I Take You Read online

  “We haven’t left the gate yet,” he murmurs.

  “This formalwear bullshit is bullshit,” Lola says. “Bettina, my maid of honor? She’s, like, one of those all-natural girls? Doesn’t buy paper towels? Eats the shit out of kale?”

  “Oh yeah.” I nod sympathetically. “I know the type.”

  “I choose this strapless dress for the bridesmaids, right? Gorgeous.” Lola purses her fat little shrimp-colored lips. “Now Bettina says she won’t shave!”

  “Yikes!”

  “It’s disgustin’! All brown and tufty?” Lola shudders. “Like she’s stashin’ a couple of those animals up there. You know the ones?”

  “Hamsters?”

  “No. Olinguitos.”

  “Olinguitos?” I repeat.

  “They’re from Ecuador.” She shakes her head. “Cross-eyed little fuckers.”

  I try to steer the conversation back on track. “The first resort we booked for our guests was super eco-conscious, like your friend,” I say. “Solar powered, carbon neutral, zero emissions, you know?”

  “Like with the crappy lightbulbs?”

  “Exactly. But get this.” I lean closer to her. “It closed down last month, after they found a dead hooker in the cistern.”

  “Oh, shit!” Lola cries.

  “Right?”

  “That’s so nasty!”

  “I know!”

  She picks thoughtfully at a bit of orange skin flaking off her nose. “I got these girl cousins comin’ to the wedding? Identical twins? Real heavy?” She pauses. “They’re totally doin’ it.”

  I feel my mouth drop open. “With each other?”

  “Always sneakin’ off during family functions, like to the garage? Writin’ these weird poems to each other?” She takes her phone out of her bag and starts scrolling through her photos. “Lemme see if I got a picture. You won’t believe how gross.”

  Will mutters, “She’s kicking your ass at this game.”

  I turn to look at him. He’s hunched over his phone, his long body pretzeled into the tiny seat. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a faded green baseball cap pulled low over his unkempt hair. He hasn’t shaved, and he’s so absorbed in whatever he’s typing that his glasses have slipped to the very end of his nose. Basically, he looks like a handsome vagrant, not someone who speaks four dead languages.

  I nudge him. “They just closed the door. You can’t text in here.”

  He nudges me back. “Try to stop me.”

  I snatch his phone away. He grabs for it, but I hold it out of reach. “I need that!” he protests.

  “You are so addicted to this thing.”

  “Addicted,” he says. “I’m addicted.”

  “Please. I’m an amateur compared to you.”

  He reaches for it again, but I hold it tight. “Ian has a question about my research proposal,” he says, laughing. “I have to answer!”

  “The first step toward recovery,” I tell him, “is admitting that you have a problem.”

  He folds his hands in his lap. “I have a problem.”

  “A serious problem.”

  “I’m a very sick person,” he says obediently, “and I need help.”

  “Good boy.” I look at the phone more closely as I hand it back to him. “Wait—is this new?”

  “It’s my work phone,” he replies, finishing his text.

  “The museum gave you a phone?”

  “For when I travel.” He powers off the phone and slips it into his pocket. “All the curators get one.”

  “That makes sense,” I say. “In case one of those burning archaeological emergencies crops up.”

  Will sighs. “Here we go.”

  “Like if those pesky Nazis try to steal the Ark of the Covenant again.”

  He takes my hand. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciate the respect you have for my work?”

  I kiss his cheek. “You’re welcome, baby.”

  We finally take off. Lola and I have a friendly-but-sort-of-not tussle over the shared armrest. I doze for a while. An elderly woman comes out of the restroom. I unbuckle my seat belt.

  Lola eyes me dubiously. “You goin’ in there?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I never use the toilet after some old lady.”

  “Seniors,” I say. “They’re so tidy.”

  “They’re filthy sluts,” she informs me.

  I slap her leg. “Lola, you crack me up!”

  “What do they give a shit about STDs? They’re basically dead! My great-aunt Rita, she’s eighty-four? She’s got a colostomy bag, and, like, rickets? Had gonorrhea three times!”

  “Poor lady!” I say.

