Page 48 of Business or Pleasure

I glance down at where I shoved my socked feet into Birks. And not just any socks: my favorite pair, with grumpy faces all over them. “Okay, look. I didn’t want us to have this conversation this early, maybe not ever. But I’m always cold, and I just hate the feeling of bare feet. I’m not going to swim in them or anything.”

Finn shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why are we writing a book about me when you’re clearly an alien masquerading as a human?” He steps closer, giving me a serious look as he drops a hand to my shoulder. “Are you lonely here? Are they worried about you on your home planet?”

I try to smack him with my towel, but he darts out of the way. “We all have our weird shit, okay?”

“As long as you don’t put them on afterward, we’re good.”

“I’m not a monster.” He doesn’t need to know about the extra pair in my tote bag for exactly that reason.

He heads toward the pool, throwing me an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows before he dives confidently into the deep end. He pops back up with a grin, swiping water out of his eyes and slicking back his hair.

“Let me guess, you learned how to swim for some daring underwater rescue scene in The Nocturnals,” I say as his arms slice through the water. I’m no expert, but his form looks pretty perfect.

He shakes his head. “Aquamarine 2: Boy Out of Water.”

“I didn’t know that movie had a sequel.”

“Yeah, it probably shouldn’t have. It was both a critical and commercial failure, but the swimming lessons were legit.”

I place my phone next to the edge of the pool, checking it for messages from my parents before dipping into the water.

“Just an FYI,” I call out to Finn, who’s now moved into an easy butterfly. “I haven’t gone swimming in probably ten years.” I nod my head toward the No Lifeguard on Duty sign.

“Lucky for you, I’ve taken multiple CPR courses. Not sure how much I remember, but I can definitely look like I’m saving your life.” He gazes around the pool. “None of these hotels have any personality, do they? How much more time do we have in Memphis? Maybe we could get out a bit tomorrow. Explore.”

“We should be working. We’re here two more days, and then we’re off to Denver on Thursday.”

“We can do both.” He swims up next to me, water droplets lining his eyebrows and clinging to his lashes. “We’re in a place you’ve never been. Aren’t you curious? And hey, maybe it’ll jog our creativity.”

Because this is the trip of going outside my comfort zone, I give in. And check my phone one more time.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Oh—yeah, sorry. My mom had a colonoscopy last week, so I’m just waiting to hear how it went.”

“I have to say, I’m curious about the kind of people who raised someone who insists on wearing socks down to a hotel pool.”

“They’re amazing. Kind of crunchy hippies—they smoke pot, and my mom even had a phase when she followed around the Grateful Dead for a while, way before I was born,” I say. “Before they retired, my dad worked as a sustainability consultant for big corporations and my mom was an elementary school music teacher. But they’re a bit older. I probably worry about them too much, definitely more than they’d like me to. I can’t help it.”

“When you say older...”

I purse my lips, preparing for his reaction. “Pushing eighty. When I was in school, kids would always assume they were my grandparents. And now that I’m an adult, it’s only occasionally hitting me that they’re really, really different from how they used to be. And that terrifies me sometimes.” My voice goes soft, the hum of the pool filters filling the space.

“I’d be doing the same thing,” he says. “That can’t be easy.”

There’s something new in his voice, a gentleness that makes me keep talking.

“It’s like—each year brings me new and additional ways to worry about them. Is it going to get below freezing? Then I’m worried about them getting out of a car when it’s icy. How’s their eyesight, their reflexes? Is it safe for them to drive? And—” I break off, wondering if I’m telling him too much. It’s definitely more than I’ve talked about to anyone except Noemie. “Even if they did need help, I feel like they’d go out of their way to prevent me from finding out. Because they wouldn’t want to inconvenience me.”

One time, they didn’t tell me about a skin biopsy my dad had because they didn’t want me to get anxious about it. Which was probably the right call, because when my mom let it slip over text that the results had fortunately been benign, I called her five times in rapid succession when she didn’t answer. When she finally called me back, she didn’t understand why I was so worried about it.

“They’re good people,” he says. “I can tell.”

“Because they put up with me and my alien tendencies?”

“No. It’s in the way you talk about them. There are so many parent horror stories in the industry, people who forced their kids to grow up too fast. I guess it’s been a while since I heard about someone genuinely loving and getting along with their parents.”

The message from my mom finally shows up, giving my shoulders a chance to relax: all nrml dad & I going to clbrate w

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