“I swear, all those shipwrights are philistines. They’d rather compensate for their tiny manhood in those big trucks than breathe fresh air. They’re the type to tell you global warming is a hoax when it snows.”
A cold sweat seeps out along Cece’s hairline. Her heart thuds in her chest, thinking about her plans with Morgan. Why had she agreed so readily? Was she really that bored? That desperate for attention? Hadn’t she had every intention of putting distance between them? Then again, it’s summer, and after the shittiest spring in recent memory, isn’t Cece entitled to some fun? And if she can’t take up a guy’s invitation to go out on his boat, whatcanshe do? Still, her doubts remain, clinging to her like cobwebs. “You’ve never actually talked to the guy, right?”
Lorraine drains her glass. “Don’t need to. You get to my age,and you can tell a thing or two about a person. They resent us. That bunch.”
“Us?”
“People who work at the college. All the townies hate anyone who teaches up there. They blame the college for the town’s financial woes. Sure, blame the tiny liberal arts college on the hill, not their own government passing NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, or giving tax cuts to corporations.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Trust me. It’s not. I’ve had a few run-ins with their ilk at the monthly commission meetings. That’s where I first got wind of Richie Rayburn’s plan to expand his oyster business. All I did was ask a few questions and they got bent out of shape. They’re not a smart bunch. They’d cut down a forest if it meant they had a job for a week.”
“I suppose they need the work.”
“Richie claims his proposal will create more jobs, but I’ve seen that before. It’s Pfizer all over again. Why don’t you come with me to the next meeting? I could use a set of fresh eyes on the situation. Maybe you’ll see something I don’t.”
See? Cece thinks to herself, This is why you don’t agree to have dinner with your crazy, Croc-wearing landlord. “I might have work stuff, but I’d love to check it out.”
“No problem if you can’t,” Lorraine says. “You can help get signatures instead.”
“For what?”
“The more signatures we get, the more pressure we can put on the members of the zoning commission. If we can show that Rayburn’s project is unpopular, the proposal might be rejected.But we need more signatures! Once we get enough, I’ll write a formal objection, and then we’ll attend the public hearing in force. And if all else fails, we’ll gum up the works, request an environmental-impact study, a congestion study…whatever it takes.”
“It sounds very involved.”
“Glad to have you on board.”
On her way back to the cottage, her head heavy from the wine, grass tickling her ankles, Cece tries to picture the police outside Morgan’s home, lights painting the walls red and blue. She tries to remember what his house was like on the inside, but all she can remember ishim, the touch of his hand, whiskey on his breath. She tries to imagine him and his boatyard buddies griping about the college and people like Lorraine. Before she can get her key in the lock, Cece hears Bernard’s paws at the door, frantic and eager. He should’ve been walked hours ago.
Leash looped around her wrist, Cece closes the wooden gate behind them and stands on the sidewalk. Bernard lets out an impatient whine and tugs them in the usual direction, toward his favorite stop sign. “Let’s take a different route tonight,” she says. They turn left instead of right. The dog follows tentatively, ears perked, nose in the air, questioning the motivation behind such a change. Better not to walk by Morgan’s house tonight, Cece thinks to herself.
5
Before Cece wakes up, there’s the briefest of moments—lying in bed, the world gauzy and hushed through closed eyelids—when she misses Jonathan, his arm slung over the small of her back, the bedsheets always freshly laundered and starchy against her cheek.
They’d been set up by friends, and despite Cece’s misgivings about blind dates and the usual entanglements that accompanied involving friends with her love life, she was ready for something serious, and Jonathan, she’d heard, was as serious as they came.
“In a good way, obviously,” they said. “He’s got his life together.”
At the time, serious sounded nice to Cece. After nearly half a decade in the New York dating scene, serious seemed like the only sensible option. She’d concluded that there were simply too many beautiful women in the city. It was a numbers game, and no matter how Cece looked at the equation, she was drawing the short straw. There were no consequences for men who couldn’t commit, men who didn’t believe in marriage, men who wanted tojust be friends who occasionally slept together. No matter their outrageous demand, no matter the astounding level of ambivalence, they knew there were a dozen beautiful women just around the corner if they were kicked to the curb. After looking at the situation from a purely statistical point of view, Cece had a hard time holding it against them. Which made it all the more surprising when she met Jonathan at a Japanese restaurant in Alphabet City and found him to be direct, decisive, and yes, serious.
He was sitting at the sushi bar dressed like he’d just come from work: brown loafers, gray slacks, and a navy blue button-down shirt complete with a gray Patagonia vest. It was an unremarkable outfit, a bland, inoffensive style made ubiquitous by finance bros. Cece remembers thinking that if she’d passed Jonathan on the sidewalk every day for a week, she might have never noticed him. But that wasn’t the point! Where had carnal attraction gotten her? What had her previous judgments and aesthetic tastes produced?Nothingwas the short answer. She told the hostess she was meeting someone and breezed into the cramped restaurant and gave her best smile when Jonathan saw her. She hoped she lived up to whatever picture her friends had shown him. And then a marvelous thing happened: Jonathan stood up, shook her hand, and took charge, and suddenly Cece felt foolish and superficial for caring about something as frivolous as a vest.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” he said. “I was just thinking…Sushi is a terrible idea for a first date. I can’t believe I suggested it.”
Cece was still lingering on the wordlovely. Who said that word aloud anymore? “This is fine. I heard good things.”
Jonathan was already putting a few bills down on the bar.“I’ve got nothing against the food. I was thinking more about the chopsticks, and the fact that we can’t sit facing each other.”
“I hadn’t thought about that…It’ll be hard to find a table anywhere else. It’s prime dinnertime.”
“Way ahead of you. I managed to get us a table at an Argentinian steak spot just up the street. You aren’t a pescetarian or anything like that, are you?”
Cece was impressed by his preparedness and his ability to pivot. But mostly, she felt like he was thinking about her—whatshemight want, howshemight feel. “Sounds great.”
“I know steak’s a bit heavy, but it beats being humiliated when they inevitably offer me the kid chopsticks.”
