“Wow. I feel like VIP,” Cal said.
“Want to see the inside?” Carmella asked. “I’m kind of proud of the place, to be honest. I know I went on and on about my complicated family problems, but my dad really did create a fantastic space.”
“Of course. I’d love to see it. I read more about it online, and I’m very intrigued.”
Carmella and Cal stepped through the foyer, where only a guard sat at the desk. Mallory had left to pick up Zachery from Lucas. Carmella waved again and then led Cal into her acupuncturist office, where she showed him her wide selection of needles. He whistled, impressed.
“You’re like an artist that tortures people with needles,” he said, echoing what Cody had said time and time again.
“And yet, people come over and over again for that torture.”
“The grounds look stunning,” Cal said as he peered out the window.
“I can show you. Come on.” Carmella led him down the hallway and then back out the wide, wrap-around porch, with its immaculate view of the rolling hills, which swept down toward the bright white sands of the beach. Helen’s cabin was located about one hundred feet off to the right, but there was no sign of her. Not that Cal would do anything wrong with Carmella there. He had probably decided not to work on the article at all, knowing that this would be an overstep on his part.
“Wow. This beach! It’s all yours!” Cal said. He brought out his phone and snapped several photos of it, including one of Carmella, who grinned sheepishly. It was a really rare thing for someone to take Carmella’s photograph. She’d probably gone years without any record of her memories.
“When did you start working here again?”
“Right after I got back from the Southwest,” she told him. “I never imagined I would be here my entire adult life.”
“There are worse places.”
She stole a quick glance before replying. “I guess you’re right.”
He paused for a moment, then slipped out of his shoes and headed for the water line. It seemed so easy for him to fall into this world. Carmella always felt so strained. When the waves lapped up across his toes, he yelped and turned back. His eyes were bright, like a child’s, without a care in the world.
“Is it cold?”
“Not really. I will just never get over how good it feels.” He then beckoned and said, “Come with me.”
Carmella stepped out of her shoes and joined him, careful to keep a distance between their bodies. The water circled her toes and wrapped around her ankles, and she exhaled deeply. All the stress of the day fell off her shoulders. She’d stood right there, with her feet in the water just like this, probably thousands of times. Somehow, with Cal there, it all felt different. She appreciated it more.
After another twenty minutes of the tour, during which Cal was allowed to taste some of the cuisines in the kitchen, Carmella suggested they head back to Edgartown and have a drink along the water.
“You’re my guide,” Cal stated. “I’ll go wherever you go.”
Carmella led him to her car and then traced the easy road north and then east. She parked a block away from a beach-side winery and slipped out. Her heart burst wildly in her throat as Cal flashed her a smile. Was this what it meant to fall for someone? Was this exhilaration something that lasted?
They ordered two glasses of wine and sat at a tiny, circular table near the sand. A sailboat swept out across the Bay and headed up toward the large docks. Carmella told Cal more about the island’s tremendous sailing history and that she’d gone frequently with her father when she had been younger. “My little brother was a bit scared of the water,” Carmella explained, again surprised that she offered information about Colton so easily. But Cal seemed fine with it. He remembered that her brother had passed away and that information regarding him was something to be held up gently.
“We’ve started to talk about him a bit more,” Carmella said softly. “Me and Elsa. I wonder if we’ll ever get through some of our personal problems, you know? We’ve had so many years of hardships.”
“Did you tell her about running into your stepmother in the Southwest?”
Carmella arched an eyebrow, again so grateful that this man had remembered something about her. It had been a long time since someone had shown her such goodwill.
“I haven’t, no. And I don’t fully know why. I don’t want to keep secrets from her anymore. It’s just that everything is going so well, even though I can’t get some of what Karen said out of my head. In some ways, I know that Elsa and my father and mother didn’t blame me. They didn’t hate me for what happened. But my memories feel so strong. They’re so painful. And I remember the looks they would give me without even realizing it. The words they said, to put it frankly— I didn’t feel a lot of love, either from myself or my family, for a long, long time.”
Cal allowed silence to fill between them. It was a comfortable silence. He stretched a hand out over hers, there on the table, and held her gaze. “It seems to me that you offer enough love for everyone in your life, despite everything that has happened.”
Carmella’s eyes glistened with tears. “I’m trying to. Every day, I wake up and ask myself what kind of life I want to live — if I have forty, fifty years left. What will that look like? And I guess it looks like rebuilding my relationship with my sister and becoming friends with my new stepmother and healing women and — oh gosh. I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
“No. I like hearing it,” Cal affirmed.
Slowly, Carmella continued to reveal more and more about herself. She discussed the history of the Katama Lodge in more detail, along with some of the fights she and her father had gotten into throughout her teenage years. Even as the words spilled out, she recognized how toxic the situation had been.
“Gosh, we all needed therapy so bad,” she admitted as she laughed softly.
“We all need therapy to some degree,” Cal said. “I’ve been in it for years.”
“Really! That’s amazing to me. It’s always felt like my family wants to cover up all our trauma and hide it from everything or everyone.”
