When he felt one final tug on his line, Graham reeled it in to find a small salmon on the end, silvery and sleek in the dusky light.
“I guess you proved me wrong,” Dad said with a grin. He sat back in the rowboat, his face all lit up, and held up the empty package of beef jerky. “Looks like the wrong kind of bait can get you the right kind of fish.”
Graham was thinking about that now as he turned and cut up toward the town, leaving the fishing boats behind. Maybe that’s what it was like with Ellie. He’d cast his e-mail out into the world in search of a trout, and what he’d found instead was a salmon. He couldn’t help smiling at this, though he suspected a girl like Ellie might object to being compared to a fish.
He smoothed the front of his shirt as he passed the movie trailers, now dark and silent. They’d already shot a few scenes on a soundstage in L.A., but there was an air of excitement about being on location, especially in a place like this, and Graham couldn’t help getting caught up in it. He’d spent the past two years playing the same character and working with the same actors, so it was refreshing to be doing something different. The new director, the new script, the new costar—all of it helped him remember why he enjoyed acting in the first place. It was the challenge of it all, being set down in the middle of someone else’s life like a tourist and feeling your way through it.
The Lobster Pot wasn’t far from the beach; Graham could see it as he made his way up the street. It was just after seven thirty, which meant Ellie was probably already in there. Outside, there was a knot of photographers, their dark clothing giving them away, even as they tried to look casual among the tourists. A few motorcycles were parked nearby; on more than one occasion, Graham had been chased by paparazzi as he tried to slip out of some restaurant or club. There was a breathless absurdity to these pursuits, and though he understood that they had a job to do, he had little respect for the way they did it, and even less for the people who were so desperate to read what they reported. The truth was, he wasn’t really worth reading about. He was a better-than-average-looking seventeen-year-old guy who occasionally took a pretty girl to dinner and who played a part decently well, but who mostly sat around at home reading books with his pet pig.
As he approached, the photographers began hoisting their cameras and calling out his name. He ducked his head as they gathered around him. There were fewer than earlier, only four or five; the rest probably had the sense to go get some dinner, or to stay behind and watch TV in their hotel rooms. Those who had stuck it out clicked away like mad, though, the flashes popping as they peppered him with questions, each more relentless than the one before.
“Who’s this girl, Graham?” asked one of them, a brick wall of a guy with a diamond earring and a head so pale and bald that it reflected the last of the day’s light. “Was that the first time you’d met? What does Olivia think? Are you two official?”
He ignored them all, shoving his way past, and when he reached the door of the restaurant, he was greeted by a thick man with enormous arms and a trim beard.
“Joe Gabriele,” the man said, extending a meaty hand. “I’m the owner. Listen, you like lobster?”
Graham nodded, surprised by the question.
“Good,” said Joe. “You eat enough lobster while you’re in town, and I’ll keep these clowns out of here. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, looking past him to see if Ellie had arrived yet. The walls of the restaurant were covered with well-worn buoys and old maritime clocks, fish netting rigged like bunting and framed paintings of schooners and lobsters and whales. At a seat in the corner, beneath a huge iron anchor that appeared to have come straight off a fishing boat, Graham recognized the back of her head, her dark hair pulled up into a low ponytail. All around her, the other tables were empty, and he was grateful to Joe for clearing the way. There was nothing worse than trying to have a private conversation with the faint click of camera phones going off at every angle.
Joe waved toward the table, in case Graham wasn’t sure where to go, and then headed off to the kitchen. But Graham remained where he was, suddenly frozen with uncertainty. It wasn’t that he was disappointed. How could he be? She was unquestionably beautiful. But ever since leaving the ice-cream shop that afternoon, Graham had been trying to work out his feelings about tonight. After all this time, and all those e-mails, shouldn’t he be more excited? Shouldn’t he be overjoyed? Shouldn’t he be… something?
Maybe the problem was that he’d been forced to read too many scripts with happy endings. Maybe he’d been in Hollywood for too long already. Graham had never been in love before, so he had no idea what to expect. Maybe this was it: you strike up a long-distance conversation with a girl, you enjoy talking to her more than anyone ever before, then you show up and she’s gorgeous, and you count yourself lucky.
But still, he thought there’d be something more. He thought that when he saw her, when their eyes first met, that it would feel different. That all those Hollywood clichés were clichés for a reason. It was supposed to be unmistakable, that feeling, wasn’t it? Like a punch to the stomach.
But here now in this restaurant, he was feeling curiously empty as he approached the table. When she turned around and their eyes met, there were no stars or fireworks or anything else. There was only the two of them, gazing at each other, each a little bit awkward in their nervousness.
“Thanks for coming,” he managed to say as he slid into his seat. As soon as he did, he realized he should have kissed her cheek, but the moment had already passed. He unfolded his napkin and looked at her from across the table, trying to match up the girl before him with the one who had written to him about how much she loved poetry.
