had one myself. Or, at least I hardly remember him. And, as far as fathers go, I was a pretty shitty one. I didn't even meet my daughter until she was twelve years old. I made her cry the first time we met. When I found out she was my daughter, I spent a week avoiding her. And now I wanted to do something and I had no idea what to do because all I'd ever done with Taylor was go surfing and the ocean was flat, flat, flat.

Still, I had a plan. I figured we could borrow Bart's car and go south to where the waves were better. So I woke up early on that Tuesday morning and I called a surf report down in Sebastian Inlet and the waves weren't great, but you could ride them. As soon as the surf shop around the corner opened up, I went over and bought some soft surf racks for thirty bucks. Then I called Taylor.

Rosalie answered the phone. She'd been acting weird toward me, which was totally understandable, considering. Rosalie and I didn't talk long. I just said hello and asked for Taylor. Rosalie went and got her.

“What are you doing?” I asked as soon as Taylor picked up.

“Sleeping.”

“Let's go surfing.”

“There's no waves.” Taylor sounded groggy, like she might fall back asleep in the middle of talking to me.

“I'll drive to where there are waves. Get here in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay,” Taylor said.

She was at my apartment ten minutes later. Still sleepy, but ready to go. I asked her if she'd eaten. She hadn't. We went inside and I fixed her a bowl of cereal. While she ate, I went outside and strapped her board to the roof of Bart's car.

With the sun still hanging low over the eastern horizon, Taylor and I headed south down A1A in search of waves.

It was tough at first. I didn't know what to say and Taylor was so groggy that she wasn't talking. I felt kinda trapped in that car. I'd only driven a few miles when I pulled off A1A onto 22
^nd
Street. Taylor said, “Where are we going?”

“You have to check this out,” I said. I pulled into Helen's driveway.

Helen worked nights, so I was careful to be quiet. I unlocked the side garage door, flipped on a light, and stepped inside Helen's garage. Taylor followed me. By now, almost a third of the garage was taken up by the shit I'd welded together. I pointed that out to Taylor.

“What is all this junk?” she asked.

“It's stuff I made.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. I guess it's like art to me,” I said. “Helen set up a show for me in a gallery in August.”

“Who's Helen? Is she your girlfriend?”

“No. She's the woman who set up the show for me. This is her garage.”

“Why'd she do all that for you if she's not your girlfriend?” Taylor asked.

“I don't know why I'm talking to you about this,” I said.

Taylor looked at me like,
no shit. I don't know why you're talking to me about this, either.
She looked at all the metal welded in front of her. She kinda shook her head. She walked along the line of stuff. Against the wall, over by the garage door, was one of the first things I'd done when Helen let me get started. It was basically a picture frame made out of metal but shaped to look like a bamboo frame. In the middle of the frame was a metal mat that was supposed to look like it had been woven out of palm fronds. And on top of the mat was the silhouette of a turtle. I'd taken a roll of soldering wire and held it over the mat and held the flame to the wire and let little metal drops fall onto the mat until all the drops formed a turtle. I guess Taylor liked this one. She knelt down in front of it and reached out to touch it, then pulled her hand back. “Can I touch it?' she asked.

“Of course.”

Taylor ran her fingers across the drops of metal. I knew what it felt like for her. Cold and smooth. Unnatural and fluid. Kinda bumpy but it all made sense in a weird way.

It took us about an hour to get down to Sebastian. Taylor napped a lot of the way. I listened to music and drove along the ocean, checking everything out. I hadn't been down this way since I was in high school.

The water was pretty crowded when we got there, and unless things had changed drastically since I was in high school—which they hadn't—the crowd wouldn't be too friendly. I didn't care. It was all worth it. There were waves. I stood on the shore with my board under my arm and looked at the water. Taylor stood next to me. “What are you waiting for?” she asked.

I watched a few waves roll in. “Check it out,” I said. “You see where that group of guys is sitting there? Look a little bit to the right of them. See how the wave is starting to break there? I think if you stay out of the crowd and ahead of the drift, you'll get better waves.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about half the time,” Taylor said.

“Just follow me.”

I walked down to the water and paddled out, past the crowd of shortboarders and to the spot that I'd noticed from shore. Taylor followed me. Within a minute or two, a set rolled in from the east. The shortboarders paddled in our general direction. Taylor lined up for the wave. I said to her, “Let this one go.” She stopped paddling. The wave broke in front of us and curled down the line toward the crowd of shortboarders. Taylor watched it go. She looked at me. I said, “Go now.”

