Читать книгу Life #6 - Diana Wagman - Страница 9
ОглавлениеFiona woke up early on the sailboat that last day in port. Luc was already awake. He smoked a cigarette and scratched his arm. The scratching had become a habit.
“Listen,” he said. “Io. Listen.”
She rolled toward him. Io was his nickname for her, the two middle syllables of her name. Io was a nymph who Zeus seduced and Hera, his wife, jealously turned into a cow. Fiona liked the name, loved that it was Greek, didn’t mind the cow business, especially since Io didn’t stay a cow, but eventually regained human form and gave birth to Hercules. Luc had given her the name and told her she had a Greek soul, even though she was ash blond, blue-eyed and alabaster-skinned, Anglo-Saxon through and through.
He was looking for a way to open the sealed and bolted porthole. “Listen,” he said. “What the hell are we doing?”
Her stomach clenched. “I thought this was what you wanted.” This trip had been his idea. She sat up and faced him. “Remember? Three hundred bucks and our plane tickets back to New York?”
They’d met Nathan, the owner of the boat, at their catering job. He was a party guest and Luc had struck up a conversation. Nathan said he needed crew—better than waitering, isn’t it?—and Luc immediately said yes. To Fiona sailing sounded terrifying, but okay, okay, if Luc was going, she was too. An adventure. She suppressed the little voice in her head that asked if she was out of her mind. Going across the Atlantic Ocean with a bunch of strangers? She and Luc needed the money. Dance classes were expensive and she was desperate to rent their own apartment and stop sleeping on his sister’s couch. And—even though she had told Luc she didn’t mind about him and she really, truly didn’t—Billy sashayed into her thoughts. Billy, the beautiful gay dancer, and everything he brought with him. She needed to get Luc away. Away.
He scratched his upper arm, scratched and scratched. He sighed and his handsome, classic face sagged. The corners of his full lips drooped, his eyelids grew heavy as if they could no longer support his thick eyelashes. This had been happening lately, a sudden gloom like a shroud would fall over him. His hand with the cigarette trembled. She tried to hold his other hand, but he lifted it out of reach, went back to scratching.
“Io,” he said. “Listen. Listen. Listen. Would you still love me if I only had one leg?”
She almost let out a laugh, but caught it before it escaped her lips. Luc, who was never afraid, looked frightened of what she might say. Would she still love him? Ridiculous.
Before she could answer of course, of course, he continued. “What if I couldn’t dance anymore because my leg was missing?”
She tried to make him smile. “You’d be an incredible one-legged dancer. Amazing. People would come from all over the world to see you.”
“No, no. What if I cut it off—”
“You cut it off?”
“If a piano fell through the ceiling right now and amputated my leg, would you still love me?”
He didn’t want her to make a joke, so she couldn’t say it would have to be a grand piano, or ask him to sing her a few bars, or offer a peg leg so he could be her pirate king. He looked at her with such agony it made her chest hurt. She wanted to scratch this Luc away, dig down to the old, joyful him, the one who would never ask such a thing.
“I will always love you,” she said. “If a piano cuts off your leg and your teeth fall out and you go completely bald, I will still love you. I will. Always.”
Fiona repeated the conversation in her mind. Again and again as she walked around town that last day, doing the grocery shopping, buying supplies, outfitting the boat, she thought about what he had said, what she had replied. She had assured him she would love him forever. And he had looked so disappointed at her answer.
She shivered and wished—for the millionth time—she had her winter coat. She and Luc had come to Newport from New York packed for Bermuda, not a New England November. Nathan had said he’d supply foul weather gear if necessary. She’d expected the boat to be heated like an apartment, but the single, small electric heater in the main cabin didn’t do much. She couldn’t wait for the sultry island air, the clatter of palm fronds, lying on deck under a warm sky. Paradise.
She trudged back to the boat laden down with bags and packages. They banged against her legs, the corded shopping bag handles digging into her cold hands. She wished she had her gloves. It was her job to outfit the kitchen—galley—with everything they needed besides the two pots and frying pan already on board. Nathan said to skip the plastic crap at the boat outfitters and buy the best. He told her which pretty little store to go to and gave her a list of items and a credit card. She had never seen one before. A rectangle of plastic that could buy anything.
