“They are a bit mad,” he admitted, giving his demonic circus a sidelong glance. “What was I going through back then?”
“Me,” she said, then laughed. Piper took a step forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Good to see you.”
“You too. You look lovely.”
“You’re not so bad yourself. Cleaned up, I see. No more hipster beard.” She patted his cheek. His breakup misery beard was long gone. He’d even dressed up, which for him meant a clean pair of jeans, a T-shirt with no holes in it, and a tailored black blazer. And he’d cut his hair and started running again, so he looked like a human being, which was quite a step up from how he used to look, like self-loathing brought to life.
“The beard had to go,” Hugo said. “I found a spider in it one day.”
“The glasses are new, aren’t they? Very chic. Bifocals?”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
Smiling, she took his glasses off and put them on herself. The black frames looked much better on her than him, in his opinion.
“If Monet had these,” she said, looking at herself in her phone camera, “we never would have had impressionism.” She slipped the glasses off and returned them to him.
“Bad eyesight has made the career of many a painter. Myself included.” He slipped his glasses back on, and Piper came beautifully into focus again. “Tell us, how’s Bob the Knob?”
“Rob. Not Bob. Not a knob. My husband. And he’s wonderful.”
“Still pet sitting?”
“He’s a veterinary surgeon, as you know, and yes, he is. How’s Jack? Any better? Or should I not ask?”
He hesitated before answering. “Possibly? I hear the typewriter sometimes at night. Loud enough to wake the dead. And he’s cut back on his drinking.”
“Does that mean you’re moving out? Finally?”
“Apparently so.”
She gave him a look that seemed to say, I’ll believe it when I see it. But she was nice enough to keep that comment to herself.
“Is that why you’re here?” Her tone was lightly amused but suspicious. Any woman would be when her ex-lover showed up at her workplace. “Moving to the Village?”
“Considering it. You'd have to hate yourself to pay these rents around here, so I should fit right in.”
“Oh, Hugo. I swear, the more successful you are, the more miserable you are.” She was annoyed with him now. He’d missed annoying her.
“No, no.” He waved his finger at her. “The more miserable I am, the more successful I am. Got to suffer for the art, yeah? Why do you think I did my best work after you chucked me out on my arse?”
Piper gave him a wave goodbye and turned on her heel. “Not listening to this anymore.”
She started to walk away, and Hugo jogged a few steps to catch up with her.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I would have chucked me out too.”
“Nobody chucked you out. You chose to continue hiding on that island with Jack over moving back to the real world and starting a life with me.”
“The real world’s overpriced. And you can’t deny I did some damn good work after you left.” This was true. After Piper broke up with him, he started painting Clock Island landscapes—the herd of piebald deer, the moon reflecting off the ocean, the lighthouse, the abandoned park…all in shades of watercolor gray, the colors of heartbreak. Those abstract landscapes attracted the attention of the wider art world for the first time in his life. People over the age of eighteen finally knew his name. So why was he hoping against hope that Jack was writing again? Did he really miss painting pirate ships and castles and kids climbing a secret staircase to the moon?
Maybe a little.
“I have two things to tell you. Number one—you’re full of shit—and number two—”
“Full of shit should be number two if you think about it.” He tapped his temple.
She ignored that. “And number two—tell yourself whatever you want, but I know this—I was a fabulous girlfriend, and you really wanted to marry me.”
“Not arguing with any of that.”
“And you still picked that island and Jack over me. Don’t pretend you hate it there. You love it there. You love it and you love Jack, and you don’t want to leave.”
Hugo wasn’t buying it. “You know how hard it is to find a date on a private island, population two men, twenty deer, and a raven who thinks he’s a writer?”
“If you want my advice—”
He glanced around as if looking for help. None to be found. “Not sure I do.”
Piper poked him in the chest. “Find a woman who loves Jack as much as you do.”
“All right…you see the problem with that?” He wasn’t smiling now. Neither was she.
Here was the problem—not that Hugo would admit it out loud—but nobody loved Jack as much as he did.
“Fact is, Pipes—” She hated when he called her Pipes as much as he hated it when she said Hugo was short for Huge Ego. “—I do love it on that bloody little island.”
The forest, the fen, the harbor seals sunning themselves on the shore outside his cottage, the cries of gulls in the morning. Gulls in the morning? In London, growing up, he’d wake up to the sound of the couple in the flat below fighting World War III. And now…seals and gulls and ocean air and sunrises even God woke up early to watch.
“Knew it,” she said.
“I hate that I love it, but I don’t…I don’t deserve to be there.”
“Why not?”
“Because Davey would have sold his perfect golden soul to have taken one step onto Clock Island, and my useless worthless hide lives there rent-free.”
Piper shook her head. “Hugo, Hugo, Hugo.”
“Pipes, Pipes, Pipes.”
“A first-year psychology student could diagnose you with survivor’s guilt from a mile away.”
Hugo raised his hand as if to bat her words away. “No. Not—”
“Yes.” She poked his chest again. “Yes.”
A family of four in matching “I ? New York” T-shirts strolled through the gallery. Piper smiled politely at them. Hugo tried to smile. Quickly they moved on to another gallery.
“It’s not survivor’s guilt,” he said when they were gone. Piper raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “I don’t feel guilty about being alive. Being alive is…well, not my first choice, but because I’m here, might as well stick around. What I have is thriver’s guilt. It’s not just that I’m alive. I’m alive and…God, look at my life—my career, my house, my…everything. Every day I wake up and ask myself, Why am I here on this island and Davey’s in the ground? Why did everything good happen to me and everything crap happen to him? Thank God you dumped me so I don’t hate myself more than I already do.”
“Hugo—”
“No, the end.” He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “No more armchair diagnosing the mental illnesses of modern artists. I know it’s your favorite sport, but I don’t want to play anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
“Davey isn’t a nerve. Davey is my entire nervous system.”
“You can be angry at me if you want but believe it or not, I actually want you to be happy.”