Another wave was coming in, only no one was jockeying for this one except Taylor. She was in the perfect spot. She caught the wave just as it was breaking, stuck her feet on the board, and took off down the line. It looked like a shortboarder might try to cut her off, but she gunned her board right at him. Playing chicken. And of course she'd win. I didn't watch, though, because another wave was building right around me, and that one was all mine.

Taylor and I caught a few set waves like that. Every time we'd paddle back out after a ride, more of the crowd was around us. This always happened to me when I went surfing: I'd stand on the shore and look for a spot where the waves were breaking and no one was catching them. I'd paddle out to that spot and get a couple of good rides and suddenly, everyone was around me, trying to catch the waves that I found. It didn't bug me, though. It actually made me feel good. Like I was the wise man in the line-up.

I could tell it bugged Taylor to be stuck in the crowd. She'd fight the other surfers for waves. Or she'd catch the wave and still some hot dog would cut her off. It was frustrating for her. Finally, I told her, “Don't go for the first wave of the set. Let all these hot dogs fight for it. Go for the second or third.”

“But what if there isn't a second or third?” Taylor said. “Then what?”

I told Taylor something that Helen had told me: “Compassion breeds courage.” It's some Taoist thing. Like, if you have the compassion to give up the first wave to someone else, it gives you courage to wait for the better waves. I tried to explain this to Taylor, but she wasn't having it. She just kept fighting for the first wave.

After we'd been out for about an hour, I noticed a set building on the horizon, bigger than all the sets that came before it and breaking farther out. I started paddling east as fast as I could. Taylor followed me. The waves came at me pretty quickly. I knew I wouldn't be able to get out there soon enough to ride the set. I only wanted to get out far enough quickly enough so that I could duck dive under the waves. I paddled like mad and the waves kept coming and the first one broke right in front of me. I thrust my board down into the water and ducked down with it. Most of the wave rolled right over me. As soon as I popped up, another wave crested above me. I paddled straight for it. I wouldn't be able to turn and ride this big sucker, either. I ducked under it. When I came up, a third wave was in front of me. It was gonna break pretty close to me. I had about a fifty/fifty chance of making it. But, what the hell? This was as good as it got. I turned my board and went for it. The wave looked like it was gonna break right on my head. That's okay, I thought. It's more fun if you're a little scared. I paddled just a little and already felt the momentum of the wave. As soon as I did, I stood and stayed low. The wave was breaking right on top of me. I free fell a couple of feet but kept my balance and stayed in front of the break. It was perfect. No one else had gotten out this far this fast. I had the wave of the day all to myself.

When it was over, I paddled back out to the spot where I'd been waiting for waves all day. One thing I knew about surfing in Florida was that, when a swell is building, you'll occasionally have those big, outside sets. Every now and then, if you're very lucky, you'll be able to catch one of the waves. Like I just had. But they don't come that often—only once in an hour, if that—and there's no point in sitting way outside and waiting on them. Most of the crowd, who'd been wiped out by that big set, paddled out to where I caught that big wave. Taylor was out there, too. I waved to her to come back in. She shook her head. I stayed where I was.

A few minutes later, another set came in and I caught another wave all to myself. By the time I paddled back out to my spot, Taylor was waiting for me. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.

“No point in hanging out there.” I pointed to where the crowd was. “You can't catch waves that are already gone.”

“What are you? Yoda all of a sudden?” Taylor said. “ ‘Stay out of the crowd and ahead of the drift.' ‘Compassion breeds courage.' ‘You can't catch waves that are already gone.' What is this?”

I shrugged. I didn't think I was trying to be all fatherly. I thought I was only talking about surfing. Not about life or anything. But I guess that's not how Taylor took it. I said, “Look, we're just surfing here. There's nothing to it.”

“There you go again, Yoda,” Taylor said. Already, though, she was lining up for the next wave.

Taylor was awake for the drive home. We talked about waves we caught and surfing and all. She kept asking me if I thought she was getting better. Of course she was. I told her that. But I think she just wanted to keep hearing it. And it was good for me to know that, even with this big gorilla of fatherhood in the room, Taylor and I would still go surfing together.

I played a few cassettes on the way home. It was all punk rock and Taylor didn't really dig it.

After a long stretch of no one talking, I turned down the stereo and said what both of us were probably thinking. I said, “I can't believe you have a loser like me for a dad.”

“No shit,” Taylor said.

I looked over at her. She wasn't smiling like she was kidding around. I wasn't really kidding around, either. “At least you have a stepdad. He seems like a pretty good guy.”

“He
is
a good guy.”

“Still,” I said. “All that time you spent without a father… imagining who he was. Hoping he was cool or, I don't know, rich or something. And then he turns out to be me. Fuck, that sucks.” I paused, thought about what I'd just said, then checked myself. “I mean, I'm cool with it. I'm happy that you're my daughter. Just, for your sake, I wish you had a better dad.”