“That’s a surefire way to make it destroy you in the long run,” Cal said.
“That’s kind of what my new therapist said. But I don’t know how to explain it to Elsa. And really, she’s been through so much, too. Losing her husband last year nearly destroyed her.”
A few hours later, Carmella and Cal wandered along the water as the sunset smeared its orange color across Katama Bay. Carmella longed to describe this gnawing feeling she felt as summer descended toward autumn. Another year has gone, and what had any of it meant? What had she accomplished?
“I wonder what Helen thinks of all of this,” Carmella said then. “I just can’t imagine thinking that you could find healing of any kind elsewhere. Like, she actually thought to herself — in the wake of my divorce, I will go to the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa to heal myself. But she doesn’t know that at the Katama Lodge, we’re all just about as broken as she is— maybe even more. And we’re certainly not half as rich.”
Cal chuckled. “I guess it goes to show that money can’t buy happiness, huh?”
“You got that right. The jury is no longer out on that. Money has nothing to do with happiness, although it can take the stress away and it can buy good wine.”
Carmella drove Cal back to his car outside the Katama Lodge. She parked behind him and walked him to the driver’s side, like some kind of high school boyfriend walking his date back home after prom. She stood there before him and lifted her chin in expectation. And when the kiss came, she felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach with feeling.
This was it. This was what she had been waiting for.
When the kiss broke, Cal looked at her in the eye and said, “That was one of the best evenings of my life. Thank you so much for being my guide on this amazing island.”
He then got into his car as Carmella stepped back toward hers. She watched him go as her stomach ballooned wit
h the promise of something. Maybe everything in her life was about to change. Maybe, after so many years of heartache, she’d finally found release.
Chapter Thirteen
The following morning, Carmella stepped into the Lodge as though she had springs on her feet. A renewed bounce that had her in an incredible mood. Mallory lifted her eyes from the front desk, furrowed her brow, and said, “Are you on happy pills? Where can I buy them?” Elsa popped out from her office with a mug of coffee in hand and grinned broadly.
“I guess you had a good night’s rest? Was cleaning that therapeutic?”
Carmella blushed and gave her a slight nod. But in a moment, she recalled her hope for more truth between them, and she felt the news of the night before tumble from her lips.
“Actually, I had a date if you really need to know.”
Elsa’s face opened like a cracked egg. “What are you talking about?”
“This guy — this journalist guy...” Carmella stuttered as she stepped through the hallway. The emotion of it all curled through her arms and her legs and her stomach so that at no time, she felt she had any power over her limbs.
Elsa followed up behind her. “What journalist guy?” she asked brightly. “Carmella Remington, did you go on a date last night and not tell me?”
Carmella paused in the doorway and turned back. She gave her sister a sheepish smile and then nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before.”
Elsa shrieked. “Tell me everything!” She wrapped a hand around Carmella’s and jumped up and down like a teenager.
Carmella puffed out her cheeks and led Elsa into her office. There, she leaned against the acupuncture table and explained a few elements about Cal. She explained how she’d met him in the Southwest and he had seemingly come here because he was so interested in her. She left out the part about Helen Skarsgaard, and she skipped over all the elements that involved Karen. None of that mattered. She was falling for someone — really, actually falling for him and she was pleased that her sister cared.
“This is incredible,” Elsa said softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so excited about someone before.”
“I know! It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“It really is.” Elsa shook her head at a loss. “When are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t know. I mean, we just said goodbye last night. He’s staying at the Sunrise Cove.”
“Good taste.”
“I just — I want to call him right now and lay out all my cards, but that’s a little too intense, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Elsa agreed with a laugh. “Unfortunately.”
“Gosh, how does anyone date? I feel like an exposed nerve.”
“Just get through today—one hour at a time. You’ve already taken so many steps forward. It’s a beautiful thing, Carmella. It really is. I’m so happy for you.”
As Carmella’s appointments passed, she found herself checking her phone impatiently. Noon came and went, and she nibbled at a salad from upstairs, staring at the darkness of her screen. Probably, he would text her to say what a good time he’d had, wouldn’t he? That was the kind thing to do after a first date.
But by the time the end of her final appointment came, Carmella found herself with a heavy stomachache and endless, stirring confusion. She wandered back toward Elsa’s office, where she found Elsa and Janine in conversation about Helen Skarsgaard.
“She won’t listen to some of my advice,” Janine said sternly. “She has her own ideas about wellness. I just asked her, then why did she come here? Why did she say she wanted to put her trust in us if she’s going to rebuke everything I recommend?”
“And what did she say to that?” Elsa asked.
“She said she’s paid us enough to do as she pleases, which is right,” Janine offered. “I’m just so frustrated with her. I mean, she’s put the Lodge in this crazy state of flux. We’re surrounded by guards, and the other guests aren’t exactly pleased with the situation. It’s stressful.”
Elsa nodded. “But there’s nothing we can do.”
“Nope. All we can do is complain and hope she leaves soon,” Janine returned.
