This Summer Will Be Different(53)

“I didn’t realize there would be so many of them,” I say to Bridget as I watch Felix. He’s near the end of the procession, head tilted down so his hat covers most of his face. Ray walks alongside him, one arm slung over Felix’s shoulder.

“It’s a big deal,” Bridget says. “The shuckers come here from across the country, and the winner competes at the worlds in Galway.”

“So your brother would go to Ireland if he wins?”

“Theoretically, yes. But he won’t,” Bridget says. “Don’t give me that look—he knows he’s not going to win. That’s not what this is about. It’s tradition. Pride.”

“Community,” I murmur as Felix passes us, lifting his chin in our direction.

Bridget cups her hands around her mouth and yells, “We love you, Wolf.”

“We shucking love you,” Zach calls out.

Bridget and Felix have no time for my shuck puns, but if we were playing a drinking game based on the ones uttered tonight, we’d be facedown on the concrete.

“What the shuck?”

“Shucks to be you.”

“Aww, shucks.”

Felix’s ears are bright pink by the time he reaches the stage. The competitors gather for a group photo, and Ray pulls out his phone to take selfies with Felix, both pointing to their McInnis Seafood swag.

The troupe is shuffled off, and the emcee goes over the rules. Each shucker gets twenty oysters and chooses eighteen to shuck as fast as they can. Afterward, judges assess the bivalves, adding penalty time for any errors.

“There’s a thirty-second penalty for any oysters out of their shell,” he says. “If there’s blood on the oyster, that’s also a thirty-second penalty.”

“I didn’t think oysters had blood,” I say to Bridget.

“He means the shucker’s blood,” she says, and I grimace.

“All right, Tyne Valley,” the emcee calls. “Let’s! Get! Shucked!”

He calls out the first four competitors, Ray among them, and they sort through their box of Malpeques, arranging them before they begin. A timer stands behind each. Joy is assigned to a woman who has brought a small wooden platform to rest her oysters on. Two shuckers wear a glove on one hand. Ray has placed a folded tea towel at his station. I had no idea there were so many methods. Felix uses his bare hands and the tabletop.

“Timers, are you ready?” the emcee calls. The shuckers lean over the table, palms raised above their heads. The timers nod.

“Shuckers, are you ready?”

None of them look up.

“Tyne Valley, are you reeeeaaaaaaaady?”

The arena erupts in cheers.

“Then let’s count them down. Three. Two. One. Shuck!”

I watch Ray work. He sets his oyster on the tea towel and sinks his knife into the hinge of the shell, twists his wrist to open it, then runs the blade along the inside of the top shell, removing it in one swift movement.

I look for Felix beside the stage. He’s there with his arms folded across his chest, Joy’s mother beside him.

As soon as Ray sets his eighteenth oyster on a salt-filled tray, he taps the butt of his knife against the table three times. He’s the first to finish.

“Two minutes and twenty-two seconds for Ray McInnis,” the emcee calls. “Good time.”

Ray walks off the stage and heads straight to Felix and his wife. But he doesn’t hug her first. He throws his arms around Felix, the two of them laughing.

“They’re close, huh?”

Bridget follows my gaze. “Used to be,” she says. “I feel sorry for him.”

“Your brother?”

“Ray,” Zach and Bridget say at the same time.

“He was counting on Wolf joining the family business,” Bridget says. “I think he was as devastated as my brother was about the breakup. God, that seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”

I dig into my memory. The October many years ago when Bridget and I first moved in together, before I met Felix. She had come back to the city after visiting her family for Thanksgiving, and I could tell she was upset. I wanted to cheer her up, so we went out.

Bridget takes her eyes off the stage and turns to me. “Remember that bar we went to? The one with the tiki drinks?”

“We drank a giant volcano bowl of punch.”

“And you told me about Thanksgiving dinner with your family. I think your aunt and mom got into a fight?”

“My mother wanted Stacy to take off her heels in the house.”

“And we were laughing so hard because your aunt—”

“Threatened to fill her shoe with gravy and put it on the table—she said it was too fabulous not to be appreciated.” I smile. “And then you suddenly started crying. It was the first time I’d seen you cry.”

Bridget told the whole story through tears and hiccups.

“That time was awful—for Wolf and for me. But I guess now that I’m older, I can appreciate that it must have been just as hard for Joy, too.”

I’ve always thought so, but I’m surprised to hear her say it. Zach, who’s sitting on Bridget’s other side, looks at me over her head, wide-eyed, and mouths, “Ohh emm gee.”

“Joy lost her boyfriend and her best friend,” I say. “It would have been awful. But maybe you can start over.”