“So what’s the issue? He’s just not Jack London?”
She expects him to laugh again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks somber. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, I got my first copy of Call of the Wild at an estate sale when I was ten. My parents were buying a rocking chair, and when the guy found me reading it in a corner, he told me to keep it. I must’ve read that thing a hundred times. I loved it so much I wrote my college essay on Jack London, how I wish I had his spirit of adventure, how I’d never been more than fifty miles from my family’s farm and was ready to make my own way in the world. Turned out to be my ticket out of there.” He runs a hand over his beard, his eyes on the window behind them, where a layer of fog sits lightly atop the water. “When people talk about the way books can shape you, it always makes me laugh, because yeah, of course they do. But with me, it isn’t a metaphor. My life would quite literally be completely different if I hadn’t found my way to that book. Or, I guess, if that book hadn’t found its way to me.”
Greta smiles. “Nothing like your first love.”
“Well, it turned out to be a lot more durable than my actual first love,” he says morosely, then forces a laugh. “Sorry, it’s still kind of new. Being separated. Though I guess the two things are wrapped up together, in a way. I started working on Wild Song just after we got married, and it came out about six months ago, right as everything was falling apart.” He stares into his glass. “Anyway, now that story is over, and it’s time to start another one. I guess I’m just having a hard time turning the page.”
Greta isn’t sure if they’re talking about his books or his marriage now. “It can be tough to move on,” she says. “You pour so much of yourself into that first one, and then you’re supposed to do it all over again, just like that. There’s a reason they say seconds are cursed.”
He gives her a blank look.
“You know, the sophomore slump: how so many artists have these brilliant debuts and then their next try falls completely flat.”
“Did yours?”
She takes a swig of her drink. “We’ll see. It comes out in July.”
“Wow,” he says. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be great.”
Greta nods, fighting an impulse to tell him the whole story. Over the last three months, she’s been almost acrobatic in her efforts to avoid the subject. But there’s something about talking to a complete stranger—someone she’ll never see again after this week—that almost makes her want to open up. Almost.
“Sometimes,” he says, picking at the edge of his coaster, “I’m not sure I have another one in me.”
She frowns at him. “You could quit? Just like that?”
“I like teaching. And being around people. Writing is lonely. It’s different than playing music.”
“That can be lonely too,” she admits. “I’m on the road a lot.”
“Yeah, but you have a band.”
“Not a set one. Just musicians coming in and out on different tours.”
“Well, you have fans.”
“So do you,” she says. “It’s still lonely.”
They look at each other for a long moment. The floor sways beneath her, and Greta’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or the ship. A new song comes on, and she lifts her eyes to the ceiling, searching for the speakers. When she looks back at Ben, he’s still watching her.
“Can I ask you a question?” he says, but he doesn’t wait for her answer. “Do you want all those things? That your dad wants for you?”
Greta shifts in her seat. It’s been a long time since anyone has asked her that, a long time since she’s let someone into this part of her life.
“I don’t know,” she says eventually. “Sometimes I think…maybe. I know I don’t have forever. But I also love my life. The freedom of it. And I like being selfish. I know how that sounds, but I like that I can spend a whole weekend working on a new song if I want to. I like being on the road two hundred days a year. And being able to throw a few things in a bag and head out the door without anyone hassling me about my schedule. It’s nice not to have too many strings attached sometimes.” She gives him an impatient look. “I realize how that makes me sound. And I know most people don’t feel that way. Most people want security. They want someone to be there for them. A partner.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had relationships. And some of them have been really great. But I don’t mind it—being on my own. Sometimes I even kind of love it.”
Ben nods. “Nothing wrong with that.”
She swirls the little paper umbrella around in her glass. “I do wonder if I’ll feel differently about it all later, and then it will be too late. I don’t want it now.” She gives him a hard look, as if he were about to argue otherwise. “But I hate wondering whether Future Greta will be pissed at Current Greta for not having my shit together, you know?”
He laughs. “I’m still too pissed at Past Ben for some of the stuff he did to worry too much about Future Ben at the moment.”
“Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“Being married, having a partner, a home.”
He runs a finger along the edge of his glass. “I miss my girls.”
“Tell me about them.”
The look that passes across his face is so genuine, so sweetly earnest, that Greta feels like she knows everything about what kind of father he is before he even says a word. “Well, Avery is six, and Hannah is four,” he says, reaching for his phone, presumably to show her some pictures. But then he changes his mind and pulls his hand away again. “Avery is obsessed with unicorns and books and ninjas, and Hannah is obsessed with whatever Avery is obsessed with.”
“Sounds like they have good taste.”
“They do,” he says with a smile. “They’re pretty great. I mean, don’t get me wrong—they can be a lot too. But they’re both such funny, ridiculous, amazing little humans.” He shrugs. “It’s pretty cool.”
“And their mom?” Greta keeps her face neutral as she says this. She’s not sure why, exactly. It can’t be that she’s interested in Ben, because he’s exactly the opposite of everything she ever looks for in a guy. He’s like the cardboard-cutout version of who she might’ve ended up with if her life had followed all the usual paths: the type of person you build a future with, the kind of future that includes engagement rings and mortgage statements, summer vacations and pregnancy tests, baby registries and preschool applications—all the things that make Greta feel sweaty and claustrophobic.