Remarkably Bright Creatures(90)

“Oh, come on. I saw the picture.”

Brinks carefully places the ring on the bar. “Daphne was my best friend,” he says. “Look, I know how that sounds, but we really were just friends. Best friends.”

Cameron is about to fire back. But then he remembers Aunt Jeanne’s constant digs about him and Elizabeth. A heavy feeling sinks through him like a lead balloon. He’s no closer to finding his father than he was two months ago.

“You never, um . . . slept with her?” Cameron hates how crass the question sounds.

“No, I did not.” Brinks chuckles. Then his face goes somber. “Look, I’ll do a cheek swab if you want. I’m a hundred percent sure on this one.” He picks up the class ring and turns it over again before replacing it on the bar. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

He returns a few minutes later with a beat-up hardcover book and something cupped in his hand. The book gives off a puff of dust when he sets it on the bar. The cover reads SOWELL BAY HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 1989. Presumably the source of all those photos someone scanned and posted, including the one of Simon and Daphne on the pier. Then Brinks extends his palm. “This one is mine, see.”

Cameron picks up the ring and holds it in his left hand, while holding one he’s brought with him in his right. The weight feels identical. So close, yet . . . wrong.

Brinks tips his head toward the back of the bar. “There’s a big unfinished space back there. I use it for storage. But I suppose it’s also sort of fitting that all this high school stuff lives down here. It was supposed to be our place, after all.”

“Our place”? What’s that supposed to mean? Cameron turns the ring over, expecting to see the EELS engraving, but to his surprise, it says SOB.

“What’s SOB?” he asks.

Brinks chuckles. “My initials. I’m Simon Orville Brinks. Mind you, I don’t advertise that, because the jokes practically write themselves. Lucky son of a bitch, huh?”

Cameron stares at the two gold rings on the bar top. “You had it engraved with your initials? Did everyone do that?”

“Most people did, I guess.” Brinks shrugs. “Lots of people tried to get cute with the personalization. A bunch of youth-group types all got theirs with ‘GOD.’ And I’m sure more than one kid had a ring that said ‘ASS.’ I thought about getting ‘ASS,’ but my mama would’ve shanked me.”

“Do you remember anything about this one?” Cameron picks up EELS. Whoever he is, he must be a big fan of marine life. Or sushi. Did he pay extra for that fourth letter?

Brinks shakes his head. “I wish I could help you.”

“You don’t know EELS?”

Brinks adds softly, “I never knew my father, either.”

“Yeah, and somehow you still ended up a zillionaire.” Cameron’s shoulders slump.

“I worked hard,” Brinks says, and there’s an edge to his voice now. “Look, I came from Sowell Bay, too. Do you know how your mother and I met? Became best friends?”

“Um . . . no?” Cameron honestly hadn’t thought about this. Even when he thought they were together, he’d assumed they met at school, like everyone else.

“We lived in the same crappy apartment building; she lived there for a while our junior and senior year,” Brinks says. “On the wrong side of the highway.”

“I didn’t know there was a wrong side of the highway in Sowell Bay.”

Brinks lets out a hard laugh. “Well, these days, the whole place is sort of on the wrong side of the highway, but it’s turning back around.” His tone shifts; he’s talking business now. “Lots of development these last few years. I’m doing a waterfront condo project up there. Really nice units.”

Cameron nods. For a sparse second, he wonders whether Brinks would hire him to work the project. But he’d probably ask for references, and, well . . . that’s a no-go. Even for his former best friend’s son.

“Anyway.” Brinks leans over, propping his elbows on the bar again. “I asked you to meet me here instead of at my regular office because I thought you might get a kick out of seeing it.” He picks up the cocktail menu and, staring at it, says, “Like I said, I made this place for her.”

Cameron looks around the tiny lounge, now thoroughly baffled. A ridiculously small bar in the basement of a nondescript apartment building on Capitol Hill . . . for his mom?

“We talked about something like this, together, once we grew up a little. Mind you, this was back in the eighties, when speakeasies weren’t a total hipster cliché.” Brinks rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know how two teenagers come up with that sort of idea, but we used to spend hours talking about it.” His face grows more somber. “Of course, that was before her . . . problems.”

“Problems,” Cameron mutters.

Brinks is still studying the menu in his hands. “She even picked the name of the place, strange as it is.” He looks up with a half smile. “Mudminnow. It’s a—”

“It’s a tiny fish,” Cameron cuts in. “They live in rivers and other fresh water. Can survive really bad conditions. Extreme temperatures, hardly any oxygen in the water. So they’re usually the last thing to survive when shit goes south. They’re like the cockroaches of the tiny-fish world. But with a much cooler name.”