I was up before sunrise, trying to get ready for the road trip before Luca woke, so I’d have extra time. But when I got out of the shower, he was already in the kitchen making coffee. I could hear him humming, the way he always did. Low, atonal. Adaptive self-soothing, or maybe a song he couldn’t quite remember.
I got dressed in the bathroom. Underwear sticking to my damp body, my dress not wanting to slide into place easily. I’d sewn a quick tank dress the night before from a few yards of heathered jersey I found in Bunny’s closet. I left the edges unhemmed to make it look a little more casual. Even though I knew everything about me was the opposite of breezy, I wanted to look like I could say, Oh, this? Something I just threw together, and it might seem true.
“You guys don’t even have eggs in there,” Luca said, nodding toward the fridge as I walked into the kitchen. He poured coffee into two mugs and handed me one.
“I know,” I said, sitting at the counter. “Crazy, right? I think the whole Vegan Nan thing is more shocking than the boyfriend.”
He slid a plate with a breakfast sandwich to me.
“Whoa! Thanks!”
I’d stayed at Bitsie’s long after she came home from Ruth’s, using my work as an excuse to wait to go home until Luca was surely asleep. Luca, as promised, left a Tupperware container filled with some sort of casserole in the fridge, but I was overtired and I’d just gotten my period. My stomach seemed likely to revolt over anything stronger than cereal. Now I was starving.
“Tofu and avocado. Best I could do.”
I took a bite. Luca had coated the slab of tofu in spices and browned it in the frying pan. “This is good!”
“Phew! I didn’t know what I was doing. I pretended it was eggs.” Luca sat next to me at the counter. “So do you like Nan’s new boyfriend?”
“Oh my gosh, yes!” I said. “Isaac—That’s my boss. I worked for him in high school . . .”
“Ohhh!” Luca said. “That’s why I already knew Isaac. We went to his shop once when I was here.”
“Yeah. He’s wonderful.”
“It’s good when nice people find each other,” Luca said, looking into my eyes.
I could feel my face flush.
* * *
As soon as I took my last bite of breakfast, Luca said, “We should get going. So we can make it back and put that camera to work!”
“Okay.” I rinsed my plate in the sink.
I was confused over what he wanted to photograph right away. The costumes weren’t ready. I’d finished Bitsie’s top, but she’d gone to bed before I could get a fitting in. Nan’s top was still in pieces. The tails needed a paint job and Mo was working on borrowing her friend’s airbrush equipment. The other mermaids weren’t due for almost two weeks.
I wanted to ask how long Luca was staying, but I didn’t feel like I’d have enough control over my reaction to the answer.
“Great!” Luca said, patting his pocket for his keys.
“I just have to use the . . . restroom.” I ran to the bathroom to change my tampon and wallpaper my underwear with an array of panty liners, in case this trip did not allow for enough pit stops.
I longed for normal periods. In my mind, other women, girls like Nikki, had cute little uteruses that left cute little spots on their menstrual products and housed cute little babies when they got pregnant without extensive medical intervention. I pictured my uterus like Oscar the Grouch’s home. A trash can with a grumbly beast where a baby should have been.
When I was done, I went to the bedroom to say goodbye to Bark, but he wasn’t there. “Bark? Barky?” I called, keeping my cool as much as I could. The panic felt like it was on the other side of a sliding glass door. It hadn’t reached me yet, but I could see it. I started making the rounds of places to search for him. “Bark?”
“He’s in the truck already,” Luca said, walking back into the house as I rushed toward the living room. “I assumed you wanted to take him along?”
I looked out the window, and there was Bark, sitting happily in the driver’s seat of Luca’s truck. “Sure,” I said, bewildered. Maybe the time with Althea and Nan was actually making him better.
Luca’s red Ford pickup was old, but well cared for. His dashboard wasn’t covered in dust like mine. Bark moved closer to me when Luca climbed in the driver’s seat, his dog breath hot on my face. He snapped his head to look at any source of noise—the ding of keys in the ignition, the click of my seat belt—but he had a certain ownership of Luca’s truck. He wasn’t grimacing or trying to hide.
