“Okay, deal,” I agreed, rinsing my sponge out in the pail of clean water beside us before taking another dive into the freezer.
I probably wouldn’t have agreed so easily if I hadn’t just returned from my second lousy visit with Luke. Even though Lucy and Josie had changed all the plans I’d had for our day together, I’d still thought it would be better than my first visit. At least I’d known I wouldn’t be blindsided by Sam, and that Luke had been looking forward to getting out of the house and going places, even if it meant taking the bus.
But so far, my track record for trips to the Vineyard wasn’t so great. Even though, when it came time for me to leave, we’d managed to make everything seem like it was back to normal again, our good-byes felt like a consolation prize—not exactly what you wanted, but at least you got to walk away with something to hold on to.
I didn’t know why our days together seemed to be like an amusement park ride. One minute, we were gliding along effortlessly, and the next, we were careening off track with no idea how to right ourselves. Roller coasters made my stomach turn inside out and I always avoided them in favor of the rides that spun you around so fast you could barely walk a straight line when you got out of the car (or, in the case of Disney World, the teacup). My last two trips to see Luke not only felt like an out of control roller coaster plummeting so fast I couldn’t stop it from crashing, they also left me feeling like I’d stepped off a spinning ride that left me so dizzy I couldn’t figure out which step to take next.
Last time, it was Luke who’d attempted to smooth things out by asking me to stay longer. This time, I was the one to reach out for him, and while laying my hand on his leg wasn’t exactly an apology, it was as close to one as I could get in a boathouse filled with our friends.
George’s offer would make it easier for me to put off my next trip to the Vineyard. I knew Lucy and Josie wouldn’t be joining me, and Sam would hopefully be at work, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk a third strike so soon.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” George exclaimed.
I poked my head out of the freezer and saw Nolan coming through the front door.
“Picking up my paycheck,” he said, which explained why he’d be at the marina on his day off.
“It’s over there.” George pointed to the drawer under the cash register. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
“There’s only one place I’m going.”
George picked up the damp paper towels, crumpled them in his hand, and tossed them toward the trash can in the corner of the office. “Let me guess. Nobby Farm.”
Nolan rubbed his stomach.
“You must really like vegetables,” I said. “I’ve never seen anyone look so excited to visit a farm.”
“Nobby isn’t just any old farm.” George hoisted the final bag of ice off the floor and placed it atop the pile he’d made in his side of the freezer.
“They grow chili peppers.” Nolan grabbed his paycheck from the drawer and slipped his finger under the flap so he could peer inside the envelope. “Fifty different kinds.”
I took one last sniff of the freezer and, satisfied, dropped the sponge to the bucket. “I can’t eat spicy foods.”
Nolan rolled his eyes at me, as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “There’s no such thing as can’t. There’s only unwilling.”
“How about, I can’t so I’m unwilling?” I offered as a compromise.
Nolan and George exchanged a look that made me think they had some secret, silent language.
“Fine. Take her.” Whatever it was they were communicating to one another, Nolan had managed to convince George to say yes.
“What am I missing?” I asked them.
“You need to go.” Nolan folded his paycheck and pushed it down into the side pocket of his shorts. “Nobby Farm is a one of a kind experience that is not to be missed.”
“I hate to say it, but he’s right.” George surveyed the contents of the freezer one last time, bending over to sniff my side to make sure I hadn’t skimped on the baking soda. He closed the top and leaned down on his elbows to seal it tight. “You have to experience it once. You can take her next Wednesday morning, first thing.”
“But you have your bluefish tournament,” I reminded George, although I wasn’t as concerned about his competition as I was about my bank account balance. “I was going to get time and a half that day.”
“We’re not leaving until eleven o’clock, so I want you both here by ten or else.”
Nolan laughed. “Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll be late, my buddies will be pissed, and you’ll wish the only pain you felt was the sting of Nobby’s hot peppers.”
“Works for me,” Nolan said, even though I still hadn’t agreed to miss a morning of overtime to visit a farm that sold something I didn’t even like.
“I can pick you up at Josie’s if you want. Then you don’t have to ride your bike here,” Nolan offered, as if he knew he had to sweeten the deal to get me to say yes.
When I didn’t instantly agree, he added, “Nobby’s also sells handmade chocolate.”
An air-conditioned car and chocolate. It sounded like, next Wednesday morning, I’d be starting my day at a pepper farm.
• • •
It was a short ride to Woods Hole, and Nolan kept the air conditioning blasting the entire time.
“Thanks for the muffin,” I said, wiping my blueberry-stained fingers on the napkin at the bottom of the brown paper bag I’d found on the passenger seat when Nolan picked me up.
Woods Hole was smaller than Falmouth. The downtown was basically a single street running parallel to the Steamship Authority terminal, where most cars took a left-hand turn instead of continuing down the hill toward the shops and restaurants. Instead of following the cars turning onto the road to the terminal parking lot, Nolan hung a right down a residential street.
“How big is this place?” I asked.
“It’s a farm. I don’t know, a few acres? The store is basically the old house that was on the land.”
