“Well, first we oversleep. So we wind up on the eleven o’clock even though we said we’d take the ten.”
“And then…”
“We take the ferry and walk around and look at tchotchkes.”
“Tchotchkes.”
“We also go to bookstores or whatever, but you know how it is. Mostly tchotchkes.”
Your desk is crowded with tchotchkes and I laugh. “Yep.”
“Then we go to a restaurant with a long line and my mom is too hungry to wait and I’m like ‘Just put our name in’ and she won’t do it and then the people who walked in after us get a table and I’m like ‘See, Mom?’…” You said that she was the problem and she says that you’re the problem and I can’t wait to be a part of your fucking family. “And then she wants pizza but then she wants dumplings and she’s like ‘Oh let’s go to this place I heard about from Melanda.’？”
I laugh. “Been there.”
“And then we go and the place isn’t open yet cuz she can barely work Yelp and we just walk around starving and look at more tchotchkes and then she wants some tchotchke she saw in the morning and she gets paranoid that someone else got it and we run back to the shop and it’s gone and she’s all waaah.”
You’re afraid that you’re gonna lose your shot with me and I smile. “Then what?”
“She still can’t make up her mind about another stupid tchotchke because that would mean making a decision so we go to a coffee shop and she gets mad when I take my book out, like we’re supposed to talk all the freaking time. But it’s BS cuz she’s sick of me too and she takes her book out and then we come home. And that’s our family bonding. The end.”
I applaud and the Meerkat laughs, but then she turns into a young version of you, serious. “It’s really not as stupid as it sounds. I’m not mean.”
“You’re not mean. Family is… it’s a lot.”
“It’s just weird to like… try to bond, you know?”
I do know. I remember sitting with Love in prison and trying to feel in love with her and Nomi’s done with me. “I’m gonna get a coffee first. See ya.”
I wave. “Say hi to your mom.”
She heard my request but she’s already distracted because she ran into my fecal-eyed neighbors and I can’t rely on Nomi to tell you about our great conversation. She runs into people all the time because that’s life here and she’s mad that you took her Columbine away. I walk into the T & C and it’s bustling. I feel good. I bent the rules and the universe rewarded me, Mary Kay, because now I know about your plans for tomorrow and I am on board.
It is time for our family to do some fucking bonding.
8
I know life is ugly. I knew that Bainbridge Island was never going to be exactly like Cedar Cove. I’m waiting to board the ferry and this guy in line in front of me is wearing a knit fucking skullcap—someone made it for him, you can just tell—and yellow-framed sunglasses and he’s rubbing his son in my face, a lesser Forty with a runny nose. He’s also with his wife, the one who knit that stupid skullcap and lied to him, told him he can pull off yellow shades. She’s a puffy-jacket sourpuss and she sniffs her coffee—I think this is oat milk, babe—and I am alone and they are together and it is absurd.
But not for long, right? Right.
I am taking the 10:00 A.M. ferry to Seattle to get there before you and I’m a little pushy—Gently, Joseph—but I want to escape from the in-your-face family that isn’t mine so I move to the left side of the boarding throng into a pack of lawsuit-hungry retired lawyers just fucking hoping that someone’s landscaper mows their lawn because it would give them a project. Yes, it’s twee here. If you go to the police station on your birthday, you get a free donut—you don’t even have to show ID—but there are twenty-five thousand residents eating locally farmed beets and commuting to Seattle, forming little commuter cliques. Debbie Macomber would feel for me, alone on a Saturday, now marooned with techies talking soccer. I belong nowhere but this is temporary and I’m on board—that’s progress—and I put on my headphones and break left for the stairs—two at a time—up to the sundeck. The air helps. The sea, too, a far cry from that heady brown Malibu foam, and I sit on a bench but I’m faced with a wall clock covered by a sign that reads I AM BROKEN.
I find another place to sit—gotta be positive—because it’s a big day for us, Mary Kay. I’m not gonna interrupt your bonding with your daughter and I’m not “stalking” you. My plan is simple. I’ll have some “me time” and you’ll have your family time and I’ll watch for the signs; when I notice that the two of you are getting sick of each other, I’ll “bump into you”—Joe! What a nice surprise!—and we’ll ride back to the island together. Then, we’ll have dinner at my house. （I bought salmon steaks and they’re not fucking frostbitten like yours.） Thanksgiving is five days away and that’s plenty of time for you to cancel your trip to Phoenix, and you’ll do that after you realize that you can date me and be a good mom at the same time.
I walk toward the bow, to another bank of benches, and I zip up my jacket. It’s not freezing, but it isn’t springtime for Hitler and I take off my headphones because people up here are polite, alone like me. No one is forcing a neighbor to overhear one side of a cell phone conversation about a busy boring life and I can’t get that clock out of my head.
I AM BROKEN.
I check Love’s Instagram—I AM NERVOUS—and Forty is biting his nanny Tressa, who says that my son reminds her of Adam Fucking Levine and Love is laughing—it isn’t funny—and there is nothing I can do. I delete the fucking app and shove my phone back in my pocket but then I freeze. I blink. I wish I could delete my body because what the fuck, Mary Kay?
You’re here. You and Nomi are on this boat, my boat, the one you’re supposed to miss. You’re thirty feet away and you’re leaning over the railing and I scoot across the bench, closer to the center of the vessel and I pick up a newspaper and listen to my heart beat between my ears.
Calm down, Joe. This is like yesterday. If you see me, you see me. It’s fine. People go to Seattle and I am people. I bend the upper corner of the newspaper and whoever is driving this ship decides that it’s time to go and we’re on the move.
You pull a fleece hat out of your saggy, bottomless purse and you offer it to the Meerkat and she deflects. I can’t hear you, but I see you throw your hands up and look heavenward—help me, Jesus!—and the Meerkat sulks and stares at the horizon. You two are off to a rough start and I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls last night. They needed Luke at times like this and maybe I should just walk up to you right now and save your morning. I play it out in my head.
Joe, is that you?
Wow! Mary Kay, what a surprise! Do you want to go fuck in the bathroom?
I know. Too much. And the Meerkat might tell you that she told me all about your plans. Think, Joe, think. If you saw me, you’d come say hi. That’s what friends do. I’m still in hiding and you haven’t noticed me yet—long live print newspapers—and the Meerkat leans over the railing. “Ugh,” she shouts. “If you don’t leave me alone I’m gonna jump, I swear!”