32 Days in May

Thursday, May 4

“Why?” Allie is sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table working on a Diamond Art portrait of an alpaca farm.

She does this every day before work to help steady her nerves before an entire day of being, voluntarily, locked in a room with teenagers.

She calls it meditative, but I fear it may be compulsive.

“I told you why.” I sit across from her.

I’ve invited myself into Soph and Allie’s half of the duplex.

I do this whenever I wake up at a respectable time.

They’re allowed approximately three hours of daily alone time before I start to feel like they’re conspiring against me, plotting to replace me with another forlorn straight woman.

When my parents bought their half of the wood-shingled bungalow, the first floor was occupied by a sycophantic palm reader addicted to diet pills.

When Tamra passed, the Fabiola family was left with a gaping hole in our hearts.

Who now would tell my sister and me we were too fat for our tankinis? Who now would inform our little brother that he had Ted Bundy’s unibrow? A few years ago, Soph and Allie moved in.

A few months ago, I attached myself to them like a barnacle.

They’re better neighbors than we—or Tamra—could have ever predicted. We share a wraparound porch, a carport, five beach chairs, and a shed. It’s an intimate situation.

“It was too much effort.

Wash days were exhausting.” And my hair was an emotional and physical ball and chain, draining me of my last vestiges of sanity.

Plus it was thinning and every shower I came away with a palm-size hairball that left me cosmically bummed.

Soph sets a mug of darkly brewed coffee in front of me.

They make coffee so strong, it temporarily allows me to feel human again.

“Do your parents know?” Allie asks. She grew up in one of those freaky Protestant families where moms don’t let their daughters cut their hair before their first blood. There’s a lot of hand-wringing and crying over little girls being all grown up, as if it’s never happened before.

“Why”—I pause to sip—“would I tell my parents?”

“Any word from Hot Doctor’s Hot Cousin?” Soph interjects, clearly bored with all the hair talk.

“We don’t know if he’s hot yet,” I warn them. “Maybe Hot Doctor got all the hot and Hot Cousin was left with the genes that make you mean about board games.”

Soph and Allie grumble in unison. This risk is not unique to heterosexuality.

We clear the table of coffee cups and breakfast plates. Allie kisses Soph goodbye. I busy myself at the sink, awkward and unkissed.

I don’t work on Thursdays, but I’ve been such a sack of shit lately that I force myself to help Soph, my current employer, paint a new sign for the produce stand.

Busy season starts soon and we have many local septuagenarian competitors we need to bury.

I spend three hours fastidiously painting PEACHY GREENS FRUIT his nose is strong with a gentle hook; his jaw square and set; and when Marco smiles, his brown eyes crinkle kindly at the corners. For all his bad behavior, he looks like a cross between an ancient warrior and an all-American sweetie pie.

“Yeah,” I say. “Since January.”

We wander toward the far end of the boardwalk, toward the Pier Point Diner and the bike rental shop with the Technicolor marquee. “I haven’t spent more than two consecutive weeks here since I moved when I was fourteen. I’m almost jealous.”

“It was a temporary thing,” I tell him. “I’m staying at my parents’ place, taking some time away. But I think I might move down here—you know, full time.”

He tilts his head and smiles, golden sun winking in his chocolate-brown eyes. “Whoa, never mind. Definitely not jealous.”

Does he see it—the dark storm cloud hanging over my head? Surely he can smell the last dredges of depression on me. Why else would a single woman in her thirties move from a major metropolitan area to a freckle of an island hanging onto New Jersey by a hope and a prayer? Maybe it’s my own myopia, but I can’t think of a single positive reason.

Don’t I ooze the frenetic energy of someone spiraling through a personal crisis? If you asked Liv, she’d say absolutely. I almost wish I could ask him.

“I needed some time away, too,” he adds quickly before flashing me a heartless smile. Or maybe there’s too much heart. Something about the way he’s looking at me feels pained. Pulled tight and double wrapped in masking tape.

