Page 40 of Enemies to Lobsters
Heat floods my face, and Ike straightens. “How about you watch what you say to my wife, Kevin?” he calls into the dark.
That starts a whole round oftsksand whispers, but everyone moves down a seat to accommodate the Witch of Cape Georgeana and her beloved husband. I follow Ike down the row, and he apologizes as he goes. He’s met with, “It’s okay,” and, “No sweat, man.” One guy even claps him on the shoulder. “Long day, huh? Work of the mayor is never done.”
I follow Ike’s lead. “Sorry!” I whisper over and over as I shimmy down the row behind Ike, but I only get perturbed faces and rolling eyes. I swear one woman juts her elbow into me on purpose.
What did I ever do to these people? No one hates paper straws that much. I mean, they get soggy instantly, but still. They’re paper straws. It’s not like I invented red dye 40.And you didn’t even invent them,I have to remind myself.
After what feels like miles and miles, we finally reach our seats. I slouch into my backrest with a long, relieved exhale.
Louise leans around Ike. She mouths, “Nice to meet you,” with a huge smile and a wave. She’s not at all what I expected—about my age, with a blunt, blonde bob and toothy grin.
I wave back and match her smile, relieved to have at least one ally in this room besides Ike. I settle back, unsure what to expect from a children’s play. I’ve never been to anything like this before.
Eventually a boy shuffles onto the stage in his lamppost costume, his blond hair poking out around his face hole. His big, frantic eyes search the dim auditorium. When he starts to fidget and his eyes turn watery, Ike waves and whisper-shouts, “Boone. Right here, buddy.”
Only Ike could get away with that in the middle of a play without being combatively shushed.
Boone’s smile turns huge and toothy—a mirror image of his mother’s—and he walks to the edge of the stage, waving his lamppost arms frantically like, “I’m doing it! I am killing it as a lamppost.”
“That’s good, buddy. Stay right there,” Ike whispers before Boone walks off the front of the stage in his excitement.
Boone stays rooted proudly to his spot, stoic while Lucy Pevensie and Mr. Tumnus do their thing around him. He’s the most lost-yet-earnest lamppost I’ve ever seen.
I lean into Ike. “He isadorable,” I say under my breath, turning to share a smile with my date.
Ike must feel my gaze, but his eyes are glued to his little friend. He blinks hard, clearing his throat a few times before he murmurs, “Yeah, he is.” Then more rapid blinking. Are his eyes wet? “I taught him everything he knows.”
I can’t stop the smile that takes over my face. Ike’s elbow bumps mine on our shared arm rest, then his fingers leave a slow trail down my wrist before he finds my hand. He ducks close, his mouth next to my ear. “I have allergies. That’s why I’m—” he gestures to his weepy eyes. “If I was crying, I’d admit it. Nothing wrong with it. There’s dust in the air.”
“Mmhmm,” is all I can eke out. I can hardly breathe with his voice in my ear like that. And I learned two things just now. One, Ike’s arrogance is an act. Mr. Everything’s armor can have no visible chinks. And two, I have a thing for a guy with a beard who cries over his ten-year-old neighbor being on stage.
I’m not sure what I expected from this play, but it wasn’t two kids wearing either end of an Aslan costume and getting tangled in the curtain until a loud curse came out of the tail end. And I didn’t expect to fall for Ike.
Chapter 20
Ike
Ican’t believe what I’m hearing.
I only wanted to grab my unglazed fritter and a whoopie pie for Diana before she wakes up, but I’m getting a steaming side dish of gossip about my wife. I’m sitting on a desk chair behind the swinging doors at Marlow’s. She lets me come back here when my to-do list is full, and I need space from the locals. And the people of Cape Georgeana and I are officially on a break. It’s not me, it’s them. I’m sick about how they treated Diana at the play last night, and how they’re talking about her now.
“Yeah, she wasall overhim last night,” a nasally, feminine voice whispers. “Shameless. Like, we get it. You’re obsessed with the town hottie. Aren’t we all? But it’s like she was marking her territory. Like, get out of here, little miss New York.”
Someone comes to Diana’s defense. “Theyaremarried.”
There’s high-pitched laughter, then, “Yeah, but it’s not a real marriage. You think Ike would really go for someone who’s in love with Tom Selleck and casts spells in the lighthouse for fun?” She laughs again.
I want to pelt her with a whoopie pie, but that would be a waste of a perfectly good whoopie pie. I take another bite of my fritter, chewing while I decide how to confront them.
“She’s in love with Tom Selleck?” A male voice comes from another direction. He must be sitting at another booth. He sounds like he has a mouthful of eggs. “TheTom Selleck?”
“That’s what I heard. She came here to get her head on straight because she’s in love with him. I guess he rejected her, and that’s why she ran away from New York.”
This person is a lunatic. It’s not worth the oxygen it would require to correct her.
A new voice interjects. “No, notactualTom Selleck. She’s in love with theideaof Tom Selleck,” she says with a hateful snicker. This one sounds like she’d invite Diana to a non-costume party and tell her to wear a costume.
There’s a nasally giggle now. “Oh my gosh, that’s so much worse.”
