（“Fancy Oil Wife.”）
It kills him. Can’t she just be herself?
（Guess not.）
Robert wants a different life than his parents’。 He wants to do something, to adventure, maybe be an astronaut or a smoke jumper. His great-grandfather struck oil! But what’s left for him? Robert doesn’t want to end up like his father, living off his inheritance, talking about mortgage rates or whether a particular Scotch is “peaty.” Even his parents’ parties lack fun. They get drunk, sure—his dad more than his mom—but then talk more about mortgage rates.
“Bobcat?” says John.
“Yeah?” says Robert, pausing.
“Xavier never showed today,” says John. “No call, nothing. Can you stay late and cover his shift?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s not like him, is it?”
“No,” says Robert. Of all of them, Xavier is the most organized. Charlie is the nicest, Robert is the strongest, and Xavier is the genius. They’ll be fine, as long as they have each other. In an apocalypse or whatever.
“Can you cover?”
“Sure, I guess so,” says Robert reluctantly. He wants to see Lucy before her shift at Chuy’s, and then hit a raver some Snapchat idiot posted about. He and his friends will either stay at the party or jump the Cliffs. The moms have already planned one of their epic booze fests, this one supposedly to celebrate the first day of summer.
（Which means no one will notice if they’re gone.） Robert stops at his locker to retrieve his shirt and phone. He groans when he sees his father’s text: FATHER SON LUNCH! MEET YOU OUTSIDE POOL AT NOON.
（Fuck.）
Robert’s dad is obsessed with making his son “a man.” He roughhouses with him, takes him to the Austin Gun Club every weekend. Any excuse to act “manly.”
There’s nothing from Xavier. Robert messages Roma, asking her where her brother is, and she doesn’t answer. He messages Charlie, who sends back a “shrug” emoji, followed by a “sick face” emoji, followed by a question mark. Robert pulls on a T-shirt, calculating how to evade his dad, grab his bike from the rack, and zoom across the bridge to Lucy’s.
Robert walks toward the pool exit and sees his father’s gleaming truck. “Crap,” he whispers.
“Hey! Son! Over here!” yells his dad. Everyone in the parking lot turns to look. Robert’s dad is playing loud eighties rap.
（“Fight for Our Right to Party.”） （Oh my God.）
“Nice ride,” says Carrie, who’s working the front desk. She wears her hair in cornrows even though she’s white.
“Jesus,” mutters Robert.
“Is that your dad?” says Carrie.
“Yup.”
“Wowzers,” says Carrie.
Robert goes to the truck—there’s no avoiding this—and gets in. “Dad,” he says, “I have plans for lunch. Sorry, Dad.”
“Open the glove box,” says Louis. His voice is low and serious, as if he’s starring in some Wild West movie and he’s the sheriff.
Robert doesn’t want to open the glove compartment. He knows what’s inside. “Dad…” he says.
“Open the glove compartment, Son,” growls Louis.
Robert grits his teeth. He wants to find Lucy, to make love to her, and then have a P. Terry’s double cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake before returning to work. He is so sick of his dumbass father. Robert opens the glove compartment and sees the gun.
“Take it out,” says Louis.
“Dad, come on,” says Robert. “Mom said—”
“I don’t see your mother here,” says Louis. “Do you, Robert? Do you see your mother here?”
Robert is filled with a white-hot fury. It takes him over almost instantly. His rage scares him sometimes.
“Take it out!” yells Louis.
（His dad is a fucking clown.） Robert takes out the gun. He aims it right at his father’s face.
Louis smiles. “Let’s do this, Son,” he says.
-3-
Charlie
THE FIRST DAY OF summer and Charlie should be in the water. Instead, he’s nervous at Austin-Bergstrom Airport. Of course he’s nervous! He’s about to finally, finally, meet his father. Jesus, he’d wanted to bring Amir or someone along for this event, but it seemed like a strange request. Charlie is scared. Seriously, he’s scared. He wants this random man to love him—there, it’s true.
He considers making a TikTok of the reunion: turn the camera on himself, hold out his arm to capture the moment they embrace, edit it later with captions. This seems crazy but also a way to diffuse the situation, to make it content rather than pain. Rather than terror. Life hurts less when made into funny videos.
At baggage claim, Charlie looks at the screen to see that his father’s plane from Boston has landed. Charlie scans the waiting area for the restroom: he might actually puke; he feels bile in his mouth.
He turns on his TikTok, flips the camera, hits record. The timer counts down and he’s on. All he has to do is smile. He ruffles his hair, tries to look pensive. Acting like a scared child makes him less actually scared—he imagines some sorrowful song, like “Jocelyn Flores” by XXXTentacion or “If the World Was Ending” by JP Saxe.
He’ll put captions above his forlorn face, one by one:
I HAVE NEVER MET MY FATHER.
MY MOM WOULDN’T TELL ME WHO HE WAS.
I FOUND HIM AND PAID FOR HIS PLANE TICKET TO AUSTIN.
I’M ABOUT TO MEET MY FATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME.
（FOLLOW ME FOR PT. 2）
He feels immediately better, endorphins or serotonin or whatever they are flooding him even at the thought of posting his video. This is what cutting feels like, Roma told him once—you press a razor blade into your skin and feel immediately better. She used the word “released.”
Jesus, Roma. Charlie can’t help but think about her sometimes, even though they slept together only that one time, ruining everything. He misses her. She’s scary but also exciting, showing up in the middle of the night when you don’t expect her, being kind when you thought she was angry. She has problems for sure. Charlie wishes he knew how to solve them, how to help her, but she uses that feeling against him. Amir says she’s a psycho. He might be right.
Charlie watches the escalator. He sees men of all shapes and sizes and colors, imagines each being his dad. But as soon as he sees Patrick Hamilton, he knows. His father is wearing slim jeans with loafers, a white button-down shirt. He looks wealthy, confident, a bit skinny. Charlie tells himself his father’s hair is fashionably long and fashionably disheveled. Charlie hears his own inhalation of breath. His father looks just like him.
He cannot help himself: he runs. He runs to his father and his father, looking dumbstruck, breaks into a huge smile and opens his arms.
-1-
Salvatore
THE NEW NANNY, MAE MAE, showed up promptly at 6:00 a.m., parking a black Crown Victoria in Salvatore’s driveway. Salvatore opened his front door and raised an eyebrow. Mae Mae, a fifty-something woman in camouflage pants and a tight black T-shirt, smiled sweetly. “Detective Revello?” she said. “I’m Mae Mae.”
“Is that your Crown Vic?” said Salvatore.