  Lola snorts. “Auntie Rita ain’t no lady, honey.”

  Will sticks some kind of bran muffin from hell in my face. “Why don’t you try to eat something?”

  Looking at it makes my stomach churn all over again. “I don’t think I can.”

  “One bite?”

  I take one bite, to please him.

  “He’s a keeper,” Lola announces. “He’s a prize.”

  I rest my head on his shoulder. “I know.”

  “Mine impregnified a stripper at his father’s bachelor party,” she continues.

  “Wait,” I say. “His father’s bachelor party?”

  “Fourth marriage,” Lola explains.

  “Sounds like my family. Was this before you guys met, or …?”

  “Nah. Benny and me been together since high school. But he made it up to me. See?” She shows me her engagement ring.

  “Beautiful,” I say.

  “Big-ass,” she agrees.

  “What happened to the baby?”

  “Cordelia’s almost three,” Lola tells me. “So cute! Gonna be the flower girl.” She picks up her phone. “Lemme see if I got a picture.”

  We have a layover in Miami. Our plane to Key West is smaller, and the rows have only two seats. I have no one to talk to but Will, and his nose is buried in a book.

  I nudge him. “What are you reading about?”

  “Epictetus,” he says, not looking up.

  “The suburb of Cleveland?”

  Will turns a page. “That’s the one.”

  I nudge him again. “I’m bored. Talk to me.”

  “Why don’t you read a book?”

  “I’m not that bored. Tell me about Epictetus.”

  He closes his book and adjusts his glasses. “He was an ancient philosopher. A Stoic. He was born into slavery in the first century AD, in what’s now Turkey. But he lived most of his life in Rome and Greece.”

  I snuggle into my seat. I love listening to Will talk about his intellectual interests. He’s so adorably precise and methodical. Long, complicated sentences roll right out of him. It’s kind of like being engaged to an audiobook.

  I pick up one of his hands and start to play with it.

  “Epictetus believed that our capacity for choice is our greatest strength and the source of our freedom. It allows us to recognize the very limited number of things in life that are within our actual control.” I like Will’s hands. They’re strong and calloused—from all his fieldwork, I guess. He’s got long fingers with big knuckles. Bony wrists. I hold one of my hands up and compare them, palm to palm.

  He breaks off midsentence. “Are you trying to distract me?”

  “Of course not!” I let go of his hand. “Why, is it working?”

  “Always.” He smiles down at me. “Where were we?”

  “Choice. Freedom. Control.”

  “Right.” He collects his thoughts. “Epictetus believed that all human suffering is the result of our futile attempts to control things that are not within our power to control. Our bodies, our possessions. External events. Other people.”

  “Epictetus was anti-suffering?” I say. “What a coincidence—I’m anti-suffering!”

  “Only by renouncing our desires and attachments can we obtain a measure of inner peace and live in harmony with the universe.”

 
“I’m really thirsty,” I say. “Would you mind renouncing your attachment to that orange juice on your tray?”

  “Why don’t I renounce it onto your head?”

  “I don’t think that would be harmonious with the universe, Will.”

  “True,” he agrees. “But it would provide me with some much-needed inner peace.”

  By the time we land in Key West I’m feeling a thousand times better. I spot Mom the instant we walk into the terminal. She’s leaning against a wall with her hands shoved deep in her pockets, saying something to a little grey-haired woman who’s hopping from one foot to the other, scanning the new arrivals anxiously. Mom’s faded auburn hair is pulled into a messy ponytail, and her ivory skin—the sign of a true Florida native—seems to glow amid the peeling tourists in their tropical shirts. She looks relaxed and natural. Nowadays I only see her when she and Gran visit me in New York. She looks so out of place there, an anxious, scruffy stray among the hyper-groomed lynxes prowling the streets of Manhattan. Here, she belongs—which explains why she never wants to leave. That and her business. She renovates old buildings, historic Florida architecture, mostly. She’s become a real expert. She dresses the part, too: paint-spattered cargo shorts, old t-shirt, work boots.

  Mom sees me and launches herself off the wall. She throws her arms around me, already sniffling. What a softy.

