Chapter 5
JULIA WAS NOT PREPARED for the way the smell of the Pacific Ocean would make her cry.
But as she stepped out of the taxi in front of Grandma Vera’s house on Ocean Boulevard, it was exactly that smell, that dark, chilly, sea-salt scent rushing into her nose that suddenly made her let out an unexpected sob.
This smell. This ocean. This house. It was her childhood.
Her sisters. Her grandmother. And the realization, quite suddenly, that Grandma Vera was gone now forever.
She had left Julia, Emily, and Nora this house, and Julia, as the oldest and frankly most equipped to deal with these sorts of things, had been the one tasked with flying out here, figuring out exactly what to do with it.
Grandma Vera had willed them the house under the condition that the three of them use it to spend time together.
It was a nice thought, if not altogether impractical.
Julia was halfway through her last semester of law school at Georgetown.
Emily had just graduated from Smith and was spending the spring in France “studying art.” And Nora was a sophomore at Northwestern.
It wasn’t like they were all about to stop what they were doing, pack up their belongings, move out here, and live together in Grandma Vera’s old house.
In their twenties, they all had their own separate lives, dreams, and goals, none of which involved them permanently relocating to this sleepy seaside island off the coast of San Diego.
Even their visits these last few years had been tough to schedule and manage.
Unlike when they were kids, when a trip to Grandma Vera’s had felt like an amazing adventure, last May Emily had spent most of the week buzzed, Nora had been reading romance novels on the porch while complaining she was bored, and Julia had helped Grandma Vera pick the ripe tomatoes from her garden, can them into sauce, and trudge over to the farmer’s market to sell.
That was not the kind of life Julia aspired to live once she graduated law school.
She had no idea what the three of them were supposed to do with this house.
And now, actually standing on the porch, inhaling the scent of the ocean, she found herself furiously brushing tears off her cheeks, thinking about how empty it would be inside without Grandma Vera.
She was what had made this house, this island, so special.
And Julia couldn’t even bring herself to unlock the front door and walk inside.
“Hey, Jules.” The sound of Nate’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she put her bags down by the front door and turned.
He stood on his own porch next door, held up his hand, and waved.
He was wearing a half-zipped wet suit, his dark hair still dripping wet, slicked back, flattening his curls.
He’d just gotten out of the ocean. A wave of memories rolled over her; every summer she came here to visit as a teenager, Nate, it seemed, had been perpetually getting out of the ocean in his wet suit. “Long time no see,” he added.
She nodded. “How long has it been…?” Her voice trailed off.
The truth was, she remembered exactly the last time she had seen him.
Almost three years earlier. And she blushed thinking about it now.
The way he’d whispered into her hair, his lips brushing against her earlobe as he hugged her goodbye on this very porch.
Don’t let law school make you forget how amazing you are.
They were no longer dating by then, but still, a hug from Nate always seemed to make her feel things.
“Too long,” he said now, and he grinned for a moment, as if he was sharing the same memory. Maybe he was. Then his expression quickly turned serious again. “I’m really sorry about Vera.”
“I know. Thanks for your condolences,” she said, which felt like a stupid thing to say to Nate, but it popped out of her automatically nonetheless.
“She was the best,” Nate added sincerely.
Grandma Vera was the best, and Julia knew she’d helped Nate out a lot when his own mom got sick, then died, when he was in college.
When he’d moved back into his childhood home, for good, last year after dropping out of med school, Julia had felt assured knowing that Nate was right next door if Grandma Vera ever needed anything.
She’d never told him that though, and she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud now either.
“Where’s the rest of the Trouble Trio?” Nate asked.
Julia grinned at his use of his adolescent nickname for the three of them. For a moment, it took her back to that summer he’d kissed her for the first time. She cleared her throat and tried to push that memory away. “Em is in France for a few months and Nora has school this week,” Julia said.
“So you’re out here all alone?”
Julia nodded. “Yep, just me.” She had flown out over her spring break, but scheduling aside, neither Emily nor Nora had offered to join her.
Julia had told them she’d figure out the details and her sisters had gladly agreed.
