Well, I must run. Until next time!
Isobel posted, closed the laptop, and sighed. She didn’t feel outlandish or extraordinary at all. She felt dumb. And sad. And she had been feeling dumb and sad since the post incident with Jeff. She felt sure he was still disappointed in her for ignoring him on her blog, and then for saying the wrong things about him.
The situation with her father and Vicky wasn’t helping her mood, either. The last bit of correspondence she had received from the new Bessire family had been a brief and perfunctorily pleasant e-mail from her father and later that same day, a joke forwarded by Vicky, something about a husband and a wife and a homeless woman. Isobel hadn’t found it in the least bit funny.
Victoria Bessire. It was odd to be sharing a name with a stranger. Bessire was her name, her mom’s name, her dad’s name, and now, it was Vicky’s name, too. And it would be the name of the baby who was due to make his or her appearance in October.
Hmm. Isobel thought that old argument about patriarchal dominance might be worth revisiting when she was eventually out on her own. She wondered if Diana Vreeland had been born with that last name or if it was her husband’s. Had she even been married? She would have to look that up. Someday. She guessed it really didn’t matter.
Isobel got up from the chair and began to pace through the stuff accumulated on the floor of her room. If only things could go back to the way they used to be, when she and her mom spent all of their time together and were a real family, because yeah, even when it was just the two of them they were a real family. A family wasn’t about the number of people in it or about whether the parents were both male or both female or one of each sex. A family was about the connection. That was everything.
Still, life had been so much less complicated before the divorce. And before—she had to admit it—before Jeff. But if Isobel was having a hard time adjusting to this new life, her mother seemed to be thriving and happy, in spite of the challenges she faced with the inn. And Isobel was glad for her mother, really. And at some point her mother would probably want to date. She was young and attractive and smart and good. She deserved someone just as wonderful.
But what if her mother got married and took the guy’s name? Isobel would be the only Bessire in the new family . . .
Isobel sighed. Growing up had never seemed particularly difficult until now. But maybe that was because, until her relationship with Jeff, she had never really been challenged, like an adult is challenged. With an adult relationship came responsibility, everybody knew that. It wasn’t all gifts and candlelight. Some of it, maybe a lot of it, was the difficult work of getting along on a daily basis, dealing with moods and crises and the flu and bills that couldn’t always be paid on time.
Adult relationships were about love; love was the only thing that made all the difficult parts of a relationship worthwhile. And Jeff hadn’t yet told her that he loved her . . . Well, Isobel thought, guys could be notoriously bad at expressing their real emotions. Everyone knew that.
Desultorily, Isobel got dressed. She and Jeff and Gwen were going to the movies. Isobel did not expect to have fun. It was difficult work, juggling the needs of two people who despised each other.
It was not a movie Jeff should have wanted to see, a story about a middle-aged woman finding true love after the sudden death of her longtime husband. Isobel had planned to see it with Gwen, but when she had mentioned her plans to Jeff, he had invited himself along. Gwen had not been thrilled, especially when she learned that he insisted on driving, but she hadn’t cancelled, either.
Once in the mall theater, Isobel had made to sit between her best friend and her boyfriend, but with a quick maneuver, Jeff took that place instead. He had whispered to Isobel almost the entire time, which had at first seemed fun and then, pretty quickly, had seemed rude and embarrassing. Besides, how could she concentrate on the movie with someone talking in her ear?
But Isobel hadn’t known how to stop it. She didn’t know whether it had bothered Gwen, who said nothing about Jeff’s whispering once the movie was over and they were strolling aimlessly through the mall, Jeff, once again, between them.
“Did Izzy show you the bracelet I gave her?” Jeff said suddenly.
“Which bracelet?” Gwen asked, turning to see Isobel beyond her boyfriend.
“The one she’s wearing,” Jeff answered.
Isobel felt oddly embarrassed. “I’m sure you’ve seen it,” she said lightly. “I’ve been wearing it every day.”
“No,” Gwen said. “I haven’t.” Isobel thought she said it sharply. “Let me see.”
