The Invisible Husband of Frick Island - Colleen Oakley Page 0,15

in her lap, as if she were afraid it might get snatched at any second. When Tom didn’t respond, she said, “I’m gonna go with craft blogger, waiting to be discovered as the next Martha Stewart. She owns entirely too much decoupaged furniture—end tables, coffee tables, even the headboard of her bed. She just couldn’t stop. Her friends and family were finally forced to stage an intervention, as they couldn’t bear receiving one more Mod-Podge-and-magazine-cutout-covered flowerpot or stool or picture frame for their birthdays or Christmas.”

It was a game they’d been playing for years, sizing up the tourists visiting the island and guessing what they did—trying to top each other for the most outlandish careers or hobbies. Piper sometimes felt guilty for the inherent unkindness of the contest, but there was no malice in it, and what was the harm, she reasoned, if the people in question couldn’t hear them? She wondered what Tom’s assessment of the current woman would be—his were always so much more creative, funny, unexpected. But before she could find out, a man approached the table, standing behind the chair opposite Piper. A tourist, obviously, because Piper knew everyone on the island, and this was a stranger. But even for a tourist, he was peculiarly dressed. Aside from the damp spots at the shoulders of his white button-up, it looked like he was about to attend a business meeting. Or church. But on Frick Island, no one wore long sleeves in the dead heat of August. Not even to church.

Piper stared pleasantly up at the man, curious and patient. Perhaps he wanted to borrow their ketchup or salt. Or maybe he was going to ask if she was an actress. It had happened once before, a few years earlier, and when she said no, the tourist was embarrassed and she never got the chance to ask which actress. On the off chance that this man was going to ask her the same thing, she resolved that this time, she would find out.

* * *

—

Anders cleared his throat, feeling a little out of body and unable to recall the short walk that had propelled him from the bar to this table, where he stood now in front of the curly-headed woman with the perfect bow-shaped mouth. In the fifteen minutes that had passed since he first laid eyes on her when she walked into the restaurant, Anders had spent twelve of them eating his chicken fingers in silence and not giving any more thought to the woman who had caught his eye. But then, his waiter dropped off a rolled napkin—a little late considering he was halfway done with his meal—and Anders unrolled it to find a knife and a spork. He stared at the hybrid instrument—part fork, part spoon—and he couldn’t help it, he thought of Celeste.

He thought of how she squealed, “A spork!” and held up the utensil that came with her order at KFC one night, on a mashed potato study break. “God—I used to love these when I was a kid.” It stuck with Anders, because he never considered that he would be attracted to someone who squealed over plastic cutlery.

And then he remembered—in that shocking, painful way that happens after a breakup, like being blindsided by a sucker punch—that he would most likely not ever be hearing her squeal about sporks again. That honor now belonged to the infectious disease major with coiffed hair and a dog named Lola.

That was when he turned his head slightly and caught sight of the woman, now sitting two tables behind him. She was alone and appeared to be talking to herself, which may have put off some men but only charmed Anders further. His sister’s voice echoed in his head—You need to get out of your comfort zone—and after some hemming and hawing, that was what actually stood him up on his two feet and made him do something as dumb (in retrospect) and out of character as attempt to—what, hit on her? No, no, he certainly wasn’t hitting on anyone. But walk over and speak to the woman who so piqued his interest.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked now, when seconds had ticked by and Anders had not volunteered any explanation as to why he was standing there.

Anders, who didn’t do much of anything without planning out every single detail, cursed himself for not coming up with an opening line, and then cursed Frick Island for being dry, because he couldn’t even do