Chapter 7
Oliver sat with Natasha out on the deck of the local tavern. He loved sitting out there after a day on the waves, listening to the rhythm of the water with a drink in his hand. Tonight, his concentration stayed on the pink clouds off on the horizon.
“Everything’s sticky,” Natasha complained, wiping down the menu with a wet wipe from her Fendi purse.
“Hmm.” Oliver shrugged, keeping his attention on the water. “You want to order something?”
Her glass of wine sat full. “I thought you wanted to eat out?”
“This place has great burgers,” he said.
“Look, Oliver.” Natasha placed her hands in her lap. “I get you’re trying this teaching thing, trying to figure things out, but like, I”—she looked around the deck—“thought you meant like a nice place.”
Tourists and locals alike sat at tables, enjoying lobsters, clams, and beer. The atmosphere was boisterous, joyful. A man sang with his guitar in the corner of the deck while the wait staff, in T-shirts and cutoffs, ran drinks to their tables. Oliver loved Billy’s Tavern.
“This place is my favorite!” he said, holding out his arms at the crowd.
To say Oliver loved Blueberry Bay would be an understatement. He had dreamed of living there full-time, but none of the Abbotts lived at their summer home in Blueberry Bay. They vacationed there. The long drive made it hard to go on a whim. The turbulent weather gave them only a few summer months of decent weather, then the large house would usually be closed for the rest of the year. Until Oliver’s grandfather had retired and moved up there full-time.
When Oliver quit medical school, he moved up there to figure things out and stumbled upon the job at Blueberry Bay School—the smallest school he’d ever seen. One class per grade all the way until high school, when they are bussed to another small town.
The place had been a culture shock at first. Where he grew up, in the suburbs of Boston, his class sizes were bigger. His graduating class was larger than the whole school district put together. People worked in the city and drove back to their houses, not really getting to know their neighbors. Unlike Blueberry Bay, where everyone knew everyone, even strangers moving to town.
The problem was he took the teaching job as a place holder to figure things out. Like staying in Blueberry Bay. It had been part of his figure-out-his-life plan, and he was nowhere closer than the day he came and Natasha had continuously brought this fact up every time she came for a visit.
“I mean, it’s adorable, but for like, a drink,” she said, cleaning her fingers off with the wet wipe. “I want to eat something…fresher. Not deep fried and stuffed.”
A waitress walked by with a cast iron skillet of lobster pie with cracker stuffing on top.
“That looks delicious,” he said, looking at the plate’s destination.
That’s when he saw her. Muriel and her family sat on the back side of the restaurant. He hadn’t even noticed them over there.
“Look who it is,” he said, pointing to Muriel.
Natasha tilted in her chair, getting a better look. “Oh, great, surfer girl.”
Oliver heard Natasha’s tone change but decided to ignore it. She’d been annoyed with him the whole time she had been in Maine.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up from the table. “I’m going to see if her arm is alright.”
“Of course, you are.” Natasha placed her elbows on her chair’s armrest. With a slight eyeroll, she said, “Take your time.”
She dropped her napkin onto the table.
“Would you like to come with me?” he asked.
“So I can watch her flirt with my boyfriend? No, thank you.”
“She wasn’t flirting.”
“Sure.” She leaned back in the chair, her hands still perched together, her skinny elbows like ice picks on the armrests.
Oliver sighed, not sure what to do. He wanted to see if Muriel had broken her arm. He should be able to talk to other women and not be accused of them flirting with him. The day of surfing had been about his students, not Muriel.
“Can we go after your visit?” she asked.
He nodded. “Sure. We can go wherever you want.”
“Good,” she said, sliding out of her chair. “I’m going to the bathroom, and I’ll meet you outside.”
“Sure,” he said, looking at his half-drunk cold beer.
Natasha took off and left him with the bill, not that he minded, of course. He’d pay whether she offered or not, but the trust fund heiress and part-time model earned a monthly allowance that toppled his meager teacher salary. Never once did she stop and say, “Hey, I know you work hard, thanks for paying.” Instead, she left as though it was assumed.
He grabbed the waitress and put the bill on his tab, then threw a generous tip onto the table for his server and headed toward Muriel.
He frowned as soon as he saw the cast.
“Oh no,” he said as he reached their table. “I take it it’s broken?”
Muriel turned around and a huge smile broke across her face. And he felt something pulse in his chest. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Something he had hoped to never feel again, if he was honest with himself.
