Chapter 13 #2
Remembering Meredith on the beach, I concluded that game unhinged people.
The corners of Christian’s mouth twitched. He looked both bemused and intrigued, and like he wanted to ask me something. I waited, but no questions came. “Meredith makes excellent potato salad,” he finally said. “Shall we go try some?”
* * *
Eternally friendly, the chef herself waved me over to her picnic table once I’d grabbed a seltzer and made myself a plate. She wore a red-and-white-striped tank suit with jean cutoffs, and her friend Katie sat next to her in a corresponding blue suit with white stars. “Olivia, how are you?”
“Hungry.” I raised my loaded plate. “An older gentleman told me the potato salad was to die for.”
Meredith smiled knowingly, and others at the table laughed before settling into easy conversation.
“Connor, hey!” Wit called later, and I followed his gaze to the make-your-own ice cream sandwich station.
Connor was helping Teddy scoop ice cream onto a palm-sized chocolate chip cookie.
His obnoxious sunglasses still reigned supreme.
He gave us a goofy salute.
“That kid,” Wit said, “is a literal golden retriever.”
Austin chuckled. “His parents raised him well.”
Right, I thought. Austin is Mads’s brother.
“No, I’m serious,” Wit said. “Have you ever met someone that happy?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Katie said lightly. “How about you?”
“Funny.” Wit smirked. “But you know that even I have my moments.”
Meredith coughed. “Moods.”
Austin shrugged after the table laughed. “He’s always been a glass-half-full guy. My sister says he even takes heartbreak well.”
“Maybe he hasn’t ever truly had his heart broken,” I piped up without really thinking about it. Connor caught feelings easily, but he was proving to be an enigma. Had he actually fallen in love with his ex-girlfriends? Or were there so many because he just loved love?
Or the idea of love.
Why can’t I be like that? I thought. Why don’t I want that?
My friends always supported me when I told them I wasn’t hanging out with Rob or CJ or Luca or Trevor anymore, but the way Erica sometimes looked at me once I casually mentioned it to her and my dad…
There was that knot again.
“It’s a fair point, Austin,” Katie said. “Even after that one girl—”
“Okay, Entertainment Tonight.” Meredith winked. “Leave him alone.”
Her friends chuckled before Nick asked about some renovation happening on the Farm, but someone stole my attention. Connor, in the corner of my eye, alone and solemnly gazing out over Oyster Pond.
My heart stirred in my chest; I wasn’t used to his face without a smile.
What is he thinking about? I wondered, and wondered again later, while my dad and I made our own ice cream sandwiches. The sun was slipping in the sky, which meant we couldn’t be too far off from the fireworks.
“This is a mistake,” I told him as he scooped Mad Martha’s peppermint ice cream onto a peanut butter cookie. “Of epic proportions.”
“We’ll see…” he mused, then nodded at my dessert. A hefty scoop of sea salt caramel between two snickerdoodles. “You’re playing it safe.”
“Safe can still mean delicious.”
“Touché.” He smiled. “My mother would go for the white chocolate macadamia nut.” He gestured to the far platter of cookies.
“Oh, definitely,” I said through a bite of bliss. “With raspberry sorbet.”
Annie had never met a sorbet she didn’t like.
“Have you spoken to her?” my dad asked, a little tentatively. “Recently?”
I nodded. “She was watching HGTV this afternoon.”
“Love It or List It?”
“Of course.”
“How’d she seem?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. “She sounded sharp as a tack while telling me about your idyllic fictional childhood in North Carolina.”
One side of his mouth tipped up in a smile. My dad always appreciated an extra dose of humor when it came to Annie’s dementia. It was how he coped.
“What about you?” I realized he and I hadn’t been alone in a while. There were so many people in the Carmichael house, doing so many different things.
“I spoke to her a couple days ago,” he said.
“Not for very long, though.” He took a big bite of his eccentric ice cream sandwich, chewed, and swallowed…
all with a pained expression on his face.
Peppermint and peanut butter together were indeed disgusting.
“She was tired and under the impression I was her gardener. We spoke briefly about her tulip border.” He cleared his throat.
“And her doctor and I touched base this morning.”
“About what?” My eyebrows knitted together. “Her medicine?”
Erica appeared before he could explain. “I am taking Maisie and Bryce back to the house,” she matter-of-factly announced. “It’s getting late.”
“But the fireworks haven’t been set off yet,” I said. “They shouldn’t miss the show…”
Both my siblings were so excited.
