Sandbridge Box Set

Chapter 7-1

Chapter 7

By the time Andy had been at the Dockside for a week, he’d settled into something like a routine. He took Trick for a walk down the beach first thing in the morning, then came back to share a cup of coffee with Scooter on the deck. After that, he’d help out around the place—Scooter really hadn’t been kidding about not being much of a handyman—or work on Scooter’s or D’ante’s trucks, which were old but in pretty decent shape considering all the salt in the air, give or take a few parts. Some days, they drove into town to run errands before the restaurant opened.

Working at the restaurant was tiring, but not difficult. Busboys were unremarkable, part of the background, which Andy liked. Being invisible was reassuring, like floating in a pool and letting the water muffle all the sound. Scooter and Ekaterina were kind, and Jason’s suspicion seemed to be slowly fading.

Harry-Rex and his wife, June, had stopped by on the fourth day. Scooter had gotten catfish and fried it up, and they’d all sat at the staff table in the back to eat. Miss June, as she insisted on being called despite being over fifty and married, had brought Andy a large assortment of Tupperware containers full of food, including something she called strawberry hoe cakes, which were actually a cornmeal sort of pancake. Andy thanked her carefully and exchanged an amused glance with Scooter—he was living and working in a restaurant; food was actually one of the least of his worries.

Not terribly subtle, Harry-Rex had started asking Andy questions. Where had he come from, how long was he planning on staying, did he have a trade? That last one, Andy had figured, was the equivalent of his father’s business colleagues asking about school. And then things had gotten even more personal and invasive: who were Andy’s people, why had he come south, did he have a girl back home?

Andy fumbled through explanations that were half evasion with bits of the truth mingled in, because outright lying was bound to trip him up eventually. But both Scooter and Kat seemed to recognize his discomfort, and they cleverly diverted Harry-Rex’s attention, giving Harry-Rex the spotlight. “Oh, you should tell Andy about that Pennsylvania fella, that time, remember?”

He couldn’t stop thinking about what Kat had said about making a home here. Nick hadn’t been unwelcoming, not at first, and Andy wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell what a real family was like. He didn’t exactly have experience with that. And sooner or later, they were going to find out who Andy was and what he’d left behind, and he wasn’t sure he could face their reactions. Disgust that he’d essentially sold himself to Nick to get away from his father; disdain that he hadn’t figured out sooner what an ass Nick was; pity for the abuse…Each possibility made Andy’s stomach churn.

But God, it was tempting to drop his guard, let himself trust these people. He’d never known anyone so good, so caring. It wasn’t the sort of saccharine caring while probing for gossip fodder that Harry-Rex and his wife had displayed. In fact, Scooter and Jason and Kat were downright mean to each other when they weren’t in front of the customers, trading pointed insults that were somehow rarely belittling and despite the snide tones, full of affection and love. They were all very handsy, quick with hugs or to mess up each other’s hair, and as Andy got a little more comfortable with them, they included him in both the banter and the casual contact.

Two days after Andy had finished fixing D’ante’s transmission, he turned up at the Dockside during the lunch prep with tickets in his hand. “You wouldn’t let me pay you,” D’ante said, “but you can at least go have some fun. G’wan, I’ll cover your shift for the afternoon.”

Kat, helping Jason slice tomatoes, peered over Andy’s shoulder at the tickets. “Ooh, fun!” she said. “You should take Scooter with you, he’s great at a game.”

Jason looked mildly offended. “I’m great at a game,” he said. “Scooter’s just obnoxious.”

Kat stretched up on her toes to kiss Jason’s cheek. “I know, but you are too intense for a first-timer,” she teased.

“I’ve been to baseball games before,” Andy said.

“Not like this, you haven’t,” D’ante promised. He leaned out the kitchen door. “Scooter! You need to go have some fun, man.”

Faintly, from Scooter’s office, came the response, “Fun? What’s that?”

Kat leaned around D’ante. “Andy hasn’t been to a Tides game yet! You will take him.”

