“What’s your point?” He was being obtuse on purpose, but it made his position crystal clear: he wasn’t going to acknowledge the mile-wide chasm between his beliefs and reality.
I decided to be polite instead of sarcastic. “So if you don’t see it and don’t talk about it, it doesn’t happen?”
“You’re starting to catch on. You’ll have to ask my brother to explain. Jim, I mean. He’s the theologian in the family. Me? I just follow orders.”
“And you’re very good at it.” I tried not to let my annoyance show, but he saw it and grinned.
“Oh, I’m good at everything I do.”
“You’re pretty cocky yourself.”
“I grew up with a bunch of lunatics and overachievers,” he said dryly.
“Yeah, I guess you did. And I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”
“Nope. Not a chance.”
We stared at each other with a surprising lack of hostility.
“Fine,” I said at last. “I swear, nothing ‘immoral’ will happen.”
“My definition of immoral,” he insisted. “Not yours.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. “Your definition.”
He grinned again. “Did you know I dated a lawyer once?”
“Everything’s a sparring match with you, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh. And I hate losing.”
“It runs in the family.” I glanced at Christy. “Next time I’ll let you argue with her.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He turned serious. “No funny business. You’re on your honor.” He gave me another meaningful look before he turned and walked away. The smug son of a bitch even started whistling. Cheerfully!
* * *
My bedroom door opened at six o’clock the next morning. I’d been awake for a while. I was alone, too, and had been all night. I didn’t even bother to open my eyes.
“Whaddya want, Rich?”
“Time for PT,” he said. “Get your ass up. Let’s go.”
“Seriously? You know I’m not in the military, right?”
“Get dressed. I’ll be outside. See you in five. That’s minutes, by the way.”
I met him in five. Minutes. He gave me time to stretch and then we set off at a leisurely pace.
I glanced at him sideways. “Are we gonna see who’s the biggest badass today?”
“No. I know who is.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m not in the mood to run a marathon.”
“The only easy day was yesterday,” he said.
“Hooyah.”
“Don’t say that.”
I paused. “Why not?”
“You haven’t earned it.”
“Fair enough.”
We ran in silence for the next ten minutes. Rich eyed me several times, but I was in good condition and wasn’t winded.
“Five miles sound about right?” he said. It was an honest question, not a challenge.
“Sure, no problem.”
He nodded and pushed buttons on his watch. It beeped and went silent.
“Pick up the pace a little?” I suggested.
“Yeah, okay.”
We finished the five miles in companionable silence and turned into the neighborhood. We slowed to a walk to cool off. And when we neared his parents’ house, he looked over at me.
“I still don’t like you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said mildly. “But… who’re you trying to convince, me or you?”
* * *
Christy and I wished Harold a happy Father’s Day over breakfast. I called my parents’ house and left a message on the answering machine for my own father. I told him I loved him and apologized for doubting him.
Then Christy and I went to shower and get ready, separately. Brooke’s graduation started at ten thirty, and we needed to leave by nine. Christy wore a strapless white sundress that showed off her tan shoulders and slender figure. I’d chosen a blue and white seersucker suit to match, with a lime green tie for a splash of color.
Anne offered to lend us her car, and I wondered why she was willing to do that when she wouldn’t let us walk on the beach by ourselves. Part of me suspected that Rich had more to do with it than his parents, but I couldn’t be sure.
Then again, Christy and I had plans all day, with little time for extracurricular activities. I was pretty sure I could find someplace private if I really wanted to, but I didn’t have a time machine to do it and still be everywhere we needed to be.
“Let me get the camera,” Anne said before she let us leave.
“Didn’t we do this already?” Rich muttered.
“Be nice, Richard,” she told him. “Or I’ll start asking when you’re going to bring a girl home to meet us.”
“You know what my life’s like,” he protested mildly. “I don’t have time for dating.”
“You need to find a nice woman and settle down. Before you’re thirty,” she added pointedly. “You’ll need a wife if you want to make the Navy a career.”
“I know,” he said in resignation.
“You’ll find someone when the time is right. Now, run along, dear. Let me take my pictures.”
* * *
We met Brooke and her family on campus about an hour before things began. Her father was a distinguished man in his mid-fifties, tall and slim, with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. He looked like the scientist he was. Her mother was slim and rather plain. She had red hair, but it was a deeper auburn than Brooke’s, although their eyes were the same.
Brooke’s older sister took after their father. She had the same hair and eyes, and she even wore similar glasses. She was a scientist too, a chemist, and married to a physicist. They lived in New Mexico and worked as researchers in a government lab. Their brother looked like a male version of Brooke, with coppery red hair, freckles, and their mother’s blue eyes. He still lived in Texas, where he’d just finished a PhD in microbiology.
They were all reasonably attractive and highly intelligent, with nearly a dozen advanced degrees among them, but none of them were in the same league as Brooke. Some random combination of genes had given her supermodel looks and Nobel laureate brains. In other words, she’d won the genetic lottery, literally.
We posed for pictures and then spent the rest of the time talking to Brooke’s family. Her brother and I had a good-natured argument about which was the “real” UT, the University of Tennessee or the University of Texas.
“UT is bigger,” he said.
“But Tennessee’s had the name since 1794. Texas wasn’t founded until…?”
“Um… 1893, I think.”
“Ouch. Almost a hundred years later.”
“Ninety-nine.”
“But who’s counting?”
“Okay, but Texas has the prettiest girls.”
“I dunno,” I said. “Look around, dude. California girls.” I put my arm around Christy, who beamed on cue. “They’re pretty cute.”
“Let’s agree to disagree. UT is bigger but Tennessee is older.”
“You mean Texas is bigger but UT is older.”
“Whatever,” he said. “But we agree that California has the prettiest girls.”
“I sure like mine!”
“Oh, boy,” Christy said. “Come on. We need to go in. They’re going to start soon.”
The ceremony itself was a lot smaller than I thought it’d be. The individual colleges held separate events, so Brooke’s was only about five hundred people. They finished in less than two hours and held a reception on the commons immediately after. Unfortunately, Christy and I couldn’t stay.
“When do you have to meet your family?” Brooke asked her.
“Oh, we have plenty of time.”
Brooke looked at me, and I checked my watch.
“We need to leave now. Sorry.”
“Can’t we stay a little longer?” Christy wheedled.
“We’ll see her later.”
“Where are you meeting them?” Brooke asked.
“A place called Bali Hai.”
“See? It’s close,” Christy said.
“Chris, that’s Shelter Island! It’s fifteen miles from here.”
“So? We can get there in, like, ten minutes.”