by Grace Palmer
That didn’t hurt her any more or less, but it registered with a dull, emotionless thud. She looked up at Lisa, who was still regarding her with a look of curiosity in her eye.
“I, uh… Excuse me for a sec, I need to go to the restroom.” Toni didn’t wait for an answer.
As she scurried away and tried to hide the tears welling in her eyes, she heard Lisa calling over, “Er, well, my flight’s boarding, love! It was so good to see you! Bon voyage!”
Toni just kept going.
She flew into the bathroom, into an empty stall, and locked the door behind her. Then, sinking onto a seat on the toilet, she let loose tears that had been building up, one at a time, for the last twelve years.
She cried for what she’d once had and didn’t have anymore. She cried for what she’d never have and would never have again. She cried and cried, and she didn’t feel much better when she finished crying, so she just started all over and kept crying some more.
Forty-five minutes passed like that. She heard her mom’s voice in her ear again—What’s worth crying for, honeysuckle?—but it didn’t comfort her this time. It just made her miss her mom on top of everything else.
She forced herself to get to her feet, though she had to stick a hand out to lean against the wall for support since her legs had fallen asleep. Then, limping uncomfortably, she washed her hands and rinsed her face before exiting the bathroom.
She was just in time to hear groans rise up from the small crowd assembled in front of her gate. DELAYED read the small TV screen embedded in the wall above the check-in counter.
“Excuse me,” she said to a frumpy-looking woman with a scowl on her face. “Did I miss an announcement?”
“Flight’s not happening tonight,” the woman spat in disgust. “Plane trouble, or so they say. We ain’t leavin’ ’til tomorrow mornin’.”
Toni did the only thing she could do: she laughed. The frumpy woman gave her a suspicious side-eyed look, tucked her child behind her legs, and shuffled away, never taking her eyes off Toni.
But Toni didn’t care. What could there possibly be left to care about? She was caught no matter which way she turned. Caught on the ugly end of a loveless, unfaithful marriage; caught on the wrong side of a biological clock that wouldn’t stop ticking for anybody; and now, she was caught in the Atlanta airport. At least until the morning.
She collected her things and found a small restaurant tucked in a quiet corner of the airport. She ordered a margarita that she didn’t drink and a cold sandwich she didn’t eat. Mostly, she just sat and stared at the back of her hands, wondering if she was imagining wrinkles or if they were really starting to appear.
She couldn’t say for sure whether she was being hysterical or if her mood was justified. She knew only that her mother would disapprove of it, and so she tried to chin up and remind herself that Nantucket wasn’t so far or so long away. Soon enough, she’d be able to mush her toes into the sand and turn her face to the wind. And even if the world wouldn’t change, she knew that there was a tiny shred of peace that could be snatched in that moment. She just had to get there.
The airport gradually emptied of people as night fell. When the restaurant closed up shop, Toni found an out-of-the-way chair not too far from her gate, fashioned a makeshift pillow out of a garment in her suitcase, and curled up to go to sleep.
She didn’t dream at all.
8
Buenos Aires, Argentina—May 26, 2018
Toni comes out of the shower to find that she has a missed call on her cell phone. She picks it up to see who rang and smiles when she sees the name. She dials the number back immediately.
“Hello?” Mae answers.
“You have no idea how lovely it is to your voice, darling,” Toni says at once.
“As lovely as it is to hear yours, I’m sure!”
Toni is a little surprised by the intensity of the feeling she’s swimming in all of a sudden—a feeling of longing, deep and desperate, with a kind of wistful fondness woven through it.
Perhaps she has been lonelier than she allowed herself to realize. Buenos Aires has been wondrous, and Camille has been as pleasant a companion as she could ask for. But at the end of the day, nothing fills that space in your heart quite like home. And Mae’s voice is nothing if not home. Like Henry, she is Nantucket, as far as Toni is concerned. She is white sand beaches and stoic lighthouses and fresh-caught lobster and clean linens blowing in the summer breeze.
“How’re things?” Toni blurts before she accidentally starts waxing poetic and frightens Mae into thinking she is having a psychotic meltdown half the world away.
“Now, now, hold your horses,” Mae scolds, “I’m not the one on an international adventure! How are you?”
Toni smiles. “It has been an interesting couple months, that is for sure.”
“If you think you’re going to get away with a pitiful little answer like that, you’ve got another thing coming. Come, come now, tell me everything!”
“Just tell me where you are first,” Toni says. Apparently, she’s going to wax poetic after all. “Describe it to me. I honestly think I’m starting to forget what home looks like.”
She can hear Mae smiling through the phone. “I suppose I can do that. It’s funny you should ask, actually; I just sat down on the porch out back. It is a morning so beautiful that I ought to try bottling it up just so I can save it for a rainy day. I’ve got a cup of hot coffee in hand, all the guests have gone out to town or to the beach already, and my task list is mercifully short. The only thing missing is a kind face to fill the seat next to me.”
Toni smiles once more, and when she reaches a hand to her face, it comes away wet. Only then does she realize she’s crying. It’s not a sad cry or a bitter one. It’s something not so serious at all, she thinks. Just her body’s way of telling her that her heart has never left the Sweet Island Inn.
