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Oh, how it tempted him. She had vowed, in a secret lagoon on the Isle of Amori, to follow him anywhere. “You won’t,” he’d replied. “The journeys are long and the ship is too fast. You’ll tire of it.” And she had sworn she would never break her vow.
But he was fearful of what he couldn’t see. What mermen swam in her pack? When he couldn’t see her, who was she with? She said she loved him, but she never promised it was only him.
Okay, this pirate-mermaid-love story is maybe also turning into another writing-as-therapy session. Everything comes back to Tristan. To how things ended. Maybe I don’t know how to write happily-ever-afters anymore.
I’m relieved when my alarm goes off and it’s time to meet Gram for dinner.
Gwendolyn
Sawyer skips dinner, but Gram, Nancy, and I have a wonderful time. These women were destined to be friends, and now they’re cramming seventy years of missed memories into ten days. Sure enough, they won their trivia game earlier, and they’re planning an outing to karaoke later.
“Come with us, Gwen. Show those other kids how it’s done.” Gram turns her attention to Nancy and adds, “She’s always been a wonderful singer.”
“I’m okay,” I clarify, rolling my eyes at Gram. I promise to go along. No guarantees on picking up a mic.
“Sawyer’s a good singer, too, though he’ll never let you know it. That boy’s so shy.”
This is literally the worst time in my life to have a mouthful of wine, because somehow I choke it down, nearly spit it out, and feel it burn in my nose all at the same time. It’s like slow motion, the way Gram and Nancy turn their heads toward me at this awful sound I make.
“Something wrong, dear?” Nancy asks.
I set down the wine glass and wave a hand to signal I’m fine. “I just never would have guessed I’d hear him described as ‘shy.’”
Nancy nods, like Shy Sawyer is the most obvious thing she’s ever discussed. “He hates being the center of attention. In the fourth grade, he decided to do a comedy routine for the school talent show. He passed out on stage, and they had to bring out the smelling salts.”
I blush, because I’m embarrassed for the kid who was trying something new and different when he failed so spectacularly in front of a crowd, and because I’m embarrassed for the man who’s skipping dinner and whose grandmother is telling stories he’d probably rather she didn’t tell.
And I blush, thinking about how I’m thinking about him, caring about his feelings, wondering how he is now and if his headache’s gone away.
When dinner wraps up, we make plans to meet for karaoke.
“I promised I’d bring him a pizza after dinner,” Nancy says when Gram asks if she wants to play Bingo.
“I can take something back for him.”
Nancy looks at Gram, then at me, then back. I, too, am stunned I’ve volunteered for this mission. She smiles. “That would be very nice. Thank you, Gwendolyn.”
I show up at his cabin twenty minutes later with a piping hot personal pizza, pineapple-free because I saw the way he wrinkled his face at mine last night.
He and Nancy have adjoining cabins, one deck below ours. They’ve got to have amazing sunset views from their balconies right about now.
“Oh. Hi,” he says, holding open the door. He’s got a book in his hand and a comfortably rumpled gray T-shirt on. His hair looks messy, wind-blown. I can’t tell if he fell asleep while reading or if he’d taken the book out on his balcony.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he repeats. He’s kind of cute, when he’s not being an asshole.
“I brought you—”
“My pizza?” He takes the box and cranes a neck down the hallway. “Where’s Nan?”
“Oh, she and Gram went to play Bingo.”
“I see.” He shifts in the doorway like he’s doing a cha-cha-cha: a step backward, a step forward, a thought about moving to the right, inviting me in.
“Are you feeling better?” I ask, taking my own step back, deeper into the hallway, to signal my desire to not be invited in.
Sawyer readjusts his pizza box and book and runs a newly freed-up hand through his hair. “A little. Thanks for asking.”