Marco is a natural conversationalist. He knows exactly how to pivot us away from the perilous territory of why he and I are both free, at the beach, on a Thursday.

Marco asks me all about Soph and Allie, the produce stand, New Jersey farming laws, how many different variations of basil we sell, whether or not I think organic is a scam. Is rhubarb really poisonous?

I feel, vaguely, that I am being entertained—masterfully guided through The Marco Antoniou Experience. After each question, he cocks his head to the side and listens like it’s his job, like I might quiz him afterward. The rhythms of this back-and-forth that feel tenuous to me, at best, are hard-coded into his beautiful head. When I falter because I haven’t made small talk in six months, he flashes me another smile and asks another question.

How many types of parsley do you carry? Which one’s your favorite?

You’re famous, I want to remind him. You don’t have to do this.

Marco’s character on TV was a wise-cracking New Yorker, a lothario dum-dum. He played that character for so long that the entire world assumed Marco and he were one in the same. Never mind the fact that Marco isn’t even from New York. He’s from Evergreen. Of all places on Earth, he’s from this strange little beach town.

And Marco doesn’t seem like a dum-dum. He seems fairly thoughtful. When I trip on a loose plank, he grabs ahold of my arm without a second of hesitation. Then, he mutters about how they absolutely need to fix that. “You could have broken your ankle,” he tuts. For the moments his fingers curl around my biceps to steady me, a montage flashes before my eyes: I do break my ankle, actually. And Marco has to lift me into his strong, capable, famous arms and rush me off to the hospital. As I lie there, monitors beeping around me, he strokes my hair away from my face. You’re so brave, Nadia.

I let out a beautiful, ragged cough. I’m sorry . . . I was . . . so . . . cough . . . awkward on the boardwalk. I’m . . . kind of . . . poorly . . . cough . . . socialized . . . like a Chihuahua . . .

He laughs and says, No. You’re perfect. Then, we get married.

“All good?” Marco’s voice punches through my fantasy, a fist through drywall.

I dust at the knees of my extremely white overalls, trying to avoid revealing eye contact. Celebrities can read minds, right?

“Good as gravy!” I croak.

Horrible.

The boardwalk is mostly empty now, except for a group of young moms pushing strollers at a brisk pace and some teens congregating on the benches across from the Bel Sol condos. One of them kicks a soccer ball and it goes flying up onto the roof and everyone breaks out into a huge burst of laughter, a sound that feels altogether too much for Evergreen in the springtime.

Marco smiles, too, laughter rolling through his chest as he moves a hand back and forth over his heart. Like he has to physically work the joy out of his chest.

I used to laugh so hard. I could laugh until I nearly peed my pants. Laughter would incapacitate me, knock me over. Sometimes I’d even laugh in my sleep. When did I stop laughing like that?

Loosen up, Fabiola. I shake out my shoulders and force my mouth into a tight, unconvincing smile.

Beyond the Bel Sol, the boardwalk turns into a long jetty that extends almost the length of a football field out into the ocean. At the end, the blue-black silhouettes of three men and their fishing lines sway in the wind.

I fold my arms over my chest and lean over the railing. “So, what else did Dr. Antoniou tell you about me?”

“That you’re a writer. That’s about it.” Marco does the same, and the soft folds of his mullet ruffle like lotus petals in the ocean breeze. “Do you miss Philly?”

The question shocks me, and I inhale sharply. “Philly?”

“Yeah, I mean, you’re from there, right?”

“Sebastian also told you that, then,” I say, an edge of anxiety in my voice. Please, please let that be all.

Marco drops his head in mock shame, shoulders bouncing with deep, smooth laughter. “Alright, yes, he also told me that. But only because I asked.”

My smile, maybe a little less forced, comes back again. Bigger. I feel the wind on my teeth. “Nah, I don’t think I do. Philly will always be there. Evergreen’s what I need right now.”

Marco makes an appraising noise in the back of his throat, his gaze finding mine under the heavy umbrella of his brows. “You sound like a politician.”