A raspy voice poured from the CD player, singing a song that flowed like waves hitting rocks. Full of longing. Nothing like the Top 40 stuff Luca listened to in college. It fit him better.
“I love this,” I said, pointing to the radio.
“Chris Pureka,” he said. “I want to use her music in a documentary someday. When I can find the right one.”
“The right song, or the right documentary?”
“Both,” he said. “But I feel like either the idea will hit me, and I’ll know the exact right song, or I’ll listen to one of her songs enough and the idea will appear.”
“I get that,” I said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m frantic for input, like I can’t see enough or hear enough, and then when I hit overload, something suddenly makes sense.”
“Exactly.” His smile felt like recognition.
“I’ve been mainlining the B-52s while I work on mermaid costumes.”
He took a second, like he was considering the combination, then smiled. “Yeah. It’s in your sketches.”
I smiled back.
He looked at me, then the road, then me. “It’s weird, right? To be together again?”
“Yeah.”
“Weird and then normal. Like I’m supposed to see your face. It feels good to be with you.”
If he hadn’t been driving, I might have thrown myself at him. Held him as hard as I could.
We both got quiet. I worried we were going to talk about what happened. I didn’t want to be stuck in a car when we did, so I got chatty, asking him questions about his mother and Carla and Marco. I told him I thought Isaac was prepping me to take over the shop, that I was nervous about the responsibility. I asked him if he’d kept in touch with anyone from college. What was Sundance like? I filled every silence, blocking every chance for him to ask me why we lost each other. Maybe he already knew.
Bark spent the first half of the trip looking out the window, but then he stretched across my lap and dozed off. I ran my fingers through his fur as I talked. Whenever I stopped petting him, he’d wake up and look at me like I’d fallen down on the job.
I talked so much that we passed the WELCOME TO ORLANDO sign before I remembered I wanted to stop at a gas station before we got to his friend’s house.
“Oh, hey, do you think we could make a pit stop?” I asked. Breezy. So breezy.
“We’ll be at Danny’s in two minutes.”
“I think there’s a gas station—”
“I swear, it’s, like, two minutes. Promise.”
I wished I hadn’t said anything so I could ask him to stop on the way home instead.
* * *
Danny made a micro-budget film about a farmer who finds bones in his cornfield and suspects they are alien. It got a lot of festival attention and ended up making millions. I was expecting a hulking McMansion, with a shiny sports car in the driveway, but Danny lived in a tiny ranch house on the south side of the city. It was a little run-down. There was a rusty yellow Chevy pickup in the driveway that looked like the one in the movie poster picture Luca showed me.
“I’m so glad we caught him,” Luca said. “He’s hardly ever here. But he’s got a couple months before his next shoot.”
Luca backed his truck into the driveway. As he did, the front door to the house opened. Bark shot up, suddenly awake, hind legs shaking as he looked around. Luca didn’t seem to notice his nerves.
Danny was over six feet tall, with a mane of curly brown hair, sun-bleached at the ends. He wore beige cargo pants so weathered they looked like they could blow away in a breeze, and the soles of his dirty checkered Vans had separated from the rest of the shoe so each step had an extra slap.
“Heeyyy, brother!” he said as we got out of the truck, his voice a lazy growl. He ran at Luca.
Bark, still in the truck, growled back at Danny. I climbed in again to grab his leash.
Danny hugged Luca around the waist and lifted him off the ground. Bark yelped a warning, hair on his neck standing.
Luca laughed. “Put me down! Put me down!” he yelled, legs wiggling. “You’re upsetting the dog.”
Danny put Luca down and poked his head in the truck. “Who’s this guy?”
Bark lunged at him, yanking his slack leash hard against my hand. My skin burned.
Danny wasn’t fazed. He offered Bark the back of his hand to smell. I held the leash tight. Bark sniffed carefully, backing away, then going in for another sniff. He looked at Danny’s face, like he was taking careful measurements of his expression.
Danny grinned at Bark, flashing a slightly chipped front tooth. “You’re working hard, aren’t you, buddy?” he said. His smile took up most of his face, but it was easy, not intense. He seemed simply, clearly happy. I felt like I was seeing a unicorn.