Isobel held out her arm.
Gwen was silent for a long moment. Her expression was bland. “It’s very pretty,” she said finally.
“White gold and diamonds,” Jeff said.
“Very nice.”
Jeff’s phone indicated that he was wanted. “Sorry,” he said, already walking off a bit. “Gotta take this.”
“Of course I’d seen the bracelet,” Gwen said the moment Jeff was out of earshot. “I just assumed it was something your parents had given you ages ago. Why didn’t you tell me Jeff gave it to you? It’s kind of a big deal. Too big,” she added.
Isobel had no idea how to answer Gwen’s question. Not really. Maybe she had said nothing to Gwen for the same reason she hadn’t mentioned the bracelet to her mother until she had noticed it on her own. Still, what was that reason?
Lamely, she said, “It’s not too big a deal.”
Jeff returned before Gwen could argue her point.
“Everything okay?” Isobel asked.
“Yeah. Why shouldn’t it be?”
Isobel shrugged. They continued to walk on through the mall, past shops crammed with cheap plastic accessories for girls and cheap plastic sports paraphernalia for boys.
“Hey, Izzy,” Jeff said suddenly. “You should get a tattoo.”
Isobel looked at the window display of the store outside of which Jeff had come to a halt. There was an assortment of human skulls. Some were carved of stone; others looked very much like plaster casts of the real thing. There were framed photos of customers’ tattoos. One guy’s back was entirely covered by an elaborate image of a gorilla standing on his legs and beating his chest with his fists. Someone’s forearm was simply black, as if it had been dunked into a vat of permanent ink. Isobel looked to the person at the counter inside. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, not that it mattered. The person was wearing a black, short-sleeved T-shirt and dark, baggy jeans; on his or her head was a bandanna and in his or her ears were massive plugs instead of regular earrings. What was visible of skin was entirely covered in ink, some of it red and yellow.
“Tattoos aren’t really my thing,” she said, turning away. “I mean, I’ve got nothing against anyone who has a tattoo, and a lot of tattoos are really awesome, but . . .”
“Then, come on, but what?” Jeff prodded. “What do you mean, not your thing? Are you afraid of needles? Is that it, Izzy, afraid of a little pain?”
Gwen’s lips tightened. “Pain is not pretty,” she said. “And infection is no joke.”
“Do you have a tattoo?” Isobel asked Jeff, dodging the needle issue (of course she was afraid of pain, any normal person was!), and hoping to erase Gwen’s last provocative comments from the record.
Jeff grinned. “You’ll see it soon enough.”
His response made her blush. (Gwen, behind Jeff’s back, rolled her eyes.) Jeff had been getting more insistent, like what had happened in the movie theater, not the whispering but the . . . She wouldn’t think about it now.
“Come on,” Jeff went on. “Something small and meaningful. Something personal.”
“Like what?” Isobel didn’t know why she was allowing this conversation to go on. But she didn’t know how to stop it, either. You could just say, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she told herself. But maybe that would be rude or unnecessarily dramatic.
“Like your favorite flower,” Jeff answered.
“Or,” he added with another grin, “the name of your favorite guy.”
“But they’re so—permanent.” Isobel laughed nervously. “I’m always changing my mind. One day Oreos are my favorite cookie, the next day it’s Chips Ahoy!”
Jeff sighed in that way Isobel had come to recognize as his I’m-trying-to-be-patient-with-you way. “Look, Izzy, the point is to make a commitment. The point is to take the plunge, know who you are, go for it, and not look back.”
“She knows who she is,” Gwen snapped. “She’s a person who changes her mind a lot.”
Jeff’s face flushed, and Isobel thought she saw his mouth tighten and twitch in a way she did not like at all.
Oh, she thought, please don’t let them fight! “I’ll tell you what,” she said quickly. “I’ll think about it, okay? Besides, I have to check with my mother before getting a tattoo. I promised her a long time ago that I would.” She had promised no such thing. She had always been against getting a tattoo. But neither Jeff nor Gwen said another word. The lie had worked, at least for the moment.