“Me too,” Taylor said. Still not kidding. And why should she be? What kind of joke would all this make?

I didn't know what else to say. I just kept driving and hoping something would come to mind. I thought about telling her that I didn't know about it. I hadn't known about it until she did. But, hell, she knew that. And what else was there to say? We drove along A1A, through the dunes of Melbourne Beach. Seven- and eight-story condos lined the ocean like so many orangutans on an African savannah.

Finally, Taylor said, “Remember when you swore you'd beat up my father if you ever met him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what are you gonna do now?”

I shrugged. “It's a pickle, kid,” I said. Because what could I tell her? I spent most of my life beating that guy up.

I still had to resolve things with Sophie. She wouldn't just run away and not come back. That's my trick, not Sophie's. She'd want to talk about things. She'd want something she could call closure. It's just the way she was.

She called a few times and left messages, but I didn't call her back. She showed up a few times at my haunts. I did my best to avoid her at every turn.

She caught me on the phone, though. I'd been expecting a call from Helen. The phone rang and I answered it without letting the answering machine pick up first. Sophie was on the line. She asked me to go out to dinner with her.

“I don't know, Sophie,” I said. “I'm kinda busy.”

“Busy doing what? Did you suddenly get a real job?”

“That's it. Pick on me,” I said. “That's a good way to get what you want.”

“Don't be a jerk,” Sophie said. “You're not busy. You love sushi. Come to dinner with me.”

I tried to think of an excuse and decided I didn't need one. I said, “I don't really want to.”

“Dinner's on me.”

Which did make the offer more tempting. The only thing better than a sushi dinner is a free sushi dinner. Still, I'd have to have that dinner with Sophie. “I don't know.”

“Bring your medical bills, too,” Sophie said. “I'll pay them.”

And that was an offer I couldn't refuse. I still owed the hospital close to ten grand for that little stay after Sophie stabbed me. I had no intention of paying it, but it haunted me. I wanted that monkey off my back. Besides, Sophie would keep calling until I had dinner with her, so I figured I may as well get it over with. “Pick me up at seven,” I told her.

Sophie showed up dressed to the nines. She had on this sheer white blouse and hiphuggers and fancy shoes. It was all so tight and close to see-through that I couldn't help thinking about her naked. Damn. This was going to be a long night.

Sophie said to me, “You look good.” But I didn't. I was wearing an aloha shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. I hadn't even shaved. So, of course, this meant Sophie was fishing for a compliment. I didn't offer one up. I just smiled and nodded and we headed to her car.

On the way to the restaurant, Sophie tried to get me to talk and mostly I just realized how much she knew about my life. She asked me, “Anything new?”

“Nah,” I said. “Same old.”

“Still hanging out with that little surfer girl?”

I shrugged. Okay, so Sophie knows about Taylor. She knows I'm a dad. I said, “We don't hang out. We just go surfing.”

“Been welding at all?” Sophie asked.

“A bit.”

“Anything interesting?”

I shrugged.

“Any monkeys?”

“A few.”

“Doing anything with your sculptures?”

Aha. So Sophie knew about the gallery exhibit that Helen and her ex-husband had set up for me. That's what she was waiting for me to tell her about. I said, “No.”

“Anyone selling them?”

“Not right now. No.”

Sophie pushed her hair behind her ears. “You're impossible,” she said. She turned up the music and we rode the rest of the way without talking.

As soon as we got to the restaurant, Sophie went to the bathroom. Of course, I was suspicious. Years of dating Sophie made me suspicious every time she went to the bathroom. Especially at a joint like this sushi restaurant, because the bathrooms were the kind that only one person went into at a time, so Sophie could snort whatever she wanted in private.

I took the table and waited. I told myself, you're gonna eat, you're gonna be polite, you're gonna hand over your medical bills, and you're gonna leave. That's it.

Sophie came back from the bathroom. I couldn't tell if she'd taken a bump of coke or not. We ordered our food and Sophie started chatting. She told me about her job. She'd been working at this fancy French restaurant in Cocoa Beach. Chez Jean's Bistro. “My friend Gretchen called me in Atlanta about the job. She said I just had to come down and work for her.” So Sophie waited tables there and made a lot of money. She wanted to be clear that she'd come down to Cocoa Beach for the job and not because I was back in town. I wasn't sure I believed her. It didn't matter. She said, “I'm moving back to Atlanta, anyway. I'm cleaning up my act.”

“I didn't know your act was still dirty,” I said.