“Did you have any trouble with the photographers?” she asked, her voice a bit shaky. He could tell she was anxious, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. The first few times he’d gone out with girls from home after his face started appearing in magazines, he’d tried to put them at ease by telling them not to be nervous, but this always seemed to have the opposite effect, and they’d just become more jangly, more pink-cheeked, more self-conscious. He watched now as she twisted a silver bracelet around her wrist, unable to quite sit still.
“They weren’t too bad,” he said. “Nothing like the ones in L.A.”
“I bet,” she said, and Graham picked up the menu, trying to think of a way to change the subject. He wasn’t sure how to tell her that he was the one she’d been talking to all these months. Should he drop a hint? Ask her about her mom or her dog, mention some random subject they’d already discussed, something more obvious than ice-cream flavors, like her childhood trips to Quebec or her end-of-term paper on Irish poetry?
His hands were growing damp with sweat as his mind raced through the possibilities. He’d imagined that once he sat down, the truth would come spilling right out of him. But now that he was here, there was something holding him back, and he swept his eyes around the restaurant and wiped at his forehead.
“So what’s good here?” he joked. “The lobster?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s their specialty.”
He glanced up at her and forced a smile. “I was only kidding,” he said, and she flushed a deep red. “I think I’ll get the surf ’n’ turf.”
“So have you ever been to Maine before?” she asked. “Or is this your first time?”
“First time,” he said. “Before I started acting, I’d never left the West Coast.”
“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never been to California.”
“Have you lived here all your life?” he asked, though he already knew the answer, that she’d been born in D.C. and moved up when she was little.
“Yes,” she said, and he snapped his chin up. “My parents too, and my grandparents. It’s sort of a family tradition, this town.”
Graham leaned his elbows on the table, frowning. “Really?” he said. “Your whole life?”
“Yeah,” she said, giving him an odd look.
Before he could say anything more, the waiter arrived with a shrimp cocktail. “Compliments of the chef,” he said, setting it between them and then lingering for a beat too long.
“Thanks,” Graham said, and to his surprise, the waiter—a lanky guy with curly blond hair and a crooked nose—gave him a menacing look in return.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, clearly making an effort to sound tough, though his voice was unsteady. He turned to head back to the bar, but the words that drifted behind him were unmistakable: “It’s really for Quinn.”
Even after he was gone, Graham found himself staring across the table in confusion, his eyes narrowed as he tried to locate his question.
“Sorry,” she was saying. “That’s just how it is in small towns. Everyone knows everyone else, and when you grow up with these guys, they can be a little overprotective…” She trailed off when she seemed to notice the look on Graham’s face. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you…?” he began, then shook his head. “I mean…”
“What?” she asked again, staring at him in confusion.
“Quinn?” he managed, and she nodded.
“Yes?”
“Your name is Quinn?”
“Um, yes,” she said, then something seemed to click and she threw her head back. “Oh man. Did I never actually introduce myself? I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.”
Graham’s face was still twisted as he tried to work out what was going on. “But the shirt you were wearing earlier…”
Again, he could see a look of understanding pass across her eyes. “Ah,” she said. “I get it now.”
He waited for her to go on.
“I had a little run-in with a chocolate milkshake right before you came in,” she said, miming an explosion. “So I borrowed my friend Ellie’s.”
The name, when she said it, felt like something physical; it seemed to hit him square in the center of his chest. “So you’re not Ellie?”
She laughed. “No, I’m Quinn.”
“So we haven’t been writing e-mails to each other?”
Now it was her turn to look baffled. “Uh, no.”
Graham was shaking his head in a mechanical motion, and though he was aware of it, he seemed unable to stop. “You’re not Ellie O’Neill,” he repeated, and she nodded again. “And we haven’t been in touch.”
“What?” she said. “No. Why? Wait a minute. Does that mean you’ve been in touch with…” She let out a sharp laugh. “You’ve been in touch with Ellie?”
“Yes,” Graham said, suddenly unable to stop grinning. “Look, I’m sorry for the mix-up. I really am. I know this must seem really odd to you.”
Quinn stared at him. “You and Ellie.”
He nodded, then thought better of it and shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said. “I mean, we’ve never even met before, obviously.”
“I thought you said…”
“We’ve just been e-mailing, so I don’t actually know her,” he explained, then added: “But I want to.”
“This makes no sense at all,” Quinn said, slumping back in her seat. “I have no idea what’s going on right now.”
The waiter returned to clear their plates, but neither of them had touched the shrimp. He gave Graham another threatening look before turning around again. Once he was gone, Quinn sat forward.
“So you and Ellie have been writing e-mails to each other,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact, and Graham nodded.
“I got in touch with her accidentally a few months ago, and we started writing back and forth,” he said. “It was one of those things that just sort of… happened.”
She was eyeing him carefully. “And now here you are.”
“Right,” he said. “Here I am.”
“In Henley.”
“Yup,” he said with a feeble grin. “Beautiful Henley, Maine.”
It took only a moment for her eyes to widen as she connected the dots. “And is that why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the movie’s here this summer?”
Graham tried not to look sheepish as he shrugged. “Sort of.”
