“Look at this.” Lucas plucked one of the tomatoes and reverentially rolled it around his hand. “It’s so beautiful and, like, so fragile. Like, squeeze it.” He held it out to Rhys.
“Yeah, squeeze it,” Malia whispered, staring intently at the tomato in Rhys’s hand. They were all looking at him. In a weird way, it reminded him of what it was like to be swim team captain, when all his teammates looked up to him. He squeezed gently, watching the indentation his thumb made in the tomato’s red skin. Suddenly, the tomato broke, splashing his Nike T-shirt.
“Yeah!” Lucas whooped, giving Vince a high five.
Emphasis: high.
“That was fucking beautiful,” Lucas added, still entranced by the broken tomato.
Lisa stroked Rhys’s tomato juice–covered arm. “It was like, you held the tomato, and then you just squeezed it and splat. And then it’s like, broken. It’s like a broken tomato. I could write a song about that,” she mused. Rhys nodded thoughtfully, remembering Lisa playing the ukulele the first time they’d met.
“I could help you,” Rhys offered. Lisa nodded eagerly.
“Let me get my ukulele. It’s downstairs. Do you want to come with me?” Lisa batted her eyelashes, obviously flirting. Rhys considered. His brain felt all fuzzy. So Lisa wasn’t Kelsey. She didn’t wear cute, formfitting clothes or shave her legs or brush her hair or wear deodorant. But was there anything wrong with that?
Where to even begin?
swim team throwdown
Owen hurried up First Avenue, his hands jammed in the pockets of his slate-gray North Face fleece. It was Friday evening, and he had to go to the fucking swim team pasta party, where he was sure everyone would ignore him in favor of Hugh and his absurd captain hat. He hadn’t talked to Kelsey since he’d run out of her apartment yesterday afternoon, ignoring her phone calls and texts like a pansy asshole. He wished there was someone he could talk to. His sisters were too nosy, and he certainly wouldn’t talk about his relationship with his mom. He wanted to talk to a guy friend. Actually, the only person he wanted to talk to was… Rhys.
Stop being such a pussy, Carlyle, he whispered to himself, causing a guy pushing a shopping cart full of empty aluminum cans to gaze at him curiously. Fuck. He even looked crazy to the crazies. He turned at Ninetieth Street and headed toward the entrance of Normandie Courts, where Coach lived in a two-bedroom with an ex–swim team buddy of his from Stanford. Normandie Courts was a sprawling modern apartment complex on First Avenue that people jokingly called Dormandie Courts, because so many kids moved there right after college.
Owen’s stomach was in knots as he walked down the moldy-looking maroon carpeting toward the elevator bank. He’d so much rather be doing anything else. Maybe he’d take a page from Baby’s book and just go to Barcelona. That’d be good.
“Hi, I’m going to 15A?” he told the burly security guard sitting behind a cracked laminate desk. He half-hoped the security guard would send him home or something, so he’d have an excuse not to attend.
“Go on up,” the guard said, barely looking up.
Owen entered the elevator, feeling like he was going into a tank of sharks rather than a feel-good, pump-the-team up pasta dinner. He walked over to 15A and rang the dinky-looking doorbell, nervously adjusting his Nantucket Pirates swim cap.
“Captain, my captain!” Coach Siegel swung the door open, obviously more than a little drunk. Owen felt his stomach loosen up and he unballed his hands from the pockets of his stiff Lucky jeans. He’d been sort of worried he’d get another lecture from Coach, but that obviously wouldn’t happen tonight. Owen sighed in relief.
“Don’t look so sad!” Coach exclaimed, noticing Owen’s expression. “Make yourself at home. There’s brewskies in the fridge,” he added with a wink.
“Thanks,” Owen muttered and wandered into the tiny, cream-colored efficiency kitchen directly adjacent to the doorway. The sound of Dave Matthews emanated from the small Bose sound dock perched on the cracked Formica counter, as if Coach was trying to relive his Stanford house party days.
Just then, Hugh entered the kitchen. “Carlyle.” He nodded stiffly.
“Hi.” Owen smiled awkwardly and busied himself pulling beers from the fridge. “Need anything?”
“I’ll get it myself. I don’t need anything from you,” Hugh said, brushing past Owen to grab beers from the fridge.
