TWO

The Laid-Back Guy’s Guide to Handling Everything…

Harrison Banks

Long Beach, Santa Valentina Island, The Benavente Islands, Caribbean

“Don’t fight the current next time, okay buddy?” I smile and ruffle the young boy’s drenched hair. “If you get caught in a riptide again, try to relax and let it carry you — eventually you’ll get to the shore. Otherwise you’ll tire yourself out and end up being a shark’s lunch.”

That’s actually not bad advice when it comes to life. Sometimes, you get hit hard and fast by a crushing wave, and your first instinct is to fight it, even when you know nothing can be done. You’ll save yourself a whole lot of trouble by just going with the flow.

After the boy’s mum gives me a teary-eyed thank-you, I dislodge my surfboard from the sand and start the long trek back to my favourite entry point on Long Beach. I was paddling out for my first run when I heard screams coming from the shore and took a hard right to play lifeguard.

Glancing at my watch, I see that detour didn’t leave me with much time to catch a few waves before I need to head back to the resort to sign off on the pay-stubs. Not that I’m complaining — I know I’ve got it good. Inheriting a resort in the Caribbean isn’t exactly a burden. It just doesn’t leave me with all that much free time, and today I really need some time on my own to think. I’m pretty sure I’m about to get slammed by one of life’s shit waves, and I need to figure out how to avoid it if at all possible.

I’ve been shit-slammed more than once. The first time was the night my parents went out for a dinner date and never came back. Up to that point, I was a pretty typical eleven-year-old, dawdling on the walk to school each morning, yanking at the irritating tie that went with my St. Mary’s uniform, and occasionally teasing my little sister, Emma, and my baby brother, Will (but only when I was bored). I played football on the weekends with my mum cheering from the sidelines and my dad coaching. I complained about bedtime and begged to watch movies I was too young to see but ‘everyone else in my class had already seen.’

The oldest child of a school teacher and Valcourt’s best podiatrist (according to the Podiatry Association of Avonia), I was doted on and fussed over. Everything was safe and cozy and perfect. Right up until it was yanked from me in the time it takes to run a red light.

At the funeral, we were introduced to Uncle Oscar — my dad’s older brother and a man I’d only heard stories about. I knew he lived a bit of a ‘wild life on some tropical island in the middle of nowhere’ and was not my parents’ ‘sort of person’ based on the hushed tone they used whenever his name came up. It was for that very reason I was absolutely riveted by any mention of him. What did they mean by wild? Did he swing from jungle vines, eat with his hands, and beat his chest? I expected him to show up at the funeral with long, shaggy hair, an out-of-control beard, and be dressed in only a loin cloth, but he looked disappointingly normal. Black suit, white shirt, clean shaven. He looked a lot like my dad, actually, only with grey hair around his temples and a dark tan.

I spent most of the service glancing at the pew behind mine, trying to catch a glimpse of him. He was one of the pallbearers for my dad’s casket, so he left the church ahead of me and stood on the opposite side of the grave site as I held Will and Emma’s mitten-clad hands and tried to wrap my head around the fact that my parents were in those boxes being lowered into the ground. After that, I completely forgot about my wild Uncle Oscar until the luncheon at my great-aunt’s house.

I was eating the corner piece of a chocolate cake (for maximum icing-to-cake ratio) when I felt a tap on the shoulder. I looked up, and for the briefest moment, I thought I was looking at my dad. An incredible wave of relief washed over me until reality bashed me over the head again.

Uncle Oscar shook my hand, told me he was sorry about my folks, then dropped the next bombshell on me. “Well, I guess you’re coming to live with me now. Do you like boats?”

Two weeks later, Emma, Will, and I were living halfway around the world on Santa Valentina Island. Instead of St. Mary’s, I went to San Felipe Secondary School (where at least the uniform had short pants instead of thick, wool, long ones). I still played football, but this time, my mum wasn’t there to feed me orange slices and my dad wasn’t there to get on me about my inability to hook the ball. Instead, when I went to the field, I had to bring Emma and Will along for the walk from our new house — an ocean-front cottage badly in need of a feminine touch (or at the very least, some curtains). At the park, there were no uniforms, no coaches, and no regulation nets. We’d meet whichever kids happened to show up that day, split into teams, and play until the sun started to go down. It didn’t take me long to realize that football, like most things, was a good deal more fun without all those adults around, not that I wouldn’t have traded every second of fun for another day with my parents.

But I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me. Being pitied is almost as bad as being stuck behind a desk. I only told you about that so you’ll understand the importance of going with the flow in life and the wisdom of not getting too attached to anything with an expiration date — pets and humans included. A laid-back, island-life approach makes everything so much sweeter — especially relationships, because like the tides, relationships come and go, and you’ll be much better off if you know that going in.

