Page 2 of Everything You Hate
“You got anything in there that can’t get wet?”
“My dignity,” I say.
He doesn’t laugh. Just sighs, and I watch the debate play out behind his eyes: leave me standing here with my floating suitcase and walk away, or be decent and help.
Decency wins, barely.
He strips off his jacket, revealing forearms corded with muscle and a scar that runs from his left wrist halfway to his elbow. He drops the jacket on the dock, kicks off his boots, and before I can say anything, he’s jumped into the water.
The cold hits him in a visible shock. He grits his teeth, wades out to where my suitcase floats, grabs the handle, and hauls it back toward the dock. Water streams off his shoulders and plasters his Henley to his chest as he climbs up the ladder. He tosses the suitcase up onto the dock with a wet thud.
“You good?” he asks.
“Great,” I say, though I haven’t been aware in the same zip code as ‘great’ in a long time. “You’re soaked.”
“Occupational hazard. You got a place to stay?”
I glance around the dock. “Well, I was told to ask for the harbormaster.”
Something shifts in his expression. A flicker of... is that amusement? It’s gone before I can pinpoint it, and he points toward the end of the dock.
“Harbormaster is Dockside Doug. Office is right there. Can’t miss him.”
“Thank you.” I give him my brightest, most grateful smile. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”
“I really have.” He nods toward the office. “Go on. He’ll sort you out.”
I yank my four-hundred-dollar pump free with a splintering crack that definitely comes from the wood and not my shoe.
God, I hope it’s the wood.
I slide it back on, extend the handle on my suitcase, and start down the dock.
Shit. It’s definitely the heel. It wobbles precariously with every step.
I switch to tiptoes, which makes me feel ridiculous, but my dignity left the building eighteen months ago and has yet to come back.
The office is a small, weathered building at the end of the dock, its windows fogged with salt. I push the door open with my hip and step inside.
A bell jingles.
No one answers, but a radio crackles softly with nautical chatter.
The room is warm and smells of coffee and diesel fuel. A counter full of tour brochures cuts the room in half, and behind it, a desk sits in one corner, piled with papers, binders, and a dented steel thermos. On the wall behind the desk, a sign declares, “Your opinion matters!” in a bold, friendly typeface. Underneath, in a smaller font: “Not to me, but I’m sure someone somewhere cares at least a little bit.”
And in the center of the floor, on a bed of old life jackets arranged in what can only be described as a throne, lies the largest bulldog I have ever seen in my life. He’s the size of a compact refrigerator, with jowls that hang like saddlebags and a snore that rattles the windows. His tongue lolls out one side of his mouth. He does not stir.
I stand there for a full ten seconds, suitcase dripping onto the floorboards, before I understand what has happened.
I turn around. The ferry captain stands at the end of the dock, arms crossed, watching me with dark amusement. Our gazes meet through the window, and he raises one hand in a cheerful—for him—wave.
“That son of a bitch.”
Behind me, something squawks loudly in answer.
I jump and wobble on my shoes, nearly going down again. Perched on a stand in the corner is a bright green parrot with a crooked crest and beady, judgmental eyes.
“Fuck me sideways,” the parrot says, very clearly.
