“Was Wheezer a friend of Mook's?” asks Olivia.
“More likely an acquaintance.” Ceepak gives everybody the description T. J. gave us. Tall. Nerdy glasses. Wavy hair. Bushy goatee.
Becca scrunches up her nose like she just smelled boiled cabbage. “Still doesn't sound familiar.”
“Let's talk about the summer of nineteen ninety-six,” says Ceepak. “That's when you all met?”
We run down the who-knew-who-first stuff until Ceepak's up to speed. The girls retell the bathing suit fitting room story. I talk about Jess's lifeguard chair. “I used to hang out there, after I worked mornings at the Pancake Palace.”
“Is that the summer you were a busboy?” Olivia smiles, remembering.
“Yeah.”
“And they fired you for dropping too many trays?”
“They hired me back, like, two days later.”
“They were desperate,” says Jess.
“Yeah.” He's right. They were. I was pretty lame busing tables. Kept breaking milk glasses when I jammed dirty silverware inside them.
“No retreat, no surrender,” Jess says.
“Springsteen?” Ceepak recognizes the quote.
“Yeah. That was our motto that summer, remember?”
We all nod and have to laugh as we remember how cool we thought we were. We actually had A Motto:
It's all about friends hanging out, probably in the summer, probably on the Jersey Shore, and they promise to always remember each other, swear to stick up for one another, no matter what, to be “blood brothers against the wind.”
“What did you guys do that summer?” Ceepak asks.
“You know, the usual,” Becca says.
Olivia nods. “Work. Then hit the beach.”
“Chase boys.”
“Let the boys chase us.”
“Sometimes we'd just cruise the boardwalk. Check out the arcades. Ride the rides.”
“I ate way too much candy,” Olivia says, “because Katie had this job at …”
She pauses, realizes it's the same place Katie was working this morning.
“… Tammy's.”
Jess shoots me a look. I nod, hoping to encourage him to say whatever is on his mind.
“Can we be like totally honest?”
Ceepak will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do. Total honesty? He's down with that.
“Of course.”
“You're not going to, like, retroactively arrest us or anything?”
Nervous laughter titters around the room.
Ceepak raises his right hand. “On my honor.”
“Well,” Olivia says, “we were only fifteen and sixteen.”
“But,” Becca adds, “sometimes, at night, you know, we liked to party … drink beer.”
“And Boone's Farm.”
“Nuh-uh, Olivia. You were the only one who liked Boone's Farm.”
Olivia shrugs. “At the time, I thought it was wine.”
“It's basically soda pop that they mix with malt liquor,” Jess says, speculating on the secret Boone's Farm recipe. “And, it had that handy screw-off top.”
“So,” I say, “we spent our days working, hanging out on the beach. At night, we'd find somebody to help us buy a six-pack or two. Some wino who didn't mind aiding and abetting our underage drinking, especially if we gave him a few extra bucks, bought him a quart of Colt 45.”
“Then, we'd just, you know, chill,” Jess says. “Maybe build a little driftwood fire. Check out the stars. Listen to music.”
“Make out,” says Olivia. “A lot of cute boys drift through town during the summer.”
Becca sighs. “Every week was like a new summer camp full of ’em.”
“Other people would join us,” Olivia adds. “Kids we knew from school or people we met at our jobs. Kids on vacation with their folks. And Mook? He was always our evening's entertainment. The cruise director. He always had something stupid up his sleeve. Some joke or wild idea.”
The room gets quiet again. Everybody remembers Harley Mook. Before we grew up and began to change. Before he was murdered.
“I miss Mook,” Becca says. A tear trickles out from behind the sunglasses. “He was funny back then, you know?”
Olivia sinks deeper into the sofa. “Yeah. He was.”
“Wheezer.” Jess hisses the name. “Wheezer.” He's trying hard to remember. Me, too. Was Wheezer one of those guys who used to join us sometimes? Maybe just a summer renter's kid? Somebody from the Pancake Palace? Maybe a lifeguard?
“What's his real name?” Olivia asks.
“We don't know,” answers Ceepak.
“Well, Mook was always giving everybody names. He called me Liver Oil.”
Becca grins. “I was Betcha-Can't-Eat-Just-One. Like the potato chips. I think it was supposed to be dirty.”
“I was Jess. Dude never hung a handle on me.”
“Whom might he have called Wheezer?” Ceepak paces around the room. “A schoolmate? Someone he worked with? Someone he met that summer? We suspect Wheezer is a local.”
On account of the bumper sticker.
“But someone who has probably since moved away.”
How'd he come up with that?
“We know his complexion is currently pale. Even a local using SPF 50 would show a slight skin coloration.”
Okay. I'm with him again.
“We also know Wheezer felt insignificant in your presence. In his last communication, the shooter suggested that you'd never remember him. I suspect he was something of a loner, not one of the ‘cool kids.’ In fact, Mook told Danny that Wheezer was a loser.”
“A loser?” Becca seems surprised.
“I always thought
“We were,” Becca says. “Except Jess. Jess was always cool.”
“I was not.”
“Dude, you were a lifeguard.”
Jess shrugs, and we all rack our brains trying to remember ten summers ago and some loner or loser who drifted into our lives.
I've got nothing. I look around the room.
