I ran to the truck and climbed in, soaking the seat, not even caring.
Peter looked at me, his hair damp, his jaw tight in this way that made him look older, and he said, “You okay?”
“I got…turned around,” I managed.
He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it but said something that made me laugh and relax and get butterflies all at the same time.
He drove out of the lot carefully, wipers going full speed, and I sat there trembling, not from cold exactly, but from adrenaline and embarrassment and a bit of a thrill to be in a car alone with him. I had assumed he went with Eli and the other boys, but I’d been wrong.
After a minute he said, “You’re good. I’ve got you.”
Yes, I melted faster than my mint chip cone.
By the time we got back to the house, everyone was inside, towels everywhere, Mom was frantic and relieved all at once, Eliswearing they didn’t mean to leave me, Kate and Tessa wide-eyed and apologetic.
But all I could really think about was that in the middle of all that chaos, Peter was the one who came back.
Peter McCarthy, my hero.
Love,
Viv
No doubt they attracted some attention, this posse of more than a dozen people ranging in age from a few months to nearly eighty meandering down Gulf Shore toward the construction site and jetties.
They didn’t move fast but stayed in clusters of two or three along the sidewalk, spirits high.
Well, most spirits were high. Tessa was obviously on a cloud, her ecstasy palpable as she and Dusty took turns holding little Olive on their hips, kissing her and each other, and accepting congratulations and answering a slew of questions.
Lacey and Roman had the newly engaged glow, too. Even Jo Ellen and Maggie were a little giddy, talking endlessly about their “new life” together.
Crista and Anthony swung a very excited Nolie between them, and siblings Jonah and Meredith were deep in conversation, taking it slow because Atlas had fallen asleep against his daddy’s chest.
That left Vivien and Eli walking side by side, somehow at the back of the pack, even though they’d been the ones to initiate caring about the bridge demolition in the first place.
“Are you down because the bridge will be?” Eli asked.
She smiled up at him. “I’m not down,” she said, fluttering the white sundress she wore over her bathing suit as if the playful move would support the statement.
Eli wasn’t buying it.
“I’m just not…on their level,” she admitted, gesturing toward the crowd in front of them, a few currently dancing to an old Wilson Phillips song thumping from an equally archaic boom box that Dusty carried.
“What do you know,” Eli leaned in to remark. “The youngins figured out how to work a cassette tape.”
She smiled but knew it looked as sad as it felt.
“Missing Peter?” he asked, confirming that.
“Missing Kate?” she fired back.
“Always. I talked to her a little while ago. She’s…not great.”
Vivien slowed her step. “Why? She wants to be down here?”
“Yeah, but we’re the last thing on her mind,” he said. “She thinks her project might lose the government grant, and that could have catastrophic effects on her lab, her staff, even her job. She was distant, and preoccupied.”
Vivien sighed, hurting for her friend. “I’ll call her tomorrow. I’ve been terrible about staying in touch while she’s gone. I keep expecting to come down the stairs and find her in the kitchen cooking something with Jonah, and life as it was.”
