Page 5 of Sunset on the Solstice

“I can’t help but picture them out on that mountain, up against the elements,” Esme breathed, her eyes lost. “I hope she knows what she’s doing. I hope she feels safe.”

3

Six Years Ago

It was the final day of spring semester at Columbia University, and unlike her roommate, Shelby was all packed up and ready to go. Lily and her mother, Rebecca, would be there soon to pick her up and take her to Nantucket for the summer. She ached to get out of the city.

Waiting on the sofa of their shared apartment, her suitcases and three boxes spread out around her, Shelby refreshed the website meant to show her grades for the final tests and papers she’d turned in over the previous few days. As an English literature major, she’d read a few novels more than five times to get to the heart of their messages. She’d hated rereading Hemingway, but rereading Austen and Faulkner had taught her more about herself as a reader and them as writers than she’d bargained for. Rereading Woolf, as always, had reminded her of what kind of writer she wanted to be: soulful, lyrical, and in touch with the world and her heart.

Yet still, no grades were posted. Shelby closed her eyes and prayed for another round of good grades. Since she was a girl, good academic prowess had been her bread and butter. She had big dreams for her future: to write novels, of course, and to work as a professor at a prestigious university. She wanted to be the one “in the know.” She wanted to be an expert on the written word.

Suddenly, Lily wrote that she and Rebecca were trying to find a parking spot, so Shelby grabbed some of her things and hurried downstairs to meet them. The next twenty minutes were a flurry of hugs and greetings until they had all of Shelby’s things in Rebecca’s car, and they were speeding out of the city and back to the island.

In the back seat, Shelby analyzed her older sister Lily, who’d recently moved to the island after living in the city for years. Lily, too, had attended Columbia before getting a job as a marketer while building her matchmaker business. Throughout that time, she’d had a boyfriend named Liam, an actor who came from money, but in the lead-up to their wedding, both Liam and Lily had realized how wrong they were for one another.

It had been funny to witness. Lily was an expert at finding lovers for everyone else, but she hadn’t been able to see how wrong Liam was for her, not till it was almost too late.

“How are things going with Mick?” Shelby asked.

Lily’s eyelashes fluttered. “He’s really great,” she said.

“Okay? What else?” Shelby leaned forward, trying to catch her sister’s eye.

But Lily seemed resistant to sharing too much about her new fling. “My main project this summer is you, Little Sis,” Lily said, laughing. “There are plenty of hot college guys on the island. I hope you’re ready to go out?”

Shelby groaned. “You don’t need to match me with anyone. I’m too busy, anyway.”

“You’re working, what? Thirty hours a week at the Sutton Book Club?” Lily asked. “You can find time to go out on a few dates. It’s summer! You need to live!”

Shelby groaned inwardly. She caught her mother watching her from the rearview mirror, then averted her gaze. The last thing Shelby wanted to talk about was the fact that she’d never had a boyfriend before. She’d never even been asked out. Throughout her teenage years and into her first two years at Columbia, she’d been debilitatingly shy, to the point where she had very few friends. Her idea of a beautiful night was going to the movies by herself and following it up with a cookie from a bodega.

But something Lily and her mother didn’t understand was that Shelby wasn’t lonely. She had her books and her dreams. She had the entire city at her disposal. Often, she saw other girls on campus, lost in the throes of love or heartbreak, and thought, I’ll never be like them.

She had to keep her wits about her.

Of course, Shelby wasn’t immune to the concept of romance. During her off hours, she wrote novels either on her laptop or in her numerous notebooks, many of which delved into the world of romance. But she couldn’t help but think that the men in the world of romance novels were entirely different from the men in the modern world. They were chivalrous and kindhearted. They didn’t make jokes at the heroine’s expense.

Five hours later, when Nantucket Island came into view for the first time, Shelby’s heart jumped in her throat. “There it is,” she whispered. They were on the ferry, churning across the Nantucket Sound.

“I’m so happy to have all my kids home!” Rebecca cried. “Of course, Chad’s already out of the house almost every hour of every day.”

“That’s no surprise,” Shelby said. Her little brother Chad was a freshman at university. Still, he’d returned three days ago to spend long hours lifeguarding, playing basketball with his island friends, sailing, and probably dating every girl he met along the way.

Shelby adored her little brother. She also felt as though he was a different species from her. He fit easily into the world, categorizing himself as a strong, sporty, handsome guy who got everything he wanted.

A little Sutton family party welcomed Shelby home for the summer. Ben, Chad, Lily, Rebecca, Grandma Esme, Grandpa Victor, and their new cousin Kade sat on the veranda overlooking the water and eating buttery slabs of salmon. Shelby sat near her Grandma Esme, which allowed them to fall into gorgeous conversations about what they’d been reading and what they planned to read for the summer ahead.

“It’s so good to have you back,” Grandma Esme cooed. And it was true that Grandma had admitted to Shelby privately during spring break that she didn’t want to work such long hours at the Sutton Book Club for much longer. She was in her seventies, newly in love with her ex-husband, Victor, and they had a new lease on life to discover together. It meant that Shelby—who only wanted to be around books anyway—would take over everyday operations at the Sutton Book Club for the summer, at least.

Shelby couldn’t wait.

Shelby’s first day at the Sutton Book Club was drizzly with rain. The morning of, Lily was headed out to meet a matchmaking client and offered to drive Shelby into the Historic District, where, just because they had a bit of extra time, they dipped into a coffee shop and shared an orange scone. Shelby felt bubbly with excitement and happy to be with her sister.

“Who’s on the docket today?” she asked Lily.

Lily showed Shelby the photograph of the guy she was headed out to see: a twenty-five-year-old business student from Yale whose parents wanted him to get married by the time he was twenty-eight. “It’s harsh, isn’t it?” Lily said under her breath, after making Shelby promise she wouldn’t share any details about the guy with anyone. “I can’t imagine Mom making rules like that for us.”

“Mom’s reasonable.” Shelby took a small bite of scone, then said, “Maybe she’s coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never be with anyone?”