On the coffee tables in the back of the store, Liz arranged scones, cookies, and mille-feuilles on tiered stands. Flour covered her black T-shirt, and dusted the handkerchief tying back her purple hair. Next, she brought out a charcuterie plate with tiny wooden implements for each cheese. A honeycomb, the kind I’d only seen on a Cheerios box, lay atop a jar of local honey. We set out porcelain teacups, teal and pink flowers circling the rim and saucers. I hadn’t known you could lust after teacups, but I lusted after these. I wanted a whole set of these teacups. I wanted a house whose decorating scheme could support these teacups.
Anyway.
The book club attendees arrived promptly, almost all women,ranging from their twenties to nineties. I eavesdropped happily, organizing a new table display at the same time. Maggie facilitated the conversation, bright and bubbly and good at keeping things flowing, while Liz offered sharp insights and brought the discussion back on track when it wandered too far.
By the time the book club finished up, I’d finished my display and was surveying it with pleasure when I caught one of the attendees looking at me. She was white-haired and probably in her eighties, with a light blue jacket. “Can I help you find something?”
“What’s your name, dear?”
“Oh, um, I’m Abby.”
“And do you live here? Or are you visiting for the summer?”
“For the summer.” I steadied my glasses on my nose, trying to get a hold of the situation. The woman’s intensity had knocked me off-balance.
“You look so familiar. I thought maybe I knew your mother.”
“I don’t think my mom’s ever been to Nantucket.”
She studied me a little longer, then walked around the World War II table, her fingers trailing over the covers, a frown marring her perfect forehead. Every so often she’d pause, a diviner before her scrying pool. I stood there nervously, unsure of what she wanted. Did she need a rec? “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“So many books about the war. So many brave men and women. So many people hiding Jewish children and protecting Jewish friends. But where are the ones where we save ourselves?” She looked up at me with familiar dark brown eyes. “What would your grandmother have thought?”
I watched her leave.
Shit.
I found Noah at the rowing club, and byfound, I meant I texted him and showed up as boys poured out of the boathouse. He strolled toward me alongside half a dozen others, laughing and relaxed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his skin glowed with sun and exertion.
I swallowed and directed my attention to the horizon, squinting against the sun as it painted the sky a soft orange. Was it necessary for so much skin to be on display? Especially when I shouldn’t be blatantly staring at it?
He waved his friends off and came over, tugging on a worn, soft blue T-shirt. “Abigail.”
I focused on his ear to avoid anything more incendiary. “I met your grandmother in the bookstore. She knows who I am.”
He froze. “What? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. She didn’t seem thrilled.” I shrugged. “So there’s no reason to keep me a secret. Invite me to dinner. We can ask about my grandmother. I don’t have to mention the romance or anything. We can just see if they know about my grandmother’s family.”
A tiny smile danced across his lips. “You want to come to dinner at my house.”
“It seems easiest, doesn’t it? Organic.”
“Ripe for disaster.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Honestly, this boy. “What do you want?”
He grinned, sweaty and happy and too charming. “What’s your best offer?”
“No one starts negotiations with their best offer.”
He laughed. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
No way was I flirting with him, when he’d be left smirking and unaffected while I’d be rendered a puddle of nerves. Best to act no-nonsense. “How’s Saturday?”
