Page 8 of Rhymes with Metaphor

Joel made his way to the lounger and clambered onto it, lying prone, head cradled in his arms. He had on translucent white scrubs. Reg could see he was wearing black briefs underneath.

“Reg?” said Martin. “Can you help me bring out the food?”

Reg realized he’d been staring. Luckily, Martin was so distracted by Juliet, he didn’t seem to have noticed, but Reg was rattled. He glanced at Juliet, but she was opening the smaller cooler and taking out the drinks, and Joel’s head was turned away from Reg.

As Reg and Martin carried the bigger cooler between them, Reg felt his gaze pulled back to Joel. When they set the cooler on the picnic blanket, Reg dragged a chair over for himself, setting his back to Joel so he couldn’t see him, not even peripherally.

Martin opened the cooler.

“Has Martin regaled you about his exes, Juliet?” said Reg.

“Reg,” said Martin, warningly.

“First, there was Eustasia. She was his imaginary girlfriend. I fancy he concocted her out of a couple of fused Enid Blyton characters. His first real girlfriend was Rancidia—not her real name. She attended the local girls’ school.

She was keener on Martin than he on her.

You could say the relationship was entirely in her head.

She didn’t bother to ask Martin if he was on board.

You could call her Martin’s first groupie. ”

“Really, Reg—” said Martin.

“Then, after he’d completed his adolescent phase, there was Egregria—name changed to protect the guilty—who bore a striking resemblance to the heroine in du Maurier’s Rebecca .”

“Reg,” said Martin.

“She was followed by Dahlhaus. Can’t blame her parents—she changed her name.”

“Dahlhaus?” said Juliet.

“She was influenced by James and the Giant Peach and the English Goth scene at an impressionable age,” said Reg. “You could write a thesis on Martin’s exes.”

“As opposed to your exes?” said Martin.

“Oh,” said Reg. “I don’t have any.”

“Still going on, is it?” said Martin.

Reg sent him a dark look.

“Reg has a secret boyfriend,” said Martin to Juliet. “He’s been seeing him for years. I don’t know who he is, mind you. I’ve never seen him. I don’t even know his name. The only two possibilities are that he’s married...or he’s a yeti.”

“Interesting,” said Juliet. “My thesis is on asymmetric romantic relationships.”

“Martin’s thesis is entirely fictional,” said Reg.

“You’re saying I invented him?” said Martin. “Or am I right?”

“I am saying your MFA is in Fiction,” said Reg. “And your banter, if you can call it that, is on-brand.”

“See?” said Martin. “He gets touchy whenever I broach the subject.”

Juliet opened the cooler and laid the food out. Nothing more was said while they ate. Juliet unwrapped a sandwich, opened a can of A&W Root Beer, and brought them to Joel.

“It is poisonously hot,” said Martin.

“We should have brought a beach umbrella,” said Juliet.

“Let’s go for a wade in the lake,” said Martin. “Coming, Juliet?”

“As long as we don’t go too far,” said Juliet.

Reg watched them go, not wanting to be a third wheel.

But equally, not wanting to be a second wheel with Joel.

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw that Joel hadn’t touched his sandwich.

Martin and Juliet were still in sight. Before he could change his mind, Reg got up and walked across the sand dunes to the main road.

The road was gritty with sand and tacky with heat, and he remembered summers here in his boyhood when he and Martin would run along this road with their shoes off, enduring the painful heat of the asphalt.

The shop selling bathing suits and water toys was closed, as was the clothing store and most of the restaurants.

He went to the convenience store he and Martin had nicknamed “The Flake Store,” because the woman who owned it believed in moon spirits and was always reading their auras for them.

A hot dog stand operated from a window in the side of the store, but the window was shut, so Reg went inside.

The store was blissfully air-conditioned.

Mrs. Franks was on duty behind the counter.

“Hello, Mr. Reginald,” she said. “Your aura’s looking blue today.”

“It always is, Mrs. Franks. I know the stand isn’t open, but could you make me a milkshake?”

“Vanilla or hoisin?” she said.

New Bug was irritating, but Reg didn’t hate him. “Vanilla, please.”

By the time Reg had gone back along the road and over the dunes, the milkshake was melting, Joel was asleep again, and three seagulls were deconstructing his uneaten sandwich.

Reg chased them off and nudged Joel with his knee.

When Joel was conscious enough, Reg handed him the milkshake. Juliet and Martin were barely in sight.

Reg settled himself in his chair and shut his eyes. He could hear the bubbling sounds of Joel drinking and hoped the milkshake would stop him shrinking to nothing, like one of Alice in Wonderland’s cordials.

Reg shot out of his chair and crashed around looking for a pen and paper, which didn’t exist because this was a fucking beach.

He strode towards the water, but Martin and Juliet were now gone.

He snatched up a stick of driftwood, knelt in the sand, and used his forearm to sweep it flat.

With the stick, he wrote a poem in the sand.

But because the sand was dry, it wouldn’t hold his letters properly, and a light breeze kept disturbing the surface.

He became more and more frantic as he wrote.

“Reg, what are you doing?” Martin shouted.

“Have you got a pen and paper?” said Reg, not looking up.

“In the glove compartment in the car,” said Martin.

“Please get them and bring them to me,” said Reg.

He heard Martin approach.

“Don’t come any closer!” said Reg. “You’ll disturb my words.”

“Relax, Reg,” said Martin. “It’s a lake. There’s no tide coming in to wash it away.”

He heard Martin’s footsteps receding, along with Juliet’s voice. “Does he have a fixation for water? First my shower and now this.”

Martin came back a few minutes later with a scrap of paper barely big enough to hold anything and an old pen that didn’t write properly. To make it worse, the words had stopped flowing, and Reg could barely read what he’d written.

“Good,” said Juliet. “You ate your sandwich, Joel.”

“The seagulls did,” said Reg testily. “I bought him a milkshake.”

Juliet shook the cup. “It’s empty. You got him to eat something, Reg.”

“We should start calling him ‘the Joel whisperer,’” said Martin.

Reg contemplated punching him.