Chapter Two #2
“Dude.” Hayes rubbed his forehead. “After ten years, you can’t just walk up and expect her to say yes to a dinner invite. You gotta work up to that.”
“But I have to say I am sorry before we can—” Miles shook his head.
“Say it works out. She starts her MBA in the fall. No direct flights from La Guardia to Hanover, and it’s a five-hour drive to Dartmouth from the City.
I checked last night. Distance’ll challenge a relationship, so maybe I shouldn’t try. ”
“Miles, oh boy. I have never seen you like this. Let’s see if we can help.” Anna paused and lifted Lennox to burp her. “What’s your favorite film where the guy wants his girl back?”
He should’ve known she’d ask that. As former child actors, Hayes and Anna Catherine had come of age on set and viewed everything through the prism of film. Miles always picked the same movie to irritate her.
“Die Hard.”
“Yes!” Hayes pumped his fist. He loved Die Hard too.
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Don’t fight me, Anna Catherine. Die Hard is a romance.” Miles laughed, and the tension in his shoulders loosened. “John McClane goes to Nakatomi Plaza to win Holly back.”
Hayes nodded. “When Hans Gruber falls to his death, John and Holly get their happily ever after. Genius analysis, Miles. I’m going to add this to your Wikipedia page.”
Hayes loved editing Miles’s page. The whole thing was an inside joke.
“Last December, you two claimed Die Hard is a Christmas movie.” Anna frowned. “And now it’s second-chance romance? No. How about Crazy, Stupid, Love?”
Miles vaguely remembered that movie.
“Is that the one where Ryan Gosling fights Kevin Bacon?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Hayes gave Miles a thumbs-up. “Ryan whips off his ring, ready to avenge his friend, even though they aren’t getting along at the moment. That movie is a bromance, not a romance.”
Lennox burped and Anna elbowed Hayes. “Hang on, Miles. The baby needs to switch sides. Hayes, take the phone.”
Miles placed a black granite countertop sample next to his brick red cabinet. It reminded him of Tiger Woods on Sunday. Winning.
He picked up his phone. The brownstone’s ceiling filled the screen, and all he could hear were voices as Hayes made sure Anna was comfortable.
Miles waited, his screen aglow from the light of the brownstone’s den.
Hayes asked if she needed anything and went to get Anna a glass of water.
Miles loved the way they cared for one another.
This. Miles wanted this. Getting up in the morning.
Figuring out the day together. And every time he dreamed it, he saw Avery.
After that summer, he’d thought about calling her or showing up at Vanderbilt, but at twenty-two, he didn’t know what to say, how to sound sincere, or how to fix his mistakes.
The little voice telling him he’d never deserved her didn’t make things any easier.
At some point, he’d waited too long and ever since then, he’d told himself it wasn’t meant to be.
He replaced the black sample with a white marble veined with strands of gold. Hmm. His mind floated back to Crazy, Stupid, Love and the other thing Ryan Gosling did in that movie.
“Anna, did you pick this movie to trick me into doing the Dirty Dancing lift?” he asked the ceiling on his screen.
Anna picked up the phone. “No, but if you do, please film it for me.”
Hayes returned, and she took a sip of water.
“Steve Carell tries to win back his wife with small gestures. Before the fight, he’s built a mini-golf course in their backyard to recreate their first date.
You need to remind Avery of why she fell for you.
I know you’re different today, but the guy she loved ten summers ago is still in there. ”
Hayes kissed her temple.
“Anna Catherine is the smartest person I know,” he said. “Miles, give us some memories of that summer. What happened the first time you talked to her?”
“I was on a run, and on my way up Montressa’s driveway, she drove by, accidentally hit a puddle, and covered me in mud.
” He laughed. “She stopped and apologized in this sweet Southern accent. A couple days later, I saw her at Napolitano’s Pizza.
I was with friends, and she didn’t notice me.
I sat there watching her, and it felt like no one else was in the pizza parlor.
She forgot to take her cookie when she picked up her order.
I figured she worked at Montressa, so I stopped by on my way home.
I found her on the dock, painting. I walked up and said, ‘You forgot your cookie.’”
Miles’s mind drifted back in a daze. She’d invited him to sit with her.
That had been the first night they’d seen the loon as he called for his mate.
Avery had shimmered in the rosy, golden glow of the setting sun.
The blood in his head had taken the superhighway to his pants.
He had grabbed a life jacket and placed it in his lap as if that were perfectly normal. Thankfully, the loon distracted her.
“Bring a dozen of those cookies to the lodge,” Hayes suggested. “She won’t feel singled out, but she’ll know you brought them for her. What else? What did you wear that summer?”
“I drove the ski boat, so mostly board shorts, tees, and sweatshirts. She always stole my sweatshirts.”
