and I get lunch. I’m hungry for her, not food. But it’s the only thing that allows us to escape from Emily and Doug without agreeing to another double date.
“I think she actually rubbed one off on Doug,” Abigail whispers conspiratorially as though she didn’t nearly do the same thing to me.
“Ah, to each their own.” I shrug, unconcerned with anyone else’s proclivities. “I am relieved they had a moment to themselves and left us alone.”
“Barely.” Abigail shudders as though she’s still picturing Emily and Doug having a bit of exhibitionistic playtime.
I take her hand in mine across the table and pull her attention back to us. She laughs a tinkly sound of disbelief. “This is so crazy,” she confesses.
“What is?”
“You. Me. Us. This whole scheme. I knew it’d all come back to bite me in the ass. I just didn’t know how. I certainly never would’ve imagined this in a million years.”
“Scheme?”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m to blame for the whole Violet and Ross fiasco.”
“Fiasco? You mean their happy marriage and new child? Blame doesn’t seem the correct word.” I get it, my English is good, but sometimes, a usage confuses even me.
For example, I heard a comedian once joking that if you’re ‘the shit’, that’s a good thing. But if you’re just ‘shit’, that means you’re an awful human being. Nuances are tricky things.
But blame? That has a negative connotation that doesn’t fit with the smiles I see on my cousin’s face each time I spend the day with her.
“Well, it ended up great, but it could’ve gone the other way. And then Courtney and Kaede too, though that was their doing. But I’m always the puppet master, and now I feel like someone else has my strings in their hands.” She mimes her arms lifting at the elbow and dangling loosely as though she’s out of control of herself. “It’s humbling to feel this way. I hate it.”
“Or perhaps there are no strings at all?” I hypothesize. “Even with Violet, you might have pushed her, but she made those choices. And us? I stepped in—my own doing,” I remind her. “And you went along with it. That’s your part in this. Each choice we make, thousands every day—what time to get up, what to wear, what to eat, who to spend time with, what to do—all direct us one way or another. None are wrong, none are right. They simply exist along a path of our life, creating new experiences with each decision.”
“Very philosophical,” she agrees.
“Are you regretting the choices you’ve made?” I’m not sure I want this answer, but it seems prudent to ask.
She shakes her head quickly, but it doesn’t seem to be a knee-jerk reaction. To the contrary, it seems as though she’s thought about this quite a bit. “No. Not regretting things I’ve done or things I want to do. Just realizing my own limitations and respecting other people’s too.”
That definitely sounds like she’s talking about me. But she sounds resigned to where she thinks we’re going. Truth be told, I have no idea where we’re headed. That’s usually how I live my life. I enjoy the possibilities of not knowing, of making those choices each day and seeing where that leads.
Except there is one very specific thing I would like to choose.
Tonight.
“Another surprise?” Abigail says. I can hear the fresh delight in her voice. “Two in one day. You’ll spoil me.”
“I would be honored to have that privilege.”
I asked Esmar for recommendations for tonight’s plan. He’d sagely nodded and said he knew just the place. I hope he’s right.
I follow his directions to the letter, carefully walking Abigail down the patio outside the resort to the beach. We turn right and begin the short walk to the secret cove Esmar told me about in whispered tones after extracting a promise that I won’t tell the tourists. That he told me feels like a sign of acceptance as one of the crew.
“It’s so pretty out here tonight,” Abigail whispers into the darkness of the night, though there’s no one around.
Further down the beach, I duck around a large rock and follow the new curve of the shore as the beach behind us becomes invisible. We are truly alone now, in a private paradise of our own.
I pull the blanket from the bag I’ve carted along with us and spread it out along the sand. “Sit with me, mia rosa.”
She daintily lowers herself to the blanket, and I pull things