Chapter 5
Chapter Five
1974
V ictor decided to ask Esme to be his girlfriend when he returned to Nantucket for Christmas break. She’s my destiny, he thought . He was so sure.
All autumn semester, he’d been consumed with thoughts of her. He was unable to take any girl from his university out on a date, unable to go out to the bar without having alcohol-infused dreams about a future he so desperately wanted. His friends—those he’d partied alongside the past two years—noticed something was amiss and asked him what was up. But he felt he couldn’t tell them what was wrong. He couldn’t possibly describe how much his heart ached.
In November, Victor turned twenty-one in a fit of loneliness and terror and called Esme half drunk. Esme didn’t answer. He instead got Fran, her stepmother, on the line. Fran barked with anger, “You need to learn manners, young man! Do you know what time it is?” and hung up. Victor stood sadly next to the phone, watched the rain outside, and thought, I’m pathetic. I’m in love.
All this to say, when he returned to Nantucket in December, he resolved to ask Esme to be his girlfriend. When he graduated with his bachelor’s, he’d ask her to marry him. He’d take her wherever he went to grad school, and they would have children and live happily ever after. She made him better. She made him smarter. She made him understand the world. It had always been this way! Why had it taken him so long to see?
Victor returned to Nantucket on December 13th with the worst report card of his collegiate career. Although he resolved to hide his grades from his parents, his father knew someone on the board and could learn rather easily that Victor had nearly failed political science. Victor couldn’t very well explain that he’d been too lost and confused about a Nantucket girl to focus on his studies.
“I thought you wanted things in life,” his father blared. “I thought you were going to get out of here and become something!”
“Why would I get out of here?” Victor demanded. “Nantucket is my home!”
“You’re going to be a doctor, young man. You’re going to meet your potential,” his father said.
Victor’s heart shivered with sorrow and fear. His father, Jeremy Sutton, had always been hard on him. Jeremy was born in the thirties and had lived with very little until he’d gone to university on scholarship and discovered how to make it on his own. Jeremy wanted the same thing for his children, Victor and his siblings, Jackie and Aaron. Jeremy was a well-respected investment banker; their mother, Dana, was a homemaker. That was just how things were done.
Victor hadn’t spoken to Esme on the phone for over a month. He felt raggedy; he felt insane. That first night in Nantucket, he stayed up till morning and then drove over to Esme’s, parked out front, and willed himself to go to the front door and knock. Just go up and smile at the door. Just go up and change the course of your life. He reasoned that Esme didn’t know how he felt about her. He reasoned she didn’t know he was so obsessed. I haven’t fully embarrassed myself yet.
Sometimes he remembered the fact that he’d come to Esme’s engagement party to share the news that Hank was leaving her. He always cursed himself. How could I have been so cruel?
But it was true that there was always a lightning bolt of cruelty in him. It was apt to come out and destroy everything he held dear if he didn’t keep tabs on it. Like father, like son.
Victor clambered up on the front porch of Esme, Thomas, Fran, and LeeAnne’s home. His heart fluttered in his throat. Finally, he cracked his knuckles on the door and waited, wondering if he was making his life's biggest and most embarrassing mistake.
Fortunately, Thomas answered the door. He carried a cup of coffee and wore a big smile. Victor had always liked Thomas; he thought he was a philosophical genius and much more easygoing than his father. Thomas had been in World War II as a very young man, which was where he’d met Esme’s mother, Rose. Throughout high school, Esme had never spoken of Rose. But it was an open secret across Nantucket that Thomas could never love anyone the way he’d loved his first German wife. Fran knew that, too. It was enough to destroy anyone , Victor thought.
Many people speculated Rose had died because she’d had Esme later in life. It occurred to Victor much later that that kind of talk was victim blaming. It was really just a tragedy. That was it.
“Victor!” Thomas said now. “This is a surprise. You just got back from the university?”
Victor flashed an all-American smile and reminded himself that, from the outside, he looked normal. He looked likable.
“The other day, yes,” he said because he thought it was too embarrassing to say yesterday.
“And how was the semester? Are you still planning on psychiatry? Medical school?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s a noble profession. Quite messy, though,” Thomas said. “Dealing with the human mind and the human heart is no easy feat.”
“It’s the joy of the challenge.”
Thomas smiled wider. “I imagine you’ll be everything you want to be and more,” he said. “Did you want to speak to Esme? I know she always loved competing with you in high school.”
Victor said he did, so Thomas ushered him into the kitchen, where he sat, feeling stupid, and sipped a cup of coffee. Esme’s fourteen-year-old half sister ate a bowl of cereal and read a romance novel that she seemed too young for. But what did Victor know about love, and what age you were supposed to be when you felt it? He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in love. Not really. Not till now.
Esme emerged with a confused wrinkle between her forehead. She wore a soft cream dress with long sleeves and a ribbon wrapped around her waist. Victor bolted to his feet and wrapped his hand around his throat, then immediately dropped it. His hand hung there like something dead.
