Fans of the Impossible Life (26 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I was sitting on the same dock that I sat on every summer. So little changed in this town. A fence might get painted. A new ice-cream store opened on Commercial Street. But always the same air. The same light. The same summertime crowds and energy and sense of possibility. This dock was always the same.

There was one post that I liked to sit next to, balance my sketchbook and an iced coffee on. It was good for helping to measure the passing years. I dangled my legs off the side and noticed how far down they went, like reverse marks of height on a wall. I wondered if I still had more inches to grow.

“The man in the pink Speedo is out,” I said to no one. He was sunning himself on his bright-green towel on the beach. He had been out for longer than his usual half hour today, rotating himself as the sun moved across the sky.

It was almost lunchtime. Dave would have sandwiches ready on the table back at the house. Fresh lemonade with sugar
and mint.

Now I took another sip of my iced coffee and looked out over the water. I had stopped drawing the bay and the shells and the boats, stopped trying to reproduce what was right in front of me. I still stared off into the water, watching the sun sparkle on the gentle bay waves, but I was looking for something else now. I wanted to draw the places inside myself that felt twisted up like old scars. The parts of myself that needed care. I was taking an inventory of them, one by one. I was figuring out how to put myself back together.

She came down the dock like a mirage, the sun too bright in my eyes. I could see more clearly as she got closer. She had tied her hair up in a scarf this morning, paired with a yellow sundress and pink sunglasses. She saw me and waved. I waved back.

“Did you find your fudge?” I asked when she got closer.

She sat down next to me on the dock, offered up a small box. I opened it.

“Chocolate peanut butter,” Mira said. “They've been running out of it all week, but he put some aside for me today.”

She pulled off a piece and handed it to me. I put it in my mouth. It melted on my tongue.

“There's no point in eating fudge that doesn't have both chocolate and peanut butter in it,” she said.

“Goes without saying,” I said.

She smiled.

“Don't spoil your appetite,” she said. “It's almost lunchtime.”

She stood up and pulled me up with her. I grabbed my iced
coffee and sketchbook.

“Pink Speedo's out,” she said, looking across the water to the beach.

He was sitting up on his towel, his legs stretched out in front of him. Mira and I were standing side by side, looking at him together, and then she waved. After a moment he waved back. And Mira laughed and took my hand and we walked through the town, through the families and the tourists and the drag queens to the little house where my dads were waiting for us with sandwiches and lemonade.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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You have been here before.

The highway winding north through dark New England forests.

You can come back.

Love remembers the places where it touched down.

You can follow it back to them.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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KATE SCELSA
has performed in New York and around the world with experimental theater company Elevator Repair Service in their trilogy of works based on great American literature, including an eight-hour-long performance that uses the entire text of
The Great Gatsby
. Kate lives in Brooklyn with her wife and two black cats. You can visit Kate at www.katescelsa.com.