Bark’s hackles softened.
“Thank you,” I said across the seat of the truck.
“Hey, no problem,” he said, reaching over Bark to offer me his hand. “Danny.”
Bark’s hackles went up again. I heard his lowest-level growl, so quiet you might miss it.
I shook Danny’s hand quickly. “Katie.”
“Nice to meet you, Katie,” Danny said, and then he was out of the truck, patting Luca on the back hard enough to throw him off balance. “So good to see you, man!”
I jumped out of the truck. Bark followed without protest, but stayed close, the ends of his fur brushing against my leg.
“Oh, hey,” Luca said, “can Katie use your bathroom?”
I cringed.
“Sure,” Danny said. “Go on in!”
I handed Bark’s leash to Luca and started to walk toward the house. Bark ran to the end of the line to walk with me. When I kept walking, he squealed in panic. I heard Danny say, “Whoa.”
“It’s okay,” Luca called after me. “I’ve got him.”
But the further I walked, the harder Bark cried.
“You can take him with you,” Danny called.
So I went back to get Bark, who happily followed me to the house without hesitation, walking so close he pushed me off the path. I didn’t look back to see if Danny and Luca saw me trip.
Danny’s house was a little run down on the inside too. Clean, but worn. Sagging brown couch. Cracked tile floors, the scent of stale pot smoke hanging in the air. There was a huge projection screen on the wall. Speakers that seemed way too big for such a small room.
I found the bathroom in the usual ranch house bathroom location and closed Bark in with me. It was clean and dirty at the same time. Scrubbed of immediate grime, but there were rust stains in the bathtub and hard water deposits on the faucet. I didn’t feel confident about the plumbing. No trash can in sight. I checked under the sink, but there was only a plunger and extra toilet paper.
I dug a roll of blue dog poop bags from my purse. When I changed my tampon, I triple-bagged the old one and tucked it in my purse, hoping I could sneak it to the kitchen garbage before Luca and Danny were done slapping out their hellos in the driveway. But as soon as I flushed the toilet, I heard the front door open. Bark growled again.
There were dark sweaty crescents under the armholes of my dress. We’d driven with the windows open and my hair was frizzed and knotted. I wiped runny mascara from under my eyes. This was the opposite of breezy.
“Hey,” Danny said as Bark and I left the bathroom, “you guys want a beer?”
“Naw, man,” Luca said. “I want to get back on the road to get some shooting in today.”
When we got close enough to Danny, Bark lunged, growling again.
“It’s okay,” Danny said, dropping to the floor, lying on his back to show Bark his belly.
Bark didn’t know what to make of it. He inched closer. Danny swatted toward Bark, hitting the floor with his palm. I held my breath.
Bark wagged his tail.
“Yeah, buddy,” Danny said. “I’m your friend.”
Bark head-butted Danny in the gut. Laughing, Danny gave Bark’s side a firm pat. Bark jumped, smacking his paws against the floor like he was bowing. Danny sat up, giving Bark’s head a rough rub. Bark looked like he was smiling.
“He’s a weird dude,” Danny said. “I like him. Those eyes are crazy beautiful.” He pulled his phone from one of his cargo pockets and snapped a picture of Bark. “Look at that!” He held up the screen of his phone.
I felt silly for leaning over to look, like maybe he thought I’d never noticed Bark’s eyes before, but when I saw the picture, I had to admit that Danny captured the contrast between them in a way that made Bark look even more striking and a little bit wild.
“I love that,” I said.
Danny typed something into his screen. “Sent it to you,” he said to Luca as I heard Luca’s phone ding. “Give it to her, okay?”
“Sure,” Luca said, offering Danny a hand to help him up. “Should we get packing?”
Before they went outside, Danny got Bark a bowl of water. I stayed in the house with Bark, until he finished drinking. After I washed the bowl, I checked under the kitchen sink for a garbage can, but there was only a paper grocery bag with a receipt and an orange peel in it. Too conspicuous.
