by S. F. Kosa
“Thanks. I’ll be on the call tomorrow, and I’ll be ready for Monday. I’m not about to drop this ball.”
“Good. Because we’re gonna fucking cure cancer, my friend, and get bloody rich in the process.”
“Yup.” I’m surprised the weight on my shoulders hasn’t capsized the damn ferry.
He hangs up. I glance at my inbox—thirty new messages. Not a good time for the CFO to take off midweek. Worst possible time, to tell the truth.
I shove the phone in my pocket, drink my beer, and wonder if I’m being a total idiot. Am I being strategic, or am I just flailing here?
I’m not panicking about my marriage. I’m simply unwilling to let things fester. That’s what Caitlin and I did, always. I won’t do that with Mina, even if it means pushing into her space a little. She’s told me she wants that. Needs it, even.
I’ve finished my second beer and answered ten emails by the time we glide past the seawall, waves lapping against the giant concrete blocks, and into the Provincetown Harbor. Along with a few hundred sweating men, women, and children, I shuffle my way off the boat and swing my pack onto my back. I’ve kept some stuff at the cottage, but it’s Mina’s place, her sanctum, purchased with the success of a dozen Mina Richards romances, furnished with the royalties from half a dozen more.
She says it’s ours now, but I know better.
As I cross the street to the florist shop, I’m hit with a suffocating wave of what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into. Not this trip, but my entire fucking life. In the last two years, I quit my stable-but-boring job and joined a risky startup run by my brilliant but incurably impulsive best friend, and I married a woman I’d known for only six months. I pause on the sidewalk and take a breath. Uber-rational, that’s what Caitlin always called me, though it was never a compliment. Near the end of our marriage, she dropped the euphemism and just called me a cold, unfeeling bastard.
I enjoyed watching her jaw drop back in April when I told her I was getting married again. I guess it’s the new you, she said.
At the time, I was smug about it. I’d toed the line my entire life, and there I was, making my own rules, embracing the risk, and finally living.
Now I’m wondering if the new me is merely the old me gone temporarily insane.
Fuck. My mom has gotten inside my head. Honey, she said to me when I told her I was engaged, are you sure this isn’t a midlife crisis? But Mina was worth a leap into the great unknown. She’s worth a thousand more after that.
I pick my way through the crowd of tourists queuing up for lobster rolls, window-shopping for everything from cheap T-shirts to local artists’ paintings of Race Point and the towering Pilgrim Monument, and peering at their phones for directions to their Airbnb or the nearest bike rental shop. After edging past two guys arguing about whether they should go to Monkey Bar (“You only want to go because you were hot for that bartender!”) or Purgatory (“I’m just not as into leather as you are, okay?”) tonight, I duck into the florist’s shop and pick up the bouquet I ordered. Roses, tulips, peonies, sweet peas. A middle-aged woman with thin lips gives me a wistful smile as I turn for the door.
The walk through the West End is slow-going, a clog of sandaled feet, beach bags, ice cream cones, leashed pooches, and no one in any particular rush. Cars inch along Commercial Street, patiently waiting for wandering pedestrians to realize they’re in the way and move aside. Rainbow flags flap in the salty breeze as I trudge past the Boatslip, the afternoon Tea Dance just getting started, upbeat rave music pumping. Now that I’ve escaped the center of town, the streets become residential, a mix of quaint homes and B&Bs, folks lounging in rocking chairs on their porches or in fenced-in front yards, sipping on beers and watching the constant flow of human traffic. Mina’s cottage is a ten-minute stroll away, nestled in a warren of hundred-year-old homes between Commercial and the lapping waters of the bay. The gray shiplap siding always looks damp and drab to me, but Mina says it makes her as happy as a hobbit in a hobbit-hole. I’m thinking the million-dollar view has a lot to do with it.
