“No?” My stomach dropped, but I lifted my chin and prodded further. Why was I doing this? Why couldn’t I stop myself? “If someone was flung your way, you wouldn’t be interested?”
He didn’t look away. “Depends on the person.”
Oh my god.
What did he mean? In terms of me, where did I land in this “person” scenario? Where did I evenwantto land?
I didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare do anything for fear of ruining the moment.
He closed his eyes and stepped back. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Well, so what?” I said, because it turned out I did know what I wanted, and it wasn’t a bro. “Just because I’ve had a few drinks doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t work.”
“You said you’ve never been drunk before.”
“I was drunk anhourago! I’m notstilldrunk.”
“We should get you home.”
I wanted to stomp my foot, but I didn’t want to respond to his condescendingly protective behavior by acting like a child. “You don’t have to take care of me, Noah Barbanel.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be doing a great job taking care of yourself,” he snapped, and we walked the next few minutes in tense silence. We entered town and walked over slate sidewalks buckled by tree roots, Main Street quiet and still. When we turned down Mrs. Henderson’s lane, almost all the windows were dark.
“Thanks,” I said stiffly when we reached her door. “I think I can manage from here. Unless you want to make sure I don’t trip up the stairs? That I can untie my shoes?” I baited him one last time. “That I’m all tucked in?”
“Good night, Abigail,” he finally said, firm and implacable. “Let me know what you want to do next about your grandmother.”
Disappointment cut through me. Of course he only cared about our grandparents, our agreement. “Fine. Good night.”
Eleven
Excruciating embarrassment came for me in the morning.
I opened my eyes to a dark room, the sky outside gray and low. Without the bright sun, I’d woken later than usual—and of course, I’d stayed up later than usual, too. Good lord. What had I done last night? I’d basically begged Noah Barbanel to kiss me. Noah. Rich, hot, popular Noah Barbanel.
Worse, he hadn’t even beeninterested.
I squeezed my eyes shut as though I could block out last night. Why was I such a disaster?
Should I text Noah? Say something about my hot-mess state?
No. Better not.
I pulled up my covers and tried to read a few pages ofMoby-Dick,which I’d picked up in an attempt to really get the historic vibe of Nantucket. I liked it well enough, save a casual dig about the ability “to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose,” which, like, leave me alone, Herman Melville. But after a while I peeled myself out of bed and into a hot shower. More than books, I needed to debrief the night. And to eat a breakfast sandwich.
Fog lay across the town as I walked to Jane’s family’s bakery, pulling a hazy curtain over the cobblestone streets. I’d never been in a jungle, but I imagined this might give me a taste of the tropics. The humidity was so oppressive it was difficult to breathe, and I couldn’ttell if sweat or condensation coated my skin. Beads of water gathered on clusters of hyacinth petals, and all the grass and leaves seemed overgrown and green and lush. Everything was heavy with moisture; even my limbs weighed down as though the water within them longed to return to the earth.
Jane’s bakery, clean and cozy, was a welcome relief. She waved me behind the counter and handed me a tub of cookie dough. “Place those on sheets two inches apart from each other, stick ’em in the oven, let the previous batch cool for ten minutes before plating them.”
“Can I eat one?”
“No. You can eat these broken scraps, though.”
“Yum.” I popped one in my mouth and it melted on my tongue. “Mm, delicious. I heard you wake up at, like, six. How much sleep did you get?”
