Chapter Twenty
August rolls in with a torrent of rain that lashes the Cape, filling potholes and flooding the low-lying dips in the road
near the marshes. The waves roar, white peaks as far as I can see, and the gray of the ocean blends into the gray of the sky.
At night, I listen to the wind rattle the bedroom windows, whistling in at the seams.
It should feel cozy. It could feel cozy, except that I can’t lounge in a warm bubble bath while reading a book, or spend time cooking in the kitchen, thanks
to Jackson and my dad. And being stuck inside all day means it’s not exactly easy to avoid the kitchen and bathroom either.
For the first time, I actually find myself missing Boston, just a little. At least in Boston, on days when it was rainy and
cold and I didn’t really want to be at home all day with Jackson, I could just walk down the street to a coffee shop, or a
bookstore, or the library.
Here, everything is far away. And I have a feeling that in this weather, even the closer, smaller coffee shop in Wellfleet
will be packed with sodden tourists who also don’t want to hole up in their B and Bs or beach shacks for another day.
I’m in the dining room, paging through the copy of Giovanni’s Room, remembering Professor MacAndrew paging through it and faintly wondering if it’ll offer me some clue to her disappearance, when my phone starts buzzing on the table.
I glance at it. My dad is calling me.
For a second, I turn toward the kitchen, as though I half expect to see the version of my dad in there holding a phone to
his ear. But he’s just scrubbing away at another mug, humming to himself.
I look back at my phone.
I should answer. I still haven’t told my dad that I’m on Cape Cod. I could tell him now.
I pick up my phone, and then set it back down, and then pick it up again, and by the time I’ve finally decided to just answer
it, it stops buzzing. After another minute, a voicemail notification pops up.
I swallow, my throat dry, and play the message.
“Hi, Harlowe. It’s me.” My dad’s voice crackles over the tinny speakers. He must be in his house in Michigan. He never seems to get great reception
there. “Just calling again about this upcoming trip. We’ll be swinging through Boston in a few weeks, so give me a call back and
let me know where you can meet us.” He clears his throat. Waits, almost as though he expects me to somehow answer. “All right, then. Looking forward to catching up.”
I lower the phone.
He said us, but the new family never comes with him when he meets me for lunch or coffee or whatever two-hour activity we decide on.
I haven’t seen Christine and Kendra since those five days in Michigan. Dad always pulls up a picture on his phone, and I promptly
erase it from my brain as soon as we part ways. As far as my memory is concerned, Kendra is still stuck at sixteen, obsessed
with wolf figurines.
I used to ask my dad why they weren’t joining us.
Oh, Kendra wanted to see the museum, he said the first time. He didn’t say which museum.
Another time they were seeing a play. That one about the murder. You probably saw it. (I hadn’t.)
And another time they were just shopping. He didn’t say for what.
I wonder what it’ll be this time. Maybe they’ll go out for coffee too. Somewhere else.
Another gust of wind hits the cottage, rattling the front door. I set down Giovanni’s Room and head for the kitchen.
Uninvited Roommate Dad has given up on the mug and is peering under the sink, which is new. But I’ve discovered him doing
various new things these last few days, now that I’ve been stuck inside all day while it’s raining. He clearly spends most
of his time washing dishes, but I’ve also found him looking through the fridge (although he never seems to find what he’s
looking for), looking for a screwdriver to fix the faucet (which he also never seems to find), and turning the faucet on and
off while inspecting the various fittings as if convinced there’s something wrong with them.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Oh, this faucet was always a rush job,” he says, head still stuck under the sink. “I should probably pull the whole thing
out and redo it one of these days.”
I glance worriedly at the faucet. I really hope he can’t actually take Dina’s kitchen apart. I’m not sure how I’d explain
that. “Dad . . . why’d you ask me to come visit you in Michigan?”
He backs out from under the sink. “What’s that?”