As I draw within a block of the place, everything in me is wound tight. I don’t want to screw this up. I didn’t come all the way here to rehash our last fight or start a new one. I need to be understanding if she’s in the middle of a scene or a chapter or even one of her reveries where she sits there, fingers resting lightly on her keyboard, expression blank, eyes unfocused. If she’s into her work, I’m going to smile and tell her I love her and I’m sorry and we’ll talk later, and then I’ll head to the Governor Bradford for a drink, maybe find someone to play a game of chess on one of the boards they have set up by the front windows. I’m not going to make it a thing.
I pause in front of the cottage. The curtains are drawn. I look down at the bouquet in my hand and reach for my key.
I step into the cramped entryway populated by colorful umbrellas, a few pairs of rain boots, and a basket brimming with scarves and gloves and hats. A bottle of sunblock rests on a little wooden bench. “Mina?” I call out, not too loud, not wanting to startle her. “It’s me.”
I glance through the living room windows toward the alley next to the house. Her car is gone. I have time to pull myself together. If I’m emanating tension, she’ll pick it up immediately.
I kick off my shoes, then carefully align them on the mat beneath the bench before heading to the kitchen. I wrestle the flowers into a vase and consider where to leave them for maximum romantic effect. The dining table? Bedside table? Her desk?
There’s a corked, half-empty bottle of pinot on the counter and a wineglass in the sink, lipstick on its rim and deep purple dregs in the very bottom. After cleaning up the flower scraps, I grab a wineglass from the open dishwasher, which is only partially unloaded, like Mina got distracted halfway through. Maybe she got inspired. I pour myself a splash of wine, then a glug.
After taking my first sip, I carry the vase of flowers to the living room. I’ll put them where she’ll see them right away, as soon as she comes through the front door. She’ll know I’m here to fix things, and probably she’ll let me. Hopefully this ends with us upstairs, in bed. We’ve both got other things to do, but I can’t think of anything I want more than to waste the rest of the day with my wife, preferably with a bottle of champagne on ice and her thighs wrapped around my hips.
Mina’s writing desk sits facing the grassy boardwalk path to the ocean, offering her glimpses of shimmering water as she writes stories of fiery women and the alpha males they alternately fight and fuck. She puts out two or three romances a year, and her readers devour them despite the fact that they already know how each story will end. Or perhaps because of that. I skimmed a few while we were dating. I didn’t even have to buy them—I swiped the paperbacks off my mom’s bookshelf.
I don’t know what was more awkward, knowing Mom had read all those sex scenes my girlfriend had written or, the very first time I introduced them, overhearing Mom ask Mina if she planned to base any of her future heroes on me.
Now that I think about it, definitely the latter.
I take a gulp of my drink and move toward Mina’s desk. A legal pad sits atop her closed laptop, pages filled with looping scrawl; she always writes in longhand before typing out her scenes. I don’t look too closely; Mina’s sensitive about that. She likes her words to be perfect before they escape her control.
She could walk in at any moment, back from a late lunch or a quick trip to the grocery store, maybe planning a dinner for one after a solitary afternoon of writing. Hopefully feeling lonely. Hopefully missing her husband. Maybe regretting her flat refusal when I broached the topic of starting a family, wishing she hadn’t shut me down and shut me out. I’ll apologize, and she’ll apologize, and then she’ll hook her finger through one of my belt loops and tell me that she hopes I took my vitamins this morning, because she’s in the mood to do a little “literary research.”
It’s a rough job,
being the husband of a romance author.
This desk is the place to leave the flowers, the first place her gaze will travel when she gets home. As I shuffle aside a couple of credit card statements and a playbill for The Laramie Project at the Provincetown Theater, I uncover a little ceramic bowl, chipped and quaint and exactly the kind of whimsical, antiquated thing Mina likes.
The sight of its contents hits me like a punch in the gut.
There, glittering in the sunlight filtering through the window facing the sea, left behind with as much care as that abandoned wineglass in the sink, are my wife’s wedding and engagement rings.
Chapter One
She hummed quietly as she watched the churning waves. It was a song with words she couldn’t quite remember, though surely she had known them at some point—the tune came to her as easily as breathing. The ocean folded over on itself, again and again, and she felt the relentless movement inside her. She swayed, her bare feet embedded in the sand, while the salty wind whipped her hair across her face. Sandpipers sprinted by on their toothpick legs. A gull cried out as it swooped overhead.