“You came here to meet her?” she asked, her tone increasingly incredulous, and when he nodded, she shook her head again, as if trying to absorb all of this. “Wow,” she said, almost to herself, and then she said it again: “Wow.” She picked up her water glass, but made no move to take a sip. “I can’t believe she never told me. This whole time she’s been pen pals with Graham-freaking-Larkin, and she doesn’t even tell me.” She closed her eyes, just briefly, then blinked them open again. “And here she’s been going around acting like she couldn’t care less that you’re in town.”
The smile slipped from Graham’s face, and he cleared his throat. “Well, in fairness, she doesn’t know it’s me that she’s writing,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. He reached for his glass and took a swig.
Quinn let out a little breath of air, then raised her eyes to meet his over the rim of the glass. “You probably saw her already. She was right outside Sprinkles when you came in. She’s kind of tall. With red hair?”
Graham’s heart bounded in his chest, and he lowered the glass, thinking of the girl with the green eyes, the one who had been sizing him up. “Yeah, I think I did see her.” His eyes strayed to the door, and he forced them back to the table. “That’s great,” he said, craning his neck for the waiter, then picking up his menu again. “I’ll see if I can go find her tomorrow.”
Across the table, Quinn watched him; he could feel her pointed gaze, and after a moment, he lowered the menu and looked up at her.
“Go ahead,” she said, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Go ahead where?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. But when the cameras weren’t rolling, he was a terrible liar, and he knew she could tell.
“Go find her now,” Quinn said with a half smile. “You’ve come all this way, and I’m not going to make you sit through a whole dinner with me.”
“No,” Graham said in weak protest. “I’m having a good time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really, it’s fine,” she said, casting a glance over her shoulder at the waiter, who was still lingering near the kitchen. “I’ll make Devon eat with me.” She winked at him. “And I’ll still let you pay.”
Graham laughed. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, and before either of them could change their minds, Graham fished a handful of bills from his wallet and laid them on the table, then rose from his seat.
“She’s probably home right now,” Quinn said, pointing to the window behind Graham, where the main street of the town had grown quiet as the dusk settled over it. “It’s the little yellow cottage near the corner of Prospect and Sunset.”
“Thank you,” he said, and this time, he remembered to kiss her on the cheek.
She smiled. “Tell her to have fun on my date.”
Just as Graham was about to rush out the front door, Joe appeared at his side. “I sent them away,” he said, nodding out across the street, “but I’m sure they’re still around here somewhere, so if you’re planning an escape, I’d go out through the kitchen.”
Graham thanked him and hurried past the pots of whistling lobsters and the chefs in white shirts. Just before slipping out, he paused beside Devon, who had watched with a stunned expression as Graham charged into the kitchen.
“How do I get to the corner of Prospect and Sunset?”
“Just head down Main Street and take a left onto Prospect,” he said, looking flustered. “You’ll run right into it.”
“Thanks, man,” Graham said, then gave him a little pat on the shoulder as he pushed open the door. He nodded back at the dining room. “She’s all yours.”
Outside, he pulled in a deep breath of salty air. The light was fading over the water, and the whole world was steeped in shades of blue. There was a breeze coming from the east that lifted Graham’s hair from his forehead, a
nd he felt light on his feet as he set off down the road, propelled by that rarest of things: the promise of a second chance. As he walked past old homes and B&Bs, the lights starting to come on in the windows, he thought of the red-haired girl he’d seen just hours ago, the way her eyes had lingered on him with a strange sort of intensity, and his heart banged in time with his footsteps, a rhythm that carried him up the street with renewed energy.
When he saw the sign for Sunset Drive, he slowed down and began to examine each house. It was hard to tell the white ones from the yellow in the dusk, but as he approached a small clapboard colonial, he saw that the porch light was on. And even before he could register its color, he noticed the girl sitting curled on the swing, and he knew that he had arrived.
As he walked up the path, she looked up from her book. The light above her was small and buzzing with insects, and it reached only so far in its efforts to push back the gathering darkness. When he stopped, she lifted her chin, craning her neck, and Graham could tell from the uncertain look in her eyes that he was only a shadow to her, a mere silhouette.
But from where he was standing, he could see her perfectly: the wavy red hair and the oversize T-shirt with a smiling lobster on the front, the way her legs were tucked up beneath her on the swing, and the freckles across her nose. He could see her, and it was just like he’d thought. It was just like being punched in the stomach.
From:
[email protected] Sent: Sunday, June 9, 2013 6:08 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: Re: what happy looks like
Welcome surprises.
At first, there was nothing beyond the edge of the porch but darkness. If not for the crunch of gravel, Ellie would never have known someone was there at all. She listened more intently. But there was only the chirping of crickets and the rush of the waves down the street, and behind her, the sound of the dog skittering madly around the wooden floors of the house. She squinted out, but beyond the pool of light where she sat, there was nothing; she could only sense someone out there the way you can feel someone watching you across a crowded room—that prickle of awareness, that shiver up your spine.