The Lifeguards(47)

“Don’t you trust me?” she’d said, holding out the orange cup.

So he’d taken the smoothie. He’d sipped it in front of her: Yes. I trust you.

By the time he gets to work, he can barely drive. He rests his head on the steering wheel, but then opens his car door to vomit on the pavement.

He is going to have to drive himself to the hospital. Wrenching pain seizes his stomach, and he feels boiling hot.

Xavier blacks out.





-2-


    Bobcat


ROBERT’S BOSS AT THE Rosewood Pool stops him on his way to lunch. John is a funny guy. He obviously misses being a teenager (like every other grown-up, as far as Robert can tell) but he seems to have made peace with adulthood, getting a job where he can be in the sun, enjoying his conversations with the guards and the old ladies who swim laps every morning.

Honestly, Robert would rather be John when he grows up than any other adult he knows. Even his mom makes herself smaller all the time, trying to wedge herself into some role that was never made for her.

(“Fancy Oil Wife.”)

It kills him. Can’t she just be herself?

(Guess not.)

Robert wants a different life than his parents’. He wants to do something, to adventure, maybe be an astronaut or a smoke jumper. His great-grandfather struck oil! But what’s left for him? Robert doesn’t want to end up like his father, living off his inheritance, talking about mortgage rates or whether a particular Scotch is “peaty.” Even his parents’ parties lack fun. They get drunk, sure—his dad more than his mom—but then talk more about mortgage rates.

“Bobcat?” says John.

“Yeah?” says Robert, pausing.

“Xavier never showed today,” says John. “No call, nothing. Can you stay late and cover his shift?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s not like him, is it?”

“No,” says Robert. Of all of them, Xavier is the most organized. Charlie is the nicest, Robert is the strongest, and Xavier is the genius. They’ll be fine, as long as they have each other. In an apocalypse or whatever.

“Can you cover?”

“Sure, I guess so,” says Robert reluctantly. He wants to see Lucy before her shift at Chuy’s, and then hit a raver some Snapchat idiot posted about. He and his friends will either stay at the party or jump the Cliffs. The moms have already planned one of their epic booze fests, this one supposedly to celebrate the first day of summer.

(Which means no one will notice if they’re gone.) Robert stops at his locker to retrieve his shirt and phone. He groans when he sees his father’s text: FATHER SON LUNCH! MEET YOU OUTSIDE POOL AT NOON.

(Fuck.)

Robert’s dad is obsessed with making his son “a man.” He roughhouses with him, takes him to the Austin Gun Club every weekend. Any excuse to act “manly.”

There’s nothing from Xavier. Robert messages Roma, asking her where her brother is, and she doesn’t answer. He messages Charlie, who sends back a “shrug” emoji, followed by a “sick face” emoji, followed by a question mark. Robert pulls on a T-shirt, calculating how to evade his dad, grab his bike from the rack, and zoom across the bridge to Lucy’s.

Robert walks toward the pool exit and sees his father’s gleaming truck. “Crap,” he whispers.

“Hey! Son! Over here!” yells his dad. Everyone in the parking lot turns to look. Robert’s dad is playing loud eighties rap.

(“Fight for Our Right to Party.”) (Oh my God.)

“Nice ride,” says Carrie, who’s working the front desk. She wears her hair in cornrows even though she’s white.

“Jesus,” mutters Robert.

“Is that your dad?” says Carrie.

“Yup.”

“Wowzers,” says Carrie.

Robert goes to the truck—there’s no avoiding this—and gets in. “Dad,” he says, “I have plans for lunch. Sorry, Dad.”

“Open the glove box,” says Louis. His voice is low and serious, as if he’s starring in some Wild West movie and he’s the sheriff.

Robert doesn’t want to open the glove compartment. He knows what’s inside. “Dad…” he says.

“Open the glove compartment, Son,” growls Louis.

Robert grits his teeth. He wants to find Lucy, to make love to her, and then have a P. Terry’s double cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake before returning to work. He is so sick of his dumbass father. Robert opens the glove compartment and sees the gun.

“Take it out,” says Louis.

“Dad, come on,” says Robert. “Mom said—”

“I don’t see your mother here,” says Louis. “Do you, Robert? Do you see your mother here?”

Robert is filled with a white-hot fury. It takes him over almost instantly. His rage scares him sometimes.

“Take it out!” yells Louis.

(His dad is a fucking clown.) Robert takes out the gun. He aims it right at his father’s face.

Louis smiles. “Let’s do this, Son,” he says.





-3-


    Charlie


THE FIRST DAY OF summer and Charlie should be in the water. Instead, he’s nervous at Austin-Bergstrom Airport. Of course he’s nervous! He’s about to finally, finally, meet his father. Jesus, he’d wanted to bring Amir or someone along for this event, but it seemed like a strange request. Charlie is scared. Seriously, he’s scared. He wants this random man to love him—there, it’s true.