26
Dan brushed snow from his pants as he entered the room for the night. They were lucky to have their own—most of the other couples had doubled up to accommodate Building B refugees.
“It’s snowing,” he announced, and Mara’s silhouette appeared in the bathroom doorway. She was brushing her teeth. She walked past him, smelling of booze and peppermint. She cut the vertical blinds with a finger.
“That’s terrifying,” she said, mouth full. “And…kind of pretty.”
Dan clicked on a lamp. “It’s dark in here.”
“Guess I’ve gotten used to it.” Mara disappeared inside the bathroom and spit. “Using water that hasn’t been sitting in a tub for a week—now that, I missed.” She reappeared, wrapped in a Tizoc robe. Her hair was still up from the wedding. She joined Dan on the edge of the bed, an arm’s length between them. Dan slid off his jacket, threw it somewhere.
“How was she?” Mara asked quietly. She massaged her punching hand.
Dan scoffed, furious that Lilyanna had gotten to him. “She was…Lilyanna.”
Mara nodded. “Yeah.”
Dan considered undressing completely, going straight to bed. He was the definition of weary, and tomorrow promised to be another humdinger. But it was his first time alone with Mara since the wedding. He yanked his tie loose. What was it they said about going to bed angry?
“We should talk,” Mara said.
“We should,” Dan said.
They started at the same time, each talking over the other.
“Sorry,” they said in unison.
Mara wordlessly gave him permission to go first.
Dan closed his eyes. “You promised me.”
“What?”
“In jail. You promised me if there was a way off this island, you’d take it.”
“Yeah.” She blinked. “And you promised we’d help people.”
They slowly turned from each other. Neither spoke awhile. Wind rattled the window, slid under the door. The blinds danced. Outside, resort lights were fuzzy with falling snow.
“It was a good speech,” Dan offered. “Hindi was a nice touch.”
“I’m pretty sure I said it wrong.”
Dan buried his face in his hands.
After a minute—or an hour, Dan was so tired—Mara scooted closer.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
He came up for air. “‘Penny for my thoughts?’”
“My dad used to say it.”
“Yeah, well. You’d be overpaying.”
“Probably.” She poked him, which felt like a peace treaty. “But if we’re married now, what’s yours is mine. If we get divorced, I get half your thoughts.”
“I knew I should’ve put thoughts in the prenup.”
“Too late now, dude.”
He glanced at her. Her hair was still lightly bleached from the sun, the freckles on her cheeks unearthed. She’d never look like this again. Dan took a deep breath.
“Do you think I’m a little man?”
That took her by surprise. Sometimes she giggled when she was surprised. “What are you talking about? Who called you a little—oh.”
Yeah.
“Come on, Danny. She got in your head? Really?”
Dan fiddled with the bedsheet. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I probably haven’t been completely forthcoming with how I’ve felt lately. I—” He paused.
“What?” Mara was beside him now, her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. Tell me.”
“It feels pretty stupid to worry about if we’re going to freeze to death.” It actually always felt stupid to worry about—just especially now. Dan may have lacked every other facet of traditional masculinity, but he had one in spades: it was hard to discuss feelings. Especially with Mara, for whom he should be a rock. Strong, steady, unwavering.
Mara voice softened. “If we’re going to freeze to death, now’s the perfect time to tell me.”
“I just—it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
It spilled out. “I feel like maybe I haven’t made anything of my life, and I’ll never make anything of it because I’m not who everyone expects me to be and I’m a failure, you know, or at best I’m average, and I was never supposed to be average.”
Mara waited. She sensed more coming. Dan stood and paced.
“And I don’t want to let you down, and I don’t want to let my parents down—or my sister or my old teachers, friends, anyone who’s believed in me over the years. And sometimes when I sit down, and things are quiet, and you’ve gone to bed, and I don’t have my phone to distract me or the TV or PlayStation, and I really just sit, just sit and think, you know, I remember all these times growing up when people said I was going to be something. My dad once said I was going to be rich, because I was smart, and good-looking, and charming, and now some months I barely make rent. And Mrs. Humbolt. I never told you about her, but she was my creative writing teacher sophomore year. She said I had it, that I was special, that she was going to read my books someday. Well, she hasn’t, and she won’t, because I haven’t done shit. And even you, you know. I know you think I’m capable of more. You don’t say it, because you’re really considerate of my feelings, but I know you’re hoping I’ll…do something. Something. Even on this island—even when I finally had a chance to prove myself to you, to show you I can be the person you need me to be, I let you down. I’m never going to be the guy. And now that’s especially true. I’m going to die a Marvel Maids marketing specialist.”