“Smells imprint themselves on our memory. Did you wear cologne?” asked Anna.
Anna was right. The day before, Miles noticed Avery didn’t smell like coconut sunscreen anymore. She smelled grown-up, beautiful, and a little Southern. Something floral, but not a flower he recognized. He couldn’t remember what he’d smelled like in college.
“Possibly Axe body spray. I lived at home, and the residual scent never left my room after middle school. Sometimes I open a box of stuff from home, and I can still smell it.”
“Oh Miles, I didn’t know how far you’ve come.” Hayes laughed.
“We all have, Hayes,” Miles said. “That summer, after running in the morning and driving the ski boat all day, I probably smelled like sweat and sunscreen, with undertones of motor oil. And I had my baseball cap on backward all the time.”
“Okay, women go nuts over the backward baseball cap. That’ll take her back,” said Anna Catherine. “What was she wearing yesterday?”
“She was a mess.”
“You said she was gorgeous.”
“She was. A gorgeous mess. Like if you dropped a bottle of rainbow sprinkles. It’s a big mess, but so pretty. Like that. Ratty sweatshirt, leggings. Like a college student who had been in the library all night, cramming for exams.”
He’d resisted the temptation to pull that paintbrush from her topknot, allowing that strawberry blond hair to cascade over her shoulders.
“Ooh,” Hayes said. “She is still into sweatshirts. You should ‘accidentally’ leave one at the lodge. She will keep it because it smells like you, like Taylor Swift’s scarf in All Too Well.”
Anna took the phone.
“She wanted to look hot when she saw you again and got nervous when she didn’t measure up to your recent plus-ones. After getting up who knows how early and driving halfway up the East Coast?” Anna clicked her tongue and shook her head. “I feel for her.”
“But I told her she looked great.”
“From her perspective, you had to say that. Next time, try not to surprise her so she can prepare and feel more comfortable. And keep the conversation light. No Dante, like some condescending professor.”
Part of him hated how much sense they made. At least getting her back seemed possible.
“Got it,” he said. “And thank you.”
“Remember,” Hayes said. “She’s in your neck of the woods. Expect her to feel uncomfortable. What did you used to do there, for dates?”
“Canoe to an island for a picnic. Stargaze. Swim. Napolitano’s Pizza has a video game arcade. There’s a drive-in theater fifteen miles up the road.”
Anna and Hayes both had the same blank expression, mouths half open, like they were witnessing something they’d never encountered.
“It’s rural Maine, not the West Village. But thank you. I’ve got this.” At that, Miles changed the subject. “Speaking of the Village, where are we with NYU?”
“They want to discuss how many therapists we need. After my film opens Memorial Day weekend, I’ll have more time to meet with them.”
Miles let out a sigh of relief. Their bereavement camp might work.
Anna leaned in again. “I know you grew up in the land of maple syrup, but Avery needs molasses. Take it slow.”
“Ayuh.” Miles nodded. Over time, he’d taught Hayes and Anna that “ayuh” was how Mainers said yes. “I got it. I’ll see her on Tuesday. Nate called a staff meeting. I’ll let you know how it all goes.”
After they hung up, Miles opened his post-run bottle of chocolate milk and flicked the cap into the basket on top of his fridge.
Linden Dairy still sold serving-sized glass bottles of chocolate milk, and although they’d replaced the metal caps with plastic, the little bottles were his favorite part of coming home.
That, and fresh blueberries. He spent eleven months of the year waiting for blueberry season and looked forward to its return.
Frozen blueberries simply weren’t the same.
He threw on a jacket and headed outside.
The lake sparkled on cool, crisp days like this.
He scanned the water as he zipped up his jacket.
No sign of the survey crew at the corporate retreat, so he texted his realtor.
He watched two ducks swim along the shoreline as he walked to his garage.
If he got lucky, the birds would nest nearby.
Avery loved baby ducks. She loved baby loons more, and the loons should be here soon.
They returned every spring and nested in the cove between his house and Montressa.
Dust billowed out into the sunlight as Miles swung open the old wooden garage doors.
He carefully uncovered the Mail Jeep, a 1985 Dispatcher he’d bought in high school from a retired postal carrier.
He’d refurbished it a couple of years ago and kept it as an “around the lake” car.
The passenger door no longer unlatched and slid back while driving.
It was safer now, but he’d always loved how Avery had screamed and then laughed hysterically every time it had flown open.
He smiled, put his key in the ignition. The Mail Jeep revved to life on the first try.
As Miles pulled the car out of the garage and into the gravel driveway, he felt a flutter of excitement. Avery had always loved this car.
He’d park right in front of the lodge, where she couldn’t miss it.