Chapter 14
Rachel considered the ferry as it pulled into the dock. Setting aside the obvious fact that it wasn’t used for fishing, Will thought it bore a passing resemblance to the boat from The Perfect Storm, a detail he chose to keep to himself.
“So it’s this or video poker at ten o’clock in the morning on a Monday?” she asked, eyes still on the ferry.
“I think they also have a hybrid version of craps,” Will said.
“But we missed the ‘Jessie’s Girl’ guy?”
“Rick Springfield, yes. By a week.”
“Well, congratulations, babe,” she said, looking up at him from behind a pair of aviators, the sun of a cloudless day dancing off the water behind her. “I think you’ve found the one scenario in which I’d choose boat.”
She was smiling, so he knew she was playing up her hesitation some for his benefit. When they’d had coffee on the balcony outside their second-floor room that morning, they could see Mackinac Island on the not-too-distant horizon. It had been the perfect moment to break it to her that there was no bridge out there, as the island’s proximity to the mainland combined with the calm and clear conditions had made it easy to see that this boat ride would be nothing like a cruise. Will could tell when he told her that Rachel wouldn’t be looking forward to the ferry, but it also hadn’t seemed like she’d thought it was that big of a deal. She had been far more invested in telling him about how, when they’d checked in the night before and discovered their TV was stuck on one channel, he had insisted that she not call to get it fixed because it had been airing the ’70s classic Smokey and the Bandit.
“Smokey and the Bandit?” he had said, blowing on his latte. “That’s weird. Burt Reynolds, right?”
“Yup.”
“Huh. I’ve never even seen that movie.”
“So you told me. But you were very high. And very into thirty-something Sally Field.”
“I was?”
“Yes. At one point you asked me if it would be a misuse of your advanced understanding of the multiverse to go back to 1977 for the sole purpose of warning her not to make Smokey and the Bandit II.”
“I’ve never seen that, either.”
“Nor do I think that’s how the multiverse works. But you were on a mission. Until you fell asleep like ten minutes later.”
He’d cringed in the direction of the island. “Sorry.”
“Mmm,” she’d said, shaking her head and finishing a bite of the chocolate croissant she’d gotten with her decaf. “Don’t be. I was riding high—no pun intended—from locking in your tattoo. I ordered room service and had a lovely dinner out here. Besides, when I handed you those gummies, I was basically the kid the D.A.R.E. cops warned you about, so I have to take some of the responsibility.”
“I liked the stoner kids. They were less put together than the alpha jocks or the National Honor Society people or whatever. I could relate to that.”
“Because of your dad?”
“Yeah. I mean, they were as smart or as athletic as anyone else, but I didn’t feel so self-conscious around them. Like we all had our stuff that made us not quite fit the ideal image of a high school student. It made me feel less weird that I was the only guy on the basketball team whose dad had never seen him play.”
His dad had played basketball in high school too. It would’ve been nice to have had him to talk to after the coach, at the first practice of Will’s senior year, told the entire team, “If there’s one thing last season taught us, it’s that Easterly’s not allowed to take important shots.”
Then again, his dad had left, so maybe he would’ve agreed.
Rachel had chewed the last of the croissant before turning to look at Will.
“You know,” she’d said, “people who peak in high school aren’t very interesting adults.”
“Aunt Katie actually said that to me once.”
“What?”
“‘Don’t peak in high school.’ It was at my graduation, which of course my dad didn’t attend, either.” He paused. “Seems like we should pass that on someday.”
“Yes, we should.”
It’d been so unlike him to feel this serene about parenthood (at least without anything harder than caffeine in his system) that he’d almost forgotten what she’d said about the tattoo.
“You really got through z? You’re not just making that up because I can’t remember?”
Rachel had stood. “What a thing to ask the mother of your child. And, hey, at least with this, there’s no hangover.” She’d kissed him on top of his head and opened the balcony’s sliding door.
“That wasn’t a no,” he’d said, and she’d laughed from inside their room.
She’d been relaxed all the way through them getting dressed, driving to and parking at the dock, and then joking about the casino when the boat had come into view. But it wasn’t until they boarded the ferry and staked their claim to two seats on the open-air top deck that he felt like the second date on their itinerary was cleared for metaphorical takeoff.
That wasn’t to say Rachel didn’t have her doubts. As soon as the engines lurched to life and they were warned of the chance for spray from the lake, she started twisting a strand of hair—the one that happened to be purple at the moment—around and around with her pinkie finger in a way she did only when she was nervous. Will had mentioned this habit to her once, and she wasn’t even consciously aware that she did it.
He put his hand on her free one and started to massage the back of it with his thumb. She didn’t say anything, but by the time the boat started to move away from the dock, the hair twirling had stopped.
“Tell me something that will distract me,” she said.
“Hmm. Oh, okay: I don’t think there are any cars on the island. Like at all. It’s all bikes and horses.”
“I like horses.”
“I know you do.”
“They have the good sense not to get on boats.”
“Unlike that couple across the aisle,” he said, jerking his head toward the people all the way to their left at the far end of the row, where they were seated up against the boat’s railing. He lowered his voice to a normal speaking volume, which was like a whisper compared to the noise from the water and the rush of the wind whipping across their faces. “I think they’re breaking up.”
Rachel leaned forward subtly to look. “How can you tell?”
