“There’s nothing to do here,” Grant griped.
Patrick glanced up to see a sign announcing Wi-Fi, the magic answer appearing out of the mountaintop’s thin air. Without thinking he handed his phone to Maisie. She snatched it from him and, much to Patrick’s dismay, already knew his password.
“Hey, did you guys upload our video to YouTube?”
“What?” Maisie feigned innocence.
“The one from dinner. With the cotton candy.”
Maisie refused to look up at her uncle, as sure a sign of guilt as there was.
“What did I say about that? About it not being appropriate? Your aunt Clara saw that and blamed me.”
They both picked uncomfortably at their pizza; Grant stretched his cheese like it was bubble gum as Patrick pieced together their scam. The passwords were on his counter and he’d been giving them a wider berth with his phone.
“It’s okay. I’m not . . . mad. I can handle your aunt Clara. It’s just. If I make rules, they’re to protect you. Okay? You have to respect them.” Patrick opened the salad he’d ordered and picked off bits of blue cheese. The lettuce appeared wilted, like their energy; they were all three in need of a boost. “Well, pull it up so I can see how it looks.”
Excitedly, Maisie opened the YouTube app and tapped in a few key search words.
“I have the YouTube app?”
“I downloaded it.”
Patrick shot her a look, which she absorbed and shot right back. Maisie found the page and handed Patrick his phone to show him. “EIGHTY-THREE THOUSAND VIEWS?”
A family at the next table turned to look. Patrick pulled his ball cap down farther over his eyes.
Maisie took a bite of pizza. “You already had a channel, so we have lots of subscribers!”
“I have. I have lots of subscribers. We don’t have anything.” Patrick let the video unspool on his phone. The kids looked good, happy. Even if it was just a snapshot, a moment.
“Are we famouth?” Grant asked.
“Not even a little bit.”
“That’s a lot of views,” Maisie clarified. “So I’d say a little bit.” She was developing a bit of an attitude he wasn’t fond of, but today he would cut her some slack.
The video ended and Patrick absentmindedly handed Maisie back his phone as if it were hers. “Interesting.”
“Can we watch thomething elthe?”
Patrick tried to pierce his lettuce with a plastic fork, but the lettuce wasn’t having it. He set his fork down and pushed his tray aside. “Sure.”
“Can I choothe?” Grant asked.
“No. I want us to watch something specific. I want to see clips from a show. Tillamook.”
“Till-a-muck?” Maisie struggled to understand.
“Terrible title. Tillamook. Like a cow says.”
“It thounds like what a cow makes.”
Patrick turned to his nephew. “That’s very clever. Let’s get some chocolate moooooook.” He tickled the boy and Grant squirmed and shrieked. “It’s a town in Oregon. And also a cheese, I think. And the name of a teen drama on that network I should, because of my advanced age, be too embarrassed to watch.”
“Here it is.” Maisie handed the phone back to Patrick so she could break off another bite of the pizza crust.
“Is this lupper?” Grant asked, lifting up his pizza as if there might be something more appetizing underneath.
“It’s a lack.”
“What’th a lack?”
“Lunch-slash-snack. Eat up,” Patrick replied.
“Is it really?”
“It’s certainly lacking,” he said without looking up from his screen because there he was—Emory—his face clean-shaven and smooth with makeup. Patrick’s heart, while not skipping the proverbial beat, did （against his will） pound a little harder. His finger hovered nervously over the thumbnail. What was the hesitation? Three days ago he’d barely heard of this person. And he’d had, over the years, plenty of these little affairs without giving a single one so much as a second thought. So he pushed play.
And, voilà—magic. Emory, alive on his phone in a glorious close-up, that familiar sparkle in his eye, until the camera pulled back to a two-shot to reveal he was talking to . . . a girl.
“Can I see?” Maisie asked. She set her pizza crust down on the paper plate on her tray and leaned across the table to watch; Grant likewise snuggled into Patrick’s side. He found them, in this moment, to be an intrusion.