“Let’s go home,” she said now. “Okay?”
Neither of them objected. Neither of them spoke again, either. Half an hour later, Jeff pulled up outside the Blueberry Bay Inn.
“I’ll take Gwen home, then I’ll come back,” he said.
“No thanks,” Gwen said quickly, getting out of the backseat. “I’m going to stick around for a while. Maybe stay for dinner.”
Jeff gave Isobel a look she couldn’t quite interpret, except to know that he wanted her to get rid of Gwen. But Isobel could say nothing. She suddenly felt utterly exhausted. Finally, she opened her mouth, to say what she had no idea, but Jeff cut her off.
“Then I’m out of here. I’ll check in with you later, Izzy.”
“Okay,” Isobel said, climbing out of the car.
Jeff took off, perhaps a bit too quickly, Isobel thought. How could she find out if Jeff had ever gotten a speeding ticket? Was that sort of thing public knowledge?
Gwen went up onto the porch while Isobel greeted a guest returning from a day at the beach. “There should be tea and cookies in the parlor now, Mr. Browning,” she said.
Mr. Browning smiled. “That sounds lovely,” he said. He clumped up the porch stairs, loaded down with the accoutrements of serious relaxing—a folding lounge, a cooler, and a duffel large enough to carry towels, a change of clothes, and several hardcover novels.
“No one goes to the beach anymore without lugging half of their possessions with them,” Isobel said, attempting a smile. She sat in the rocker next to the one in which Gwen had sunk. She felt a bit awkward. She just knew Gwen was going to quiz her about Jeff.
“Mmm,” Gwen said. “Look, why does Jeff always want you to be someone you’re not?”
And there it was. “What are you talking about?” she said, more to postpone having to give a real answer than because she was genuinely puzzled by Gwen’s question.
“I don’t know, like that whole thing with the tattoo. He kept pushing you even though you told him you don’t like tattoos and don’t want to get one.”
“Oh, come on,” Isobel said, wearily. “He was just kidding around.”
“I don’t think he was. I think he was dead serious. I think he very much wanted you to get his name inked on your arm. Or someplace less—obvious.”
Isobel didn’t reply.
“And then that time when you told me you really didn’t want to go to that party and he pretty much dragged you along and . . .”
Isobel forced a laugh. “He did not ‘drag’ me along. I changed my mind.” And he spoke to my mother beforehand, Isobel added silently. I had no choice but to go. At least, it felt like I had no choice. “And I had a pretty good time after all,” she added. That was a lie.
“I thought you said that most of the people there were pretentious.”
“Did I? Well, maybe a few were.” Isobel had told absolutely no one about Jeff’s behavior at the party and had created a bit of a tall tale about the event in general. What else could she have done? No one would have understood the truth. “I think I was just nervous. I didn’t know anybody there but Jeff.”
“Since when does that bother you?” Gwen demanded. “You’re the friendliest person I know.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not uncomfortable in certain situations.”
“And what about his calling you Izzy? I thought you hated that nickname! I thought you hated all nicknames.”
“I do, usually,” Isobel admitted. “But it’s okay when Jeff says it. It’s affectionate.”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“That’s just your opinion,” Isobel snapped. “What’s up with you, anyway? Are you jealous that I have a boyfriend and you don’t?”
Gwen looked stricken, as if she had been slapped with a palm and not just words. Isobel felt awful.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was a stupid thing to say. Really. It’s just . . . “At that moment the frustration Isobel had been laboring under threatened to crush her. She hated being stuck in the middle, defending one to the other. She hated it. “It’s just that you never have anything nice to say about Jeff. It makes things very difficult for me. It’s very unfair of you.”
And Jeff never had anything nice to say about Gwen, either. He thought she was fat. He thought her family situation was abnormal. He thought Gwen had too big an influence on her, whatever that meant.
