July, 2017. The West family's research vessel is moored for the time being at the marine institute near Long Beach, while Fore West (IV) is helping with research on long-line pier fishers' effects on local shark populations. The girls, and Pres, have of course hit the beach. Pres is currently in dock shoes and a pair of cargo shorts, a loose t-shirt with mid-length sleeves; a cooler is open, and he's sprawled in a folding lawn chair he's apparently dragged down for the sole purpose of having it bear his weight, sunglasses flipped down. A surfboard's sticking up in the sand behind him, and he's looking half-asleep. A copy of To Kill A Mockingbird is open, upside down, in his lap.

     Loki has been walking up and down the beach, a gray-muzzled old labrador tagging along at his heels. Stomping, maybe; he's too old to have a sulking fit, but he's had a gray mood of his own about him. He slows to a halt near Preston, and says, "Reading that book for school, or because you actually like it?"

     "School," Pres answered without bothering to look up. He has strawberry-blonde hair, like his eldest sister. A hand lifts in a lazy sort of wave. "Pull up some blanket. It's on the 'required to read over break' list, along with half a dozen others - don't know why they can't issue stuff we'd actually want to read, but considering the lacrosse team, I guess then they're afraid nobody'd read anything more advanced than Dick and Jane : Erotic Edition. How've you been? The girls are already out," he nods towards the ocean, "there."

     Loki has a towel slung over one shoulder, and tosses it down on the ground to sit. "Fine," he says, unconvincingly. "Maybe I'd be doing better if they were assigning Dick and Jane, Now With More Fucking in my classes in college. You haven't lived until you've heard a professor do an entire day on the etymology and uses of to fuck."

     Pres grins. "So this is what I'm missing out on by still being in prep school instead of at college. Good to know. You want a drink? It's just Coke and diet in the cooler, but there's some pretty good sandwiches, mumsie made them for us before we headed out this morning. She made enough for an army - you'd think she'd remember there's only three of us. I think she just wants to keep us from wandering into any questionable places in search of food and end up kidnapped into white slavery." He lowers a hand, wiggling his fingers at the dog. "Hey, boy."

     Loki digs into the cooler while the dog looks up, thumps its tail a few times, and then subsides into a sprawling lounge again. "White slavery would make an entertaining change of pace," he says, shaking water off his hand as he comes out with can of Coke. "You're not missing much by still being in prep school, believe me. The reading lists are longer and more boring, and that whole boundless freedom thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Not if you live within a helicopter flight of a parent."

     Pres grimaces. "Your dad's on you that much? That's just brutal. Why's he dogging you that much? - No offense," he adds to the dog. He digs his soda up from where it's been partially buried in the sand for stability, taking a swig. "You could transfer, couldn't you?"

     Loki leans back, chugging a good half of the Coke. "My grades suck," he says bluntly. "And my dad's not the kind to just throw grants at USC until they look the other way. I don't know. Maybe I could transfer. I'd do better showing my high school transcript than my current college one, though. Maybe I'll go off to some podunk place in Minnesota. Even my dad won't fly to Minnesota very often."

     Pres grimaces. "Well, yeah, but neither will anyone who had anything else going for them at all," he points out, "or who isn't majoring in veterinary medicine. What about your other dad? Would he be willing to help you out if you needed it? What's he doing these days, anyway?"

     Loki frowns up at the sky. "I don't know. I get email from him a few times a year, but it's always talking about this cause or that for him to obsess over. Lately he's on about fishing conservation again. I could go visit, but I'd be half likely to find the flat empty because he's out on some inflatable boat trying to ram a whaler."

     Pres grins. "Start writing to him dropping hints now. And hey, if he's into fishing conservation, I could try to twist dad's arm into writing to him on your behalf? I don't know if he will, but he might. You want to go talk to dad? We can; the girls'll hardly notice, they're in the zone."

