“You want one?” She held up a Twisted Tea bottle. Before I could answer, she bumped the refrigerator door closed with her hip and handed it to me.
“I still can’t believe Lucy’s already leaving.” I pictured the calendar Mrs. Holden had hung above the desk in the kitchen—how every morning she’d cross off one more day in a countdown to the end of the summer. The next time we’d all be together, we’d be wearing sweaters and getting ready to put up the Christmas tree, which my family did every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Josie opened and closed three cabinet doors before finding the one with the trash can. She tossed her Twisted Tea cap in, and then held out her hand for mine. “Well, at least I have some good news. I talked to my dad. You don’t have to tell your mom you were fired.”
I don’t know which made me choke on my drink, that Mr. Holden was willing to let my mom believe I was a model employee, or that Josie had asked him to do me a huge favor. Josie patted me on the back until I stopped coughing. “He’s going to lie for me?”
“No. I convinced him to let you take Lucy’s spot at the Shack.”
I did not see that coming, not only because Mr. Holden was a one and done type of boss, but also because something had changed between Josie and me since we all went to the Vineyard. I couldn’t put my finger on what was different, exactly. She was almost gentle, like I’d become something delicate she had to handle carefully. Maybe Josie felt bad because she didn’t think Sam was as terrible as I wanted her to be. Maybe something really did happen between Josie and Charlie, and she didn’t want to tell me because, after everything we went through with Luke, she was afraid it would make things weird between us again. Whatever it was, asking her dad to give me Lucy’s job at the Shack totally blew me away.
“I can’t believe you did that for me.”
“Of course I did. He was going to rearrange everyone’s schedules to cover Lucy’s hours until he found someone to replace her, but this way, we’ll get to work together and you can finally have your days free.”
I had to admit, that sounded nice. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes!” she exclaimed, like it was a total no-brainer. Obviously I should say yes!
I wanted to, I really did. So why wasn’t I jumping at the offer? It wasn’t just that I’d have to learn a whole new job, because ice cream wasn’t exactly foreign to me. It was more that I’d be starting over again, just when I’d finally settled into what my summer had become. Besides, everyone at the Shack already had their place, their rhythm, and I’d be trying to catch up. Sure, I knew Josie’s work friends, but they were her friends, not mine. At least at the marina I had Nolan, who I’d actually spent more time with this summer than anyone else. But how could I explain that to Josie? How was it possible that I felt so far away from my best friend when we slept in the same room every night?
“Yes!” I told her, because I knew that’s what she wanted to hear, and it’s how I wanted to feel.
“Good, now let’s go find Lucy and make sure we give her something to remember on the long ride to Georgia.” Josie reached for my hand to lead me outside, and as she did, my phone vibrated.
I moved my hand away and reached into my pocket to silence it. I saw Luke’s name and the photo of us in front of the whale tail. At least I knew he’d be happy I was leaving my day job behind.
“I’ll be right there.” I held up my phone so she could see the call coming in, but also so she could see that I loved her photo so much I put it on my phone.
Josie paused, deciding whether she should stay and wait for me or leave. She opened the back door, filling the kitchen with music and the thud of beanbags, and then held up her Twisted Tea in a sort of farewell toast.
I walked down the hall until I found an empty bedroom and stepped inside where it was quieter.
“Hi.” I smiled as I answered.
Luke didn’t respond.
“Hello?” I tried again, moving over to the window for better reception. “Luke?”
Still nothing. I put my hand over my other ear and listened, trying to decide if we had a lousy connection or my volume was just too low. “Can you hear me?”
Luke didn’t respond, but I could hear his muffled voice, which sounded far away and like he was talking to me from across a crowded room. That’s when I realized he wasn’t talking to me. He was having a conversation with someone else. And she was laughing.
“Luke?” I tried one more time, my voice louder, but now he was laughing at something the girl had said. I heard the distinctive crack of pool balls smacking together.
Luke wasn’t calling to talk, or to tell me he missed me and just wanted to hear my voice. He’d pocket dialed me by mistake.
I should have hung up and texted him to let him know. But I didn’t.
I continued listening, trying as hard as I could to decipher the words being spoken on the other end. The phone was muffled, though, and I couldn’t make out any words—just the inflection in their voices as one person took over for the other. I squeezed my eyes closed and attempted to recognize the voice. It had to be Sam.
I was eavesdropping. I felt like a party crasher who discovers her invitation wasn’t lost in the mail. I’d never been invited in the first place. The only thing you can do in that situation is pretend you were never there to begin with.
I pressed end, and the sound of Luke’s laughter abruptly stopped as the line went dead.
I dialed Luke’s number and waited for him to pick up. Instead, his phone went straight to voicemail.
“Hey.” Nolan peered into the bedroom from the hallway, and I wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“When’d you arrive?” I asked, the phone still in my hand.
“Right after Lucy started dominating cornhole.” Nolan moved into the doorway. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
“I was just looking for the bathroom,” Nolan said.
“I think it’s back there.” I pointed down the hall.
“Thanks.” He started in that direction, and then popped his head back in the room. “You sure you’re okay? Want me to get Josie or Lucy or something?”
