Damn. The water was cool, but I could feel myself flushing. “I think you’re giving me too much credit.”
“I’m not. Look at the way you booted Tristan out of here. The way you’re helping Anna.”
“Arguably, that is called doing my job.” For some reason her characterization made me uncomfortable. Iwantedto be those things: honorable, upstanding, kind. I just wasn’t sure Iwas.
“Well, then you’re doing your job well.”
“Well, maybe, but I’m also lazy—I went to a grand total of two sunrise circles while the kids were here. And Iamkind of a dick—I basically ignored a couple of the music kids because they were talentless wannabes.”
She splashed me, signaling that she was done enumerating my good qualities, which was honestly a relief. “Anyway,” she said, “I’m still not sure I should have told you about my date with Scott. It’s been stressing me out not telling you, and when you brought him up, it felt like lying to keep silent. But maybe it was selfish, dumping this all on you. It’s not as if you can doanything about it, and I’ve probably messed with your mental image of one of your best friends.”
“We were neverbestfriends, but we were tight. We worked really well together. And his family was… really good to me.”
“Where did you meet?”
“We met at band camp, basically, if you can believe it. The band teacher at my school was pals with some other teachers in the city, and they organized an informal battle of the bands one summer—a round-robin tournament. I was in a shitty band at that point with some guys from my school. Scott went to a fancy arts high school, and his band was much better than mine. But we ended up vying for the title, and I don’t know, I guess we had a lot of respect for each other. We started jamming. His parents were wealthy—they had that big apartment on the Upper East Side that I told you about—and I spent all my free time there until we graduated. Then they basically bankrolled the band through the lean years. And when I’d eat dinner there, which was often, they always sent me home with leftovers, which I’d give to my sister. They were good folks.”
Which was why it was so hard to hear what a shithead their kid became.
But also, hearing the story of what a shithead Scott had been to Gretchen made me feel less bad about howIwas feeling about him.
“Well, you show different sides of yourself to different people. Just because he was one way to me doesn’t mean—”
“If you’re about to say what he did to you doesn’t make him a bad person, you’re incorrect.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have—”
“I don’t feel like I have to do anything. I’m glad you told me. It makes it easier to just stay out of touch, actually.”
“Are you sure?”
I had never been more sure of anything in my life. Her story was the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place. I was done with Concrete Temple. I was done with Scott. I was in another phase. My protest music era, or whatever. I didn’t even know yet. But somehow, it was easier to be in a new phase knowing the old one was really, truly behind me.
“I’ve been wondering about his wife,” Gretchen said.
“Meaning should you tell her he’s on the prowl?”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how I’d do that. Send her a DM on Instagram, I guess.”
“They’ve been separated more than a year now, if it makes you feel better.”
“It does, actually.”
“Well, good. Honestly, I don’t know the ins and outs of their separation, but I think we can both feel OK about letting go of the Scott fallout in our lives.”
She heaved a big, relieved sigh. “I feel so much lighter now that I’ve told you.”
Ifelt so much lighter now that she’d told me. And I had gotten to explain the TV smashing incident. “I guess this is why people go to confession. Come on. Shampoo time.”
We swam back to the dock, and I shimmied up far enough to grab her shower caddy and to angle the flashlight so it was illuminating us. I squirted some shampoo into my hand. “Hold on to that post.”
“You’re going to wash my hair?” she exclaimed in disbelief.
“This is a full-service confession, ma’am.” I paused. “Unless you don’t want me to.”
“Oh, by all means, knock yourself out. And remember I paid for the shampoo with extra scalp massage.”
I chuckled and got to work.
