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Nick fussed with the band of his boxers as if he had read her mind. His sudden shyness about his body was unexpected and endearing.
“Sorry I’m such a wimp about everything.” He grimaced, impatient waves lapping their ankles. “God, you have Crohn’s, something scary for real, and I’m flipping out over a bloody clam.”
“I get freaked out, too, especially about heights,” said Evie. “You should’ve seen me on the steep escalators in the Tube.” Her eyes strayed down to her left where a small ‘spoot’ of water shot upward from the sand. “Oh, speak of the devil!” Evie pointed. “That was a razor clam. When they sense vibrations, they spit water before burrowing into the sand.”
Nick squinted. “Weird little fucker.”
They hopped over a swathe of broken shells and some green sea foam kissing the shoreline. “Lots of people eat them,” said Evie, her voice competing with the Lab barking along the beach. “I’m not fond, but my parents are.” She bent down and collected a plastic six-pack ring entwined with seaweed.
“What about Sam? Does he like them?” Nick shivered.
“Why?” She dropped the plastic ring beside her backpack for disposal later and scooped up a towel, giving it a terse shake. “You wanna try ’em as some sort of male bonding exercise, Mr. Fake Shellfish Allergy?” Nick and Sam’s friendship had drifted somewhat, and Evie leaned into the opportunity to pull them back together again. Grinning, she flung the blue terrycloth over his shoulder.
Nick wrapped the towel around his body and began blotting shiny beads of saltwater from his chest. “Not really. Just curious.”
Evie kneeled down and claimed her towel, covering herself with the cozy material.
“Do you ever resent him?”
She wasn’t expecting that. Rubbing her jaw, she stood. “Who, Sam? For what?”
“For going to school, becoming a vet,” said Nick, slicking back his dripping mop of hair. “Why does he get to pursue his dream career, but you have to shelve yours for the shop? That hardly seems fair…”
“Who says I’m shelving mine?”
“You said you wanted to be an author at the County Show.”
He remembers?! Evie tugged her necklace. Of course she fancied the idea—writing for a living, who wouldn’t?—but Evie knew such pie-in-the-sky stuff didn’t happen to girls like her. She flashed a smile and released her pendant. “Oh, that. Yeah, I was fooling around. I thought I wanted to be an astronaut, too, few years ago!” She bent sideways, her pulse pounding in her ears as she kneaded excess water from her hair.
“But working four part-time jobs and saving madly for a uni degree you don’t actually need doesn’t sound like fooling around, Tigs. That sounds like an escape, a path toward your dream. Not your mum’s or your grandmother’s—yours.”
How can I explain this so he’ll understand? Evie glanced at the orange buoys bobbing in the Sound, marking underwater lobster creels. “Yeah, but the women on my mum’s side of my family run the shop. It’s always been that way—for a hundred years.” Giving her hair one last squeeze, she straightened up and pulled her towel tighter. “It’s a Marwick tradition. I’m proud of it, actually.”
“But traditions aren’t set in stone, Evie,” said Nick.
“Hello? Have you been to Orkney?” She laughed, hoping humor would soften his concerns and dampen his curiosity. Nick was such a sweetheart, but his pressing questions about university were circling a little too close for comfort. She didn’t want to be the object of his pity.
“But if the shop’s your future, why spend all that money to study at uni? It doesn’t make sens—”
“So I don’t feel left behind, okay?” she blurted, shutting him up. “Crohn’s has stolen so much from me. Just once I’d like to be like everyone else!” Her ribs squeezed. Nice one, idiot. Now he’s gonna think you’re pathetic.
Nick’s expression deflated. “Oh, Evie.” His fingers brushed away a smattering of dried sea salt from her cheek. “I get it.” He opened his arms.
She leaned in, welcoming his embrace. “I’ll go for three years, experience life beyond the island, then come home and mind the shop.”
“But what if you fall in love with that big wide world?”
Your world? The truth burned in Evie’s throat. “I don’t know.”
* * *
The last days of August breezed by in a blur of romantic rendezvous, Nick’s driving lessons (he only stalled her mum’s car twice), and monologue practice (Evie helped Nick perfect his audition piece for Plunder the Crown inside the Broch of Gurness). The shortening summer days also signaled the start of Evie’s final year of secondary school and exams, which, along with Nick’s journey to London for his coveted fifth callback, delayed their trip to Hoy. With her boyfriend away temporarily, Evie had plenty of time for a gossip and a post-class takeaway with Sunita and newly minted university student, Fiona.
“I thought doing it at the beach would be sexy.” Evie set her orange pop on the wooden bench and gazed across The Willows, a small parkette with a few trees and a babbling brook not far from Kirkwall Grammar.
Sunita’s deep-fried mozzarella stick stalled between her mouth and its grease-stained polystyrene box on her lap. “Hell no! Where’d you get that from?”
“The Sexcapades column.”