Will explained how he hadn’t heard (obviously) what the nearer of the two women had said first, but that he’d had a good view of the other’s face, and he was almost positive he’d read her lips saying “On our anniversary?” before she’d proceeded to glare at her partner with equal parts disgust and disbelief. That had been followed by some angry gesturing at what appeared to be the boat itself, suggesting she was pointing out the lunacy of dumping someone shortly after you’ve boarded a ferry with them, let alone when the two of you are headed to an island with unusually limited transportation options for escaping one another.
Rachel leaned back. “Wow. So what’s the move when you go ashore? Storm off on a mountain bike or wait around for a horse-drawn carriage to clip-clop you away?”
They debated that and whether one of the women couldn’t just stay on the boat and go back to St. Ignace. It felt like the best solution, except that Will and Rachel agreed the woman being dumped absolutely should get to pick who stayed on and who got off, and neither of them trusted the woman ending it on a boat—on their anniversary—to be self-aware enough for that.
But as darkly engrossing as rubbernecking the end of a relationship can be, Will could feel his and Rachel’s conversation starting to lose steam while they were still out in open water. He briefly entertained the idea of pointing out the Mackinac Bridge, which had emerged behind them and to the right as they pulled away from land. Then again, something that big, looking as small as it did right then, with nothing but water in between them and it? He decided it maybe wasn’t the best thing to call a reluctant boater’s attention to.
What awaited him a few hundred miles on the other side of the bridge in Ann Arbor would work, though.
“So tell me about this tattoo I’m apparently getting,” he said when the breakup had gone unremarked upon for 30 seconds and Rachel had restrengthened her grip on his hand.
“Well, there are a number of contenders,” she said, and he could feel some of her tension releasing again. “Tell me: What do you think of ‘Rachel, I don’t think it’s doing anything’?”
She found that hilarious and proceeded to share more of her ideas, ranging from a confounding Tolkien line about hobbits to the lyrics of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” to “Rachel is a boss” written in binary code.
“I’d have to do some research for that one,” she admitted.
“Why do I feel like our entire relationship was a long con all leading to you picking out this tattoo?”
Given his machinations with Creative Vices, he instantly regretted his use of the term long con, but she had no way of knowing that, laughing and leaning into him and briefly resting her head on his shoulder. She then sat back up, looking past the breakup couple, over the railing, and out to Mackinac Island, whose shores had come into full view off the ferry’s port side.
“Whoa, what is that?” Rachel asked.
Will followed her gaze. He recognized the building from his internet searching. “I think it’s the Grand Hotel.” The enormous white structure commanded the coastline in a way that announced to anyone passing by that its name wasn’t a misnomer. “Full disclosure, if this were actually Date Me Now!, that’s where we’d be staying.”
“That’s okay, babe. Trust me: making sure we can afford to get the full Rascal Flatts discography on your upper thigh is my top priority.”
He pulled his hand away, pretending to be annoyed, and she grabbed it back, laughing again. They rode the rest of the way into the bay where they would disembark, idly making plans for their hours on the island. There was an old military fort that had been used by both the British and American armies, which was supposed to be pretty cool, and they both felt like they should suggest visiting it as something they could do even as they each made it clear that they had no real desire to do so. There was also a state park and plenty of trails, and if Rachel hadn’t been pregnant, they might have taken a longer look at the horseback riding. But after a full day in the car, a significant portion of which they had spent driving through forest, keeping to the downtown area with its shops and restaurants felt like just the right speed.
The ferry slid into a dock behind a two-story building with a reddish-orange awning, on the other side of which was Main Street. Out of habit, Will went to stand as soon as they were cleared to get off, but Rachel tapped his arm and nodded her head toward the women, whose moment of truth had arrived. Without the wind and water noise, their parting words to each other were easy to hear.
“Will I still see you for dinner?” the one who had dumped the other said.
“Will you still see me for dinner? Are you crazy?”
“C’mon. We’ve been looking forward to the Marquise for months. It might be a nice way to, you know, say goodbye.”
“You’re unbelievable.” She got up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Sure, Annie, see you at five o’clock. If you get there before me, the table’s under your name, although if they can’t find it, tell them to try looking under bad bangs.”
The unnamed woman stormed off while who they now knew was Annie stayed in her seat, self-consciously touching her hair. Will and Rachel waited several seconds and then exited into the center aisle themselves. They did their best not to make eye contact, for all of their sakes, but that didn’t stop Annie from sort of shrugging as if to say “Who could’ve seen that coming?”
“I want to preface what I’m about to propose by acknowledging that I’m firmly team Lady’s Name We Never Got,” Rachel said after they stepped off the boat onto the dock and headed for one of the signs directing them to the street. “And in no way do I mean to minimize what she’s going through, even if it does seem likely she’s dodged a bullet in the long run.”
She paused, almost like she was observing a moment of silence for their failed relationship before continuing.
“That being said, it occurs to me that there’s now a table available at this Marquise place, and we just so happen to know both the time and the name it’s under.”
Will slowed his pace, and Rachel slowed with him. “What are you suggesting?” he asked.
“I’m suggesting that at five o’clock this evening, my good sir, your wife, Annie”—she stopped to curtsy—“is going to take you to dinner at the best restaurant in town.”
As happy as her excitement made him, his enthusiasm for the plan did not match hers.
“Can we even do that?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Couldn’t we get in trouble or something?”
“With who? The restaurant police?”
When she put it that way, it did seem pretty low risk. Especially for someone who’d seen his way to sending fake emails from his wife.