Please Insert Drama

I’m almost sure I went on a spiritual retreat to the set of a soft-core porno, though they all look the same, so I may never know for certain. It was halfway through March when my boss took his eight employees (myself included) on a retreat, “to get off campus for a couple nights and take a break,” he said.
We all worked in our college dormitory, each of us on a floor, helping the residents with whatever problems they brought to us, and spying to catch them breaking rules, which we assured them we didn’t do even though we did. After ten weeks of a trying semester, my boss was eager to get his faithful minions a chance to rest and recuperate, physically and spiritually, so he’d arranged a trip to the beach. I brought more homework than I could possibly finish in two days. I wanted to be busy from start to end, so I wouldn’t seem like I was depending on my co-workers to entertain me.
The car ride took over four hours, and when we finally arrived I think I would have welcomed any house no matter what condition it was in, so long as it had beds and a place to lay in the sun. When our destination turned out to be a three-story house, ten minutes to the beach on foot, with beds for everyone, I was too happy to immediately recognize that it was just about as sleazy as a house could be without a vibrating heart-shaped bed.
Every vertical surface, it seemed, was reflective. If the walls weren’t literally mirrors, they were floor to ceiling windows that turned to mirrors at sundown. The furnishings, shag carpet and ceiling were colored in tans and beiges, and in the rare places where window or mirror didn’t take up the wall, the wallpaper featured a repeating pattern resembling sand colored doilies.
When I took into account that there was a panoramic view of the pounding surf, a secluded rooftop hot tub and a prominently featured fireplace in the living room, I realized that the house we’d come to was tailor made for sex, and not just sex, but filmed sex.
How was I supposed to focus on rest and spiritual renewal in a place where film crews had surely spent hours documenting staged encounters between moderately attractive twenty-somethings? There was no way. By dinnertime the first night I’d made up my mind that something was going to happen between two of my staff mates, I just wasn’t sure which ones.
I told Stan, the only co-worker I thought would see things my way, that I expected drama before the weekend was out. He told me, “of course you do, buddy.”
I watched the girls in the group suspiciously that evening. There were three of them, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three, and I figured if there was any drama one of them would have to be involved.
Board games were played. I listened for coy or suggestive banter between the guys and the girls. In the background the 1990’s era stereo played sultry electronic jazz. Completely classless and seemingly caught in an endless loop, the music fit perfectly with the house because it, too, seemed to have been pulled out of a B grade adult film. With every passing minute of the board game I became more agitated; when was someone going to do something rash and inappropriate? The game ended, and still I had no idea where the self-promised drama was going to come from.
Apple-pie-making in the kitchen came next. Eight bodies crowded into the kitchen to cut apples and arrange pre-made dough into tins. Three of us opted to skip pie making and wait for the pie eating. I thought to myself that if I gave it time and took a laissez-faire approach to the group something was bound to happen eventually. Hopefully it would be something sleazy enough to match the setting.
The pies were mouth watering as we sat ourselves around the large dining room table to eat them. Still no drama, but I told myself there was always the next day. The pie makers retired to their individual rooms, leaving the three of us who had not helped make pies to clean the dishes.
Stan, along with another co-worker called George, and I stood in front of the sink for fifteen minutes washing and drying the plates, tins and cutlery that had been used that night.
“I don’t really feel like going to bed right now.” I said.
“Then stay up.” Said George.
“I think I’d go crazy staying up alone in this house. There’s too many mirrors on the walls, I’d lose my mind.” I said.
“You could get in the hot tub.” Stan suggested.
“Yes.” I said. “I’m doing that. But first I want to jump into the ocean.”
“It’s really cold.” Stan said.
“Yeah, it might be better to wait until tomorrow.” George said.
“I want to go tonight, and if I go and die it’ll be on your conscience, so you’re coming with me. We’ll get in the hot tub afterward.” I said.
They probably wanted to argue, but I was a whiner and they knew it.


We were at the pier. It was cold and dark, past midnight. We were all having second thoughts, most likely, but none of us said anything about going back. Our plan was to jump of the long pier and swim back to the shore. It was roughly two hundred feet from where we would enter the ocean to the shore. We’d talked it through before picking that spot to jump. We didn’t want to be too far out to swim back, and we didn’t want to be too close to the shore when we dropped thirty feet into the water.
We climbed over the railing and lowered ourselves down to stand on protruding planks. At George’s urge of, “let’s do this,” we jumped into the black below us.
The water was a headache all over my body. I’d plummeted deeper than I thought I would and by the time I broke the surface I had only one thought; swim. I saw some lights in the distance and I jolted into a gimpy breaststroke, flailing my legs in attempt to feel them and use them to propel me forward.
I kept me head down for a minute. Focusing only on swimming. I felt less cold. This was a good sign. I began treading water and looked around me for the others. They were nowhere to be seen. I was sure they had jumped. “Stan?” I called. “George!?” I could hear the pounding of the waves on the shore, but I heard no reply from my fellow swimmers.
“Stan!” I screamed. “Can you hear me!?”
I began to feel the coldness again, and my heart was racing. I imagined them washed up, dead on a shore somewhere. What would I tell our co-workers the next day?
I swam again. I had turned around while treading water, so I had to redirect myself for the shore before continuing.
I would tell the co-workers I had gone to bed before Stan and George. I would tell them I’d heard them talking about swimming, but had been too tired to go.
I didn’t notice the distance I was covering. Soon I was among waves, one-by-one passing me on their way inland. When the waves moved past me, faster than I was swimming, I felt like I was going nowhere. I kept on stroking.
When I finally stopped swimming and tried to stand up I realized the water was only three feet deep, rising and falling with each wave.
I stumbled out of the waves and onto the wet sand. The dull roar of the ocean made the surrounding town seem deathly silent. I was bent over double as I staggered away from the waves, and I collapsed a mere fifteen seconds after reaching shore. I pulled myself into a seated position, panting. My lungs were on fire.
I thought I might be crying because my face felt hot.
Tears? Maybe.
I’d killed them. I’d had the stupid idea of jumping in the ocean in the middle of the night. I’d been the idiot who looked for drama since we’d arrived. Well, I’d got it. It wasn’t even sex. It was some stupid “Newberry Award Winner-esque” shit, with dumb guys doing dumb stuff and getting killed for it.
I was still panting.
I would never tell a soul. I’d practically murdered one of my best friends and I’d nev-
“Dude. What took you so long?”
It was Stan. I sprang to my feet in shock and relief.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“We swam back after jumping in.” Stan said. “You started swimming off parallel to the shore.”
“Oh.” I thought for a moment about how everything must have played out. “Where’s George.”
“He was freezing.” Stan said. “He went back to the house. I told him I’d wait and make sure you didn’t drown or something.”
In the surprise of finding Stan alive I hadn’t noticed how cold it was with the night air groping my goose bumped wet body.
I’d already resolved to cover up my hand in his death, and he’d waited for me to make sure I didn’t drown.
“Stan,” I said, “I’m sorry I’m such an asshole.”
“It’s ok buddy, I’m an asshole too sometimes.”
“Yeah, but it’s becoming a regular thing with me, and it’s got to stop.”