Unfortunately, once more I couldn’t think of anything to say, and Noah said something to him, and so much for Florence and her Crimean War soldier actually getting anywhere.
At the end of the night, the candles had been made, we’d eaten enough of the chocolate Great-Aunt Shelbie had brought to be sick, and I found myself next to Abby. Isaac was wrapped up in an intense conversation about AI with some of the other cousins, and the littles and middles had gone to bed.
“So,” I said to Abby, a touch hesitantly. “I remember, last summer you were looking into your grandmother’s past...”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“I found this box. Well, Tyler and I did.” I told her the whole story, ending with the visit to the Whaling Museum. “What would you do next? To figure out which of the girls it was?”
“Hmm.” She leaned back on her hands, looking pleased to be asked. “It would be easiest if they’d kept journals or if their letters survived... but even if they didn’t, other people around them might have written down gossip. Nantucket contemporaries, or maybe even newspapers.”
“Good idea. Thanks.” I hesitated. “You want to be a historian, right?”
“I think so. I want to major in history, at least. Maybe I could be a curator or an archivist or someone who does research—I don’t know yet, but I liked looking into everything. I liked connecting the dots.” She shot me a wry, self-aware smile. “Some might call me nosy.”
“You are nosy.”
“Fair.” She paused, then added, “Most of my friends don’t know what they’re going to major in, though.”
I swallowed. It felt like everyone I’d ever talked to had their careers mapped out for the next twenty years. “Really?”
“Yeah. My best friend is studying engineering, but the rest are undecided. My mom says that’s what college is for. Figuring things out.” She shrugged. “Better than making the wrong choice prematurely, right?”
“Right,” I agreed slowly. It hadn’t really occurred to me I could take my time to figure out what I wanted to do—I felt like I was already behind, not knowing my major and my school and my life plan. But maybe I could slow down. “Much better than making the wrong choice.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning, David plunked down next to me on the sofa where I was eating toasted sourdough slathered with butter. “I think Isaac’s into me.”
“Are you trying to poach my Hanukkah fling?”
He shrugged and picked up a piece of gelt, peeling off one metallic side of the wrapper, then the other. “Just calling it like I see it.”
“Wishful thinking, more likely.”
David popped the chocolate coin into his mouth, then chased it with a mouthful of coffee. “A boy can dream. Surprised you’re picking him over Tyler, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you go after Tyler, if you think so highly of him.”
“I don’t know,” he mused. “He’s not really my type. He’s too... blond.”
“How can someone be too blond?”
“It’s like... his hair is justsogolden. It’s practically singing the national anthem. You can see the flag glistening in his waves of grain.”
I snorted a laugh. “Okay.”
“And he’s too hot. I couldn’t date someone so hoteveryonewas obsessed with him, it’d stress me out. Isaac, though—Isaac is attainably hot.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
“You know. He feels like a real person. As opposed to, say, a Ken doll.”
“Good morning,” the non–Ken doll object of our conversation said. I started violently.
“Morning.” David sipped his coffee and took in Isaac’s black jeans and black sweater. “You realize you’re not in New York, right? You don’t have to wear all black.”
“David!” Maybe I sucked at flirting, but at least I didn’t insult people’s outfits. “You look very nice,” I told Isaac, then wanted to bury myself beneath a hundred blankets.You look very nice?I both sounded like Grandma and a suck-up, which David’s smirk confirmed. “Ignore David, he’s just jealous he’s not from the city.”
