Page 85 of The Spirit of Love
Masha:What brought this on, babe? You okay?
I hadn’t thought I was seeking my ride-or-dies’ approval to go see Sam. More that I was location-sharing in advance should anything weird happen to me this weekend. But my friends’ underwhelming response had me setting my phone to Do Not Disturb for the rest of the night. It made me realize that when I’d first come back from Two Harbors, my friends asked about Sam all the time. But neither Mash nor Liv has so much as referenced him, even as the butt of a sex joke, since…
Since the night of Olivia’s wedding. Since the night they both met Jude. Ever since then, they’ve been asking me about work. And Jude.
I didn’t want to talk about Jude last night, not after he left me alone with a bowl of quinoa pancake batter. I didn’t want to burden honeymoon-bound Olivia and pregnant-exhausted Masha with my dumbass bullshit. And I certainly hadn’t wanted one of my friends to make me connect the emotional dots between my dumpster-fire evening with Jude and my impulse to see Sam. But Olivia must have intuited there was something wrong, and—true to her friend brand—she sprang into action. Decadent, yacht-shaped action.
“I thought you two were going to Big Sur this weekend,” I call to them across the dock. The last I heard, Liv and Jake wereoff on a three-day mini-moon at the Post Ranch Inn this weekend, meant to tide them over until Jake could take a couple weeks off fromThe Jake Night Showat Christmas for a proper honeymoon in Kyoto.
“Change of plans,” Jake calls, holding their terrier, Gram Parsons, who is wearing a blue doggie life jacket.
“There was a mudslide on the PCH!” Olivia says. “Our hotel is closed until they can clear the road!”
“Oh no!” I say.
“We’re not mad about it,” Jake says, in his famously casual way. “We’ve always wanted to check out Two Harbors. So when Liv mentioned you were headed here this weekend, I figured out how to redirect our mini-moon. Because I am a genius.”
“Yeah, he’s a regular Ada Lovelace,” Olivia says, wrapping an arm around Jake. “It was utterly my idea.”
“Collectively,wethought maybe you could use a ride,” Jake tells me with a smile.
“Aka moral support,” Olivia says. “Aka lube. I’ve got warming varieties, cooling varieties, and I think strawberry, which I cannot actually in good faith recommend.”
“Seriously?” I say, glancing back at the crowded terminal. “I mean, I know you never joke about lube.”
“Because it’s a godsend.”
“But you really got this whole yacht to take me out to Two Harbors?”
Olivia winks.
No shade at the Catalina Express, but this news is an actual godsend. I’ve never needed a pep talk so much. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do when I get to the island. Because whatI can’t stop thinking about isn’t running into Sam’s arms. It’s kissing Jude in my kitchen last night. And what he said when he walked out my door.
That what happened between us felt way bigger than a kiss.
Am I going to Catalina because I want to see the man I had mind-bending sex with a month ago? Or am I following Jude’s decidedly less fun advice to “figure out what’s going on” with Sam?
“You remember Captain Dan from our wedding,” Jake says as a white-bearded man steps out from the yacht’s bridge. “You can thank him for the lift, actually. We’re lucky he was able to secureTheMidlife Crisison short notice.”
“What I want to know is when we’re going to christen the ship,” says the captain. “I know it’s a short jaunt, but you don’t fuck with the sea.”
I’m used to seeing Dan in kirtan yoga attire, standing at an altar, but this salty incarnation suits him, too. He offers me a hand from the hull and pairs it with an enigmatic look. “You’reon a journey.”
“How many hats do you wear?” I say, accepting his firm grip, which practically catapults me onto the yacht.
“Anything ceremonial.” He lowers his bejeweled sunglasses and offers me a wink. “Somebody get her some sunglasses. And meet me on the bow in five minutes!” Then he bows before disappearing back into the cockpit.
“We also brought along these two party animals,” Olivia says, sliding bejeweled shades onto my face and nodding toward Masha and Eli, who stagger up from the companionway. They’reholding hands, and their bedazzled sunglasses are tucked into the necklines of their white oxford shirts.
“It’s acupressure, babe,” Masha is explaining to Eli. “You have to put the band three fingers’ width up your wrist, then press on the white button when you think you’re going to puke—Fenny!” She looks up at me and grins, tugging Eli over so they can both give me a hug. “I’m so glad we didn’t miss you! I was worried you might have taken the earlier ferry. Do you need anti-nausea bracelets? Motion-sickness patches? Ginger gummies?”
I shake my head. “Thanks, Mash. Liv already gave me her strawberry lube, so my trip’s guaranteed to be smooth.”
Masha closes her eyes, cradling a hand to her belly. “I think the baby inherited his daddy’s constitution.”
Eli steps close, kisses Masha’s forehead, and gives the bands on her wrists a gentle squeeze.
Looking at my four friends, I feel tears prick my eyes. I thought I was looking at a lonely, soul-searching voyage at sea. This is quite the opposite. This is the kind of loving solidarity I could really use today.
