Savor It

Chapter 29. Fisher

I‘m not sure how I got this far without realizing I was getting in too deep. I think I knew I’d wanted her badly, that much has been obvious. And over our time together, I’d found myself deciding that I’d find a way to keep her as my friend, at least, that I’d maintain that in some capacity after I leave. But then I met her in the sunroom that first midnight. She’d sat up, starlight shining through the glass, draped in a sheet with a smile my way like I’d brought her the cure for something terrible, rather than some basic sandwich on a paper fucking plate. And right then and there, that wedge in my chest pierced home. I realized that infatuation was the shortness of breath, the adrenaline, the idea that we could ever just be friends and it wouldn’t kill me each and every day.

Love is this. Love is breathing. A sweet, deep, aching relief. And it’s somehow even more disorienting.

We throw ourselves into training with every available minute we have, even Sage becoming especially militant about it. We complain that all the muscles in our shoulders feel like they’ve been ripped and rebuilt a hundred times over, but our determination seems to harden right alongside.

I don’t give a voice to it and neither does she, but I think that we’re both hoping that whatever magic keeps the festival winners in Spunes might work on us, too.

I do, however, talk to my therapist about all of it. I’m hoping that she’ll tell me what I want to hear—that making a big life change on the heels of another monumental change is okay, maybe even recommended. Maybe she’ll tell me to leap off the culinary industry ladder I climbed, forget ever getting back the star, and drag Indy with me whether she wants to or not.

Dr. Deb does not. She doesn’t tell me it’s not okay, either, which is one of the most annoying things about therapy, if you ask me. But, even as I talk it through, I’m all too aware of how I sound. I know I’m in that spot early in love where everyone is in the beginning. You think that no one has ever felt as much or as strongly as you have before. You convince yourself it would be different with you, you could make the distance or the obstacles work.

Because it’sher, everything in me says. It’s Sage.

It’s become routine for me to go over sometime around midnight and stay with her until 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. before I head back to the rental. I’ve never been more exhausted, but it’s a few more hours together to savor. Ironic that it turned out to be me sneaking out this summer.

The night before our first trial run on the real racecourse, one week before race day, I wake to find Sage’s place in bed beside me empty. I pad down the stairs and shuffle to the sunroom, where she is curled in her chair and reading.

“Found you,” I softly say.

Still she startles, then exhales into a smile. “Scared me,” she replies.

I sit on the ottoman and prop her feet on my lap. “What’re you reading?” I ask.

She slides it away. “Nothing, just… just a journal. Notes and stuff.”

“Can’t sleep?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Almost time for you to head back.”

I think she means back to the rental, but it steals away my breath nonetheless. “Okay,” I say. The rest of the unspoken hangs in the ether. Neither of us have outright said the words yet, but I try to say it in every other way. I make as much love to her as she’ll allow. I try to infuse it in every touch. “I’ll see you in a bit,” I say before I kiss her goodbye.

I meet her by her truck with coffee and a bagel a few hours later. We silently work to strap down the canoe and drive over to the other end of town, holding hands on the seat between us. The course winds down through the river at the easternmost border of Spunes, under the main bridge, out to the bay where it wraps around, finishing at Founder’s Point. It means we’ll have a stronger current pushing us along, but we will also face rougher waters and some potential waves.

When we get to the launching point, we discover that we’re not alone.

“Hey, Sage,” Officer Carver says, his fiancée bouncing around at his side. “Fisher,” he says, nodding to me in greeting.

“Ethan,” I reply with a nod of my own.

“Ian,” he corrects. I pretend I didn’t hear. I reserve maturity for people I actually like. I’ve never been more jealous of this guy or liked him less. He had Sage longer and before I did, and he’ll still be in her orbit when I’m gone.

“We should race!” Cassidy cries. “It would be great practice, right, babe?”

“I’m game,” he says.

I look at Sage, dark circles under her eyes and a mulish set to her jaw. “Let’s do it,” she states. That’s my girl, I think. Flexing her courage muscle.

Cassidy quickly recruits an unsuspecting passerby to count us down, and we all make our way into our starting places. Sage and I share a look, unwavering and hell-bent on beating these two.

