“Well, I better head back up front. If I have to sit back here with you two, I’ll get seasick, Captain.”
Captain?
“We should hook up this weekend. Maybe get everyone together and head up to the Liars Saloon. Do a little drinking. Have a little fun. Old-school style. Wouldn’t that be the greatest?”
Nate nods. “If we can get away. It’s kind of a crazy weekend, and we’re actually only here because . . .”
“Oh that’s right! How could I forget? I heard that Gwyn and Thomas are having a divorce party tonight. I was surprised to hear they were splitting up, to tell you the truth. It’s temporary, I’m sure, I’m sure . . . I’d be willing to bet you that it is.” Then Murph turns toward Maggie. “Don’t you just love Gwyn and Thomas? I mean, just look at them! Who is beautiful enough for either of them except the other?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I haven’t met them yet actually. I’ve spoken to them on the phone many times, but this is the first time we’ll be meeting in person.” She can’t stop talking, apparently. “Face to face . . . because we were in California, and they were here, and we’ve been setting up the restaurant . . . and they’ve been going through . . .”
Murph raises her eyebrows, as if to say, who are you talking to, me or yourself? And Maggie wishes she had a good answer, but the truth is she has been telling herself too loudly all the reasons Nate hasn’t introduced her yet to his family. But now, she is wondering if she knows the real one.
“Well, anyway, you will love them,” Murph says. “I remember every time I was over there, they would sit so near to each other on the couch, sharing a plate of cheese or a glass of bourbon. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my parents sit in the same room unless other people were there too. They are the ones who should be getting divorced, but I think my mother is too tired to house hunt.” She pauses, shaking her head. “But Gwyn and Thomas were, year after year, connected at the knees. It makes it all quite shocking, really. Because they say that determines it, you know.”
“Determines what?” Nate says.
“How happy you’ll be in your own marriage. However happy your parents were in theirs, you tend to match it, or something like it. You tend to emulate whatever you saw in your house.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Maggie says.
They both turn to stare at her. She feels her face flush red. She wasn’t planning on saying that out loud, wasn’t planning on saying anything out loud, but she just wants Murph to go away. Now.
Maggie clears her throat. “I just mean that lots of people can end up in happy marriages, even if they had a rough start of things. Even if they aren’t sure they have the best model.”
“Your parents suck too, then?” Murph says.
“Excuse me?”
But then instead of answering, she turns to Nate. “So I’ll probably be coming by. You know how Louis and Marsha love to party . . . and I can’t disappoint the parents.”
“Good, we’d like that.”
She gives them both a small wave and heads back to the front, as the bus kicks into motion, pulling them down Forty-first Street toward the highway, as the ticket agent comes down the aisle, handing each passenger a small pack of pretzels, a container of water. Collecting fifty-one dollars for their roundtrip rides.
Once she is gone, Nate leans in close to her, wraps his arm around the back of Maggie’s shoulders.
“She’s okay, Maggie. Once you get to know her a little better. She’s not a bad person.”
“I believe it. That was nice of her to give you two bags of pretzels. I think most people got one.”
“Maggie,” Nate says. “I’m talking about Murph.”
“I know who you are talking about.”
“I’m sorry she made you uncomfortable.”
Maggie shakes her head. “She didn’t,” she says. You did. “But what was she talking about with the marriage stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when you told her that we were engaged? Why was she saying that she was surprised you’d get married? It’s not like you’re twenty or something. You’re thirty-three. Why would that be surprising?”
“I don’t remember her saying that,” he says. And he gets a look across his face, a look that Maggie doesn’t recognize.
“Nate . . .”
“What?”