Okay, sure, yeah. She’s mad at Jack because he made her feel foolish. And because now she knows that what she’d taken to be depth behind those liquid brown eyes is simply layer upon layer of emptiness that, taken together, gives the impression of depth.
But she’s also angry atallof the wealthy for their ability to move through the world—no, not move through, more likeskate over—without having to look beneath the surface at everyone struggling below.
They pass once again by the road that leads to the Buchanan construction site, but it’s too dark to see anything. Nicola imagines what the island might have looked like hundreds of years ago, before Adrian Block discovered it for the second time, before the first families from Massachusetts settled there, before privateers invaded, before the lighthouses were built, and the construction of the breakwater created Old Harbor, and and and. She tries to think about how small her existence and the existence of everyone from the summer is in comparison to the trees on either side of them that have been witness to it all.
It helps, but only sort of. Anyway, she still has her tanks and her squid and her Tuesday Talks—there are two left—and, somewherein the background, her incomplete plans for the future, which, after these weeks of concentrated outdoor work, the sun and the salt air and the quality sleep, she not only believes she can but will figure out.
Someday soon this whole summer will seem like nothing but a fever dream.
Jack pulls up to Nicola’s cottage.
“Goodbye, Jack,” she says. Almost,almost,she allows herself to see this as a romantic scene from a movie. Or at least from a Hulu limited series. Two lovers from different backgrounds and circumstances, with two different futures ahead of them, saying goodbye. She imagines that the stars in the sky might weep, watching them.
The stars don’t weep; the stars don’t even tear up. “Bye, darling,” he says. “What a summer, right?” He kisses her on the cheek, and though the kiss itself is innocuous he lets his lips linger above her jawbone, and she knows if she were only to turn her face their lips would meet and they’d be right back where they’d started at the beginning of the summer. Nicola would invite him in, and he’d take off her clothes in that languid way he had that was just careless enough to drive her crazy.
He doesn’t get out. She doesn’t expect him to stay, but he doesn’t even walk her to the door. This is the way they want it, she knows, young women like her, in the latest wave of feminism. And yet! It still would have been nice if he’d gotten out. Not because he is a man and Nicola is a woman, but because they are both people, and deserving of each other’s respect.
The next day, she calls Reina. It’s unnervingly quiet in the background. She says, “Oh my god, Reina, are you okay? Have your children been kidnapped?”
“Hang on, let me put in my AirPods. Can you hear me? Okay, good. Yes, they’ve been kidnapped, it’s all very sad. I told the kidnapper that I’d pay ransom forhimto keep them.”
“Twist,” says Nicola.
“I’m full of surprises. Actually, I’m taking a walk with the dog, my most well-behaved child. The children are at the park with their father, if you can believe it. He took a half day.”
“I believe it.” Hunterisa really good father. He just works a lot, and his job gives him almost no paternity leave. But he’s a really good father.
“Which means there are probably hotties falling all over him, telling him how a-maaaaaazing it is that he’s taking care of the kids.”
“Ugh,” says Nicola loyally.
“Do you know how many hotties have told me it’s amazing whenI’mat the park with the kids, which I am literally every day but today?”
“None?”
“Exactly none. Zero hotties.”
“It’s over with Jack.”
“Oh! Sweetie! I’m sorry. Wait, am I sorry?”
Nicola hesitates. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re a little sorry?”
“Tell me.” So Nicola tells her, and she can imagine her nodding sympathetically, walking Rosie (that’s the dog). Every now and then Reina makes a little noise, ahmmor atsk,and when Nicola’s done talking she says, “Well, honey, I’m sad if you’re sad. But it sounds like he wasn’t your person.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t my person.” WhoisNicola’s person? Does she have one? If so,where is he? “It’s just, it was fun, Reina. I’m usually the pursuer, not the pursued. It was fun to be pursued. It wasexciting,you know?”
“I know,” Reina says, then, “Okay, so now I can tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“You know how you asked me not to do a deep dive on him?” Nicola nods. Then, realizing Reina can’t see her, she says, “I remember.”
“Hang on, Rosie’s doing her business. I need to pick it up... Okay, done. We’re moving again. So you told me not to do a deep dive.”
“But you dove anyway?”
“I dove anyway. I’m sorry, Nic! I couldn’t help it. My brain wasstarvedfor a project. And I would have told you if I’d found something truly terrible, if I wasworriedabout you, but I wanted you to have a fun summer, and what I found was really just more in the unsavory category. Not the dangerous category. I would have told you if anything fell into the dangerous category.”
