Chapter Six
And that meant I needed somewhere else to live. It was basically my only remaining option—unless I wanted to spend my entire
summer with the worst roommates I could imagine.
So instead of relaxing on the beach or trying the local restaurants, I spent my first week on Cape Cod scouring every single
rental listing site a Google search could turn up. By Thursday, I was even checking Craigslist. And all I discovered was that
I was screwed. The only available places (and there weren’t many now) were wildly expensive. Way more than I could afford,
knowing I’d have to forfeit the money I’d already paid Dina. The nonrefundable clause in her rental contract was very clear.
Which is how I end up sitting on the living room floor on Friday afternoon, halfway through a fourth episode of a reality
TV show I’ve forgotten the name of, eating olives straight from a jar I discovered in the kitchen pantry because I still haven’t
gone to the grocery store, feeling depressed and numb and pathetic.
I’m stuck. I can’t afford a different place on the Cape, and if I go back to Boston, my only real option is Rika and Yasmin’s couch.
I’ve missed the window to find a new apartment for June—I’d have to wait for the July listings.
And then I’d have to put down a security deposit, first and last month’s rent, not to mention buy a bunch of furniture.
Which I could do, but not without pulling a lot out of my savings.
I hadn’t been planning to budget for any of that until August.
I can’t end up on Rika and Yasmin’s couch. Crashing on your friends’ couch for a month is what you do when you’re twenty-two,
not when you’re thirty-one.
And anyway, if I go back to Boston . . . I’ll have lost the breakup. It’s petty and immature and makes me feel small to admit
it, but I can’t shake the image: Rika and Yasmin asking why I couldn’t stick it out on the Cape. The story making its way
back to Jackson somehow—how I couldn’t even get through a week in a new place by myself, because that’s how useless I am without
him.
At least with all the doors in the cottage closed, I can sort of pretend I’m alone. For a little while. Until the next time
I need to use the bathroom.
I’m getting really tired of telling Jackson to go stand in the shower while I pee.
I stick another olive in my mouth. “She’s not worth it,” I say to the woman with pink nails on the TV, who is upset about
the woman with the purple nails betraying her over something I can’t remember but I’m pretty sure had to do with somebody’s
tiny dog.
There’s a knock on the front door.
I jump, sloshing olive juice over my hands. “Shit.” I set the olive jar on the coffee table, patting my hands on my pajama
pants, and suddenly realize that I’m sitting on the floor in pajamas in the middle of the afternoon, having eaten most of
a jar of olives. I haven’t showered. I’m technically supposed to be working. My laptop is sitting on the couch, still signed
into my work Slack, but I haven’t touched it for at least two episodes. I told myself it was fine; I haven’t taken a sick
day in three years.
I run a hand through my hair, which is still sticking up on one side. Immediate regret. Now I have olive juice in my hair.
I give up and pull open the door.
Dina is standing on the front steps, hands on her hips, in a bright green caftan patterned with violently bright pink cats.
“Good, you’re here! I need to talk to you.” She takes in my pajamas, and then glances over my shoulder. “Having a relaxing
day?”
Oh god. I forgot to turn off the TV. “Yeah. Um, something like that.” I step outside, quickly pulling the door closed behind
me. “What’s up?”
“I’m not sure I’ve been a welcoming enough host,” she says.
I blink, caught off guard. “Oh?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a renter, and I’ve been distracted running Queer Punx and chasing the spawn of Satan around
before he eats more birds. But since you’re here for the whole summer”—she raises her eyebrows pointedly—“I thought you might
like to come to a cookout I’m having tomorrow. Nothing fancy. Just some old friends. I think you’d like them. And it might
be a nice chance to get out of the house.”
Her bright blue eyes are fixed intently on me, and even standing on the lowest step, she’s as tall as I am. But she sounds
genuine. Her tone is almost friendly.
Behind me, inside the cottage, I can just barely make out someone on the TV yelling that she can’t believe she’s getting blown
off for a doggie manicure. Pink Nails did not believe me that Purple Nails wasn’t worth it.
I run a hand over my face. “Sure. A cookout sounds great.”
“Good.” Dina looks me up and down again. “Don’t worry about bringing anything. We’ll have it covered.”
I curl in on myself like a poked porcupine. Is it that obvious I don’t have any groceries in the cottage? “Um . . . great.”
I muster a smile. “Looking forward to it.”
“Tomorrow at five,” she says. “Just knock on my door.”
“Okay. See you then.”