“Why did you invite me here?” Might as well roll with his view of things. “To your new house?”
He pushes himself up, one freckled hand braced against his knee. “I thought you’d like to see the house. You hadn’t been up
yet.” He scratches his ear. “I’d only ever come out to visit you, so I figured I ought to invite you out to visit me.”
He sounds like he means it. And yet somehow I don’t believe him. “You’re never going to invite me back, you know,” I say.
He frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Never mind.”
He leans a hand against the sink, eyes focused on the counter like he’s avoiding my gaze. “Are you having a nice time?” He
picks at the grout between the counter and the sink with a thumbnail. “Here in Michigan?”
He asks it the same way he asks if I’m enjoying the weather, whenever he sees me in Boston. Casual, and like he knows exactly
what I’m going to say in response. Because if the weather is sunny and lovely, nobody is going to say they hate it.
“Yeah,” I say flatly, sidling past him to the fridge. “I’m having a great time.”
“I just thought it would be nice for you to get to know Christine and Kendra,” he says. And still he has that casual tone.
The tone that says this is normal. This is ordinary. Another sunny day. “And Michigan. You know, my life.”
I grab a seltzer out of the fridge, because at some point this summer, probably thanks to Dave and Bill, I’ve become someone
who buys seltzer. “Well, I don’t get to know them,” I say, cracking open the can. “If you want the spoiler alert.”
His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Why not?”
“I don’t know, Dad. You’d have to tell me.”
A shadow crosses his face, lines sinking deeper into it. He turns away, back toward the sink, and picks up a mug. He goes
back to washing dishes without a word.
Which I guess means the conversation is over. He doesn’t want to tell me anything.
I take my seltzer and go back to the dining room, pulling the bifold door closed behind me. I could turn on the TV. See if
I can find more Diamonds and Divas to binge.
But I know if I do that, I’m also going to end up staring at my phone, reading the transcript of my dad’s voicemail or looking at his last text, and right now, I desperately need to stop thinking about him.
I glance out the window at the rain still slashing through the trees, and then I text Nathan: You around today?
We’ve hung out a number of times since seeing Jaws, but it’s usually been with Katy and Marcus, as though we’re both a tiny bit afraid to be alone together. And maybe we are—or
at least, I think I might be. Whenever the four of us are at the pond, or wandering through Provincetown, or walking one of
the trails that winds through the woods or around the marshes, I feel caught between enjoying the easy way we’ve settled into
talking and laughing together, and wishing that I could experience this just with Nathan, twining my fingers with his. I want
to know how his smile might change, if it’s just the two of us.
What we might talk about.
If we’d talk at all.
Whether the silence would feel as easy and safe as I’ve caught myself imagining it would.
But part of me is also scared. Of just how much I want, and the way the wanting seems to extend forever, a well with no bottom.
A message pops up on my phone from Nathan: I’m at Cuppa but closing in an hour if you want to come by.
A now familiar warmth floods through me, and I feel a smile starting. I’d love to, I reply, and then I pick up my seltzer and my car keys, and head for the door.
It rains all the way to Provincetown. My windshield wipers squeak back and forth (I definitely need new windshield wipers) and the drive takes almost twice as long as usual because the visibility is so bad, but at least the weather also means Provincetown is less crowded.
I find a spot on the street, a few blocks from Cuppa Cove, and grab the umbrella I brought with me.
As soon as I step out of the car, the wind grabs the umbrella, tugging it inside out so sharply that I hear a metal rib snap.
Shit.
I toss the broken umbrella back in my car and run for the awning of the nearest shop. The rain hits heavy and cold, pelting
my face and the shoulders of my T-shirt as I leap a puddle near the curb. I pause under the awning, wipe my eyes, and then
run for the next shop awning I see. By the time I open the door to Cuppa Cove, I’m completely drenched, the toes of my sneakers
damp, my T-shirt sticking to my back.
