“So many books about the war. So many brave men and women. So many people hiding Jewish children and protecting Jewish friends. But where are the ones where we save ourselves?” She looked up at me with familiar dark brown eyes. “What would your grandmother have thought?”
I watched her leave.
Shit.
* * *
I found Noah at the rowing club, and by found, I meant I texted him and showed up as boys poured out of the boathouse. He strolled toward me alongside half a dozen others, laughing and relaxed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his skin glowed with sun and exertion.
I swallowed and directed my attention to the horizon, squinting against the sun as it painted the sky a soft orange. Was it necessary for so much skin to be on display? Especially when I shouldn’t be blatantly staring at it?
He waved his friends off and came over, tugging on a worn, soft blue T-shirt. “Abigail.”
I focused on his ear to avoid anything more incendiary. “I met your grandmother in the bookstore. She knows who I am.”
He froze. “What? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. She didn’t seem thrilled.” I shrugged. “So there’s no reason to keep me a secret. Invite me to dinner. We can ask about my grandmother. I don’t have to mention the romance or anything. We can just see if they know about my grandmother’s family.”
A tiny smile danced across his lips. “You want to come to dinner at my house.”
“It seems easiest, doesn’t it? Organic.”
“Ripe for disaster.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Honestly, this boy. “What do you want?”
He grinned, sweaty and happy and too charming. “What’s your best offer?”
“No one starts negotiations with their best offer.”
He laughed. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
No way was I flirting with him, when he’d be left smirking and unaffected while I’d be rendered a puddle of nerves. Best to act no-nonsense. “How’s Saturday?”
He relented. “What do I tell them? I don’t exactly invite tons of girls over for dinner.”
“I’m sure you can think of something,” I echoed back at him.
“Hm.” He grinned down at me and my heart did a jump, skip, and hop.
What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stomp these ridiculous flutters out of my body? Why did they need to show up every time I was in the same space as Noah? Obviously Noah was horrible fling material, given how 1) our families were weirdly intertwined and 2) he had, in fact, already flat-out rejected me.
“Noah! My man!”
And lo and behold, as though summoned by my desire for an appropriate summer fling, a blond boy approached.
Noah and the boy hug-slapped each other’s backs. “Hey, man.”
“How’s your summer?”
“It’s good. Got here last month. You?”
“Just flew in this morning.” The boy was startlingly attractive, with hair like corn silk and the even, symmetrical features capable of landing a TV deal or a GOP endorsement. He flashed a blazingly white smile at me. “Hi. I’m Tyler.”
“Hi, Tyler.” I sounded dazed even to my own ears. “I’m Abby.”
They exchanged updates for a few minutes, and when their conversation wound down, Tyler turned his grin on me. “Nice to meet you, Abby.”
I watched him walk away, his long tan legs on display beneath his mint green Chubbies.
Noah took one look at me. “No.”
“What?” I snapped my attention back to him. “No what?”
“You don’t want to get involved with him.”
I smiled a little too sharply. “Don’t I?”
“Tyler wrecks girls.”
“How so?”
“He’s not serious about anyone, but people get serious about him. He breaks hearts.”
“I want a fling, not a boyfriend,” I shot back. “He can’t break my heart if I don’t let it get involved.”
He snorted. “Because you’re so good at not getting invested.”
“What do you mean?” Could he tell how, the more time we spent together, the more my heart rate rose around him, and I couldn’t stop looking at his arms, and sometimes at night—oh my god, of course he could, see: me throwing myself at him. Clearly, I had to act totally disinterested for the rest of forever to prove him wrong.
“You’re obsessing over a failed romance from fifty years ago.”
Oh. Right. “Because it’s family history. Besides, like I said, I want no strings attached.” So there.
“So you keep saying.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Seriously? That’s what you want?” His brows rose and he looked exceedingly skeptical.
My heart started beating very quickly. Maybe he was about to offer himself up. To say If you’re looking for no strings attached, hook up with me.
Maybe I read too many romance novels.
What would I even say in response? Anything with Noah would be an absolute disaster waiting to happen, since there absolutely would be strings attached. A Gordian knot’s worth of them.
Instead, he leaned back. “Fine. Have fun.”
My cheeks went hot with anger. Have fun? He seriously didn’t care if I hooked up with Tyler? Then maybe I would, if it mattered so little. “Fine. I will.”
* * *
I was irritable over the next few days, though I tried not to be, especially when I went with Jane to the Chicken Box to meet up with Mason from the bakery. It was a pretty good distraction, too, worrying about someone else’s romantic dilemmas rather than my own. Like about how Noah’s texts confirming dinner for Saturday night were terser than I liked. Which was ridiculous. He had no right to act haughty about my choice of potential summer hookups.