She turns away, and I escape back into the cottage, feeling disgusted at myself.
I should take a shower. Put on some real clothes.
There’s still time in the day for a walk on the beach or a trip to the grocery store in Wellfleet.
I could cook something instead of driving to PJ’s for chicken wings and fries again.
But cooking something would involve spending time in the kitchen with my dad. Taking a shower would involve negotiations with
Jackson. So in the end, I sit back down on the floor, feeling like a total loser, and pick up the jar of olives.
Saturday dawns with a cool drizzle that turns to hazy mist over the ocean, the clouds hanging so low that it’s impossible
to tell where the water ends and the sky begins. I stay curled up under the quilt in the bedroom. Every night this week, I’ve
climbed into the middle of the bed, defiantly telling myself I’m supposed to enjoy having a full-size bed all to myself, and
every morning, I’ve woken up on the left side, like my subconscious can’t shake the expectation that Jackson will be on the
right, sleeping on his stomach with his arms stuffed under his pillow.
This morning, I just stayed on the left side of the bed, wallowing in the gloom, staring at more Cape Cod listings I can’t
afford on my phone.
By noon, however, the drizzle vanishes, swept out to sea, the sun creeps out, and I decide I can’t keep putting off a shower.
Jackson is brushing his teeth when I open the bathroom door. “Okay, I know we live together now, but you could still knock.”
This is something else I’ve discovered after spending a week in the cottage—every single day, each of the uninvited roommates
says the exact same thing when I see them in the morning.
Jackson says he knows we live together, but I could still knock.
Professor MacAndrew thanks me for coming by and invites me to sit down.
My dad asks if I want a cup of coffee.
All of it as though the previous day never happened.
“I did knock,” I say to Jackson, which is a complete lie, but I don’t care. “You must not have heard me.”
“Did you think any more about the couch?” he says around the toothbrush. “We could go shopping this weekend.”
I already want to go back to bed. “Can we talk about this later? I need to take a shower.”
“Now? I’m brushing my teeth.”
“Sorry,” I say, peeling off my shirt. “I’m in a hurry.”
The clouds have turned to scattered white cotton balls across the wide blue sky when I walk down the flagstone path to Dina’s,
shortly after five o’clock, wearing an outfit carefully chosen to say I am not, in fact, a total disaster of a human who eats olives on the floor 24/7. Jeans. A plain but polished T-shirt. Boat shoes I bought years ago before I met Jackson’s parents in New Hampshire for the
first time, when I was strangely desperate to prove I’d assimilated to the East Coast and wasn’t some Midwestern hick from
a state nobody could identify who’d grown up in a cornfield.
I ring Dina’s doorbell, expecting her to answer in another neon caftan. Instead, the door is opened by a very buff, very hairy
white man in his sixties with deep lines in his tan forehead, wearing a pink tank top and very tight denim shorts. His head
is completely bald, but he’s sporting an impressive gray beard that sticks out from his face at least six inches in all directions,
and he has gold hoops in both ears.
“Welcome!” he booms. “You must be Harlowe. I’m Dave, a friend of Dina’s. Pleasure to meet you.” He gives me a dazzling smile
and beckons with one hand. “Come on in. Dina’s just in the kitchen. Can I get you something to drink? Beer? Wine? Seltzer?”
I step inside. “Seltzer would be great. Um . . . shoes off?”
“No, no!” Dave is already striding away from me, and I realize he’s wearing rainbow flip-flops. “We’re going to head out to
the deck in a minute. It’s just straight through there.” He points down the hall and then disappears around a corner.
I wait for a few seconds, but he doesn’t come back, so I start down the hall to search out the deck myself, and find myself
in Dina’s living room. It looks, somehow, exactly like I’d expect. Bookshelves full of faded paperbacks, oversize art books,
and a vast collection of records. Overstuffed couches and armchairs on top of a leopard-print rug. Leftover candles cluttering
the coffee table. The walls are painted the same neutral tone as the smaller cottage, but you can hardly see them because
they’re covered with art—pastel watercolors of beaches and sailboats, vibrant oil paintings of fruit and animals, and moody
black-and-white photographs of half-shadowed faces and expressively draped hands.
“Seltzer?” Dave reappears, holding out a can. “I’m afraid there’s only lime.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” I take the can. “Thanks.”
“Ah, you’re here!” Dina billows into the room behind Dave. She’s back in her banana caftan and a pair of hot-pink sandals,
carrying a paper grocery bag. “We’re just heading outside. Dave, get the door, would you?”