Read Online The Island by Peter Benchley - Free Book Online

Maynard stopped.
    “What’s the matter?” Justin asked.
    Maynard didn’t reply. His mind was a mess of impulses and doubts and hunches and rationalizations. Common sense commanded that they return to New York, shelve the boat-disappearance story. Think it through. Talk to Hiller. That was the way of safety and self-preservation. But somewhere in his mind he was driven by the thought that what he would return to in New York might not be worth preserving. The choice was not between safety and risk; it was between reaching for something and resigning himself to nothing.
    He took Justin’s hand. “Come on.” He turned into the National lounge.
    “That’s not our plane!”
    “It is now.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not? You ever been to Miami?”
    “I don’t even know where it is!”
    “Twelve years old, and you don’t know where Miami is? Well, it’s time you learned.”
    Justin allowed himself to be pulled along. “Chee! Mom is gonna kill me!”
    “Why do you keep saying that? She’s never killed you yet. Besides, we’ll have you back before she knows you’re gone.”
    Maynard took his American Express card from his wallet and approached the ticket desk.

C H A P T E R

5
    “I don’t even have a toothbrush.”
    “We’ll buy you one. People in Florida brush their teeth.”
    It was the tenth objection Justin had raised, and Maynard had answered, so far during the flight. The objections were not serious or considered, Maynard was sure; Justin was excited, and also was seeking reassurance by verbalizing every conceivable problem that might arise from a spontaneous departure from established routine. As his father solved, or explained how he would later solve, each problem, the boy grew more at ease.
    “What’re we gonna do down there, anyway?”
    “Fool around. See a few people. Ask a few questions. Maybe go sight-seeing.”
    “When are you gonna grow up, Dad?”
    Startled, Maynard said, “Hey, that’s not you talking, is it? That’s good old Mom.”
    Justin blushed.
    “Never mind. Why’d you ask? What makes you think I’m not grown up? I saw an ad for Playboy the other day, and they think I’m over the hill. After thirty-four, you’re not even worth market research.”
    “Grownups don’t do things like this.” Justin gestured at the plane.
    “Grownups can’t have fun?”
    “Mom says you don’t like yourself very much any more. That’s why you stay at Today and do ‘Trends.’ ”
    Maynard tried to think of a snappy, jocular response, but he couldn’t. He felt embarrassed and angry—angry especially, because he and Devon had agreed never to speak disparagingly of one another to their son. “Now look, Justin . . .”
    Justin reached over and, tentatively, took Maynard’s hand. “I like you. Don’t you like yourself? I like you.”
    “Hey, buddy . . .” Maynard patted Justin’s hand and looked away. After a moment, he said, “I’ll tell you. I work at Today for a lot of reasons. They pay me well, and we have to eat. I’m good at what I do there, as good as anybody can be, and that’s something. It’s not a bad job. There are a lot of people who’d love to write for Today.”
    “Do you want to do something else?”
    Maynard smiled. “You mean, when I grow up?”
    Justin looked sheepish. “Yeah.”
    “I don’t know. I think about it, and sometimes I try not to think about it. It’s easier to think about what you are than what you’re not. If there’s one person in the world I’d like to be like, it’s Samuel Eliot Morison.’”
    “Who’s he?”
    “He traveled everywhere and saw everything, and what he couldn’t see because it was in the past he read about and tried to relive, and then he wrote books telling everybody else about what he’d learned.”
    “You want to write stories.”
    “True stories. That’s one reason we’re going to Florida.”
    Justin nodded, apparently satisfied with the explanation.
    “What do you want to be, Mr. Inquisitor?” Maynard asked.