The coffee shop is empty except for Nathan, wearing a hoodie, the sleeves pushed to his elbows, wiping down the tables.
He looks up when I open the door. “Hey, perfect timing. I’m just closing up.” He takes in my sodden clothes and hair. “You’re
soaked.”
“Yeah, my umbrella broke.” I fold my arms. It feels just as cold inside Cuppa Cove as it did outside.
“Oh, umbrellas are useless here,” Nathan says, dodging behind the counter and tossing the rag into a basket. “You need a raincoat.”
“I don’t have one,” I say, feeling vaguely incompetent. “I did have one, but it ripped when I was camping with my ex in Vermont and I never got a new one.”
Nathan switches off the light behind the counter and the string lights that crisscross the ceiling overhead, plunging the
coffee shop into a gloom that matches that of the street outside the windows. “Well, we could hang out here for a bit and
see if it lets up. Or we could try to fit both of us in my raincoat.”
I give him a look of mock offense. “Listen, I know I’m small, but I’m not that small.”
He comes back around the counter, stopping in front of me. He reaches out, almost hesitantly, and rubs his hands and up and down my arms. “Maybe I should fire up the espresso machine again,” he says, forehead wrinkling in concern. “You’re freezing.”
“If I have coffee now, I will be awake all night,” I say, which is true, but also, I don’t want him to stop. “Anyway, your
hands are warm. This is helping.”
“Good.” He pauses, and then he takes his hands away and pulls his sweatshirt over his head. The T-shirt he’s wearing underneath
hitches up, revealing his ribs. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t had a cigarette since July Fourth, and his edges don’t seem quite
as noticeable now—as though his elbows have become slightly less knobby and his face has gotten slightly fuller.
“Here.” He wriggles his way out of his hoodie and holds it out to me. “Put this on.”
His T-shirt slips down over his torso again, and I realize, rather suddenly, that this is disappointing. I look at the hoodie.
“Won’t you be cold without this?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “And I’ve got a raincoat.”
“I’ll get your hoodie all wet.”
He laughs, that gentle laugh that makes me feel more alive every time I hear it. “I’ve got at least one more hoodie at home,
Harlowe. I’ll live.”
I take the sweatshirt, and I’m about to pull it over my head when he catches my T-shirt.
“Take this off first,” he says. “You’ll just make yourself colder if you trap wet fabric against your skin.”
I set the hoodie on one of the tables and pull off my drenched T-shirt, half turning away from him, suddenly self-conscious.
But as I lay my T-shirt over the back of a chair and reach for the hoodie again, I feel his fingers brush my shoulder.
It ripples through me like an electric shock.
“Sorry.” He pulls back.
I look up at him. He’s leaning toward me, almost imperceptibly, hesitating, bottom lip caught between his teeth. His hand
comes up again, fingers brushing wet strands of hair off my forehead.
The shyness I felt a moment ago vanishes. I wrap a hand around his back, gently pulling him closer, and lean up to kiss him.
He tastes faintly of bitter coffee, and it sends a shudder through me that has nothing to do with how cold and rain-drenched
I am. The kiss turns deeper, slower. His tongue brushes against mine, and I feel like I might melt.
Then he pulls back, shoulders rising. His eyes meet mine. “Do you want to come back to my place?”
His voice is barely more than a whisper, almost drowned out by the rain outside.
I’m not cold anymore. That flame in my chest is spreading through my whole body. I nod, swallowing, my breath hot in my throat.
“Yeah. Okay.”
He turns away without a word, disappearing behind the counter. He returns a moment later, pulling on a somewhat dingy black
raincoat. I quickly grab his hoodie, pulling it over my head. The sleeves fall over my hands. I sweep the hood over my head
and grab my wet T-shirt, balling it in my hands.
“Do you want to ride with me?” Nathan asks.
“Give me your address.” My heart is beating too fast, so close to the surface of my chest I feel like it might escape. “I
can just follow you.”