The Shippers(13)

Despite everything I knew about the gravity of what I’d just done, I felt surprisingly free.

All to say: Don’t knock open-top Jeeps until you’ve tried ’em.

I had just firebombed my life—and left my whole family to clean up the mess. Except for my dad, of course, as usual.

Later, I’d feel bad about it all.

But for now—at least for this one drive—I was just going to be.

I was just going to close my eyes, and sing along, and enjoy being with my old friend, and let the wind blow all my thoughts away. We zipped down the freeway, past Texas City and its refinery flames, up over the causeway with all its roving bands of pelicans, and then down Sixty-First Street toward the Gulf of Mexico.

We’d done this a hundred times in high school. And now it felt both exactly the same and the opposite of the same.

Cooper parallel parked right there on the Seawall, overlooking the waves, and cut the engine.

We watched the breakers for a while. No talking.

Finally, he said, “What do you want to do now?”

I turned to meet his eyes, and then I said, very deliberately, “I want to get out of this insulting, ridiculous noose of a dress.”

So we went to Murdochs—a hundred-year-old souvenir shop that sold everything and sat up on stilts over the waves. We must have been a sight—a French hobo and a runaway bride just hunting through the aisles.

People were definitely staring.

But I didn’t care.

We found me some flip-flops, and some nylon shorts, and a T-shirt that said BEACH, PLEASE. Plus a couple of massive beach towels. Some heart sunglasses. And food—so much, we had to grab a second basket: chips, and cookies, and pints of Ben & Jerry’s, and every candy bar I could find.

“We’ll be eating our feelings, then?” Cooper said.

I just gave him a look, like Try to stop me.

On the way to check out, we passed a jewelry display. It had rings and necklaces made of shells and beads in beachy colors. Some were plastic and cheap—but a small section had pieces with sea glass inlaid in silver, made by a local artisan. I stopped to look at them—and then I remembered with sudden horror I was still wearing Grandmother Richmond’s engagement ring.

I guess I had a hot-potato reaction to that.

I dropped the shopping basket with a smack, and then I got frantic trying to twist the ring and work it off. It had been a bit tight from the get-go, but all my yanking and tugging just made it tighter.

“What are you doing?” Cooper asked when he looked up and saw me wriggling.

“The engagement ring!” I said. “It’s not coming off!”

“Slow down,” Cooper said. “Don’t make things worse.”

But I kept pulling and twisting. “Making things worse is my whole thing.”

“For real, though,” Cooper said. “Just hold still.”

“I can’t. I’m panicking!”

“Give me your hand,” Cooper said, taking it and clamping it still in his.

“Get it off! Get it off!” I said in a panicked rush, like there was a bug on me.

“Just stay calm,” Cooper said. “Count some three-Mississippi breaths and oxygenate.” Gently, he started trying to twist the ring. But now my finger was starting to swell. “How bad do you want this off?” Cooper asked.

“Bad!”

“Scale of one to ten?”

“A thousand!”

“Okay, then. Don’t question my methods.”

“Wait—what methods?”

“Just look away and don’t worry about it.”

But of course the minute he told me to look away, I had to do the opposite.

I watched Cooper bend over my ring finger and put his mouth on the ring—and, by default, part of my finger.

“What are you doing?” I said, reaching out the other hand to stop him.

He batted it away and kept his mouth there.

It was warm. And wet. I squeezed my eyes closed. “Please tell me that’s not your tongue.”

When he stood back up, the puffy part of my finger was now, shall we say, lubricated.

He started to work the ring again—and this time, it slid off.

He held it out to me.

But I didn’t take it. I was busy wiping his spit off my hand onto Mrs. Richmond’s wedding gown. “You just sucked my finger.”

“I didn’t suck it, I moistened it.”

“That’s worse.”

“Stop complaining,” he said, still holding it out, “and take it.”

“I don’t want it,” I said.

“I don’t want it,” Cooper said.

But now I was studying my ruddy, still-puffy, ringless ring finger. “Can’t you just stick it in that rucksack of yours?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m gonna have to give it back to her.”

Cooper paused like I was crazy. “Just throw it in the ocean,” he said.

I gave him a look. “I’m not a thief. That thing’s worth a fortune.”

Cooper sighed, acquiesced, and zipped it into a pocket.

In line to check out, I kept looking at my hand. I’d been wearing that too-tight ring for four years, and it had left an imprint. The Richmonds hadn’t wanted to resize it until the deal was really sealed, which had seemed impossibly rude at the time.