She worried over every item. Were these the right wine glasses? The very best china soap dish? She’d grown up without money, much less proper glassware. That’s why she didn’t know how to swim; lessons had been too expensive for Mom as she drifted from man to man, but Fiona hadn’t been able to say that to Lola. We’re going to sea! Luc had announced that night after they met Nathan. She had nodded and grinned and kept it to herself that she’d never been on a boat, didn’t know how to swim, that water anyplace but a bathtub terrified her. She knew Lola would frown, could hear her disappointed sigh as if the girl her brother loved had let him down—again. Fiona had never been to New York, ridden in a taxi cab, eaten feta cheese or black olives or a gyro until Luc. She had never heard Greek until he and his sister spoke it to each other.
“You couldn’t pick a Greek girl?” Lola had poked her brother, then turned and hugged Fiona. “I’m joking, joking. My girlfriend’s not Greek either.”
Fiona would learn to speak Greek. She would. Luc was a book to be read, a skill to be perfected, an entire country to be explored. He was all she had ever wanted to know or learn or see. And so in the fancy store, with Nathan’s plastic money, she shopped for what Luc would like, what she imagined Lola would choose. She did her best and, as her last and favorite thing, bought a ceramic fruit bowl painted with mermaids to sit on the galley counter.
The saleswoman asked if any of it was a gift.
“No,” Fiona said. “For our boat.”
“But it’s all so fragile.”
“It’s a really beautiful boat.” She imagined the sail across the sea like a ride in a large new car along a flat highway. It was the Cadillac of sailboats—the shock absorbers would be fantastic.
“Ask your Captain,” the woman was saying. “I’ll take them back anytime. If they’re still wrapped.”
“It’s okay.” Fiona was getting annoyed. “We’re leaving. Tomorrow.”
“In November?” The woman frowned.
“Newport to Bermuda is a popular route.” Nathan had told them so, but everywhere she went people were surprised they were going.
“In the summer. People sail in the summer.”
“I never get cold.” Fiona had lied, picked up her multiple bags and walked out of the store with her nose in the air.
A man walked past bundled in hat, gloves, a scarf, and an inviting long wool coat. She sighed, then pushed her wishes away. She had nothing to wish for. Luc was waiting at the boat. They were sailing tomorrow. Tonight Nathan was buying everyone pizza. He was nice and smart, a neurosurgeon who had once operated on the brain of the prince of Yemen, and he said he liked the scrambled eggs she’d cooked that morning. The hired captain, Joren, was from Holland. He had an accent and red hair and a bushy red beard and he was handsome despite the scars covering the right side of his face and the two missing fingers on his right hand. “Don’t worry,” he had said when they met. “Not a sailing accident.” His Dutch accent made the words thick and liquid as if they bubbled from his mouth. “Motorcycle. Boats are much safer.” He had taken her hand and squeezed it with his three remaining digits. She never would have met anybody like Nathan or Joren without Luc. Luc had warned her that the Rhode Island pizza would be terrible, but she didn’t care. She was just grateful she didn’t have to cook—that was her job, the hired cook, but her repertoire was limited and she didn’t want to use it up on the first day.
Back in New York, the night they met Nathan, Luc had bought her pizza for dinner. Less than a week ago, it felt like ages. It had been cold then too—she remembered wrapping her arms across her chest, pulling her sweater closed as Luc danced ahead of her up Seventh Avenue. He pirouetted and leapt. He had come to pick her up from her temp job, sweaty and stinky from dance class.
When he walked into the office, Stan, her boss, looked up with a grimace. “I knew you were here from the smell.”
Luc ran over and lifted an arm, pressing his armpit close to Stan’s face. “The smell of a superstar!” He crowed as Stan pushed him away. “Watch, Io. Watch this.” He did a fast combination on the narrow strip of floor between the two rows of desks, ending dramatically on one knee in front of Stan. Her co-workers applauded.
“Get out of here,” Stan had said with a smile. “Take her with you.”
On the street, Luc sang to her. “Oh Fi-o-na, You make me moan-a. With your long blond hair-a, you’re mighty fair-a. The way you dance-a, makes me cream in my pants-a.” He would not quit dancing. Commuters grinned at him. The guy at the newsstand clapped his hands. Luc was Gene Kelly singing in the wind. She laughed out loud as he ran back to her and lifted her in his arms. He kept singing in his deep, tuneless voice. “Oh Fi-o-na. You make me moan-a. Long blond hair-a, mighty fair-a.” He spun her and when he put her down she was dizzy, out of breath.
