Page 31 of Sounds Like Love

“Ithinkanyway. He asked for Grandma Lark’s ring, so he’s either going to or he already did. And don’t you tell anyone!” she added, jabbing her finger at me. “I’mnot even supposed to know.”

I crossed my heart. Gigi hadn’t said anything about getting engaged, and she would havecertainlytold me.

Uncle Rick came back with Mom’s strawiwi margarita—a blend of strawberries and kiwis, sans tequila. She tasted it and gave a thumbs-up. He slapped his hand on the counter. “Perf, Ricky.”

“Always is.” Uncle Rick shot her a finger gun, and asked if I wanted anything besides water with crunchy ice. I skimmed the menu. “Or I could whip you up something real special. All I request is a hint at your next greatest hit.”

I froze at that. My mouth went dry. “Oh.That.”

Mom sipped her drink through a straw. “Ricky, you know she’s hard at work.”

“I know, I know, I’m just impressed,” he said. “I’d think it’d be hard trying to come up with something new after your last song hit it big.”

I kept staring up at the menu. “Yeah, I guess.”

Mom said, “Reminds me of the whole chapple marg fiasco.”

“The what?” I asked, confused.

“Right! You were already in LA,” she remembered. “It was about six years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t remind me,” Uncle Rick moaned. “I made those chapple margs and everyone loved them, and so everyone was all crazy about the chapple margs, they only wanted the chapple margs, why aren’t you making the chapple margs.” He gave a heavy sigh. I gathered that chapple margs were cherry-apple margaritas. Ididremember something about that a few years ago … “But the cherry syrup was staining everything I owned and we had a bad year for apples the next year, so I made something new.”

“The piniwi margs.” Mom recalled, and then told me, “Those are pineapple-kiwi-flavored margaritas. They wereamazing.”

“Hell yeah they were, but everyone just kept comparing them to the chapples even though the piniwis stood all on their own! And you can’t compare chapples to piniwis, it’s like comparing—”

“Apples to oranges?” I guessed.

“Pineapples to cherries, but yeah. If you spend your entire life comparing everything to the best thing you ever made, then you aren’t gonna find joy in any of it. You’ll just be unhappy that they aren’t like the original thing, you know?”

The Marge rose and dipped with the waves. The couple on the other side of the boat threw their hands into the air as the boat rode the crest, water splashing up the sides. Uncle Rick put a hand on his stack of plastic cups so they didn’t topple.

I asked, “How did you end up making the piniwis, knowing everyone would just want the chapples?”

“Pineapples were cheap that summer,” he replied, tossing some strawberries and kiwi into a blender with a healthy pour of tequila, “and I decided to do whatever the hell I wanted to, because in the end, if I’m not creating something that makesmefeel, then what’s the fucking point?”

Then he grabbed the cord for the margarita engine and revved it once, twice, before it started with a sputter, and the comically small blender on top made a loud whizzing noise as it mixed that frozen concoction of ice and fruit and tequila to mush.

He poured the drink, topped it with an umbrella, and slid it over to me. “You get it, right?”

“Follow your joy,” Mom surmised happily.

Uncle Rick winked at her, and turned to greet another group of beachgoers who had swum up to the Marge.

Follow your joy, huh?

It sounded like such a simple solution.

“See, things can change,” Mom added with another sip of her drink, “and other things will come in and fill their place. Something will fill the Revelry. I’m sure of it—oh! That reminds me! Ricky, when we start taking down the lobby photos, do you want any?”

He slid back over, a hungry look in his eyes. “Can I take the one of Jimmy? Put it up there by my shrine?” he added, pointing his thumb up into the roof of his boat, where a picture of Jimmy Buffett was nailed to a post, a shaker of salt on one side, a toy prop plane on the other.

“Absolutely,” Mom replied. “Would you want any, heart?”

I didn’t even want to think about that right now, but both she and Uncle Rick were looking at me expectantly. I racked my brain.“Um—probably the Roman Fell one? If Roman Fell doesn’t want it.”

“I doubt he would,” Mom mused.

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