Sophie glared at me. “Don't be a jerk,” she said. And she kept talking. She told me about her mom and living in Atlanta and on and on. I listened and tried to figure out if she was so chatty because she was nervous or if she was coked out. It was hard to tell with Sophie.

When the sushi came, she picked up her chopsticks and arranged all of her rolls and nigiris in a half-circle around her plate. There was a definite order to it. The arrangement started with California rolls and made it's way up to the raw fish nigiris.

“What is that?” I asked. “A ranking system?”

“I like what I like,” she said.

She started eating the California rolls. And to watch her do it… There was something childlike and vulnerable about it. Something very cute. But sincere, too. She had a definite pattern. Eat a roll. Take a little bite of pickled ginger. Put down her chopsticks. Sip her green tea. Pick up her chopsticks. Repeat.

She didn't seem to notice me watching her. She just ate. I looked at those slender fingers on her chopsticks, the bare shoulders I could see through her white blouse, that soft face ready to break into a smile any second. I'll admit it. I wanted to have sex with her so badly. I wanted to forget the past and the future and everything and take her into the bathroom and lock the door and just…

I bit my lip hard. Almost hard enough to draw blood. I looked back down at my plate. Forget it, I told myself. Just eat your damn food and get out of here.

After dinner, Sophie went to the bathroom again. That convinced me. She was snorting coke in there. Everything added up: working a job where she made a lot of cash, planning to go back to her mom's in Atlanta, talking up a storm, going to the bathroom twice in thirty minutes. Her act was still dirty.

When she came back, she said, “Hand them over.”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out an envelope. I hadn't even opened it. It had come a few days earlier. Usually, I just threw those bills away. I hadn't gotten around to tossing this one in the trash. Lucky, I guess.

Sophie picked up her fork, which she hadn't used when she ate, and used it to open the envelope. “Is this going to give me a heart attack?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Probably.”

Sophie's lips got tight. She exhaled through her nose. “Here goes.” She pulled the bill out of the envelope. I watched her eyes flicker back and forth as she skimmed down it. “Wow,” she said. “That's a lot of stitches.”

“Yeah.”

Sophie flipped through the pages that itemized everything in my hospital stay. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. She mumbled, “So fucked up. So fucked up.”

I nodded.

Sophie took a deep breath, gave me the smile that she'd give one of her tables when she was just about to take their order, and said, “Well, that's doable. I thought you really had ten thousand dollars worth of bills. This is barely over nine thousand. And you probably didn't have insurance, did you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“See, and the hospitals charge more if you don't have insurance. My dad can call them up, spout off some legal precedent or something, and get this down to six grand.” She sighed. “Not so bad.”

And, for her, it wasn't. Her dad would pay for it. He was a lawyer. He told me once that he charged two hundred and fifty dollars an hour. I did the math. He could have this covered in three days' work. As opposed to the months it would take for me to earn that kind of money. Plus I'd have to pay full price.

Still, it was good of her dad to cover it. I told Sophie that. I asked her about her dad, too. I said, “I bet he liked to shit when you told him you stabbed me.”

“I don't know if he shit, but he wasn't happy.”

I smiled. I liked her dad. He was a character. I said, “How is old Hank, anyway?”

“Henry,” she said. “He's good. He asked about you.”

“Yeah? What did you tell him?”

“I told him that you were all in one piece.”

I rubbed my belly. “Is he still in Orlando?”

“Yeah. He's doing stuff for Disney over there. Last time I visited, maybe two, three weeks ago, he took me with him to see a client. The guy lived in this town called Celebration. Ever heard of it?”

I shook my head.

“Dude, it's crazy,” Sophie said. “Disney owns the whole town. They built it. It almost looks like a cartoon suburb. No cars in front of the houses. No trash cans. Everything matches. Even all the doorknobs were exactly the same. I felt like I was on acid. Like Mickey would come by in a wizard hat and sweep me up into the stars at any second. You should go over there.”

“To Celebration?”

“No. To Orlando. To see Dad.”

“Is he still dating that floozy? What was her name? Starshine or something.”

Sophie wiped the polite smile off her face. Her lips got tight again. She said, “Just Star. And no. They broke up.”

“Did he find someone younger?”

Sophie picked up the bills, folded them, and stuck them in her purse. “Yes,” she said. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

“Is she younger than you?”

“Don't be a jerk.”

I tried not to laugh, but I didn't try too hard. A little one squirted out. “She is younger than you, isn't she?” Sophie's tight face answered me. I said, “That sucks.”

The waitress came back with Sophie's credit card and the bill. Sophie tipped the waitress, signed off on the credit card slip, put her card back in her wallet, and stood up. “That's enough, Danny,” she said.

And I hoped to hell she was right.