     Loki shrugs, and gives the dog a scratch behind the ears. "It's worth a try. I don't think I'd do any better in colleges in England, but maybe I can float it to Dad as some sort of learning experience abroad. Go backpack through Europe, soak up all that old world culture he admires so much."

     Pres looks over at the water, then at Loki. "...Keep a secret?"

     "The conspiracy of kids? Sure. I'm technically still a teenager," Loki says. He sits up, crossing his legs. "What are we keeping secret this time?"

     Pres grins a bit, shrugging. "Well, it isn't my secret," he admits frankly. "It's Gilly's. You know her - brainy as always. She took early admissions, and she's pulling down a 4.0 - she's applied for a Rhodes."

     Loki says with only mild envy, "Lucky her. So what makes it a big secret?"

     Pres sprawls back, folding his arms behind his head. "She doesn't want anything to jinx it, so she's not telling anyone. Well. Except me." He turns his head to grin at Loki from behind his mirror shades. "Not even dad and mumsie. She'd snatch me bald-headed if she knew I told."
     "But... it means she'll be at Oxford. Which means you'd have a place to crash, right?"

     Loki laughs. "So long as your parents wouldn't skin me alive for crashing at their teenage daughter's place that far from where they can see, sure. But it's a good point. At least a place to stay the night while waiting for my father to get back from shaking a fist at whalers or whatever."

     Pres smirks. "They'd probably turn a blind eye, as long as you didn't, you know. Answer the phone as Gillian's stud muffin, how can I help you, or something. But if you did that, Gilly'd kill you herself. You want to go somewhere else? There's a clam shack up the beach that's pretty good. And they don't card."

     Loki isn't looking very interested until that last point, at which point he stands up and checks to make sure he has a wallet in this pair of shorts. "How do they feel about dogs?"

     "Water bowls permanently in the concrete," Pres informs Loki, standing up. He waves an arm towards the water, then points in the direction of the shack. "I think it'll be fine. So what do you want to do, anyway?"

     Loki shakes the sand off his towel, and throws it over his shoulder. "I want to join a band," he says, and stares at Pres as if he's just waiting for the burst of laughter.

     Pres huhs thoughtfully. "Well, it's no worse than Maddie's desire to be a pro surfer," he points out, strolling across the sand. Despite the beachwear, he still looks prep. It is ineffably in the bone. "What kind of band?"

     Loki shrugs. He's trying to do more of the slacker slouch, but it doesn't really suit him, either. "I don't know. I just want to go play the drums professionally. And I don't mean in some damn concert hall where I stand next to the cymbals and tap them twice a performance because my dad gave them a donation. A real band, that plays for money and sells T-shirts out of the back of a van, not the kind that keeps begging for donations so that it can throw concerts people only go to for principle of it."

     Pres huhs again, looking up at the sky. The sky hasn't got any answers. "Well... I don't know anything about that sort of stuff," he admits. "I'll help if I can, you know that. There's something I maybe can do, eventually, just not so much right now. How much time do you have?"

     Loki scowls at the ground. "I don't know. It depends on whether or not I'm going back to school this fall."

     Pres nnhs under his breath, pushing his tongue up against his teeth. He stops at the edge of the sidewalk, turning to Loki and peering at him from under a shock of messy, sea-damaged hair. "You get to set your own schedule, right? I mean, your dad might drop in on you a lot, but if you change your schedule at the last minute, as long as the credits are the same, he isn't going to know," he reasons. "So ... swap out the classes that suck and put in classes that'll help you with being in a band, or at least will be easy enough for you to pass without paying a lot of attention. Then you can honestly say to him you're doing well in school. It won't be where you want to be, but it'll buy you time to get set up for where you want to be. And."

     Loki shrugs. "You're probably right. I don't know. It's a lot easier to say what I want to do than to actually go do it when I can think about my dad glaring at me that way. Or sounding all /disappointed/." He sighs, and kicks at the sand. "It's not fair that parents get to guilt trip us. It's like their secret power."

