Chapter 4
Chapter Four
D arcy hadn’t seen Steven in three days, and three days felt like an eternity for a young woman falling in love. It was cruel. Her heart was pulpy and bruised, and she walked through the ordinary events of her everyday life, counting down the minutes till Steven picked her up and took her sailing.
Steven’s capable hands knotted thick ropes and tugged the sail into position. A gorgeous breeze wafted off the Nantucket Sound and ballooned the sail, driving them deep into the all-encompassing blue of the sky and the sea. Darcy clung hard to the iron railing and laughed as water splashed up from the towering waves. Steven didn’t show a lick of fear. His eyes danced as he looked at her. Words were often not necessary at this stage of their romance. Before long, he positioned the boat in a little cove without anyone around, dropped the anchor, and wrapped his arms around her. Darcy fell into his warmth, his kisses, his gaze. She could hear Rachelle’s voice in her head, saying, Oh, right. This is the guy you’re “not serious about.”
You’ve got it bad, girl.
Steven had brought a bottle of cheap champagne, two red Solo cups, potato chips, and strawberries.
“A feast,” Darcy exclaimed as he tugged open the bag of chips.
“We can grab real food later,” Steven said. “This will tide us over.”
Darcy wasn’t sure if she ever needed to eat again, not when this love bubbled through her. She took a bite from the tip of a strawberry and filled her mouth with bubbly champagne. The sun drenched her shoulders and abdomen, and she felt wonderful and free in her black bikini that Rachelle had helped her pick out last year. The “pre-Steven” summer.
“What are you thinking about?” Steven asked.
“My mind is blank. You?”
“Same.” Steven laughed, then kissed her forehead.
Suddenly, Darcy felt the urge to ask Steven to move in with her. She swallowed it down. It’s too soon. Don’t scare him off. She took another bite of strawberry.
“Rachelle called again last night,” Darcy said instead.
Steven raised his eyebrows. He knew what a sensitive subject this was and knew to pay attention when Darcy brought Rachelle up.
“Apparently, her boss got sick this week and put her in charge of the restaurant for a few nights. She cried on the phone from stress. She said she more or less knew how to run the kitchen back here in Nantucket, but there, she has to do it in a weird mix of Italian and English. She doesn’t have the same cooking background as most of the people there, and they’ve come to doubt a few of her decisions. She sounds so frustrated.”
“The culinary world is just one disaster after the next,” Steven said. “I wish someone would finally admit the truth about it.”
“What’s that?”
“That it’s all just food ,” Steven said with a mischievous smile. “Why get so worked up about it? People get so angry if the food they’ve ordered at a restaurant takes too long. People leave terrible reviews online, bash their servers, whatever. And it’s all because they’ve gotten used to the notion that they can just go somewhere, order delicious food from someone they can’t see behind a wall, and get a gorgeous plate of it in the next fifteen to twenty minutes. It’s ridiculous! And people get so outraged when it goes wrong.”
Darcy laughed. “Don’t ever tell Rachelle it’s ridiculous. She’ll put you in her next recipe.”
“I know. She impresses me. I think she should get more credit for it usually going right,” Steven said. “Serving that many people each night would do my head in. And she does it with insane quality.”
Darcy couldn’t believe Steven could make her fall in love with him even more, but here it was. He was talking up her sister. She nestled closer to him and took another strawberry.
“My family won’t stop asking me about her,” Darcy said quietly. “Begging for details about her Roman life and asking whether she’s met any Italian men.”
“Has she met any Italian men?”
“She meets them all the time but doesn’t have time for them.” Darcy giggled and then immediately deflated. “But I’ve realized my family doesn’t really care about my life in the same way. They ask about you, of course.”
“How boring,” Steven teased.
Darcy swatted him. “I’m just saying, it’s made me question my life and my choices. I’m twenty-five years old. Apparently, I still have my whole life ahead of me.”
“Decades upon decades.”
“Maybe I should do something. Maybe I should make a change.” Darcy was speaking faster, following the zip of her mind. She felt strangely uninhibited with Steven, as though her thoughts could go places she’d never known.
“Tell me,” Steven urged. “If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”
Darcy furrowed her brow and searched her mind. Become a chef in Rome? No, that’s Rachelle’s thing. An actress? No, you hate performing in front of people. A travel agent? Ugh, but logistics are awful.
“I wish something would immediately come to mind,” she stammered. “But I can only think of what other people have told me they want to be. Do you have an answer?”
Steven tilted his head. “I’d like to go on tour with the band. But that feels like a pipe dream.”
“Why?” Darcy was suddenly sure that she had to do everything in her power to help Steven’s band go on tour. “You guys are really talented. I could help you put together a local tour. Providence, Boston. Heck, even just Martha’s Vineyard. Little clubs and bars.”
Steven opened his hands and laughed. “Let’s not get carried away!”
“I’m not! I’m just excited for you. You have something you want, and it’s possible to make it happen.”
“But what about you? We’re talking about you!”
Darcy struggled to talk about herself, as Rachelle often pointed out. You’re deflecting again. Answer the question, Darcy. Talk about yourself.
