“I don’t get minimalism,” Nina had said. “I’m a maximalist.” She’d lifted up her drink. “I’ll have one of everything, please. No! Two!” But she’d toasted to the list anyway.
Sitting at that same bar now, I realized Nina had been right. My breakup with Shitty Peter was laughable, but not for the reasons I’d hoped. Life had reminded me that there were worse heartbreaks.
An hour after we arrived at Mitch’s, RJ and the deckhands left for another bar, and Britt pushed away her empty glass with a sigh. “It’s been fun, but I’ve got an early flight tomorrow,” she said.
I stood to hug her. “Stay out of trouble.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Nina said. “Cause as much trouble as you can. You better bring good stories back next year.”
Britt waved one last goodbye as she and the rest of the seasonal crew dragged their suitcases out the door, leaving me, Ollie, and Nina behind. Though Nina had told Britt to bring back stories, there was no guarantee we’d ever see her again. Charter season was a lot like being a camp counselor. The bonds you made with your coworkers were strong (positive or negative), and someone who’d been your closest friend one season could disappear from your life the next.
Once it was just the three of us again, Nina leaned her head on my shoulder. No matter what emotion I tried to hide, she homed in on it like a heart-to-heart-seeking missile.
“Sam would want you to have fun,” she said.
“How would you know?”
Nina lifted her head and looked me straight on. “I loved him, too, remember?”
It was true. One of Mia, Kitty, and Samson’s favorite South Florida attractions was Nina, who had the best ghost stories and bought strange vintage board games she found at thrift stores.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“I know it’s tough coming home after everything that’s happened, but he wouldn’t want you to be miserable.”
I looked down into the watery dregs of my margarita, watching the ice at the bottom of my glass shift as it melted. Nina was right, of course. Last year I’d gone up to North Carolina for Thanksgiving, and Samson, who was an early riser like me, sat beside me on the couch as he devoured a Pop-Tart and watched cartoons while I edited a post for the blog. To my embarrassment, he’d noticed what I was working on and forced me to tell him all about the list.
“You have to finish all this by our birthday?” he’d said, his hands fidgeting in his lap like they always did. He’d been a boy in constant motion.
Samson had been born on my eighteenth birthday, back when I was still living with my sister. When I’d held him that first time, I knew we were made of the same stuff, that whatever we had would be special. Samson was the one who’d helped me with item number seven—start a garden. He’d been an enthusiastic member of his school’s gardening club and a total plant nerd. He’d wanted to be both a botanist and a pro baseball player. He’d loved trees and plants and flowers, and didn’t care that his sisters teased him about it. Whenever someone called his love of flowers girlie, he’d glare at them before continuing to inspect pistils and stamens. After he discovered my blog, we had spent the next hour ordering seeds for my garden: delicate hydrangeas, gaillardias the color of a sunset, waxy peperomias.
“And sword lilies,” he’d said.
“Right, those.”
“They’re our birth month flower,” Samson explained. “Gladiolus is the real name.”
I’d typed it in, and a burst of color flooded my screen. They were beautiful, with funnel-shaped flowers that climbed vertically up stems, the leaves long and swordlike.
“Roman gladiators wore them around their necks to protect them from death when they fought.”
“Sounds pretty badass,” I’d replied, ruffling his hair until he groaned and scooted away from me.
The thought of seeing those plants again was like a black dart to my chest. How would I not think of him every time I saw them? How was I supposed to carry on watering and pruning them? And yet, not caring for them would be impossible.
I put my chin in my hands and looked at Nina. “Fine. But if you’re forcing me to have fun, I need another drink.”
“You got it, babe.” She waved the bartender over and ordered two more margaritas.
Once our drinks arrived, Ollie captured Nina’s attention again, and I looked around at the other patrons. Beside me sat a dark-haired man. His back was to me as he spoke to a blond woman on his other side. The woman’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead, and I strained to hear their conversation. Whatever he’d said, the woman wasn’t happy about it. She stood, swiped her purse from the bar, and left.
The man turned, watching her go with a weary expression. He caught my eye, and I couldn’t help but notice he was handsome, with honey-colored eyes and tousled brown hair that was graying at the temples. He smiled at me, and I smiled back before turning away, ignoring how my heart fluttered like a sail in the wind. Not that I knew anything about sails, working on a motor yacht and all.
I sipped my drink, fighting the urge to sneak another glance at the man beside me. The margarita had me buzzy and warm. The ever-present knot in my stomach loosened, my shoulders relaxed, and I eased into the feeling. Everything around me seemed to glow as I listened to the murmur of voices in the bar without taking in their meaning.
At a hand on my shoulder I looked up, my heart skipping a beat, but it was only Ollie. With one hand on me, and the other on Nina, he leaned drunkenly between us.
“I’m off to the jacks. Save my seat?”
