Chapter 4
It was the tail end of the semester, and Shannon was in the lab, trying and failing to finish her experiment.
Everything hinged on this—her grade, her future at Yale, and her status.
But increasingly, panic set in. Her hands shook, making it difficult for her to think.
When she botched yet another experiment, pipetting the wrong solution into the test tube, she cried out, then burst into tears.
What Shannon didn’t know was that she wasn’t alone in the lab.
A moment later, Dina appeared beside her, wearing her thick lab glasses and her long black hair in a gorgeous ponytail.
Shannon felt a jolt of anger. She wouldn’t have cried if she’d known Dina was so close.
In fact, she might have decided to leave the lab and try her experiment again later.
But Dina seemed unwilling to leave her alone.
She grabbed her elbow and led Shannon out of the lab and into the little room between the lab and the hallway, where you were meant to wash your hands and dispose of your gloves.
They did that, as Shannon continued to sob.
She had no interest in being with Dina. She couldn’t understand why Dina had pulled her out, let alone looked at her.
But when their masks and lab coats and glasses were off, Dina sighed and said, “Let’s get a coffee, okay? ”
Shannon and Dina hadn’t hung out since undergrad, back when they were roommates.
At the time, they’d been very close, studying together, eating every meal together, teasing one another, and trying to push themselves through semesters at one of the most prestigious schools in the country.
They’d had a falling out, to put it mildly.
They grabbed a table at the outdoor coffee place not far from the lab.
Around them, beautiful students celebrated the last days of the semester, tanning their shoulders and legs and drinking iced coffee.
Dina got up to get them both iced coffees of their own, remembering that Shannon had taken two milks and no sugar in hers.
When Dina returned, Shannon had to bite her tongue to keep from asking her why she was being nice to her.
Shannon took a sip of coffee, then closed her eyes. It had been three weeks since her father’s stroke, three weeks since her breakup, and three weeks since she’d fully committed herself to school again. She felt raggedy and unlike herself. Dina could probably see that, too.
“I heard about your dad,” Dina said finally, then winced. “I’m really sorry.”
Shannon couldn’t imagine who’d told Dina about her father. Shannon herself had told only her friends Rachel and Russell, but Rachel was the kind of person who talked about everything and everyone, so it had probably spread from her. Shannon decided she didn’t care.
“And also about Cole,” Dina offered. “That’s rough.”
Shannon shrugged.
“That guy was so sweet in the beginning,” Dina said.
“Not everyone stays sweet,” Shannon said. You didn’t, for example, she wanted to say but didn’t.
“I guess not.” Dina sipped her iced coffee. “But your dad. Is he going to recover?”
“We’ve made him comfortable,” Shannon said, parroting what her mother said. “He’s at our summer place with my mom. We’re optimistic, I guess.”
Shannon didn’t know what they could be optimistic about, but she didn’t want to bring Dina too close to her truth. Dina didn’t deserve to know so much about her.
Suddenly, Shannon spotted Russell on the other side of the square.
He wore his massive headphones, which he always had on, and he was looking at his phone.
She felt an urgent desire to get out of Dina’s orbit, to throw her arms around Russell and burrow herself into his chest. They’d been friends since right before she’d met Cole, so Russell had seen her through every iteration of her college and graduate career.
“I have to go, Dina,” Shannon said darkly.
“Um, thanks for the coffee.” She got up and rushed for Russell, waving her arm till he noticed her.
He raised his chin and smiled sadly, then hugged her tightly, just the way she’d wanted him to.
They stood like that for nearly a minute, feeling the May sunshine on the tops of their heads.
“Were you with Dina?” Russell asked then, breaking the silence.
Shannon pulled back and grimaced. “I have no idea what that was about. I think she feels bad.”
“She should,” Russell said. “She’s put you through a lot.”
“That’s an understatement.” She scoffed.
After learning what had happened in the lab, Russell offered to come help Shannon clean up. “You can finish the experiment tomorrow,” he said. “Honestly, nobody’s going to give you a hard time about it. Everyone knows what you’re going through.” After a beat, he added, “I didn’t tell, by the way.”
Shannon smiled. “Rachel?”
“Of course,” he said, laughing.
For the next half hour, Russell and Shannon cleaned her lab table, then scrubbed up and left campus.
Shannon wanted a few hours to talk and think about something unrelated to her father’s stroke and her lab experiments.
Russell suggested they hit up one of their favorite bars—a dive with a jukebox and onion rings and cheap beer.
She said, “Thank goodness. A thousand times yes.”
Russell ordered two beers and a basket of onion rings, then joined Shannon back at the booth.
