Sharks and Minnows

            His body cut a figure he didn’t recognize anymore, but Luke couldn’t understand why. He stared at himself in the mirror, trying to locate the source of the change. He hadn’t gained or lost a significant amount of weight. His posture was much as it had always been. If anything, his shoulders slipped back more easily now, modeling the body language of confidence and power. His hair had gone from the perfectly disheveled style of privileged youth to a clean-cut indicator of corporate professionalism, but he had expected this, had dreamed of it, even. So what was the problem?

            Luke put his hands in his pockets, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t shake the hollow sound that kept running through his brain. When he opened his mouth, the words that came out didn’t seem right. He looked at the set of his brow, at the way his cheeks curved under his eyes, and wondered what he would look like thirty years from now.

            “Luke?” he heard from the other room. He glanced back at the mirror, but his train of thought was broken. He crossed the short space that separated their bedroom from the kitchen.

            “Yeah?” he said, and looked at her. Abby was cutting up an avocado, her face an expression of unstressed concentration. She turned to throw the pit in the trash and her feet made that comforting padding sound on the linoleum floor. She was smooth lines and easy strength. She was someone who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t selfish about it. For a moment, he felt the cold bite of envy move through him. Then she looked up and their eyes met, and the jealousy was replaced with pride.

            She smiled. “I’m making guac. Do you want any?”

            Luke laughed. “Is that even a question?”

            She laughed back, reached up, and pulled down the heavy molcajete. He watched as Abby’s hands pulled off the avocado skin and carefully placed the meaty insides in the stone bowl.

            “What are you going to do on your day off?” he asked, and observed the slight tremor in her hands.

            “Maybe yoga, maybe go for a run. Depends how I’m feeling in a couple hours,” she smirked. “I don’t know, try not to think about work.”

            He nodded and she laughed again. “What?” he said.

            Abby leaned her head back and sighed. “Just thinking about not thinking about work makes me want to have a beer.”

            Luke smiled and glanced at the clock. “I guess it is a little early, but I wouldn’t judge.” Their eyes met again. He watched as the corners of her mouth twitched down and then struggled to go back up.

            He felt the words course from her brain into her veins, and knew them intimately before they floated out of her mouth. “What time does your dad get in?” she said.

            Luke shrugged and looked at the plant sitting by the television. “4:30, I think.”

            “Do you think you’ll come back here after you pick him up?” she asked.

            He looked at her. “I think we’ll probably go straight to an early dinner. He’s always hungry when he gets someplace new.” Luke watched Abby’s shoulders relax. “So you won’t have to interact with him before we’ve talked.”

            She grinned, reaching for a lime and slicing it in half. “You know I’m always happy to have your dad here,” she said.

            “I know,” he said, smiling at her fondly.

            Abby set her knife down. “Nervous?” she asked.

            He shrugged again. “Not so much nervous as . . .” he smiled, “filled with dread. I know how the conversation’s going to go.”
            She nodded. “Well, try to get some rest before he gets here. I’ll bring you some of this when it’s ready,” she said, pointing at the bowl. He turned. “Luke?” she said, and he looked back. She smiled at him and he crossed the room. He kissed her, feeling the weight of her as she went up on her tiptoes to meet his mouth. Then she pulled away. “Try not to let him get in your head,” she said softly.

            He sighed and walked back into their room.

~

            A sharp silence infected the car. Luke’s father sat in the passenger seat, clenching his jaw every few minutes and trying not to stare at his son. Whenever they drove over a bump in the road, Luke jumped. His slight nerves from earlier had morphed into imaginary spiders wrapping their legs around his esophagus. He wanted to stop the car, step out into the street, and run until another vehicle hit him or stopped to give him a ride. Instead, he drove straight to the restaurant and parked quietly.

            His father always walked a little in front of him, the leader in everything, even dinner. When they got inside, Luke tried to look away as his father confidently passed the host a tip in the fold of his palm. The host nodded and smiled and led them straight into the dining room.

