Chapter Fourteen
Lucy
Oscar leaves. Caleb leaves. Lucy takes her time getting groceries, replacing what went bad. Vivian’s been watching her all last night and this morning, waiting for the chance to apologize or double down or whatever she wants to say. There’s nothing wrong with dragging out Vivian’s anticipation. After all, if things had unfolded differently, Vivian would’ve waited all summer to confess to Lucy.
The thing is, Lucy isn’t capable of giving her the silent treatment for any longer. It goes against her nature; her soft side is—well, most of her sides are soft. Putting up a cold front has been exhausting. After she puts away the groceries, she finds Vivian sitting at the end of the dock with her feet in the water.
As Lucy approaches, Vivian turns, pushes her sunglasses up, and shields her eyes with her hand. From where she’s standing, without makeup, dressed in a plain one-piece, Vivian looks smaller, meeker somehow.
“Hi,” Vivian says.
“Hi,” Lucy says, a little sheepish. The tension between them is as thick as lobster bisque.
“Can we talk?” Even Vivian seems a little shy.
“Yeah.” Lucy sits a few feet away, reclining against a post.
She exhales. “I worried you were done with me for good.”
“That worries you?” As far as Lucy can tell, Vivian has wanted her to disappear ever since they met.
“I don’t want to ruin things between us,” Vivian says almost shyly.
“Well, you’ve been doing a pretty good job of it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just—”
Lucy throws her hands up. There’s no use in having the same fight over and over. “You just need the money—yeah, I know, I’ve heard.”
Vivian swallows. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Then what?”
Exasperated, Lucy steels herself for the newest excuse.
Vivian straightens up. “I am incredibly sorry I went back on my word. I never should’ve done it. It was selfish— I’ve been appallingly selfish.”
This is not what Lucy expected. At all.
“This place should belong to you as much as it does to me. Let’s forget about selling it for now. At the end of the summer, you and I can make the decision together, fifty-fifty. If we decide to keep it, we’ll share access to the house; if we sell it, you’d get half of the money.”
Lucy flinches. “You don’t really mean that.”
“Even if he only left the house to my side of the family, it’d be a cop-out for me to stick to that. It’s not like I respect any of his other decisions.”
What a delightful way to think about it. “True. But won’t your mom care if you keep it?”
“She’ll get over it. If I steamroll you, I’m just as bad as he was.” Vivian takes a deep breath, straining to find the right words. “I haven’t given you the respect you deserve. I don’t want to be that kind of person anymore—not some self-centered, rich asshole who swoops in from out of town to fuck you over.”
“Are you sure you’re serious?”
“Yeah, I am. I want to do right by you.”
Lucy is stunned. A fresh start. She lets herself imagine it all—more money than she’s ever fathomed having: She could help out her mom. If she lands the Portland job, she could afford to live somewhere nice there—maybe even buy a place. Beyond that, she wants to see Paris. Or maybe Edinburgh. She imagines green hills rolling with fog, lilting accents, curling up on a tartan armchair by a crackling fireplace to read. Heaven. She could pay off her student loans without much of a dent, go on to get her master’s in education, maybe even try writing a novel of her own.
She’d have to give up her dad’s house, yes. But with money like that, surely she could afford to rent a cabin for a week or two every summer. Still, she isn’t ready to make a decision, or even let her guard down.
“You’d really give all that money to someone you basically just met? You don’t even like me.”
Vivian’s face falls. “That—that’s not true.”
Lucy isn’t sure what to believe. “So, what, you’re trying to buy my friendship?”
Hurt, she recoils. “No.”
That had sounded meaner than Lucy intended. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, I deserve that one.”
“What about starting your business?” Regardless of what they do, opening her bar in New York would probably be out of the question.
Vivian takes a shaky breath. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It can wait. I can get another job for now.”
“Okay, so we ‘decide together,’?” Lucy says, making air quotes. “Let’s say by Labor Day.”
That gives them three weeks at most. “What happens if I still don’t want to sell? If I never want to sell?”
“We’ll…figure it out if we need to.”
Lucy can’t see her bending, not with something as big as this. She’s stubbornly opinionated, fussy when Lucy loads the dishwasher with silverware facing up instead of down.
“That’s specific.”
“I meant what I said. We’ll have equal say. I can sign something, have it notarized.”
“Right, but I doubt we’ll agree on what to do. We don’t now.”
Vivian grapples for words. “I don’t know. But I’ll keep an open mind if you will.”
Maybe it’s naive to trust her again, but Lucy wants to believe Vivian. She’s pretty sure the offer is sincere. And if it isn’t…well, Lucy would be no worse off than she’s been all summer. For right now, though, Lucy feels seen and fought for, like the heroine in a romance novel—only here, the hero is Vivian.
“Okay,” Lucy says. It feels like a truce.
