Chapter 44
NOW
“So did you do it?”
I nearly choke on my coffee.
Austin and I look up from the step of the back porch where we’re sitting, after throwing a tennis ball for Birdie.
“Do…” I ask. Because the answer is yes. We definitely … did it.
“Stay up?” Sammie tiptoes up and then sits down on the stretch of lawn between us at the beach walkway. “All night?”
We don’t look at each other, but I am very aware of the face he’s making.
“Yeah, we did,” he confirms.
We did end up going for a swim in the ocean last night, and when we got into the dark, inky water, we were surrounded by bioluminescent algae. A magical phenomenon I forgot about completely until I saw it again.
Then we came home, salty and flushed and a little cold from the early-morning air.
We showered in the warm outdoor shower, making out, skin on wet skin.
Dried off, my body feeling spent and tired in a dreamy way it hasn’t been in years.
Then he took me to my room, where he insisted on tucking me in.
He kissed me, the fire lighting between us again. He shut the door and we had sex again. The quiet but desperate kind. Where every movement seems to blast through the sleeping house, but you can’t possibly stop, not without dying.
We had watched the sky turn periwinkle with the dawn, and I fell asleep watching a fishing boat go by outside, lulled unconscious by Austin’s calm, steady breathing behind me. His warm chest against my shoulder blades.
We woke up this morning, together, in my bed. And despite having seen the day remain Saturday on that girl’s phone, I wondered sadly if maybe we had somehow broken the loop. It was hard to tell one sunny morning from another on an island like this.
But then he woke up, went for a morning run—which apparently he does every day even without the prompting of a magical element—and went into town and confirmed it.
Saturday. Again.
I had nearly drowned in the relief I felt.
It was close to seven AM when he came back, and either the adrenaline or the magic of whatever happens every night here left me feeling refreshed and well rested.
Certainly not like I drank coffee in the middle of the night, did shots, and then swam through a sex haze all night.
In the sleeping house, all pale shadows and morning birds outside the windows, he had kissed me in the kitchen.
And for the briefest moment, I indulged the fantasy that this was our life.
Just as I had done in Texas. Imagined this was how we lived.
This was our kitchen now, filled with our memories, and that we were home.
Our coffee, our Birdie lying on the porch outside.
I know how silly this is, considering what happens every time we’ve gotten together. But if I can’t have the real thing, then I have to allow myself to wallow around in the fantasy, just for a moment.
“And?” prompts Sammie.
“And?” I repeat, having lost track of what she’s asking.
“Lordy, Didion, what happened at midnight?”
“Oh—it went to midnight, but the day stayed Saturday. On a girl’s phone.”
“Well, what did she think of it?”
“She didn’t—I mean it was a loud bar, we couldn’t really hear each other.”
Sammie looks between us. “You guys were at a loud bar?”
“The High Dive,” says Austin, helpfully.
She pouts. “I love that place. Was there a Dad Band playing?”
We nod.
“Fun.” She sulks. “But okay, so you didn’t get anyone else’s impression of it? Like did they think it was still basically Friday night?”
“I didn’t really get that far with her. Like I said, it was hard to hear.”
“So, did you ask anyone outside, where it was quieter?”
We both go silent.
“Then what did you d— Oh my god.”
I have no poker face, so I stand and say, “I’m going to get some more coffee. Anyone need any?”
“You two did it!” she says, like a wicked child. “You hooked up!”
“I’ll take one,” Austin calls back toward me.
I get another espresso for us both, try to get all my smiling out of the way, and then go back outside.
Sammie has not tired herself out by the time I return.
“So you talked about everything? Is everything fixed between you two?” she asks.
I wave my hand back and forth to say kind of and he says, “She’s being stubborn. Won’t talk about it.”
“I am not stubborn!”
Sammie smiles. “Listen to you, it’s like old times. I should have known you had hooked up when I came down and your hair was down. Hiding those weird ears, finally.”
“My ears are not weird!” I touch them defensively.
“They’re all small and pointy,” Sammie says, teasingly. “They freak me out.”
“Your whole face freaks me out, look how tiny your nose is!”
Her mouth falls open and she kicks sand at my feet, which makes me laugh like a maniac.
Nora comes running out, and goes straight to Sammie in a hug using her whole body.
“Hello!” Sammie falls backward dramatically. “You’ve killed me, Nora!”
“Nooo,” Nora coos, poking Sammie’s face. “You’re not died.”
“You’re right, I’m not died, oh!” Birdie comes over and nuzzles Nora and Sammie until they both giggle.
Then Sammie sits up, points at me and Austin, looking behind us at—I assume, Matt—and mouths, They banged.
“We can see you,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, a clear duh in her tone, “I know.”
