We Are Okay

Back at the groundskeeper’s, Mabel finds a pack of cards, and they play gin rummy. They discuss their sleeping options. Mabel suggests the floor, saying the rug is soft. Marin protests, saying she doesn’t want to sleep on the rug. She points out that they slept in the same bed hundreds of times before they became intimate and promises that she won’t “mess anything up” for Mabel (116). They agree to sleep together on the sofa bed. Marin goes to the bathroom to change and wonders if Mabel’s reluctance is more about their relationship than it is about her boyfriend, Jacob. They get into bed and stay as far apart as possible.

Marin thinks she hears Mabel crying. She thinks about the text messages that she didn’t answer: Mabel asking if she’d met someone else and many others. She reflects on how distant she felt from those texts once school started: “I was a stranger with a secondhand phone, and someone named Mabel had the wrong number” (118). She thinks about their romantic relationship and how she shut herself off from it to separate herself completely from the person she had been in California. Thinking that her former self would have comforted Mabel, she puts a hand on her shoulder; Mabel puts her own hand on Marin’s to keep it there.

The narrative returns to the day in June after Marin and Mabel slept on the beach. Gramps asks Marin to come to the loveseat, which always means a lecture. He tells her he wants to talk to her about types of love, and Marin braces for his disapproval of what she and Mabel did the night before. Instead, he says that Marin may have gotten the wrong impression about him and Birdie, his pen pal. He insists that it’s not at all romantic love, but about a connection of souls. Marin says she just wants him to be happy and he replies, “If I didn’t have her, I would be lost” (122). This makes Marin feel as though she is more of a burden or “anchor” to him than a “companion” (122).

The doorbell rings, and Gramps’s friends arrive for their poker game. Marin is concerned, thinking that something about her grandfather’s behavior is worrying, so she lingers in the kitchen. One of Gramps’s friends refills his glass, and Gramps reacts oddly, apparently paranoid about the action. The group of friends is silent and tense, so Marin interjects, asking Gramps if he can drive her to school tomorrow. The game continues.

Marin returns to her room and texts with Mabel about their intimacy the night before. They have a conversation about moving to New Mexico together and living off the grid. At two in the morning, Marin goes to the kitchen for water; as she returns, she sees Gramps writing furiously. She tries to convince herself that he’s only writing love letters, rather than some other, more concerning activity.