wasn’t going to tell you,” Thomas said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Nikki meant it and then a second later she didn’t, but he’d already pounced on her forgiveness and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He engulfed her. They rocked back and forth and then he threw up in a garbage can. Nikki stood by close as he clutched the sticky sides of the can and vomited a day’s worth of bourbon and peaches.
Day 13: Hushpuppies are called “hushpuppies” because they were originally fed to dogs to shut them up.
On their trip Thomas didn’t take many pictures and Nikki forgot to write down most of the church signs they passed. It was hard to think about art on vacation, and, truthfully, the signs she had in her thrift store book were better. The one sign she liked the most said, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T BELIEVE IN ME AND THEN IT TURNED OUT I EXISTED. It wasn’t clever or funny or a quotation from the Bible and it wasn’t even grammatically correct. It was just a threat. It would be scarier, she thought, if she painted the opposite: if you did believe and then he didn’t exist. It was better to not believe and be pleasantly surprised at the end.
Day 15: Outdoor showers only. You have to yank a chain and keep it pulled to get the water running. We took turns pulling the chain while the other rinsed off. Little whirlpools of sand at our feet.
They ended their trip on Ocracoke Island, a skinny, tiny island on the southern tip of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They took a ferry from the mainland at six thirty in the morning. Nikki’s favourite picture from the trip was one that she took of Thomas on that ferry. He’s standing on the main deck wearing tattered army shorts and a black t-shirt. In the background you can see a little girl, blurry. You can’t tell in the picture, but the girl spent most of the ferry ride outside playing with the seagulls trailing the boat. She stood with her arms on her hips, put a cracker in her mouth and jutted out her chin, stubborn and brave. The birds swooped down and snatched the crackers straight out of her mouth. The gulls were fast, like military planes the way they dived down so quickly, and the girl, maybe nine years old, never flinched.
There were wild horses on Ocracoke Island. Nikki expected to be greeted by them running gloriously free, but the harbour was dotted only with little cottages and boats. It was quaint and pretty, but everything was too expensive. They managed to track down a campsite by the beach and there was a deep, sandy path that connected their tent to the ocean.
They never saw any wild horses. They drove to a lookout they read about in the guidebook and climbed three steps to a wooden platform for a better view. There were a few horses in the distance, small, stubby creatures, and they stood in a line, heads dipped into feed buckets. Their tails flicked the flies away, but otherwise they were motionless and lethargic in the mid-afternoon heat. These days the horses are maintained by Ocracoke’s agricultural society . They’d skipped that line in the guidebook.
“Do you know Houyhnhnm?” Nikki asked Thomas.
“What the hell is that?”
“A language, from Gulliver’s Travels.”
“I don’t know any languages from Gulliver’s Travels , Nik. I don’t know French and I took it for eight years.”
“Gulliver meets these horses and it turns out they speak to each other in a special language. He lives with them and learns it. In Houyhnhnm the horses don’t have a word for ‘lie.’”
“Why not?”
“They’re so noble they don’t even understand the concept of lying. They just never did it.”
Thomas got uncomfortable. He thought she was leading him back to a conversation about the girl he’d slept with. They’d spoken about it one more time, the day after her birthday. They walked along the boardwalk at the beach and talked about it calmly, and they held hands and she told him again that it was okay. She meant it more than the
“It’s fine.” Nikki meant it and then a second later she didn’t, but he’d already pounced on her forgiveness and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He engulfed her. They rocked back and forth and then he threw up in a garbage can. Nikki stood by close as he clutched the sticky sides of the can and vomited a day’s worth of bourbon and peaches.
Day 13: Hushpuppies are called “hushpuppies” because they were originally fed to dogs to shut them up.
On their trip Thomas didn’t take many pictures and Nikki forgot to write down most of the church signs they passed. It was hard to think about art on vacation, and, truthfully, the signs she had in her thrift store book were better. The one sign she liked the most said, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T BELIEVE IN ME AND THEN IT TURNED OUT I EXISTED. It wasn’t clever or funny or a quotation from the Bible and it wasn’t even grammatically correct. It was just a threat. It would be scarier, she thought, if she painted the opposite: if you did believe and then he didn’t exist. It was better to not believe and be pleasantly surprised at the end.
Day 15: Outdoor showers only. You have to yank a chain and keep it pulled to get the water running. We took turns pulling the chain while the other rinsed off. Little whirlpools of sand at our feet.
They ended their trip on Ocracoke Island, a skinny, tiny island on the southern tip of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They took a ferry from the mainland at six thirty in the morning. Nikki’s favourite picture from the trip was one that she took of Thomas on that ferry. He’s standing on the main deck wearing tattered army shorts and a black t-shirt. In the background you can see a little girl, blurry. You can’t tell in the picture, but the girl spent most of the ferry ride outside playing with the seagulls trailing the boat. She stood with her arms on her hips, put a cracker in her mouth and jutted out her chin, stubborn and brave. The birds swooped down and snatched the crackers straight out of her mouth. The gulls were fast, like military planes the way they dived down so quickly, and the girl, maybe nine years old, never flinched.
There were wild horses on Ocracoke Island. Nikki expected to be greeted by them running gloriously free, but the harbour was dotted only with little cottages and boats. It was quaint and pretty, but everything was too expensive. They managed to track down a campsite by the beach and there was a deep, sandy path that connected their tent to the ocean.
They never saw any wild horses. They drove to a lookout they read about in the guidebook and climbed three steps to a wooden platform for a better view. There were a few horses in the distance, small, stubby creatures, and they stood in a line, heads dipped into feed buckets. Their tails flicked the flies away, but otherwise they were motionless and lethargic in the mid-afternoon heat. These days the horses are maintained by Ocracoke’s agricultural society . They’d skipped that line in the guidebook.
“Do you know Houyhnhnm?” Nikki asked Thomas.
“What the hell is that?”
“A language, from Gulliver’s Travels.”
“I don’t know any languages from Gulliver’s Travels , Nik. I don’t know French and I took it for eight years.”
“Gulliver meets these horses and it turns out they speak to each other in a special language. He lives with them and learns it. In Houyhnhnm the horses don’t have a word for ‘lie.’”
“Why not?”
“They’re so noble they don’t even understand the concept of lying. They just never did it.”
Thomas got uncomfortable. He thought she was leading him back to a conversation about the girl he’d slept with. They’d spoken about it one more time, the day after her birthday. They walked along the boardwalk at the beach and talked about it calmly, and they held hands and she told him again that it was okay. She meant it more than the
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