Tyler nodded, then yanked his phone out of his pocket. “Fuck! I have no fucking signal! Do you? Check your phone! Do you?”
I reached into my tote. “I, um—No. Wow, no. I don’t.”
“Fuck!” Tyler said, and this time, louder. Loud enough that Meredith, if she was still close to the door, could’ve heard him. “Did you pay attention on the way over? Do you know how to get into town? Do you know where we are?”
I stared at him. “No? I don’t know. I mean,did you? I didn’t think we’d be abandoned here, you know? I wasn’t exactly leaving a trail of breadcrumbs from the back of a fucking chauffeured Range Rover. Just knock on the door, okay? Tell her we have no service, that we—”
“I’m not knocking on the door! You knock on the door! You’re the favorite. You’re the one who got drunk with her! You’re the one who made fun of me all fucking brunch so she’d like you! You’re the one who—”
“Oh, come on! Are you serious right now? Of course I’m the favorite! You didn’t even try! You’re the one that took a job writing a romance novel who’s never even watchedThe Notebook! Who doesn’t even believe in love! Who the fuck says that, by the way? At, like, a meeting with their boss? With the bestselling romance novelist of all time? Why would—”
“Katie,” he said.
“No! I’m serious! You act like this industry is a joke—like it’s just smut, like it doesn’t matter! It does matter! Love makes people happy! It makes the world go around! People read this stuff when they’re sad, when they’re horny, when they’re dying, when their lives are falling apart, when they’re too scared to—”
“Katie,” he said again.
“You don’t get it, do you? How good it feels to believe in something! To believe your person is out there! That one day, everything is going to finally make sense, finally fall into place! To hang on to something like that, despite your fear, despite how lonely you are, despite how many times you’ve been hurt, despite—”
“The cat, Katie. The cat.”
I looked up. My pulse pounded between my ears. Pinot sat on the bottom step of Meredith’s front porch, one paw on what appeared to be a picnic basket. His blue eyes, piercing. We walked toward him very slowly. Gravel crunched under our feet.
Tyler kneeled down, flipped open the wicker lid, and peeled back a layer of blue and white gingham. “What the...?”
I joined him, my heart rate calming, my bare knees numb against the warm rocks. Fresh-baked French rolls and lobster salad with chives and a blackberry crostata. Two sets of silverware, real plates, linen napkins. A bottle of white wine. A bottle of sparkling water. An envelope with our names on it. I picked it up.
“I don’t—This wasn’t... Did she open the door? Did she hear us?”
“Open it,” Tyler said. “Just open it.”
I nodded. It was cardstock. Heavy. Once again, cream with navy piping.
There’s nothing like the Hamptons on a Tuesday in late June. The sun, hot. The beaches, empty. The riffraff, stuck in the city. Wander around, enjoy lunch, and get your bearings. I have a feeling you’re going to need them.
Yours,
M.B.
Tyler turned to me as I flipped over the note. On its back, a hand-drawn map of Southampton: ponds and pastry shops and Meredith’s private drive, all there in deep blue ink.
“Who the fuck is this woman?” he said.
The cat meowed, then swished away. My heart was racing again.
“I honestly have no clue.”
18
Tyler
I used Meredith’s map to get us halfway back into town until Katie, phone clutched, announced she had service again. By the time we’d printed our pages at the library and made it back to Meredith’s, the gates were closed, so we left our work in her mailbox with a note.
“What do we do now?” I whispered. We were a hundred yards from the porch, and still, I’d kept my voice down. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Katie shrugged. She was still holding that picnic basket and, given her obscenely short and inexplicably aproned sundress, looked a bit like she’d bought a Sexy Dorothy costume at a pop-up Halloween emporium, forgotten to wear it to a party in October, then decided it was perfect for a work meeting at the end of June instead.
“I think,” she said, “we’re supposed to... eat?”
