Page 30 of Sounds Like Love

A good day.I smiled at her, but I hated how we’d all redefined the term.

A good day no longer meant a happy day, a delightful day—extraordinary. Now a good day was just … normal. Theoldnormal. The sort of normal that would grow rarer and rarer as time went on.

I picked out a very burnt pancake and flopped it onto my plate. If I had to eat one, I liked them crunchy. It was the consistency of blackened toast that’d sat out too long, but with enough syrup it cut easier than butter.I took a bite, and decided to stop thinking about last good days.

THE MARGE HADdropped anchor on the other side of the pier, where all the tourists hung out under colorful umbrellas. We abandoned our cheap flip-flops on the sand and swam out to it. There were a few other people floating around the boat, some sitting on the benches nailed to the outer edges. Inside the boat was a small space with a cooler for ice, mixers, tequila, fresh fruit, and biodegradable cups. Easily the biggest thing was the blender attached to a lawn mower engine, and above it was a chalkboard with today’s margaritas.

Uncle Rick loved frozen concoctions and cheeseburgers and paradise on his little boat. It wasn’t really a boatorbar, but some amalgamation of the two he made out of spare pontoon parts and a dream. I honestly couldn’t tell you how he steered the damn thing, or how it was still afloat, but it had been a staple in Vienna Shores for as long as I’d been alive, and for as long as I’d been alive, Mom had contributed a weekly mixtape to the buoy with a rudder.

It was a literal mixtape, because the tech on the boat was so outdated, it couldn’t support anything else.

Mom was up to 1,899. She’d never missed a week in a little over thirty-six years. Four years before Mitch was born, five before me. I used to think she knew every song there ever was.

Some days I still thought that.

As we swam up, Uncle Rick had to do a double take before his face broke open into a smile. He threw his arms wide and cried, “NINI, YOU’RE HOME!” He was the only one who didn’t shorten my name to Jo,and I always loved it. With a laugh, he helped us up onto the bench. “Wyn, you didn’t tell me she camehomealready.”

Mom mocked a gasp and slammed her hands on the bar. “Rick! You wouldn’t believe this! Jo’s home!”

Uncle Rick rolled his eyes. “Okay, yeah, I deserved that.”

She winked and pulled the mixtape out of her bathing suit top, handing it to him. “Is this apology enough? I made it special this week.”

“You always make it special,” he replied, popping open the cassette case and inserting it into the antique stereo. He turned up the volume.

Static hissed through the speakers.

Then the downbeat of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young.”

“Aww, hell yeah,” he said, bobbing his head to the beat.

Uncle Rick wasn’t really my uncle, butunclerolled off the tongue a lot easier thangodfather.And he played the part flawlessly. Always there. Always ready to dispense cryptic advice. Always ready with a margarita. His mustache was mostly gray now, as was his thick head of once-black hair. He was tall and wiry, with a few faded tattoos up his arms. He looked like a Jimmy Buffett album cover come to life, in an open Hawaiian button-down that exposed identical top surgery scars on his chest, bright pink swim trunks, aviators, and a panama hat kicked back on his head. And the more years he spent as my parents’ best friend, photobombing candids and popping up in Polaroids, the more like a wizard he became.

“Now, of all times?”

I jumped at the sudden voice.

Sasha went on, oblivious.“Dad couldn’t have retired years ago? Why wait untilnow?”

Uncle Rick came back with an ice water with lemon and orange slices—my usual—as Mom asked, “Something bite you?”

“Maybe. I’m fine, though,” I added so Mom didn’t worry, and she didn’t as she ordered her virgin margarita.Sasha, I can hear you.

“Oh,”he said, surprised.“Erm, hello.”

Hello, I replied. Then:Sorry. I didn’t mean to overhear.

“It’s fine. Just … family stuff.”

Stuff, I echoed.

“Stuff,”he confirmed tiredly.

I took a sip of ice water, wanting to pry, but I had to remind myself that I would rather him stay as anonymous as possible.

Mom pulled me out of my thoughts as she turned to me and said in her most gossipy whisper, “So, I probably shouldn’t tell you, but I cannotkeep it in any longer—I think Mitch proposed to Gigi!”

That made me choke on my water. “What?”

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