Funny Story(85)

?After dessert, we pick our way down the deck stairs to the beach. Miles brought towels in a backpack, and we stretch out, waiting as the sky darkens, stars gradually pricking through it. Out on the water, someone has decided to shoot off fireworks from their boat.

A hum, a gasp, a sigh, ripple through the beach’s stragglers. One streak of light pops, explodes into a shivering purple blossom. Two more quickly follow, on either side, pink and gold.

Kids shriek and squeal and run circles around their adults, Popsicles and ice cream cones melting down their wrists. Dad and Starfire strike up a conversation with a couple around their age standing near us, and Julia is down on the ground, taking selfies with a shaggy Great Pyrenees sprawling in the sand. Even with the sulfuric smell hanging in the air, I can still pick out the gingery kick of Miles beside me.

“Good night?” he asks, a fresh wave of fireworks making his face shimmer with greens and oranges.

“Great night.”

He smiles and faces forward, the back of his hand brushing mine. My heart feels like a present unwrapped, my body relaxing.

For the first time, I let myself really imagine this lasting.

All of it.

Dad and Starfire. Ashleigh and Julia. Waning Bay.

Miles.

I could be happy here. I could belong.





26





I plan on saying good night to Dad and Starfire at our apartment and sending them on their way. Then I make the mistake of Googling their motel.

“Dad!” I say. “This is forty minutes away, and the first three reviews mention bedbugs.”

“Everything closer to the water books up a year out, apparently,” he tells me.

I scroll down. The reviews that don’t mention bedbugs focus instead on cockroaches. Yet another reviewer complains that their room didn’t have a bed. “Just a rust-colored outline where the bed should’ve been,” I read aloud to them.

“I’m sure if they give us a room without a bed, they’ll let us move for free,” Starfire volunteers.

I shoot Miles a frantic look.

“Anyone want water?” he chimes in. “Daphne—wanna help me?”

We beeline for the kitchen, ignoring their protestations that they’re fine, it’s been hours since they drank that wine, they should get on the road, etc.

While Miles pulls glasses down, he says under his breath, “What do you want to do?”

“We can’t let them stay in that place,” I whisper back.

“We can,” he says. “But we don’t have to. It’s up to you.”

“What other option do we have?” I say.

“I could let them use the air mattress, and I take the couch?” Julia says, making me jump as she walks into the room. “Not ‘getting water,’ then?”

“Working on it,” Miles says; then, more quietly, “Just trying to figure out what to do about this. I don’t think we can ask two sixty-something-year-olds to sleep on an air mattress.”

“I’ll take the couch, Julia can stick with the inflatable, and they can take my room,” I say.

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “They can take my room, and I’ll take the couch.”

“How is that any less ridiculous?” I say. “They’re my parents. Or . . . my dad and my . . . Starfire.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” he asks.

“For tonight,” I say. “Tomorrow we can look for a hotel that’s less . . .”

“Infested?” Julia finishes.

“That,” I agree.

“If you’re sure,” Miles says.

I haven’t been sure of much in the last few months. “Close enough,” I say.



* * *





?While Miles takes his turn in the bathroom queue, I get Dad and Starfire settled into my room with fresh bedding.

“Really appreciate this, kid,” Dad says. “We would’ve been okay at the motel.”

“Yeah, well, this way you don’t take bedbugs to Starfire’s family,” I say.

He gives me a hug good night, an awkward kiss atop my head, and when we separate, Starfire is waiting, arms out wide to reveal her baby-blue nightgown.

“Good night, Starfire,” I say, accepting her tight squeeze.

“Good night, sweetie,” she says. “And if you want, you can call me Mom.”

“Oh, that’s . . . I’ll stick with Starfire, but I hope you sleep well!”

I close the door behind me on my way out. Julia is in the process of dragging her air mattress toward Miles’s room, and I hurry over to help.

We agreed it made more sense to put her in there, because if we left the mattress in the cramped living room, there’d be no way for me to get off the couch without stepping on her.

Given how many times I can pee in one night, that seemed impractical.

We unroll the rumpled air mattress in front of Miles’s closet doors, and while she gets the pump going, I bring her tangle of bedding in from the living room.

“Thanks for being up for this,” I tell her, when she turns the pump off and we start making the bed.

“No problem,” she says. “Honestly, I’m just taking this as a sign it’s time for me to get back to Chicago and get the rest of my stuff and my car.”