Finding Mr. Brightside

I adjust the rearview mirror, then check it to see if I’ve grown at all as a person. Not yet. Abram wisely buckles up and points to the widget that I’m supposed to shift from P to D. It’s not responding. Something’s off.

Abram reminds me, without judgment, that I may want to push down on the brake first. I laugh and try reversing again. Watch out, America. I circle the parking lot over and over again, Abram saying “Maybe you don’t want to get that close” after I graze the edge of a bush, and “You’re speeding up when someone pulls into the drive-thru as a joke, right?” he asks, as I fail to realize that’s what I’m doing. He’s the only kind of teacher I can learn from. I’m still a danger to myself and anything in my path—e.g., the empty soda cup I just ran over—but I feel my world expanding by just the slightest of margins.

30

ABRAM

JULIETTE AWAKENS THE NEXT MORNING to an unlikely role reversal: me, fully dressed, staring down at her with two Starbucks cups in my hands. She thanks me and accepts the drink before vowing never to let me “beat her up again.” I assure her I’m a lover, not a fighter.

She takes a couple of sips, then sits up straighter. “Did you see Janette there?”

“Who?”

“Janette. The barista I was hating the other day.”

“Oh, that Janette.” I shake my head nope; I can barely remember driving there and back. Juliette’s follow-up descriptions of Janette’s “Kerri Strugg voice” and “suspicious leprechaun eyes” don’t ring any bells for me, either. I must be too excited about today.…

“I have another surprise for you,” I say, watching as the a

“Does it involve other people?”

“Technically, no. We depart in an hour.”

An hour and a half, actually, but I don’t want to leave her too much time to cancel back and forth with. The way I’ve set this up seems to be working … she’s intrigued. If I’m not careful, I might turn into an accidental love genius.

*   *   *

Fifty-five minutes later, I’m showered and as ready as I’ll ever be. Juliette? Showered, but she “might never be ready, sorry.” Her words, and they’ll come true if she keeps getting into fights with her hair. Every time she passes a reflective surface, she picks up where she left off, and then she’s grabbing at the tie holding her bun in place and attempting to ramrod it smooth again. The southern humidity has other ideas—for instance, How ’bout some curls instead, y’all? It also has a southern accent.

“Isn’t the beachy look popular with you girls these days?” I say, testing out my wavering grandpa voice.

Juliette smirks into the mirror and says, “You mean with those crusty girls who put gel in their hair, Grandpa?”

I take a gulp of my iced coffee, smack my lips, and say, as creepily as possible, “Grampy likes ’em a little crusty, heh-heh-heh.”

Eventually she sits down on the chair across from me, accuses me of staring at her hair—which I don’t deny, because it looks good.

“Are you sure us going through with this is necessary?”

“No loopholes,” I say, removing the itinerary I folded too many times from my pocket and spreading it out onto the coffee table. I have to hold it in place with a coaster so that it lies flat. Now I kind of know how she feels about her hair.

She speed-reads the contents of the paper, looks up at me. “A whale-watching expedition?”

“I was thinking we should go visit our distant relatives,” I explain. She’s quiet for a minute, but in a contemplative way, not a grouchy one. I bet she’s thinking about that first night at my house, after CVS, how we talked about the whale versions of ourselves, the way things might’ve played out had we been born underwater.

“I tried to find a boat with Wi-Fi for you,” I say, “but it’s not really something they prioritize.”

“Doesn’t matter. This…” She rolls her eyes and looks away. For a second, I think she’s disappointed, and then her entire face breaks out into a smile. She’s never let it do that before. “This is one of my favorite things anyone’s ever done for me.”

“It is?”

“I have weird standards.”

“Or,” I say, “you have whale standards.” Juliette seems to like this explanation better. She stands up and walks over to me, and suddenly her face is front and center, and I can feel each of her shallow breaths on my skin as she tilts her chin downward, till her lips are aligned with mine. She gives me the lightest of kisses. “Thank you,” she says. I try not to behave myself, draw her back in with my animal magnetism, but she has to pack her purse. Don’t think we need the remote control she just threw inside it accidentally, but I keep quiet, just sit there and smile until she comes back over with a can of sunscreen in her hand and tells me to take off my shirt. I whistle at the familiar thought of my own bare chest and then do as she demands. I know what’s good for me. Her.

*   *   *

“Let me know if you see any ‘whales,’” Juliette says with fingers crooked into skeptical air quotations. Then she reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone in hopes that its cellular data signal has strengthened. In this case, I don’t blame her for trying to escape reality—would be doing the same if I hadn’t left my phone in some other shorts pocket back at the house. With all due respect to the whales, watching them remain underwater is kind of a snoozer. Not that I expect them to be all Yeah, we’ll be right up, can’t wait to see you, too! given how many harpoons they’ve historically taken to the forehead.

“Wonder why they call them right whales,” I say to Juliette.

“Because poachers deemed them the ‘right whale’ to hunt,” she answers, like a human Siri. That must be from one of the articles she downloaded before we left shore. Her web research skills are stronger than ever, and I think I figured out why she’s always honing them: because if she googles it, then she can separate herself from it; it becomes something “other” and turns into knowledge that can’t sneak up on her. Anyway, I want her back in the same boat as me.

“Wa

This seems to work every time, distracting her with games, because she quickly puts away her phone, stretches her fingers for maximum dexterity, and then places her fist within the air between us. I do the same. She’s probably thinking I’ll pick rock, because that’s the obvious boy choice, so I go with scissors. I lose, she pounds the crap out of my scissors with her rock. Then I pick scissors again, same result.

“Juliette,” I say, grabbing her leg, pointing toward the large circles forming in the water to the left of the boat.

“Quit trying to throw off my rhythm with a fake whale-sighting,” she says, blowing the gun smoke off her fist.

I really do think I’m spotting a whale, so I reach around and place my hand behind her back, sliding her across the slippery canvas seat until she’s leaning into me and can see the water from my point of view.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, as our fellow watchers crowd against the side of the boat.

We stare for I don’t know how long, in awe, afraid to move, as if the whale is the equivalent of an easily spooked horse. She’s not. She’s much calmer than any of us.

“I need my phone,” Juliette says, after a calf surfaces beside its mother.

“Not yet,” I tell her—not pushily, just firmly, trying to convey that this is a moment to experience before gathering evidence of it. “Just watch with me for a few more seconds.” I take her hand. She doesn’t argue when I say a snapshot wouldn’t do the whales justice anyway. I’d post it on Facebook and my former teammates would leave comments like Cool, dude, but where’s the face? Or my aunt Jane would say, You sure that’s not your shadow, Abram? Guess this means another six weeks of winter! Not worth it. Plus that Hawaiian-shirted guy with the high-powered camera around his neck promised to e-mail his pictures to us.