Page 98 of How to Walk Away

If you’d asked me before the crash, I’d have told you that feelings were like blocks of primary colors: You felt blue for a while, then yellow, then red. But now I saw the emotional landscape quite differently—more like the pointillism of a Seurat painting: each color made up of many other colors. Look closely, and it’s dots. Stand back, and it’s an afternoon on the lake—all the colors relying on each other for texture and meaning.

Maybe that would turn out to be an upside, I found myself thinking. Maybe I’d see the world like an artist now.

I could have just closed my eyes and given in to the drift. But I had a question for Ian that had been nagging me, and now that I had him alone, I had to ask.

“Tell me something,” I said, keeping my voice casual.

“Okay,” Ian said, still rowing.

“Why did your business fail?”

I could sense him tensing up at the words.

But I was already in, so I kept going, keeping my eyes out on the water. “What happened?”

Ian didn’t answer. Just kept rowing.

“I mean, it was such a brilliant idea.”

Ian was quiet for so long, I finally turned to look at him.

“I didn’t manage things very well,” he said at last. “I neglected it too much.”

I shrugged, like,Okay.Like that was all the answer I’d wanted.

But, of course, his answer just created more questions. Why would a guy with such a great idea go to all the trouble of setting up a business—inventing an entirely new business!—and then neglect it?

I could tell just from the angle of his posture that he didn’t want to talk about it.

I let it go.

We weren’t here to be unhappy.

We were here to try, at least for a little while, to be the opposite.

***

BY THE TIMEwe got back, the sun was going down, and Fat Benjamin, who was far more “tubby” than fat, with a plump body like a dumpling and a bushy hipster beard, had arrived. He and Kit were building the bonfire. Ian piggybacked me over to the fire and got me settled in a chair, and I watched Kit and Benjamin flirt. He couldn’t seem to stop his hands from touching her—and she didn’t seem to mind.

Kit made us a vegetable stew in a pot on a grate over the fire. (“He’s a vegan,” she apologized, when the guys went to get more wood.) As the sun went down, the air cooled, and Ian went in for blankets. Whenhe came back out with a stack, he also had something else under his arm.

A ukulele.

“Youaremusical!” Kit said when she saw it.

Ian shook his head. “I haven’t played in years. But I can play ‘Happy Birthday.’”

So he did. Serenaded me with it, really. I wrapped my blanket around everything but my burned neck, and after that, we all sat around the fire while Ian played requests and let us sing along. He messed up over and over, but nobody cared but him.

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “You are the best ukulele player I’ve ever met.”

Ian gave me a half-smile. “Am I the only ukulele player you’ve ever met?”

“You bet.”

He knew a little Bob Dylan, a little James Taylor, one Van Morrison, and a whole lotta Beatles.

That’s how my birthday bonfire turned into a nonstop Beatles birthday luau. We sang and sang and sang. And ate vegan stew. And then, for a birthday cake, made cast-iron skillet brownies with melted marshmallows over the fire.

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