I snap my eyes away from his; heat prickles in my cheeks. I’m still smiling. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

There’s a natural lull in our conversation and maybe a lesser man would use this moment to say, Well, this has been great—see you never! But instead, Marco clears his throat and says, “You hungry?”

I’m starving, my stomach is symphonic, but I say something tragic like, “I could eat.”

Across town, in an old cottage on the bay, Ernie’s Crab Shack offers its “World Famous Shrimp Basket for Two” and a raucous patio with enough seating for a large family reunion or a very small Italian wedding. They seat us outside at the tiniest table ever created in the middle of two enormous parties: a bachelorette weekend (or maybe a group of penis straw salespeople?) and a group of young parents and their writhing children. We’re in a sea of noise. The air buckles, overburdened with vibrations.

Marco studies the menu while biting at his bottom lip. I try not to focus on how dark his eyes are, how smooth his skin is, while, under the table, the rubber tips of our shoes touch.

“Jeez, lot of options.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, I want to disappear. Just, poof. Into the ocean. Lot of options? I could have said anything—anything at all—and what I do is make the most milquetoast observation possible.

“I have a strategy for ordering at places like this,” Marco says with a bro-ish head nod toward the menu in my hands. He fiddles with his lighter, rotating it back and forth between his fingers. He’s been antsy ever since we sat down, seemingly out of his element in the middle of such a crowded space. I can feel how badly he wants to get up and walk out. He doesn’t like crowds. Or maybe he doesn’t like this crowd. “No page twos.”

“No page twos?”

“You heard me. You can only pick from the first page of the menu.” He reaches across the table and yanks the paper menu out of my hand, flipping it over then replacing it faster than I can protest. “Humans love boundaries.”

Why does this simple statement turn me on so much?

Regardless, his trick works. No page two has me ordering fish tacos with the confidence of a sitting president. Our waitress bounces over on her toes, eyes constantly moving around the patio, checking for empty glasses that need filling and empty plates that need clearing. Her hairline glistens with remnants of high-noon sweat. Then, her eyes flit to Marco and she stills. It all happens so quickly and yet slow enough to send every muscle in my body into a cringe.

“Weird question—” she starts. Marco’s fingers freeze on his lighter. She loses her nerve. “Um, did you say no bun on the veggie burger?”

Marco stuns her with his smile. It’s sideways, sloping, devastating, and makes my throat dry. “That’s right. No bun.”

“Drinks?” she breathes.

He orders a beer and a shot of whiskey.

Oh? I stare at Marco, eyes wide.

He stares back, mirroring my expression. “Nadia? Anything to drink?”

“Just water for me,” I say, but it doesn’t matter—our waitress is already running at full speed toward the kitchen.

And I don’t blame her. This is probably the craziest thing that’s ever happened at Ernie’s Crab Shack, barring a few debaucherous bachelor parties featuring some vacationing sex pests. The front-of-house staff is about to come alive with intrigue.

And Marco knows it. He’s tearing at his bottom lip, jiggling his knee so hard I can feel the table bouncing. His gaze has a vise grip on something over my shoulder, past the docked boats and all the couples taking pictures on the edge of the jetty. He’s staring, potentially, directly into the sun.

“I’m sorry she recognized you. It’s annoying, I’m sure.”

There’s a microscopic quiver in the corner of his mouth as he ignites his lighter. “Yeah, no. I’m sorry. I’ve always really hated that.”

“Don’t apologize, I don’t mind at all. We can leave—”

He pulls his eyes away from the sky and looks at me. My stomach rocks side to side—he looks hurt, nearly torn open. “Did you recognize me?” This question is different from all the other questions he’s asked me tonight. Marco actually wants to know the answer.

“Well, sure.” I shrug, unfolding the napkin-wrapped bundle of silverware in front of me, doing my best impression of someone capable of relaxing. “I guess I did, in a way.”

“You watched Dude’s Ranch?”