“Okay.” Vivian glows with satisfaction. Then, looking a shade shyer, she adds, “I overheard you talking to Oscar this morning, saying that I deserved better than him. Maybe you were just saying that to get to him, but either way—thank you.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t realized Vivian had been within earshot. “Well, it’s true. He’s not very nice.”
Vivian sighs. “I hadn’t seen that side of him before. I guess I’m glad I did before it was too late.”
“Yeah. And…I said some awful things to you yesterday,” Lucy admits.
There’s a pause. “Yeah.”
Everything Lucy said was true, but she no longer wants to hold it against Vivian.
“I’m sorry. I take it all back.”
Vivian arches one eyebrow. “Really? Even the one about me and Dad being selfish cheaters?”
“What you’re doing is the furthest thing from selfish.”
The tension drops from Vivian’s shoulders. “That means a lot. Thank you.”
A pair of loons swims serenely by. The majestic weather beckons Lucy to make the most of it. She might not have too many days like this ahead of her.
“Do you want to take a ride?” she asks.
She half expects Vivian to say no. Instead, she smiles.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
They’ve fallen into practiced roles by now: Lucy unties the ropes, then hops in as Vivian pulls away from the dock. She steers them toward the Narrows, where they got caught in the rainstorm. This time, they each keep one hand firmly planted atop their baseball caps until they slow to a five-mile-per-hour crawl.
As they motor, Vivian tells Lucy why she finally kicked Oscar out.
“I never thought he was a saint, obviously, but he was different in the city—less selfish, less obnoxious,” Vivian says. “Or maybe he’s always been this way and I’m just seeing it now. If I’ve ever been that condescending to you, kill me.”
Lucy recognizes an opportunity when she sees one. “You can call it New York, you know that, right? Instead of ‘the city.’ In case you haven’t noticed, there are other cities.”
“Got it. Thank you. I’m sorry.” She blushes. “And I’m sorry he was so rude to you and Caleb.”
“He was atrocious.”
“And a jerk about Fox Hill.”
This doesn’t add up for Lucy. Vivian is kind of a jerk about Fox Hill.
“That bothered you?”
“Yeah. I can talk shit about this place because it’s mine. He can’t.”
Lucy nods. This is the half-sister she knows. “Sure.”
“I don’t mean to, though,” Vivian says abruptly. “It’s beautiful.”
Painfully so.
“I stayed with my mom the other night,” Lucy says, filling Vivian in on everything she learned about the truth of her parents’ relationship, how Hank reeled Dawn in for one last night before cutting her loose, how her last-ditch love letter to him went unanswered.
Vivian shakes her head. “Dick move. Typical.”
“You’re not surprised?”
She looks grim. “I hate to say it, but no. Warm, fuzzy feelings weren’t exactly his thing.”
Vivian pours out stories: the way he kept himself at a distance most of the time, like whatever was on his BlackBerry was more important than his own family; the impossibly high standards she could never meet, not in school and not in her career, no matter how much she flourished; the cutting comments she can still recite word for word in a dull monotone a decade or two later.
“And then, after I overheard him on the phone with you…he lied straight to my face for years. I knew something was up, he knew I saw through him, and he never owned up to any of it. He wasn’t even a good actor—he always looked weirdly guilty and then changed the subject.”
“I know the exact face you’re talking about.” Lucy casts her eyes away and presses her mouth into a hard line.
With a bittersweet laugh, Vivian says, “That’s it exactly. He was being so hypocritical about Oscar and me, and it pushed me over the edge. I finally confronted him. I told him what I’d heard, what I thought. He denied everything. We had a huge fight, and then an hour later, he dropped dead.”
“I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.”
Vivian hunches over and runs her hands through her hair. “I don’t know.”
Lucy stares Vivian down, willing her to believe what she’s about to say. “This wasn’t your fault. These things just happen sometimes.”
Vivian shrugs, but there’s nothing casual about it. “I guess.”
“ Really. ”
“Mm.” Vivian blinks hard and looks away. “What was he like with you?”
“He didn’t lie. He wasn’t so harsh.”
It’s not a comfortable thing to admit. It was probably easier for him to treat Lucy warmly when he mostly saw her on vacation in his favorite place. This wasn’t his real life; she wasn’t his regular, full-time daughter.
“But he missed out on so much. A lot went unsaid. He didn’t want to talk about his life in New York, and I didn’t want to risk pushing him away.”
Instead, she put him on a golden pedestal and contorted herself into the role of an adoring daughter.
They’re halfway into the Narrows by now, floating by an A-frame cabin with a long, skinny dock jutting out like a crooked finger. There are two little girls on it—maybe eight and ten, one blonde, one brunette—who keep flinging themselves off the end, splashing exuberantly into the lake, and scrambling up the ladder to do it all over again. They leap in together, holding hands, arms overhead. For a moment, neither Lucy nor Vivian can look away.
