Page 91 of Backslide
Tour?I thought we were picking up oysters on ice and hauling ass out of here. There’s a tour involved? But of course there is, because… my bestie loves a tour.
Noah shoots me a questioning look.
“Cara,” I say.
“Ah,” he nods.
“Right this way,” says Mike with a flourish, like he is ushering us through Versailles and not past massive basin flats of water with oysters being cleaned inside. The air is ripe with brininess, but this somehow offers even more sense of place. It’s hard not to feel transported—and I realize it’s been too long since I’ve been somewhere truly new.
On Cara’s itinerary, today read, “Day 4:Free Parking!” The song? “Freedom! ’90” by George Michael.
I think there’s something you should know, I think it’s time I told you so
There’s something deep inside of me, there’s someone else I’ve got to be
A Cara classic.
And right now, it’s feeling like it kind of makes sense.
Because when Mike leads us out to the back, I realize we are not just near, but right on the coast. It’s nothing fancy. The shoreline’s dirt and sand—littered with the fragments of cratered oyster shells—gives way to the placid water of Tomales Bay, serene and glossy. Patches of overgrown grass crest like small islands and, farther out, fishing and sail boats glide. On our side of the bay, the shore is lined with small houses on stilts that jut into the water. There’s something in them of faded gentry, weathered by the seasons but designed to withstand the changing tides.
They have been here, and they will be here.
Across the water are low green hills under a layer of fog and peppered with trees like so many broccoli florets.
I exhale, big.
Here, Mike begins his spiel, explaining the forty-year history of the oyster farm, where they currently lease over one hundred and fifty acres of the bay. He references sticks protruding from the water that mark the beds and describes another site, a nursery, where they grow oysters from inception. And he delivers all this information directly to me—and me alone.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say.
“Well, beauty knows beauty,” he winks.
Noah clears his throat.
The rain has let up for a moment, the sun feebly fighting the good fight. So, next, Mike suggests we jump ahead and leads us to a picnic table where all the necessary components wait for oyster shucking. There are two kinds of hot sauce, lemons, a special basil mignonette made by a local chef—and, of course, oysters on ice.
And there are flutes of Prosecco, too.
Handing us knives, an unwittingly questionable choice considering the way we’ve been bickering, Mike demonstrates the how-to—first on his own and then placing his hands over mine and guiding me, as he leans down over me.
It is a lot of contact with Mike. I wonder if next he’s going to rest his hands on my hips and show me how to hit a fastball.
On the bench across from me, my ex-boyfriend seethes. Which makes enduring Mike easier.
“Amazing job!” Mike says to me. “You’re a natural.”
“Thank you,” I bask.
He ignores Noah, who is struggling.
“You’re terrible at this,” I say to Noah, who is still unable to open a single oyster after several minutes. “And you are literally a surgeon.”
Noah shoots me a death glare. “My patients don’t have shells.”
“We can’t be good at everything,” Mike says. Then he nudges me and winks again. “These are some of our classics,” he continues, describing the varieties before we try them. “Pacific, Deep Water, Cold Water.”
“Isn’t that the name of a cologne people wore in the nineties?” Noah grunts.
