No Beach Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Just like he had when Ally first called him the night of their fishing trip, he pinched himself hard. It hurt just as bad as it did the first time. He cursed and dropped his tool bag. It landed on his foot, claw end of the hammer first, which hurt, too. He cursed again, louder. When he bent down to grab his throbbing big toe, he rammed the top of his head on the wall of Frank’s house. That hurt most of all. He cursed a third time.

  Only then did Rose look up and see him.

  He felt like the idiot Coyote in those old Roadrunner cartoons. Forever hurting himself, looking like a fool. He certainly looked like a fool now. He could see Rose through his watery eyes. She was narrowing her gaze at him. The last of the sun was hitting her in the face at just the right angle so that she had to hold her hand over her forehead and squint to make out the source of the noise.

  When she saw it was Brent, she blanched.

  He could actually see the color drain from her face, though she was still two dozen yards or so away from him. “Brent?” she said softly. He knew that she didn’t believe what she was seeing, either.

  The pain in his head and foot subsided gradually. He straightened up, wincing, and picked up his tool bag again. “Rose,” he mumbled by way of greeting. So much for being smooth and confident. He felt exactly the way he did when they first met on the beach all those weeks and months ago: like a bumbling dummy. Thick-lipped and slow-witted.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, clearly concerned.

  “Yeah. Fine. Dandy. Living the dream.”

  “Ah.” She pursed her lips. Not in a mean way, just in a Rose way. “What are you doing here?” she blurted. “I mean, shoot, that was really rude. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant, uh …”

  “I was doing some work on your neighbor’s house,” Brent cut in to explain. “Don’t worry, I didn’t stalk you or anything.”

  “I didn’t think you did,” she said, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t accusing you of that.”

  “Felt like you might be.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.”

  They stood there awkwardly, each staring generally in the other’s direction but trying not to make exact eye contact. It was like two middle schoolers at a social function who were doing their darndest to pretend the other didn’t exist, though both wanted badly to go up and ask the other one to dance.

  Brent was doing a pretty good job of pretending, actually. Mostly because he’d spent the last eight months doing just that: pretending that Rose didn’t exist and had never, ever been a part of his life. It was easier that way. Just ignore her, erase the memories, forget her laugh and her smile. It didn’t do much good for the ache in his heart, of course, but there were plenty of other things to which he could attribute that daily pain. No sense in adding his longing for Rose to the mix.

  Although, to be fair, that didn’t stop him from longing for her. She popped up in his dreams every third or fourth night. Not doing anything that made much sense—though Brent’s dreams never made much sense. But just popping up, hanging around, sort of haunting the joint. He was fed up with it.

  Even more than being fed up, though, he found himself actually getting kind of mad. Of course she’d reappear in his life just when he’d met someone else who excited him. Ally shows up and then boom, scarcely two weeks later, here comes Rose. He knew it wasn’t her fault. But he blamed her for reappearing anyway.

  “How are you?” she asked, shifting her weight to one side and letting her arms fall.

  “Fine,” was his curt reply. “Just working a lot.”

  “Working is good.” She fell silent again. He noticed that she was gnawing on her bottom lip. That was a cute habit of hers, he remembered.

  He thought about saying goodbye and walking away. End this now, before it got out of hand. But then his mother’s voice came unbidden into his head, telling him not to be rude. She’s a nice girl, and you ought to treat her as such, Mae’s voice scolded.

  He growled under his breath. Fine. He’d be cordial.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, but I’d prefer not to shout our pleasantries back and forth over the bushes, if you don’t mind. Do you want me to come over there, or should you come here?”

  “I’ll come there,” he grumbled. Hefting his bag in his grip, he jumped over the bushes and walked up to her. Her scent struck him even from a dozen paces away. That perfume, floral and delicate and sweet. It addled his brain immediately. He tried to shake it off. Just be cordial, say hello, and then leave, before your stupid mouth gets you into trouble, he thought to himself.

  They stood in front of each other. It was as close as they’d been since the night of their first date. When she had told him she was ending things, she had done it with a letter left on the beach for him to find. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since then. That in itself was kind of amazing. Nantucket wasn’t that big. He figured she’d moved off the island or something. But apparently not. Fate had just kept them separated—until now. What were the odds of them meeting like this? A random encounter after a random handyman job? Had to be one in a million. Brent wasn’t a betting man, but even if he was, he wouldn’t have ponied up much on them crossing paths again here and now.

  “So you’re fine,” he repeated stupidly.

  Rose smiled. “Yeah, I’m fine. Getting ready for the summer. It can’t come fast enough.”

  “Oh. Right. End of the semester and everything.” Rose was a kindergarten teacher at the local elementary school.

  “Yeah. Those kiddos can really wear you out after a long school year.”

  “I bet.”

  “Mhmm.”

  Silence. A beat.

  “How’s Susanna?”

  “She’s good,” Rose said, nodding. “Just turned five last month. She’s at a friend’s house right now. I have to go pick her up in just a minute.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes. I think so too.” She looked over Brent’s shoulder to the house behind him that he’d just come out of. “Will you be doing a lot of work on Frank’s house?”