That’s what his show was called! Dude’s Ranch. Two estranged brothers come together to save their father’s ranch and like, raise a baby or something. I can picture the promotional artwork perfectly. Marco in a denim jacket, smile on full display. His character was the fish out of water—a Sonny LoSpecchio type from Queens or maybe the Bronx. You were supposed to look at him and think, This pretty boy? Doing a real man’s job? In the real man’s America? Now, that’s hilarious.

I scoff, a hiccup of incredulity. “You wish.”

He smirks. “You’re too sophisticated.”

Yes, I want to say, but instead I play nice. “We weren’t really a cable TV family. And I was a little too old.”

“What kind of family were you, then? Puzzles around the fireplace? Dad reading the newspaper?”

“Oh God, no.” I laugh, shaking my head. “My parents own a butcher shop, they basically work twenty-four/seven. And we had to help as soon as our wrists were strong enough to wield a cleaver.”

Marco’s expression collapses from one of sardonic teasing to a look of genuine interest—perhaps even respect. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not.” I take a sip of water, basking in the feeling of finally breaking through the impenetrable haze of niceness hanging around us. “Give me a butter knife, and I could carve you up.”

“Fuck,” he grunts, lifting his water to his lips. Condensation slides down the glass, rolling down his wrist. He places his lips against the cold material and I look away. “A butcher’s daughter hiding out in Evergreen. That sounds like a good TV show.”

Before I have a chance to respond, a different, equally bouncy waitress appears. Her smile is wide, blue eyes hazy with excitement. She’s been sent by her buddy to scope us out, no doubt.

Marco stiffens as she approaches with eager, wide eyes, spine going ramrod straight. He tries to play it off by stretching his arms over his head, locking his fingers together, and turning from side to side. But I know he wants to jump out of his skin.

“Here are your drinks!” she trills. This is directed at Marco and only Marco. He doesn’t even let the shot glass hit the table. He takes it from her and tosses the syrupy, amber liquid back in one smooth gulp—like a cartoon character eating a fish in one bite.

My mouth jumps into another oh shape. Oh, shit. Oh, no. Oh, is this what we’re doing?

I watch him chase down the whiskey shot with two enormous gulps of beer. His entire throat shifts with the effort of getting as much liquid down as possible, and genuine shock ripples through me. Years ago, it had been well-documented that Marco had a certain zest for life. Drugs and women and fast cars. All the usual, predictable ways rich men avoided therapy. I guess I’d just assumed a man with a bad haircut living by the beach was healed.

Ironic. I should know, better than anyone, how wholly untrue that could be.

Or maybe this—this date, this hangout, this whatever—is so very awful that he decided, after settling into his rusted patio chair, that he needed a consciousness shift ASAP.

I should just leave. I should just get up and go, release him from his duties. But I can’t.

I feel so strange—awake and giddy and electric. Horny, but not for sex. Horny for whatever is happening inside his mind.

I’m jealous.

There’s a barely contained recklessness to Marco, itching to break loose. I want what he’s having.

Before the waitress can run off, I press the tips of my fingers to her arm and order us a pitcher of margaritas.

“Two glasses,” I add sweetly, without even a glance Marco’s way. “Please.”

“Salt or sugar on the rim?”

“Salt,” we reply in unison.

And when she walks away, we do not look at each other.

What the hell am I doing? I can’t drink. I haven’t drunk in months. Not since—

I shudder at the memory, and now I want to drink even more. I shouldn’t—I take a lot of medicine and—

Marco’s lighting up a cigarette. In the middle of the outdoor patio, the beautiful man now has a cigarette perched between his lips and he’s holding his lighter, aflame and flickering in the wind, to the end. “So, what did you watch?” A stream of gray smoke shoots from his nose. “Criterion Collection?”

I point at the cigarette. “Really? You’re not above the law just because you’ve been on TV.”

He ignores this comment and keeps pushing. “Come on, you’re a writer, right? You have to have a favorite TV show or a favorite movie.”

Duh, I have a favorite movie but I’m not telling him. It would be too devastating and personal to tell anyone, let alone Marco Antoniou, that Snowpiercer makes me open-mouth sob every time I watch it. “Everyone has a favorite movie. Even people who don’t like movies have a favorite movie.”

