That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

  Diana had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the music. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to get to know me?”

  From underneath his baseball cap, Michael Carmody gave her a look that was equal parts incredulous, annoyed, and amused. “Are you fishing for compliments?”

  She looked down at her feet and didn’t answer.

  “You honestly have no idea why a man would be interested in you.”

  “I know why a man would want to sleep with me,” she said bluntly. She’d meant to shock him, and, from his face, she could see that she had.

  “Look,” he finally said. “You’re pretty, which you know, because, if I remember right, your cottage has a mirror. And you seem interesting. And your dog already likes me, which is half the battle.” He rubbed his hands together. “But if you’re not interested, that’s okay. I promise, I can take no for an answer.”

  He looked at her for a minute. When she didn’t say anything, he nodded, and said, “Okay, then. See you around, Early Girl.” He turned around, cradling his tomato in one big hand. Diana watched him. Her heart was beating fast, and she could taste iron on her tongue. She felt relieved, and angry, her insides fizzing with adrenaline and the memory of terror. But she also felt something else, something it took her most of the bike ride home to identify as regret.

  * * *

  Fall burned down into winter. The skies were gray in the daytime, dark by five o’clock; the trees brandished bare limbs against the sky. Four members of the waitstaff and two of the line cooks left for Key West, where they had jobs waiting. Ryan used what he’d made over the summer to go to Los Angeles for a month for auditions. Reese warned her, again, that the tips in the winter months wouldn’t amount to much. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

  Diana promised she’d be fine. If she’d had to pay rent, it might have been a stretch, but Dr. Levy told her she could have the cottage through the spring.

  “It’ll get better in the summer,” he said. “You’ll make, like, triple the money in high season.” Diana nodded, even though she’d already decided that there was no way she could stay on the Cape through the summer. Not with all the memories it would bring up; not when everything she saw and heard and smelled would remind her of that summer.

  All through the winter, she took Willa down to the beach every morning, to frolic with her pack of regulars, a corgi and a golden retriever, two chocolate labs, and a few other rescues. The big dogs would chase tennis balls into the water, while the small dogs watched from the shore and gave each other looks that seemed to ask Why on earth would they do that? Diana met their owners; her fellow washashores, women and men who’d had other lives in other towns and cities, who’d landed on the Cape and decided to stay. One woman was a sculptor, one man was a writer; a married couple were university professors who kept a pied-à-terre in New York City for the school year. All of them loved the Cape, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, and they were happy to tell Diana where to go and what to do.

  On Sundays, she’d bundle up and join Charlotte the sculptor and ride her bike to Provincetown for a restorative yoga class. When it was over, she’d treat herself to a latte at Joe, then pick up a few groceries and pedal back home. On Wednesdays, she would go to the Truro library, where she got to know both of the librarians: Margo, who was older, bubbly and enthusiastic, grabbing Diana’s hand as she led her to the New Release table; and Tessa, who was younger, quiet and tall. Both of them would put books aside for Diana’s visits. She’d check out a stack to get her through the week; always fiction, tilted heavily toward mysteries. She’d make a fire in the woodstove, brew a pot of tea, and read the afternoons away on her days off. Her favorites were cozies, where a tea-sipping spinster or a group of knitters solved the crime, without ever resorting to violence. Happy endings guaranteed.

  One night in December, Michael Carmody came to the Abbey for dinner, accompanied by a pretty young woman who wore dangly gold earrings and a dress of peach-colored silk. Diana could have never worn that color, but the shade made the woman’s pale, luminous white skin seem to glow. Reese winked at Diana as he seated them in her section. Diana shot him a dirty look, but before she could head over with menus and bread and glasses of water, Ellie had swooped in, smiling and chattering, greeting Michael with a hug. “I’ve got this,” she called to Diana.

  Diana told herself that it didn’t matter. She returned Michael Carmody’s friendly wave, and tried not to watch as he held the woman’s chair out for her, or to listen as her laughter rang out across the dining room. When she walked by to deliver desserts to a four-top, an hour later, Michael and the woman were talking intently, their voices low, leaning so close to one another that their foreheads were practically touching, and he never even looked her way as he escorted his lady friend out the door. Well, she thought, that’s that.

