“Um. She has space. If I’m not mistaken she’s not living here, is she?” He dries his hands on the checkered towel on the counter and looks dramatically in the corners of the kitchen, as if he might find Sam crouching in one of them.
“No,” says Amy. “Of course not. But even so. I have these rules with myself. Lines I don’t want to cross. I’m trying to be really careful, so I don’t push her away.”
“Well, I’ve hardly seen her since she came back from New York. I’ve been busy at work. I’d like to do it.”
“You ask her,” says Amy. “I feel too shy, like I’m asking a cute boy on a date. What if she rejects us?”
“I can handle rejection,” says Greg. He’s washed the last dish, so he removes the plug from the sink, and the water makes a squelching sound going down. “I had to ask you out three times before you finally said yes.”
“You didnot.” Amy swats him with her dish towel. Actually, he’s almost right, but it was four times, and she decides to keep the correction to herself.
“Do you get a lunch break?”
“I get a break anytime I want,” says Amy. “I’m the boss.”
“Fancy!”
“Not really. It’s just that I’m not involved in day-to-day rehearsals, so my schedule is flexible.” In fact, since the trip to Ballard’s with Timothy, she’s been spending more time tending to tasks outside the theater. Amy is wary of sticking her emotions too close to the flame and reigniting them. This week, a little distance has been good.
Greg kisses her neck and says, “Okay, boss. Leave it with me.”
After the dishes she’s sitting outside on the front steps, watchingthe sky pinken before the navy blue sets in, when Greg comes out and sits beside her. “We’re on,” he says. “I just talked to Sam. Lunch tomorrow. You pick a place.”
“Really? That’s great!” Amy feels unreasonably excited. Lunch with Greg and Sam! It will be like those halcyon days when Henry had gone off to college and it was the three of them at home. (The days were actually not all that halcyon, not all the time, and in fact Sam was almost never home, out with her friends nearly all the time, but Amy allows herself to paint the memory with the brush of nostalgia.) She stands to go inside.
“Something I said?” asks Greg.
“Something the mosquito said. He said,I just bit your arm.” She holds out her hand to Greg and helps him up and together they go into the house.
On the ferry over in the morning they decide that Greg will take the Wagoneer, drop Amy at the barn, pick Sam up at the house on Mohegan Trail, and then swing back by for Amy at lunchtime. Amy chooses McAloon’s, because it’s close to the barn and not far from the theater, and when they’ve finished lunch Greg can drop her in town and take the Wagoneer for the rest of the day. Greg is wearing shorts that double as swim trunks, a T-shirt from PJ’s Pub in Narragansett, sunglasses, flip-flops. He has a backpack with a towel and a bottle of water and sunscreen.
“You look like a kid about to hop on a bike for a summer adventure with your posse, not a man in your fifties responsible for a small business,” says Amy, as they’re waiting to board the ferry, looking at the fishing boats docked in the port at Galilee, watching the squawking gulls. “It’s cute.” Greg grins at her and says, “I wish I was a kid with a posse. Those were the days.”
“I could do with a posse too,” agrees Amy. “Where have all the posses gone?”
Greg wants to sit on the top deck, in the sun, and he stretches out with his head back and his face to the warmth. Amy typicallychooses to ride inside or at least in the shade, but she sits next to Greg. He never takes time off during the week. He deserves the perfect summer day.
She lets Greg enjoy his perfect summer day for almost the whole ferry ride, and then, when she can see the line of hotels on Water Street coming into view, she taps him on the shoulder.
He lifts his sunglasses, opens one eye, and says, “May I help you?”
“Actually, you may. When you have time today do you think you could get Sam to tell you what exactly happened in New York? I know we’re not googling. But we’re halfway through July. I thought she might have said something by now.”
He opens the other eye. “You haven’t asked her?”
“Of course I’ve asked her! But she hasn’t told me. She clams up whenever I bring it up.” Amy presses her lips together in case Greg has any doubt about what clamming up looks like.
“Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want us to know.”
“Stop being so reasonable! I know she doesn’t want us to know. But don’t you think weshouldknow?”
“Why?”
“Because she’s our daughter. So we can support her. Or—protect her. Or do whatever she needs.”
“Maybe what she needs is not to think about it. Do you want to break the google pact?”
“No. I don’t want to break the pact.” She waits a moment and says, “Didyougoogle her?”
