Savor It

Chapter 10. Sage

Whatever discomfort Fisher might’ve felt over our conversation seems to be quickly forgotten. He stays by my side while we wander through O’Doyle’s, amusing himself by picking up various items and showing them to me as if I haven’t already seen them a billion times before. Conversation flows easily this way, too. He seems happy to listen, relaxing more and more as we go along. I tell him about the labyrinth drawings in the sand when we come to a magnet display section full of them. I explain how they’re raked into a maze and how they’re meant to be walkable paths with no definitive beginning or end. I explain that the small group of artists (some years only one older gentleman named Amos, with whoever he recruits from the beach) work on donations only. I wax on about how even though they inevitably wash away and it seems like this great effort for something so fleeting, people find them soothing and fascinating nonetheless. I think I maybe get too animated when I talk about the array of people enjoying them together during the season or that I sound a little too sentimental over something silly, but he surprises me when he puts a twenty in their donation box.

He studies a small figurine of two otters carrying a canoe while he tells me about how he left home at seventeen and went to culinary school in New York. He tells me about spending two years in France early on in his career and credits those years for a large portion of his success.

“So, then, are your parents still in New York?” I ask at some point. We’ve wandered into the women’s clothing section, I realize.

He frowns at a cow print negligee before he looks back at me with a frightened expression.

“Not a single cow spotted since I’ve been here and yet . .”

I decide to try to stay on subject, hungry for more information from him while he appears to be in this generous mood. “I refuse to believe they don’t sell bovine-themed lingerie in a place so vast as New York. Where I presume your parents still live?”

“Smooth redirect.”

“Thank you, I know,” I sing.

He takes a step closer and blows out a long sigh, cocking his head with a smile. “I didn’t grow up in New York, so no, my parents don’t live there. I grew up in Nebraska, which is where they still reside. Where Freya and Indy lived also.” He gives me a look that begs the question “Is that enough?” and I decide that it probably needs to be, for now.

“Nebraska. Oh boy, I bet you’re well versed in corny jokes, then,” I say. His eyes clench shut like that joke caused him physical pain. “You’ll fit in nicely here.”

He shakes his head with a woeful look. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t hold small towns in the highest esteem. Puns notwithstanding.”

“Again I ask, was it Hallmark? Lifetime? Who tainted us in your eyes?”

“Firsthand experience,” he says.

Oh.“Well, maybe we’re not all the same.”

He huffs a humorless ha. “You mean Spunes isn’t like all the other girls?” he says sarcastically, and I have to let out a genuine laugh in reply.

“Much to our everlasting chagrin, that’s for sure,” I say. “This whole place is built on failure after failure and very little, or short-lived, hidden charm. Failed as a logging town, failed as a fishing bay, even the founders themselves were a cautionary tale. We’ve got about one month a year where we get to play the part, though.”

He hums an indifferent noise and nods, and I get the feeling he’s not the least bit interested in my pitch, so I swivel us to another subject.

“Now onto serious business,” I segue, grabbing the first item to my left. “Do I need this for my collection?” I hold the kimono-style robe up against my body. It’s patterned with pairs of coconuts and bananas placed lewdly between them. “Oooh, look!” I squeal when I glance just beyond and see the coordinating men’s shirt. I hand it to him, and he holds it six inches in front of himself like a good sport, the corner of his mouth rolling down in mock disgust.

“Yellow’s not my color,” he monotonously states.

I give him a considerate stare. “You’re right. Plus it’d do nothing for that monkey on your back.”

That pulls a hollow chuckle from him. “Cute.”

“Thank you, I know. I—” I spot Patricia Munty beside Fisher’s elbow. Or the tip of her, at least. She’s seventy-seven this year, with the same bottle-dyed orange puff of hair she’s had my entire life. She is also four foot eleven on her best days.

“Hi, Mrs. Munty,” I call in an octave too high. “Um, Fisher, this is Patricia Munty. She hand makes everything in this section.” I give him a wide-eyed look. Please be nice, I hope it conveys.

Cataracted eyes behind Coke-bottle lenses stare up at him coquettishly. Her little canoe earrings—the ones I know that Athena Cirillo’s sister, Venus, made herself to sell at last year’s festival—sway gently. I raptly watch the interaction like I might will it into slow motion and catch any judgment passing over his features. From the baubles to her cypress-printed dress, Mrs. Munty looks like the human embodiment of our town, and I find that I have to see how he reacts to her.