  * * *

  Jane, a fellow dog walker, told Diana where to get her shellfishing permit, and taught her how to use a clam rake. All through January and February, every few weeks, at low tide, Diana would walk Willa out onto a sandbar. Willa would run, chasing gulls, while Diana, in wool socks and rubber boots and a puffy down coat, raked the sand, listening for the telltale clinking sound of shells against the rake’s tines, and filled the wire bucket with clams. One weekend Jane, who was short, with cropped gray hair and clear blue eyes, took her to Pamet Harbor and showed her how to pry oysters off the rocks with a knife. Back at home, Jane watched, supervising, as Diana struggled to pry the shells open, finally managing to free six mangled oysters from their homes. She poured herself a beer and sliced a lemon into wedges, arranged the oysters on a platter, and ate them, with lemon juice and cocktail sauce, while she and Willa and Jane and Jane’s Bernese mountain dog, Thatcher, sat on the deck in the thin winter sunshine.

  She went oystering all through the winter, dressing in layers, with canvas gardening gloves on her hands and a wool cap pulled down over her ears. She tossed the shells into a heap at the corner of the deck, thinking about her summer with Dr. Levy, the way that she would boil the shells until they were clean, then throw them onto the driveway. “Okay, kids, do your thing!” she’d call, and Sam and Sarah would race outside to stomp on the shells, jumping up and down, crushing them to bits.

  By March, her heap was almost knee-high. Diana thought about dropping some off as an offering, as a combination thank-you and hello, but she knew she couldn’t. Even seeing the house would be too much. She picked up a shell and held it in her hand, turning it over, admiring its shape and the shades of cream and gray on its inner curve, underneath where the oyster had lain. She looked at them until she had an idea. Then it was just a matter of gathering supplies.

  She found paper napkins in the clearance bin at one of the fancy home goods stores in P-town. “With the summer people gone,” said the proprietor, “there’s not much call for cocktail supplies.” Diana bought a pack of napkins with a pattern of blue anchors and seashells on the white background, and bought gold paint, white paint, and Mod Podge at the hardware store on Conwell Street.

  Back at the cottage, she gave the shells a soak in vinegar, and dried them in the sun. When they were dry, she picked the largest shell and painted its insides white, and then, with a fine brush, painted a layer of gold around its rim. When the paint had dried, she brushed on a layer of Mod Podge, then carefully peeled the two-ply napkins apart and pressed the colorful side into the shell. She trimmed off the extra, lacquered the paper, and rubbed the edges with fine-grained sandpaper. “See that?” she asked Willa, extending her creation for the dog’s perusal. “It’s a dish for my necklaces and earrings.”

  Willa sniffed the shell dubiously, and gave Diana a hopeful look. Diana tossed her the last of Mike Carmody’s dehydrated hot dog rounds, and then, after painting and decoupaging the rest of the shells, she lined them up in a row. They were brightly colored, their gold rims vivid. From a distance, they looked like flowers, pinks and creams, reds
and golds, unfolding in the sun.

  10

  Diana

  On the last day of March, Diana woke up one morning to find the cottage so cold that she could see her breath. She wrapped her down comforter around her and padded, barefoot, down the stairs and over to the thermostat, which said that it was fifty-two degrees. She bent to put her hand down against the vent and felt no warmth, and no matter how many times she turned the thermostat’s switch off and then on again, the cottage refused to get any warmer.

  She pulled on jeans, wool socks, and her warmest sweater, which was made of thick cranberry-colored wool and came down to her thighs, and quickly kindled a fire in the woodstove. Then she called Reese. “There’s no heat in my cottage,” she said.

  “Did you turn the thermostat on and off?”

  “Yep. Nothing happened.”

  “Is there oil in your tank?”

  She grimaced, vaguely remembering something Michael Car-mody had said about an oil tank, back in the fall. “Shoot.”

  Reese’s voice was not unsympathetic. “You’ve got a caretaker, right?”