She hummed a little louder. The tune had been looping through her mind ever since she’d gotten up this morning, but she couldn’t dredge up the name of the song or recall who sang it. Annoyance pricked at her once, twice, then faded to a dull twinge as she let the sight of the waves lull her again.
She’d stay here all day if she could. Race Point was the very edge of Cape Cod, surrounded by infinite water and sky. From here, she could drift away on the wind. She turned her face to the sun, closing her eyes and spreading her arms. The tune had fallen silent in her throat; she was a wisp of smoke, a silky ribbon spiraling in the breeze.
Somewhere to her left, a man shouted. She spun around, arms winding instinctively over her middle before falling to her sides. Just two guys playing Frisbee. They didn’t even seem aware of her. She turned back to the ocean and stared as a wave deposited a swath of foam a yard from where she stood. She could float away. She could fly. She was a song on the breeze. Her mind was empty. Empty.
As the waves spread themselves thin along the sand, she tried to reclaim the soaring freedom that had seemed within her grasp only moments before.
After a few minutes, she gave up.
Her hair had coiled around her throat; strands were caught in her eyelashes and had wormed their way between her lips. Her cheeks felt warm; she’d been so eager to get here that she hadn’t bothered to slather on the sunblock. Her bare calves stung with the scrape of sand. Suddenly, she felt it all a little too much—her body, her skin, her hair. The tune she’d just been humming was gone, crowded out by tiny shocks of irritation.
She had no idea what time it was, and Lou had warned her about being late. His words scrolled through her mind: Easy hire, easy fire. Under the table works both ways.
She took a step backward, trying to shed the sight of the ocean, until finally it let her go like an egg white slipping free from its yolk. She felt her brain quivering in her skull, a delicate membrane holding everything in place. One prick and all her thoughts might come dribbling out her ears.
Her shift started at five. When had she left the boardinghouse? As she slogged through the shifting sand toward the parking lot, past the Frisbee boys, shovel-and-pail-wielding kids hunched over mounds of sand, and their exhausted parents floppy as seals in their loungers, she tried to remember the morning. It was like fishing through the grease trap at Haverman’s, coming up with a few chicken bones and a lot of sludge. She recalled the musky scent of Esteban’s skin as she crawled from the bed. Rough granules of sand sticking to the bottoms of her feet as she headed for the bathroom. Frigid spray from the shower hitting her shoulder blades. Hanging the towel on the wobbly hook behind the door. Buttoning her shorts, feeling them sag down to her hips. Sliding her feet into flip-flops, the strap between her toes. Blinking in the sun as she stepped outside into the already-sweltering day.
She fiddled with her bike lock, her fingers automatically poking the numbers into place. One-two-zero-four. She maneuvered the bike away from the crowded rack as more riders rolled off the trail and came toward the railing. One of them, a middle-aged man in blue spandex, halted his bike right next to her and reached for his helmet. His gold watch glinted in the sunlight.
“Excuse me,” she said, and then she pressed her lips together, startled by the sound of her voice. Was that what she always sounded like? Was that her actual voice?
The man was looking at her, expecting something. What did he want? Oh.
She smiled. “Do you know what time it is?”
He checked. “About four thirty.”
She swung her leg over the seat and steered the bike onto the trail. Can’t. Be. Late. One word per heartbeat, thumping against the inside of her skull. She pedaled up the hills and leaned into the curves, weaving around families with wriggling toddlers, older women in wide-brimmed hats, and a few cyclists struggling to figure out the gears on their rented bikes.
She didn’t have time to shower or change for her shift, but it didn’t really matter. She would be spending the next eight or so hours in a steamy kitchen, loading and unloading the dishwasher, her hair curling along her temples and sticking to her face, trying to avoid Amber, who always made her uneasy. Amber’s days off were her favorite days to work. Hopefully today would be one of them.
She nearly rolled through the red light on Route 6 as she pondered what day it was. She’d lost track again, maybe because she’d been working seven days a week lately, five to closing, five to closing, five to closing. The only thing she really had to keep track of was the five part, and she could barely manage that.