“So you want me to torture the poor guy?” Scooter appeared in the office doorway, hair sticking up in all directions as if he’d been shoving it back repeatedly. “The Tides are terrible. Like, horrible, horrible baseball. D’ante’s nephew’s T-ball team plays better.” He brightened a bit. “Is it dollar-dog this week? That’s always worth it.”

“So next time I owe you, I’ll bring you tickets to one of Jody’s games. Tides is what I got right now,” D’ante said. “Man up and go watch some bad baseball, yell insults at the third baseman, and eat hot dogs that are guaranteed to give you heartburn.”

“I’m not sure manning up is required,” Scooter said mildly. He flicked a glance at Andy. “If you want, I mean, I don’t…Kat’s pretty good at a game, too. Babushka power!” Which made Kat grin and Jason sling a tomato stem in Scooter’s direction.

“Stop trying to give away my girl,” Jason said. “I paid good money for her.”

“What good money is this, I never see this good money,” Kat complained, thickening her accent until it was more like something from a bad spy movie, her eyes twinkling. “Seriously, you’ve been working too hard,” she told Scooter. “Go. We can survive the lunch rush without you for a change.”

“They’re your tickets, Andy,” Scooter said, raising an eyebrow.

“I know I’ve only been here for a week,” Andy said, “but I already know better than to argue with Kat.” He grinned. “Besides, baseball isn’t any fun by yourself. Let’s do it.”

Scooter held his hand out to Kat. “Gimme your Tide card. I hate parking at Harbor Park. We’ll take the light rail in.”

Kat dug out a blue and white plastic metro pass. She said something in Ukrainian and Scooter answered her in the same language, then shoved at her shoulder. “C’mon, we’ll have to scoot, the game starts at one. Not that it’ll be tragedy if we miss the first inning.”

Andy grinned and handed his apron off to D’ante. “Have fun. There’s a pack of old ladies who’ve been coming in for lunch the last three days and they try to grab my ass every single time I walk by. They’re gonna love you.”

Scooter’s truck was a lot more comfortable now that the air conditioning was working again. He pushed a CD into the player. Scooter’s musical tastes seemed to be a combination of loud, awful country, and eighties pop, but he did have a nice singing voice. Even if he was singing, oh, my God, was that Hall and Oates? Jesus. Andy stared out the window, attempting to smother a snicker.

“And I can see you try-yi-yi-ing not to laugh,” Scooter sang, grinning, “but f**k youuuuuu this song is great.”

Andy gave up and cackled. “What the hell is wrong with you people and music down here?” he demanded.

“I don’t have anyone I need to impress,” Scooter said. “I like what I like. Eighties music makes me happy. Who’re we playin’ today? Or, more precisely, which terrible team is going to kick our even worse asses?”

“Louisville…Bats? Is that a real team? How can that be a real team?” Andy was almost offended on the team’s behalf.

Scooter grinned. “Hey, Richmond’s team is the Flying Squirrels, so…minor league ball. It’s…a thing. Not necessarily a good thing, but a thing.”

“And yet, you agreed to go with me,” Andy pointed out.

“Eh, it’s fun. I used to go to Mudcat games with Jase when we were kids. Crawl under the bleachers and steal popcorn when the ushers weren’t lookin’. Course, we got thrown out more often than we got to see a complete game, too. Jason never can keep his mouth shut when he sees a bad call.”

“Color me not-surprised.” Jason did have a tendency to rant and rave about things. Andy eyed the tickets. “Is this the baseball bats, or the flying kind, I wonder.”

“Flying kind.” Scooter pulled into a commuter lot. The light rail for Virginia Beach’s sister-city was not what Andy would really consider public transportation: a single train line that ran from one side of Norfolk to the other. (More or less, anyway; Andy still couldn’t figure out how to tell when they’d crossed from one city to the other.) The platform was white and sparkling clean, and there was a weird modern-art sculpture in the grass lot around the platform. The only familiar thing about it was that the few people who used it stared at their phones while they were waiting.