Chapter Six #3
“That’s . . . something.” My eyes rove over the collection of photographs.
Meryl and Yan, when Meryl’s hair was dark and spiky and Yan had fewer earrings.
Sharon and Dina sitting in beach chairs, wearing big sunglasses and broad hats.
Dave and Bill again, this time standing with Meryl on the back deck of the house, the sun setting behind them.
“Bill was saying that Dina started Queer Punx with someone else,” I say. “George?”
Nathan glances at me, looking vaguely surprised. “Yeah. George and Dina opened Queer Punx together. The cottages used to belong
to him. That’s him in that picture.” He waves a finger at the photograph of the tall man with his arm draped around Dina.
“He and Dina were together for something like a decade.” Nathan turns to the bookshelf, running his fingers over the collection
of records. “Here.” He pulls one out. “Dina will like this.”
He holds the album. The Best of Motown: 1960–1970.
“Thanks.” I take it.
“I better get out there.” Nathan picks up the grocery bag and gives me that quarter of a smile again. “I’m on grilling duty.
See you in a bit.” And he heads for the deck.
I set the record going and leave my seltzer can on the coffee table while I search out the bathroom (a pleasant, Jackson-free
experience). When I reemerge onto the deck, seltzer in hand, a Supremes song is filtering through the air from the bookshelf
speakers in the living room.
Dina and the rest of the group are busy unwrapping paper plates and cups, uncovering John and Cathy’s casserole dishes, opening
bags of Cape Cod potato chips and emptying them into a big bowl. Dave, Bill, and Meryl are all loudly singing along to “You
Can’t Hurry Love.”
I wander over to Nathan, who’s standing at the grill, flipping burgers. “You were clearly right on the music recommendation.”
He glances over his shoulder at the group behind him. “Yeah, Dina’s always liked Motown. She’s not really of the Motown era,
but it’s always been her thing. Really anything from the sixties and seventies. Grateful Dead, Queen, Tom Petty . . . And
she’s usually the one picking the music.” He looks back at me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know Sir Duke
is named after a Stevie Wonder song, right?”
“I did not.” I grin. “Are the lyrics about an escape artist who apparently likes to eat birds?”
Nathan laughs, and there’s something surprisingly gentle and shy about it. “Not as far as I remember. But I can’t say I’ve
listened to it recently.”
The song filtering from the house changes from the Supremes to something else equally familiar that I can’t quite place. Dave,
Meryl, and Yan immediately pick up singing along, and Bill grabs Dina and twirls her around the deck, despite the stack of
paper plates she’s waving in one hand.
The sight of it makes me ache, and I suddenly desperately miss Rika and Yasmin. For a split second, I even miss Jackson—or
at least, I miss the normalcy of the four of us sitting around the apartment I left behind, sharing homemade pizza in the
summer, the windows thrown open and all of us sweating anyway, because there was never much of a breeze and it never seemed
to make its way inside.
“They seem to be having a good time,” I say, trying to keep the longing out of my voice, as Bill tries to twirl Dina again
and she swats him away with the stack of paper plates, smiling.
“Summer is the one time they’re all together,” Nathan says.
“How did they meet if they all live in different places?”
“Oh, they go way back.” Nathan digs the spatula under the burgers, flipping them on the grill.
They sizzle, spitting grease into the air.
“They were all in New York in the eighties. I think Dave worked on Wall Street, if you can believe it. Meryl and Dina were working on a political campaign.” His eyes skip past me to the others.
“John and Cathy only joined the mix when they bought the house up the road about ten years ago.”
“What about you?” I ask. “How’d you end up out here?”
He shrugs one shoulder, looking back at the burgers. “I came out to help Dina with some stuff one summer and just kind of
stayed.”
“Stuff around the cottage?” I ask, carefully casual.
“Yeah. Something like that.” He turns, cupping a hand around his mouth. “Burgers are ready!”
We all end up crowded around the big patio table, passing around ketchup and mustard, John and Cathy’s potato salad, and the
bowl of Cape Cod potato chips. Meryl and Sharon and Bill tell stories of previous summers. John and Cathy share stories about
teaching their grandkids to sail. Dave laughs uproariously at everything.
And even though I can’t follow most of the stories, and I don’t know most of the people they’re talking about, I don’t feel
nearly as out of place as I expected to. The ache begins to fade, and I find myself smiling and even laughing along once or
twice.
Eventually, the group splinters into separate conversations, some people standing at the deck railing, others sitting at the
table. I wind up sitting on the stairs that lead down to the rest of the yard with Nathan, each of us with a seltzer, watching
the sun sink toward the rim of the ocean. The air is slowly turning cooler, even up here. I’m wishing I’d brought my sweatshirt.
“Does it always get cold in the evenings?” I ask, hunching up my shoulders against a breeze rolling off the water.
Nathan considers, lifting his seltzer to his lips. “Not so much in the middle of August, but otherwise, yeah, I guess so.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Not used to it?”
