She wants to call her mom, and with just the thought of that a lump rises in her throat. How did that lump get there so fast? What iswrongwith her? She’s letting grief over her mother consume her, more than two years after Theresa’s death. When everyone else in the family—even her father, maybe especially her father—is emerging from the mourning period, she’s still stuck there, and sinking, like a car in quicksand. But she doesn’t know any other way to do it. “I don’t know any other way to do it,” she tells Leo. Her voice cracks. She removes his head from her lap, rises, bends to untangle the leash from his back paw.
Leo’s tongue darts out and he licks her cheek. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, but he’s trying to make her feel better. The way dogs learn human ways of living is astonishing, thinks Mae; the way we expect them to adapt to our ways of living instead of the reverse. We don’t deserve their graciousness and goodwill, and yet the lucky among us receive both.
“Let’s go, buddy,” she tells Leo. “Time for breakfast.” They walk back on the cool, wet sand, close to the water. Two broken people. Well, one broken person and one broken dog, searching for whatever can fix them.
Jordan walks the rest of the way in a state of intense agitation that even the beauty of her surroundings can’t mitigate.Bernadette wants her to kill a story about Bernadette herself. If Jordan calls Samantha Braddock and says there’s no truth to it, the story won’t run, and Jordan will one day be Bernadette’s partner at the firm.
She has Samantha Braddock in her contacts. They’ve worked on stories in the past. It wouldn’t take much. She can say one sentenceabout how much she loves working for Bernadette and how disgruntled the unnamed employee must be (is it Irina?) to issue such untruths.
It’s complicated. On one hand, Bernadette is a brilliant problem solver. Her instincts are unparalleled in the industry. She’ll take a call from a client in distress anytime, anywhere, at the expense of pretty much everything else. On the other hand, Jordan has seen her belittle Irina for bringing up ideas in a staff meeting. She’s publicly berated Tom for failing to get that actress (you’d know her if you heard her name) under contract when she was going through that situation on the movie set. She’s condescending, she micromanages, she’s definitely a narcissist. To deny any of that would be a lie.
And then there’s Memorial Day weekend.
Andthenthere’s the fact that Jordan doesn’t lie to the press.
On the other hand. If Jordan keeps her morals intact Bernadette won’t make her partner. She’ll still get clients, but they will be the bottom-feeders. Bernadette will start to punish her in ways large and small. Eventually, she’ll have to leave the firm.
It’s a Gordian knot she can’t untangle, especially without coffee.
The sky is clear and the sun is all the way up as Jordan reaches the beach parking lot. All of the cars belong to the surfers right now, but soon enough the surfers will leave and the summer morning jockeying for a parking spot will begin, the moms with the young kids, the parents of the surf lesson students. She puts on her flip-flops and crosses the street to Summer Sessions, and the Sandpiper Cafe inside the shop. She would have killed for a place like this when she was a teenager, but the surf shop moved locations and expanded when Jordan was already launching into her adult life. At Sandpiper you can order a complete and healthy breakfast; you can choose from a full coffee bar menu; you can dress like a surfer or date a surfer or be a surfer, or whichever combination of all three feels right to you.
She orders a cappuccino and a smoothie from a beautiful suntanned girl in a Roxy T-shirt. She thinks about the cocktails and wine from the night before and adds a coconut water from the refrigerated case near the register. She repairs to the bench outside the pickup window, sipping the water while she waits for her name to be called. She woke this morning in near darkness, but now it’s as if a curtain has lifted in a dark auditorium and in the center of the stage is a perfect summer day. She hears her name, and the beautiful suntanned girl slides the coffee and smoothie out to her through the pickup window.
Here is a conundrum: only two hands, but three drinks. Not the smartest thinking for a girl without a car. She sits back down on the bench to contemplate this, and—
“That’s a lot of liquids,” says a voice behind her.
Jordan turns and there is the ghost of Simone.
“Oh my god,” she says. “It’s you.” So it was Simone she saw running the day before. She’s a little older, yes (who isn’t?), but with the same spun-sugar hair, the improbable tan layered over freckles, the soccer-player legs. Simone is wearing running shorts, a fitted tank top, and sunglasses, which she lifts to reveal the same eyes Jordan remembers, will always remember. Sea-glass green. Her heart beats extra fast. Her eyes were the rarest color in the world, seventeen-year-old Simone had informed Jordan. She was very proud of her eyes, as though she had somehow chosen the color herself.
“How are you going to carry all that?”
Simone was the first girl Jordan kissed—she was Jordan’s first everything.
“I’m actually done with the coconut water,” Jordan says. “So now I have two drinks for two hands.”
“Well, that’s good.” Simone smiles. Her teeth are California perfect. “You look fantastic, Jordan Shipman. Look at you, all grown up.”
“Ha,” says Jordan “Yeah, I guess I am. You too.”
“I look fantastic, or I’m all grown up?”
Jordan takes a few seconds with this, looking carefully at Simone. So she’s still a flirt. “Both,” she says finally.
God, Jordan was crazy for Simone. They’d met in the beginning of the summer before college. Simone was working as a lifeguard at the Beach Club and Jordan was a member, which right there tells you most of what you need to know about New England, because even though Simone’s parents were loaded, it was time, connections, and family, not money, that got you a membership at the Beach Club. They were inseparable that whole summer.
Simone visited her once at NYU, freshman year. At a pregame the first night of her visit Jordan lost track of Simone for a little while, and when next she saw her she was making out with a guy wearing an Obama T-shirt. Jordan had left the party, stomped all the way down Mercer, leaving Simone to find her way back to the residence hall.
“Did you walk here?” Simone asks now, drawing Jordan back to the present. Jordan nods. “I could give you a ride home. I’ve got my car right here. I just finished my run and grabbed a coffee.” Simone holds up her own cup for proof. There isn’t a drop of sweat on her, but that’s Simone for you. Her legs, which are quite visible, so please don’t judge Jordan for looking, are the same lean, strong legs that all those years ago could rise effortlessly on a surfboard, race along the beach, wrap themselves around Jordan. She points to a Honda CRV in the small parking lot.
Simone had been angry when she finally got back to the room. “What’s the big deal, Jordan, it was just a kiss, I always said I was bi.”
But Jordan had been angrier, so angry she could barely talk. “Sorry,” she spat, “but you never said you were bi. I thought you werehere to see me.”She’d been so shocked and hurt she felt like she had sunburned skin and Simone had slapped it.
“I was! I am! So what, it was just a guy at a party. It was just a kiss. It doesn’t have to be so complicated, Jordan. Why can’t we just have fun?”
But Jordan couldn’t get past it. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. If she couldn’t have Simone completely, she didn’t want her at all. They hardly spoke the next morning when Simone packed her bag, got in the cab that would take her back to LaGuardia. And they didn’t speak again after. During the next summer Jordan avoided places she might run into Simone, even turning around on a run when she thought she saw her coming the other way.