     Pres grins, heading over the sidewalk and pulling open the door of the shack and holding it for Loki. "Could be worse. You could be prep. As it is, nobody's going to expect you to be TOO conventional. I mean, heck, you live in Los Angeles."

     "He wouldn't mind if I spiked my hair, dyed it pink, and declared I was in love with my lit professor," Loki says dryly. "Get a C minus, it's the end of the world. All parents have their own kinds of conventional." He shakes his head as he moves inside, to drop the whole topic. "I bet I can find some sort of for-credit musical program at college. Maybe I'll even learn something interesting. No way it can be worse than Frosh Comp."

     Pres follows Loki inside, meandering towards one of the wooden picnic-style tables and sliding into place. The menus are laminated with plastic, and cover primarily the classic beach fare : shucked fried clams, raw clams, raw oysters, spicy shrimp by the quarter pound, hot or chilled; crab legs; garlic bread; cheese sticks; chicken wings and drumsticks, ranging from 'boring' to 'five alarm'; pallid salads of iceberg lettuce with a wedge of tomato and salad dressing, and mediocre burgers; and, of course, fish and chips. And, naturally, beer, and lots of it. The waitresses are half-dressed and bored about it, while the men behind the counter range from fit surfer dudes to former surfer dudes who've lost it and run to blubber. All of them deftly shuck clams and oysters as easily as popping the metal caps off longnecks.
     "Get whatever you want, it's on me. And I dunno. Sounds to me like in some ways - well, at least you know where you stand, right? Sure, it sucks your dad's riding you like that, but you know what you want, and it's only a matter of time until you're old enough that he isn't going to have a choice. Though I guess it depends on how comfortable you want to be."

     "It might be worth it to try not being comfortable for a while," Loki says, taking his place across from Pres. "Just to see what it's like." He looks over the menu, and says, "How are their chicken wings here? When they say spicy, do they really mean it?"

     "I only went up to a three. That made my mouth numb enough that I didn't feel like going higher." Pres looks over the menu, resting his cheek on his hand while he considers. "...I'm hungry all of a sudden. Think I'll get oysters, see how they compare to east coast oysters. And a Red Hook. - I'd say if you're going to be uncomfortable 'for a while', make sure you have a way to stop at the end, when you're tired of it."

     Loki runs a finger down the menu. "I'll get the wussy wings, then, to split, and some oysters. Not worth going to an oyster place and not getting the oysters. And I don't intend to piss off my dad so much he kicks me out entirely. It's not like I'm going to go join the Young Republicans or something."

     Pres says with apparent seriousness, "Oh, but Trip says they're plenty nice fellows, you know." He ducks preemptively, giving Loki a small grin, lowering his eyebrows. "Don't worry. My family's pretty liberal. You know that. We're messed up in some ways, but not like that; pretty solidly in the Kennedy-friendly camp."

     Loki comes up with half a smile. "I think both my parents would disown me if I married a Libertarian, but I'm still allowed to talk to Republicans. Last I checked. We even have some in California. Orange County. It's almost as creepy as Pasadena, and it's bigger."

     Pres turns to the bouncing cleavage of the skimpily clad waitress, politely ignoring her bosom in favor of her face. "Oh, hi. Yeah, uh... I'll have three dozen oysters - raw - and an order of the king crab legs? And a Red Hook. And," he gestures with the plasticine menu, "whatever he's getting." He turns back to you, waiting until you've given your order. "So. Why a band?"

     "A dozen red hot wings, another Red Hook, and another dozen oysters," Loki says to the waitress, turning back to Pres immediately. "A band's more...okay, 'intimate' implies the wrong kind of thing, but it's a lot closer than being in an orchestra. There's a kind of synergy you get in small groups that you don't in big ones. And there's room to show off. A drummer in a band handles all the percussion. You never heard about a solo triangle-player in an orchestra."