“Call me Patty, dear,” she says, demurely extending her wrist.

He quickly looks from me to her, then hangs up the shirt so he can take her whorled hand into both of his. “Wonderful to meet you, Patty.” And I swear she nearly swoons. Fisher leveling the full force of this charming version of himself on someone is a sight. He thinks my sunroom’s nice! I’m tempted to tell her.

“Didn’t take you long to find our little hidden treasure, I see,” she purrs and nods my way.

He lets out a low laugh that makes my ears burn. “I’d say she found me, actually.”

I know it’s only a polite agreement and that it shouldn’t affect me in such a way, but that doesn’t stop my mouth from going dry or my cheeks from flooding with heat.

Patty proceeds to point out the shirts she thinks he’d look best in, which is damn near all of them, according to her. She talks about her Eddie and how much he loved his silly patterns. How she needed something to occupy her time while she was grieving him, so she set to making clothes. Robes were the easiest to tackle at first, and then she never stopped.

“Sagey here keeps me in business, she loves them so much!” she declares proudly. The flush that had just subsided comes roaring back. “Gosh, Sagey, how many do you have now? Fifteen?”

“I’m not sure, Mrs. Munty.” Twenty-one.

Patty eventually leaves us to finish up what we came for, at which point Fisher turns to me with his arms folded and an inscrutable expression on his face.

“What?” I ask him.

“I think I’ve got you pegged, that’s all,” he arrogantly says. “You’re the too-nice one, aren’t you? The town golden girl. That’s your thing.” He pins me with an arch look. “The rescued animals, the rescuing me, all the free advice. The compulsive robe buying.”

Two incongruous things are happening inside of me. The first thing is the realization that as I’ve been trying to get to know pieces of him, he’s also been trying to get a read on me, and while that feels a little bit exciting, it also feels like getting home after a great day only to see that you have a gigantic chunk of spinach stuck in your teeth or one of those mascara boogers pooling in the corner of your eye.

And the other thing is that I am immediately triggered.

You’re too niceis exactly the kind of thing Ian would say to me and in nearly this same way that Fisher just has—where it’s something you mean to be playfully teasing in the beginning of the relationship, but turns out to be a real issue later on. It’s never meant to be something bad, but it still sort of is. Ian went on to follow it with other admonishments like, You spend too much time/energy/money on things that don’t matter instead of spending that on something worthwhile. You could go to school for something else. You could, you should. He’d belittled me and the life I’d built like I was spineless, like I couldn’t possibly be satisfied living the way I do. Maybe I don’t save lives or travel, and maybe I do wear some ridiculous clothes and spend too much of my time in my impractical sunroom painting my nails just to wreck them the next day, but…

But screw that. Perhaps I am too nice. I’m sure there are parts of my life where I need to prioritize myself more, but in this case, I “compulsively” buy her clothes for a valid cause.

Patty and Eddie Munty would let my brothers and me walk to their house after school when Ellis was busy with a job and paramedic training. They’d feed us buttered toast and taught us dominoes, and I don’t give a shit if someone passing through this place thinks my quail kimono is the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen, because it makes me smile, and I love that it was made by someone who cares for me. Novelty or not, the happiness I feel is real enough.

“I’m not too nice,” I say firmly. “I’m most definitely not anyone’s golden girl, and I like the stuff she makes because…” I look around in frustration. “Because life’s too fucking short, that’s why.”

He rears back a little, blatantly confused. “Sage, I didn’t mean to offend you or anything, really.”

“I know you didn’t, but wait a second and let me finish.” I suck in a deep breath. My heart drums rapidly in my chest. I can’t pinpoint why I find it so important that he sees the whole picture. All I know is that it stung coming from him because I don’t want to be painted in some vapid, meaningless, small way again. Something about him being new and not having any preconceived notions of me makes me desperate to be properly understood. “When people say that life’s too short, I know that philosophy tends to be synonymous with indulgence or with hurrying to accomplish or chase something. Like ‘life’s too short, so you gotta make a name for yourself or see the world now’ sort of thing. But in my case, life’s already reminded me enough times that it’s fleeting.” I feel him looking at me as I run my hand back and forth along one of the oars on the wall. “And I decided a long time ago that life being too short and too beyond my control meant that I’d let the small stuff feel big. To me, at least. If it’s something that doesn’t matter to most, I think that means someone’s gotta care a little more, right? Discarded pets, pretty flowers”—I look pointedly toward Patty’s clothing section—“some raggedy kid that won’t go on to do anything that changes the world.” Our gazes clash, and I don’t let myself blink away. “So don’t think I choose those things just because I’m too nice. I’m not. I’m fully capable of deciding I want to do something because of how it makes me feel.”