“I’m so hungry, I could eat… I could eat… this.” He ran to a lamppost and pretended to gnaw on it. “I could eat this.” He leapt on top of a mailbox and chewed and chomped. “This too.” He jumped up to gobble a street sign, then turned to her. “You!” He nuzzled his warm face into her cold neck and licked and nibbled.
“Class was good, huh?”
“Oh, my Io Io Io. It was amazing. The way I flew across the floor. I think I levitated. Janet said I was magical.” He spun away from her. “Pizza! I’ll pay for it.”
He had a small monthly check from his parents to support his dancing. She had to work. They kept their finances separate, Luc wanted no fussy attachments and she agreed. They were walking past his favorite pizza place, a hole in the wall with three stools at a counter. Fattening, but it sounded great. She tried to stretch and do her sit-ups at night after work, but it was hard sleeping on the couch at Lola’s. The apartment was only one room and an alcove. Lola’s girlfriend, Stephanie, was usually there.
“Hey, it’s Fred Astaire.” The pizza guy greeted them. “And Ginger Rogers.”
Luc did a couple of quick steps and a spin. “Two of your biggest, best slices,” he said. “And a little one for her.” He hugged her. “My little ginger snap.”
Fiona took the slice and sighed. She had large blue eyes, lovely collarbones, and waist-length white blond hair, but she was not very tall and not the typical, lithe dancer. Bottom heavy. She could feel her thighs and ass spreading already, after just four days of entering invoice numbers into ledgers. “You’re killing me,” she said to Luc.
“Death by pizza.”
“I’ll die happy.”
The pizza was delicious. The grease dripped down her wrist and she caught it with her tongue just before it stained her sleeve. She vowed to herself that this one slice was absolutely the only thing she was eating that night. She listened to Luc chatter with the pizza man. All the while his feet tapped and moved, he twisted on the stool. She looked at her graceful, beautiful boyfriend, his eyes bright, his wet tongue continually licking his lips. Was he high? He wasn’t eating; the pizza slices went untouched on his paper plate. His long fingers fiddled with the shaker of cheese, his napkin, the cuffs of his shirt.
“What did you do before class?” she asked.
“Hung out with Billy.”
Then he was definitely high—but not that lazy, loose Luc he became when he did smack. This was an up. Cocaine, she figured, or some kind of amphetamine. He would crash later and she would have to tiptoe around him, ignoring his crabby comments.
“I introduced him to Alison,” Luc said. “He really liked her.”
“I bet.”
Fiona put her slice down. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Billy was in love with Luc. Luc hated labels of any kind, but Billy called himself as queer as a three-dollar bill. He joked that Luc was too—he just hadn’t met the right guy. And Billy was hot in a Ziggy Stardust meets punk rocker kind of way, eye make-up and sparkles on his freckled skin, too skinny, a wispy and feminine dancer’s body more comfortable out of clothes than in. And Alison. She wasn’t a dancer, thank God for that. A few years older, tall and thin with great clothes, Alison knew everything, had lived in the city all her life, and adored Luc. Really adored him. Fiona didn’t like the way she watched him as he spun around her apartment, or bent over a line, or rubbed a finger over his gums. She didn’t like the way Luc appreciated Alison and her steady and ever ready supply of coke, pot, and hallucinogens. Alison. Billy. Luc’s personal groupies.
“Shit!” he said. “What time is it?”
She glanced at the clock. “5:35.”
“We gotta go.” He threw some money on the counter.
“Too much.” The pizza guy began to make change.
“Keep it,” Luc said. “Best pizza of my life.”
He had taken one bite. The guy put the slices in a box and handed it to Fiona. He looked sorry for her. She smiled and shrugged as if nothing was amiss.
Luc was hopping up and down outside. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
“What?”
“The catering company called. We’re on tonight.” They both worked when called as waiters for a high end catering company. The money was good, the hours long.
“I’m tired.”
“Just think,” he said, “our own apartment.” He put his arm around her, slid it down to her ass and squeezed. “Our own bed.”
She leaned into him, turned her face up for a kiss.
With his lips against hers he said, “Io, I love you. You know that, don’t you? I love you you you!”
It hurt how much she loved him back. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
He pulled her down the street toward Lola’s.