  Diana sighed. “I do.” She’d thrown out Michael Carmody’s business card, but he was in the Yellow Pages, and the cheerful-sounding young woman who answered the phone said, “I’ll send him right over.”

  “Thank you,” said Diana. She put on her down coat, and she and Willa went to sit on the deck and await Michael Carmody’s arrival.

  Twenty minutes later, the caretaking truck came rumbling up the driveway and pulled to a stop beside her Honda. Michael gave her a salute and opened his door. The truck’s springs seemed to sigh in relief as he climbed out. He wore jeans, work boots, a canvas barn coat, a red and black plaid shirt, and his usual Red Sox cap.

  “Tank empty?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” That was easier than having to explain that she’d never even located the tank.

  Michael set off on a walk around the cottage. Diana followed along, thinking that Frankie hadn’t been wrong to call him a bear. He didn’t walk as much as lumber, and it wasn’t hard to picture him spending a few months gorging on salmon and blueberries, getting ready to hibernate. She was smiling at the thought of Michael using his large, nimble hands to snatch salmon out of a river when he turned around.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Michael made a grumbling noise. A bearlike noise. Diana bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. A moment later, he was kneeling next to a round black tank, half-hidden behind a lilac bush, low on the side of the cottage. When he gave it a rap with his knuckles, she could hear the echo. “Yup,” he said. “You’re dry.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Hi, it’s Michael Carmody. Let me talk to Little Don.” When someone—presumably Little Don—picked up, he said, “Yeah, I’m up here at the Levy cottage on Knowles Heights Road. They got an account?” He paused, then nodded. “Yuh. We’ll wait.” He pocketed his phone, said, “Shouldn’t be more than an hour,” then reached in his pocket and tossed Willa a disc of dehydrated hot dog.

  “How’s my girlfriend?” he crooned, as Willa bounced around the patchy grass, looking half-insane with joy. “How’s my number-one girl?” His beard had gotten bushier since Diana had seen him last.

  “How much is this going to cost?” she asked, trying to keep her voice businesslike.

  “Well, I’m not sure.” He turned to examine one of her shutters, lifting it from the bottom, then wiggling it back and forth before pulling a screwdriver out of his pocket and tightening one of the screws. “What’s your deal with Dr. Levy? Is she paying utilities, or are you?”

  Diana pressed her lips together. “I’m not sure,” she muttered.

  Michael tightened the second screw, then made his way back to the front of the house, where Diana had set out her shells to dry in the sun. He crouched down to examine them. “Hey,” he said. “Did you make these? They’re pretty.” He picked up a shell that she’d lined with a lobster print. “Are you selling them?”

  “What? No, no, I just… I needed a project.”

  “Come summer, these babies would fly out of the farmers’ market. The summer people always want souvenirs to take home. You could make some money.”

  She shook her head, thinking no one would pay for a shell with a bit of paper glued inside. “I won’t be here this summer.”

  He tilted his head, a very Willa-like gesture. “Oh, no?”

  “No.” Dr. Levy had offered, which was more than generous of her. If you’re happy there, please stay, she’d said, but Diana knew that she couldn’t.

  “Where are you headed?” Michael asked.

  “Back to Boston. I’ll stay with my parents for the summer.” She’d already made plans to resume her old job, deep-cleaning the classrooms and the dorms over the summer, readying them for the students’ return.

  “That’s too bad.” He sounded honestly regretful as he looked at her, not in a predatory, leering way, but with great concentration. Like he was trying to memorize her, and there’d be a test later.

  “Why?”

  “Well, you’re going to miss the best part of the year.” He looked out toward P-town. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I never get tired of summer.” He still wore that wistful smile as he turned toward her. “Business will really pick up at the Abbey. They open up the deck, and it’s the best seat in town to watch the sunset, and Carl makes this incredible tuna Bolognese. It sounds weird, but it’s out of this world.”

  “So what did you have when you came in?” Diana hadn’t meant to interrupt; she hadn’t even intended to let him know that she’d noticed him at the Abbey. She certainly hadn’t meant for her voice to sound as sharp as it had.