He couldn’t help but smile right back; Muriel was a beautiful woman, after all. And a teacher, coincidentally or not, added a level of connection he didn’t have with anyone in his life.
Maybe Natasha was right.
She cradled her arm and nodded. “A hairline fracture along the radius. What are you doing here?”
Her smile grew as he stared back into her green eyes, and now that small pulse grew into an electric vibration.
Dang.
He noticed a glass of beer sitting in front of her.
“Is this a celebration?” he asked the group.
“My babies are back for a visit,” Meredith said, holding out her hands to Muriel and a woman who could be considered a lookalike. “Come join us!”
“Yes, join us!” the group sang out, and they talked all at once about how he should find a seat.
“Here, Mr. Abbott,” Kyle said, pulling a chair from another table and setting it next to Muriel.
Oliver laughed at their enthusiasm. “No, thank you. That’s very nice, but I can’t,” he said to the group. “But I wish I could.” He looked back at his empty table. “I was just about to leave.”
But everything in his body said he should stay. Have a nice night with these people and get to know them a little bit more.
But Natasha came out of the bathroom and shot daggers from her eyes. She didn’t move from the tavern’s front entrance.
“I better get going,” he said, a bit embarrassed she couldn’t be bothered to say hello.
Natasha had the classic beauty that only a few women in the whole world possessed. Millions of men would kill to be in his situation. But as he said his well-wishes and goodbyes, he wished more than anything he could’ve stayed and talked to the teacher and her family.
Natasha met him outside, and when she got inside his truck, she said, “I just want to go home now.”
“We can go to a restaurant of your choice,” he said, not sure what the problem was now. But that was the thing about Natasha, he never knew what bothered her.
She pouted in the passenger seat the whole way home, and Oliver didn’t really know what to do at this point. He was over Natasha’s tantrums and the silly things that offended her. Muriel had broken her arm while surfing with all of them. Why would Natasha not come over with him to see if she was okay? Why wouldn’t Natasha want to mix with the locals? Meet some of his students?
“I just said goodbye to her,” he said, not sure what he had done now. “No one was flirting with anyone.”
“Everyone thinks you’re losing your mind, Oliver,” Natasha said, turning in her seat. “I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life, too, you know. I need to know if this is like, forever. Because I can’t do forever here.”
He took in a deep breath. When had things gotten so bad between them? “Look, Natasha, you’ve been really patient through all of this.” He began tapping the steering wheel. “But, I’m happy here. I’m happy at my job. I like being part of this little community, and I’m not sure I want to go back to the city.”
Natasha sat back in her seat and stared out the windshield for what felt like forever and then began to cry. “You are such a jerk! You decide this now, after making me wait a full year for you to figure things out!”
“What if we lived here?” he said. “My grandfather would love for us to stay with him.”
“Are you joking?” She covered her eyes with her hands.
“You love the ocean as much as I do. We had so much fun today.”
“Oliver.” She didn’t let him finish, dropping her hands hard on the seats. “I want to go home. Now.”
“We are home,” he said.
“No!” She screamed this. “I want to go back to Boston.”
“Natasha, come on,” he said as calmly as possible. “I’m figuring things out.”
Oliver stared out at the large summer home that had welcomed presidents and foreign prime ministers, along with famous actors and athletes. Oliver’s family’s prestigious background of politics and high-profile family legacies had been a big reason he could have someone like Natasha wait a full year for him. She wanted the name and all the things that came with being an Abbott, but apparently not the family summer home.
“You said you were going to do the doctor thing.” She slapped the seat with her hands.
He had been thinking about going back to medical school, but no matter how long he sat out in the water, trying to contemplate what was best for him, he couldn’t see anything other than his happiness here in Blueberry Bay. He didn’t want to go back to the grind of the city and medical school. He didn’t want to go back to living in anxiety about whether or not he was wasting his time. He didn’t want to go back to when he barely had time for Natasha even on the weekends.
In Blueberry Bay, time meant something else entirely. It was slower, for one. Here, Oliver felt like he had more time for everything. He walked to work most days and had more free time than on his days commuting on the T in the city. Regularly, he’d stop in the market on his way home to pick something up for him and his grandfather for dinner—mostly fish. Good, fresh fish.
Almost every day he’d hike or walk along the beach. He’d take the shortcuts through the coves when the weather cooperated, and even when it didn’t. At night, he’d sit by the fireplace with his grandfather and read or correct papers.
What wasn’t to like?
