“How are you more successful at dating than me,” he says, awed by the mystery of it all.

“Easy,” I say. “I have lower standards. And no Flannery O’Connor to get in the way. And when I go out to bars, I don’t spend the whole time scowling

at Yelp reviews (The Yelp app is a useful travel app that provides user submitted reviews and recommendations for local businesses.) and forcefully projecting DON’T TALK TO ME. Also, I am, arguably, gorgeous from certain angles.”

He stands, setting a twenty on the bar before tucking his wallet back into his pocket. Alex always carries cash. I don’t know why. I’ve asked at least three times. He’s answered. I still don’t know why, because his answer was either too boring or too intellectually complex (an intelligent state that is not normal) for my brain to even bother retaining (keep) the memory.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re an absolute freak (a person who is considered to be unusual because of the way they behave, look or think),” he says.

“You love me,” I point out, the tiniest bit defensive.

He loops an arm around my shoulders and looks down at me, another small, contained smile on his full lips. His face is a sieve

, only letting out the smallest amount of expression at a time. “I know that,” he says.

I grin up at him. “I love you back.”

He fights the widening of his smile, keeps it small and faint. “I know that too.”

The tequila (a strong alcoholic drink made in Mexico from a tropical plant) has me feeling sleepy, lazy, and I let myself lean into him as we start toward the open door. “This was a good trip,” I say.

“Best yet,” he agrees, the cool rain gusting in around us like confetti (small pieces of coloured paper that people often throw at weddings over people who have just been married, or (in the US) at other special events) from a cannon

. His arm curls in a little closer, warm and heavy around me, his clean cedarwood

smell folding over my shoulders like a cape.

“I haven’t even minded the rain much,” I say as we step into the thick, wet night, all buzzing mosquitoes and palm trees shivering from the distant thunder.

“I’ve preferred it.” Alex lifts his arm from my shoulder to curl over my head, transforming himself into a makeshift (used temporarily for a particular purpose because the real thing is not available) human umbrella as we sprint across the flooding road toward our little red rental (rent) car. When we reach it, he breaks away and opens my door first—we scored a discount by taking a car without automatic locks or windows—then runs around the hood and hurls himself into the driver’s seat.

Alex flicks the car into gear, the full-tilt AC ? hissing its arctic blast against our wet clothes as he pulls out of our parking space and turns toward our rental house.

“I just realized,” he says, “we didn’t take any pictures at the bar for your blog.”

I start to laugh, then realize he’s not kidding. “Alex, none of my readers want to see pictures of BAR. They don’t even want to read about BAR.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t think BAR was that bad.”

“You said it smelled like salmonella.”

“Other than that.” He ticks the turn signal on and guides the car down our narrow, palm-tree-lined street.

“Actually, I haven’t really gotten any usable pictures this week.”

Alex frowns and rubs at his eyebrow as he slows toward the gravel driveway ahead.

“Other than the ones you took,” I add quickly. The pictures Alex volunteered to take for my social media are truly terrible. But I love him so much for being willing to take them that I already picked out the least atrocious one and posted it. I’m making one of those awful midword faces, shriek-laughing something at him as he tries—badly—to give me direction, and the storm clouds are visibly forming over me, as if I’m summoning the apocalypse to Sanibel Island myself. But at least you can tell I’m happy in it.

When I look at that photo, I don’t remember what Alex said to me to elicit that face ?, or what I yelled back at him. But I feel that same rush of warmth I get when I think about any of our past summer trips.

That crush of happiness, that feeling that this is what life’s about: being somewhere beautiful, with someone you love.

I tried to write something about that in the caption (words that are printed underneath a picture, cartoon , etc. that explain or describe it), but it was hard to explain.

Usually my posts are all about how to travel on a budget, make the most of the least, but when you’ve got a hundred thousand people following your beach vacation, it’s ideal to show them . . . a beach vacation.

In the past week, we’ve had approximately (about) forty minutes total on the shore of Sanibel Island. The rest has been spent holed up in bars and restaurants, bookstores and vintage shops, plus a whole lot of time in the shabby bungalow

we’re renting, eating popcorn and counting lightning streaks. We’ve gotten no tans, seen no tropical fish, done no snorkeling or sunbathing on catamarans, or much of anything aside from falling in and out of sleep on the squashy sofa with a Twilight Zone marathon humming its way into our dreams.

There are places you can see in their full glory, with or without sunshine, but this isn’t one of them.

“Hey,” Alex says as he puts the car in park.

“Hey, what?”

“Let’s take a picture,” he says. “Together.”

“You hate having your picture taken,” I point out. Which has always been weird to me, because on a technical level, Alex is extremely handsome.

“I know,” Alex says, “but it’s dark and I want to remember this.”

“Okay,” I say. “Yeah. Let’s take one.”

I reach for my phone, but he already has his out. Only instead of holding it up with the screen facing us so we can see ourselves, he has it flipped around, the regular camera fixed on us rather than the front-facing one. “What are you doing?” I say, reaching for his phone. “That’s what selfie (an image that includes oneself (often with another person or as part of a group) and is taken by oneself using a digital camera especially for posting on social networks) mode’s for, you grandpa.”

“No!” he laughs, jerking it out of reach. “It’s not for your blog— we don’t have to look good. We just have to look like ourselves. If we have it on selfie mode I won’t even want to take one.”

“You need help for your face dysmorphia(a condition in which a part of the body grows larger than normal),” I tell him.

“How many thousands of pictures have I taken for you, Poppy?” he says. “Let’s just do this one how I want to.”

“Okay, fine.” I lean across the console (a piece of furniture designed to hold a television,radio,or other piece of electronic equipment), settling in against his damp (wet) chest, his head ducking a little to compensate (blance) for our height difference.

“One . . . two—” The flash pops off before he ever gets to three.

“You monster!” I scold.

He flips the phone around to look at the picture and moans. “Noooo,” he says. “I am a monster.”

I choke over a laugh as I study the horrible ghostly blur of our faces: his wet hair sticking out in stringy spikes, mine plastered in frizzy tendrils around my cheeks, everything on us shiny and red from the heat, my eyes fully closed, his squinted and puffy. “How is it possible we’re both so hard to see and so bad-looking simultaneously(at the same time)?”

Laughing, he throws his head back against his headrest. “Okay, I’m deleting it.”

“No!” I fight the phone out of his hand. He grabs hold of it too, but I don’t let go, so we just hold it between us on the console. “That was the point, Alex. To remember this trip how it really was. And to look like ourselves.”

His smile is as small and faint as ever. “Poppy, you don’t look anything like that picture.”

I shake my head. “And you don’t either.”

《People We Meet on Vacation》

by Emily Henry  从朋友到恋人

只是搬运工加个人笔记。