Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
T ina couldn’t believe Lucas was leaving. Neither could Jefferson.
They were in the office of the Nantucket Historical Society. Lucas hadn’t explained the specifics of his time off and had instead called it a “history-related emergency.” Despite being a Salt Sister, Tina seemed not to know it had anything to do with Gale. Not yet, anyway.
“The Whaling Museum Festival is in two and a half weeks!” Tina cried, as though he didn’t already know that. As though the Whaling Museum Festival wasn’t just a favor to an old friend. It has turned into a monster.
“I thought you already told me you could handle the rest of the planning yourself?” Lucas said.
Tina grimaced and shifted her weight. She’d come by to re-confirm which poster and logo Lucas wanted because the artist had come up with a brand-new design (one that seemed almost exactly like the old one), and she wasn’t quite sure. She was accustomed to working with clients who cared a lot more about the details of events than Lucas. All Lucas cared about was what had already happened.
Mostly. Except where Gale is concerned.
“Remember, we have that meeting next week with city council,” Jefferson said, tugging at his collar.
“The PowerPoint is all ready for you,” Lucas reminded Jefferson. “You just have to press play and say a few pretty words about ‘the grandeur of Nantucket’ and ‘the importance of preserving our history.’ You’ve done it a million times before.”
“No. You usually do it,” Jefferson said.
“But you were right there beside me. Weren’t you listening?”
Jefferson gave him a look that meant he very much had not been listening. Lucas stopped himself from rolling his eyes.
“I’ll probably be back in time for the Whaling Museum Festival,” he said with a resigned sigh. This went against his very strange yet wonderful daydream of moving to a tropical island with Gale and starting over. Yeah right. Like I could ever leave Nantucket.
Then again, what’s really here for me?
Tina left with an annoyed huff and said, “Have a wonderful time on your grand history-related adventure.”
Lucas watched her go, surprised that he felt nothing about her annoyance. Normally, he let everyone else’s feelings affect him. He walked around like an exposed nerve.
“Why won’t you tell me what’s up?” Jefferson asked after Tina left. And it was true that Jefferson was one of Lucas’s only friends in the world. He often told him the intricacies of his recipes and morning walks because he never had anything better to discuss.
But Lucas wanted to preserve the beautiful world he was carving out with Gale. He wanted her to know that her secrets were safe.
So he said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He packed up the rest of his things and left with a final, “See you later.” He didn’t turn back although he could feel Jefferson’s eyes burning into the back of his head.
Lucas returned to his cabin to wait for Gale to pick him up. She said she’d be there by noon, but she missed the driveway and had to turn around, which made her arrival time twelve ten. Lucas shimmered with fear during those ten minutes, wondering if she’d changed her mind. It took a brave woman to dig into the past. For Lucas, digging into other people’s pasts was just his livelihood, his pastime, his way of getting through his life. It was rare that he ever dug through his own.
Gale’s Mercedes appeared between the maple trees, shining triumphantly. Lucas’s heart leaped. She parked and honked, then got out to show off her travel outfit. She wore a denim skirt and a soft pink blouse, and her hair was tousled in a way that suggested a long and winding walk down the beach before she’d come. He imagined she had a lot to think about. She’d probably thought, what the heck am I doing? Why am I following this crazy man around the world?
But she was here.
Lucas fought his instinct to hug her and instead put his bag in back and slid into the passenger seat. That was when he caught sight of the snacks in the back seat—Twizzlers, twinkies, protein bars, and pretzels filled with cheese.
“Wow,” Lucas breathed, pretending to be amazed. “I didn’t realize you had such terrible taste in snacks.”
Gale erupted with laughter. The sound was like music. She swatted him and said, “Fine. When we get off the island, we’ll stop at a gas station, and you can show me what you’re all about, snack-wise.”
“It’s a deal.”
A local radio station purred classic hits that Lucas loved. The sixties, seventies, and eighties—mostly rock. He knew the backstories of most of the musicians and remembered that Monica had once asked him to stop telling her the backstory of every single song on the radio. I just want to listen without all the interruptions, she’d told him. She’d been so sad that day. It had terrified him to see her that way.
“I love this song,” Gale said now as a song by The Animals played. “I’m sure you know its backstory?”
Lucas’s lips parted with surprise. “You know it?”
“Sure,” Gale said. “It was used in the soundtrack of one of the silly films I wrote. I worked in a few pieces of dialogue about it. The guy in the rom-com was really impressed by the woman’s knowledge of music. So cliché, right?”
Lucas’s heart thudded. Art imitates life. Life imitates art.
“Why do you call them ‘silly films’?” Lucas asked. “Seems to me like you built a really powerful career for yourself.”
“They’re just rom-coms,” she said. “Even the one I won the Academy Award for was a rom-com. It was one of the only years a rom-com took home the gold for screenplay. I don’t even think I should have won. That one war movie with Randall Cole was up. That movie made every grown man cry.”
Lucas cackled. “It certainly made me cry. But I’m a historian. War movies are sort of my jam.”
Gale’s smile widened.
Gale parked the car on the ferry's lower deck, and they got out to say goodbye to the island and feel the sun on their faces. It was funny for Lucas to leave without fully knowing when he was returning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone anywhere else.
He decided to share this with Gale.
“I haven’t left the island in years.” He bit his lower lip with fear.
Gale tilted her head. Nothing in her face echoed her surprise. Nor did she seem bothered by it. It just was.
“How does it feel to leave?”
Lucas thought back to the previous few years—the heartache that had followed him everywhere like a dark cloud and the realization that all he had to live for lurked in the small square room of the Nantucket Historian Society.
“It feels like waking up,” he said.