     Pres pulls himself upright. "I'm prep, not celibate! I have heard of sex." He reddens a little, but grins anyway. "So you're not doing it for the groupies? Can I have them, then?"

     That finally gets a laugh out of Loki. "I didn't say I didn't want groupies, just that I don't plan on doing everyone in the band. That's what groupies are for."

     Pres grimaces. "I don't know, seems a good way to get a social disease. But hey, have it your own way. You seeing anyone? That could put a crimp in groupie sex. Or in running away to join a band. Unless there's somebody you're running from other than your dad, of course."

     Loki shrugs. "No one particular. USC is more of a party school than I'm really into. It's not like I'm spending all my time studying--if I were, I'd be getting better grades--but it seems like you can't meet anyone unless you're up to four in the morning every single night getting wasted on cheap beer, and falling into bed with people. I'd rather have my wild sex life while sober enough to remember it. Which means, no girlfriend or boyfriend or even friend with benefits. Not this year."

     Pres reddens, ducking his head a bit and glancing over as the beer arrives. "Thanks." He's quiet while he takes a swig of the beer. "...Guess I'll have to wait a few years to find that out for myself. Though I don't know what school I'm going to. Dad wants me to go to FIU, Texas A&M or UCLA. Mumsie wants me to go to Harvard or Yale - or, if I absolutely insist on a 'useless' degree, Columbia. The grandparents are all more easygoing about it, as long as my grades are good enough. I don't know if any of those are really party schools."

     Loki says with much enthusiasm, "UCLA isn't bad. It depends on what you want out of it. I don't know the rest except by reputation. Seriously, Texas A&M? Don't they still give out degrees in cow-herding or something?"

     "Well. And marine biology." Preston smiles lopsidedly. "It's what I'd like to do - we all grew up on it, but it always kinda worked for me. Mumsie doesn't like it, because there's no money in it, doesn't think it's prestigious enough. Good enough for dad, not so good for me." He takes another pull at his beer, then leans back as platters of oysters arrive. "...Never mind that there's enough money in the family that we're in no danger of going broke any time in the next hundred years unless we actively work at throwing money away. I just ... I don't know. I'm not sure. I want to, but mumsie really doesn't think I'll be happy with it, so I just don't know."

     "So go to a place that offers it, but start out undeclared," Loki says. "They don't make you declare a major until junior year, anyway, so you can take some of the classes, see if you like it. You can argue about how happy you'd be in the field better once you've done a summer internship or something." He picks up an oyster thoughtfully. "Just don't get suckered into trying an MBA. Those are never worth it."

     Pres grimaces. "That's what mumsie's pushing. MBA at Harvard or Yale. Or else, law. I think she's trying to groom me for politics. Except I don't want to be involved in politics. I'm not sure what I want." He picks up an oyster, using the tiny fork to scrape it free of its shell before slurping it up with an entire lack of self-consciousness about it. "Maybe I'll take a gap year."

     Loki downs two oysters in a row, then says, "If you go from prep school to an MBA, you are doomed. Trust me. /Doomed/. You'll end up as one of those executives who doesn't actually do anything and talks constantly about football and golf. Go into accounting first, if it comes to that. Law, at least you could go into some interesting variety. Environmental law or whatever."

     "Lawyers and accountants don't do anything, though. Except paperwork." Pres shakes his head, looking grouchy about it. "I like being physically active. Marine biology means you're right in there, in the water, doing stuff. Not all the time, sure - but more than just /golf/." He works his way through the oysters methodically. "I still have a year to go, to figure it out, I guess. I could try to get into Cambridge. Gillian'd freak." He grins.

     Loki splits his attention equally between wings and oysters, with a good amount of beer. "Maybe by the time that happens, you can come crash with me."

     Pres laughs, a little mellower from the effects of the beer. "Because dad and mumsie would find that so much better than you crashing with Gilly? Yeah, maybe. I was going to suggest that, you know, maybe I could help you out. I mean, as long as we're getting good grades, granddad pays off our credit cards, you know. Can't charge the Taj, but as long as it looks 'reasonable'... you'd be surprised how much you can get away with having look 'reasonable'."

