Chapter Twenty-Three
My phone buzzes as Nathan and I are walking back to his car from the restaurant, meandering our way down Commercial Street
to his secret parking space behind Cuppa Cove. I let go of his hand to pull my phone out of my pocket. I have a text message
from Rika.
Hey, so Yas and I have totally been meaning to come visit at some point, and we finally found a date we can both take off
work! So . . . we booked this super cute beach shack for next weekend. Hoping that works for you???
I stare at the message. Next weekend?
“What’s up?” Nathan asks.
I look up and realize I’ve stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. People are dodging around us like we’re rocks in a river.
“Sorry. It’s nothing . . . just . . . my friends want to come visit.”
Before the summer is over.
Panic lurches in my stomach. We were just talking about the drive-in closing for the season. I’ve been seeing the signs going up all over Provincetown, and all over Wellfleet. Closing for the season after Labor Day. Limited off-season hours starting September 15.
I knew it was coming. But somehow the hazy long days of August made my sense of time lazy, and I checked my work calendar
every day without really seeing the month slipping away. Without realizing September was just around the corner.
I only have a couple weeks until Labor Day—until my lease of Dina’s cottage is up, and I’m supposed to move on. I have done
exactly zero apartment hunting. At some point, I’m pretty sure I had the idea that I’d drive back to Boston on some weekend
and look at a few places, but I never did. I haven’t even browsed any listings online.
“Do you want your friends to come visit?” Nathan asks.
I glance up at him and then back at my phone. “Yeah, of course. I mean, they’ve been wanting to come out and now the summer’s
almost over so . . . It’ll be great to see them.”
“So what’s wrong?” he asks quietly.
“Nothing,” I say. “It just made me realize I have a lot of my own planning to do.”
He’s silent, watching me. And then he lets his breath out, tucking his hands in his back pockets. “Right,” he says.
“Nathan . . .” But I don’t know what to say next.
He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, his shoulders hunching. “We don’t have to do this right now. It’s fine.” He pulls
his keys out of his pocket. “You want me to drop you off at Dina’s?”
We hadn’t discussed plans for tonight. We hadn’t said anything about whether we’d watch another movie, like we did last night,
my feet tucked under his legs while we both attempted one of Rika’s queer readings on an old noir film. We hadn’t even said
whether we’d end up at his place at all.
But I still feel a tug of disappointment. “Yeah. Sure.”
He nods. And then he holds out a hand. I grasp it, tangling my fingers with his, and we walk toward his car. He’s warm, his arm soft against mine, but he feels suddenly miles away.
I type out a reply to Rika as I walk up the flagstone path to the cottage: Next weekend sounds great. Are you guys taking the ferry?
She texts back almost immediately. Yay!! Yes, I was planning on it.
Cool, I text. Let me know your plans and I can pick you up.
I send it all off before I can think too hard about why I can’t bring myself to add an exclamation point.
The sun is sinking behind the dunes when I reach the cottage to find Sir Duke waiting for me on the steps. He lets out a plaintive
meow when he sees me, coming up to the front door like he expects to be let in.
“Come on, bud.” I nudge him gently out of the way with my foot. “You know you’re not supposed to come in here.”
He turns his orange eyes up at me, giving me what I’m quite sure is a glare, before waltzing away into the bushes, his fat
tail held high.
I ditch my shoes just inside the door and head straight for the dining room, where my laptop sits on the table. I open a browser
tab, pulling up Zillow, Craigslist, every other rental website I can think of.
How did this sneak up on me? I’m going to miss the window for September first leases. And given how many universities there
are in Boston, those are already hard enough to pin down.
Of course, I know exactly how it snuck up on me. I spent weekends at the pond. I took walks on the beach. I played kickball and went to the drive-in and the Old Colony Tap. I spent my evenings with Nathan and I kept telling myself there was tomorrow. There was next weekend. There was later.
I stare at the search options for Zillow. I still only have vague ideas of a budget. I haven’t nailed down a neighborhood.
I haven’t decided whether I want to be close to everything I know, even if it means I might run into Jackson, or pick someplace
far away and new.
I push myself up, trying to shake off the fizzy feeling of panic, and go into the kitchen in search of tea. Some nice and
calming peppermint tea. Maybe that will help.
“There you are,” my dad says, from his usual spot by the sink. “I know it’s late, but what about that coffee?”
