“Ah, good question. Generally, because they either got complacent or kept waiting for the perfect moment instead of making that moment happen. Speaking of work, are you still enjoying yours at the library?”
She’s a library assistant, a job she started just a year or so ago after being out of the workforce for a while. Jamie told me that she’d once been in real estate but had quit several years ago, saying she needed a break. Had the reason been more complicated than that? I’d wondered. Sometimes I’ve sensed that Tori’s reserve masks a deep disappointment over the way things turned out for her. That perhapssheisn’t where she hoped to be at this point in her life.
“It’s a job,” she replies with a shrug. “And as you said, it’s nice working with Ava.”
“How’s Liam? And Taylor? He’s living in Fort Myers, right?”
I’ve met her son, Taylor—who must be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight by now—just once, at a family reunion, and I know that after dropping out of college, he struggled to find a career path.
“Well, actually—that’s where he lived for the first three years, but he moved closer to Miami last summer. He’s teaching at a really nice sailing school there.”
I can almost feel the relief in her words.
“Wow, that’s great. Didn’t he used to teach sailing around here during the summers?”
Tori nods. “As for Liam, he’s actually here tonight, too,” she adds. “He’s not generally a fan of parties, but he knew I wanted to come.” She raises the glass of red wine she’s holding. “Which reminds me, I promised to bring him a drink before he goes outside for a cigarette.”
“I hope I have a chance to say hi to him later.” Though I wasn’t any closer to Liam than I was to Tori, things were always cordial between us.
“I’m sure you will. By the way,” she adds, lowering her voice, “you know Jamie’s here, right?”
“Yes. The two of us cleared it with each other, don’t worry.”
As she moves away, I follow her with my eyes until I see her join Liam in the hallway outside the study. Unlike Jamie, who was raised in Boston and spent weekends and a big part of the summer here with his parents as a kid, Liam grew up in the area. He joined the army for a few years instead of attending college and now runs a local plywood distribution company. Though Liam is reserved like his wife and a straight-arrow kind of guy, Jamie is fond of him. They both lost their fathers within the past ten years—Liam’s of cancer and Jamie’s in a car crash—and they share a special bond with their fathers’ surviving brother, Drew, an artist who lives in Litchfield County, too.
Tori touches Liam’s elbow and I see him mouththank youas he accepts the wine. When he and Jamie are standing side by side, it’s easy to accept that they’re cousins. Not by their physiques—where Jamie’s tall and slim, Liam’s only about five nine, and super compact—but they’ve got the same deep blue eyes and dark blond hair.
I’m just turning back to the bar, ready for another sparkling water, when I hear Jamie’s voice behind me. I actually gulp at the sound.
“Sure,” he’s saying. “I could play Saturday, but also any weekday. I’m actually here for most of August.”
He seems to be scheduling a tennis game, and though my back is to him, I can see him clearly in my mind’s eye—the pale eyebrows, strong nose, high cheekbones, and those lovely eyes. He was by far the handsomest man I’d ever dated. I picture his body, too, probably very tanned by this point in the summer.
We’ve had only two brief conversations since our split in March. The first one, in May, was when he’d called me to say his fourteen-year-old golden retriever, Cody, had died, and he thought I’d want to know. I’d loved that dog and had been grateful to Jamie for reaching out. The call had also struck me as a possible olive branch.
I was the one who made the first move the next time, explaining that I’d been invited to Vic’s party and asking if he’d mind if I attended. He assured me it was fine. “Besides,” he’d said. “You’ve known Ava even longer than I’ve known Vic.”
I twist my head the tiniest bit, doing my best not to seem obvious. He’s talking to a local professor pal of Vic’s. His best friend, Sam, is nearby, chatting with Tori, who’s come back into the room. And there’s a woman hovering not far from Jamie, dressed in a low-cut royal blue cocktail dress. His date, I assume. She’s hazel-eyed like me, with blond hair, too, though not as light as mine, and she’s probably in her early thirties, which means she’s five or six years younger than I am. Her features are sharp, angular, and her face seems to be frozen in a pout, like she’s not pleased with how the night’s progressing.
“Glad to hear you’re giving yourself some time up here this summer,” the professor says. “Surely your clients won’t hold that against you.”
“Oh, there’ll be a fair number of Zooms, I’m sure,” I hear Jamie reply. “But I intend to take plenty of afternoons off.”
“What will you do when you’re not playing tennis with old farts like me?” the professor asks with a chuckle.
Jamie chuckles, too. “Mostly, I want to read a lot, bike a lot, perfect my pomodoro sauce, and learn more about the Norwegian side of my family, which my dad always swore is descended from Vikings.”
“Are you thinking of going to Norway one day?”
“Yeah, maybe in February, so I can get a look at the northern lights. I also...”
Two guests, chatting loudly, squeeze in next to me to reach the bar, and I don’t hear what Jamie says next. But I’ve learned all I need to know. Jamie’s making plans, staying busy. He’s moved on.
The crowd shifts slightly again, reconfiguring like pieces at the end of a kaleidoscope. And then suddenly Jamie and I are face-to-face. He pulls in his breath, perhaps more unnerved than he anticipated at the sight of me.
“Hello, Jamie,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. He smiles pleasantly but there’s a distinct coolness to his tone. His hair, I notice, is shorter than when I saw him in March.