  “Huh?” He looked puzzled.

  “In December,” she said. “You were on a date.”

  For a minute, Michael just stared at her. Then he started to laugh.

  “What?” Diana asked.

  He shook his head.

  “What?” she said again.

  Shaking his head, he said, “Kate’s my sister.” He grinned. “But if I’d known that showing up with another woman was what it took to get you to notice me, I would have done it sooner.”

  Diana could feel her face getting hot. “I wasn’t… I didn’t…”

  He held up his hands. “It’s okay. Really. Like I told you at the farmers’ market, if you’re not interested, then you’re not interested.” He rubbed his hands along his thighs. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “I just wish you weren’t leaving.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  He looked at her for a long moment before spreading his arms wide. “Because I like you, dummy!” he hollered, his voice echoing out over the water. Willa gave a short, exclamatory bark. Diana tried her hardest not to smile.

  “You don’t even know me,” she said.

  “I know some things,” said Michael Carmody as he sat down, uninvited, on the edge of her deck, and patted the space beside him. Immediately, traitorous Willa hopped up beside him, tongue lolling. Michael scratched her ears and said, “I know that you like to read Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell. I know you like nutmeg on your lattes, but you only get lattes on Sundays, after yoga, and that you just get plain coffee the rest of the time. I know you like to swim and shuck oysters. Oh, and I know you’re a dog person.” He gave Willa another scratch. Willa laid her muzzle on his thigh and stared at him adoringly. Damn dog, thought Diana.

  “You’re a stalker,” Diana muttered.

  He shook his head. “I just pay attention.” He took off his baseball cap, smoothed his hair, and put his hat on again. “Also, I know the guy who owns the coffee place,” he said modestly. “And the woman who teaches the yoga class.”

  “And all the librarians,” Diana muttered.

  “Well, yes, seeing as how one of them’s my mom,” Michael said.

  Diana made a strangled sound, realizing that there was a reason that the friendlier of the two librarians, th
e one with the curly red hair, seemed so familiar. “What else do you know?”

  Michael Carmody looked her full in the face. “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve got an idea that someone hurt you. And I’m sorry.” He stood up and reached for her hands, and Diana shocked herself by letting him take them. With his eyes on hers, he said, “But I’m not that guy.”

  She pulled her hands free, turning away. “You’re all that guy,” she said.

  “No.” Michael’s voice was gentle but insistent, and somehow he was right in front of her, turning her toward him, with one hand holding her hand, the other touching her chin, guiding her face toward his. “No, we’re not.”

  They were so close that she could see his eyes were a mixture of hazel and green; so close that she could smell him, and whatever combination of soap and shampoo and aftershave he used smelled good to her. He was cupping her face, very gently, not pushing her, not forcing it, letting her be the one to move closer, to tilt her head up and look in his eyes and, finally, to press her mouth against his.

  It was a sweet, chaste kiss, the first real kiss of her life, and Diana felt every part of it—the warmth of his palm on her cheek, his thumb, moving gently along her cheekbone; his lips, warm and soft amid the prickly patch of his beard; the comforting bulk of his body, blocking the wind, sheltering her, as surely as a house. Her drew her against him, his hand at the base of her neck. “Okay?” he whispered.

  Her skin was tingling, her breath was coming fast. Instead of answering, she put her mouth against his again, tilting her head back, deepening the kiss. She felt a sigh shudder through him. His barn coat hung open, and when he pulled her against him and wrapped his coat around her, it felt like coming in out of the cold to stand by a fire. His plaid shirt brushed against her chest, and she could imagine how it would feel if she was naked, her breasts pressed against the soft flannel. She shivered, and slipped her hands underneath his coat, gliding them down along his back and back up to his shoulders, letting her cheek rest against his chest. She could hear his heart, could feel her head rise and fall with his breaths. His hand made gentle circles on her back as he held her against him, and she felt like a storm-tossed dory that had come through the wind and the waves and had found its way back to the shelter of the shore. Our Lady of Safe Harbor, she thought… but when he bent to kiss her again, she pulled away.