Pauline watches her—this golden beauty, the product of landlocked southern sun, cheese grits, green grass without snow on it. She’s so tired suddenly that she wants to crawl inside the blueberry pie, pull the lattice crust over her like a blanket, and fall asleep. “Well, sure,” says Pauline, trying to keep her voice from sounding gruff, because it isn’t gruffness she’s feeling, not exactly. It’s more like a depletion of her emotional reserves: the well is running dry. “Sure, you would think that, honey. I don’t blame you at all.”
“Can I go over to Matty’s after we’re done with this game?”
“Of course.” Pauline knocks on the table and says, “Knock.”
“Already?” Hazel wrinkles her perfect nose.
“Yup,” says Pauline. She was lucky this time; she dealt herself a good hand. She lays down her cards.
33.
Louisa
Louisa can’t believe it’s August tomorrow. Where has July gone? Poof. Into the past. Another summer almost over. One hundred forty-three pages still to go. That’s a lot of pages! She’s sitting on her bed, laptop warming her thighs, watching the light shift outside, turning the seaweed-studded rocks from brown to a golden purplish-mauve, when the doorbell rings. She waits to hear if someone else is going to get it and when she doesn’t hear anyone she sighs and pads down the stairs.
She squints at the person outside the door: a petite blond woman, very pretty, with big brown eyes, perfectly made up, and a knee-length printed belted dress.
“Louisa,” says the person. “It’s me.” Louisa squints harder. “Nicole Pelletier!”
Yes! Of course it’s Nicole. Nicole, from the summer they weresixteen; Nicole, from Mark Harding’s Whaler—Nicole, who was always first into the water because she lived here year round and wasn’t scared of the cold.
“Nicole!” cries Louisa. “Hey!Hi!You lookfantastic!” Nicole’s hair is blonder than it used to be—Nashville blond, Louisa would venture—and she’s thin in a way that bespeaks barre class or Pilates or another form of exercise taken up by women of means. Her dress is the sort that Louisa has never been able to pull off but that looks endlessly adorable on Nicole, and she is smiling. She has the same dimples she always had. “Your mom isn’t here,” says Louisa. “Didn’t she take today off because you were coming? Isn’t that what my mom said?”
“I know,” says Nicole. “My mom’s at home, finishing up dinner. I’m just here for tonight. I came to fetch Hazel home.” There’s a trace of southern in her voice, and for sure in her word choice.Fetch Hazel homesounds so delightful. Why does nobody in Brooklyn ever fetch anyone home? “I came to say hi toyou. You know, since your Matty and my Hazel have been hanging out, and since, I don’t know, we’re never here at the same time anymore...” She falters and touches the belt on her dress. She’s flustered,realizes Louisa.
“Of course!” says Louisa. “Of course. I’m so glad you did. Come in. Do you want to come out on the porch for a drink?”
“Oh no,” Nicole says. “Thank you. I should get back. We’re having dinner at home. My mom and Hazel baked a pie... but I just wanted to say, hey, you know, it’s been so long. Maybe give you my phone number? I’m just here so quick this time, up and back, but my mom’s cousin is doing poorly so there’s a chance I’ll be back before summer’s over... if I am, I’ll look you up. Maybe we can talk a little bit.”
“I hope you do,” says Louisa. She gets—fetches—the pad of paper on the telephone table and hands it to Nicole, who writes down a number and hands the paper back.
Nicole is halfway up the little hill to the driveway when Louisa remembers something. “Nicole!” she calls. “Your girl. Hazel. She’s agreatkid. Really great kid.”
Nicole smiles again; even from the doorway Louisa can see her dimples. “Thank you for saying that, Louisa. She’s the best thing I’ve done with my life.” She turns and squares her shoulders and seems to walk with a new purpose.
While she is putting Nicole’s number in her phone, Steven calls. Louisa scarcely has time to greet him before he blurts out his news: “We got nominated for five Poddies!”
“Really? Steven, that’s fantastic!” A Poddie is like the Emmy of podcasts; Steven has been hoping for a Poddie since All Ears’ inception. (They’ve been twice nominated, but never won.)
“And one of them is for one of my shows,The Fabulous Life of Mrs. Jean Dunn!”
“That’s so great, Steven!”The Fabulous Life of Mrs. Jean Dunntells the story of an eighty-eight-year-old Black woman living in Baltimore. It aired in nine parts, each part focusing on one decade of Jean Dunn’s life, moving from the Great Depression through the Civil Rights era and culminating in the Black Lives Matter movement. Jean Dunn is neither rich nor famous—she worked for most of her life in the cafeteria of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and raised four children. She’s an Everywoman, and that’s what makes her life so interesting.“Jean Dunn is my very favorite thing you’ve ever done. It’s really brilliant.”
“Thank you.Thankyou! I really think we have a good chance of winning this year. It’s my favorite too. I wish I could kiss you! I wish I could kiss Jean Dunn!”
“Well, I wouldn’t gothatfar,” says Louisa, but she’s laughing. She hasn’t heard Steven this happy in a long time.
“If we get this award,” says Steven, “it will all have been worth it.”
Louisa feels a shift in the air as she says, “All what will have been worth it?”
“All of the work, and the sacrifice, and, you know—everything.”
What Louisa says is, “Okay. Sure.” What shedoesn’tsay is, have I sacrificed my work, my sabbatical, at least five-eighths of my sanity, our time together this summer, and, if you’d had your way, our Emergency Fund, for apodcast award?She doesn’t say this because she is a good and supportive partner and of course a good and supportive partner wouldn’t say such things.
The air must not have shifted in Brooklyn, because Steven says, “We’re going out to celebrate! I’ll call you after, okay? But if it’s late and you don’t answer right away I’ll hang up, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
If you keep poking the bear, thinks Louisa, the claws are going to come out. She checks in first with Annie, who returned from Vinalhaven the other day acting less frosty toward Louisa than she had been. Then she looks at her newly edited contact list and starts a text.
