“Save meeeee,” Kimmy amends.
Cleo pats the sliver of space between them, and I flop into it like they’re my parents and it’s Christmas morning.
I mean, not my parents. I had one of those upbringings where my parents’ bedroom was treated like an FBI safe house: don’t go in it, don’t look at it, don’t even speak of it. Probably because it was the only room in the house that was allowed to accumulate mess (if clean laundry in the process of being folded can be considered mess), and I’m pretty sure if given only the two options, Mom would rather join the witness protection program than let anyone see our laundry.
Wyn’s family was different. When he and Lou and Michael were small, the Connors had a rule that they couldn’t start Christmas morning before the sun was up. So Wyn and his sisters would sit in front of the tinseled tree waiting until the minute the sun rose, then run into Gloria and Hank’s room and pile onto their bed, shrieking until they got up.
Thinking about Gloria and Hank always gives me a homesick ache, or something like it. I used to feel that pang a lot as a kid, which never made sense, because I mostly felt it at home.
“I’m hiring a hit man to take out Sabrina for buying that last round of Fireball last night,” Kimmy says, flinging her forearm over her face. “Feel free to Venmo me your contribution.”
“I was starting to doubt you were capable of being hungover,” I say.
“It’s all the half drinks,” Cleo says. “She tries to drink less that way, and then loses track.”
“I didn’t lose track. I smeared.” She holds her arm out to reveal a row of lipstick tallies that run together.
“Ah,” Cleo says, fighting a smile. “My mistake.”
“I need nine more hours of sleep,” Kimmy grumbles.
“Aren’t you two hippie farmers used to getting up way earlier than . . .” I lean over Cleo to see the clock on her bedside table. It’s unplugged and on the ground a yard away, as if ripped from the wall and thrown there. “Whatever time it is.”
“And do you know what time we usually go to bed on those nights before our early mornings?” Cleo says. “Nine. And I’m not saying we get into bed at nine. I’m saying we’re fully unconscious by then. Deep REM sleep.”
“I didn’t notice REM anywhere on this week’s schedule,” I say.
“Oh my god.” Kimmy lurches upright so fast I expect her to vomit over the side of the bed. Instead, she turns an expression of horror on us. “Did I . . . do the worm on a table last night?”
Cleo and I both burst into laughter.
“No,” I say. “You did not.”
“But you certainly thought you did,” Cleo adds.
Kimmy gasps in mock offense. Cleo sits up and leans over me to kiss her. “Babe, I love you too much to ever lie to you,” she says. “You could not do the worm if my life depended on it. Some of your other moves weren’t too shabby, though.”
“HEY,” Sabrina screams from downstairs. “GET. YOUR. BODIES. DOWN. HERE. OR. ELSE.”
“Hit man,” Kimmy grumbles.
Cleo pops up onto her feet, balanced in a wide second position on either side of the bed frame. “Babe, who am I?” She presses her hands to her knees and gyrates nonsensically.
“Okay, if I looked that good,” Kimmy says, “I feel a lot better.”
From somewhere beneath us—perhaps deep in the bowels of the earth—an air horn blasts.
* * *
? ? ?
NORMALLY WHEN WE eat at Bernadette’s, we take advantage of the outdoor patio, with its gorgeous view of the harbor and its wide variety of rude, fry-stealing seabirds, even if the temperature requires us to be bundled in fleeces.
But by the time we get downtown to the red-shingled greasy spoon, the storm has blown back in. In the span of our run from the car to the front doors, we get soaked. We score a table at the back, where the windows look out on the faded gray patio, the striped umbrellas shut tight and wobbling in the wind, lightning streaking down to touch the waves in the distance.
Bernie’s is packed with summer visitors like us, here for the Lobster Festival’s grand opening tonight, and the locals having their morning cups of coffee and reading the Knott’s Harbor Register while tolerating the people “from away,” as they call us.
At the counter, I spot my seatmate from the flight over and wave. He harrumphs and looks back to his newspaper.
“Friend of yours?” Wyn murmurs against my ear as everyone’s peeling off their drenched outermost layers. His cool breath against my damp skin makes me shiver.
I drop into my chair and look up at him. “That would depend on which of us you asked.”
“What,” Wyn says, “has he been bugging you to define the relationship?”
“Other way around,” I say. “I’m head over heels, but he’s married to the sea.”
“Ah, well, it happens,” Wyn says.
The eye contact goes on a fraction of a second too long, then Wyn’s phone buzzes, and his brow furrows as he checks it. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he announces and slides away. I watch him back by the host stand, phone to his ear, his face brightening on a laugh.
The expression makes my heart feel like it’s blooming and then withering just as fast. It always surprised me, how quickly the ratio of his face could change. In a second, he can go from that broody, tender look to almost boyish delight. Every time his expression changed, I used to think the new one was my favorite. Until it changed again and I had to accept that whichever Wyn was directly in front of me, that was the one I loved most.
The server comes up to take our order, bringing with her a wave of maple syrup, coffee, and pine—Bernie’s signature scent. If I could walk around smelling like this restaurant for all time, I would.
I would also have to start wearing a fanny pack stuffed with blueberry pancakes, though, and that could make things awkward at the hospital. People get all up in arms if their surgeon has a partially zipped knapsack of food strung around their waist.
Sabrina puts in our usual drink order. Coffee for everyone but Cleo, who gets a decaf, plus a cup of ice to mellow out Bernie’s famously (dangerously) hot and strong brew. “We should go ahead and order food too,” Parth says, and when the server gets to me, I order my pancakes along with Wyn’s usual, the egg white omelet with sriracha.
“Gloria?” I ask when he gets back to the table and wriggles out of his canvas jacket.
He looks vaguely surprised, like he’d forgotten I was even here. “Ah, no,” he recovers, avoiding my gaze. “Work thing.”
Wyn’s not a liar, but the way he said it feels distinctly like a dodge.
Cleo pushes back from her vegan hash, groaning as she massages her stomach. “I’m having some kind of Pavlovian response to this place. Three bites into this meal, and I feel the ghost of all my past hangovers.”
Parth says, “I feel it too.”
“Yeah, but you, Kimmy, and I also drank shots of something that was on fire last night,” Sabrina reminds him. “Don’t think blaming Bernie is appropriate here.”