Vivian
The forecast promises another cool gray evening, ruining another sunset. The night doesn’t have to be a bust, though. Vivian suggests a foray into Portland for dinner and nabs a last-minute reservation at Izakaya Minato, a cozy Japanese spot that consistently garners awestruck reviews. She can’t wait to try it.
In the car, they’re both quiet, lost in thought, with the radio filling the silence. Vivian’s still shocked that she really offered Lucy half the house, and a tiny bit proud of herself, too—though she recognizes she shouldn’t congratulate herself too hard for simply being nice and fair. The thought of going back to work for what, statistically, will be another arrogant man instead of becoming her own boss crushes her. But at this point, it’s the best option she has—the only one she can live with.
When they arrive at the white clapboard restaurant, Vivian opens the door and falls through a portal into a trendy corner of Brooklyn—or, rather, Brooklyn with better lighting. The host has a short, asymmetrical haircut springing with shiny curls and a trail of tattoos crawling like ivy up one arm. At one table, a woman dines in a cool olive boilersuit with sculptural gold jewelry and three-inch clogs. Her date could be a body double for Vivian’s upstairs neighbor. An upbeat tune floats through the sleek black-and-white space.
“The omakase is forty dollars? Is that a typo?” Vivian asks.
In New York, that kind of money disappears without her even realizing it, slipping away in six-dollar lattes and three-dollar subway fare. She can’t remember the last time she had omakase; the additional zero on the price tag is usually enough of a deterrent.
Their waiter drops off a parade of mouthwatering dishes: oysters broiled in miso custard with ponzu sauce; steaming hot, Japanese-style fried chicken dusted with spice; bacon-wrapped mochi. Vivian sips down a cocktail made with tequila, pineapple juice, and an explosive kick of wasabi. She’s rarely at a loss for words when it comes to a meal, but tonight she’s stunned into silent, sacred appreciation.
“This was such a good idea,” Lucy says, scooping up the last morsel from her plate.
“I feel like I died.”
“I need to be rolled out of here. That was, what, seven courses?”
“Eight, I think. Let’s walk it off.”
After dinner, they meander fifteen minutes to the waterfront, the historic heart of Portland. The neighborhood is full of turn-of-the-century buildings with storefronts on the ground floor and residences on top with elegant cornices and large display windows. String lights wind through leafy green trees. They wander down the quaint brick sidewalk of Exchange Street, dipping in and out of Sherman’s (the bookstore), FatFace (a boutique bursting with stripes, of both the nautical and rugby varieties), Coastal Maine Popcorn Co. (boasting thirty flavors), and plenty of others (Lucy blushes when they pass an adult store). It’s a Friday night and the city is bustling with energy—not the frantic kind, like New York’s rush hour, but somehow both vibrant and relaxed.
When they pass a darkened dive bar, Lucy wrinkles her nose. “That place has a different Jell-O shot flavor every night. I could live to be a hundred and still never forgive Caleb for taking me there on banana-schnapps night.”
They stop at the marina, where clusters of sailboats sit like jewels in a shop window. Under the heavy gray sky, boats bob, a cover band jams from beneath an awning, the briny air smells like vacation. Vivian leans her elbows on the damp, weathered wooden railing and takes it all in.
As John Updike once said—and zillions of basic girls have posted on Instagram since—“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” Vivian once agreed, confident to her core that anywhere else would be criminally boring. On any given day, you could see a man in a top hat with a parakeet perched on his shoulder riding the A train, or wait on Sarah Jessica Parker at dinner, or stumble into a burlesque show held in a nineteenth-century lesbian socialite’s impeccably decorated parlor. You could get hit in the face by a stray pastrami sandwich while biking past the legendary Katz’s Deli, which sounds like it would be an urban myth, except it really did happen to Vivian on a Sunday afternoon in tenth grade.
During the past couple years, there have been no underground parakeets, no flying deli meats. Between working with Oscar, lusting after Oscar, and keeping her relationship with Oscar a secret, Vivian was stretched too thin to appreciate any of New York’s wild offerings or, more importantly, to notice how unhappy she was. Sure, she could get absolutely anything and everything in the city—Sri Lankan food at two o’clock in the morning, fifty thousand works of art at the Met, vintage Pucci or Prada—but when was the last time she actually sought those things out?
She’d overlooked the fact that certain pleasures can only be found elsewhere: cheap lobster, bucolic fields, a blanket of stars, chicken coops, dusty pickup trucks, the thrill of stumbling across a radio station without static, loons gliding over the rhythmic slosh of the lake, pine-scented breeze, and whole days spent barefoot outside. A chic wine bar wouldn’t flourish in Fox Hill, but Portland could be a different story. She’s never given herself a real chance to appreciate anywhere else. Now, though, she wonders.