“What am I supposed to wear?” I asked Jane Saturday night, sitting on the bed in my underwear and holding up yet another shirt. Today had been a scorcher, the light white and hot, and I’d been thrilled to be in the Prose Garden’s air-conditioning, helping customers with perspiration dripping from their brows. The necklines and armpits of their shirts had been damp, their skin tanned or burnt. After coming home, I’d showered and blown out my hair, and now I regarded my limited options with despair. “I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. Other than Matt’s, but I’d known them forever from school stuff.”
Jane barely glanced up from her phone. “Understated money.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“You know. A hundred-dollar shirt. What do you think Mason means by ‘thanks for coming by’?”
“Um. He’s glad we met him at the show yesterday?”
“It’s so formal though. Who says that? Isn’t ‘coming by’ a little dismissive? We spent three hours there.”
“Maybe he’s being polite. Or making an excuse to talk to you. Do shirts really cost a hundred dollars?”
She yawned and stretched her phone above her head. She smelled like bread from the bakery, and a tiny dusting of flour still clung to her shirt. “Wear a sun dress. You have approximately five million.”
True.
Wearing a lavender dress with a cinched waist, I arrived once more at Golden Doors. Though the evening retained the heat of the day, clouds had dialed back the worst of it, and now the warmth felt more like a decadent blanket. Still, I’d applied two layers of deodorant, and sweat gathered on the small of my back as I climbed the porch’s steps. My stomach roiled as I listened to the echo of the doorbell. Should I have brought something? My parents always brought wine. Flowers? Dammit.
The door swung open. A woman my parents’ age stood there, neatly dressed in white slacks and a blue linen shirt. How were all these people wearing pants in this heat? She looked at me curiously. “Hello.”
“How nice. Come in.” She stepped back.
Honestly, this entire summer had me feeling like a vampire awkwardly begging an invitation to other people’s houses.
“Abby, right?” A girl stepped up next to the woman, wearing shorts and a halter top. The cousin. Shira. I immediately felt overdressed.
I forced a smile. “Hey.”
“I’m Linda, Noah’s aunt,” the woman said. “He’s probably in the living room.”
“This way,” Shira said, saving me from additional awkwardness. She glanced at me over her shoulder as we went down the hall. “You guys met during your catering gig here?”
“Uh. Yes.”
She snorted.
We entered the living room. Dozens of people floated about: adults arranging food at the kitchen island, little kids running underfoot, an identical trio of prepubescent girls whispering to each other. Almost everyone had the distinctive Barbanel strong jaw and brows, dark eyes, and TV-worthy hair. “Full house?”
Shira shrugged. “Not really.”
Cool.
Across the room, Noah chatted with a tall, broad-shouldered older man with graying hair. I crossed to his side as quickly as I could without running, and Noah turned to meet me. “Uncle Bertie. You remember Abigail.”
I remembered him. He’d been the one who caught us in the study.
“Of course. Lovely to see you again, Abigail.”
“Hi. Yes. You too.”
After the conversation everyone had about where I was from and what I was doing on Nantucket, Noah excused us. I lowered my voice. “You didn’t mention there would be a gazillion people here.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Why are there three tiny identical children?”
He laughed. “Aunt Joan’s kids.”
“Are you all on the island during the summer? Do you all stay here?”
He looked around the room, as though counting. “I think about twenty of us do. My dad has three younger siblings and everyone comes for at least part of the summer.”
I took in all the other kids. “Are you the only one without siblings?”
“Me and Shira both, yeah. My parents had me pretty late in life. Sort of adds to the pressure of everything, being their one precious miracle baby.”
“I’m sure they don’t mean to add pressure.” When he gave me a fiercely skeptical look, I changed the topic. “How was the house empty last time I came over?”
“Careful planning and expert manipulation.”
“Why, Noah. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
A grin broke over his face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He nudged me. “There’s my grandmother.”
I whipped my head around. She stood across the room, dressed in slacks and a sweater advertising the Nantucket Atheneum—more casual clothes than at the book club. She looked older, too, in the way she moved, the way a woman my mom’s age helped her lower onto the couch and a girl a few years younger than me curled up next to her.
It struck me, the three of them: three generations of Barbanel women. I’d spent so much time this summer thinking about my grandmother, my mom, and me. We’d been the center of my story, the pole everything rotated around. Maybe I needed to remember we weren’t the only tale unfolding.
“Hi, Abby.” A woman stepped up to us, a man at her side. Noah’s parents. Mrs. Barbanel smiled. Though tight-lipped and tense, her eyes looked tentatively hopeful. “Good to see you again.”
“You too. Thanks for having me.” Was she having me? Or were the grandparents the hosts? Should I thank literally everyone over fifty? Ahhh, etiquette.
“This is my husband, Harry.” She placed her hand on his arm. Harry Barbanel was tall and had a strong jaw and all his hair, and looked, I expected, as Noah would in forty years. I smiled hello and glanced at Noah, whose face displayed a cool politeness, like we were chatting with mere acquaintances. How unnerving. I might yell and roll my eyes at my parents, but I’d never treated them with this calm disaffection.