“Not right now.” I push past him, grabbing the box of peppermint tea down from the cupboard.
He turns to look at me, a vague frown on his face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me.” I pick up the small kettle and fill it with water, turning on the stove. “I just don’t want coffee
right now. I’m having tea. And I’m busy.”
“You’re here visiting,” my dad says. “What could you possibly be busy with?”
I grab a mug and stick the tea bag into it. “It doesn’t matter,” I say shortly. “I’m just busy and now isn’t a good time.”
On other days, by the second or third time I’ve said no, my dad would turn around, looking miffed or hurt, and go back to
washing dishes. But tonight, for some reason, he dries off his hands on the towel and folds his arms.
“I want to spend time with you on this visit, Harlowe,” he insists. “We’ve got a few days. So how about coffee?”
“You don’t want to spend time with me, Dad. If you wanted to spend time with me, I wouldn’t get two-hour lunches whenever
there happen to be cheap flights to Boston. I’m honestly not sure you ever wanted to spend time with me.”
He stares at me in surprise, and then his brow furrows and he turns away. “Then why do you think I’m asking if you want coffee?”
I pause in the middle of adjusting the gas on the stove. “What?”
“Never mind,” my dad says, waving a hand. “You clearly don’t have time.”
But his words stick in my brain. A memory trickles back, like water seeping under a door.
The morning after that first night in Michigan, five years ago, when my dad made salmon, I walked into the kitchen, and Dad
asked if I wanted coffee. And I had no real reason to say no, except that I still felt hurt and vaguely angry at him, and
like I was devolving into a petulant, angry teenager who was somehow competing with Kendra.
So I said no.
He seemed a little disappointed, but he went back to washing dishes, and I made my own breakfast, even though I had a bit
of a headache that coffee definitely would have fixed.
It was an amazingly bratty thing to do, and I felt incredibly immature, but I was too stubborn to take it back.
And then I forgot about it, because I tried to forget everything about that trip.
I turn to my dad. “Is there something important about this?”
My dad is still facing the sink, fiddling with the faucet handle. “What do you mean?”
My mind churns. “What is it about the coffee, Dad? Are you trying to tell me something? Is there something important about
this day that you’re reliving?”
“Well, I was thinking about having a go at fixing those pipes,” he says. “You could give me a hand.”
“No, not the pipes, Dad,” I say in frustration. “This already happened. You asking me about coffee. This happened five years
ago. So why are you here, asking me again now? Is there something important about this?”
He turns around, frowning at me. “What are you on about? I wasn’t even in Michigan five years ago.”
“Oh, for the love of . . .” I pick up the kettle, even though it hasn’t whistled yet, and pour steaming water into my tea
mug. “Okay. Fine. Forget I said anything.” I pick up my mug and go back out to the dining room, closing the bifold door before
he can argue with me.
I try to focus on my laptop, looking at my bank account and my paychecks and crunching numbers to figure out my budget as
the room grows darker and darker around me. Staring at maps on Zillow and listings on Craigslist. Jotting down neighborhoods
and what I think I want in a place, like I’ve put any thought into it at all.
But I can’t stop playing that memory over and over again in my head—my dad, in his kitchen in Michigan, asking me if I want
coffee. It’s all foggy and faded, like staring through a dirty window.
Why is the house showing me this moment?
I shut my laptop, rubbing my forehead and staring again at the chair across from me where Professor MacAndrew used to sit.
Was there something important about that moment too? Some reason the house picked it, and if I can just think what that reason
might be, I’ll be able to figure out why Professor MacAndrew vanished?
I try to recall every piece of our conversation on the Fourth of July, looking for the piece that mattered . . . but nothing
stands out.
I still don’t understand any of this. The summer is almost over, and I suppose I should be relieved that I’ll finally be free
of the uninvited roommates. But all I feel is that vague churn of panic.
A vague scratching under my skin, a vague sense like I left a light on somewhere—a feeling that I’m missing something.
I take a last gulp of tea and then push my chair back. I want to shower and collapse into bed.
But once I get into the bathroom, Jackson seems more insistent than usual too. Just like my dad.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he says, facing the wall with his eyes closed and his arms folded, while I peel off my clothes and turn on the shower. “I mean, what am I supposed to think, Harlowe? Because it feels hard not to take it personally at this point.”