I ran Bark out to the truck and stashed my purse under the front seat so I could help Danny and Luca load the gear.
“This is a lot of equipment for a photo shoot,” I said when they came out of the garage with a second dolly stacked with metal-edged road cases full of equipment.
“Didn’t Nan tell you?” Luca asked, shock on his face.
“What?”
“We’re shooting a documentary,” he said. “Of the reunion show.”
“Show?” I said. “It’s just a calendar. I thought—”
“I can’t believe Nan didn’t tell you,” Luca said, laughing. He didn’t understand the implications.
Danny watched me carefully, like maybe he picked up on my weirdness. It was his job as a filmmaker to notice every last movement and tell a story with it. I didn’t want to be the story, even if it was only in his mind.
“That’s Nan.” I forced a laugh. “She probably told Mo twice and forgot about me.”
“Hey, is there anything I need to know about the camera?” Luca asked Danny. “I’ve never shot underwater.”
“Here.” Danny opened the top case on the dolly. “I’ll show you . . .”
I looked over at the truck. Bark was in the driver’s seat watching me, holding something in his mouth. It was blue. He wagged his tail. I waved my hand at him, flat palmed, the gesture command for down.
Danny stopped talking for a second and watched me. It probably looked like I was waving away a bad smell. I doubled down, doing it again, with more purpose, and then grabbed at the air, like I was trying to swat a mosquito. Bark disappeared from sight.
Danny went back to showing Luca how the waterproof case fit the camera.
I made a beeline for the truck.
Bark lay on the seat, the tattered blue bag with my tampon clutched in his teeth. I put my hand under his mouth. “Drop it,” I hissed. He turned his head away. “Drop. It.”
Bark started to shake his head violently, like he was trying to stun his prey. Luca and Danny started loading cases. Danny jumped up on the truck bed.
“Drop it,” I whispered, prying the tampon from Bark’s mouth. I dumped the mangled bag in my purse just before Danny looked in the back window of the truck. He waved at us. I waved back, and then, worried, checked my hand for blood. It was clean, but Danny caught me staring into my palm like a weirdo.
“Are you okay?” Luca called to me.
“All good,” I said, slipping the strap of my purse across my body. I wore it the whole time we finished loading the truck, and prayed the bag wasn’t leaking.
* * *
I was quiet on the ride home.
“Since Durango,” Luca said, “I’ve been trying to find the next project. But everything that gets suggested to me is heavy, grim. Durango wasn’t grim to me. It was about hope. I want my work to be about the human spirit. Not politics, not sadness. Not at the core.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching the white dashes on the road disappear beside us. Adrenaline overwhelmed my brain, forcing horrid thoughts of Nan underwater and the potential seepage in my purse.
“Their story is beautiful,” Luca said. I could hear a hint of hesitation in his voice. “Older women get pushed toward invisible, and I want to show women who are still in full color. I’ve watched my mom—Carla—struggle with being treated like she’s fading, when she’s earned the right to feel powerful with all those mountains she moves. So the mermaid show hits good marks for what my managers want, but it also hits the right places in my heart.”
His words felt like an apology, or maybe a pitch. I didn’t have any enthusiasms to offer him beyond a smile that probably looked fake. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to feel betrayed when I hadn’t told him I was terrified of watching Nan and Bitsie swim. A reasonable person would assume I’d gotten over my fear of water by now. But I’d also had hope when it was clear I shouldn’t have. Luca didn’t come to Nan’s for me. He was looking for a new story.
Bark slept soundly, worn out from the adventure, his head resting on Luca’s leg. I tried to check my purse discreetly, but the bag with the tampon had fallen to the bottom. I didn’t want to risk digging around when I couldn’t see clearly. I put my purse on my feet so it wouldn’t leak on the floor of Luca’s truck. Every time I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous, the images of disaster amplified. I pictured blood pouring from my purse onto my feet. I pictured Nan tangled in her air hose, Luca capturing it all on film instead of helping her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine everything being okay.
When we got back, Luca ran inside to ask Nan where he should put all the equipment. I threw the tampon in the garbage can in the garage. It hadn’t leaked in my purse at all.