“Good to meet you.” His dad pumped my hand. I couldn’t remember the last time an adult treated me like anything other than an extra pair of hands to set the table or someone to grill about Gen Z’s takes on political issues. It made me uncomfortable.
“I sent Shira to get your father,” Mrs. Barbanel murmured to her husband. “Let’s gather everyone.” She raised her voice. “All right, dinner time! Let’s go!”
“Do you guys do dinner together every night?” I asked Noah as we joined the crowd slowly meandering outside. Two tables had been set up in the lawn—nothing so fancy as when I’d first been here, but still nicely set.
“No, just on the weekends, when more people are here. My dad only comes Friday to Sunday, and so do some of the aunts and uncles—and cousins, too.”
“What about your mom? She’s here the whole summer?”
“Yeah, she works remotely. She’s an engineer for a robotics company. Here, we’re at the adults’ table tonight.”
We took our seats with the other dozen teens and adults, while the little kids sat at their own table several steps away. It was still light—the solstice hadn’t yet arrived—but almost hazy, like we could see the heat surrounding us. A sea breeze lifted the humid air in little eddies.
Delicious foods weighed down the table: vegetable couscous with chickpeas and plump raisins; tiny bowls of olives; peppers stuffed with saffron rice; large clay pots of tagine. Cumin and turmeric perfumed the air. Everyone served themselves in a familiar, informal manner, passing and stealing dishes.
Shira, Noah’s younger cousin, walked arm in arm with an older man as he made his way to the head of the table.
Edward Barbanel.
I hadn’t come across lots of ninety-year-old men in my life: O’pa had died when I was twelve, and my dad’s dad hadn’t hit eighty yet. Edward Barbanel looked impossibly old, but he still had a full head of hair and thick brows, both snow white. He didn’t look thin and frail, though his frame looked as though it had once carried more weight. Still, I couldn’t imagine him as young, couldn’t make the mental switch from this elderly gentleman to the man who’d written my grandmother so many letters, who’d had said for me it is you. I could only see an old man, with papery, spotted skin and sunken cheeks.
He’d written all those letters, and for the first time I felt guilty and ashamed of reading them.
Shira pulled out his chair, and he squeezed his granddaughter’s hand in thanks. A chill went through me. I shouldn’t be here. This was a family night, a normal night. I should have picked a different time, and a place where I wasn’t intruding. I’d been in such a hurry to get answers, so convinced we could be out in the open since Helen Barbanel knew about O’ma, but I’d been wrong. I couldn’t ask questions about my grandmother now, not when I’d read about how much Edward had loved her, not in front of Helen, not with Noah’s tense parents and all these cousins. I’d come back some other time. Noah and I would figure something else out.
I got through dinner quietly, smiling when everyone else did, answering quickly when people addressed me, but all in all, flying under the radar. Occasionally I caught Helen Barbanel watching me from her seat at one of the heads of the table. Who did she think I was—the granddaughter of the girl who’d been brought up in her mother-in-law’s house, or the granddaughter of the woman who’d slept with her husband?
I met her gaze once, and it was as unwavering as Noah’s. He’d said his grandmother taught him everything he knew about plants, had inspired him to want to study botany. What else had he learned from her? How to make his face an impenetrable barrier? How to handle not always being happy with your lot in life?
But I could be extrapolat
ing. Maybe she was happy.
Noah’s mom, on the other hand, looked at me frequently, but always darted her gaze away, like a nervous hummingbird. Yet when the meal had finished, and the adults had poured themselves tiny cups of coffee, and the sky had faded to a papery purplish-blue, she pitched her voice across the table. “So, Abby. Where are you from?”
Like a signal, the conversation around the table died and the focus turned to me. I resisted licking my suddenly dry lips. “I’m from South Hadley—it’s a small town in western Mass.”
Several of the adults laughed. Noah’s mom smiled. “We’re familiar with South Hadley.”
Embarrassment slid through me, like I should have known they knew my town.
“And how are you liking Nantucket?”
“It’s great. It’s gorgeous.” I glanced at Noah beside me, hoping for reassurance in the face of this gentle questioning. Beneath the table, he pressed his leg against mine.
“Abigail,” Helen said, “is Ruth Goldman’s granddaughter.”
Edward Barbanel started choking.
He’d raised his drink to his lips, but now he set it down with a thunk, pressing a fist to his chest. The table’s attention swung to him; even the kids’ table fell silent.
“Are you okay, Dad?” Noah’s father leaned forward.
Edward Barbanel waved him off, his attention on his wife. “Ruth’s granddaughter?”
Helen took a measured sip of coffee. “Looks just like her, doesn’t she?”
Now Edward’s gaze swung to me. I sat very, very still. Beneath the table, my hand opened and closed in nervous fists. This was not the way I’d wanted this to come up.
After a long silence broken only by a toddler’s babbling, Noah’s mother spoke. “Who’s Ruth?”
Edward took an excessively large swig of alcohol.
“Ruth lived with Edward’s family as a child,” Helen said. “Are you all right, dear?”
The Summer of Lost Letters Page 14