“Alison leave you anything for me?” She wasn’t a big fan, but a line would help her get through the evening.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
So instead she would drink coffee, probably snag a couple desserts for the sugar buzz. She felt worse about her sugar addiction than she did about Luc’s growing craving for drugs. At least his infatuation kept him thin. He was even more dramatic with his sunken brown eyes and prominent cheekbones. New York was making her fat. She had struggled with her weight all her life, but now it was as if her legs were thickening like tree roots, reaching down, searching desperately for the earth beneath the concrete. She felt more and more grounded as he took flight.
As they headed uptown they saw cops everywhere and traffic was even more crazy than usual. “What’s happening?” Luc grumbled.
“It’s the Shah,” she said. “They were talking about it at work. The ex-Shah of Iran is here. For an operation or something.”
“They have to close Broadway for him?”
“It’s his ten wives and their camels.”
“Very funny.” He grabbed her hand and made her hurry.
She tripped over a filthy man sleeping across the sidewalk. “Sorry!” she said to him. She wanted to love New York the way Luc did. But it was so dirty. So full of humans walking, rushing, sloughing off their skin, coughing and expectorating, or lying discarded on the sidewalk with the trash. Luc had assured her New York City was the only place for a dancer to be. Dance capitol of the world, he said. He dove right in. The constant current of people and traffic and sights and sounds and hopes and needs were everything he had ever wanted. Fiona clung to the side. The chaos that nourished him overwhelmed her. Too many people. Each one with a story. Who was that man with no shoes? What was wrong with that old woman’s face? Where was that child going alone? Luc was the Silver Surfer slicing through the torrent and she was an old sponge and couldn’t absorb it all.
But that was the night they met Nathan and Luc got fired for fraternizing with the guests and she quit in solidarity and Nathan hired them as crew. And here she was. Newport was so pretty. The shops around the wharf were closed for the winter, but she could tell they were upscale places. The sun was shining and a cold breeze blew in from the sea with a fishy tang. Gulls squawked and swooped in the sky, like wishes soaring upward. Just one, she thought, just one wish. She closed her eyes.
“Please, I wish, I wish no one—especially Luc—ever knows how terrified I am.”
She would act brave. She would become brave. She’d read an article in a women’s magazine about the Secret Door to Success, taken the quiz, and learned that acting flows into being. She could act as if she loved it and she would be a sailor. She would. The smell of diesel, the cramped foam bed, the constant motion and her queasy stomach—it would all be wonderful. It was wonderful. And forever she would have this experience. Forever. That was something, wasn’t it?
I wish. She opened her eyes. I wish it were all over.
The wind whipped through her light jacket—the only one she’d brought. It was blue suede, a hand-me-down from a roommate, and she loved it, but it was too small to button over her striped sweater. Her eyes watered. Her nose was running and she knew it was red. She bent her head to the wind and continued toward the boat—home.
At the top of the dock leading down into the marina, there was a metal security gate tied open with a frayed blue and white rope. Blue and white were so ubiquitous they had to be the official nautical colors, like the white gulls against the blue sky, the blue sea and the white froth of the waves. Too bad the sky was gray and the water in this marina was a dark, army green topped with shiny oil slicks and a plastic bread wrapper.
Three men—none of them Luc—stood on the boat’s deck. Where was he? She hoisted her packages, put her shoulders back but gasped as she almost lost her balance on the swaying dock. It was like trying to walk on the back of a sea serpent. She hated it—she was cold and her hands hurt and Luc wasn’t waiting for her and, truth be told, she hated the boat’s unrelenting rocking too. And the smell, saltwater mixed with diesel fuel and bird shit, and how fragile the boat seemed, temporary, as if a year from now it would be gone, just bits of boards and plastic cushions floating out to sea. Nathan said it was brand new, built by the very best Taiwanese boat builder with the finest teak and materials money could buy. But the linoleum was already peeling off the galley’s little strip of floor and only one burner on the two-burner stove worked and she knew something was wrong with the engine because Nathan and Joren kept arguing about it.
She tottered down the dock, legs wide. The men watched, Joren with his bright hair and Nathan in his dirty sweater. The third man had to be Doug, the new crewmember. She was surprised when he stepped off the boat and came up to help her.
“Are you Doug? Thanks.” He took most of the bags. “I’m Fiona.”