As Nolan drove, the street grew narrower until it turned into a one-lane road, and a yellow dead end ahead sign announced we were about to go as far as we could.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked, and Nolan pointed ahead to the cul-de-sac where we could turn around.
Strung between two tall wooden posts flanking a dirt driveway, a sign declared Nobby Farm. As we got closer, I noticed that the posts were carved with peppers, their stems painted a dark green.
Nolan slowed down and drove under the sign onto the dirt driveway. “There it is.”
In a clearing ahead of us, a small, red farmhouse with a wraparound porch was surrounded by gardens with red, yellow, orange, and green peppers growing on vines that crawled up stick keeping them from flopping over onto the ground.
“It sure is colorful,” I said as Nolan put the car into park and a cloud of brown dust settled around us.
“You think this is cool, wait until you see inside.”
The wooden porch was part of the store, and when we walked up the steps, we were greeted by tables piled with peppers of every size and color. They were organized like a rainbow, their shiny skins blending from the darkest scarlet to the palest buttercup yellow.
Inside, it was more like a general store—if the general store only sold pepper-related products. Shelves of salsas and jellies and marinades in mason jars lined the walls, while the center tables were stacked with bottles of hot sauce and tins of chili rub.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Nolan was acting like this was a candy store, not a farmhouse filled with potential instruments of torture.
As I passed the first table, I picked up a box of Hell on Earth chocolate and turned it over to read the description on the package—Belgian chocolate with dried mangos, toasted pumpkin seeds, and chili essence.
“That sounds weird, but it’s good,” Nolan said, giving the chocolate his seal of approval
.
Nine dollars for a small box with eight pieces. I wasn’t so sure spicy chocolate was my thing, but I decided to buy it anyway. Luke always went for the spiciest salsa on the table, so I thought he might like to try it. Nine dollars was pricey, but it felt like a trade-off. Giving up my days off meant I wouldn’t see Luke, but I was being paid time and a half, so I could afford to splurge on a present for him.
“See this?” Nolan pointed to a jar of ghost pepper jelly. “Everyone used to think the ghost pepper was the hottest pepper in the world, until…” He reached over to a table and picked up a bottle of hot sauce. “The Carolina Reaper.”
“The Carolina Reaper?” I repeated. “Sounds like they’re overhyping that one.”
“Hardly. Even I tear up with this stuff.”
I walked around what I assumed was once the house’s living room, reading labels and trying to figure out how someone could justify charging ten dollars for a jar of salsa. Although the price was insane, I decided to buy a jar for the Holdens anyway. It was my small, spicy way of showing them that, even if I’d been fired, I appreciated them letting me stay for the summer.
I met Nolan at the register, where he had three jars of salsa, a bottle of hot sauce, and a tin of Satan’s Favorite chili powder.
“Want one?” he asked, pointing to the plate on the counter. There were quarter-sized cardboard cups filled with salsa and a bowl of tortilla chips. Samples was handwritten on a folded index card.
I picked up the jar of salsa beside the plate and read the name on the label. Seven Circles of Hell. “No way.”
“Come on, I’ll show you. It’s not that bad.” Nolan took a tortilla chip and poured the contents of one of the cardboard cups onto it before popping it into his mouth.
His eyes welled up and he clenched his jaw like he was trying not to scream. “It hurts so good.”
“Why would you want to do that to yourself?” I asked, watching him pant like a dog.
“If it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be the hottest chili pepper known to man, right?”
“Whatever you say.” I put the box of chocolate and my jar of Hot as Hades salsa on the counter, and the sales girl rang me up.
There was a bottle of Gatorade waiting for Nolan in the car, and as soon as he opened the door, he reached for it. “I come prepared,” he told me, downing almost all of the fluorescent orange liquid before he even put the key in the ignition.
Nolan glanced at the Nobby Farm bag I’d set at my feet. “I’m glad you got something, even if it isn’t the Carolina Reaper.”
“The salsa’s for the Holdens,” I told him.
“Are you actually going to try the chocolate?”
“It’s for Luke.”
“He has a higher tolerance than you do? Or he’s just more adventurous?”
“Probably both,” I admitted.
“Did you tell him you were coming here today?” Nolan asked. “With me?”
Last night when we were talking, I didn’t mention my early morning field trip or Nolan. I’d let Luke believe I was heading straight to work in the morning. When I told Luke that George offered me overtime if I worked on my days off I didn’t have to point out the obvious. Luke knew that meant we would go one more week without seeing each other. I was prepared for his disappointment and another reminder of how my job was messing things up, so I was relieved when Luke didn’t try to convince me to tell George no. But it also surprised me when he said okay so quickly. He said he understood, and it was exactly how I’d wanted him to respond, because the last thing I wanted was to get into it about my job. But when he didn’t resist, I suddenly wanted him to. I wanted more—a reaction that made me feel like it had some effect on him.
I think that’s why I didn’t tell him about going to Nobby Farm with Nolan. Withholding it gave me a sense of keeping something for myself, of knowing something that Luke didn’t. There was a certain power in that, and even if Luke didn’t know that, I did. For some reason, it took some of the sting out of Luke’s reaction to losing a day with me.