  Brent shook his head. “Just the one project for now. He said he might call me if he needs something else done, though.”

  She laughed, that soft, tinkling laugh of hers that sounded like a wind chime. “I would bet on you getting a call sooner rather than later. Frank strikes me as a ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ kind of guy. Not the best trait in a contractor, but it makes me smile.”

  Brent chuckled. The awkwardness was subsiding a little bit between them, though he still wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. He kept adjusting them back and forth between his pockets and the grips on his tool bag. “I could see that. My dad was wired the other way. Measure twice, cut once, you know? Frank’s a nice fellow, though.”

  “Very nice.”

  Another beat of silence.

  “I should probably get this stuff inside before the ice cream melts,” Rose said, gesturing down to the plastic grocery bags at her feet. “Susanna would pitch a fit. I would too, actually.”

  “Let me help you,” Brent offered, remembering his manners.

  “Oh no, really, it’s—”

  But he was already stooping down and gathering up the rest of the bags.

  “All right,” she relented. “This way.”

  He followed her inside. The house smelled like Rose. He saw Susanna’s toys scattered over the living room carpet and fresh flowers in the vase by the entryway. He wondered briefly if Rose had bought them for herself or if someone else had bought them for her. The sudden flash of anger he felt at the thought of another man bringing Rose flowers surprised him. He hadn’t ever been the jealous type. Besides, it wasn’t like Rose and he were dating or anything even close to that. So why get so worked up? He took a breath and let it go.

  “You can set those down right here,” she said, patting the countertop. Brent did as she said, then stepped back and thrust his hand
s in his back pockets again.

  “I should get going,” he said.

  She turned back around from putting something in the freezer and looked at him. “Okay,” she said finally. It felt like she was sizing him up. He wondered if she found what she was looking for. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, then thought better of it. What was she going to say? I’m sorry? I miss you? Yeah, right. Whatever it was, he didn’t need to hear it. He was in a fragile place right now. It didn’t take a genius or a therapist to surmise that much. The last thing he needed was to expose his heart again to someone who had already wrecked it once. Leaving right now, before she said whatever it was she was on the verge of saying, was the only thing that made sense.

  “I’ll see you around, Rose.”

  She nodded slowly, brow furrowed in something like confusion, or maybe sadness—he wasn’t sure which. She said, “I’ll see you around, Brent.”

  He nodded back. Then he turned and left, far more confused than he had been when he entered.

  Like Rose had predicted, Frank called him the next day, needing Brent’s help with something else. So he went back. Rose’s car was still gone by the time Brent was finished and leaving for the day. Frank called the day after that, and the day after that, too. Each day, Brent returned.

  He didn’t see Rose again.

  24

  Eliza

  Friday night.

  Next stop: Baltimore.

  This show wasn’t shaping up to be as much fun as the first one had been. As soon as they arrived in the city, Winter seemed to come down with a bug, like she was allergic to Maryland. Eliza didn’t really blame her. Baltimore wasn’t exactly her favorite city in the world. But regardless, her baby was sick, and that meant Eliza was going to have to miss the show for the night.

  “Sorry, babe,” she said apologetically to Oliver when he was dressed and ready to leave their hotel room to head for the venue.

  “It’s okay, hon. You gotta do what you gotta do. No worries at all.” He kissed her on the top of the head. “Love you both. Be good for your momma, okay, Winny?” he said to the baby. He kissed his fingertips and touched Winter gently on her cheek. She’d finally fallen asleep after being fussy and inconsolable all day long, so he was careful not to wake her.

  Then, Oliver was gone. The door clicked shut behind him and silence took over. Winter must have sensed it, because she woke up a minute or two later and started whimpering, then wailing. She must’ve learned how to cry from someone in the Fever Dreams, because she had never really cried much before this trip. But now, she was finding vocal ranges never before heard by a human ear. Or so Eliza thought, at least. She picked her daughter up and laid her against her chest, then started pacing around the room.

  Hours went by like that. It took precisely fourteen steps to go from hotel room door to the sliding glass balcony entrance, then fourteen back, over and over and over again. When Winter was still crying after half an hour, Eliza had started singing a lullaby, one her mother had sung to Brent when he was being fussy way back when. When she forgot a word, she just hummed or made one up to go in its spot, and on and on like that, until finally Winter stopped crying and went back down. Just in time, too, because Eliza’s feet had been screaming in protest for over an hour. She held onto the sleeping Winter as she laid down in bed, turned off the lamp light, and fell asleep herself, her sick baby snoozing peacefully on her chest.

  Thank the Lord. Motherhood was hard sometimes.

  Eliza woke up sometime later. It was dark in the room. The sun had long since gone down. Judging by how well-rested she felt—not very—it was still sometime in the middle of the night. She’d only woken up because she heard a noise. But as she looked around, she couldn’t see much of anything, so she wasn’t sure what the noise was. Gradually, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she made out a shape.

  Then, boom. The hotel door slammed shut and someone cackled.

