Sam laughed. “That’s it? The World According to Drishti?”
“That’s it,” said Drishti. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“I’d never say that,” said Sam.
Her phone started vibrating then, pushing itself around on theweathered boards. “Oh Jesus please us,” Drishti groaned, “that’s gotta be Mr. Dicktastic. Just go ahead. Answer it.”
Sam smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “One sec.”
She flipped her phone over. But it wasn’t William. It was a photo of herself and Drishti, sitting on the dock drinking their beer. Drishti in her scrubs. Sam in her red T-shirt. And a text from a blocked number:
YOUR NURSE FRIEND IS RIGHT, SIMONE. YOU’RE SUPER-D*CKMATIZED. STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM WILLIAM CORWYN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
The Rabbit
Well, that was satisfying. It was worth years of my life to watch Sam Vetiver jump up like her @$$ was on fire and swivel her head in all directions, trying to figure out who’d sent those texts. She looked like the girl fromThe Exorcist. I laughed so hard I had to bite my arm so she wouldn’t hear me. I almost fell out of my cocoon.
She’s gone now, though. She and her pretty, foul-mouthed nurse pal hightailed it out of here shortly after Sam Vetiver got my texts, and as they passed me I heard the friend say something like “cops FFS.” Fine. Great. Let them go to the police. A message from a blocked number, showing a photo of two women. A text with a strongly worded suggestion but no threat of physical harm. A communication from nobody. That’ll get them far. Meanwhile, Sam Vetiver will be out of her apartment for the next few hours—nonemergency law enforcement protocol rarely moves quickly—so I can go ahead with Step 2 of my evening’s plan. Meanwhile, I lie here and giggle until I cry and my cocoon shakes.
Except it’s not my cocoon. I feel somebody push me gently through the slippery thin fabric, and when I sit up, they are back: the two kids I rented this hammock from, giving them a ten-dollar bill an hour ago. Looking at me curiously. Young urban dwellers about the same age as the baby publicist who gave me Sam Vetiver’s number, who I found on Sam Vetiver’s publishing house website, the most junior person at Hercules, and called.Hi, I said,I’m Cathy Auerbach from theBoston Sun, and I’m doing a Round-Up of the Summer’s Hottest Authors, can I get Sam Vetiver’s contact information,please?, and she saidHold on, her publicist’s at lunch but let me put you through to her voicemail, and I said what a shame because I had to file my story in an hour, I was on a hard deadline, and I’d hate to leave Sam Vetiver out, was she sure she couldn’t just give me the phone number? I felt a little bad about it, manipulating youth, but really somebody should have trained her better.Thanks, I said once I had the number,you’ve really helped me out. Which was true.
These young people are peers of that baby publicist and also so alike they’re interchangeable, students maybe, boy or girl or in between, I can’t tell. They remind me in the nicest way of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr.Seuss’sThe Cat in the Hat: They both have nice round faces with scatterings of acne they haven’t grown out of yet, multiple piercings, identical choppy haircuts except one is dyed purple and one bright blue. They’re wearing tiny shorts and shirts that expose lots of flesh in a way I never could have done as a kid, even if I’d wanted to. My mother would have locked me in the closet. For starters.
“Hi,” they say, and the purple-haired one says, “We’d like our hammock back now please. We let you have an extra half hour actually.”
“Sure,” I say, and collect myself to roll out. Of course, since I’m not used to cocoons, I fall and land awkwardly on the ground, my whole left side now covered in goose poop. I wait for the sweet young Things to laugh, but instead they help me up, one on either side.
“You okay?” says the blue-haired Thing.
“Oh, yeah,” I say, brushing at my butt. “Plenty of padding.”
I wait for them to laugh at me. They smile uncertainly and exchange a look.
“Well, thanks again for letting me use your hammock,” I say. “I loved it. It was so peaceful. Like being in a cocoon.” As I’m walking away, I turn back. “Say,” I add, as if the idea has just occurred to me, “you wouldn’t want tosellit to me, would you? Because I love that cocoon.” It enabled me to get so close to Sam Vetiver and yet stay hidden, observing in plain sight, and that could come in handy. Plus although it wouldn’t be safe at rest stops, it would be much cheaper than motels and more comfortable than my frontseat on rural overnight surveillance trips, for instance if William and Sam Vetiver went to a beach or mountain resort.
If Sam Vetiver hasn’t wised up by then and moved the f*ck on.
The sweet young Things look at each other again. “You know, you can just order a hammock,” the purple-haired one says. “Online.”
“Yeah, they’re like ten bucks,” says the blue-haired one.
“Oh, really?” I say. “Thanks. That’s good to know. I’ll definitely invest in one. Well, have a nice evening now.”
“You too,” they say.
I feel them watching me as I walk away, and when I turn back, I expect them to be snickering. Instead, they both just wave. I do too.
As I head through the golden evening past people who are walking with their dogs and baby carriages and running and biking and throwing Frisbees and sitting with picnics and books, the first thing I do is open my burner phone and text a reminder to my regular phone to order a cocoon. In fact several of them, for my bookstore. We should carry them. Our customers will love reading in them. We could even offer a summer bundle.
The second thing I do is throw the burner phone in one of the lagoons. I feel bad about it, the nondegradable plastic lying at the bottom of this Boston waterway with broken bottles and condoms until the end of time. But there’s sure as hell no way I’m going to let anyone find it, and this is the safest place. “Goodbye forever,” I say as the phone arcs through the air, and a guy zipping past on a bike says, “You tell him, sister!” and dings his bell.
People are so nice here. As I leave the Esplanade for my car, which is parked at a very expensive meter, so I can get the gloves and tape I need for the next step of my plan, I think, Why? Is it that people have enough money and time in this city that they don’t have to be constantly worried, that they can ride bikes or swing in hammocks? What if I’d been born here instead of Aegina, in the more accepting era of the sweet young Things? What if instead of my mother, I’d known people who were happy and kind? What if I’d been able to be a different person, and who would I be?
But that’s the thing about the writer’s favorite game, which I learned inmy program with William: You can only play What If forward, not backward. In reverse, it’s called regret.
And it’s all pretend anyway.
I am who I am, and I know what I know. I’m on track now. There’s no going back. I’m a little sad as I say goodbye to the pretty green waterfront park where people are so pleasant, goose poop notwithstanding. Sam Vetiver’s apartment is only a few blocks away, according to the address I memorized. I didn’t even need to ask the baby publicist for it, although she probably would have given it to me. It’s amazing, the things you can learn at the Registry of Deeds.
