Chapter 18
Eighteen
The next morning, Connor and I left the house after breakfast. “Where are you two headed?” my dad asked, and in response, I showed him Annie’s watercolor of the Aquinnah Cliffs.
He carefully studied it, the expression on his face both mesmerized and puzzled.
Captivated by the small painting’s intricate details but probably confused why Annie never displayed it for all to see. It was gorgeous.
He handed the watercolor back to me and smiled.
Do you want to come? I almost asked, but I knew he and Erica had plans to take the twins on a boat ride around Edgartown Harbor with Ashley and the boys.
The sky was so blue and the sun burned so bright that not even Connor’s roofless Jeep stopped us from sweating on the way to the western end of the island.
“Looks like we aren’t the only great minds,” Connor commented while we searched for a parking spot.
There seemed to be tourists everywhere. A family of five bobbed in bucket hats toward the cliffs’ historic brick lighthouse.
Gay Head Light, I’d learned on Wikipedia.
Back in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Aquinnah had apparently been known as “Gay Head.”
I could imagine all the jokes.
Connor maneuvered his Jeep in between a dusty Subaru Crosstrek and a black G-Wagon, the spacing between the cars so tight that I had to leap down through the trunk.
“Nine-point-eight,” Connor quipped after offering me his hand to ensure I stuck my landing.
Smiling, I laced our fingers together, and we set off for the iconic overlook.
Nearby, there were a series of small, cedar-shingled souvenir and snack shops. It hadn’t hit me how thirsty I was until I spotted a sign for freshly squeezed lemonade. Suddenly, I felt parched. “Should we get a roadie?” I pointed out the sign to Connor. The line wasn’t that long.
Ten minutes later, we climbed the overlook’s steps with refreshing drinks in hand.
Sweat slipped down my back, but the lemonade packed a punch, its icy sweetness soon spinning through my veins.
My body felt lighter, my head cooler. I started sucking it down so quickly that I didn’t notice one of the overlook’s warped steps.
“Whoa there!” Connor’s arm slid around my waist before I could totally trip.
My heart skipped as he raised a comically inquisitive eyebrow. “Do I need to confiscate that drink?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
Fellow tourists greeted us up on the wide plank observation deck, their phones raised to snap pictures while a few children looked through mega binoculars.
My pulse began to pound once Connor and I weaved our way toward the edge, and not solely because his hand rested on the small of my back, gently guiding me.
The Aquinnah Cliffs were breathtaking, even more beautiful in person than in Annie’s painting.
The bluffs practically rolled into the glimmering ocean, burnt orange and red clay streaks shining bright against the blue sky backdrop and surrounding tall green grass and yellow flowers in full bloom. “Wow,” I whispered.
“Wow,” Connor concurred, then motioned for me to give him my phone. “Let’s get this photo shoot started…”
“How do they look?” I asked afterward. He’d taken a burst, of course, even crouching down for a couple shots.
“Eh.” He shrugged. “Maybe one or two good ones.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing he was mocking me. “Hopefully there are one or two good ones,” I’d said at the Whaling Church, his reply making me now blush instead of flush.
You know you’re gorgeous, right?
Now, someone tapped his shoulder. A petite woman in a sun visor and sunglasses with a pair of binoculars around her neck. “Would you like me to take a picture of you two?”
“That would be great!” Connor smiled. “It saves us a selfie.”
She gestured for him to hand over his phone. We moved to stand side by side by the cliff’s edge, Connor wrapping his arm around my shoulders. His skin nearly scorched mine, but I didn’t hesitate before leaning into him. “Say cheese!” our photographer shouted.
We indulged her, kind of. “Provolone!” I called at the same time Connor went, “Mozzarella!”
We jolted out of our pose, eyes locking as if to say, What was that?
“It’s from when I was a kid,” Connor said. “I wanted to make my mom laugh. After Liam was born, she was sad for a while.” He half-smiled. “What about you?”
“Annie,” I said. She’d later introduced me to fancy cheese plates.
And you should call her today, I told myself.
“Eh, not great, kids…” the paparazzo told us. “Look at the camera next time!”
Connor gave her an affirmative thumbs-up, and I reached up to take his hand, threading our fingers together. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught his lips twitch up before spreading into a smile.
We gave say cheese everything we had.
