Well, well, well, she thought as she slid onto the truck’s cracked pleather driver’s seat, turning on the heat as soon as the engine roared to life.Someone finally rented Marv’s Lament.Maybe it was a person her own age, for once. Maybe even someone who knew how to surf. It would be a nice change of pace, exactly the kind of thing she needed after the past year.
Then she turned right out of the beach’s parking lot and found a half dozen trucks parked along Lily Pond Lane in front of Marv’s Lament, almost entirely blocking the road. The same cluster of cleaners and landscapers and delivery vans from the city that became pervasive every Memorial Day weekend.
She rolled her eyes and laughed to herself, maneuvering around the vehicles as “Fake ID” by the Anemic Boyfriends blared out of her truck’s speakers. She should have known better. Hoping for summers out east to change was like hoping for her mother to start speaking at a decibel below screaming: impossible.
Bennet Bakery sat between the Mulford Credit Union and East Hampton Hardware in the center of East Hampton Village. Everyone called it “downtown,” but really it was just the row of shops lining the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane. When Lizzy was growing up, there had been more local businesses, but year by year they had been swallowed up by high-end boutiques and brands. Minny Conklin’s salon, where Lizzy had gotten her first haircut, was now a gourmet food market. Barbara Long’s bridal shop had been replaced by Gucci. Even the old library building was now a Chanel boutique. Bennet Bakery and its two neighbors were some of the last locally owned storefronts in the Village, a fact that had more to do with the building’s inexplicably low rent than their profit margin.
Lizzy parked in her usual spot around the back, then gathered her still-damp hair into a bun on top of her head before getting out and entering through the kitchen door. Just like that, the morning’s chill evaporated in a fog of heat and powdered sugar. Metal tray racks and bags of flour lined the warm yellow walls, while the smell of vanilla and yeast floated in the air. It hadn’t changed much since the bakery opened forty-eight years ago, when her grandparents opened it with the last of their life savings. They had retired and moved to Florida before any of the Bennet sisters were born, leaving the business to Lizzy’s dad.
She was fairly certain that nothing had been updated since. They still had her grandfather’s original answering machine. The walls were still the same color as they were when Lizzy took her first steps across the red clay tile floors. They even had the same sign in the window, which her grandfather had painted himself.
Lizzy smiled. Every detail fit together like puzzle pieces in onefully formed memory. Remove any one detail and it just wouldn’t be the same.
“Morning,” she said to the broad back of the man who was pulling a tray out of the bread oven.
Mr. Bennet shifted, turning enough to peer over his shoulder at her. The hard line of his brow accentuated his frown, the fluorescent light above half illuminating his downturned mustache.
“Well?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“Mother Nature hates me,” she said with a heavy sigh.
His mouth ticked up with a smile. It was still a bit lopsided on the right side—a subtle reminder of his stroke a few months before. “Or that low-pressure system moved off the coast.”
She shrugged. “Tomato, tomahto.”
“Right.” He turned back to the oven. “Well, I need to start on those delivery invoices, so why don’t you get going on the croissants.”
Lizzy gave him a small salute, the same one they shared at the start of every shift since she was a teenager, and tied her apron over her overalls, kicking off their morning routine. It was the same every day. Every year.
Apparently, this summer wasn’t going to be that different at all.
CHAPTER 2
Will Darcy loved flying. The freedom. The silence. Even the turbulence. It reminded him of being out in the ocean: the irregular bumps, the occasional pitch from side to side. A small nudge to his ego, reminding him how small he was.
Charlie Pierce, on the other hand, had turned green.
“Fuck.” His friend mumbled from the seat across from him, eyes squeezed shut as the luxury helicopter angled to the left. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Are we there yet?”
Will glanced out the window. From ten thousand feet, the ocean beneath looked serene. The white crests of the waves folded into the shore, while the sun sparkled off the deep blue waters.
“No.”
Another bump and Charlie’s grip on the leather armrests tightened. “Fuck.”
Will leaned back and continued reading the biography he had started at the beginning of the flight. Now wasn’t the time to remind Charlie that he had been warned about how rough the forty-five-minute ride from the city out to the Hamptons could be. Will should know—he’d made the trek to the far edge of LongIsland hundreds of times, spending almost every summer in nearby Montauk as a kid. Sure, a jet might have offered a smoother ride, but a helicopter didn’t have anywhere close to the environmental impact. Despite the turbulence—and Charlie’s weak stomach—it was the most efficient choice. And that was what this summer was all about: efficiency.
A few minutes—and half a chapter—later, the helicopter straightened out and began its descent into East Hampton Airport. The landing was fairly smooth, but when the wheels finally hit the ground, Charlie didn’t move.
“Are we alive?” he asked, eyes still squeezed shut.
“Yes.”
Charlie exhaled and ran his hands through his dark curly hair. “Thank God.”
The blades slowed, and the loud rumble of the engine came to a stop just as the door to the helicopter opened. A cool breeze swept over them as they stepped out onto the tarmac. Will allowed himself a brief moment to enjoy it, tilting his head up to the sun and breathing in the familiar smell of salt and sand floating in the air.
“Welcome to East Hampton.”
