Page 15 of We Were Something
Until the day Shandler O’Ryan made it his mission in life to prove otherwise.
For a while, he was just another kid I saw around the yacht club. He was pretty unfriendly, but I always assumed it was just his disposition to have that pinched expression whenever I said hello. It never occurred to me that it had anything to do with the fact that I was the son of one of the employees.
Right before I started eighth grade, I received a scholarship to go to the Bernard J. Roth Preparatory Academy, one of the wealthy private schools in town that catered to kids like Shandler and the other little rich shits he walked around with. Apparently, assuming we were equals because we attended the same school was a mistake, because Shandler saw to it that nobodyeverforgot I was the son of a waitress.
There on a scholarship.
Poor and dirty and beneath him and his friends in every way imaginable.
That was the year I realized there are two kinds of people.
The rich.
And everyone else.
And if you aren’t a part of the first group, you don’t matter.
The only way around this incredibly rigged existence was if you were exempt due to something other than your bank account.
Like sports.
During my second year at Roth Prep, I joined the sailing team. It was a small group of guys and, to be honest, our competitions were mostly just a bunch of smoke blowing up our own asses. But holy shit did my immediate success elevate my social standing with the rest of the student body.
Don’t get me wrong, the elite in Hermosa Beach never actually let me in. You have to have money to be welcomed.
But it was enough at the time. Enough to get me the right connections. The right handshakes. The right eyes on me so that when I went to apply to universities, I had my pick of the litter. Dartmouth. Stanford. Georgetown. Harvard.
I ended up at Yale on a sailing scholarship, and it was without a doubt the best four years of my life.
Of course, choosing to jump right into medical school at the University of Washington once I finished my bachelor’s pretty much sucked up all my time, and I was nearly 30 before I was able to actually purchase my own boat and get back out on the water.
Throughout all those years, I always promised myself I would join the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club if I ever moved back. Not only because I love sailing more than I love the job I’ve worked my ass off for, but also as a finalFuck youto the people who always thought I was beneath them.
I took that passion for the water, for sailing, and transformed it into a method of transportation in more than one sense of the word. It got me through high school without too much trauma from the rich assholes who only saw me as a scholarship kid. It got me into an elite university, the right connections made and the right eyes watching me on the water. And then I rode that shit as far as I could take it.
“Another IPA?”
I turn my head and give the waitress a smile but shake my head.
“One is good for me tonight, thank you. But I’ll take a water, please.”
She gives me a smile back and clears away my empty glass, heading off to the kitchen.
Her name is Sarah, and she’s a few years younger than my mother was back when she worked here. She reminds me of my mom, in some ways. Especially because I saw her with her daughter a while back getting into a rust bucket that looked like it was on its last leg as it pulled out of the parking lot.
It’s why I request her section whenever I come in, and why I always tip her extremely well. It gives me a sense of calm to know I’m giving something good to someone who not only needs it, but deserves it.
Tonight, though, I don’t feel that same sense of calm I normally feel sitting here, enjoying the outdoor bar and watching the lights on the boats as they bob ever so gently along the docks.
Instead, my mind is restless.
Well…maybe not restless, exactly. But occupied, absolutely.
Occupied by a sweet little something I am definitely, most certainly not allowed to want.
Paige Andrews.
I don’t know what I was thinking, flirting with her at the gala this weekend. But after exchanging just a few words, it felt like I was hooked on whatever kind of drug comprises the way her lips quirk to the side when she smiles.
