“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I wanted to make sure to say goodbye, that’s all.”
“Goodbye?” His heart clenches.
“I’m leaving,” says Hazel. “Going home.” Adorably, she wrinkles her nose. He notices that there are more freckles now than there were at the beginning of the summer. Each freckle is beautiful to Matty; each one like a tiny gift.
“Now?” says Matty. His voice comes out like a croak. Stupid voice, so unreliable: too high one second, too rough the next. “I thought you were leaving at twelve.” It can’t be true. He’s wasted all of his chances—he’s wasted the whole summer, and now Hazel is leaving, right now, this minute. Even though there’s fog shrouding the water and the morning is cool, the grass still damp with morning dew, his palms start to sweat.
“I know,” says Hazel. “That’s what I thought too. Our flight doesn’t leave from Portland until four. But my granddad has to do some things along the way so he wants to go early. He’s got to stop in Bath for something to do with his traps.” She shrugs. The gum flashes at him. She’s wearing shorts with one of her crop tops, a flannel shirt over the top in concession to the morning chill. His eyes fall to her thighs, and he can see a layer of goose bumps.
“I guess you’ll be happy to get back home again,” says Matty. “See all your friends and all.”
“Yes and no,” says Hazel. “Mostly no.”
It’s Matty’s turn to say something or do something but he doesn’t trust his voice not to betray him if he speaks. So he nods and kicks at the grass with his bare foot, sending out droplets of dew.
“Well okay then,” says Hazel. The Tennessee is returning to her voice, as if it’s preparing:will okay thin.“I’d better go. My granddad wants to get an early start. He worries about traffic.” She peers at the sky. “Also, I think it’s going to rain. So, bye, Matty.” She hesitates for a split second and then turns, walking quickly up the small hill, stumbling briefly on an uneven patch of grass and then righting herself.
“Wait!” says Matty. “Wait! Hazel!” Hazel stops, then turns, and Matty starts up the little hill, jogging, then running, until he gets to her.
“What?”
“I forgot something,” says Matty.
“What’d you forget?” She puts a hand on her hip, cocks it. Tosses her hair. He steps closer to Hazel. He’s close enough to touch her, although he hasn’t yet. He can smell the mint of her gum, see again the green flash of it in her mouth. Then she takes the gum out of her mouth, bends down, and sticks it to a rock. Matty is momentarily alarmed by this gesture. If a bird picks up the gum in its beak, or if another animal does—“Did you forget to kiss me?” She grins.
Just like that he stops thinking about the gum and the birds and the animals. He remembers Billy on the boat:Don’t think too much. You just gotta do.
And he takes Hazel’s face in his hands, one hand on either cheek. He’s not sure if this is exactly the protocol but he’s seen it happen this way in the movies and all in all it feels pretty good. Okay then. Next steps. Turn the head. There is a terrifying moment when he thinks they might both turn their heads in the same direction—but, no, at the last second Hazel corrects course, and their lips are touching, then moving together, and there is even a quick flick of Hazel’s tongue inside his mouth, and she tastes like mint and strawberry lip gloss. And none of it lasts forever but it lasts long enough.
Hazel pulls away first. Matty would have stayed there all dayand into the night, but he knows not to give Hazel a reason to cross her granddad. Then she does the best thing ever, which is to bury her face in his neck for a fraction of a second and whisper, “I’ll see you around, Matty McLean,” before she turns to start up the gravel driveway and toward her granddad’s house.
Then the skies open.
Matty stands in the rain and watches her go but not for too long because he feels something rising in his throat, what is this, alumphe has toswallowaround because, what, now he’s going tocryabout Hazel leaving? He squares his shoulders and moves toward the house, not even registering the movement of the curtains in one of the upstairs front windows, the lowering of the ship-watching binoculars.
“I knew it,” whispers Claire.
35.
Louisa
There is not enough caffeine in the world to soothe Louisa’s hangover. When she wakes, the doors to the kids’ bedroom are still closed. Her mother has taken her father to Camden for a doctor’s appointment. Pauline isn’t coming in today—she has to help with her sick cousin, and get Hazel and Nicole out the door to Portland—so Louisa pulls out her laptop and her notebook and lays them both out on the dining room table. She has made progress this summer, yes. But not at the rate that she should have.
She imagines Phoebe Richardson sitting at some sleek desk in some nearly empty apartment, probably wearing a silk robe tied gracefully over matching silk pajamas. Possibly drinking a mimosa. She imagines the words are flowing from Phoebe Richardson’s pen like water from a faucet, while she, Louisa, can do nothing more than stare at the rain dashing against the picture window.
Instead of transcribing her latest writing in the notebook intoher computer, she spends some time drawing palm trees and Pitcairn’s craggy shoreline. She adds a longboat with a muscled crew. One of the crew is smiling, and the other is grimacing with the effort of rowing the longboat into the waves. It takes an incredible amount of strength to row a longboat.
She pours another cup of coffee—her third. Now she feels hungoverandstrung out. She should eat, but she’s not hungry. She’ll wait for the kids to wake up. She’ll make them a big breakfast.
After an eternity she gets into a little bit of a rhythm. She starts to write about the very first magistrate of Pitcairn, Edward Quintal, whose father, one of the originalBountymutineers, was killed by a hatchet before Edward was born.
She hears the front door open. This can’t be her parents already, can it? Her back is to the front door; she turns around. It’s Matty, looking like a drowned rat. His hair is plastered to his face and water is pouring off him in actual rivulets.