It was the booth they’d traditionally sat in since they’d turned twenty-one and could drink legally in public.
For years, they’d shared this booth with Cole and Mimi, Russell’s longtime girlfriend.
They’d gone on maybe a hundred double dates, although Cole and Russell had never really hit it off.
Russell raised his beer and said, “To being single, I guess?”
Shannon’s jaw dropped. “What are you saying?”
Russell laughed gently. “Yeah. Mimi dumped me. Last week.”
“You’re kidding!” Shannon had thought Mimi and Russell were headed for marriage and children. She would have bet on them far more than she would have bet on her relationship with Cole.
“Something’s in the water, I guess,” Russell said. “Stacy and Greg broke up, too.”
Shannon hadn’t heard that either. But she’d been sort of out of it.
“I wish you had called me,” Shannon said. She’d spent the entire weekend alone, nursing her wounds, calling her mother, wondering if her life was over.
“I didn’t want to bother you with my silly breakup. I know you have more important things on your mind,” he said.
“I want to be here for you,” Shannon said.
They were quiet for a moment. Someone put a dollar in the jukebox, and a moment later, Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” started up. Once, Shannon had watched Russell perform this song at karaoke. He’d been incredible. Mimi had hid her face with embarrassment.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Shannon asked. She wanted to hear about someone else’s problems for a change. Maybe that was selfish.
“Well, I mean, she got a job in the city,” Russell said, speaking of course of New York. “I think she started to see herself as someone different from me. She wants prestige and money. She thinks being a scientist is not entirely… you know, chic, or whatever.”
“You’re going to change the world!” Shannon cried. “That’s ridiculous.”
“She’s in fashion,” Russell reminded her. “She doesn’t really care about changing the world. Maybe on paper, we were never going to work out? At some point, maybe, your college relationships are supposed to stop making sense. It’s 2026. People don’t marry their college sweethearts anymore. Right?”
Shannon’s stomach tightened into knots. “How did your parents meet?”
“College,” Russell said, laughing. “What about yours?”
Shannon considered the fact of her parents’ early days: how they’d met in Nantucket, how her father had been wealthy and charming and probably a little manipulative, how her mother had been a brilliant scientist working on the island as a lifeguard for the summer.
On paper, they hadn’t really worked, either.
But they’d been married for twenty-five years!
Now, her mother was literally nursing him so that he could remain at home!
Was that true love?
“I’m sorry,” Cole said when she didn’t answer.
“No. It’s okay.” Shannon rubbed her temples. Not for the first time, she thought about her father’s stroke and how, genetically, she was now predisposed to an early grave. She needed to stop eating red meat. She needed to exercise more.
“We just didn’t see this coming,” Shannon said finally. “We weren’t prepared.”
“Nobody ever is, I guess,” Russell said. His smile was sorrowful and sincere.
Shannon had never been happier to be with a friend.
Slowly, as the jukebox played classic rock into the night, they were able to get to other topics: scientific experiments they’d read about, exciting new developments in Alzheimer’s research (which was Shannon’s specialty), and how they planned to spend their summers, now that they were both single.
“I’ll be here all summer,” Russell said glumly. He had a few school-related matters to take care of, which he didn’t want to discuss.
“I’ll be here, too. Mostly.” Shannon considered her mother, alone with her father in that massive Nantucket summer house.
That night, not long after Russell and Shannon said good night, Shannon received a call from her mother. It was nearly ten and much later than Shannon would have imagined her mother calling. It meant something was wrong.
“Mom?” Shannon was out of breath, standing on a street corner.
“Hi, honey.” Her mother’s voice was strangled, bizarre.
“What’s up?” Shannon asked. “Are you all right?”
“Me? Oh, I’m fine,” her mother said. “I’m really fine, you know? One day at a time and all that.”
Shannon gripped the pole of a stop sign till her fingers ached.
“It’s just that I was wondering if you girls wanted to come to Nantucket soon?” Her mother continued, “Your father and I would love to see you. I know your semester should be finished soon. We can do everything you love to do on Nantucket. We can go sailing if you want to.”
Shannon knew that her mother was lonely. She knew that her mother felt the weight of all the approaching years without Fred by her side, mentally and emotionally.
“I have to wrap a few things up here at school, and then I’ll be there,” Shannon promised her mother.
“Oh, honey. That’s so good of you,” her mother said, sounding out of her mind.
Shannon told herself that tomorrow, she’d finish her experiment. She’d get it right this time. And then, she’d pack her bags and get to Nantucket as soon as she could. Something was wrong.