Pass It On (18 page)

“Look Flan, the truth is I'm worried like crazy about it, but nobody's
saying
anything. And they're acting kind of pissed about this trip and putting all this pressure on me to decide who I'm going to bring, but I think maybe it's about more than that. David knows everything, but you're the only one I've told. You and Ruth.”

“Who's Ruth?”

I stared at Flan. It was now or later, and later might be never, and I'd gotten in enough trouble with that tactic already in the last week.

“She's my girlfriend.”

“Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend!”
She turned around quickly, grabbed some roses and threw them at my chest, then ran from the room. I shook my head. I picked up the roses and the thorns pricked my palm. There were little beads of blood there, of course.

Around three or so, Arno and Mickey found me up in the common room that the Flood kids shared, which was similar to the one they shared in the city except a whole lot bigger and even more full of sports equipment. But, because the staff here was in the house more often than the Floods were, it was all very well arranged. I found it relaxing and I was leafing through an old copy of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
that someone had left under the cushion of a chair.

“Hey.” Mickey was swaying and clearly a little wrecked. He must've eaten a lot, and drunk more. “Let's go sailing.”

“Aye aye, Captain Drunky.”

“I'm going to show you exactly why you should bring me on this trip.”

“Dude …” But I could see it was to late to reason with Mickey and he was about to begin a forced-fun rampage.

“I'll drive down there,” Arno said. “Because I can drive anything, like even in a place where they drive on the wrong side of the road, like St. Thomas or St. John.”

David wandered into the room. He was carrying a basketball and looked a bit sweaty, so we knew he must've been playing basketball on the indoor court that the Floods had down in the old gymnasium, a couple of hundred yards from the house.

“What's up?” David began to spin the ball on one finger. Mickey tossed him a beer and he caught it and drank from it, still spinning the basketball.

“Sailing,” I said.

“Uh-oh.” David lost control of the ball. Neither of us had ever been any good at sailing, which of course made this honeymoon thing more than a little ironic.

We got into one of the Mercedes and Arno drove us the quarter mile down to the cove where the Floods kept their boat. This was definitely private land, since we were weaving all over the road and nobody stopped us, but there was always this sense that other super-rich types were lurking around. At least six other sailboats bobbed from moorings in the cove, and there
was one old guy, in stained red pants and a yellow slicker, dousing his boat with water.

It was strangely warm out, which was one good thing. Only Mickey was shivering, since he was apparently determined to go through the fall without putting on long pants. Arno and I had put on khakis and button-downs so we were okay. David was fine too, since he immediately put his hood over his head and he was wearing a pair of those Carhartt workpants that can stop a bullet.

Immediately, Arno and Mickey clambered aboard
The Oldest Profession
, the Flood family's yacht. The thing was big, and it was bone-white with mahogany details. It looked clean and well cared for, and more expensive than a space capsule. I eyed it, figuring it was less than fifty feet long, which suddenly put this whole two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht thing in perspective.

“Come on,” they yelled.

Mickey, who's dad had crashed more than a few sailboats out at Montauk, immediately disappeared below and came up with a bunch of yellow life preservers and several six-packs of Heineken. He threw a beer at me. “Think of me as the party guy. You can always count on me make a boat ride fun.” He wagged his eyebrows at me.

“Key's in the ignition,” Arno yelled. “Let's motor out of the cove.” He leaped onto the dock and unfurled the ropes that were keeping the big boat steady.

I said, “I feel like this is very stupid,” but mostly I was speaking to myself. The boat began to rock back and forth. Suddenly I wasn't so sure about this or any other boat, no matter how big.

“Remember what happened last time,” David said as he leaped back on board.

“When Jonathan got too high,” Mickey snickered. As I jumped on, I thought back on last time, when I'd done mushrooms and run around the boat for our whole trip, making sure everyone was safe and wearing life preservers and repeatedly calling the coast guard to check on the weather.

But we were already motoring out of the tiny cove, with Mickey clambering around the fore or bow or front of the boat like he was Lord Jim's apprentice and Arno behind the wheel, both of them trying to look more comfortable on the boat than I suspected they actually were. David and sat I tight. Our families weren't sailing types.

And then, when we got to the bay and we could see the Long Island Sound in the distance,
Mickey unfurled the huge sail. The wind was definitely strong and it was cooler out there.

“Drag the jib,” he screamed, and, “Hazard the wickets!” Or at least that's what it sounded like. The light was incredible, low and strong and right in our eyes so we were squinting since we'd all spaced bringing sunglasses. People in other boats waved at us and we waved back and for a moment I believed we basically knew what we were doing. I won't say I felt relaxed because I didn't at all. But I did sit down to watch Arno and Mickey act like show-offs, which I knew was for my sake and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sort of enjoying it.

We shot out to the middle of the bay, “doing a good clip,” if that's what going a little too fast is called. And that's when Mickey got out some pot. He clambered down below and smoked up, and passed around what he had, which was a gigantic joint. I felt what can only be described as peer pressure so I smoked, too. I thought maybe it would calm me down and not make me start counting life preservers like last time. So I sat back and tried to feel the wind in my hair and the sun through my eyelids and tried to override the paranoia I sometimes get when I smoke with
some other feeling, of trusting these guys, and getting comfortable with the feeling of water all around me. I opened my eyes.

“Careful!” I screamed.

We blew by a little fishing boat and it rocked in our wake. All the old fishermen on it gave us the finger. I felt bad for them and their families and how they weren't going to eat any fish tonight and they'd have Corn Flakes instead and it was all because of us … if they were fishermen. Maybe they were cops? Or marine patrol. I felt afraid for us, and bad in general for all the sins of humanity.

“Jonathan? We want to talk to you.”