“I got into my career because I like talking to people. I like helping people and making people feel like the best versions of themselves,” Darcy answered, her heart opening. “I don’t like wrestling with the egos of some women who come to this island in the summertime, but that can’t be helped.” She raised her shoulders.
“It sounds like you’re in the right place,” Steven said. “Maybe you could push that even further. Maybe you could bring your knowledge and your understanding of beauty and beauty trends to more women. And men, even. Men need to feel good, too.” Steven took a swig from his glass of champagne. “What about a blog? Or a social media profile committed to beauty trends and wellness?”
“I’m not really a good writer,” Darcy said, remembering her C+ and B- papers in high school. Analyzing American classic books hadn’t been her forté.
“Everyone’s a writer,” Steven assured her.
“Not me,” Darcy said. “Trust me.” She furrowed her brow and considered the questions women often asked her about Botox and other treatments at the clinic. She thought about the night and morning rituals she used on her face, hands, and neck and the numerous things she’d gleaned over many years of working at the clinic.
And then she remembered Joel and Reese. “Maybe an app?”
Steven’s eyes sparkled. “An app. Interesting. Pitch it to me.”
Darcy’s tongue was twisted up. “Um. Pitch it?”
“Like, tell me what the app does in a few sentences.”
“Okay. Um.” Her chest thrummed with panic. “It helps you create a personalized beauty ritual based on your skin type, face shape, age, and so on?”
Steven clapped his hands and nodded as though she’d just performed an Oscar-worthy monologue in a prestigious film. “Brilliant. Really. I have cold chills.”
“No, you don’t.” Darcy rolled her eyes.
“I’ll start putting together a local tour if you promise you’ll look into this idea,” Steven said with his hand on his sculpted chest. “It would be cool if we could push each other. I don’t want to waste any time.” He smiled. “And I told you on our first or second date that I want kids by the time I’m thirty. But I want them to have someone to look up to. Not just a part-time musician who’s a full-time mechanic.”
Steven had worked as a mechanic at his family’s auto shop since age sixteen. Now that he was twenty-seven, it stood to reason he was tired of it.
“You’re a brilliant mechanic and a brilliant musician,” Darcy said.
“You’re just saying that because I have a boat.”
Nantucket beach parties had begun for the summer and wouldn’t stop for the next three months. Steven’s band planned to perform later that night in the basement of a swanky house outside Siancoset and not far from the Jessabelle House. Darcy made plans with her mother to stay the night after leaving the party so she didn’t have to drive. Her mother wrote back: “Steven is welcome, too.”
At nine thirty, the party was in full swing. Sun tired but happy, Darcy and Steven made their rounds at the party, holding hands and chatting with people they’d known most of their lives.
“Gina refuses to leave her house right now,” Bethany declared, her eyes foggy after one too many beers. “If she even sees Randy at a distance, she totally loses it.”
Randy was there, Gina’s longtime boyfriend who’d recently cheated on her with a tourist. He’d been caught but refused to admit if this was the first time. “And that’s as good as saying he’s been doing it the whole time, right?” Bethany asked.
Darcy and Steven made momentary eye contact that seemed to say We would never do that to each other. We would never purposely make the other hurt.
“By the way, it was so wild what you and Rachelle did to Eddie during that show,” Bethany said to change the subject.
Darcy cackled into her free hand.
“She was so worried she would get sued,” Steven explained to Bethany. “But the guy was too embarrassed to take it that far.”
“I fixed him up as soon as he came back in,” Darcy said. But she remembered with joy what Eddie had looked like when she and Rachelle had “pranked” him and made his eyebrows look like a supervillain. After that, he didn’t want to be filmed in the reality television show. It was perfect payback. He’d spent weeks yanking Rachelle around like a plaything. It had taken her far too long to realize that he was nothing but a lying, scheming, and manipulative little guy with big-time Hollywood dreams.
“People think you’re a hero around here for that. Nobody really likes Eddie. I mean, who could? His ego is insane.” Bethany looked at Steven and without any qualms or fears or even a necessary segueway, she asked, “So, are you going to move into Darcy’s place now that Rachelle is gone?”
Darcy’s heart seized with panic. It was as though Bethany had pulled the question out of her own mind. Now you’ll have to make a choice. You’ll have to invite him. And then everything between you and Rachelle will really change because she won’t have a place to return home to.
But then again, isn’t Steven your future? Don’t you want to run headfirst into your future?
Steven took it in stride. “We just met a couple of months back. Darcy doesn’t know I’m a vampire yet.” In a whisper, he added, “I’m planning to tell her by the end of the month.”
“Oh.” Bethany rolled her eyes just the slightest bit and turned to wave hello to another guy entering the beach party. Her interest waned; she’d never been particularly into anything besides her own aimless gossip.
Darcy and Steven cackled happily and swooped back around the party to grab some beers and a few snacks. I’m happy. Rachelle is gone, but I’m still so happy, Darcy thought. It felt slightly sacrilegious.
Steven left for a little while to set up the band equipment downstairs. He kissed her and made her promise she’d be front and center.
Darcy stood beneath a pregnant moon and raised her arms to the night sky. With her eyes closed, she imagined she could feel Rachelle across the Atlantic; her love and hope for her sister’s future. Maybe you have just as much hope as Rachelle does. Maybe you’re building something just as strong.