Grandma Vera had also left behind very specific wishes, no funeral—she wanted her ashes scattered in the Pacific, which all three of them had agreed they would do together at some later date, when Emily was back from France.
But she didn’t tell Nate any of that. Instead, she said, “I didn’t realize how hard it would be to actually walk in her house, all by myself. ”
“Do you want me to get changed? Walk in with you?” Nate offered.
She shook her head. “No, I just… need a minute.” She wasn’t sure if that was actually true, but she supposed she would have to make it so. She couldn’t spend the next week out here on the porch.
“Well, at least come over here for dinner tonight,” Nate said.
She chewed on her bottom lip, understanding that dinner with Nate was probably the world’s worst idea. “I don’t want to bother you,” she said.
He smiled and shook his head. “Jules, I haven’t seen you in years. Vera just died and you’re all alone. If I know you’re eating next door by yourself, that’s what will bother me.”
When he put it like that, she suddenly felt like she was going to start crying again.
An hour later, she’d unpacked, thrown on clean jeans, a sweater, and a little lipstick, and she found herself knocking on Nate’s front door.
It took him a beat to answer and as she waited on his porch, she considered whether it was smarter to flee than to actually go inside.
But then he flung the door open and he was right there, in front of her, showered and changed into jeans and a fitted T-shirt.
Close enough for her to notice he still smelled like a mixture of the ocean and sandalwood aftershave.
“Come on in.” He opened the door wider; she kicked off her flip-flops by the entryway and followed him inside. “I have some shrimp on the grill out back. Can I get you a beer?”
She desperately wanted a beer, but what popped out of her mouth instead was, “I have a boyfriend.” She did not, however, elaborate on the details, that Ted was in her law school class, that they had been dating for nine months already, and that he was exceedingly handsome in a very classic, clean-cut sense of the word.
Nothing at all like Nate, who had always been handsome in his natural messiness: hair that was a little too long, smile that was a little too lopsided, square jaw that was a little too unshaven.
Nate walked to the fridge and pulled out two cans of Bud Light, a beer no one in her circle of DC law school friends would be caught dead drinking.
He opened both cans, handed her one, and shot her that crooked grin.
“I’m seeing someone too,” he said nonchalantly.
Of course he was. Anything that had happened between them in summers past could be chalked up to teenage hormones.
But now they were both bona fide adults, in real relationships.
She exhaled, releasing a breath of relief, and took a long swig of the beer, swallowing it too quickly, feeling it warm all the way down to her toes.
Nate put his beer down on the island. “I’m gonna check the shrimp.” He walked toward the backyard. When he opened the door, the delicious barbecue smell wafted into the kitchen and suddenly she was starving. She’d eaten nothing all day, save a bag of pretzels on the flight.
He returned only a minute later with a plate of shrimp skewers he placed on the island.
He pulled a green salad from the fridge and gestured for her to have a seat on one of the barstools, where he’d laid two place settings.
He sat down next to her, close enough that she could smell his salty sandalwood scent, and she took another long sip of beer.
“So how was Vera’s house?” he asked, as he put shrimp and salad on her plate. “It’s been a while since I’ve been over there.”
Grandma Vera had been vital and independent up until the end, not the kind of older woman who’d needed any help, not even from her generous and handsome next-door neighbor.
She’d died in her sleep, at the age of eighty-two, of an apparent heart attack.
The day before that, she had called Julia, Emily, and Nora separately and regaled each of them with a story about that morning’s beach spin class, which, much to her delight, had featured all music by Madonna.
When they had a three-way (very expensive) call two days later, connecting them in DC, Evanston, and Paris to cry over the news about Grandma Vera’s passing, all three sisters could not stop talking about the spin class.
Madonna! Nora had exclaimed, her voice shaking with tears. Who dies of a heart attack after biking to “Material Girl”?
Spin class might make me want to kill myself, Emily had deadpanned from across the Atlantic.
While Julia had added: At least Grandma Vera lived doing the things she wanted to do, right up till the very end.
And then they’d all murmured in agreement to that.