Anyway, over time, the resort became our home, and the staff our surrogate family, as cliché as that may sound. Oscar did a pretty decent job raising us — he taught us the three s’s of Caribbean life: surfing, sailing, and scuba diving. Other than that, he let me take over as de facto parent for Emma, who is four years younger than me, and Will, who is five years my junior. I made them finish their homework and eat all their peas, and for some reason, they actually listened to me. I have to say, they’ve both turned out to be pretty decent human beings (but don’t tell them I said that).

Emma is finishing up her chef’s training at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, which is costing me an absolute fortune, so she better be one hell of a magical chef when she comes back to work at the resort. Will is off exploring the world and eking out a living as a professional adventurer (yeah, that’s a thing. I didn’t believe it either when Will told me that’s what he wanted to do). Turns out he’s pretty good at it, because he recently landed a six-part TV docu-series on the Avonian Broadcast Network called The Wild World, which has him filming him all over the globe in the harshest of climates. Right now, he’s in Antarctica for three weeks, which kind of makes me laugh a little, because as brave as he is, he’s a total wimp when it comes to the cold.

And here I am on a sunny beach in the Caribbean. Aaah.

I’m finally back to my favourite entry spot along the shore when I hear my name being called. I turn and see my best friend, Nelson Clarke. He’s the youngest bank manager in history at a Benavente Credit Union. He runs the San Felipe branch in the nearest town (San Felipe, obviously) to Paradise Bay, and the fact that he’s out here on a Wednesday afternoon, dressed in a suit, means he’s not here to catch a few waves with me (also obviously).

“Hey, Reef,” he says as I near the road where he’s parked his Jeep. I got saddled with the nickname Reef when I was a teenager, thanks to my affinity for getting reef rash when I was first learning to surf. As much as I don’t love the origin of my nickname, it’s a hell of a lot better than if they’d started calling me Rash.

“What’s up?” I ask, even though I already know what’s up and who sent him. I’m about to default on the loan the bank approved for a major renovation on the resort, and Rosy Browne (the general manager/woman at Paradise Bay who took over as a sort-of mum for us) is the one who called Nelson. She opened the latest overdue notice from the bank yesterday and completely lost it. I told her I have a plan, but clearly, she doesn’t trust that I can handle it without her help. Unfortunately, she still thinks of me as the eleven-year-old kid she met two decades ago.

Nelson loosens his tie, looking worried. “Just wanted to check in with you about your loan status.”

“I take it you heard from Wikileaks?”

He grins at the use of my nickname for Rosy, then his face falls. “This is serious, man.”

“It was serious, but I’ve got it all figured out,” I say with a confident smile. “I’ll be caught up by Monday.”

Nelson gives me a skeptical look. “You’re really going to come up with sixty-seven thousand dollars by Monday?”

“What? You don’t think I can do it?” I ask with a mock hurt expression.

“It’s not that, man. I know you can pull a rabbit out of your hat when you need to, but this is one hell of a huge rabbit,” he says. “And the last thing I want to see is for you to lose the resort.”

“For a lesser man, not an easy feat, but for me…” I shrug nonchalantly. I’m being deliberately vague because my plan involves something that makes my stomach churn, and if anyone tries to talk me out of it, I’ll definitely cave. And since caving isn’t an option, I’m keeping my plan to myself until I’ve seen it through. Time to change the subject. “You didn’t happen to bring your board and some trunks, did you?”

Nelson shakes his head at me and lets out an exasperated sigh. “Jesus, you’re in real trouble here, and you’re acting like we’re talking about a hundred-dollar loan for a pair of sneakers.”

Ever since I’ve known Nelson, he’s been completely uptight, but he comes by it honestly — his mum is a forensic accountant and his dad is one of only three air traffic controllers on the island. Nelson was their only child so they put a lot of pressure on him. I’ve always been his laid-back friend — the Ferris Bueller to his Cameron (a much better gig if you can get it). “You know, buddy, all this stress isn’t good for you. If you don’t learn to relax, you’re going to have a heart attack before you’re forty.”

He ignores my deliberate attempt at trying to side-step this conversation. “Rosy said you don’t have the money. And if you don’t have it today, how’s it supposed to be there in five days, especially when you’re out here surfing instead of working on it?”

“Have you even looked at those waves, Nelson? How could I not be out here?” I point to the shore and grin at him, then I let my smile fade when I see the look on his face. “Don’t worry about it. I swear on your life, I’ll be completely caught up by Monday.”

“By Monday?”

“At the very latest.”

That is if I can force myself to follow through with the very last thing I want to do.