𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐧; conrad fisher

7

7 - They Assume you Know Nothing

The Summer was passing by more quickly than I could have imagined. Most of my days consisted of my typical routine: waking up early to go for a morning surf, catching a ride with Conrad (who, I still barely spoke to) and heading off to work, going to the country club to get a free lunch from Steven, and then heading home to play video games or whatnot until I decided to go to bed. It might have seemed mundane, but this Summer had been the most fun one I have had in years.

Going back to the topic of Conrad–who seemed to be the center of everything here at Cousin's–I found that even after our Fourth of July reconciliation, it was hard for the two of us to interact normally with one another. The anger for him that I harbored inside of me had entirely dissipated, yes, but there was still this awkward tension that lingered around the both of us. Maybe it was better this way, the last thing I wanted was to spend the entire Summer fighting with him, but for some reason I just wasn't content with the position we were in.

Still, with our situation improving, I found work to be a lot more bearable once again. Besides Conrad, I had managed to become quite close with Cleveland. After one shift, I finally asked him if he would be willing to write my letter of recommendation for my college applications, and he happily agreed to do so. It was a huge relief on my part to finally get his confirmation, because it made all of those awful shifts with Conrad finally worth it.

--

On one Wednesday afternoon, Conrad and I were getting ready to get off work when Cleveland called us back over to have a quick word with us. Having made plans to get lunch with Belly after the shift, I was a bit nervous that Cleveland would cause me to be late. However, as he gestured us over he assured us he wouldn't take up too much of our time, and I really had no choice but to hope he was telling the truth.

"Hey guys. I'm sorry about the inconvenience, but I have a quick favor to ask you two." Cleveland told us.

"What's up?" Conrad asked.

Cleveland explained, "Well, this morning I had to scrub off a shit-ton of graffiti off of my sailboat. Apparently there were some teen vandals out last night spray painting some of the boats here on the docks. The problem is, the local newspaper is coming over here to do an article about the book; how I drew inspiration from sailing here at Cousin's... Typical press stuff."

Conrad and I exchanged a nervous look, unsure of what Cleveland was about to ask of us, and whether or not it involved 6am boat cleaning.

"Listen, this isn't something that you have to take on if you don't want to, but it would be a huge help..." Cleveland sighed, "I, err, have a date tonight. I could always cancel, but this woman is once in a lifetime. It would mean the world to me if you guys could come by in the morning and make sure the boat is alright before my interview."

Conrad and I were obviously reluctant to immediately agree to help Cleveland out, despite how sweet it was that he had such strong feelings for whatever mystery woman he was going out with. Quick to try and avoid the hypothetical situation, I offered Cleveland an alternative solution.

"What if we just stayed overnight on the boat instead? That way we can catch the kids who are doing this to the boats before they even get the chance to mess with them again."

"I vote for that idea, too." Conrad added, very enthusiastically.

Cleveland was unconvinced, "Are you sure you guys can handle being up for that long?"

"We can take turns sleeping, it should be fine, I promise." I persisted.

He rubbed his chin for a minute before slowly nodding, "Alright, alright. As long as my boat is intact. Thank you guys so much, you have no idea how much this means to me."