He was practically panting. They were quiet a moment, and neither moved, and Dan thought maybe Mara was regretting ever going on this vacation with him, ever going to Chili’s or wherever their first date was two years ago, ever associating with this doughy lump of feelings. But then she stood from the bed, stripped off her robe, stood naked. She pulled on Dan’s fart pants, which were in a pile in the corner, tied the elastic band real tight to her waist.
“What are you doing?” Dan asked.
“I’m going to punch another Collins. For whatever she said to you.” She pulled on a bra, clasped it in front, and then awkwardly shuffled it around her body. She grumbled. “Little man? He’s not a little man. Your husband—your douchebag husband—that’s the little man. If she thinks for one second she can—”
She was pulling on a shirt now. Dan seized her wrist as she reached for the door.
“Mara. What are you doing? It’s freezing.”
“I told you.”
Dan laughed. “No,” he said. “No. Stay here.”
Mara took a step back, blew hot breath from her mouth to push a hair out of her face. She crossed her arms. “You are not a little man.”
“Okay.”
“You are not.” She fell into Dan, wrapped her arms around him. “Listen to me. Okay? I have loved two men in my entire life. My dad. And then you. People used to say he was worthless too.”
Dan didn’t remember using the word worthless , but he let her roll with it.
“I was at this cheer practice once. Like, third grade. And my mom was there to pick me up, and one of the girls asked why my dad never came to practice, and another girl said it was because he was a deadbeat. And I knew, even then, that that wasn’t her word, you know? Kids don’t say deadbeat . She heard it from her mom or another adult, and I asked my mom on the way home what it meant, and it took her a second, but then she said a deadbeat was someone who didn’t meet expectations.”
Mara broke the hug and sat in one of the cheap chairs next to the bed, tucking one foot under her butt. “And from then on, you know, I started to realize that’s what everyone thought of him. My grandparents, my friends, even Raveena said it once. But to me, he was just my dad. He didn’t make a lot of money—hardly any money—and he didn’t always have gas in his car to make it to cheer, and he could never move my mom to the neighborhood she wanted. But he was a good person, and he loved me and Raveena so much, and he took us camping and taught us to fish and was so, so funny and knew the right things to say all the time. But people like my grandma…”
She shook her head, tapped her finger on the table.
“It’s like society thinks there’s something broken about a person who’s just living. Like there’s no inherent worth to people unless they’ve accomplished something.”
Dan returned to the edge of the bed. Mara, who always had a flair for dramatics, collapsed to her knees and scooted closer to Dan till she was between his legs. She collected his hands in hers and looked up into his eyes.
“You could never let me down, Danny. Because you’re Danny. You’re enough. No qualifiers.”
“But you hid things from me. You went behind my back because I disappointed you.”
Mara recoiled like it was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “I went behind your back because I knew you would sacrifice everything—even yourself—for me. Do you know how loved that makes me feel? How safe? I couldn’t let you do it. But you didn’t disappoint me, Danny. Is that really what you think?”
Dan needed a moment with that. Mara crawled on top of him, and they flattened into the bed. She held his head in her arms, kissed the side of it. You didn’t disappoint me, Danny. It played in his head, over and over. You didn’t disappoint me.
“And about your job,” Mara said.
Dan groaned.
“If you work at Marvel Maids till the day you die—”
“So tomorrow?”
“Till the day you die , I’ll be proud of you. Because when people ask me about you, Danny, I don’t tell them what you do.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I tell them you’re funny and charming, and that you donate to that random elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, and you return shopping carts in the parking lot that aren’t even yours because you don’t want them to scratch someone’s car. I tell them you would be my phone-a-friend on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? because you always know things, even if you don’t think you do, and I tell them about that time I caught you crying at How to Train Your Dragon when you thought I was in the shower.”
“You tell people that?”
“You’re my best friend, Danny. You’re a wonderful person. You don’t have to worry about making it.” She paused. “You already have.”
Dan felt something well up inside of his chest, something he would normally shove back down into his gut, but he didn’t this time because of the way Mara looked at him. And then his eyes became moist, and his throat clogged, and he tried to break free from Mara’s grasp, but she only held him tighter.
And then Dan Foster cried.
A lot. Not because he’d held it in all week, but because he’d held it in for years, and he wiped his face with his wrists, and Mara wiped his face too, and the coffee-powder henna smeared everywhere, but they didn’t care.
When Dan finally composed himself, Mara clutched his hands in hers. “We never made it official, Danny.”
He felt short of breath. “You’re sure?”
She smiled. “Bet your ass, I’m sure.”
Dan grabbed her waist, pulled her in. “Mara Usra Nichols. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I do .”
Their noses touched. “Daniel Lewis Foster. There’s nothing I want more than to be your wife. I do too .”
They kissed deeply and stayed up another hour together, and when sleep finally washed over Dan, he dreamt of being frozen in place for all of eternity with Mara Nichols Foster, and he didn’t feel like a little man anymore.