Too Good to be True

The night always started with the car ride out to the restaurant. It was about a fifteen-mile drive, but it felt three times as long on the way there, in anticipation, and three times as quick on the way home, in satisfaction. Webb sat, feeling lonely, and gazed out of the window and watched, tirelessly, the outdoors pass by like the stages of life, the ups and the downs of hills and the shifts from smooth, paved roads to bumpy gravel ones, and back again.  He sat in the window seat, not feeling the desire to engage in the conversation or the music playing. They, Webb and his large family, were working their way to the shore. It would have been relatively undetectable, but due to the unbroken pine tree forests on their left and right, and the freshness of the breeze through the open window, he could smell, taste, and almost feel the salt in the air as they made their way closer to the destination. As he sat in the back looking out to the East, he caught quick, refreshing glimpses of the bay between the tree line, and his eagerness would only double.
Always sudden, as if it had been there all alone and untouched since the last time they left, they arrived in the rocky parking lot of Miller’s Lobster Co. A small, family owned restaurant that always had enough room for the large families who enjoyed it. The rush of fresh air in Webb’s face as he hopped out of the old Suburban and smell of the sea and the day’s catch, some of it still arriving from the last few lobster boats gliding across the bay, made it impossible to think of any problems or struggles or bumpy roads from the ride in. He made his way down towards the pier, towards the beautiful sunset, and passed open tanks of lobster and clams with groups of young kids reaching in and laughing at the touch of the shellfish to their cold hands. As they rounded the corner of the main part of the restaurant all of the quick glimpses of each part of the bay that had left only a fraction of the pleasure, came together like pieces of a puzzle; the parts fit together perfectly into a scene that could never be forgotten.
Webb leaned over to his twin brother, John, who was, after all, seven minutes older, and asked softly, “John don’t you think we could come back to this same restaurant every night for the rest of our lives and never get tired of it...” He trailed off, for his remark was of no importance, it seemed, as always because John was already engaged in conversation with the beautiful girl at the table next to theirs.
John was technically seven minutes older than Webb, who were just turning sixteen and the eldest of the five boys in the family, and it always seemed that John’s extra seven minutes propelled him far ahead of Webb in every aspect of life. Except, of course, in the classroom where Webb excelled beyond John’s furthest hope.
Webb glanced around the restaurant and felt alone. He saw John talking with the beautiful girl who looked to be around the same age as the two of them. He saw his younger brothers making friends with the lobsterman who were finishing up the day, and he saw his parents waiting in line to order their usual order. He was beginning to fall back in to his lonely mood when he noticed John’s girl look over, smile, and motion for him to come join them with her hand. Webb turned his head the other way as if to check if she had recognized and old friend of hers sitting at the table behind him, and he just happened to be in the way. The other tables were empty. He looked back at her, she was laughing with John now, and he got up to join them.
On his walk over, Webb thought of all the times he wished to be social and fun, like John, but remained his pensive self. As he sat down he noticed just how beautiful she actually was, and he blushed as he sat down next to his brother. She looked over to him and asked him something, but he couldn’t hear a word she said. He felt weird on the inside but didn’t question it. It was great. As she waited for Webb, she laughed quietly and smiled a smile he would never forget.