The Rest of the Story(101)

I swore, I could hear him smile at this. “You think?”

“Sure,” I said. “And Bailey’s pictures will have her, like, running the Tides or something after college. And Trinity pushing her baby across a different campus, when she gets back to school.”

“You’ve thought about this,” he observed.

“It just makes sense, right?” I said. “A life isn’t just the pages you know, it’s everything. We just can’t see what’s happened yet.”

Somewhere near him at the Station, there was a burst of laughter, loud and sudden. When it died down, he said, “Okay, then. What’s your picture?”

“Of what?”

“The future,” he replied. “What’s the rest of your story?”

I thought for a second. What did I see, or want to see, ahead? “Something having to do with this place,” I said finally. “Proof that it’s not over, that I’ll come back. That’s what I want.”

He was quiet again. But this time I could hear him, just there on the other end of the line. “Well, for what it’s worth, nobody here’s forgetting you.”

I felt my face flush. It wasn’t nobody I was worried about. “I hope you’re right,” I said. “Now, tell me more about this picture and that terrible kiss.”

Just as he was about to launch into the story, though, I heard a knock on my door. I scooted aside so it could open and my dad stuck his head in. “Hey,” he said. “You busy?”

“Um,” I said, gesturing at the phone at my ear. “Kind of. What do you need?”

“Just thought we could take a walk,” he replied. “Five minutes?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

He gave me a thumbs-up, then shut the door again. Slightly stunned, I said, “My dad wants to take a walk.”

“So he’s talking to you now?”

“Apparently,” I said, still wary. “I wonder what he wants to discuss.”

“Talking is good either way,” he said. “But mark our place, okay? Up next is some good stuff, including but not limited to when your mom and my dad became obsessed with the California look and tried to lighten his hair.”

I couldn’t help it: I flipped ahead until I found a shot of Chris sitting in a chair, a towel around his neck and his head over the sink while my mom was shaking up a plastic bottle. I recognized a framed needlepoint by the sink that CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF: it was still in Mimi’s bathroom. “Was it bad?”

“Awful,” he told me. “You’ll love it. Bye, Saylor.”

“Bye,” I said. But even after he hung up, I kept my phone where it was for another second of connection between us. Then I put it down, turning back to the album.

I grabbed all the pages that were left, turning them all in one motion to the back cover opposite that final one. If there was more room, how would this story go on?

In that moment, I hoped to see my dad and me together, side by side, talking. Beyond that, who knew. I closed the book and went to find him.

At first, it was awkward. So we started walking.

“I’ve been meaning to explore around here a bit,” my dad said as we left the front entrance of the Tides and started toward the main road. “I bet a lot has changed in nineteen years.”

“It’s been that long?” I asked.

“Since I was on this side, yes,” he replied as a BMW with tinted windows drove past us, barely making a sound. “When we came back with you that summer, we only went to Mimi’s. And left quickly, as I remember.”

This seemed like an opening. “The second honeymoon didn’t take, right?”

“Nope,” he said, wiping his brow. Even though it was dark, it was still hot. “Truthfully, I think we both knew things weren’t salvageable at that point.”

“But you went to Vegas anyway?”

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, I loved your mom so much. I wanted it to work. It just . . . didn’t.”

“Roo’s been telling me some stories,” I said quietly, hoping it wasn’t too risky to mention his name. “About Mom and his dad, growing up here.”

“Hmm,” he said. I wasn’t sure what that meant. “They were very close.”

“You met him, right?” I asked. “Chris Price?”

“Oh, yeah,” he replied. We were across from the Tides now, heading toward Campus, which I could see up ahead. “We all met the same night, actually. At a party on the raft.”

“Our raft?” I said.

He looked at me, amused. “Well, we considered it ours, but yes. The very same.”

“You guys had parties out there?”

“Yep,” he said, nodding. “It was the gathering place back then too, especially in the evenings. Tons of boats, tied together, and everyone moving between them.”

I would have bet the rest of my grounding there was beer there, too. Not that I felt I could say this out loud.

“How did you guys meet?” I asked.

He gave me a sideways look. “We didn’t come here to talk about your mom and me.”

“I don’t know why we came here,” I replied. “You’re the one who invited me.”

“True,” he said mildly. We walked a little farther, until Campus, its low block buildings dotted with chairs heaped with towels, was right beside us. He stopped, looking at it, then said, “My unit was around back. Should we try to find it?”