Unless you wanted to shop at Hermès or Bloomingdale’s like Natasha. And go to fancy dinner parties with other people that like Hermès and Bloomingdale’s.
“I never meant to stay. It’s just that I really like my life here,” he said. “I really like my job. I’m really happy.”
“Your life without me, you mean?” Natasha started shaking her head. “I was warned about you. So many times.”
“You were warned?” Oliver wasn’t really asking. He knew where Natasha was going with this.
“Yes.” She sat up. “From other women. They said you wouldn’t settle down. That you’d fly away like Peter Pan. I just didn’t think it would be on a surfboard in Maine.”
“You love to surf!” he said.
“In Turks and Caicos or Hawaii, not some insignificant no-name, no-spa town!” She folded her arms in a huff. “Seriously. You can’t even get good coffee without smelling like fish.”
“Now you’re exaggerating,” Oliver said. “Come on, Natasha, it’s beautiful!”
He held out his arms. Off in the distance, he could see the light passing over the water from the lighthouse on a tiny island by itself in the middle of the bay.
Natasha opened the car door, got out, and slammed it shut.
She pounded her feet down the seashell-gravel drive all the way up the front entrance steps and inside.
Oliver stood facing his grandparents’ summer house. The only constant in his whole life. The one place he could count on time after time. After his parents’ divorce, after all his friends and he had left for college, after his parents moved away from Massachusetts, and after he left medical school, time and time again he retreated to his childhood playground, where dreams and nature’s magic revitalized him.
He followed Natasha into the house, knowing her tantrum wasn’t over, but he did have a feeling this might be it. She had been waiting for a year for him to go back to medical school. He understood this weekend might be their breaking point, but should he give up his own happiness for hers?
He walked into the house. He could hear her heels clicking down the hall toward the kitchen. Thank goodness his grandfather was away. He hated hearing shoes in his summer home.
“Natasha, wait,” he said.
She didn’t turn around. He heard her open the fridge, then saw the bottle of wine in her hands when he walked in.
“One glass?” he said, seeing only one on the counter.
She pulled out her other hand from the fridge, and she held another wineglass. “I always think of you, Oliver.”
Ouch.
“I think of you, too” he said, then waited to see what she thought of this comment. Maybe he was a bit selfish wanting to stay in Maine all this time.
“I thought you were going to tell me you’re moving back to the city this weekend, and I’m just realizing you have no intention whatsoever.” Natasha dumped the wine into the glass all the way to the rim, but let it sit on the counter as Oliver processed what she had said.
“You thought I was moving back to Boston?” he asked, completely and utterly blindsided by this information.
“I thought we’d be engaged by now,” she said.
He thought about it. He didn’t think he wanted to get married. Not again. “Oh.”
“Oh?” She threw up her free hand. “How did I not see the huge red flags?”
“Red flags?” He sat on the stool, grabbing the empty glass of wine and pouring himself some.
“You never settle down, your whole life. You bounce around from this school to that profession to that girl. You’re never happy,” she said. “I should’ve listened to my mother.”
“What did your mother say?” he asked. “I thought Vi loved me.”
“We all love you, Oliver,” Natasha said. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Just not in Maine,” he said.
“Definitely not in Maine or when you’re looking at other women or changing your career path again.” She sighed heavily. “You’re never going to grow up, are you?”
“That’s not at all true.” He shook his head. “I have a job.”
“I think you took that job so you could hang out with kids all day,” she said. She walked away from her drink. “I have to go pack.”
“Natasha, don’t leave,” he groaned. “Stay and we’ll have a nice weekend. You’ll see how great it is here.”
“You totally don’t get it.” She turned around to face him.
Then she dumped her glass of wine in the sink and walked out of the kitchen and up the back staircase.
Oliver stood frozen in place. Did he go after her? Beg for her forgiveness? Live by ultimatums?
Or was he exactly what she said he was? A grown Peter Pan who insisted on breaking women’s hearts.
He listened as he heard a door slam, then grabbed his glass of wine and sat outside on the back porch. Even with the sound of the Atlantic Ocean in the background, as he sat down, he could hear Natasha moving around upstairs. He had learned through all the different women he had dated not to argue with a woman when she was upset. Otherwise, he’d say something even more upsetting, and things would get worse. Better to back off, go for deeper water, and give her some space.
He rested back into the cushion of the seat. His favorite spot in his grandparents’ house, the screened-in back porch. Beyond the porch, a patio and lawn with a gorgeous view overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The small peninsula of land jetted out into the sea, giving a 360-degree view from everywhere. His eyes went straight to the lighthouse.