“No, they won’t.” My stepmother shook her head. “Jay sets them off with the Fox brothers on Oyster Pond. We’ll see them from the back deck.”
I tried again. “But—”
“They stayed up extremely late last night,” Erica told me. “I want them back on a normal sleeping schedule.”
My dad didn’t argue, which meant the twins really must’ve been on the precipice of overtired. Maisie would be grouchy, and woozy Bryce would fall asleep on his feet. “I’ll take them home,” he offered. “You stay and enjoy the rest of the night.”
By way of a response, Erica smiled and slung her arms around my dad’s neck. “Do you mind wrangling Teddy and Finn too?” she asked after they kissed. “My mother told me Connor is supposed to take them back soon, but I think it’d be nice to give him the night off.”
Connor would never take Teddy and Finn home before the fireworks, I thought.
“I couldn’t agree more,” my dad said. “He’s a hard worker and deserves to have some fun.” He turned to me. “I’ll see you back at the ranch, Liv?”
“Definitely.” I tried not to show my disappointment; fireworks had been my dad’s and my thing, ever since I was a little girl.
Before he married Erica, we’d always take the train into New York and watch the Fourth of July fireworks together on the USS Intrepid.
There was no better place to see all the razzle and dazzle than its flight deck.
Granted, for the last several years we had gone to Haddonfield’s fireworks show, but it was still special.
I summoned a smile and welcomed his hug. “I’ll see you later, Dad.”
Erica walked off with him to help wrangle the kids, and I too set off after grabbing a napkin for my now-dripping dessert. “Hey, Olivia!” someone called, and I turned to see Nick on the dance floor off the deck. “You want to dance?”
The band was currently on break, so someone’s summer playlist blared. I recognized James Taylor. “Where’s Sage?” I called back.
“With her favorite dance partner!” He gestured across the floor, where Luke twirled the future Mrs. Nicholas Carmichael. Despite their uncontrollable smiles and laughter, it looked like they had a solid sense of rhythm.
“I’m a terrible dancer,” Nick added. “But my lifts are epic!”
“Do you know the one from Dirty Dancing?” I joked.
He gave me a look that said, Is that even a question?
Laughing, I started toward him.
* * *
After Nick spun me, dipped me, and even flipped me, I grabbed a water bottle from one of the many drink coolers and gratefully sipped while a white-haired woman with colorful jewelry got on the mic to announce a ten-minute warning for fireworks.
The sun had indeed said its goodbye. “Assume your positions!” she teased.
People migrated all different directions, most of them popping a squat on the lawn and others disappearing down to the beach.
I pictured the twins and Finn and Teddy back across the pond, all settled on the Carmichaels’ back deck together.
Knowing my dad, he’d probably turned on the gas firepit and brought out s’mores supplies.
He might’ve agreed with Erica about a better bedtime, but that didn’t mean the kids couldn’t go out with a bang.
It’s vacation! I imagined him saying. The Fourth of July!
I felt a lump rise in my throat, suddenly wishing I were there too. Why hadn’t I gone with my dad and the twins? Watching the fireworks with them would’ve been just as, if not more, special than watching the show here. It would be closer to tradition.
Wanting to be alone now, I searched for a secluded spot.
The lawn was a patchwork quilt of people and blankets, and all the blue Adirondack chairs were taken.
Clusters of children sat on top of picnic tables while the older crowd held court on the low-slung deck.
I was on the verge of giving up my hope for solitude when Christian Fox caught my eye, standing with Meredith’s grandfather and her grandmother, presumably.
“Looking for the best seat in the house?” Christian asked at the same time I heard a stage-whisper: “Andrew, doesn’t she sort of look like… ”
Grace Kelly, I’d heard it before. “You caught me,” I told Christian. “Any suggestions?”
He nodded once. “The side of the house.”
The side of the house? What kind of view is that?
But I felt I had no choice but to heed his words when he smiled and emphatically pointed to the right. “Thank you!” I walked past the ultimate lineup of grills—gas, charcoal, and a Big Green Egg—before stepping off the deck and rounding the corner of the house. Only to see…
Bursting white hydrangea bushes.
Of course he was joking, I thought, some embarrassment creeping up my neck. What magical view of the sky was waiting around the bend?
It wasn’t until I squinted for dramatic effect that I noticed the hidden rope ladder running down the cedar-shingles. The rope certainly wasn’t pure white anymore, but the ladder still looked sturdy enough to climb.
I told myself to go for it.