  “O, is that you? You scared me!” she hissed. “Winter is finally sleeping. Don’t wake her up.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said from the entry hallway. He said it in an obnoxiously dismissive voice, as if the hours-long struggle to get her to sleep was no biggie. “She sleeps all the time.” His words were a little slurred together, she noticed suddenly.

  “This is a little different, I think,” Eliza said acidly. She was tired, her head throbbed, her feet hurt, and all she wanted was to go back to sleep. Thankfully, Winter was still slumbering, though Eliza could feel her twitching every few seconds on her chest.

  “Mhmm,” was Oliver’s only response. She heard the twin thunks of his boots coming off and getting thrown carelessly to the ground.

  “Do you mind?” Eliza snapped.

  “Mind what?”

  “Being quiet.”

  “I am.

  “No, you most certainly are not.”

  “I’m not making a quiet. Sleep much. Loud light.”

  “You’re what? You’re not making any sense, Oliver.”

  All he said again was, “Mhmm.”

  It took every ounce of willpower Eliza had not to get up and yell at him. He hadn’t been here with her when Winter was screaming her head off, had he? No, he was out in front of an adoring crowd, playing music to screaming fans.

  “I’m sorry, did you not have a good night?” she drawled sarcastically. She could hear the rustling of fabric and the clanking of his belt as he got undressed for bed. But he was making way too much noise. Being careless about how much noise he was making, actually, which was the part of this whole scene that was really starting to bother her.

  “Mhmm.”

  “I swear to God, if you say ‘Mhmm’ again, we’re going to have a problem.”

  He didn’t say anything to that.

  “Are you drunk?” she demanded.

  He turned on the light in the bathroom with the door wide open, sending a blinding arc of fluorescent energy directly into Eliza’s dark-adjusted eyeballs. Searing pain stabbed into her skull like icepicks. Winter twitched again, harder this time.

  “Oliver, I asked you a question.” She felt like a nag, and she hated it, but this was ridiculous, wasn’t it? No, she wasn’t being a nag. It wasn’t unreasonable to ask him to be quiet, or not to shine the light in her face. It wasn’t unreasonable to request just a few hours of uninterrupted sleep when she could manage to get it. He was in the wrong here. He was. Not her.

  “Nah, not drunk, whatever.” His words were definitely slurred, worse than she’d noticed the first time around. He dropped his toothbrush on the floor, and when he bent down to get it, kicked over the metal trash can. It clanged deafeningly loudly. Eliza winced.

  Winter woke up.

  The crying took a few seconds to get going, like the first few chugs of a steam engine. First, her bottom lip stuck out. Her eyes blinked heavily, still sticky with sleep. Her nose wrinkled, then her forehead. Then—three, two, one—waterworks.

  Eliza growled in frustration and stood up at once, holding Winter close to her chest. She started singing the lullaby again, but it didn’t have any of the magic effect that it’d had the first time around. In fact, it just made Winter cry louder. Eliza’s migraine throbbed again.

  Oliver stumbled out of the bathroom. His eyes were bloodshot. He was absolutely drunk. Not just a little drunk either, but three sheets to the wind drunk. Busker drunk. Rock star drunk.

  That was all well and good. She didn’t begrudge him for going out and having a good time without her. She’d told him to, as a matter of fact, and even now, she genuinely meant it.

  But that didn’t mean he had to come careening in, making a huge ruckus.

  “You’re wasted,” she said.

  He shrugged and mumbled something nonsensical.

  “Whatever, I don’t even care. But you woke her up! It took me forever to get her down, O.”

  He shrugged again. She took a deep breath and suppressed the desire to sock him in the face.

  This wasn
’t the Oliver she knew. This wasn’t King of the Bar, funny, gallant, charming Oliver. This was … someone else, she guessed. Not the man who cared about her and her baby, the one who always insisted that he get up in the middle of the night when Winter woke up. Sleep, baby, he’d tell Eliza. I’ll handle it. She wasn’t even his daughter, but he treated her like she was.

  Until now.

  She wasn’t even sure how to deal with this. It felt so utterly wrong. Maybe she was an idiot for coming on this tour. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that it was a terrible decision. A baby? On a rock and roll tour? Who on earth had okayed that? What kind of god-awful, irresponsible mother brings her newborn on the road with a man she’s only known for a few short months?

  “Oliver—” she began. She didn’t know where she was going to go with that sentence, but it didn’t matter anyway, because he raised a hand to his lips and shushed her.

  “Just … be quiet,” he said.

  Her jaw fell open, flabbergasted. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Mhmm.”

  That was it. The final straw.

  “Get out,” she snapped. “Now.” She said it in a voice she hadn’t used in a long time. More than a year, in fact. It was her Ice Queen Eliza voice. Her Wall Street titan voice. Her Clay voice. It felt rusty and corrosive coming out of her throat. Even as the words left her lips, she felt sick about them. But they also felt strangely good. Like tearing through tissue paper.

  Oliver blinked heavily for a few moments. Then his face transformed. His green eyes, still reddened by the booze, narrowed into slits. “Fine,” he growled. He whirled back around and shrugged into his jeans, his shirt, his boots.

  Then he stormed out of the room without another word. He slammed the door shut behind him, hard.