A real Montauk fishing boat—not the kind rented out for bachelor parties and beer, but a fishing vessel—was not exactly meant for a comfortable cruise around the harbor. Ethan and Thomas’s offshore boat—forty-eight feet long, two-sleeper cabin—was no exception. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t luxurious, either. The deck was wiped down from the morning haul, but it still felt slimy and sticky. And there was a distinct odor in the air that, in comparison, made Ethan smell like fresh chocolate cookies.
Still, as soon as we left shore, I felt better, the ocean breeze helping my nausea, helping to empty my head. Ethan and I sat at the helm, Sammy at our feet, lifejacket tightly on, watching the ocean swirl, mesmerized.
Just kidding. She was reading in the sleeper cabin. She could have still been at the house.
Ethan folded his hands over his mouth, tried to warm them.
“I ended up having a lengthy conversation with my friend’s husband earlier,” he said. “He was trying to relate to me, I guess, and said all these people who say there are two Montauks, one for the summer people, one for winter people, they don’t get it. He said it’s about the people who fish here and the people who don’t.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
“Henry doesn’t fish here. He takes a fancy charter out with his corporate buddies and pays someone to take a photo of him with a marlin. That’s not fishing. That’s a photo op. With a marlin.”
“Okay.”
“Do you not see the irony? Sammy, by herself, could reach into the ocean and catch a marlin.” He shook his head. “This guy pisses me off.”
“The man whose wife you’re sleeping with pisses you off? That’s who you’re talking about, right?”
“He thinks he fishes here. He thinks he can say something that stupid. If he really fished here, he would never say something that stupid.” He paused. “He might just think it.”
I took a deep breath in, the shoreline moving farther away. “Why are you still talking?”
“Hey! You wanted to come out on the water today. Hell, I don’t know why I agreed to it,” he said.
“Because you have a soft spot for Sammy,” I said.
He smiled. “I guess so,” he said.
He looked out at the water, navigated us farther north.
“So how’s the job going? I’m impressed you’ve lasted this long.”
“I haven’t.”
“What happened?”
“Spilled a plate of peaches on someone.” I paused. “Dropped. I should say that I dropped the peaches on purpose.”
He laughed, a little impressed. “Did she deserve it?”
“Don’t think that’s the question Chef Z is going to be interested in. I ran out of there too fast to find out.”
Ethan killed the engine. “Well, I’m interested.”
“It was Amber Rucci, the woman who hacked me. She took my cookbook deals and my Food Network show. She can’t even cook.”
“Either.”
I looked at him, confused.
“I’m just saying, you should probably say, She can’t cook either.”
“She makes toast, Ethan.”
“I like toast.” He shrugged. “But I’m not much of a recipe guy. I like to wing it. Put the toast in the toaster oven. Turn it on high. See what happens.”
I laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. She was just sitting in the restaurant, and I snapped.”
He pulled a joint from his pocket. “Sounds like she deserved it.”
It should have made me feel better, Ethan justifying my feelings about Amber. But it didn’t. I thought of Amber destroying my life to better her own. I’d been angry before, but thinking of the kid I was carrying, I was more than angry. I was heartbroken.
Ethan lit up the joint, and I gave him a look. “What? It’s legal.”
“I’m not sure it is while operating a boat.”
“So, it’s a good thing we are sitting still.”
Then he handed me the joint.
I shook my head.
“Not interested?”
“Pregnant.”
“Wow.” He pulled the joint back, the smoke blowing away from us. “That’s a buzzkill. Literally.”
He stared down at the joint, and I watched him taking the pregnancy in.
“Does the husband know yet?”
I flinched. The husband. The ex-husband. How was I going to tell him now? How was I going to tell him anything ever again? I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “He’s too busy showering with his new girlfriend.”
He took another drag. “Wow.”
Then he focused on the joint, neither of us talking.
“Have I told you I have three kids?”
I looked at him, shocked. “What?”
He nodded. “All different mothers.”
“That’s some sperm.”
He smiled. “The first one, I don’t know. I couldn’t handle it. I was eighteen, I behaved terribly. I spend most of my time making it up to the other two,” he said. “It’s not the same thing. My daughter, she’s my first, deserves to have a better father than I’ve been.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, it isn’t exactly working.”
“Make you feel better? I’m trying to make me feel better.”
“You were eighteen when you screwed up.”
“True,” he said. “And it’s not like I lied about everything in my life.”
“All right, enough.”
“Sent my husband into the arms of another woman. Threw away my job on a plate of peaches.”
“Please stop talking.”
“Pretty honest move, tossing the peaches like that,” he said. “No regard for the consequences.”
I looked at him, trying to read if he was still making fun.
He put the joint out. “I’m serious. When was the last time you did anything like that?”
“Crazy?”
“Honest. Without thinking about how it would appear to your many fans,” he said. “Just allowing yourself to have a moment that wasn’t curated.”
That stopped me. Curated. It was a perfect word for what was required of me in order to present A Little Sunshine to the world, in order to present myself to the world. Everything I’d done—for so long—had required it: sifting through photographs, sifting through perfect phrases, to capture the moment I was supposed to be having. Sleeker, more interesting, more photo-ready.
Danny had been the first casualty of that removal from reality. Every night out—even a night at home—there was the untaken shot of what was actually happening (bad pizza while I worked late), and then there was the “impromptu” Instagram photo of the night, which actually meant taking dozens of selfies until the camera had me at the right angle, “enjoying” the scrumptious pizza, and binge-watching the hottest show. #homemadepies #squeezingintohubby #Waltforpresident What was the consequence of that? Of suggesting to both of us that the way it actually was hadn’t been enough?
Ethan turned the ignition on. “Maybe the point is that you’re done lying now.”
“I have nothing left to lie about,” I said.
He turned the wheel, his boat kicking forward. “I’d take a compliment where you can get it.”
35
When we arrived back at the house, Rain was pacing on the porch. Furious. It took me a second to notice it, which it shouldn’t have. Furious was pretty much the usual way she greeted me.