I walked to the door. “No.”
Nolan hesitated, shrugged slightly, then started toward the bathroom again.
I could hear everyone gathered around the fire pit in Alyssa’s backyard, their voices carrying down the hall from the kitchen. Lucy and Josie were probably wondering what was taking me so long, and assuming I was huddled in a quiet corner lost in conversation with Luke. If I told them about the pocket dial, how my call went straight to voicemail, I knew they’d step into their roles as best friends and rally to my side. But this felt different from telling them about Sam, or how I would report back to them about Luke while we were putting together the guide. Those were just facts, like a broadcaster delivering news or the weather—today, it will be seventy-eight and partly cloudy with a chance of showers. I’d expected a certain response and knew what they would say, because the answers were easy, black and white. They’d tell me what I wanted to hear because it would make me feel better.
In the past, the first thing I would have done was find Josie and Lucy and tell them about the muffled voices on the other end of the phone. And I would have expected them to tell me it was nothing, hand me another Twisted Tea, and ask me to replay, in detail, every indecipherable syllable I’d heard, until they reassured me my only concern should be the unreliable buttons on Luke’s crappy phone.
But now things were different. Maybe, instead, Lucy would look down at the ground before reminding me that tonight wasn’t about Luke; she was leaving tomorrow morning and we wouldn’t see each other for months. Maybe Josie and Lucy would be too busy with their summer friends to notice me waiting off to the side while they recounted stories of crazy parents and their high maintenance kids. It was possible Josie would turn away and wave off the wafting smoke of the fire pit before softly telling
me that perhaps Luke had pressed ignore because, at that moment, he wanted to continue talking to someone else instead of me. Maybe things were changing so much that telling someone what they wanted to hear wasn’t going to work anymore.
And that’s why, instead of rushing out of the room to find Lucy and Josie, I called after Nolan. “Hey, Nolan? What would happen if I quit my job at the marina?”
He stopped and turned around to face me, his mouth open in disbelief. “You’re going to quit?”
“I was just wondering, before I came along, what were you and George going to do all summer without the extra help?”
Nolan seemed leery of my question, like he didn’t trust that, no matter what answer he gave, I was just stalling before telling him I was leaving the marina. “I have no idea. But I do know George is way happier now that he can go fishing most days and not worry that the place will fall apart without him.”
It made me feel good to hear Nolan say that, even if I doubted my presence was really that reassuring to George. “What about you?”
“Oh, it’s way better for me, too.” Nolan seemed to relax a little as he held up his hands and showed me his knuckles.
“No more cracked, dry hands from constantly washing the fuel off?”
“Not since you shared your secret recipe of honey, olive oil, and lemon juice.”
“You can thank Polite Patty for that,” I told him. “She wrote an entire chapter in one of her books on handshake etiquette, and rule number one was healthy, supple skin.”
Nolan laughed. “Half the time, I don’t know if you’re serious about your mom or making this stuff up. Anyway, it’s just nice to have someone to talk to. It makes it less like work and more like we’re just hanging around at the docks all day and, every once in a while, we have to pump a few gallons of fuel and deliver a few bags of ice.” Nolan leaned against the hall wall and crossed his arms. “So, why are you asking if you aren’t planning to quit?”
“Forget it, I was just curious,” I told him, ready to find Lucy and Josie and join them. “One more thing: I know George will be at the tournament, but is it okay if I come in a little later tomorrow? My mom is coming down for a visit and I have to talk to her about something before I head to work.”
“The woman responsible for these is coming here?” Nolan held his hands up, turning them over so I could admire each side. “How could I possibly say no?”
He couldn’t. And I couldn’t say no when Josie offered me Lucy’s job at the Scoop Shack.
For the first time ever, I wished my mom had a piece of advice I could use in this situation. Unfortunately, in this case, healthy, supple skin wouldn’t solve my problem.
Long-Distance Relationship Tip #30:
Sometimes being a few miles can feel like it’s the other side of the world, and sometimes being hours apart can feel like you’re right next to each other.
Let’s be honest.
The problem isn’t long distance. It’s wrong distance.
We were all up early the next morning, or at least early for Josie and Lucy, because Mrs. Denton wanted to be on the road back home no later than nine thirty. My mom would be at the Holdens’ in less than an hour, and Josie had fixed it so I wouldn’t have to tell her about getting fired, which meant I shouldn’t have been dreading the conversation I was about to have, or procrastinating by helping Lucy finish packing up her side of the room. There wasn’t much left at this point, just the little things that made Lucy’s small area her own—the pink plush bunny slippers with white ears sprouting up from the tops of Lucy’s feet, a Heywood Academy Varsity Soccer sweatshirt hanging from the bed’s footboard, and a collection of seashells she’d piled up on the windowsill beside her headboard.
She’d offered me her bed so Josie and I would be closer together, and I told her I’d think about it, but I knew I wouldn’t take her up on the idea. It wasn’t just that I’d have to move all my stuff, because, let’s face it, it wasn’t like I’d collected more than a few boat lines on my side. It was more the idea of filling in the void left by Lucy, somehow erasing the fact that she’d been here with us instead of being reminded of her every time I looked across the room and saw her perfectly made, empty bed. I liked the idea of feeling her absence if I couldn’t feel her presence.