“Ready,” the power walker with a quaking poodle in her arms calls. “Set. Go!”

Sage and I launch with utter finesse, the canoe hardly rocking as we push off from shore. We paddle through the water rapidly to start, then steady our strokes when we’ve edged a boat’s length ahead. We focus on our breathing, our sequenced timing, and maintaining our pace. We execute everything we’ve worked so hard to learn, and not once do either of us look back. Not when I can no longer hear them behind us, not when we cross under the bridge at the halfway mark, not even when we round the final bend and see Bannet Island reaching up from the waves.

We make it the fifteen and a half miles to Founder’s Point in sub two hours, barely longer than last year’s winning time.

Sage holds her paddle in the air and screams in celebration, somehow invigorated enough to have the energy to run in circles.

She knocks the (very little remaining) wind out of me when she crashes into me with a hug.

“We fucking did it,” she says, salt water and sweat plastering her hair against her temples.

“We fucking did it,” I agree. I give up on the rest of my breath, spend it on kissing her instead.

And it might be petty or dickish, but we don’t wait for Ian and Cassidy before we scoop up our canoe and leave with our heads held high. I admire Sage’s lifted chin and smug grin in the passenger’s seat, windows down and hair blowing wild. I’ve never, ever been prouder of anything.

The crowd of people stockpiling in the park around Starhopper the week of the festival is startling at first. There are already a few campers parked at Martha’s place, portable grills smoking from their tailgates, and folding chairs creeping onto the sidewalks. I see her issue a verbal dressing-down to a disheveled couple when they roll out of their converted van before she directs them over to the long-term parking. I spot Amos from a distance, too, and he flops his hand at me in an apathetic wave. A lady walks by me and asks for directions to the library, and it takes me a minute to realize that she thinks I’m a local. For some idiotic reason, it feels mildly like a compliment.

After I direct her and suggest a few more stops, I continue loading the crew’s supplies inside Starhopper before I lock it up for the week. It’s enough busywork to occupy my hands while I sift through the remaining tasks ahead in my mind. Tying up loose ends, even though it’s more reminiscent of suturing something.

After we got back and changed this morning, when Sage left to start her day, I finally ripped off the Band-Aid and called Carlie. We talked about Marrow and how things have been running under Archer since I’ve been gone. And it’s so strange to me—I can’t pinpoint when it happened or how, but it’s like that whole world feels more foreign than everything here, despite the fact that I’ve only been here nine weeks.

“So,” she said. “What do you need from me?”

“What do you mean?” I’d asked, confused.

“I mean, do you want to change up the menu at Marrow?” she went on. “I’ll help however I can. We’ll get the star back and get the blogger scene amping up again, too.”

I don’t want any of it, I thought, then immediately had to suffocate a pang of guilt and reach for the gratitude I have for her giving me my job again. It doesn’t feel like it used to, anyway. It won’t. It won’t feel like the kind of work I want to blur my way through. I know I can have fun with it again. Maybe because I also know it’s not the sum of my worth, either. It’s not life or death—just some of the great shit in between.

I told her I wanted to be able to change or tweak menu items weekly in the future, based on product availability and anything particularly exciting that I find. She let me know she’ll be on board. It feels like a step in the right direction, whatever that looks like.

Walter ambles over from the diner to help me string up the lights I promised O’Doyle for the festival, then invites me into his diner for lunch—on him. He serves me a surprisingly good cheeseburger and some fries. I am also happy to report that I do not spot Pegasus the chinchilla anywhere on his person or in his restaurant. I don’t find anything out of place, actually.

I think of my parents’ tiny, tidy deli with its similar vinyl-cushioned booths. How younger me would have killed for any sort of validation on their behalf.

“Hey, Walter,” I say, glancing around. “Nice place.”

His chest puffs out with pride. And then the diner phone rings.

When I see his smile fall and hear him say “Yeah, he’s here” into the receiver, my stomach plummets through the floor. “Where’s your phone?” he asks me next.

“What is it?” I say, already headed for the door. My phone must be back at Starhopper. “Indy?” The corners of my vision pulse and spot in fear.

“Indy’s all right. Wren has her,” he says. “Go get Sage.”