Natasha’s light turned off. He didn’t hear anything after that. Would she still be mad in the morning? With her, he wasn’t so sure. What he was sure about was that he was nowhere near ready to get married. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get married at all. Look at his marriage. Look at his parents. Nothing good came from that marriage. And they’d probably agree.
The only marriage he saw work had been his grandparents, and now his grandfather lived alone in a house on the sea to drown out his heartbreak.
Well, not technically alone since Oliver lived there with him.
He thought about the beautiful Muriel.
She couldn’t surf, but she did know how to swim…unbeknownst to her family, apparently, but she could swim. She just couldn’t hold her stance on top of a board, but he could get her there.
Maybe he was a jerk like Natasha said, because he couldn’t get his mind off Muriel.
That’s when he heard a car skid up the drive, kicking out the pieces of shells in their tires. “Who’s coming to the house this late?”
He walked over to the window and couldn’t see anything but the headlights glaring into the house.
“Julian,” Oliver groaned as he got up from his chair. His younger brother, of course, showed up at the most random times.
“Hello!”
Oliver heard Jules yell out into nothing but the house. “Oliver Hawthorne Abbott, the Great, I seek your presence this instance!”
Oliver grumbled something foul and headed toward the front hallway. Natasha stood at the top of the spiral staircase, holding the balcony’s railing.
“Hello, Natasha,” Jules sung out. No one else seemed to be with him. “Tell me your handsome other half is somewhere close by!”
“You’ll have to find your brother yourself,” she said, spinning around on her heel and walking down the hall.
Oliver listened for the door to shut.
Slam!
“Looks like you’re having a nice night,” Jules said as soon as Oliver walked out of the shadows and into the light of the front hallway’s chandelier. The grand entrance had hardly been used more than a few times over the past year. They usually used the side entrance, with the porch that went directly into the kitchen.
“Why is it you always show up at the worst possible times?” Oliver embraced Jules with both arms and held him for a long time. “When did you get back to the States?”
“Barely a week ago,” Jules said.
“Glad you’re back.” Oliver patted him on the shoulder. “Gramps has a bottle of whiskey in his study that I was just about to break into.”
“You read my mind,” Jules said, following Oliver into their grandfather’s study and shutting the door behind them. “What’s with Tasha?”
“I think we broke up,” Oliver said, pouring the amber liquor into a crystal glass that cost more than his monthly salary.
“Again?” Jules said, taking the glass with nothing else added. “Well then, I declare we celebrate your recent bachelorhood and go to Billy’s Tavern.”
“I can’t go out,” Oliver said quietly. “Not with Natasha this upset with me.”
“What did you do?” Jules whispered back.
Oliver shrugged. “She thought we were going to get engaged soon.”
“Oh…yikes.” Jules shook his head.
Oliver stared at the wall. “I had no clue.”
This made Jules break into laughter. “It’s good to be back.”
Oliver held up his glass. “To brotherly love.”
“The only love I trust,” Jules said, swiping the drink down. He fell into the leather sofa and crossed his legs. “So, you didn’t know you were proposing?”
Jules had a twinkle of delight in his eye at his brother’s troubles.
Oliver sat down in the large winged-back leather chair that usually only their grandfather sat in.
“She wants me to be a doctor,” he said. “She doesn’t like this lifestyle. Me teaching, living in Maine.”
“I mean, can you blame her?” Jules stretched out on the couch. “You picked her up at Copley Plaza.”
“She told me she loved Maine.” Oliver shrugged. “She’s just not that into me.”
“She wanted you to propose!” Jules laughed out loud. “You have no clue.”
“That’s what she said,” Oliver said. This made Jules laugh even harder. “No, but really, she doesn’t like that I’m a teacher, she doesn’t like Maine, and she hates trivia night.”
“Get rid of her then,” Jules said, heartlessly. “Do you think you hang on to people just because you don’t want to have a negative interaction?”
“Stop trying to be my therapist,” Oliver said to his brother. He knew where he was going with this. “You’re the last person who should be talking about relationships.”
“Just because I refuse to settle down doesn’t mean I don’t know relationships,” Jules said. “I’ve grown up watching how not to be married, with Mom and Dad, well, then there’s you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Oliver was about to say something when he heard Natasha come down the staircase and then the front door slam shut.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up from the chair, but out the window, he saw Natasha getting into her car. He stood, watching her drive away.
“Looks like we can go out after all,” Jules said.