Lucy kneeled down on the floor and bent over, lifting up the bed skirt for one last check under her bed before sitting back on her heels. “Remember when you came back to Heywood?” she asked me, pulling out a lone tennis ball, which was completely odd because none of us had played tennis all summer.
“Of course I do,” I told her, wondering where the tennis ball came from.
“We didn’t know what to expect when we found out you were moving back.” Lucy moved her legs out from under her and sat cross-legged, tossing the tennis ball from one hand to the other. “Josie and I played out all these scenarios and what we’d do if it turned out we didn’t like you anymore.”
“Well, you sure did a good job of hiding it if you didn’t.” I thought about that first day we’d seen each other—how they ran up to me and wrapped their arms around my shoulders, squeezing me tight while peppering me with questions.
I sat down on the floor across from Lucy, suddenly curious what I’d find if I looked under my own bed.
“Yeah, you turned out to be okay.” Lucy grinned and tossed me the tennis ball. “I’m going to miss you guys, but I’m almost ready to leave. You know what I mean?”
I shook my head no.
“It’s like I’m ready to find out what comes next.” Lucy looked down at her hands as she twisted a thread from the edge of the comforter around her thumb.
“I’m not sure I am,” I said, although a part of me could see why, after living in Branford her whole life, Lucy was ready to experience somewhere new. Lucy hadn’t moved away from everything and everyone she’d grown up with. She didn’t have to make new friends and figure out a new school in Chicago, and then find out that, once she finally felt like it was home, she had to leave again. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay in Branford forever, either, but I could have used a little more time with the people I’d just returned to.
I tossed the ball back to Lucy, and she caught it with one hand. “Is it the Luke thing?”
I shook my head. “That’s not all of it. There’s you and Josie, too, you know.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” she assured me. “Well, I mean, we are going somewhere, but we’ll always be here. We’ve put up with each other this long—what’s a few hundred miles going to change, right?”
I might have agreed if I didn’t already know how hard it would be. I’d thought the same thing about Jackie and Lauren, but I’d hardly spoken to my two best friends in Chicago since graduation. No matter how many times I sent them pictures or texted to say hi and let them know what I was up to, it wasn’t the same as being there. Even if I could picture where they lived and the people they were hanging out with, my life back in Branford was nothing more than an idea to them, with people and places they’d never know or experience. After a while, it just gets harder and harder to find things you share because you aren’t actually sharing anything at all.
Thinking about Jackie and Lauren reminded me of the surprise going away party Lucy and Josie had for me before I moved to Chicago. They’d planned the whole thing themselves, down to the cake, which they baked from scratch. I didn’t know it at the time, but they’d read my mom’s latest book, Wediquette for Brides and Grooms, from beginning to end as they prepared to host the perfect send-off. When Josie and Lucy read that saving a piece of cake to eat again on the couple’s anniversary was good luck, they’d decided to save a piece of my cake in Lucy’s freezer until I came back to visit. Of course, they completely forgot about it, and two years later, Mrs. Denton found a frostbitten, freezer burned piece of chocolate cake stuffed behind a box of frozen lasagna.
“Emily? I know things with Luke are weird right now, but maybe they’ll never be perfect, or at least not as perfect as y
ou want them to be. I’m not saying you two won’t figure it all out, but it won’t kill you if you don’t.”
I hadn’t told anyone about Luke’s pocket dial. Not Lucy, not Josie, and definitely not Luke. Now I wondered what Lucy would say if she knew about it.
“I know. And do you have to make me sound so melodramatic?”
“Not melodramatic, just maybe… I feel like sometimes you believe if you try hard enough, you can make something what you think it should be instead of letting it be what it’s meant to be.” Lucy reached under her bed again and pulled out a lone white sock, three empty Tic Tac dispensers, and Josie’s missing sunglasses case, which she placed on the nightstand between their beds.
I didn’t want to believe that Lucy was right, but if she was, I knew what I had to do. And not just about the situation between me and Luke.
The Tic Tacs, sunglasses case, and sock made sense, but the tennis ball? “Why is there a tennis ball under your bed?”
“I roll on it to help my back after shifts at the Shack. It’s something the team trainer showed me.”
“How come I’ve never seen you do it?”
“I do it in the morning when you’re already at work, but I can show you if you think you’re missing something really exciting,” she offered, rolling the ball toward me with her foot.
“That’s okay, I trust you. Are you all packed?”
Lucy surveyed the room. “Just about.”
I stood up and took one last look at Lucy’s side of the room. It was almost as if she’d never been there. “I’ll be right back to help you bring your bags down. I just need to go find Josie.”
After searching every room in the house, I found Josie in the backyard by the garden scrutinizing her camera’s digital display screen as she crouched down close to the ground.
“Hey, check this out,” Josie called to me when she heard the sliding door open. She waited until I reached her before handing the camera over to me so I could see the digital display for myself. “Pretty cool, huh?”