Owen hastily exited the kitchen, Bud Light in hand. He used the bottom of his thin gray T-shirt to unscrew the cap of his beer, then wandered into the tiny living room.
Around him, guys were chugging Buds and halfheartedly watching a baseball game playing on the forty-two-inch flat screen. A small group of freshmen were huddled in awe around a Playboy Centerfolds of the Ages book, which Chadwick held open on his lap like a storybook. Owen perched dubiously on a well-used Barcalounger that looked like it had been rescued from the side of the street. Propped next to it was a three-foot-tall blow-up bottle of Bud Light.
Classy.
“Carlyle!” Coach yelled from across the room, his hand held up in greeting.
“One sec!” Owen called. He wasn’t sure where he could hide in a tiny apartment, but he didn’t feel like chatting right now. He wandered over to the bathroom. The door was locked.
“May be a while!” Owen recognized Hugh’s voice. Great. He didn’t even want to know what Hugh was doing in there. He turned and looked out the window. It faced onto row after row of boring-looking apartment complexes. He sighed in frustration.
“It’s a tough life.” Owen glanced over at the overweight guy standing next to him, immediately recognizing him as Coach’s roommate, Mike. Coach often invoked him as a cautionary tale to his St. Jude’s swimmers: Mike had been a star swimmer at Stanford, then had gotten involved with a high-maintenance girlfriend, quit swimming, and dropped out of college to follow her to grad school in New York, where he’d promptly been dumped, begun working at Red Lobster in Times Square, and gained seventy-five pounds.
“Yeah,” Owen grunted, edging away as if Mike’s loser vibes were contagious.
“But as long as you have friends, that’s what counts.” As if to prove his point, he burped beerily. Owen nodded, pretending to be supremely interested in something happening out the window so he wouldn’t have to talk to Mike. Somewhere out there, he knew, Rhys was alone and probably lonely. Owen needed to apologize. A girl was never worth it. Why hadn’t he realized that before?
“I’ve gotta go, man,” he mumbled to Mike. He set his Bud Light down on the linoleum floor, hurried out the door, and down the hall. They’d never miss him.
In the elevator, a group of guys all wearing pink Abercrombie polo shirts and dorky-looking khakis were toasting each other with ill-concealed forties they’d duct-taped to their hands. They were playing Edward Fortyhands, where you couldn’t use your hands until you’d finished the forties attached to them. By the end, you were a drunk, stupid mess, and you couldn’t even untape the bottles yourself—someone else had to. But that was exactly the point. It was about teamwork. The sight of them almost made Owen want to cry for the friendships he’d lost.
Once he got to the corner, Owen stuck his hand out, trying to hail a cab. All the cabs streaming down First were taken, obviously transporting uptowners to parties and bars downtown. Frustrated, Owen glanced down at his scuffed Stan Smith sneakers. He’d just have to run.
* * *
Finally, he reached Rhys’s town house. He could hear music thumping from outside. Were his parents throwing a party or something? Owen pressed his finger firmly on the doorbell.
“Hey man!” A lanky guy with dreadlocks opened the door and smiled widely at him.
“Um, hi.” Owen paused, confused. He glanced at the brass numbers attached to the door. Eighty-seven. This was definitely the right house. “Um, is Rhys home?”
“Rhys?” The guy shook his head in confusion and wandered away, leaving the door wide open. Shrugging, Owen followed him inside.
“Rhys?” he called.
His voice echoed off the dark oak paneling of the foyer. Weird music was emanating from downstairs. He edged his way around the foyer and into the living room and ran down the stairs two at a time, opening the door into the indoor pool area.
Owen was always impressed with the pool in the Sterlings’ basement. While his grandmother’s town house had a pool, it was three feet deep and fifteen feet wide. Rhys’s pool was twenty-five yards long and five feet deep, tiled with hand-painted Italian panels of starfish, octopus, and kelp. Not that it looked too impressive now. The air seemed foggier than usual, and random kids were lounging on the deck in various states of undress. One guy was maniacally throwing tomatoes into the water as if he were playing some sort of game only he knew the rules to. Phish was blaring through the sound system. What was going on? Owen’s eyes finally landed on Rhys, lying on a float in the center of the pool.