“Smoked Gouda!” I shouted as Connor went, “Wisconsin cheddar!”
And then we started laughing like we were the funniest people on the island.
* * *
There were a handful of cars in the driveway when we got back, but the house was empty, save for the dogs sprawled out on the cool kitchen floor. “They’re all at the beach, right?” I asked Swede as I gave him some belly rubs.
His response was a huge yawn.
Sure enough, Connor and I checked the dock to find the Boston Whaler gone. “Crap,” I said after squinting to see it anchored on the far side of Oyster Pond. “How are we going to get over there now?”
The obvious answer was to text Nick and ask if he could putter back and get us, but I didn’t want to interrupt his Sunday soaking up the sun. Should we just set up camp on the small beach here?
“I’ve got it,” Connor said. “Let’s get our stuff!”
We raced back to the house and split up once inside, Connor retreating to Summer Camp and me hurrying upstairs to my new room.
I changed into a bikini and threw on a crocheted cover-up before grabbing my beach tote.
On my way back through the kitchen, I grabbed water bottles from the fridge and some fruit salad left over from breakfast. I also filled a Ziploc bag with Sage’s homemade granola. It was addicting.
Connor beat me back to the dock, now in blue swim trunks and a white Notre Dame T-shirt. He hadn’t rubbed all the sunscreen in on his face, seemingly too eager to tug a green canoe and pair of oars out of the small boathouse. “Oh my god,” I said. “I haven’t canoed since camp.”
Just short of a decade ago.
“That makes two of us,” he said as my stomach started swishing with excitement. “But I think I remember how…”
Instead of setting off from the dock, we positioned the canoe on the beach, in Oyster Pond’s shallows.
I loaded our beach bags and towels, then I climbed while Connor held the canoe steady.
We’d decided I would sit in the front and he’d be in the back.
One thing I remembered from Camp Skytop was that the rear rower did most of the steering.
While my sense of direction was solid, Connor was definitely stronger than me.
“Ready?” I asked even though our canoe was still ashore; Connor would push it into the water before jumping in with me.
“Almost,” he answered, then dug through his backpack and pulled out a small Bluetooth speaker. “We need the right playlist…”
I was impressed when George Ezra started crooning through the speaker.
Connor raised an eyebrow. “Acceptable?”
I grinned. “Acceptable.”
After pushing in our canoe, Connor dashed through the water to swiftly swing himself up over the side. The canoe rocked only once, a graceful maneuver. We both started paddling. It took a few beats, but we found ourselves in sync. “And we’re off!”
The water was placid—not even a hint of a breeze.
There was only one speedboat boat out—towing a water-skier—plus a couple kayaks and paddleboards.
The sun had also still not let up from this morning, so all too soon I was sticky with sweat.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Connor lean over to dip his hand in the water before running it through his hair for some relief.
We paddled and paddled, eventually putting the Carmichaels’ house in our rearview mirror, but I noticed our speed flagging when we were halfway across the pond. “Is it just me…” I said over our music. “Or are we slowing down?”
“Not just you.” Connor stopped paddling, and I followed suit. “Rowing is becoming more intense too, which is weird. The pond is like glass.” He paused. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you actually paddling?”
I spun around in my seat. “Did you really just ask me that? You think I’m—” I dropped off, a sudden shiver ran through me. It took a second to register that it had stemmed from my feet, because what felt like a lot like water was tickling my toes.
My pulse started pounding. Had our Poland Spring bottles leaked? We hadn’t even opened them yet…
“Shit,” I heard Connor breathe. “Shit—Olivia, I think the canoe’s leaking. Look at the floor.”
I dared myself to glance down, only to see rivulets of water running across the canoe’s belly. The bottom of my tote bag was already soaked through. How much water could we take on before trouble really hit us?
I cursed myself when I realized we didn’t have life vests. How had Connor and I forgotten life vests? Especially after I’d gotten mixed up in the Jaws Bridge channel!
“Let’s start paddling back to the house,” Connor said after I informed him that both of us were spectacular idiots. “It looks farther than it is. We can make it.”
“What if we don’t?” I asked.
“Then we’ll call for help.”
“Our phones don’t get service,” I reminded him. The only reason we could listen to Spotify was because Connor downloaded his playlists.
“I meant with our lungs.” Connor poised his oar. “Ready?”