            The restaurant was situated a short distance from the beach, one of those semi-private expanses that seemed perpetually clear of debris. Luke and his father were seated near the window, their view of the ocean pulsing through Luke’s brain and swallowing him whole. It made him nervous. The sheet of glass separating them from nature’s magnificence reminded him of his place, reminded him he wasn’t supposed to want to leave, only to look.

A waiter appeared with a bottle of red, but his father frowned and put his hand over his wine glass. The waiter turned on his heel and disappeared. Luke tried to look at his father, but kept glancing down. His father’s brown eyes, on the other hand, surveyed him until they were satisfied.

“I’m assuming you know why I felt the need to come here,” his father said.

Luke ran his fingers over his napkin. He nodded.

“I want to hear you say it, just so I know you understand.”

Luke could feel what his father was doing, and he still couldn’t figure a way out of it. “Because it’s been three years since I left school, and I just quit my third job.”

His father nodded, and Luke was surprised he didn’t lick his lips in anticipation. “And do you feel good about that, Luke?”

            Luke shrugged. He stared hard into the shiny white of the plate in front of him.

            “I’m sorry, what was that?” his father said. Luke could feel him lean forward a few inches.

            “No,” Luke said, “I don’t feel particularly good about it.”

            His father smirked. “Well, neither do your mother and I. You should have called me before you left the last one. Maybe I could have talked some sense into you.” The waiter reappeared. “Two filet mignons,” his father said, without looking up. “Medium-rare.”

            Luke could almost hear the waiter’s heels click together as he left. “I didn’t want to have sense talked into me,” he began, but changed tactics when he saw the annoyance grow around his father’s eyes. “I talked it over with Abby. We decided it was the best thing for me to do.”

            His father snorted. “Then she’s not as smart as I thought she was,” he said. “I stuck my neck out for you for that job. Do you think that’s going to happen again? Three different careers in three years? How’s that going to look on a résumé?”

            “I’m only twenty-four, dad,” Luke said.

            “No, you’re already twenty-four. You should have three solid years of work to build a foundation on at this point.” Luke could swear his father was about to roll his eyes.

            “Well, that’s not what happened,” he said.

            “It should have,” his father said. “You should have picked something after you graduated and you should have stuck it out. Instead, you’re living off your girlfriend until you can find somewhere else to take you.” His father picked his water glass up by the stem and tossed its contents down his throat.

            “I did pick something,” Luke said, “but it wasn’t right.”

            His father laughed bitterly. “I don’t know where you got the idea that there’s some magic job out there, waiting for you. You make a job right for you, son. Besides, work’s work. Were you getting paid well? Did they make you do something you were morally opposed to? No?” He laughed again.

            “I wasn’t happy,” Luke said.

            This time his father’s eyes really did roll. “This generation. Work isn’t to make you happy, it’s to provide you with a way to support your family. I did it for you and your sisters. Do you think I was happy every time I marched off to work? Every time I had to take a call on vacation?”

            Luke sat there in silence and observed the way his father’s shoulders always returned to the same posture when he was finished speaking. He wondered if this was still a conscious effort, or if it had become a force of habit. Their dinner was delivered and he watched in silence as his father sliced through the bright pink meat. Every bite was carefully speared with a fork and transported to a perpetually ravenous mouth. Luke started to feel nauseated.

            “I feel like that’s not true, though,” he found himself saying.

            His father glanced up from his meal. “What’s not?” he said.

            “That you weren’t happy to do those things,” Luke said.

            His father’s fork clattered when he set it down on his plate. “Don’t be ungrateful,” he said. “I worked myself into the ground. I made sacrifices. For you.”

            “Maybe that was true,” Luke said. “But what happened after you made your first million? Or your second? Did you stop working yourself into the ground when we had enough?”

            His father’s frown deepened. “That’s an embarrassingly ignorant thing for you to say.”

            “No, it’s not,” Luke said. “I’ve watched you, and I know you. You didn’t stop working like that because you didn’t want to.” His father opened his mouth to reply, but Luke continued. “Your work is an addiction. There’s something that you get out of it that you don’t get from anything else.”

            “Oh please,” his father said. “You’re romanticizing everything. I did what I had to.”