His lips are parted, and he’s stepped closer to me. His eyes bounce around my face like they’re not sure where to look, like he’s searching for a crack in my logic somewhere. The lines between his brows leave an imprint even though he’s not still frowning.

“All right,” he says in earnest. “You’re right.” My eyes leave his face and get stuck on his throat. Such a simple response makes me want to fill the space with more explanations.

“When you lose people,” I begin, and I see him instantly tense. “When you lose people and you’re forced to internalize how little control you actually have… I think in the face of that, it’s easy for everything else to feel senseless, too. Like, what’s the point of pretty clothes or a perfect night sky or any of those inconsequential things that bring us joy? Why should any of it matter when it’s all so easily wiped away?” I brave finding his eyes again. “I believe it’s either that, or… or you decide that everything matters. All of it, all that little shit. Everything in the present and how it makes you feel in those tiny moments, becauseyou can’t possibly know when it’ll all go away. If the result of that sort of caring is what makes me too nice, then fine,” I say. “But I’m not weak for that.”

He’s shaking his head, the same astonished, strained look on his face. “You’re not, and while I didn’t say that, I’ll admit it was shitty of me to imply,” he says. “But I’ve also known people like that who got taken advantage of for caring that way. Who never got anything in return. From life, or from the people in it.” He looks away and back. “My own sister included.” He massages his jaw. “And maybe that’s because she didn’t ask, but maybe because no one else ever offered.” His hands slide into his pockets, and he pins me with hard green eyes. “Tell me something I can do for you,” he suddenly says. I think I’m maybe imagining that it sounds like pleading.

But then he adds, “You said you wanted my help with getting some things.” His eyes continue making laps around my face. “But there must be something else you want. Something else I could do for you.”

“This doesn’t have to be transactional,” I say, a little bewildered at the flip in this exchange.

“I’m capable of deciding when I want to do something, too, Sage, and maybe I decided just now that I’d like to be kind and caring for the sake of it,” he firmly states. “You don’t have to answer right away, but give it a think. My first offer the night we met might’ve been made out of being polite, but I mean this one with my whole chest.”

I clear my throat and point to one of the paddles higher up on the wall. “Can you reach that for me?” I ask. “They’re what I recruited you for.”

He deftly plucks it down and then looks at me like he’s waiting for more directions.

“One more, please.”

He grabs another. “What are these for?”

“Training.”

“For what? For this thing?” He points up to one of the festival banners.

“Yeah.” I leave it at that. It’s probably the perfect opportunity for me to explain more about it, but I find that I simply can’t just yet. I feel like an exposed nerve. Like I just became way too unguarded to someone who should feel like more of a stranger still. I’ve always been someone that prides herself on her ability to read people, always searching in the gaps for where I might fit in… and Fisher keeps managing to flummox me.

I do a better job of staying on task the rest of our time in the store, asking for his help with multiple bags of fertilizer and a concrete planter I’d like to use for an ornamental tree somewhere in the sunroom.

“So, I take what I said back about you being the golden girl,” he says when we eventually make our way to the register. “Even though I maintain that I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” He nudges his shoulder into mine good-naturedly. “But this motherfucker thinks he’s everyone’s golden boy, doesn’t he?”

I follow his eyes to the winner’s wall of photos. “Who? Ian?”

“Yeah. The life-sized Ken-doll reject,” he says, and I fail to stop a laugh.

“He doesn’t just think he’s everyone’s golden boy,” I tell him. “He just… is, unfortunately.”

I feel him studying me as we make our way out to the car. “Couldn’t help but notice the weird vibe at my house the other night. You have a history?”

“Hard not to have a history with everyone in a town whose population number is missing a comma,” I reply.

“You know what I mean,” he says, those sharp eyes unwavering.

But that too-raw feeling is brushed again, so I say, “Careful, Fisher. You’re starting to be a bit nosy. You might just fit in here more quickly than you think.” I finish the remark with a dry laugh.