His face was as round as a full moon, with broad cheeks, small brown eyes, and a five o’clock shadow although it was still morning. He had to be at least thirty. He wore a navy blue stocking cap pulled down over his ears and all his clothes looked too large for him: a giant green wool coat circling his body, enormous black gloves, flapping khaki pants that were both too wide and too short. Even his bright white sneakers flopped against the boards as he walked.
“Careful. Everything’s breakable.”
He nodded. She was glad to see he was also unsteady and slow—like her—as they walked down the dock to the boat. It was the newest and nicest boat in the harbor with a bright white hull and a turquoise stripe. She told herself again and again it was the very nicest boat.
Joren gave a little wave and went down into the hold. Nathan waited for them on deck smoking a cigarette. His smoke blew sideways with the wind. Clouds were moving in, turning the sky to dark wool. The temperature had dropped. Rain, Fiona thought, maybe even snow, was coming.
Nathan held up his hand. “Wait. You can’t get on. Remember? You have to ask permission to come aboard. Like that: ‘Permission to come aboard?’ I mean it.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. Nathan and his ridiculous protocols.
Obediently, Doug asked. “Pe…pe….pe…permission to c…come aboard?” His eyes slid to her and away. His cheeks went red, more from embarrassment she realized, than the cold. She’d never met a stutterer before. Why had Nathan asked him to say it?
Nathan grinned at Doug and then raised his eyebrows at Fiona. “Permission granted. To both of you.” He held out his hands for the bags and Fiona noticed his long and dirty fingernails. Not like a doctor’s hands at all. Where was Luc?
She and Doug handed the bags over. Doug gestured for Fiona to hop into the boat first. She hesitated. The distance between moving dock and moving boat was wide. She could see herself falling in between, ending up wet, freezing, most likely crushed against the splintery wood pylons. She had struggled yesterday and today Luc wasn’t here to help. She grimaced and leapt. Too far—she banged her knee against the wheel. It hurt enough for tears.
“Want me to look at it?” Nathan’s face was all concern.
“It’s okay.” She rubbed her knee and forced a smile. She turned to Doug and saw him standing on the dock making the same calculations she had. She held out her hand to him and was surprised he took it—the second time he had surprised her.
“Thanks,” he said.
She smiled. “Too cold this morning for a swim.”
Nathan put his hand on Doug’s shoulder. “Doug was my patient,” he said.
“Ca…cancer.”
“Quite a large tumor. It damaged his left inferior and middle frontal gyrus, plus the head of the candate nucleus. That’s why he stutters. Won’t last. Probably. Not sure. It’ll be interesting to see.”
Fiona watched Nathan’s hand on Doug’s shoulder, the way his fingers prodded and squeezed. There was something in his eyes too when he looked at Doug, like he was looking at a specimen. Nathan yanked off Doug’s cap.
“Hey,” Doug complained.
A red mountainous scar ran up and over Doug’s shaved head from ear to ear, like the strap on a pair of headphones.
“It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Nathan’s eyes shone. “A truly extraordinary job. One for the journals.” He clapped an arm around Doug’s back. “And here he is, crewing on a sailboat.”
Doug grimaced, tried to grin, his moon face even wider, rounder. “Fu…fu…funny thing is, I never st…st…stutter with my Latin.” He nodded toward a flock of seagulls in the sky. “Family Laridae, sub-order Lari.” He pointed to a smaller gull with black tipped wings on a dock post. “Rissa tridactyla.”
“Sounds like a dinosaur,” Fiona said.
“Doug’s an ornithologist,” Nathan said. “Bird expert. Came along to see some special duck that breeds in Bermuda.”
Doug nodded. “In the mangroves. The West Indian Wh… Wh…Whistling Duck. I can’t believe it. D…d…ducks are my specialty, and it’s the la…la…last one on my Life List.” He stood taller and looked at Fiona as he almost shouted, “Dendrocygna aborea.”
She wanted to clap for him. “Cool,” she said. “A Life List.”
Doug stepped closer to her. He reached a gloved hand for her hair, then stopped before touching her. “Your hair is b…b…beautiful. Ducks don’t come that color.”
Nathan looked from Doug to Fiona. “He’s from Arizona. Completely landlocked.”
“I…did C…Cornell for grad school.” Doug looked out toward the horizon. “New York for my surgery. Bu…but I’ve never seen the s…s…ocean before.”
Fiona smiled. She had a comrade, someone else new to boats and ocean life. “Can you swim?” she asked.