     Loki echoes, "Yeah, maybe. I'm probably best off if I can spring the big lifestyle change on my dad /after/ the fact."

     Pres frowns. "You think he'll let it slide? Well, maybe. Maybe just ... how does he give you your allowance?"

     Loki thinks. "Direct deposit. It's just a monthly transfer to my bank account. I'm supposed to pay for 'expenses' from that, but since I'm still in the dorms and on a student food plan, it's pretty much all gravy, aside from textbooks once a semester."

     Pres advises, "Start skimming half to three-fourths of it into a savings account in your own name that he doesn't know about. That way it's not so much that it looks funky, but enough for you to have some put away for living expenses for real, if and when you head off into the wild blue yonder." He finishes off his beer, putting the empty at the edge of the table. "It'll seem a lot less like gravy, I bet, when you count it up that way."

     Loki laughs shortly. "With the cost of airfare to London? It sure will. You know, it sounds like you've thought through this kind of thing before. Any plans to mysteriously disappear yourself, if the MBA pushing gets too hard?"

     Pres smiles and sort of shrugs, pushing a plate of oyster shells away from himself. "If I were going to skim funds, I wouldn't settle for a few thousand, or even tens of thousands. Not enough to be worth it. I don't honestly want to disappear, though. I mean - I like my family. Some parts, maybe not so much, but ... every family has its skeletons in the closet, right?" The way he asks sounds almost as if he's trying to reassure himself that it's true.

     Loki shrugs. "Sure. Comes with having a family. The bigger the family, the more skeletons."

     Pres nods a little, smiling at the waitress, not because she is bouncing of bosoms but because she is there to be smiled at and because she is bringing More Beer. "Yeah, I guess that's true. And the longer it's been around, and stuff. It just - well." He shrugs. "You ever read Watership Down?"

     Loki shakes his head. "I saw the cartoon when I was a kid. Freaked me out. All those rabbits going at each other with teeth."

     Pres nods a little. "I think that's what my life's going to turn into." He quickly takes a pull at the fresh glass of beer. "Stupid, I know. But we all have our stupid fears. Right?"

     Loki looks into his beer. "I guess. Not so many rabbits in marine biology, though. So that's a point in its favor."

     Pres grins, but without real mirth. "There's rabbits everywhere, Loki. They just don't wear rabbit skins. Anyway... I guess we'll see how it works out. If you want, I can look around, see if anybody's offering some cool summer jobs? How do you feel about MILFs?"

     "Iffy, but willing to entertain the possibility," Loki says. "Desperate is never hot, but they're more likely to be sober than college girls. Why do you ask?"

     Pres smirks. "Because half the houses on Cape Cod need pool boys and lawn boys. Hot college boys who go back to college three thousand miles away at the end of the summer can really clean up, as long as they play it smart and doing dabble in blackmail." There's something dark lingering in his expression, but it quickly clears. "Even if you play it straight, it's not bad money. Just ... more if you dance paso el doble."

     Loki tilts his head back to drink down more beer. "Not really my style," he says. "But I'll remember it in case it seems useful."

     Pres nods. "Suit yourself," he agrees. He finishes off his beer. "You want anything else? If not, we should probably head back to the girls before they get swept away by the local 'dudes'."

     Loki shakes his head, and starts working down through the rest of his beer, all but a single lonely hot wing now eaten. "Can't have that."

     Pres takes out his wallet, grabbing a platinum card and offering it to the waitress. She takes it with the nonchalance of waiting on someone who's been in every day for a week anyway. "Dad'll be glad to see you, anyway. He's helping with some research down the road a few miles."

     Loki shrugs. "And who knows. Maybe he'll be interested in what my father's doing with whales. Or getting people to stop doing to whales."

Posted by rowan at February 01, 2009 07:17 PM