  “Lily! You’re really here!”

  “I’m here,” I say into her hair, which smells like lemons and sawdust.

  She releases me, laughing and wiping her eyes, and we both turn to Will. “This is my mother, Katherine,” I tell him. “Mom, this is Will.”

  Yes. They’re meeting for the first time.

  Mom’s speechless. She turns pink. “This is … I’m so … this is amazing!” She ignores his outstretched hand and hugs him, too.

  The grey-haired lady is hovering around us. “Oh, sorry!” Mom says. “I forgot! Lily and Will, this is Mattie.”

  Mattie. Our wedding planner. Mom hired her five months ago, when Will and I got engaged and decided to have the wedding down here. Although “hired” might be the wrong word. Liberated from an asylum? Rescued from a storm drain, where she was adjusting the antenna on her mind-control helmet and crooning to the manatees? Because Mattie is completely—

  “Thank goodness you made it!” She clutches my hand in her skinny little paw. “I was so worried. The weatherman said there was a low-pressure zone over the Southeast, and a storm building over the Atlantic. All I could think about was you and Will, trapped on a plane!” Her bright blue eyes widen. “There was a flight stranded last year in Minneapolis for twenty-eight hours! A seeing eye dog had a seizure! What if that happened to you?”

  Help me, Epictetus. Luggage finally starts tumbling onto the carousel. Mattie is standing right next to me. I edge away. She fidgets closer. I’m about to tell her that she’s going to need a flashlight pretty soon when she clears her throat and says, “Lily? Did you get my … my thing?”

  “Your thing?”

  “Yes, my, my … oh, God bless it!” She slaps her forehead. “What’s the word? My … you know … with the …?” And she wiggles her fingers.

  “Piano?” I say, taking a wild stab.

  “No no no, it’s the thing with the … and you use the …?” She’s still doing the finger thing.

  “Gloves?” I say. “Fake fingernails? Little baby worms?”

  “E-mail!” she cries. “Did you get my e-mail?”

  Mattie has a bad memory. It made our phone conversations a challenge. “No,” I say. “Nothing today.”

  She frowns. “Aren’t computers so unreliable?”

  “Actually, they’re pretty—”

  “I’ll just tell you what I wrote. I wrote—” She breaks off and starts whirling around. “The gown! Where’s the wedding gown?”

  “It’s okay,” I say, trying to calm her down. “Freddy’s got it.”

  “Well, he’d better give it back!”

  My hangover is threatening to return with a vengeance. Fortunately Will steps in. “Freddy is Lily’s maid of honor. She made the dress. She’s flying into Miami this afternoon and driving down with another bridesmaid.”

  Mattie nods slowly. “I see. That’s … well, I don’t want to question your judgment, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. There’s that low-pressure zone, and you know how inexperienced drivers skid right off Seven-Mile Bridge all the time… .”

  Our suitcases finally appear, and we head out to the parking lot. I glance at Mom.

  “Don’t,” she says.

  I hold up my hands. “I didn’t.”

  “Our options were very limited,” she points out.

  “I didn’t say anything, Mom!”

  She ignores me, getting all worked up. “This is what happens when you’re in such a rush to get married!”

  I tilt my face to the sun. The sky is a brilliant blue, and a breeze off the ocean rustles the leaves of the tall palms circling the parking lot. Hard to believe that only five hours ago Will and I were in slushy, grey New York. “Relax, Mom. Mattie’s a gem. She’s going to be a wonderfully Zen influence on us all.”

  We both laugh. Then she asks, “Are you happy to be home?”

  I hear the concern in her voice. I turn and see it in her eyes. I throw my arm around her shoulders and kiss her cheek. “Very.”

  She looks like she’s about to say more, but instead she starts helping Will load our suitcases into the trunk of Mattie’s car.

  “Now, Lily.” Mattie glances at me in the rearview as she steers out of the lot. “First thing tomorrow we need to go to Blue Heaven and review the menu for the rehearsal supper.”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n.”

  “Oh, I’m not the captain of this ship!” Mattie laughs. “I’m just the … the …”

  “Bosun?” I say.

