Chapter 7

“Hey, you okay? You’re awfully quiet.”

I glanced at Paul, softening at the concern that touched his question. Grizzled Andrew had maneuvered us out of the slip and sent us back across the bay.

Paul’s question was an opportunity. Now was the time to say, “I’m just thinking,” and when he asked me about what, I’d say, “Us,” and he’d ask, “What about us?” and I’d tell him. I’d tell him we didn’t fit anymore.

But when I opened my mouth and glanced over at him with the wind riffling his hair, his color up from the day of sun, the lines around his eyes relaxed, and his posture slouched in the way it only did when he’d left his worries behind…

I couldn’t do it. Who could? Who could dump a perfectly nice guy in the middle of a sailboat ride because he wasn’t…

Wasn’t…

I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure of my reasons, but he deserved one, and I couldn’t break up with him without explaining it.

Also, who breaks up with someone halfway across a bay when neither of you can leave?

So instead of telling him the truth, I smiled at him and gestured at the water. “I’m taking it all in, that’s all.”

His eyes drifted half-shut again.

A small wave of seasickness washed over me.

No. Not seasickness. My conscience was talking to me, trying to warn me. You’re going to go from stressed to miserable if you don’t find a way to say what you need to say.

I stared into the slowly—so slowly—approaching dock. How was it possible for a boat to move so slowly? I stared up at the sail to make sure it had wind, but it billowed, full and happy, so I gave Grizzled Andrew a squint-eyed examination to make sure he wasn’t putting the brakes on. Or something. Did boats have brakes?

Anchors. They had anchors. Had he thrown ours out? But no, it sat on the deck.

Hurry up, Grizzled Andrew. I focused all my attention on him, trying to sink the thought into his brain. He only squinted back at me. Then he yawned.

At last a small bump shook me out of my thoughts, and Grizzled Andrew tossed a rope around the dock cleat. He climbed from the boat to help us out while Paul and I gathered up our stuff.

“Ladies first,” Paul said with a chivalrous wave.

Getting off the boat meant I’d have to break up with him. I stared at the dock and our skipper’s impassive face. Finally, I took a deep breath and Grizzled Andrew’s hand, and as I stepped onto the dock I muttered, “Why do you hate me, Grizzled Andrew?”

For the first time, his blank mask cracked and a sound came out, a sound that from anyone else might have been a laugh. “If you can’t be still on a boat, you got more noise inside you than is good for you.”

I missed a step at the sound of so many words coming out of him, but when I straightened and looked at him again, his face was as blank as ever.

Paul stepped onto the dock with a light thump beside me and finished his business with Andrew, giving him a tip and shaking hands with him. Then Paul’s hand slipped through mine as he dropped a light kiss on my hair. “I can’t wait to show you what I have lined up next.”

And as he led me down the dock, this time a very clear laugh from Grizzled Andrew followed us.

Great. I felt like I was being heckled by a salty wannabe pirate for not being able to do what needed doing with Paul.

And I deserved it.

“So I have something cool planned,” Paul said as we walked into the parking lot while I tried to figure out how to say, “I don’t want to do the thing you planned.”

“I was thinking we’d go for a coast drive. I rented a convertible and had it delivered here while we were on the boat.”

Ah, dannnnnnng it. At least he’d be able to drive me home in style after I dumped him.

He opened the door for me and then settled the picnic stuff into the cramped backseat while he explained his plan. “I calculated it all out, and with the average rate of flow for Saturday coastal traffic and based on the time of sunset, factoring in the best mid-range priced restaurant with the highest Yelp reviews, I figured out exactly where we can catch the best sunset.”

You didn’t go find perfect sunsets. They found you. It was a law of the universe. And I was sensing a pattern here. Paul gets good idea. Paul immediately sucks the life right out of it by planning and executing it perfectly.

But Paul had always been like this. It’s part of why we made so much sense as a couple. So why now? Why did I suddenly feel so stifled by it? Had Ranée finally gotten into my head with all her complaints?

No…I didn’t think so. Weirdly enough, this was about…well, Shoop.

Because whenever my mom would do that—crank the song and dance through the house while she dusted, or worse, lose her mind at a wedding and dance her face off when it came on—it used to embarrass me to no end. Like she’d be out there singing along at the top of her lungs and shaking her butt like she was still in college or something, and I’d just pray for the song to change. Or death.

But it wasn’t just me that it embarrassed. My dad hated it too. It made him so uncomfortable. And once, when I was eight, she’d had an extra glass of wine at a wedding and reallllly got down with her college girlfriends on the dance floor, he’d mumbled an excuse and escaped to the restroom. When my mom came back flushed with wine—or Shooping or both—I’d complained. Again. “Why do you have to do that? It makes Dad so uncomfortable. It’s not nice.”

Dad was more like me. He liked order and structure. And decorum, for pity’s sake. But Mom had only smiled and said, “I do it for him, honey. It reminds him of who he used to be before all the pressure.”

I’d been so mad then, because I didn’t really understand her answer. All I knew is that I never wanted my dad to look at me with the same anger and embarrassment he’d had on his face before he escaped from the wedding.

In the end, she refused to change. So did my dad. Which is how they ended up divorced two years later. And how my mom went through about four more serious relationships, another marriage, a divorce, and now a third husband. David. They were going on three years, probably because he took her out dancing whenever she wanted. Even still, they were doomed to sputter out soon.

I didn’t love my mom’s uninhibited approach to life sometimes. Most times. And certainly not the way her lack of inhibitions led her to fling herself into one failing relationship after another. But now, listening to Paul talk more about the metric he’d developed for making sure we found the perfect sunset, I realized that there was a tiny bit of merit in her playfulness—if it were dialed down—A TON. Paul needed more spontaneity in his life. Not “Shoop-even-if-your-spouse-hates-it” spontaneity. But a big step away from his spreadsheets.

I’d been so worried for months about making sure our experiences together were low-stress and perfectly executed, and it was the opposite of what we both needed.

Not until I Shooped like an idiot on the boat had I realized how much I’d needed an injection of silliness. And Paul was many, many good things, but he wasn’t silly.

He’d looked at me, embarrassed. It hadn’t felt good.

I took a deep breath. All right. Time to do the right thing. The only thing that made it doable was the knowledge that it was the right thing for him too.

“I don’t think I’m up for a coast drive. Can we just drive to the bridge overlook?”

“But I have this whole thing planned. It’ll be great.”

“I think I’m worn out already. I’m sorry.” Chicken. Do the right thing. I cleared my throat. “But also, I want to talk to you about something.”

Paul smiled. “The overlook then.” He handed me his phone. “Can you sync it? I made a playlist.”

It was called “Sunset Playlist,” and as we merged onto the harbor road, the first of several love songs played.

Oh, man. This was going to suck.