“Hey man! You made it!” The guy who’d let Owen in smiled enthusiastically from the shallow end of the pool. “Coming in?” he asked.
“Rhys?” Owen called, ignoring the random kid. Who were these people? And why was Rhys hanging out with them? “Rhys?” Owen called again, his voice tinged with desperation.
“Why the fuck are you here?” Rhys yelled back, not bothering to move from his float.
“Can we talk?” Owen called tentatively, still standing at the edge of the pool. He ducked to avoid a tomato, thrown at close range by the dreadlocked kid sitting on a lounge chair. What the hell? Why was Rhys hanging out with losers like this? It was as if he had gotten a brain transplant or something.
“Please, can you talk to me?” Owen yelled again. He knew he sounded like he was begging. But he didn’t care.
“We are talking!” Rhys shouted back. Owen realized that everyone was completely quiet. Thinking quickly, he pulled off his shirt and dove into the water, swimming over to Rhys.
“What’s going on?” He shook out his hair and firmly held on to the edge of Rhys’s yellow float.
“Why are you here?” Rhys countered. He shook his head, annoyed. “You ruined my life. It’s good now. See. These people are good people.”
Whatever you say.
“Okay—fine,” Owen said awkwardly, not wanting to start a fight. “I know you hate me right now. But it’s just—come back to the team. I’ll quit. They want you as captain, not me,” Owen said simply, letting go of the float and attempting to stand up in the water. His right foot landed on something squishy. Ugh. He looked down and saw a waterlogged tomato, splatted against one of the starfish designs. It looked like the starfish had been murdered.
Rhys leaned back on the float, as if he hadn’t heard Owen. Owen sniffed the air. It definitely didn’t smell like chlorine.
“Who are these people? Are you smoking pot?” Owen whispered.
“They’re my friends,” Rhys said icily. He looked spacey and out of it. Owen didn’t know what to do. “Just… leave me alone. You’ve helped me enough,” he spat, paddling his float away from Owen.
“Cannonball!” On the other side of the pool, the dreadlocked guy jumped into the water.
“Yeah!” Rhys yelled happily.
“No!” Owen yelled forcefully, surprising himself.
“Dude, chill out!” The dreadlocked dude doggy-paddled over to Owen. “Hey man, it doesn’t seem like you’re adding positive energy to the party. Rhys is just chillin’. What’d he do to you?” he asked curiously.
“Nothing,” Owen responded simply. Rhys hadn’t done anything. He’d been the only best friend Owen had ever had, until Owen had completely betrayed him. “If you guys are his friends… I guess everything is cool,” he said slowly. Owen shook his head and looked one last time at Rhys.
“Dude, this isn’t you,” he hissed quietly to Rhys.
Rhys laughed bitterly as he glanced toward Owen. Owen’s face looked pale and drawn.
“You’re going to tell me who I am?” Of course Owen was being judgmental. He couldn’t see his friends for who they were: people who actually cared about him.
“Actually, yeah,” Owen said seriously. “Look, I know we might never be friends again. But just so you know, you were the best buddy I’ve ever had. And I miss you. And all the swim team guys do, too. Please come back. Our meet is against Unity tomorrow at ten. And honestly… you belong in the St. Jude’s pool, as captain. Not here, doing whatever it is you’re doing with these people.” Owen shrugged.
“Thanks,” Rhys spit sarcastically. Why should he care about a stupid swim meet? He had better things to do.
Like smoke up, play the ukulele with hairy-legged girls, and juggle tomatoes, obviously.
Just then, Lucas paddled over. One of his hands was held high in the air, clearly on a mission to get a joint over to Rhys.
“Rhys!” Lucas called joyfully. “Dude, here’s a little special delivery.” He passed the joint to Rhys.
Rhys took the joint and inhaled, wanting to blow the smoke straight in Owen’s face. He didn’t need him to tell him what to do. He was fine.
Owen shook his head. This was pointless. He swam to the side of the pool and pulled himself out. The worst part was, he’d caused this mess. And there was nothing he could do about it. He pulled on his shirt, not caring that it would get soaked, walked up the stairs, and firmly closed the front door.
j’s unveiling
“Jack, over here!”
