“Not true. He never ghts back.”
“So that’s what you like?” I ask. “Someone who ghts back?”
“Everyone enjoys a little witty repartee now and then.”
Is that a compliment? I can’t tell.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe I do like someone who ghts back. It’s a mystery, even to me. I’m just a beach bum, remember? Who knows what goes on inside this simple brain of mine?”
Yikes. Awkward. Some part of me wonders if I should apologize for that, but then I remember all the craptastic things he’s said to me.
A long moment stretches.
“Ever ridden a Ferris wheel in the fog?” he suddenly asks. “Oh! What about the aerial lifts?”
“Um, I don’t do amusement park rides.”
“Why?”
“?ey always break down and the seats are sticky.”
Porter laughs. “Jesus, Bailey. What kind of busted rides do they have back in our nation’s capital?” He shakes his head in mock disapproval and sighs. “Well, just because I feel sorry for your pitiful amusement park ride education, I suppose I’ll take you on the Bees.”
“What are the Bees?”
“?e Bees. Buzzz.” He tug-tug-tugs on my shirtsleeve, urging me toward him as he walks backward, smiling that lazy, sexy smile of his. “?ose wires with the chairlifts that are painted like bumblebees? ?e ones that take people up to the redwoods on the cliffs above the beach? You board them next to the big golden wheel on the boardwalk with the shiny, shiny lights? Get to know your new town, Rydell. Come on.”
“I just want somebody I can have a decent conversation with over dinner.”
—Tom Hanks, Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
11
“What’s the matter?” Porter asks as we head down the boardwalk. ?en it hits me: like the Ferris wheel, the ticket booth for the Bumblebee Lifts is next to the stupid whale tours window. I didn’t think this through.
“Crap. I really don’t want him to see me again,” I say.
Porter is confused for a second. “Patrick? Why would he care?”
My answer is a long, sad sigh.
“All right, all right,” he grumbles, but I don’t think he’s genuinely irritated. I’m more convinced he feels sorry for me, and that might be worse. “Go stand at the gate over there. I’ll be right back.”
I don’t have the energy to argue. I drag my feet to the chairlift entrance and wait while a stooped, Filipino man—name tag: Reyes—with a raspy voice helps a few stragglers off one of the lifts. Other than one other touchy-feely college-aged couple, it doesn’t look like anyone else is waiting to get on. I don’t blame them. Tendrils of fog cling to the swinging seats, which look much like ski lifts, painted yellow and black. ?e fat wires that carry the lifts over the boardwalk to the rocky cliffs rest on a series of T-shaped poles; one wire carries the ascending lifts, one wire holds the descenders. Big white lights sit atop each pole, but halfway up the line the fog is so thick that the lights just … disappear. I can’t even see the cliffs today.
“Mornin’,” the Bumblebees’ operator says when I greet him.
“What do you do if something happens to one of the lifts?” I ask. “How can you see it?”
He follows my eyes, cranes his neck, and looks up into the fog. “I can’t.”
Not reassuring.
After what seems like an extraordinarily long time, Porter returns, breathless, with our tickets and a small, waxed bag. “Yo, how’s it hanging, Mr. Reyes?” he says merrily to the operator.
“No food allowed on the Bees, Porter,” the elderly man rasps.
Porter stuffs the bag inside his jacket and zips it halfway up. “We won’t touch it until we get to the cliffs.”
