Everything Floats

The pool hadn't been drained yet. Three weeks after she left, and the water was still there, turning an opaque green that made Mara think of stopped time. She stood at the edge with a margarita she didn't want, watching Marcus's wife—ex-wife now, technically—laugh at something some man in linen said. The man's hand was already hovering near the small of her back.

"She seems happy," said Ravi, appearing beside her with two fresh drinks. He was always appearing lately, like he'd been cast in the role of Mara's support system.

"She does," Mara said. "That's the part that's supposed to be good, right? The healthy part?"

Ravi didn't answer. They'd been having this conversation in circles since the separation. He'd moved in "temporarily" two weeks ago, sleeping on their—her—couch. The only thing keeping the apartment from feeling like a stage set was Buster, Marcus's golden retriever, who refused to leave Mara's side. The dog had mourned Marcus's departure by eating three pairs of shoes and developing a selective blindness where Ravi was concerned. When Ravi sat, Buster positioned himself firmly between them.

"The cable guy is coming tomorrow," Ravi said. "To cancel the account. You asked me to schedule it."

Mara had forgotten. She'd forgotten a lot of things since Marcus moved out—dentist appointments, the deadlines for a project she'd spent six months pitching, her mother's birthday. She remembered Buster's heart medication and the color of the shirt Marcus wore the night he said he'd met someone else. It was orange, aggressively so, the kind of color that dared you to look away. He'd looked like a traffic accident in progress.

"You ever feel like you're waiting for lightning to strike?" she asked. "Like life is just clearing its throat?"

"That's not how it works," Ravi said gently. "You're not being punished, Mara. You're just—you're living through it. The part where you're living through it."

Buster whined, pressing his wet nose against Mara's palm. She looked down at him and felt something crack open in her chest.

"I keep thinking about how much Marcus loved this pool," she said. "He'd host these parties, everyone swimming until midnight, and he'd be so proud. Like he'd built the water himself." She took a sip of the margarita. "Now I wonder if he was proud of the pool or proud of how well he was pretending."

Ravi set his drink down on the concrete. "You know what I think? I think you should drain the pool. I think you should let Buster sleep in your actual bed instead of guarding the doorway. And I think you should let yourself be exactly as not-okay as you are."

Behind them, someone laughed—a sharp, sudden sound. Across the water, the woman in the orange dress tilted her head back. For a second, in the glare of the pool lights, she looked terrifyingly like happiness itself.

Mara finished her drink in one swallow.

"Drain it tomorrow," she said. "And Ravi? You can take the couch. Just—move your stuff from the floor."