Chapter 3 #3
Lucia and Elena had a gossip pipeline that operated entirely outside of Nina’s knowledge or consent. They texted in Spanish, which Nina understood about 60%, and the other 40% was almost certainly about her.
“It’s just something fun,” Nina said. “Claire, Harper, and I are going to try new things. One time a month.”
Elena stopped wiping the counter. She turned and looked at Nina. The face Elena was trying not to make was the most obvious. She was trying not to cry, not to hope, and not to say the wrong thing, all at the same time.
“Good,” Elena said.
Just that one word.
“Elena, don’t make this a big thing.”
“I’m not making it a big thing.”
She picked up her purse, set it down, and picked it up again. “I’m just saying that my son would be so glad to know that his wife is choosing to live. David would be so pleased. That’s all I’m saying.”
She kissed Nina’s cheek, smelling like cold cream, garlic, and that Jean Naté body splash that she’d been wearing since 1987, at least according to David.
She was out the back door before Nina could respond, her Honda rattling down the driveway like a one-car noisy parade.
Nina stood there in the kitchen again. The casserole still sat on the counter, warm. The napkin photo still hung on the fridge.
And through the window, the marsh was fully flooded now, the water catching the late morning sun, and a pelican diving for fish.
David used to watch the pelicans for hours. He said they were proof that you did not have to be graceful to be effective.
“Would you look at that,” he would say, pointing at a pelican crashing into the water beak-first. “Absolutely no style at all, but gets that fish every darn time.”
Nina watched the pelican surface with a fish in its pouch, triumphant and ridiculous, and she felt something.
It was small. It was so small she almost missed it. Just a flicker, like a muscle she had forgotten even existed.
It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t happiness. It was the precursor to those things. The ingredients.
She picked up her phone and opened the group chat. Claire had sent a photo that morning of the napkin on her fridge, slightly crooked.
Harper had replied with a single emoji, a pair of eyes, which was Harper’s version of enthusiasm.
Nina typed:
I know what the first adventure is.
Three dots from Claire immediately.
Then Harper:
If it’s bungee jumping, I’m invoking a veto I just invented.
Nina typed:
Karaoke.
A long pause.
Then Claire:
Oh no.
Harper:
Absolutely not.
Nina:
You said no backing out. Rule three. It’s on the napkin.
Harper:
I will buy that napkin from you. Name your price. I have access to millions, and I am not above insider trading, if necessary.
Claire:
She’s right. We signed it. Where are we going?
Nina thought about it for a moment.
She wanted to go somewhere where none of them would be recognized, far enough from Charleston, Beaufort, and Edisto that Harper wouldn’t worry about running into a colleague, and Claire wouldn’t worry about running into a parent from school.
Somewhere that had cheap beer, bad lighting, and a stage that had seen worse than three fifty-year-old women butchering a Shania Twain song.
Nina:
How about Walterboro? There’s this place called Hank’s. They do it on Friday nights.
Harper:
How do you know about a karaoke bar in Walterboro?
Nina:
Lucia told me about it once. Apparently, it’s legendary.
Harper:
Legendary for what?
Nina:
She didn’t say, and I chose not to ask any follow-up questions.
Claire:
Dear Lord, I haven’t sung in public since college. I sang at that open mic at the Windjammer, and somebody asked me to stop. Like, literally said, please stop.
Harper:
Was it that bartender? The one with the gold tooth and the tattoo of his grandmother?
Claire:
It was the bouncer. He was very polite about it. I guess I should be glad he didn’t throw me out of the place.
Nina laughed. She was alone in her kitchen with her phone in one hand and coffee going cold on the counter, as it usually did. But she laughed. The sound of it startled her.
It was loud in the quiet house and even louder than the television she had left on. Louder than the ceiling fan David had installed. Slightly louder than the grief that had been the only voice in this kitchen for eighteen months.
She looked at Elena’s dish, which was still warm, that was made with those same hands that had taught her beloved David to cook.
The same hands that had held Nina at the funeral when her legs stopped working, that had been showing up at this back door every week for eighteen months with food and a love so fierce it sometimes felt like she was being hit by a very small but very determined truck over and over.
Nina uncovered the dish and grabbed a fork. She ate standing at her kitchen counter, looking at the water.
And the mole con pollo tasted like Elena’s kitchen, which tasted like David’s childhood, which tasted just like love.
Nina ate the whole thing.
Then she grabbed Lucia’s grocery list off the fridge, picked up her keys, and drove to the store.
She only sat in her car in the parking lot for ten minutes, and that was progress.