Arno was standing in front of me, and Mickey and David were on either side of him.

“Wha—?” I scrambled over the white seat cushions and toward the back of the boat. But of course, beyond the seats and the little wooden step we used to use to dive off, there was nothing at all. Nothing but cold water.

“There's some stuff we can't figure out,” Arno said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I have to make some decisions.”

“It's not just that,” said Mickey.

This was it. I felt the paranoia leave, replaced by a terrible, frigid, reality.
My friends know everything and they are going to kill me and bury me at sea.

“Let's not do this here,” David said. “It's going to get cold soon.”

“There's an island.” Mickey pointed to one of those little islands that just looks like a bunch of trees growing together in a clump.

“Let's check it out,” Mickey said.

I figured that they were going to take me to the island and kill me there.
My best friends are going to kill me and bury me on an island because of the sins of my father.

“Let's just go home instead,” I said quickly. I was too desperate though, and they could feel it.

“No, let's go to the island. This will be fun.” Arno smiled, and wound one of the ropes around his arm. Of all of us, he could definitely sound the most menacing.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Please,” I said. “You can't blame me for what my dad did.”

Mickey scratched his head. He'd climbed as far up the main mast he could, but he wasn't looking
around—instead he was looking directly down at me.

“What did he do?” he asked. “And why haven't you told us about it?”

“I'm confused too,” Arno said.

“Jonathan doesn't have to tell us everything about his life,” David said.

“I think he kind of does,” Arno said. “We tell him everything about our lives.”

“That's true,” David nodded.

“What are you going to use?” I asked.

“What?” Mickey clambered down from the mast.

“To kill me?” I was backed up against the fore or aft—the back of the boat, whatever it's called.

“What? We just want—” Arno came forward. He had a big hook at the end of a length of rope.
Dragged through the water by a hook till I tell them everything and it still won't be enough
.

It was too much. I closed my eyes and flipped over the rail. When I came up out of the water, I heard screaming, and the guys were desperately trying to turn the boat around. I bobbed along and though I felt frightened of being really cold and wet, I knew that I was at least alive. And then I guess the cold water knocked off the stupid
high-on-pot feeling and I realized how pointlessly paranoid I was being—
they are my friends!
And
wow
, the water was so, so much colder than the air.

The more they worked at getting back to me the farther away I got. And then I was around the tip of the island, and I was floating and cold. I started to wave at the few other boats that passed by. Minutes passed and I tried to recall what I knew about hypothermia, which was very little. And that's when I saw him.

“Patch!” I yelled. It was the oddest thing. There was Patch, on a sailboat, with Selina Trieff.

“Patch!” I thrashed around and screamed and finally, finally, I got his attention. Patch looked around, and then, after about five times as long as it'd take a normal person to recognize his best friend, he saw me.

“Hey, Jonathan,” Patch called out. “You're in the water.”

I watched him turn and talk to Selina, who had on gigantic sunglasses and a big piece of something white tied up in her hair. She looked beautiful. They kissed, and then Patch jumped into the water and swam over to me.

“Wow, it's freezing!” he said, and laughed. “I
saw the boat a minute ago—why aren't you on it?”

“Where is it?”

Patch pointed and then we swam around the tiny horn of the island to where the guys had managed to make
The Oldest Profession
stay still. We clambered up the ladder in the back.

“Do you guys even have a clue what you're doing?” Patch asked. David threw towels around us and we dried off as fast as we could. Luckily, it was still sunny.

Meanwhile, Patch started barking orders, and Arno and Mickey kind of skulked around looking a little embarrassed that they hadn't been such expert sailors after all. David was supposed to hold the jib, and Arno had to put his weight on the left side, and Mickey was supposed to do some other thing.

“This isn't fun,” David said to me. Patch was making David sit exactly in the back middle of the boat. He wasn't supposed to move except to duck his head when the sail swung by. “You know, maybe you should take one of the other guys on the trip. I'm not sure I'm up for it anyway.”

But I could tell he didn't entirely mean that. “The ring-buying's off, I take it?”

“That's for damn sure.” David nodded to himself.

“Where's Selina going to go?” I asked. Patch was down to his boxers even though it was really cold, and he was scampering around fixing all the stuff we'd messed up.

“Home?”

“Oh,” I said. And when I looked up, beautiful Selina Trieff was sailing away. I had a dim recollection that she had a house in Oyster Bay. She waved at us, and she looked kind of sad. I wondered how long they'd been on the boat, and whether they were going out or had slept together, or anything really. Because, since I was now with Ruth, it'd be nice to have at least one of us going out with some girl so we could maybe do stuff together once we all got back to the city. And Patch was my friend, and so were the rest of these guys, and I hoped that once we got through this weird stuff with my family we could all hang out again and things would be just like they were before.

“What an amazing girlfriend,” I said.

“Girlfriend?” Patch was busy with some rope we'd ignored.

“That explains why we were having such
trouble with the boom,” Mickey said.

“You guys were about to really screw up this boat,” Patch said. So then I didn't ask him any more questions about Selina.

“We were going to go to that island over there.” Arno pointed.

“Why?” Patch asked.

“Because,” Arno looked back at David and Mickey, who were looking away. “You've missed so much of what's gong on.”

Patch scratched his chin and stared at the little stand of scrub trees in the middle of the sound.

“I don't get it. So why aren't we talking about it? And why was Jonathan swimming around? Anyway, you'd destroy this boat if you got it anywhere near there. No, let's take her home. I should probably say what's up to my mom. Is she around?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Arno nodded.

I sat back against the cushions on the back of the boat and sipped slowly on a beer. Everybody kept glancing at me, but now that Patch was around, nobody said anything.