The waitress returned with drinks, took their order, and left.
Now that she and Harrison were alone, Amy would have liked nothing better than to check in with how he felt about everything. Or would feel, had the Bossy Posse not shown up when it had. And then she’d topped off her spectacularly invasive family by vomiting.
Maybe it was best she not say anything at all.
“Hey,” he said. “Was I imagining things today? Or are you painting the Posse in the pool?”
She laughed self-consciously. It had seemed such a bizarre scene this morning that she couldn’t resist. So far she’d painted the four elderly ladies in their float rings from the perspective of a bird, their faces obscured by the red hats. She’d even painted mounds of snow on the deck and put a Christmas tree in the corner, which she planned to decorate with parrots and turtledoves. “It’s just an idea.”
He grinned. “I love it. So the painting is going well, I take it?”
She looked at him with surprise. “It has not been great, actually.”
“Really?” He frowned. Then he suddenly planted his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Is it me? Tell me, because I will—”
“It’s not you,” she said quickly. “It’s one hundred percent me. And that is not a cliché. The thing is, I don’t know what I am doing. I mean, Iknow how to paint…But I can’t figure out my point of view. I can’t decide if I want to lean into overt commercialism or paint to the beat of my own drummer.”
“Oh.” He leaned back. “That sounds like it requires a lot of thought.”
“Yeah. I’m just…” She didn’t know how to explain that she couldn’t find her artistic point of view on a deadline. “It’s complicated. I want whatever I paint to be authentic, you know?”
“Sure.”
“But I’m not sure what would do well at a contest is super authentic to me.” This was not something she could explain, even to herself. “What about you? Any progress?”
“Some. My knee is better. I have to hand it to Hillary.”
“She’s good, huh?”
He nodded. “She is.”
Amy tried not to picture Hillary on the lake taxi. She probably would have been having the time of her life. She might have even jumped in the water to help fix the engine or whatever it was that happened. She seemed that sort of competent, capable woman. And she didn’t seem the type of woman to get sick. Ever.
“But the rest of it?” Harrison continued. “I don’t know. I haven’t made much progress in my thinking. In fact, I haven’t made any progress.”
“What do you mean? You can’t decide which tournament to play next?”
He chuckled. “No. I can’t decide if I want to keep playing tournaments or retire or…what.”
“Would you really retire?” she asked. “Everyone wants to retire when they are working. But you wouldn’t really retire, would you?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I’m trying to figure some things out. I feel like…like golf isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Amy blinked, surprised by his admission. “What?”
“I know,” he said with a rueful smile. “I guess you could say I’m at acrossroads. Continue doing what I’ve been doing all my life? Or forge a new path?”
“Wow. I’m having the same thoughts. Like, what am I doing here?” Amy said. “Why is life so hard at this stage?”
“Because we know too much?” Harrison pondered. “Decisions have more consequences?”
“Yes,” she said. “But then again, sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything at all. Maybe it’s that I get too fearful. Like, I know how wrong things can go. I catastrophize. I’ve lost that optimism I had thirty years ago. I always thought I knew what I wanted, and that if I wanted it, I would have it. But nothing turned out the way I expected it would. I think it’s made me fearful of trying again.”
“What didn’t turn out?” he asked curiously.
“Life in general,” Amy said. “The twenty-something me thought I’d be married forever, and I’m not. I thought I’d be an artist, but I’m an HR director. I thought I would have a more global lifestyle,” she added, and laughed at her own naivete. “But I never even left the area. I live with two teen boys and a brother who is trying to find himself. I go to work, I come home, I avoid Mr. Carlisle next door who is always complaining about the state of my yard—which does need to be raked, by the way. My me time is mostly spent at the grocery store and I still haven’t gotten the stairs on the back deck fixed. All that to say, I am not who I thought I was going to be.”
“Who is?” Harrison asked with a shrug.