“I live in Boston, land of the urban heat island. I’m not sure it ever cools off in the summer.”
He smiles. “You grow up there?”
“No. I’m from Indiana. No urban heat island but plenty of corn sweat.”
His eyebrows jump. “Corn sweat? Is that a real thing?”
“It is.” I grimace. “Pretty much the same effect as an urban heat island. Hot and muggy.”
He takes another drink. “Indiana’s a long way from Boston. What brought you out here?”
I’m slightly impressed he has any idea where Indiana is. Jackson didn’t, when we first met. He mixed it up with Illinois for
months. “Grad school,” I say, stretching out my legs, resting my heels against the lowest step. “I did a history PhD at Boston
University.”
“So you’re an academic?” Nathan says.
I huff out a laugh. “Definitely not. Not anymore, anyway.”
“Changed your mind?”
I raise my seltzer to my lips, pause, and lower it again, trying to figure out what to say. I have an easy, canned response:
the job market. It’s what I pulled out with academics any time I went somewhere with Jackson, moving in the academic circles
he kept moving in. I’d get a knowing nod from his colleagues. Ah yes. The job market. Famously known to be terrible. Definitely not my fault.
But this isn’t some conference I’m tagging along to, and Nathan isn’t some oxford-and-blazer-wearing colleague of Jackson’s.
“I was planning to keep going,” I say. “Become a professor or something. But right before my thesis defense, my advisor told
me she thought my work was . . . average. Not likely to get me job offers. She actually told me I shouldn’t feel bad about
this, because it was her fault. She was the one who’d decided to admit me to the program and she should have known better.”
Nathan lets his breath out in a low whistle. “Ouch.”
I shrug, hoping I look like it was a long time ago and I don’t care anymore.
“I tried for a few months anyway, hoping to prove her wrong. But I didn’t get any interviews, and I needed a job, so .
. . I found something in IT. I sort of planned on it being temporary, but I like the paycheck.
And it’s remote. And I didn’t have to leave Boston. ”
Nathan fiddles with the tab on his seltzer can, squinting out at the ocean. And then he says, “Well, if it makes you feel
better, I didn’t exactly intend to be a long-term barista either.”
“Yeah? What was plan A?”
“I don’t know about plan A, but . . . I was going to open a bike shop.” He looks at me with that quarter of a smile again.
“You know, one of those places where you can rent bikes or buy a bike or get your bike fixed. There are a lot of trails and
back roads around here. Great for biking.”
I find myself mirroring his smile. “That sounds great. I mean, seasonal, but great.”
“Yeah, definitely a summer business.” He shrugs. “But most things are around here.”
“So what’s keeping you from doing it?”
He considers. “I don’t know what Dina would think of the whole idea.”
“Why’s that matter?” I ask.
He’s quiet, next to me, and he seems suddenly very still. As though he’s frozen.
Then, suddenly, he pushes himself up. “I should probably start cleaning the grill,” he says.
“Oh.” I blink. “Sure. You want a hand or anything?”
“No, that’s all right. I got it. Thanks.” And he turns away, quickly, crossing the deck and disappearing through the sliding
screen door before I even realize what’s happening.
I’m left sitting awkwardly on the deck stairs, glancing at the grill, feeling distinctly like Dina’s nephew just ran away
from me and I have no idea why.
I push myself up, glancing around the rest of the deck at Dina laughing with Bill and Dave and Meryl, and John and Cathy deep in conversation with Sharon and Yan at the patio table.
The comfort and ease I felt earlier evaporates.
I don’t really belong here, with these people who have decades of shared history.
I’m an extra invited along because Dina felt sorry for me.
I feel suddenly small, rather broken, and very lonely.
I glance once more at the grill, but it still sits unattended. No sign of Nathan.
I pull out my phone. Check the time. Glance again at the color fading from the sky. And then I set my seltzer can on the railing,
next to someone else’s abandoned water glass. I thank Dina for having me, making up an excuse that I’m tired.
“You don’t need to leave,” she says. “We’ll probably take this party inside once it gets dark.”
“Thanks.” I give her a quick smile. “But I think I’ll just go crash.”
I see her eyes go to the grill and then the sliding door, before they come back to me. “Right,” she says. “Well, glad you
could join us.”
I wilt inwardly, feeling like I’ve failed some kind of test, but I manage a smile as I shake hands with Dave and Bill and
get a quick, awkward hug from Meryl.
Nathan still hasn’t reappeared by the time I walk back down the deck stairs and start up the flagstone path.
Once I get back to the cottage, I go straight to the bedroom, holding my breath as I turn the knob, hoping maybe, just maybe . . .
But there’s no sign of the younger Nathan when I open the door. The room is empty. I let my breath out and kick off my shoes
and fall onto the bed, hands behind my head, listening to the voices drifting through the open window from Dina’s deck.