She picked up speed as she pedaled along Conwell, nearly got winged by a pickup as she hooked left onto Bradford, and swerved to miss a lady with a stroller as she bumped up onto the sidewalk on Commercial, right out front of Haverman’s. The restaurant consisted of a covered beer garden patio snugged up against a narrow old house that used to belong to some fishing captain but was now taken up entirely by the kitchen, storage room, and Lou’s upstairs office and apartment. The high-tops and bar seats were already full, and several folks were standing at the vine-covered arch marking the entrance to the patio, giving their names and numbers to Jenn, the hostess for tonight. As she chained her bike to the rack on the sidewalk, she gave Jenn a quick wave and was rewarded with a blank, stone-faced look.
She ducked her head as she went around the other side of the house and opened the employees only door in the alley. It might be hot and humid outside, but the climate inside was positively tropical. She closed her eyes as the familiar steamy funk enveloped her.
“Hey, Layla! I was just asking Jaliesa if you were working today!”
It wasn’t one of Amber’s days off.
Layla hung her bag on one of the hooks along the wall, noting the other purses and backpacks and registering who each belonged to. Purple pack—Jaliesa, the nice bartender. Pink hobo bag—Amber, the nosy waitress. Worn leather pack with the little hole that always tempted Layla to stick her finger in it—Arthur, the cute line cook. Her tongue itched as she considered his bag for the thousandth time. The material was so thin, so ragged, that it didn’t stand a chance if she decided to jab her finger right through.
“Hey there, space cadet.”
She flinched and turned her head. Amber was right next to her. Her mascara was smudged. Layla glanced at the wall clock above the hooks. “I’m not late,” she said and smiled with relief. Her voice no longer sounded like that of a stranger.
Amber returned her smile, probably thinking it had been meant to be friendly. “We’re short-staffed. Reese is out tonight. Lou wants you out front.”
The words splashed over her like a bucket of ice water. “Whoa. No. I d-don’t think—I mean, I’m not—” She looked down at her flip-flops, her too-loose shorts, her secondhand T-shirt with a whale surrounded by plast
ic bottles. There was a faded brown stain on the blue fabric, right over her left boob. She raked her fingers through her hair, but they got caught in the tangles.
Amber gave her an appraising once-over. “No worries. I got you.” Amber grabbed her by the elbow and snagged the pink hobo bag as they sailed toward the employees’ bathroom.
Layla’s skin had gone goose bumpy. “I’m a dishwasher,” she mumbled. “I wash dishes.”
“Honey, it’s Friday night, and you’re about to make ten times more an hour than you ever could loading greasy plates into the monster machine.”
“Why can’t Arthur or Serge—?”
“Lou wanted another female server. Lesbians deserve eye candy, too, ya know.” She whipped a T-shirt out of her bag, Haverman’s Helles House emblazoned across the chest, and motioned for Layla to strip off her shirt.
She crossed her arms over her middle. “I’m not a waitress.”
“You are now.” Amber held up the shirt. “And if you’re not, you can go tell Lou yourself.”
She took off her shirt and yanked the other over her head. She wished she’d stopped to put on a bra this morning. Her eyes and nose burned. A droning buzz filled the space between her ears. Her vision flashed with blotches of red and black. She braced her palm against the wall.
Amber slapped lightly at her cheeks. “Hey. Hey. Layla. Stop having a panic attack. Jenn and Wanny and Oscar and me’ll all be out there, and we’ll look out for you. We need the help tonight.”
Help. “Is—is Esteban—?”
“Your guard dog ain’t here tonight, though I expect you know his schedule better than I do these days.” Amber took her by the shoulders and gave her a brisk shake. “Come on. You’re a big girl. Act like it.”
Layla blinked. Amber had a sinewy neck and yellow hair with black roots. Amber had big dangly earrings that bobbled and swayed and clinked. Amber had a narrow nose and a triangle face and eyes that were murky green. Amber had a voice that sounded like barbecue and corn bread, not lobster and quahogs.