Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Summer 1975
E sme didn’t make it to Rutgers University.
That summer, the summer of LeeAnne’s monotonous and terrifying cancer diagnosis, Esme left Nantucket for the first time. She moved to an apartment three blocks from the Boston hospital where LeeAnne was undergoing extensive radio and chemotherapy and spent nearly every afternoon at the side of her bed. To pay for the apartment, Esme grabbed a job at a local bakery, which forced her to wake up at two or three in the morning to bake bread, donuts, muffins, cookies, and cakes for the loyal customers who arrived every morning from six to eleven.
She fell into a flurry of activity: waking up, baking, and reading.
But it was during the third week of LeeAnne’s chemotherapy that Esme finally mustered the nerve to call Victor.
She was sure she’d regret it. She was so sure that falling in love with a man was the single greatest thing that would lead to her downfall. But she was lonely in Boston. Fran almost refused to talk to her, speaking only to Thomas and the doctors, and Thomas traveled back and forth from Nantucket to Boston to check on the Book Club and the other veterans.
“She’s just frustrated, honey,” Thomas told Esme once of Fran. “You’re so healthy and vibrant, and her daughter isn’t. Our daughter isn’t.”
Esme had wanted to scream, but I’m supposed to be her daughter, too! But it wasn’t true, and she knew it. Esme was Rose’s daughter. Esme was motherless, and Fran needed her own daughter to be okay.
Thomas was so broken up about LeeAnne that Esme couldn’t blame him for not handling it better. How could he? How could anyone manage such heartache and still treat everyone around them well?
Victor sounded surprised when he answered the phone. “Esme. Wow. It’s good to hear from you.”
Esme was in the kitchen of her rental unit, twirling the phone cord around her finger. It was a party line, and she’d had to wait what felt like ages for the phone line to be free. Her neighbors loved to gossip for hours upon hours. Her neighbors didn’t have anything pressing to account for, like dying sisters or stepmothers who hated them or men who could or could not love them well.
“Hi. Um. I’m in Boston,” Esme said on the phone.
“I wondered if you’d made the leap. How do you like it?”
“It’s okay. I mean, I don’t know the city that well yet,” Esme said. “I live close to the hospital and work at a bakery down the street.”
“It sounds like somebody needs to show you around.”
Esme pressed her lips together.
“When are you free?” Victor asked.
“My sister’s visiting hours end at five today,” Esme said. “I could meet after that.” She stuttered. “But that’s probably too short notice. You have a life. I’m sorry for insinuating that you didn’t.”
Victor laughed gently. “It’s okay. I’m free. Or I’ll make myself free. I want to see you.”
Esme’s heart pounded in her throat.
They agreed to meet at the statue of Paul Revere. Esme arrived a few minutes before their arranged time and shifted her weight in the shadows, watching the summer sun dip below the old colonial buildings. Boston smelled of donuts, coffee, dirt, gasoline, and molasses, and it was too frantic, with too many people, but even Esme found a certain charm to it. This was where their country had gotten its start. It was where so many great thinkers had come to learn about the world. It was difficult not to feel a part of them all.
Victor appeared in the crowd. He wore a pair of brown slacks and a button-down, and his hair was longer than it had been when she’d last seen him—that night when Hank had punched him. His nose and eyes were still slightly bruised. It was proof that that night had actually happened.
“I told my bosses I got into a car accident,” he said when she asked about it. “I don’t think they believe me.”
They went for a walk through downtown. Esme was surprised to find that Victor could be a good listener when he wanted to be. He could look her in the eye and not say anything basic or boring when she spoke of how difficult the summer was turning out to be.
“I’m going to call Rutgers next week,” she said. “I just don’t have it in me to start school already. I’m going to read all summer and autumn and winter. I’m going to read all the classics. And then I’ll be ready to go when I’m twenty-one years old.”
Esme felt the years of her life drizzling through her fingers. Margaret was about to have her baby. What was Esme doing? Baking bread for strangers? Planning for a college degree that may or may not happen?
But it was on this night that Esme and Victor kissed for the first time.
It was nearly a year since he’d tried that first time, nearly a year since she’d planned to marry Hank, nearly a year since she’d been so young and naive and sure that her life was something special.
Victor was a much better kisser than she’d thought he would be. Esme felt lifted up from the ground. She felt as though she floated in his embrace. As though the stars above flickered through the darkness just for them.
It was Esme’s first escape from heartache. And she thought, Stay in the moment. Don’t let time go forward. Don’t let the future happen. The future will hurt. And right now it is so nice.