“Then tell me.” Under the table he actually kicks me a little bit.

My eyes widen. I kick back. He smirks, bright white canines catching the setting sun. He gives me a look of practiced desire. His body language shifts and everything about him is saying, Come on, baby, have a little fun. The chaos demon locked away inside his brain has broken loose and gained control of the ship.

Marco thinks he can work me, doesn’t he? He looks at me and sees another sorta-cute local girl armed with a tristate, tough-girl attitude he knows all too well, well enough to kick right through.

But he has no idea what he’s up against. Deep in the crevices of my mind, my own chaos demon rattles her chains.

“Fine.” I tap my fingernails on the tabletop. “Put out that stupid cigarette, and I’ll tell you.”

The corners of his mouth flick down in a look of world-weary appreciation. “Fine.” Then, he drains his water down to a quarter of an inch and drops the cigarette into his glass. “Happy?”

I grit my teeth. “Sweet November. It’s not technically a good movie, so don’t even bother looking up how many stars it has. But it’s—I don’t know, I can’t stop watching it.”

“Keanu Reeves, right? He’s in it?” Marco lifts his beer to his lips. “I was almost cast as his body double once.”

“No way. Really?” I laugh. “He’s way taller than you.”

“He is not way taller.”

“At least five inches. What are you—like, five-nine on the dating apps?”

Suddenly, he narrows his eyes at me. “I’m five-ten, kid.”

I grin. He hates that he just had to tell me his real height, not whatever’s listed on IMDb.

Our waitress returns with the pitcher, and we fill our glasses in a reverent silence. We both know this is not how tonight was supposed to go. When I set down the pitcher, Marco’s leaning forward, big bovine eyes burrowing into me. “I gotta be honest with you, Nadia.”

I take a sip, then brush some particularly stubborn granules of salt from my lips. Has he been saying my name like that this whole time? “Okay, sure.”

“I’m sure you’re a really nice person—” No way. Dumped before dinner? A new personal low, even for moi. I lean forward, too, shoulders curving toward Marco, the last splashes of big, bright afternoon sun falling over my shoulder blades. My chaos demon flaps her wings and insane joy floods my chest, and I almost feel a flicker of my old self. The Nadia who lived for the plot. “But I’m on a little bit of a mission tonight,” Marco continues. “And it’s not a noble one.”

I take a stiff sip of margarita before immediately chasing it with another, more relaxed gulp. “Say more.”

Marco breathes in deeply, locking his eyes on mine. “I’m trying to get fucked up and forget how much of a disaster my life has been lately. And I know that’s not something to be proud of and maybe it’s the most unattractive thing a man can do, but it’s—”

“Counterintuitive,” I cut him off, heart racing. I can feel blood thrumming in my wrists. This is an old dance, but I still remember the steps. “If we get fucked up, won’t we just feel worse tomorrow?”

He quirks a brow. The sun snags on a freckle of lightness in his eye. “We?”

I lean back and fold my arms over my chest. I take him in. All of him. He’s handsome but disheveled; I can see where he missed a spot shaving, right on his cheek. The haircut: obviously an issue. His skin looks a little waxy, like he’s spent the last few days sitting in the dark. Full lips bitten raw. Eyebrows pulled into a frown, even as his smile softens under my gaze. His white T-shirt is perfect—too perfect. In fact, it still has the fold lines in it. Pulled straight from the package, put directly onto his body.

His words on the boardwalk come back to me. He needed some time away, too. Away from what?

“What did your cousin really tell you, when he gave you my number? Because he told me I need to get out more. And I bet if I hadn’t death-stared a hole into his head, he probably would have elaborated.”

A hiss of air shoots through Marco’s teeth. Then, his mouth twists sideways. “Well, Sebastian showed up at my house, told me I look like a divorcé who only eats yogurt, ripped the blinds open, and forced me to shave my beard.”

I have to wince. “Specific.”