“You don’t even know how wonderful that sounds.”
“Oh, I think I’ve got some idea, dear.” She takes a sip of her coffee and ahhs contentedly. “Now, are you going to make me pin you down and pry your side of things out of you? My goodness, you’re worse than Brent at bath time. I’m dying for a snippet of something exotic!”
“Where do I even begin, Mae?” Toni muses. She’s lying on her back on the hotel bed, hair still wet from the shower and spread out across the top of the comforter. The fan overhead is beating lazily, and even though she just woke up a little while ago, she’s already entertaining ideas of falling asleep again just like this, with Mae’s voice murmuring into her ear. If she listens hard, she just might be able to hear the staticky sighs of the Nantucket ocean waves. “Let’s see…”
She truly doesn’t know where to begin, so she glances out of her window and just starts there. She tells Mae about how the city looks at sunrise, baking beneath a warm egg-yolk sun. How it looks faded and fresh all at once like someone carved each of the buildings from butter and then left them to slowly melt down together in beautiful dribbles and globs.
She tells her about the food, how the sidewalks are sizzling with the sound of open asados and how rich the coffee is and how delicious the wine tastes.
She tells her about the people, how they laugh and touch each other on the elbow and the shoulder when they’re talking. How kind they are, and how beautiful, how proud.
“It’s like—you’re going to think I’m crazy—but it’s like they found themselves in this warm, cozy, kind of turbulent but out of the way fork in a river, and instead of flowing downstream with the rest of the world, they decided to just stay there and put down roots.” Toni feels herself blushing. “I’m sorry if that sounds absurd. I’ve been reading a lot of books lately, and I think I’m starting to fancy myself more artistic than I really am.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Mae snaps good-naturedly. “That sounds absolutely beautiful. We miss you here, of course, but it sounds like you are living in quite a fairy tale.”
“Complete with a handsome princ
e…” Toni teases.
She can practically hear Mae’s eyebrows shoot up. Thankfully, all she says is, “Oh?”
“Well, not exactly. Mostly joking. Honestly, nothing of the sort,” Toni backpedals as fast as she can. “Just, uh, getting drinks tonight with a…with a someone.”
“What kind of someone are we talking, darling?”
“Just a friend, that’s all.”
“Mm. Well, friends are good.”
Toni wants to laugh out loud—that’s such a Mae answer. She knows that her sister-in-law wants to poke more, but she’s never been pushy.
“Anyway,” Toni says, fighting back the rising blush in her cheeks, “what’s new on your end of the planet?” It’s an obvious deflection, but she hopes Mae forgives her for it.
“A little of this, a little of that, but not really much of anything,” Mae offers. She rattles off some minor changes to the inn’s layout and a funny anecdote about a few of the guests from the last two months. “…But things are running smoothly, I promise.”
“Of course they are,” Toni replies. “You were cut out for this, that’s for sure. I can’t thank you enough. What about the kids?”
“The kids…” Mae whispers. Her voice has darkened suddenly.
Toni swallows hard. That doesn’t sound good.
“The kids are okay,” she concludes finally.
She gives a brief rundown on what everyone is doing: Eliza and Sara are harboring at home from some unspecified personal dramas, Holly and her husband are on shaky ground, and Brent is faring worst of all.
Even with her skipping over most of the details, it’s clear to Toni that this is a tough topic of conversation for Mae. So, after offering condolences and her support, Toni decides to move along.
“And how are you, Mae?”
Mae pauses. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terribly sad a lot of the time. Nights are the hardest. I’m so grateful that I have the inn to keep me busy while the sun’s up. And I’m so tired by the time I get to bed each day that I don’t linger long before I fall asleep. But that little time that I am awake and alone…it hurts an awful lot, Toni.”
Toni finds herself nodding in the silence of her hotel room. The fan overhead is lulling her towards sleep. She bites at her lip.
If only there were something to say to bundle up the sadness weighing on her and Mae like sandbags and toss it overboard. She knows there’s no such thing—Lord knows it took her long enough to leave the grief of Jared behind—but it doesn’t keep her from racking her brain, trying to think of something suitable nonetheless.
In the end, all she offers is a heartfelt, “I’m sad too, Mae. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sad.” She hopes that is enough. The thought of her sweet sister-in-law straining under the weight of such unexpected sorrow is heart-wrenching.
But that is life, isn’t it? Minor miracles and wordless tragedies and the ebb and flow of all of those things. Life comes in seasons, in tides, and you just have to learn to tread water when the tide is high and head for shore when it’s low enough to let you go. And, as she’s learning, it’s easier when you have a swimming buddy.
The two women sit in silence for a while, just listening to each other sigh. They talk a bit more after that, mostly idle tidbits about the comings and goings of the inn and Toni’s life in Buenos Aires, and then Toni can feel the conversation headed towards its natural end.
“Well, tell the kids I love them very much,” Toni says. “I love you, hon.”
“I will, Toni. Love you too.”
Toni is about to hang up when Mae adds, “Oh, and Toni?”
“Yes?”
“Be nice to the handsome prince, okay? Henry wouldn’t want you to run the poor man off.”