He doesn’t respond to that, his mouth twitching in a brief smile before he shakes his head.

“We were together for five years,” I concede. “We broke up a little over a year ago, and he’s already engaged to an old friend from high school who had just moved back shortly before he broke up with me.” I hope I hide the bitterness when I say, “He always told me I was too nice, too. He made me feel like I was too silly all the time. I think I might’ve been a little too small-town even for him. Probably why I had such a strong reaction earlier.”

He looks mollified and even sheepish at that, and I have to bite back the urge to say something self-deprecating in a more lighthearted way, something that’d make my candor seem glib and less true. But it feels good to speak plainly for once. To worry a little less about making my feelings smaller to spare someone else the discomfort. My previous monologue might’ve left me feeling a bit too wide open, but it also felt great to get it all out.

I wedge the flatbed away from Fisher and push it the remaining distance to the register. I quickly start making small talk with Ransom Phillips, one of Sam’s friends working here for the season. He darts multiple glances Fisher’s way, who seems too lost in thought for me to make introductions.

Fisher stays quiet as we make our way back to the truck and through loading all my newly acquired goods. But when I close the tailgate on the truck bed, he stops me with a palm on top of mine before he says, “Something tells me I couldn’t have you pegged in a decade, let alone a few days, Sage. But even I can tell that you’re vast.”

Stupid, traitorous blood in my veins, blooming to the surface. “Th-thank you,” I dully reply, like that wasn’t the greatest compliment I’ve ever received.

“You’re welcome,” he says. His lips press into a smirk, and I wonder if he’s recalling the way I clumsily tripped all over my you’re welcome the other day, like I immediately do.

I laugh through my nose and remember the last errand I have on my list. “Hey, I have to return a few books to the library while we’re here. If you don’t mind,” I say.

“No problem at all,” he replies.

“You want to join me? The library is almost as interesting as O’Doyle’s, I promise.”

Maybe the library would help him quiet his mind, too, like the garden did yesterday. It always does for me. I want him to see the wall of windows that look out past the park and over the sea.

Not to mention I’d love to counteract his small-town jadedness with one of our only year-round charms.

He smiles softly, one of those tiny earrings catching the light. “Sure. I just need to try Indy again. Tell me where to meet you.”

I leave him with directions and start the uphill march, feeling a bit like I’m walking on air in spite of the steep climb. The entire main section of Spunes’s town is built on a slope, with homes standing in clusters on the flat fingers of cliffs that spread outward, or over beyond the main ridge like where mine and the Andersens’ are. Everything is architecturally an eclectic mix of craftsman or Victorian, and the library is one of those that leans fully into the latter. It’s the tallest building in town, with the tallest windows and the most stairs. I ascend the familiar front steps now, legs on fire and a happy anticipation in my veins. Everything in this place, from the railings to the moldings, down to the mishmash of art on the walls, is crowded with too much gaudy detail. I love it. There’s something new to see no matter how many times I’ve been. I love that it smells perpetually damp, that one alcove could be ten degrees hotter or colder than the next because of some old window or door. I love thinking of the people who have touched the same old books and walked the same spiral stairs. I think maybe that’s one of the only truly romantic things about this particular small town. The numbers are comprehendible. I can actually imagine this place before and after me.

The first floor of the library was renovated when I was in kindergarten. I remember the year because this was where I’d come after school when my mom was in her final stages. I’d sit with Venus’s basset hound, Tucker, and try to soothe him with all the construction noise coming up from below. That dog howled at any errant noise, which made this probably the loudest library on the western coast that year. But one day that fall, when Dad and Ellis showed up early, Tucker only whimpered and licked my palm. I think on some subconscious level, I knew he was warning me that they were taking me to say goodbye.

Tucker is long since gone now, too, but Venus’s regal Maine coon cat greets me when I step off the ornate stairs and onto the third floor. Cupid twitches her whiskers and flicks her tail to indicate her excitement.

I take down my hair to ease my aching scalp, and start unloading my books onto the polished counter, when Venus herself appears.

“Sage,” she sings in her biggest librarian voice. “What are you doing here?” She glances around nervously, then makes like she plans to round the counter and hustle me back out.

I give her a confused pout. “Um, I’m returning these?”

“Sage?” I hear to my right. “Hey, Sage, how are you?”

