Page 18 of Songs of Summer

Her face showed no sign of recognition. The chatty man got that too.

“Mitch Grabow? We were in youth group together. Picture me with braces and a big ’fro.”

Veronica’s expression remained the same. He soldiered on.

“I pulled a fishing hook out of your knee once. Remember that?”

“I do,” she acquiesced. “It left a scar.”

A small laugh escaped Maggie’s lips, and she blushed from her obvious eavesdropping. There was no doubt that Veronica Silver was a piece of work.

“Here for any special reason?” he asked, clearly indulging in another kind of phishing.

“A wedding on this very ferry, I believe,” she responded.

“Yup, the wedding of the century. I’ll be there too.”

She smiled the phoniest smile Maggie had ever seen.

“Is Beatrix in town for it?” he asked.

Damn it—close relative, Maggie thought.

It seemed an innocent question, but the looks of bewilderment she saw on the faces of those around her made her wonder.

“I wouldn’t know. My sister and I are not that close. But you already knew that.”

“Oh God,” Maggie mumbled, under her breath, but loud enough for them both to glance her way. She looked to her phone as if it held the cause for her alarm, turned her body toward the bay, and considered jumping. She was a strong swimmer. If this was indeed her mother’s sister, she feared she would have little in common with her long-lost family, plus, talk about messy! Maggie’s plan to suss things out before admitting who she was felt smarter than ever.

As the ferry entered the basin on the other side of the bay, Maggie panned the crowd looking for her birth mother. Her throat tightened, her heart raced, and her eyes watered at the possibility of seeing her for the first time. The feelings surprised her. She was not a highly emotional person. Her parents had raised her that way, never really arguing and fostering a low-maintenance, “it is what it is” sort of attitude.She could tell from the brief trip on the ferry that her Auntie Veronica was the definition of high maintenance. She wondered whether Beatrix was the same.

Maggie held back a little, allowing the other travelers to depart before her. She was keen to see who was waiting for Veronica at the dock. Surprisingly, it was no one.

The tiny town was straight-up adorable. Barefoot people meeting passengers, kissing them hello, and placing their belongings on wooden wagons. Kids shouting, “Lemonade here!” and others hawking friendship bracelets and painted shells. The lack of cars was immediately evident, as was the abundance of bicycles.

Veronica headed for the only commercial building in sight, with a big sign on top that readbayview market. She had a confusing energy about her, like a swan, elegant on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath, to keep herself afloat. Maggie followed her, careful to stay ten steps behind. She watched as Veronica entered, raised her oversized Chanel sunnies, eyed the teenage girls at the register, and smiled. Maggie had a feeling she was hoping for a bigger welcome on Fire Island than she had thus far received—which was zero until Veronica arrived at the deli counter, where the three guys behind it all stepped around to greet her. A round of “It’s been forever”–type sentiments was followed by hugs and kisses. Maggie stood in the far aisle, taking it all in. She noticed that Veronica was one of those huggers who led with her breasts. Maggie, on the other hand, always awkwardly caved her chest inward in that situation, taking more of a headfirst approach.

The guys seemed thrilled to see her. A fourth put down his meat cleaver and called out “Veronica Silver!” in a bellowingvoice that filled the store. Across the aisle, a middle-aged woman in cutoff jeans, Ray-Bans, and the newly anointed Kenyon College mascot—an owl—on her baseball cap, clearly heard the “announcement.” She visibly startled and dropped her container of eggs flat out on the floor as if her hands had stopped working.

Maggie gasped and the woman looked up to see where the gasp had come from, cocking her head to the side. Maggie herself was famously a head cocker. Her father used to call it her puppy-dog face. She froze at the sight of the woman, who looked both familiar and like a complete stranger.

An uncanny feeling came over her.

She knew she had just seen her mother.

Maybe a glimpse of her was enough. Maybe she could go home now. Maggie quickly memorized her familiar coloring and the texture of her hair peeking out from her telling baseball cap. The woman’s lips, now curved downward, reminded Maggie of her own. But mostly there was something about her essence that felt known to her. She considered helping her pick up her eggs, to get a closer look, but the woman turned and ran.

Maggie didn’t follow her but stepped out the front door of the store just in time to see her jump on a bike and pedal off. She watched her for a minute, until tears unexpectedly blurred her vision. Seeing her mother, seeing her in the flesh mere minutes after her arrival, tugged at feelings she didn’t even know existed. She wiped her eyes and did a little emotional exorcism to calm herself. When she did so, cautious Maggie screamed: sit back down on the bench by the ferry and wait for the next boat back to the mainland.

She bravely headed to the register instead and asked thegirls there if they could point her toward her hotel in Ocean Beach. They seemed to grimace when she mentioned where she was staying. She thought to ask them why, but it felt pointless. She had prepaid for the room. She grabbed something to eat, adjusted her expectations, and went on her way.

Track 9

Ironic

Matt

Matt Tucker emptiedthe last items from his suitcase, including the seersucker suit he was instructed to wear when giving his mother away at her wedding. It was a lot to unpack—figuratively, more than literally.

---