            Luke’s words caught up to him and he felt the blood drain from his face. But still he didn’t stop. “I don’t doubt that’s true. But can you tell me, can you really tell me, that the moment you look another man in the eye after closing a deal with him, knowing you’ve bested him, that that doesn’t give you some kind of charge?”

            “If you understand it so much, I don’t know why you keep quitting your fucking jobs,” his father said.

            “Because I’m not like you!” Luke yelled. The couple at the table next to them looked over. “I don’t want to do those things!”
            “Bullshit,” his father said. “Everyone wants to do those things. Everyone would be in that position of power if they could.”

            “Well I fucking wouldn’t, okay?”

            His father shook his head. “I could hand it all to you, I could literally hand it all to you . . .” He rubbed his forehead.

            Luke sighed. “I don’t want it, though. I thought I did, but . . . I don’t.”

            His father rapped his fingers on the tabletop. “You’re not who I thought you were,” he said.

            A moment passed. “I know,” Luke said quietly.

            “Well, I’m not going to support this kind of thinking, I can tell you that right now,” his father said, leaning forward with his palms flat on the table. “As far as your mom and I are concerned, we’re cutting you off financially.”

            Luke shrugged. “So how will things be any different?” he said.

            “I mean it,” his father said. “If you want to move, or get a new car, or go to grad school, you’re not getting anything from us. Not a single cent.”

            “That’s fine,” Luke said. “I don’t want anything.”

            His father looked at him for a long time. “I hope you’ll snap out of this before it’s too late. I wouldn’t want you to get to your mid-thirties and realize you should have done everything differently.”

            “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

            His father’s steely eyes passed over him. Then he raised his right hand. Within seconds, their waiter was tableside. His father produced his credit card and gave it to the eager man without asking to see the check. When the plastic had left his hand, Luke watched as his father pushed his hair back. A signal of distress, but a subtle one. If Luke didn’t know the manner in which his father moved when he was agitated, the speech patterns he chose, and the way his left eye twitched, he wouldn’t have caught it. He wouldn’t have understood that the imposing man in front of him was at a loss for words.

            The waiter returned, and Luke’s father snapped open the bill and scrawled a tip. He stood up from his seat and straightened his suit jacket. “I think I’m going to fly back to LA tonight,” his father said.

            This surprised Luke. “Um, okay,” he said. “Do you want me to drive you?”

            His father shook his head. “No. I’ll get a taxi.” He held out his hand and Luke took it in a firm handshake. “Best of luck to you,” his father said. Luke could feel the slight tremble in his fingers. He wanted to pull his father close, tell him he was sorry that he couldn’t be more predatory, that he had tried as hard as he could to develop a killer instinct. But he didn’t say it, because he wasn’t sorry. He wanted to have another life, an honest life, so he let his father’s hand fall away.

            His father nodded, refastened his suit jacket, and turned on his heel. He walked out of the dining room, the seas seeming to part before him as he went.

            Luke sat there for a moment longer. He took a deep breath, expecting it to be ragged. But no, he felt surprisingly calm. He ran his finger along the pristine white edge of his untouched plate. Then he stood up and walked to the entrance of the restaurant. When he got outside, he didn’t head for his car. Instead, he turned and walked in the direction of the ocean.

            The smell of the salt on the air steadied him and reminded him where he was. He trudged a ways through the sand before finding a spot that seemed about the right distance from the water. He sat down. He had so dreaded the conversation with his father that he hadn’t slept for two nights. He had been so sure that it would end in his own broken-down resolution. But it didn’t, and here he was.

           Nothing had really changed. He was still out of a job, didn’t have a clue what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and didn’t have his parents to fall back on anymore. But Luke felt lighter. The exhilarating terror of having the world laid out in front of him filled his lungs, and he smiled as he breathed deep. For the first time in his life, he was obligated to no one, to nothing except the things he wanted to love. He was ready for them. He was finally whole, finally filled with electricity, finally steadied. Luke looked out at the waves, watching the gentle white caps break on the water. He was finally freed.