A sickly cold washes over me when I turn to find Cassidy there, with Ian right behind her, coming out from one of the alcoves. I happen to know that there’s a stained glass window above a small table in that one, colorful mermaids with haunted eyes. Cassidy smooths her perfect dark hair around her flawless face and plucks at her shirt like she’s pulling it back into place. My thoughts flatline. I’ve obviously known about them this entire time, I’ve obviously imagined them together, but I’ve gotten away with not seeing it this whole year. I certainly never imagined them here, in this place that holds so much for me.

I’ve never had to actually watch Ian slide a hand around her waist and tuck her into his side. I’m having trouble processing how openly affectionate he is as he rests his head on hers and looks longingly back at their table.

I follow his line of sight, and my throat goes impossibly tight, like I tried to swallow a cup of cold honey. Copies of Spunes history records, old articles, and photos.

“Oh, look, baby!” Cassidy coos, and I jolt like I’ve been slapped. “She’s returning that book you were looking for. We can check it out now!” She turns to me, and I hope I arrange my features into something resembling a smile, but I can feel the corners of my mouth trembling strangely. “Are you studying for the trivia stuff, too?” she asks. “That’s exciting! Ian’s hours are crazy, so I would love to have someone to train with for the race.” God, she’s so genuinely sweet that I hate that I can’t justify being unfriendly back.

“Oh, um. Well—”

“Honey, I don’t think Sage is doing the festival. Besides, we probably wouldn’t want to give the opponents a leg up, right?” Ian looks at Cassidy like she’s a precious cherub and he’s sad to burden her with the evils of competition.

“Stop,” she chides. Her hand lightly slaps against his pec and stays there when his palm comes on top of it. “You know that’s not the spirit of this thing, anyway.” She looks back at me. “Sage, I’m so excited you’re doing it this year.” She’s looking at me eagerly, and I suddenly can’t remember if I said I was doing it. I didn’t, right? Is she just assuming based on the books she sees me with and ignoring Ian, or did I black out somewhere? I hear footsteps on the stairs, and my panic surges at the thought of more witnesses to this humiliation. My brain feels like static and ohmygod, do I have to tell them that I couldn’t find a partner?! I have to make something else up. I’ll say I’m going to Europe. That’s it. I’ll say, Oh, shoot. I wanted to do it, hence why you see me with all these books here related to topics surrounding the damn thing, but that was before I learned that those particular days in August are the best time of year for Cannes, and you see, Cannes can’t wait. Big things to do in Cannes. Huge.

A rough, warm hand slips under my hair, pressing between my shoulder blades, and I instantly melt back like I might disappear into it. My eyelids flutter when the hand glides up to the back of my neck, fingers lightly squeezing.

“There you are,” Fisher’s deep rumble says against my ear, and my knees wobble. I lean back into him and turn my head to the side. He’s inches from me, and my eyes go from the green and brown in his to a darker patch in the scruff on his cheek that I’m just now realizing is a dimple. I could push up on my toes and dip my tongue into it if I wanted. His fingers squeeze below the base of my skull again, and I have to choke back a moan. That rational part of my brain that should step in and tell me to be more reserved has been entirely hip-checked aside by the part that keeps replaying him calling me vast and the other parts that want to curl into his heat or pool into the strong grip at my neck. This, this is what you can do for me, I want to tell him right now, in response to that offer from earlier. You can rescue me and my pride.

“I want to show you something” is what I breathily say instead.

He smiles, and I can feel the laugh roll through him before it ghosts across my lips. “I want to see it,” he says, and with that rational part of my brain still nowhere to be found, it is somehow the most illicit thing anyone has ever said to me. My blood feels like it halts and changes direction, my pulse gathers somewhere low in my belly. “Where is it?” he asks.

What is it?is also a good question. “Over there.” I point aimlessly.

A phony-sounding giggle escapes Cassidy, but I keep my eyes trained on Fisher. “I’m Cassidy. You must be that chef who’s here for the summer,” I hear her say.

“See you around, Officer,” Fisher says, not bothering to tear his gaze from mine, either. There’s a delighted, wicked gleam in his eye, and it eases something in me to think that he’s having fun with this, even if it’s just to piss off Ian. When he finally does look away, he hits them with the widest smile I’ve yet seen from him. “Nice to meet you, Chastity. Have a good day,” he states before he takes me by the hand and hauls me away.