She laughs. “What?”
“Peeling it.”
“I’m more like an onion than a banana.”
“Youwantto be an onion. But you’re really a simple banana. A fascinating, simple banana.”
“This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.”
“You’re welcome.”
She laughs again—rich and full and not holding back—and yeah.
Thisishow I want to spend my day.
“Hannah thinks my garden is ridiculous,” I hear myself say.
“What? Your garden isawesome.”
“And that’s why I want to spend today with you.”
The confession hangs in the air. I know she’s studying my profile, puzzling me out.
“Does no one here tell you you’re handsome and kind and funny and a serious joy to be around?” she asks quietly.
I want to duck my head, but I don’t. It’s habit to own the hard stuff after this many years of working on it. “Sometimes I think they tell me that to reinforce good behavior. You ... you don’t have any preconceived notions. You don’t have to humor me. You don’t have any reason to build me up. You don’t have to be nice to me. And you don’t make me feel like I’m a project, even though I know that’s what this started as. You’re just doing the best you can, same as all of us, except you have a lot bigger expectations sitting on your shoulders. If I’d been a shit and alsoyouin high school, there’s a reasonable possibility I wouldn’t even be here today.”
“In Wisconsin?”
“Alive.”
I sip my coffee to cover my own wince. That doesn’t sound any better out loud than it did in my head.
She drops her foot and slowly approaches me at the edge of the path. “Why do you say that?”
I wiggle the coffee tumbler again.
She doesn’t take it.
Clearly, the lady wants an answer before a coffee date. “All the money to indulge in fast cars, drugs, alcohol, women, which is exactly what I dabbled in in high school ... and no support system to temper that? It wouldn’t have been on purpose, but I would’ve self-destructed.”
“Do you know what three years of hiding in Costa Rica at every opportunity with people who don’t know the public me has taught me?” she asks quietly.
“That life’s better when it’s simple?”
“Yes, that too. But until my grandmother issued her ultimatum, it taught me that I get to forgive myself for who I used to be.”
I glance at the lake, which is starting to glow a soft gray pink. “Takes work.”
“Every day.” She nudges me. “But you do the work. Youclearlydo the work. Give yourself credit. And when you slip, call me. I’ll remind you that you deserve every good thing that happens to you, even when you feel like you don’t.”
“You deserve good things too.”
It’s light enough to see her nose wrinkle.
“You do,” I repeat.
“I’m not my best me here.”