“Before the op…operation, like a fish.”
“I’m sure he still can,” Nathan said. “His brain stem was not involved.”
Doug stretched his arms out wide, his hands in the huge knit gloves. The empty fingertips fluttered in the breeze. “It’s so v…vast.”
“Oh God, thy sea is so great and my boat so small.” Nathan threw his cigarette into the water. “Breton Fisherman’s Prayer. My wife is from Brittany.”
Fiona didn’t know where that was, or if it was slang for Great Britain. She would ask Luc about it. Where was he?
“The na…name of the boat,” Doug said. “Is that Breton t…t…also?”
“Yes, it’s her name for me.” Nathan thumped his chest proudly. “Bleiz A Mor, Sea Wolf. Isn’t that perfect? I am the Sea Wolf.”
He looked more bear-like to Fiona, round and lumbering. She was glad Doug had asked about the boat’s name. She had seen it in fancy script across the back—stern—but not wanted to ask in case everybody else knew what it meant.
“Dendrocygna arborea,” Doug said again. “I’m going t… to write about them…for Au…Audubon.” He took off one glove and ran his finger back and forth across his awful scar. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then he saw her watching and put his hand in his pocket. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a… ha… habit.”
“I get it. I used to wiggle a loose tooth incessantly. Drove my mom crazy. You can’t help it.”
He smiled at her then and leaned gently toward her. She saw something in that smile and that lean. But he hadn’t met Luc yet.
The seagulls squawked. “So you’re a bird expert, right?” she asked him. “Why are seagulls so noisy?”
“D…d…demanding. Always hungry. I’ve seen them… pluck a chicken bone right out of a… man’s hand.”
“Isn’t that cannibalism?”
Nathan piped up. “They’re disgusting. Scavengers. Eat anything.”
“Let’s try it,” Fiona said to Doug. “Think they’d take a pretzel out of your hand?” She reached into one of the grocery sacks for a bag of pretzel rods. She ripped it open, handed Doug one, and watched as he broke it into pieces.
“First, let them…kno…know there’s food.”
His stutter was kind of endearing. It proved how badly he had suffered. He threw a piece of pretzel out toward the birds. It fell into the water and one flew down and scooped it up. Instantly, the entire flock was clustering and cawing overhead. He threw another piece up and two gulls vied for it, one of them snatching it out of the beak of the other.
“It’s like telepathy,” she said. “One eats, and they all know there’s food.”
“Bird communication is actually quite complex.” Doug paused before each word. “It seems like… telepathy, but birds communicate on a… high level…not always visible to us.” The more he spoke, the less he stuttered. “Tiny movements of feathers and wings. They can even transmit and receive information simultaneously.”
“Like when you’re talking to one person, but actually listening to another conversation?”
He nodded. “Better th…than we can.”
“I’ll never call anyone a bird brain again—unless he’s a genius.” Fiona broke up another pretzel and threw the pieces into the air. A breeze blew the pieces back toward her and she squealed and ducked as the gulls came at her. Laughing, she turned to Doug and he put his bare hand on her shoulder.
“Where is… your boyfriend?”
She didn’t want to say she didn’t know. She stepped out from under his hand, shrugged, leaned over the railing to look at the rainbow stain of oil floating on the water.
Nathan threw his cigarette into the water. “I sent him on an errand. A long time ago.”
“Where? To do what?” she asked. “Did he take the car?”
Doug took a pretzel rod from the bag. He held it in the air. “Shhhh,” he said to both of them. “Watch.” He waved the pretzel a little. A gull investigated and hovered, checking him out, turning its head this way and that. He whispered, “It will be a sign. If it takes the pretzel out of my hand, then we will have a wonderful trip.”
“Scientists don’t look for signs,” Nathan said.
The bird swooped down, plucked the pretzel from between Doug’s fingers, and careened away.
“Oh!” Fiona said. “Wow.”
“Yes.” Doug appeared to swell, his face grew even broader, and at the same time he exhaled and relaxed. His eyes were shining and she couldn’t help but smile back at his smile. “Yes,” he said again. “This is going to be a very good voyage.”
The gull soared, the pretzel in its beak longer than its body. Fiona cheered.
Nathan looked at her. “Put all this stuff away.” He gestured to the bags and boxes. “Stop feeding the rats. Then we’ll go find your boyfriend.”