“Esme,” he said.
“This is a surprise,” Esme said. He couldn’t tell if she was happy to see him. He tried to imagine what she’d been up to all semester. Working at the Book Club? Waiting for him? Or had she met someone else already? Had she moved on—from Hank, from heartbreak?
Back in August, they’d had one date. Just one. They’d talked and laughed till three in the morning; it was as though they would never run out of topics to exchange or ideas to formulate. It was as though creativity sizzled between them.
But when Victor had tried to kiss her, she’d held herself back. “What are you doing?” Then she’d reminded him, “We’re just friends. And even if we weren’t…” She’d swallowed. “I was supposed to get married today. I was supposed to have a different life.”
Victor had never been told no like that before. He’d been surprised at how badly it hurt. Is this what all the girls go through at university? he’d wondered. And, of course, he’d wondered, Do I only really want Esme because she rejected me? But that was when he became awash with images of their years in high school together. Esme had been his only real competition. The only woman with anything vital behind those gorgeous eyes.
Thomas answered Esme before Victor could. “Victor just got back the other day. He has his sights on medical school.”
Esme looked as though she struggled not to roll her eyes.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Victor asked tentatively.
And that was how they ended up on the white beach outside her home. Snow flecked the beach's edge, and white foam lapped up from the ocean. Victor had his winter coat, hat, and gloves on, and Esme was even more bundled up with a scarf and thick socks up to her knees. They hadn’t spoken since they’d left her house and trudged into the twenty-degree weather. Victor felt foolish. He also felt like he didn’t want to be anywhere else.
To be in love is to suffer, he thought.
Finally, Esme stopped short on the beach and looked him in the eye. There was such electricity in her gaze that Victor remained quiet. It was clear she had something to say.
“Why are you here?” she asked instead.
Victor raised his shoulders.
“Why did you keep calling me?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you. That’s usually why people call each other,” Victor stammered.
Esme rolled her eyes. “I told you in August that I don’t want anything.”
Victor was quiet. The wind whistled through them and down the beach, scattering the sticks and dead debris. Summer felt a thousand years away.
“Did Hank come back?” Victor asked. He was surprised to feel a knot in his throat. A knot of terror that she’d say yes.
Esme chuckled softly. “No, Hank didn’t come back. It’s basketball season.”
Victor raised his shoulders. “Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why won’t you go on a date with me?” Victor asked. “You have nothing to lose.”
Esme rolled her eyes again. “I have everything to lose.”
“Name one thing.”
“I just put my heart back together. I don’t want you to rip it to shreds again.”
“I won’t,” Victor said.
Esme set her jaw. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise it,” Victor said. “Watch me. I promise you, Esme Rainer, I will not break your heart. ”
Esme snorted. “I’d be a fool to trust you.”
“Then be a fool.”
“I beat you in calculus,” Esme said. “More often than not. I’m no fool.”
Victor suddenly remembered his report card from this semester. His soul darkened. He needed no reminder of his intellectual lack of ability.
“But the thing is,” Esme said, slapping her palms against her thigh, “I’ve decided to go to college, too.”
“Perfect. Come to mine.”
Esme snorted. “I can’t just go to your college. I’ll be twenty years old and far behind.”
“You’ll catch up.”
Esme raised her shoulders. “I’ve already applied to the University of Massachusetts, Maine, Columbia, and Virginia.”
“Virginia?” Victor felt blindsided. Why didn’t she want to join him? Hadn’t she spent nights awake thinking of him, too? Clearly not.
“I’m ready to get on with my life,” Esme said. “I need to. Otherwise, I’ll just rot here in Nantucket.” She pressed her lips together, then added, “If I follow you, then all I’ll be is your shadow. And I don’t want to be your shadow, Victor.” Her eyes were enormous. Ponderous.
Meanwhile, Victor felt his heart cracking all over again. “Why won’t you give us a chance?”
“Because,” Esme said with a sigh. “I put Hank above everything before this. It’s my first chance to put myself first.”
A harsh wind tore between them. Victor had the sense that it was ripping them apart even further.
“But we should still be friends,” Esme said quietly. And then she repeated, “I want us to be friends.”
Victor suddenly felt so tired. He remembered he hadn’t slept at all last night. He could have slept till Christmas, till New Year’s. Forever.
Esme put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be a brilliant doctor. Everyone is so sure.” She paused. “I can’t wait to figure out what I’m going to become. You know?”
Victor remembered his father towering over him and ordering him to become a doctor. You will study. You will work hard. You will become what you’re meant to become.
His stomach twisted. He thought he was going to be sick. And being sick in front of Esme would destroy him.
So he said, “I’d better be getting home. I’m supposed to help my mom with something.”
“Sure. Let’s get back,” Esme said, although the look in her eye told him she knew he was lying. The look said, I know every inch of you.