“Yeah, it really hurt my feelings and—” He pauses to swipe a hand over his articulated jawline, dotted with a day’s worth of stubble. “I think it worked. Do I look like I eat solids?”

“You’ve definitely microwaved a Hungry-Man dinner.”

Marco laughs. “Great. Progress. Cheers.” He slugs back half his drink.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” I say as a means to keep him from drowning himself in tequila. “I get it. My older sister is like—” I pantomime, as best I can, how far Liv is up my ass. “She thinks I’m constantly on the edge of a psychological implosion. I know she cares, in theory—”

“But you just feel like everyone thinks you’re incompetent,” he says, completing my thought.

I lift my glass. “Bingo.”

“I almost wish I was a divorcé. Then I could point at that trauma and say—I’m allowed to be like this.” He pulls off his hat and runs his fingers through his hair, eyes cast out to the water. “But instead, I’m just like, This is who I am.”

I wish I could tell him: That’s what you think. But even when it all makes sense, people still just want you to get better. They want you to stop the pain before you know it’s coming. But telling Marco about my depression would mean also telling him about my lupus diagnosis. And telling him about lupus would mean forfeiting this drink and any chance of tonight feeling . . . normal. Or, fuck, I don’t know—fun.

“Fuck them,” I blurt out. “And fuck that. Normal people need to stop punishing the rest of us for being fucked up. We’re already doing that. And we’re really good at it.”

Marco actually throws his head back and laughs. A real, joyful bellow.

Bad influences come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they wear all white and then sort of look like one of Anne Geddes’s babies.

I suggest that we start a drinking game, and Marco really takes to it. The rules come hard and fast as Ernie’s transforms from family-friendly restaurant into a swingers-focused discotheque.

Drink every time a middle-aged woman in a tube top accidentally rests her boobs on Marco’s shoulders. Drink every time a Boomer stares at the floral tattoo that wraps around my left biceps. Drink every time someone starts to ask, Hey, are you the . . . then loses their nut.

Drink every time we almost say the same thing at the same time, which keeps happening.

We both love to point at the sky and shout the name of the song that’s just come on. Except when some asshole gets their paws on the TouchTunes and puts on “Sweet Caroline.”

“Forget Britney, this is what they should have played at Somali pirates,” I shout over the caw of drunken BAH-BAH-BAHHHHHs.

“Even they don’t deserve this,” Marco shouts back, pushing up out of his chair. He holds a hand out to me. “Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Don’t we have to pay?”

He lifts his chin in the direction of a stack of bills on the table. “Already taken care of.”

Right, I think. You’re rich.

I take his hand and Marco immediately tangles his fingers with mine. As we move, he tucks my body behind him in a protective posture that sends a trill off in my stomach.

We’re so close, I can smell his cologne again, can feel the calluses on the palms of his hands against mine, the pad of his thumb pressing into the top of my hand. His grip sends a steady stream of heat through my arm; a heat that curls in my stomach, causing my breath to hitch. I haven’t been touched in how long? God. I haven’t felt another person in months.

Marco maneuvers us through the throng of bodies overwhelming the patio—sweating, swaying, and pressing closer and closer. Then, suddenly, the song changes and the crowd erupts.

We all erupt. Marco and I throw our conjoined hands into the air.

It’s the song—Philly’s song. Our anthem from the last time the Eagles went to the Super Bowl—and won. It’s an extremely random, nearly forgotten hyper-pop dance anthem with the kind of bass line that makes not dancing impossible. The entire crowd begins writhing—on beat, off beat. The wooden planks under our feet audibly creak and groan as people jump and lunge.

Marco turns around, eyes gleaming, smile wide, ready to say something—when someone knocks into him. His body lurches toward mine, but there’s no place for us to go. I loop my arm around his neck at the same moment his other hand, the one not already clasped in mine, jumps to my lower back. Now we’re completely tangled.

He tucks his head down, lips close to mine and, at the same time, we shout, “We have to dance.”

Marco tightens his hold on me, and I tighten mine on him. For the first time in months, I don’t think twice.