  “Swabbie?” Will suggests.

  “Master gunner?”

  “Powder monkey?”

  Mom turns around and gives us a look like Children, please.

  “First mate,” Mattie says brightly. “You’re the captain, and I’m the first mate. But about the rehearsal. We have a number of options. We can do fish, or we can do pasta, or chicken, or chicken with pasta, or fish and chicken together, although I’m not sure that’s wise… .”

  We’re driving along the south shore of the island. To our left is Smathers Beach. Sails dotting the horizon, volleyballs flying through the air, pale bodies littering the sand. Bicyclists and skateboarders and drunks clutching paper sacks. Standard Florida wintertime fun.

  “They do an excellent appetizer. It’s called … oh, I forget what it’s called. Something to do with raw seafood. But perhaps that’s not a good idea, now that I’m giving it a little bit of a think. Perhaps not. After all, you wouldn’t want to poison everyone the night before the wedding… .”

  “Not everyone,” Will says agreeably.

  We pass a block of shabby pink condos, a scrubby park, a motel. We could be anywhere—anywhere poor and southern and sad—except that to our right, visible between buildings and through rusted chain-link fences, are the salt ponds, long abandoned, slowly being reclaimed by the mangroves, and the feeding pelicans, and the silence.

  I lean forward and tap Mom on the shoulder. “When do Jane and Ana get here?”

  “They arrived last night,” she replies.

  “Really?”

  “Yep!” She quickly turns to Mattie and asks her a question.

  “Your stepmothers?” Will asks. I nod. The wedding isn’t for six more days. I wonder why they’re here already.

  Mattie takes a right, then a left onto Truman. We pass an auto-parts store, a self-storage lot, a supermarket. A large strip club, its parking lot empty this early on a Sunday. All at once, things get lush. The vegetation takes over, crowding the ramshackle buildings on their tiny lots. Palm and banana-flower trees, snow bushes and oleander, hibiscus. A million other trees and shrubs whose names I don’t remember, or never knew.
And bougainvillea everywhere, trailing along the white picket fences and climbing the low concrete walls, crazy and pink and relentless.

  We’re on White Street now, entering my old neighborhood. Bring on the quaint! The streets are narrow, some only one-way alleys dark with foliage. The sidewalks are cracked and weedy. But the homes—tiny shotgun cottages, towering Victorians, pastel conch houses—are beautiful. They flash by, only a detail springing out here and there. A set of tall white shutters. A sloping tin roof. A porch ceiling painted sky blue.

  I relax into the backseat and squeeze Will’s hand. I thought it would be strange, coming home. I thought it would be hard after so long. But it feels natural. It’s like a warm embrace.

  Meanwhile, Mattie has barely paused for breath. “Martin has recommended gardenias for the centerpieces, but I wonder whether that strikes the right tone.”

  “Who’s Martin?” Will asks.

  “The florist,” Mattie says. “He’s very talented, but I’m worried that he’s not quite …” She taps her forehead. “All there, if you know what I mean.”

  A scrawny chicken darts across the road. Two kids on bikes appear out of nowhere, racing alongside the car. A girl and a boy, maybe ten, maybe twelve. My heart stops. It’s me and Teddy. For an instant I’m sure of it. The boy has sun-streaked, shaggy hair. The girl is all arms and legs. They’re screaming with laughter, swerving around potholes, banging into each other. The boy glances over his shoulder and starts pedaling faster. They veer down a side street, skidding, almost crashing. The boy hollers. The girl shrieks. Our car keeps moving.

  I twist around, craning my neck to look out the back window. But I’m too late. They’re gone.

  Will is watching me. “Friends of yours?”

  I try to think of an answer, but I can’t. So I shake my head, and smile, and say nothing.

  3

  A few more turns, a few more beautiful old Florida blocks, and we’re home. Our bags are barely out of the trunk before Mattie tears off, muttering something about napkin rentals. I gaze up at the house. My house. It’s an old island Queen Anne with a double-decker veranda and a round tower on one side. Lavish scrollwork drips from every available surface, barely visible through the palms and the banyans in our tiny front yard.