Toni doesn’t know whether she wants to laugh or cry. In the end, she does a little of both, chuckling as another stray tear escapes down her face. “I’ll do my best,” she says.
“That’s all any of us can ever do, darling. I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.”
They hang up. Toni marinates in the quiet for a little while. Then she coaxes herself to her feet to get dressed and go run a few errands she has on her plate for the day.
It feels good to move throughout the city with confidence. She navigates the subway and the lines at the grocery store and has a peaceful lunch to herself in a quiet poet’s café in San Telmo. Her sadness slinks away for a while, thank goodness.
By the time she gets back home to her hotel room, she has just enough time to shower once more, change, and get ready.
Tonight, she is getting drinks with Nicolas.
“Ciao, Toni. You look stunning.”
Toni blushes at once, as if she were fifteen years old and this was the first man to ever hit on her. “Hi, Nicolas.”
He’s standing at the corner of the bar, which is located in, of all things, a flower shop. Toni would’ve never thought to marry the two things together, but to her surprise, it works with stunning effect.
The lighting along the long, curved wall that runs down the right-hand side of the place is a warm amber that takes the chill from her bones. (She’s still having trouble reconciling with the fact that, down here below the equator, July falls in the dead of winter.) The bar, done up in a pleasing blonde wood with white-backed chairs to match, runs parallel along the length of the whole space. And everywhere she looks, there are massive bouquets of flowers in every variety imaginable. The blooming bursts of color offer a delightful fragrance, as well as some privacy between seats at the bar and the booths scattered throughout.
The bartender comes over to speak to Nicolas. As the two of them converse in a quick blitz of Spanish, Toni takes the chance to look over her date while he’s not paying attention.
She made him swear during their brief text exchange earlier in the week that he wouldn’t dress over the top and make her feel like a bum. Apparently, he interpreted that as “don’t wear your suit jacket,” but has otherwise done nothing different than all the other times she’s seen him.
Tonight’s suit pants are a pale gray with the faintest powder blue pinstripes running through it, barely visible to the casual onlooker. As with all things related to fashion and Nicolas, it would look absurd on anyone else. But something about the gravitas that rolls off him makes the whole ensemble work.
The shirt he’s wearing is a friendly blue that matches the pinstripe. He’s got the cuffs rolled back to the elbow, showing off his lean forearms. The whole effect is of class, elegance, and something a little bit foreign that Toni just can’t quite put her finger on.
As part of their pact not to dress up, Toni told Nicolas that she was just going to fish any old something out of her suitcase. But she took one look at the options she had available in her bags and decided she’d rather show up in a potato sack than wear any of that.
So, as part of her errands, she ducked into a few different boutiques she’d seen around town and ended up with a knee-length cardigan in tan faux fur to wear over a cozy white turtleneck and black jeans. She paired it with her favorite black leather booties.
Camille sent an approving thumbs-up when Toni told her what she planned on wearing. But even still, she felt a little nervous warble in her throat when she did one last twirl-and-examine in the bathroom mirror before leaving her hotel room.
She is here now, though, and there is no turning back. The bartender nods as the two men finish their conversation, and then Nicolas swivels his gaze over to Toni approvingly and smiles. “Would you like to find a booth?” he asks her.
She nods. “That’d be lovely, thanks.”
Nicolas gestures for her to go ahead of him. They make their way to the back of the bar, with his hand hovering protectively over her mid-back.
The physical intimacy feels familiar already after their sessions at the milonga, but in this setting, it still manages to send a shiver racing down Toni’s spine. She has the same thought she’s been having again and again since—well, since she left Nantucket, really: Aren�
��t I too old for all this? Too old to travel, to dance, to flirt, to buy new clothes and check herself out in the mirror while wondering what a handsome man will think of her?
And then, apropos of nothing, she imagines Henry laughing in the corner. You crazy old coot! he’d be cackling. We’re spring chickens, sis! Have a drink for me, okay?
He is gone as suddenly as he came, but there is a warm feeling left behind, like the glow that lingers after a good laugh. She is still smiling as she settles into the booth across from Nicolas.
“Is something funny?” Nicolas asks wryly.
“Oh no, just a—too hard to explain, I think.”
“I see. A woman of secrets.”
“Says a very secretive man.”
“How so?”
“The suits, the dancing, the…” She waves a hand to encompass him from head to toe. “All of it, you know. The aura.”
“I think you have misunderstood me greatly. I am an open book, bella.”
Toni laughs at that. “I have been reading a lot of books since I got here, and I can assure you that you are far from open.”
Nicolas’s face—freshly shaven, she notes, though there seems to be no banishing the five o’clock shadow that lives perpetually on his jaw—breaks into a quizzical grin. “Would you like to play a game, then?”
“Oh dear. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Bah, no need. It is simple: you ask me a question, and I will answer. Then I will do the same for you.”
They keep their eyes locked as a barback brings over their drinks and sets them down on a platter.
“I took the liberty of ordering for you,” Nicolas explains when Toni arches an eyebrow at the murky concoction being set in front of her. “It is a staple of my country. You cannot leave without trying it.”
