Page 142 of Neap & Spring

“That’s a different city every three months or something insane!” Frannie pulls her wine toward her. “Do you even own furniture?”

“I own very excellent luggage.”

“That’s not the same thing.” Iris points at me.

“It’s better. Furniture doesn’t have wheels.”

Frannie turns to Cora with the expression of someone building a case. “She doesn’t own furniture.”

“I have a lamp!” I protest. “In storage.”

“A lamp.” Iris sets her drink down.

“It’s a good lamp.”

Cora tilts her head. “What kind of lamp?”

“A good one!”

She picks up her cider and takes a sip. Frannie loses it first, tipping sideways in her chair, and then Iris is laughing too, and then I’m laughing because it is funny. The lamp and the luggage and twenty cities and not one piece of furniture to show for it. The absurdity of my entire life reduced to excellent luggage and one good lamp.

The storm pushes a warm gust through the open side of the bar. Frannie grabs her napkin before it goes, and that makes us laugh harder at nothing, just the spontaneous laughter of people who are warm and a little drunk and in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

“Okay but where was the best one?” Frannie asks, wiping her eyes.

“Besides this one? Carmel,” I say without hesitation. “Small place, maybe eight tables. The owner had been running it for thirty years. He didn’t need me. He just wanted someone to tell him he was right.” I smile at the memory. “He usually was.”

“And the worst?”

“Ascot guy.”

“Obviously,” Iris deadpans.

I lean back in my chair and look out at the water with a smile. The water has gone almost black and the storm is close enough now that I can feel it in my bones. Someone’s left a light on in one of the cabins across the harbor, and it throws a long yellow stripe across the surface that breaks apart and reforms every time the water moves.

“I like it here,” I whisper to the room.

Iris leans back in her chair. “We like having you here,” she says. “For the record. Whatever happens after this job” — she swirls her drink — “you should come back and visit. Often.”

“She’s not leaving yet,” Frannie says firmly. “She won’t leave at all if it’s up to me. I might hide her laptop or something when it’s time so she has to stay!”

I look at the three of them. Frannie still indignant on my behalf. Iris watching me with that open expression. Cora turned slightly toward the water, giving me the privacy of not being looked at directly while still being completely present.

The realization hits me square in the face.

Friends. This is what friends feel like.

“I’ll come back,” I declare. “I promise.”

Iris nods like that’s settled. Frannie looks appeased.

“The marlin would miss her too much,” Cora remarks, gesturing at the mounted fish with her cider.

We all look at the marlin, and it stares back with glassy indifference, unmoved by our affection.

“I think that marlin has seen some things,” I claim.

We all raise our glasses and drink to the marlin, to the storm coming in, and to this specific warm night with these specific people, with the water right there and the jukebox playing.