Elsa turned to catch Carmella’s eye. “You haven’t had your acupuncturist appointment with Helen yet, have you?”
“No, not yet,” Carmella replied, leaning against the door jamb.
“She told me she’s scared of needles,” Janine said. “I’m trying to fight that. I gave her all the literature about its healing properties, but she’s just kind of blasée about the whole thing.”
“I guess it makes sense,” Carmella said.
Elsa and Janine gave her curious looks.
“What do you mean?”
“That she’d feel so blasée after such a huge breakup,” Carmella said. “She probably wanted to use this time here as a band-aide over the gaping wound in her heart, but it’s not an immediate fix. Nothing ever is, except time.”
After Janine returned to her office for a final appointment, Elsa latched onto Carmella again. “Has he texted?”
Carmella dropped her eyes to the ground. “He hasn’t, no.”
“What? That’s crazy. But I guess it’s all a part of the game, isn’t it?”
“What game?” Carmella asked. She was frightened to feel tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t give this relative stranger so much power.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. I’ve only ever dated Aiden and now Bruce. And Bruce is old enough and solid enough not to play games like that,” Elsa returned. “But this guy, he’s not from here. He probably operates from a different book of dating rules.”
“I feel totally ill-equipped to handle this,” Carmella breathed.
Elsa smacked her hands together. “The only antidote is a home-cooked meal and a bottle of wine. Are you done for the day? Let’s head home.”
Elsa insisted on driving Carmella back to the main house. They found Nancy already in the kitchen, stirring up a batch of lemon butter shrimp. She had cracked a bottle of pinot grigio, and within five minutes, Elsa and Carmella had poured themselves glasses and leaned against the counter to chat. Nancy told them about her yoga session with Helen earlier that day. That she’d basically protested everything, Nancy had said and spouted that some guru in India had told her a different way to stretch out.
“I wanted to tell her to just go back to India,” Nancy said with a funny smile. “But of course, we have to treat that girl like royalty.”
“Did you see that the Lodge was featured in The New York Times?” Elsa asked. “A huge write-up about Helen and her failed marriage and her decision to take a sabbatical here.”
“We already had so many requests for stays over the next few months,” Nancy said. “It’s insane. Normally, we slow down by September, October, but we’re totally booked till the first week of December.”
Carmella gazed out the window somberly. Her shoulders slumped forward with sorrow. She couldn’t feel happiness toward the Katama Lodge and its tremendous success. She continued to trace through the events of the previous evening for some sign that she’d done something wrong.
“Are you okay, Carm?” Elsa came up beside her to stare out the window.
“I’m fine, really.”
“She doesn’t sound fine,” Nancy said from the stove.
“Just some guy,” Elsa said. “He really is a stranger. I hope you know that you don’t need him...”
“I know. I know.” Carmella cleared her throat and then said something even more vulnerable. “I just don’t know when you’re supposed to trust your gut and when you’re supposed to abandon all feeling...”
“I remember asking myself just that when I met your father,” Nancy said. Her spoon clanked against the side of the skillet of shrimp as both Elsa and Carmella turned back to watch. “I had been tossed around by men my entire life, it felt like. When this strong, handsome, rich, and wonderful man wanted to spend time with me, I didn’t trust it. Not in the slightest.”
“And why did you let it happen? How did you find the strength?” Carmella asked.
Nancy lifted the wooden spoon into the air and blinked several times as though she tried to conjure the memory. “I took it one day at a time. And eventually, by the time we got back here and we got together, I realized I trusted him more than any other person in the world.”
Mallory arrived home with Zachery and Lucas in tow, and the conversation found room for other things. Janine entered the porch right as they cracked another bottle of wine, heaved a sigh, and said, “I really need a glass.” Carmella eased back further in her chair and felt a wave of emotion crash over her. This was home; she’d shared some elements of her emotions about this guy, and they’d welcomed her honesty. This was very new to her. She made a mental note to explain the big step forward to her therapist.
She knew what her therapist would say in return: “But have you talked to Elsa about your feelings about the past thirty years yet?” And she would have to say no, that she was still too afraid. She didn’t want to break the delicate glass of their growing sisterly bonding. It was too much.
Carmella fell asleep at the house that night, then forced herself through another two days at the Lodge without any correspondence from Cal. Her heart felt so battered, so bruised. She stared at her phone as though it was about to self-destruct.
Finally, at the end of the third day, Elsa entered her office, placed her hands on her hips, and said, “You know, there’s nothing stopping you from making the first move.”
This went against everything Carmella understood about dating, which, admittedly, was not much. She blinked at Elsa, totally flabbergasted.
“He won’t think I’m pathetic?”
“If he does, then he’s not the right guy for you,” Elsa quipped.
Carmella lifted her phone and sent a text.
CARMELLA: Hey! How is the island treating you? I would love to meet again before you go.
She then screamed and threw her phone onto the couch along the wall. Elsa laughed and clutched her stomach.
“I swear to God, dating feels like heartburn,” Carmella groaned.
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