What in Cher’s name is a Tuesday 200?
Frank’s on his bench, watching the rising sun turn the bay into a golden mirror, thermos at his side. His wife doesn’t understand how he can sit down there and do nothing.
“Loretta, dear. You pay how much for meditation class? The beach is free. Plus, my own coffee.”
He never mentions the thermos is half-full of Baileys.
Sitting here calms him, everyone starting their day: dogs sprinting towards the next patch of beach to dig into; kids unsuccessfully trying to skip stones across the water; gulls diving into the surf and wading across the sand, picking at anything resembling a scrap; masts bobbing up and down like kids on a trampoline, each trying to get a little higher than the other.
He misses being a dad.
He remembers when his kids had a trampoline in the back yard — almost 30 years ago. Loretta bitching the whole time that “somebody’s going to break their back on that.”
Lo and behold, she was right. Almost.
No broken backs, just a dislocated shoulder.
It was hers.
He sips his Juiced-up Joe and chuckles, remembering how he and the kids all feigned sympathy.
He thinks, “maybe with a little Kahlúa tomorrow.”