Instead of answering Nolan’s question, I reached down for the box of chocolates and tore off the cellophane wrapper. “I think I’ll try some.”
I removed the lid, pinched a small, round dollop of chocolate between my fingers, and placed it softly on my tongue while anticipating the worst. As the creamy chocolate started to mew it tasted sweet, but then a slow stinging sensation crawled through my mouth like a rash. I wanted to spit the chocolate out, but just imagining the horror on my mom’s face was enough to keep the blazing mush in my mouth. I considered gargling with the Gatorade left in Nolan’s bottle, but instead, I let the flavor scald my taste buds like a chocolate-flavored blow torch until it finally slid down my throat.
Nolan glanced over at me as I swallowed. “Maybe you should just give Luke the rest of the box.”
I put the lid back on the box and placed it into the bag on the floormat, right beside the jar of salsa.
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I told Nolan, but I knew I wouldn’t. Like discarded evidence, the chocolates were going in the trash.
We made it to the marina by ten, and George left for his bluefish tournament on time. Over lunch, Nolan taught me to make a Spanish bowline, and when he went out to the docks to help an incoming boat unload gear and the day’s catch, I took the box of chocolate and shoved it to the bottom of the trash can by the pump-out station. When Nolan drove me home after work, I hoped he couldn’t tell that the box was missing from my Nobby Farm bag. If he did, he never asked why.
• • •
I found Lucy and Josie upstairs in our bedroom, but as soon as I walked in, I could tell something was wrong. Josie was sitting on the floor beside Lucy’s bed with three unzipped Duke duffel bags lined up beside her. Lucy was stacking piles of clothes haphazardly on her bed, although they looked more like mounds of laundry than any semblance of an organized wardrobe.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“She’s packing,” Josie told me, holding open one of the bags as Lucy stuffed pairs of shorts between the teeth of the zipper.
“My grandmother fell and broke her hip. She’s in the hospital.” Lucy grabbed a stack of tank tops, rolled them into one big ball, and shoved them into her bag. “My mom’s heading down to Georgia to take care of her for a couple of weeks.”
“And Lucy’s going, too,” Josie added, struggling to pull the sides of a duffel bag together so Lucy could zip it closed.
“What? You can’t leave,” I told Lucy, then joined Josie on the floor. “We need you here. With us.”
Finally, Josie was able to get the canvas sides close enough together for Lucy to tug the zipper into place.
“I have to be at school in three weeks anyway for pre-season.” Lucy sat back on her heels and sighed as she looked at the remaining clothes on her bed. “We’re driving down to see my grandma, and then my mom is going to drop me off at school on the way back home.”
“So, like, that’s it? You have to leave now?”
“In the morning. My mom’s coming to get me.”
Josie pushed aside the full bag with her bare feet. “And she won’t be alone.”
Lucy stood up and flopped down on her bed, which made the remaining piles fall over. “Your mom is coming, too.”
“My mom is coming here?”
“Yep. They ran into each other at the grocery store, and my mom told her it looked like she’d be picking me up early. Your mom offered to come for the ride and visit. They’re going to take us out for breakfast.”
“This is not good,” I told them, and collapsed down next to Lucy.
“Tomorrow’s Thursday. You don’t have to be at work until noon,” Josie said.
“I told George I’d work overtime, but that’s not my biggest problem. My mom doesn’t know I was fired,” I admitted.
Josie looked at me like she couldn’t believe I thought I’d ever get away with my mom not finding out. “You never told her?”
“Are you kiddin
g me? You’re talking about a woman who made me follow her around the country so I’d have something to put on my resume in four years. She would’ve killed me if she heard I couldn’t even hold down a job at an ice cream stand, or worse, she could’ve tried to make it a teaching moment and made me go home.”
Lucy and Josie sat silently watching me as I played out the options in my head. But no matter what I came up with, there was no way around it. Either my mom would find out from the Holdens, which would be even worse, or she’d find out from me. I’d have to come clean.
“Well, I guess I have to finish packing.” Lucy finally broke the silence, but instead of collecting the remaining clothes on the bed, she just sat there. “I’m sorry I have to leave you guys.”
That’s when it hit me. My mom would come, and I’d bite the bullet and tell her about getting fired, but after that, she’d leave and my summer would go on. Only it wouldn’t be the same, because Lucy would be gone.
Everything was changing. Again.
“It’s your grandma, Luce, we understand,” Josie told her. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Me, too. But we still have one more night together,” I reminded them. “What are we going to do?”
“We rally,” Josie announced, and for the first time since they told me the horrible news, she smiled. “And we rally big.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was in.
• • •
Lucy still had one last shift at the Scoop Shack, which meant we couldn’t put our final night plan into action until the Shack closed. Josie texted to tell me she and Lucy would swing by to get me after work. Apparently, rallying meant having everyone over to Alyssa’s house because her parents were in Boston for the night.
Everyone from the Shack and a few other people I hadn’t met were already outside on the deck when we arrived. Lucy was swarmed with people telling her how much she’d be missed. The names and faces I recognized said hi to me, but then quickly turned back to their conversations and games of cornhole. Rather than try to fit in, I trailed Josie into the kitchen like a puppy dog.