But Isobel wouldn’t let Gwen know how Jeff felt. She wasn’t mad at Jeff. She was mad at Gwen. Let Gwen fix things. Gwen was the one who had complained about having to see the movie with Jeff “tagging along.”
Yeah, so she was favoring Jeff over her friend. So what? Jeff was her boyfriend. That was special.
It was some time, during which neither girl looked at the other, before Gwen spoke.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, standing. “I didn’t mean to be unfair. Look, I’m going to grab a ride home with Quentin.”
Isobel felt a little sick to her stomach. She and Gwen had never fought before. Ever. She had never fought with anyone—except for her father.
She wanted Gwen to stay. She wanted Gwen to go.
“I thought you were going to stick around for dinner,” she said, still not meeting her friend’s eye.
“Nah, I should get home. I just remembered my parents want us to go out to dinner with some friends of theirs visiting from New York. Tell your mom I said hi.”
Gwen strode down the porch steps and over to where Quentin was tossing some lumber into the bed of his old but well-cared-for pickup truck. Gwen spoke to him and Isobel saw him nod. A moment later, they climbed into the truck and drove off.
Isobel watched them go. She had a queer feeling as they disappeared around the curve in the road. She felt abandoned. She felt left behind. She felt—ridiculous.
And then her phone alerted her to a text. It was Jeff.
G STILL THERE? it read.
NO, she replied.
B THERE SOON, was his answer. LUV U.
Isobel smiled. Good. She loved him, too.
Chapter 35
Louise sighed and picked up the crumpled, dirty napkin from the floor of the porch. People were slobs, she thought irritably. Even her clientele, who, generally speaking, were well-off and well-educated, thought nothing of leaving crumpled, dirty napkins on the porch or of placing wineglasses directly on a wooden side table when a stack of coasters sat nearby. Maybe they all had housekeepers at home following them around with a sponge. Still, there was such a thing as common courtesy and respect for other people’s property. Or didn’t parents and schools teach those things anymore?
Her interior rant was brought to a halt by the unexpected arrival of Isobel’s gentleman caller. I wonder, Louise thought, watching Jeff emerge from his car, if I’ll ever have a gentleman caller again. If I do, he had better be neat and clean around the house.
“Hey, Mrs. Bessire,” Jeff said when he had reached the top step.
�
��Hey, Jeff,” Louise replied. She noted that he was impeccably put together, as always. She wondered if that was due to his mother’s training, or if he was one of those men who was born with a good style gene. “Here to see Isobel? I’m afraid you missed her. She went down to the beach with a book.”
“No, actually,” he said, “I’m here to see you, Mrs. Bessire. I know you’re crazy busy with this big wedding coming up, and I thought you could use a little treat.”
Jeff held out a large brown box tied with a ribbon. Louise had seen it in his hand but had assumed it was for her daughter. She accepted it gratefully. Chocolate from Harbor Candy Shop was a big deal. Nobody in her right mind would dispute that.
“Wow, thank you, Jeff,” she said. “That was really was nice of you.”
Jeff shrugged. “My mother taught me the importance of chocolate on an everyday basis, not only in a crisis.”
“Smart woman. Chocolate was just what I needed. Thanks again. And, please call me Louise.”
Jeff smiled and bowed his head ever so slightly.
“Thank you, Louise. Well, I’d better get going.”
“How is working for your father going?” Louise asked politely. She assumed, of course, that he was heading back to the office, wherever that was. No doubt Jack Otten maintained a home office, as well as one in Portland or Boston or New York.
Jeff gave her a brilliant smile. “Just fantastic,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Where did this come from?” Isobel was holding up the box from Harbor Candy Shop.
“Your paramour came by with them,” Louise said airily, turning from the kitchen sink with a little smirk. “A little present for me.”
Isobel beamed. “He did? Wow. That was really nice of him.” She opened the box and selected a candy. “Oh. My. God,” she said, mouth full of chocolate and caramel and nut. “These Turtles are amazing.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Try a dark chocolate nonpareil. To. Die. For.”
The Summer Everything Changed Page 22