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274 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2013
“We’re going to have a blast. It will be like The Big Chill without Kevin Costner and with better music.”
“He still affects her the same way he did back in college. Gil is a friend, an old friend. He isn’t the same Gil she loved from not-so-afar in college, she reminds herself. No, he might be better.”
“There’s always been something between you and Gil. Stewing, brewing, steeping, fermenting between the two of you, but the timing was never right. Now the time is right.”
“It’s amazing to laugh and feel light after so much darkness and death, like the sun is out again after a long rain.”
“I’m glad you’re here. Even if it has taken us too long to come back together.”
“What? We are friends. Friends who kiss every twenty years.”
“I think you know I love you. Not past tense, not friendly love. Love. Love that lassos the moon and lays it at your feet.”
“Growing up and growing old don’t need to be the same thing.”
“Maybe she is a geoduck, living in her same, comfortable spot, unwilling to ever stick her neck out, and retreating at the first sign of contact. Has she subconsciously buried herself away from life’s risks all together?”
“But we don’t know each other anymore. Not like we did in college. We’ve changed. We’ve lived lives apart. Been married to other people. We’re different now.”
“I’m the gay glue holding this grout together,” Quinn boasts. “Selah is the heart, Maggie is the memory and you are the brain, Pinky.”
“Everything that happens to us, good and bad, is a part of us. It took me a long time to realize that… uh… it doesn’t have to define who we are. We get to decide.”
“In case you need a reminder.”
Glancing down, she sees a perfect wishing rock. When she looks back up, Gil is getting in the car and everyone waves their goodbyes as they depart.
After closing his door, Gill sees her bring the rock up to her mouth and kiss it before closing her eyes. He wonders if she made a wish and what her wish might be.
“What did you give Maggie from your pocked?” Selah asks as she turns toward the main road.
“What she needs most. Hope and faith.”
It seems all so long ago. We're forty. How did we get to be forty? Where did the past two decades go?
When you get your own shit figured out, you’re dealing with parents or kids, or both. Control is an illusion.
“The last time I felt totally in control of my life, and also the first time I felt like I was a real adult, was at twenty-seven.” Maggie muses. “I had a husband, a career, a NYC life. Recent grads were young and silly. Anyone over thirty was stuck. Forty was ancient."
I say don’t worry about it. Live your life. Fall in love when you find the one and figure out your life together as you go. Schedules are for ferries.