Jack giddily whirled around on the red carpet as flashbulbs went off. Dick’s Stepford-wife publicity team had gone all out on the launch party for the Cashman Lofts. The entire West Broadway block occupied by the lofts had been blocked off with blue police barricades, while a red carpet and spotlights outside the door made the event seem more like a movie premiere than a building opening. The guest list was similarly glamorous, with an A-list guest list mixing with real estate and media types. Further up on the carpet, Jack could see Leonardo DiCaprio and some model-y girl, but none of the photographers seemed to care. Instead, they were all clamoring around her.
Jack shivered, her backless white Christian Dior gown not entirely appropriate for October weather.
“Ready, princess?” Dick Cashman lumbered easily onto the red carpet from a Lincoln Town Car. He wore his trademark leather cowboy hat, but had added a festive red bow around the brim. Tatyana strode behind him, wearing a gold Chanel dress that would have shown an obscene amount of cleavage had she not been carrying one of her puggles—Nemo or Memo or whatever its name was—close to her chest. The terrified pet looked like it wanted to crawl into her cleavage, rather than deal with the super-bright flashbulbs.
“Aw, I should help my mom,” J.P., looking handsome in a crisp charcoal suit, said, gesturing to Tatyana desperately trying to keep control of her dog. Jack nodded, not really paying attention.
“All righty, then, we’re in this together,” Dick Cashman boomed, putting a hand around Jack’s waist and pulling her close to him. Suddenly, flashbulbs began working overtime.
“Dick and Jack!” one pimply-faced photographer yelled from behind a police barricade. Dick whirled around and smiled. Jack cringed inwardly. Together, their names sounded like the title of some sort of perverted learn-to-read book.
Fun with Dick and Jack?
Where the fuck was her actual boyfriend? She didn’t want to be rude or anything, but she’d much rather be photographed on the arm of J.P. than on the arm of his fat, red, totally embarrassing aw-shucks dad.
“We’ll get some shots of you and J.P.,” Dick boomed, as if reading her mind. “And now, all I want you kids to do at this little hoedown is have fun. And that’s an order.” Dick Cash-man practically pushed her through the doors of the building, and Jack took a deep breath. The lobby of the lofts was sumptuously decorated like a rain forest, complete with twisted vines snaking from spindly tree to spindly tree, leopard-print ottomans, and a leaf-patterned carpet. It could have looked like a hokey theme restaurant, but instead it really did feel like a jungle oasis.
Jack hurriedly grabbed a glass of champagne from a
passing waiter and took a deep gulp. There. That was better.
“Hey.” Jack smiled in relief to see J.P. standing in front of her, holding two glasses of champagne. “Oh, you already have a drink,” he noted.
“I’ll take another.” Jack smiled coquettishly. “After all, we have a lot to celebrate!” She clinked her glass against his. His dark brown hair was combed over to the side and he wore a classic Armani suit with an emerald green tie that matched the jungle décor without being too obvious.
“I grabbed us a table,” J.P. said, slipping his hand through hers and escorting her through the arch-ceilinged lobby. “You look beautiful tonight.”
“Thanks,” Jack replied. She squeezed his hand hard. He smelled like John Varvatos Vintage cologne and suddenly, she wanted to go back upstairs to the penthouse—now. “Hey, I was thinking—” Jack whispered in J.P.’s ear.
“Jack, darling!” Beatrice Morris swooped down and planted a kiss on Jack’s freckled cheek. Beatrice was Jiffy Bennett’s thirty-two-year-old, three-times-married sister. She’d been a regular on the social circuit since she was sixteen and had gotten married for the first time at nineteen. Next to her now was a much older man, dressed in an all-white suit, clinging to the crook of her alarmingly skinny elbow.
“Nice to see you,” Jack responded shortly. The last time she’d seen Beatrice, she’d been married to a man who was ten years younger. Clearly, now she was swinging in the opposite direction.
Covering all the bases.
“This is my fiancé, Deptford Morris,” she cooed. The old man extended a shaky hand to Jack.
“Nice to meet you,” Jack said quickly, shaking his clammy hand.
“And you’re doing very well, I can tell!” Beatrice leaned in conspiratorially. “Real estate men are the best. I wish I’d learned that earlier,” she whispered, moving in so close that Jack felt suffocated by the smell of her Creed Royal perfume. Jack backed away, nearly stepping on Beatrice’s red Prada dress.