Chapter 21
After the successful Today Show interview, Lindsey, Candice, and Taylor spent three days in Manhattan.
Taylor had several interviews scheduled with podcasters and social media activists, which left Lindsey and Candice plenty of time to go out to eat, explore the city, hang with Sarah, and contemplate the next months of their lives.
Candice had to get back to the Harbor House soon to prepare for the next batch of Harbor House women.
And Lindsey, well, she was heading back to Nantucket to continue to fall deeply in love with Jake—and help out at the Harbor House and Maya’s Ocean. She was fulfilled.
On the third and final night in Manhattan, Lindsey, Candice, and Taylor met at a Mexican restaurant not far from Washington Square Park.
They’d spent much of the day apart, Candice with Sarah, Lindsey at a museum, and Taylor filming with social media activists.
It meant they were bubbling with stories and eager to be updated on what the others had done.
After they finished their meals, Taylor began to glance out the window cagily.
“Why do I feel like you’re trying to make a dramatic escape?” Lindsey joked.
“What? Why do you think that?” Taylor asked. But still, she continued to look out the window, as though waiting for something to happen or someone to appear.
Finally, Taylor confessed. “You remember that scientist they interviewed after my interview? Will Hamner? Yeah. Um. He got my number. And he wants to meet tonight to discuss Maya’s Ocean.”
Lindsey’s jaw dropped. Candice clapped her hands excitedly.
“Guys, come on. He’s a scientist. He’s interested in how I can help him expand on his mission,” Taylor said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. “It’s nothing more than that.”
“But he’s cute!” Candice hissed.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Maybe. But it’s not like it matters. He isn’t interested in me.”
Candice and Lindsey exchanged knowing glances. They could see it written plainly across Taylor’s face that she liked him. She had a crush. But she was too nervous for teasing, so they left her alone.
Will appeared outside the restaurant a few minutes later.
He wore dark jeans and a button-down and searched the corner with a hopeful look on his face.
Taylor said goodbye and hurried out of the restaurant, waving hello.
They had an awkward side-hug before heading off somewhere, maybe for a post-dinner cocktail.
Candice and Lindsey leaned back in their chairs, watching them go.
“I hope he’s a good guy,” Candice breathed.
Neither of them wanted Taylor to get hurt again. But, Lindsey reasoned, dating meant putting your heart on the chopping block. It meant taking risks. And Taylor was up for that, especially now that she had a house on Nantucket and a home in the Vanberg sisters.
When Lindsey, Candice, and Taylor returned to Nantucket, Lindsey and Candice asked for more information about Taylor’s time with Will.
But Taylor was cagey. She explained to them, “My entire life, people have scrutinized every detail of my life. They’ve noted who I was dating, who I went out to dinner with, my likes and dislikes, so much so that I’ve struggled to know who I am and what I want.
Right now, all I can tell you is that I had a very good time with Mr. Will Hamner.
Maybe we’ll see each other again. Maybe we won’t.
But not a single person took a photograph of us.
Will has no idea that I’m famous. He treats me like a normal human being.
It’s just about the best feeling in the world. ”
She left it at that.
But over the following weeks, Lindsey frequently caught sight of Taylor and Will on Nantucket Island. She spotted them walking the boardwalk. She saw them at the coffee shop, going over Will’s scientific notes. She saw them out to dinner, drinking wine and eating vegan food.
Jake was understandably going insane. “I’ve always respected and admired Will Hamner,” he said over dinner one night. “I can’t believe he’s dating our dear friend, and I haven’t even been able to meet him!”
The time came mid-June—nearly a month after Taylor and Will had met and begun seeing one another.
Taylor suggested that Jake and Lindsey come to the house for dinner.
Candice and Frank couldn’t make it because Candice was tied up with Harbor House responsibilities, and Frank was helping his mother with something.
Lindsey was secretly glad. It meant that Jake and Will could fall chest-deep into a topic about birds, or the ocean, or sea turtles, and they wouldn’t have to worry about Frank not understanding them.
It was over this dinner, as Lindsey and Taylor smiled and told stories, and Jake and Will exchanged data and tales of their decades of studies, that Will first mentioned his work in Costa Rica.
“If you haven’t gone down there, Jake, you really have to.
The bird population is incredible,” Will said, scooping potato salad onto his fork.
Lindsey’s heartbeat quickened. She saw Jake’s cheek twitch.
“I’ve spent some time down there, yes,” Jake said. He sounded tentative.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about taking another trip soon,” Will continued, seeming not to sense the unease at the table. “Taylor’s never spent much time there. I figured we could do it the easy way. Take a sailboat. We’re not flying any longer. Right, honey?”
Taylor smiled and looked at Lindsey nervously, as though she wanted to ask, Are you all right?
But at that moment, Lindsey surprised herself. “What if we all went?”
“That’s a great idea!” Will said, raising his fork. “I’m free any time.”
It was decided that they would all take Will’s sailboat down the first week of July. Once they got down there, it would be hotter than hot, of course, but Lindsey knew that the cool ocean would surround them on their way, and, once they got there, they could feel the balm of the cooler jungle air.
In the days before their departure, she packed her suitcase with dresses, skirts, and swimsuits, and tried to practice in her head what she might say to Christopher if she ran into him. Her heart thudded with disbelief. Was she really going back to Costa Rica?
Late at night, hours before their 7 a.m. departure from the docks, Jake asked her if she was really okay with going down there. “I want to see her home again,” Lindsey told him. “I want to see where she played. I want to see the spots she loved.”
She was talking, of course, about Maya. Jake squeezed her hand. “Then we’re going to go,” he said.
But he told her that she could bail at any point. “Say the word, and we’ll ask Will to pull into the mainland. We’ll rent a car somewhere and turn around,” he said. “We’ll tell Will and Taylor to go on without us.”
Lindsey thanked him. And for the first time, she told him, “I love you, Jake.”
She couldn’t believe it, but she really did. She’d fallen in love with someone. She had a fresh lease on life.
“I love you, too,” Jake said, kissing her nose.
They fell asleep like that, their faces close together in the dark.