Austin volunteers to go get breakfast sandwiches from Brew Lagoon, which leaves Matt, Sammie, and me on the porch, all keeping a loose eye on Nora, who is playing a game of solo pretend that sometimes seems to involve Birdie.
“Wow, what if your mom did all of this so that you could just get railed out and loosen up a little bit, huh?” says Matt, looking devilish over his mason jar of iced coffee.
“I would love to argue with that,” I say on a sigh, “but my mother knew few boundaries.”
“I’ll say,” Sammie agrees. “Being dead isn’t even enough to stop her.”
“So how was it?” Matt pries. “Was it like old sparks were back in full force or was it sorta eh.”
“Well, it was not eh.”
I give them a brief, abbreviated, PG-13 retelling of how it all went down.
“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in ages,” says Matt. “Is that pathetic?”
“Yes,” my sister and I answer in unison.
“But … same,” I add. “What did you guys do?”
They exchange a dark look.
“Oh, god, what happened.”
“Nothing!” Sammie exclaims. Then, “Well, I sort of … went out with Johnny.”
I shake my head. “Your funeral.”
Everyone lets the line go by.
“We just went to the pier and talked. I realized … I can spend time with him right now and he won’t remember it. So I asked him all kinds of things. About when he cheated on me, and about what he wants, about if he realizes the impact of what he … what he did.”
I have to literally, actually, physically bite my tongue to keep from speaking. I unconsciously pull my hair tie off my wrist and put my hair back up.
“No, no, no ponytail!” Sammie tugs on my wrist. “We want relaxed Didion!”
“I’m just hot, it’s fine.”
Though she’s right. Whoever I was for the last twelve hours seems to have worn off. The free, happy, tranquil Didion has been shoved back into her cabinet, and now stressed, big-sister Didion is back. I don’t even want to do it. It’s not on purpose. It’s just automatic.
Austin returns with breakfast a few minutes later. Everyone claims their own, and we unwrap them.
Another culinary win for Mercy Island. It’s so nice to have a meal that doesn’t involve foam.
Austin is the first to break the comfortable silence. “Okay, I have an idea.”
“Love an idea,” Matt says, squirting a dash of hot sauce onto his sandwich.
“Last night we did Matt’s way. We stayed up.” A flit of his eyes to me. “It didn’t work. I say tonight, we do it someone else’s way.”
“Like how?” asks Sammie.
“I don’t know. What do we think this is all about? And how do we think we should address it?”
We all think, and then finally I say, “I think we probably all have habits we need to break. Like, I don’t know, not jumping on the back of some pretty boy’s motorcycle every time he shows up.”
“He doesn’t have a motorcycle anymore!”
“Why not?” Matt challenges.
She hesitates. “He crashed it.”
“There it is,” he says.
“Again,” she says.
“Jesus,” I say.
“Okay, fine,” yields Sammie. “Maybe I need to break the pattern we’re stuck in. But … not stop it altogether?”
I let out an exasperated sound. “No—okay, you know what? I think it’s a good idea, Austin—”
“Shocker,” Sammie says with a grin.
“Shut up,” I say, unable to stop smiling. I regain my composure. “I think it’s a great idea, and I volunteer. Let’s do it my way today.”
“Sounds good to me,” Austin says.
“Which means,” I add, “that when that doorbell rings later and that Cry-Baby wannabe shows up, you are not going to answer the door. However, when Harrison arrives, feel free to hang out as much as you want!”
Sammie makes a face. “What do you know, Didion wants to play parent to everybody.”
“I do not want that. We’re all taking a turn, I’m only saying that my idea includes not going out with the world’s worst boyfriend.”
“Uh-huh,” Sammie says. “But you can go out with the world’s second-worst boyfriend.”
Austin’s eyebrows raise. “Hey, what the hell?”
“Austin is not the world’s second-worst boyfriend,” Matt argues. “I like Austin!”
Austin grins at him and holds up his beer. “See, that’s a good friend, thank you, Matt, I like you too.”
“Hey, back off,” I say, “he’s my ex-crush to unrequite.”
Sammie looks at me, catching the callback. “See? Just like that, it’s a word!”
I laugh.
“All right,” says Austin. “Challenge accepted.”
“Okay, so what you’re suggesting,” clarifies Matt, “is we each take a stab at breaking this—”
“Spell, I think you can call it a spell,” says Sammie.
Matt gives me a flash of a look and then hides his smile as he says, “Right. So we each have our idea of how to break it, and we try it. Like Bill Murray trying to get out of town or—”
“Wait, have we tried that?” I ask.
“Bridge shuts down early, I asked,” says Austin.
“Right. Okay. So where do we start?” asks Matt.
“Well, if Babe were here, she’d say that before we talk details,” I say, “we have to eat.”