“Sorry. I didn’t mean to…Sometimes I talk without thinking.”
“It’s okay,” Cece assures Morgan because it is. She doesn’t mind how the scars look; she just doesn’t like being reminded of that life.
Morgan is standing and hiking up his trunks to reveal a gruesome burn scar on his thigh, the skin—pink and yellow—cratered and pocked. It takes all of Cece’s self-control not to gasp. From above, Morgan only grins. “Now we’re even.”
The logic isn’t entirely flawless, but Cece has to admit she feels better. Imperfect and damaged, the both of them. “How’d you get that?”
Morgan licks egg salad from his thumb. “Iraq. Basra, to be more specific. Humvee we were riding in got hit. We did okay, though. Everyone walked away.”
Cece still remembers the night the country went to war: missile strikes on television, the night vision footage grainy and green, sporadic explosions turning the screen a sickly yellow. Thechyron scrolling in patriotic reds, whites, and blues: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Everyone knew there weren’t weapons of mass destruction, and yet, somehow, the country had still gone to war. She’d participated in a high-school-wide protest.
Cece’s never met anyone who’s served in the military. Should she thank him for his service? For protecting her freedoms? She remembers when everyone in her town tied yellow ribbons around trees to support the troops.
“But enough of that,” Morgan says, seeming to sense a shift in the mood. “Now that we’ve both revealed our deformities, we can enjoy each other’s company.”
Cece snorts with laughter, sending seltzer up her nose.
“Hope you’re still hungry,” Morgan says, producing a cornucopia of crackers, cheese, and olives. He lays out a red gingham blanket on the leather seats and starts setting up a crude charcuterie board. Cece retrieves a bottle of chilled white from the hold, and they sit in the sun and eat with their fingers. Morgan sends a few olive pits over the side. “I wasn’t sure which cheeses were good, so I just got the ones with the names I couldn’t pronounce.”
Cece thinks about saying something, about how she was terrible at French in high school, about how her pronunciation was awful, but that isn’t true at all. She was top of her class! Why is she compelled to minimize their differences? Morgan doesn’t seem bothered in the least.
Morgan cuts a mini wheel of Brie like a pizza with his multi-tool. “When I’ve got time, I like to come out here by myself and eat this sort of thing and pretend I’m on the Amalfi Coast, or somewhere in the south of France.”
Cece tries to imagine the sea warm as bathtub water, cerulean and glimmering. “Sounds nice.”
“This is nice, too,” Morgan says. “Long Island Sound. The Mediterranean of the East Coast.”
They laugh and eat and fall into silence. The boat rocks to the waves, and Cece leans back, skin tight from the drying salt water.
“I wish I could do this forever,” Cece says, before she catches herself. That word loaded and expectant,forever. She cringes, hoping Morgan isn’t listening. But of course he is listening.
“Which part?”
Cece crams a few crackers into her mouth to buy herself some time. What’s wrong with her? A boat trip and free lunch and she’s already planning their future?
“I’m just messing around,” Morgan says, like he means it.
“This just doesn’t seem real.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m happy, and until today, I don’t think I’ve ever really thought, I mean really thought, about what makes me happy.”
“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.”
“If sitting on a boat, eating sandwiches, and swimming all day is what makes me happy, I think I’m in trouble because last time I checked, there’s not much money in summering.”
“That’s the funny thing about money,” Morgan says. “The more you make, the more you worry about it. Not that I’ve ever had very much of it.”
The more time Cece spends with Morgan, the more she likes him, his unadorned behavior and rough edges, the way he speaks, directly, without agenda or self-concern. Cece wonders if Morgan shares this newfound sense of hopeful intimacy. She’s neverbeen good at this sort of thing, navigating the liminal states, the precursors to dating and more serious endeavors. Then again, she isn’t very good at those, either. Just ask Jonathan.
If Cece were younger, if she’d never become an actuary, she might call meeting Morgan serendipitous. If she’d never put her faith in numbers and logic, she might be able to stop herself from calculating all the ways in which they will fail before they ever get started. Oh, how cynical she’s grown! But is it really cynicism? Or is she just being a realist?
Morgan dries his sunglasses with a towel. “I don’t usually do that sort of thing. If you were wondering,” he says, keeping his head half-turned.
“What sort of thing?”
“Us. The other night.”
