Chapter 24
Max and I were at dinner at the Edgartown Yacht Club, this time just the two of us.
The dining room had windows on all three sides, usually offering endless water views and a sea breeze, but today it was gray and stormy outside.
Wood floors and paneling, blue and white wicker chairs, vintage ships’ wheels hanging on the few walls that weren’t comprised of windows—it was incredibly well-kept, but the old-fashioned, nautical vibe of this club hadn’t changed since my earliest memories.
That was probably why the long-time summer islanders loved it.
Subtle, old-money elegance. And apparently, the only place a famous author could go to dinner.
Max had just returned from New York, and I’d barely seen him since the holiday weekend.
It felt like more than just time had separated us over the last ten days, and I knew closing the gap would involve telling him I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t be going back to work tomorrow. But first, I needed a drink.
“I’m sorry I missed dinner with your friends when they were here over the Fourth,” I said.
“It’s okay.” Max reached for my hand on the white-clothed table. His blue eyes were soft, like he really didn’t mind. I was about to let out my breath when he added, “We can see them whenever in the city.”
I gulped a sip of my Cosmo, my stomach turning over. The martini glass landed half on, half off the coaster when I placed it back down, and I had to fist the entire stem with my free hand to stop it from tipping over. I’d told him I hadn’t made up my mind about going back, hadn’t I?
The scraping of cutlery against plates at the tables surrounding ours sounded like nails on a chalkboard as Max’s eyes narrowed on me, like he understood something I hadn’t said.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about the leave, and not being sure what you want to do.
Why don’t you just extend it through Labor Day, if you can?
” he asked. “Even if it’s unpaid, it’s not that long.
Then you can really enjoy the rest of the summer here.
We’ll go back to New York in September and start crushing it again at work.
We can support each other, you know? I’ll go to your events, you can come to mine.
” His eyes were bright as he rubbed his thumb over my hand affectionately.
Why didn’t it sound good to me? I forced a smile before taking another big sip of my cocktail. The vodka burned slightly as it slid down my throat. They made the cocktails strong at the yacht club, I’d give them that.
Max watched me keenly, assessing my reaction.
I glanced down at our intertwined fingers on the table.
Would it make him happy if I agreed that what he described for me—for us—sounded perfect?
But I couldn’t say that. And I didn’t know how to tell him I didn’t want that without it sounding like I didn’t want him.
Why did he have to make it so much harder to tell him?
Before I could respond he added, “And then you can quit the nannying gig, really enjoy the last eight weeks of summer.”
My brow furrowed in confusion. Why would I quit my job helping Luke with Luna?
I loved it.
And I couldn’t quit on them. He could probably find someone else, and the neighbor that usually helped him was getting back soon, but still.
“I wouldn’t want to leave them in a lurch, especially if I’m staying on the island anyway.”
“You could help him find a replacement. There must be tons of babysitters on the island. College kids staying with their parents,” Max suggested.
He dropped my hand and leaned back in his chair, sipping his gin and tonic.
He nodded at someone passing by our table.
The person stopped and shook Max’s hand.
He introduced me as his girlfriend with his trademark charming smile.
He made small talk with this man who looked to be the age of Max’s father, but I didn’t hear the words.
The idea of someone else spending time with Luke and Luna—braiding Luna’s hair, taking her to tennis, being in Luke’s kitchen when he got home from work—made me nauseous.
I glanced back at Max, this handsome, charismatic man who’d plucked me from a crowd and pursued me, who’d made me feel beautiful and alluring at a time when I was still so down on myself in every way. But he didn’t seem to get me at all. Not the version of me I was becoming.
We’re at a crossroads, I thought as I swirled the light pink liquid in my martini glass and looked out the rain-splattered window at the roiling waves.
And I need to decide which way to turn.
I steeled myself, and as soon as the acquaintance moved on from our table, I said, “I’m going to quit.”
His brows knit so hard it was condescending. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
I couldn’t help the surge of defensiveness that rose within me like a tidal wave when he looked at me like that. Like I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Yes. I’ve thought about it a lot. I don’t want to go back. And I don’t want to have a set return-to-work date hanging over me either.”
He nodded, brow still furrowed.
I clenched my hands in my lap.
“I guess you don’t care what I think about it.”
I bristled. “That’s not true. C’mon, Max.
You have no idea how hard it was for me to make this decision, but it’s the right one.
I want a break, I want to write, I want to wake up every day and look forward to what I am doing that day, not dread it.
” I searched his face for some sign of understanding.
His blue eyes finally softened, but his words still weren’t what I was hoping. “Alright, Val. It’s your life. If this is what you need to do, then it’s what you need to do. I just thought—” He stopped himself.
“You thought what?”
A deep breath left his throat. “That we were on the same page. We’d have fun here for the summer and go back to New York and our careers and keep seeing each other. It was sort of perfect really. I’m just disappointed.”
Does he not want to keep seeing each other if I’m not a New York City lawyer anymore? I could still move back there and be a writer. But we weren’t serious enough to be talking about moving for each other, so I didn’t blame him for not bringing that up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure what I was sorry for. He’d come up with this whole idea on his own based on things he assumed about me but never actually inquired about. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you; I just don’t want to work for Peters & Dowling anymore.”
“I know,” he said, his expression inscrutable.
The awkwardness in the air was as palpable as the thick humidity that had settled over the island before the storm broke this afternoon.
It didn’t improve for the rest of the night as we fumbled through safer topics—the food, the weather, how his client meetings went and what Mimi and I did this weekend.
Max usually seemed so pleased with me whenever we were together, and I couldn’t tell if he was anymore.
By the end, I asked if he could just drop me at Mimi’s, since I was stressed about tomorrow. I’d hoped he might say something encouraging when we parted, but he just kissed my cheek from across the console in his car and told me he’d text me.
I couldn’t tell if he meant it, and I wondered how I’d feel if he never texted me again.
Relieved, maybe.
Laptop open on my lap in bed, the cursor hovered over an unsent email to Mallory requesting a meeting for tomorrow morning while guilt gnawed at me.
She’d given me so many opportunities to work with our most established clients on high profile deals.
My lungs took in a breath and held it as my trembling finger pressed Send.
She’d been supportive about the medical leave, hopefully she’d be understanding about my departure, too.
And I can’t make big life decisions based on guilt, I reminded myself.
“You shouldn’t worry more about disappointing others than you do about disappointing yourself,” my therapist said when I told her how guilty I would feel if I decided to quit.
That advice resonated with me, like a long-awaited and hard-fought revelation.
I’d repeated it to myself daily when the doubt slipped back in.
I tossed and turned in bed as fat raindrops pinged on the metal air conditioning unit in my bedroom window before giving up and turning on the light.
I picked up my book, but after I’d read the same paragraph four times, absorbing nothing, I put it back down on the nightstand that Mimi and I had painted white ten years ago, during a summer while I was in college.
I ran my fingers over the worn, chipped edge.
What would college-age Val think of me quitting my job tomorrow?
As I replayed my conversation with Max in my head, twisting and untwisting the sheets around my legs, my phone buzzed.
I picked it up, expecting a text from Max, but instead Luke’s name appeared on the screen, and my heart trilled.
I’m sure it’s just something logistical for tomorrow, I cautioned myself.
But it wasn’t.
Luke
I know tomorrow’s the big decision and you’re probably freaking out. I wanted you to know that whatever you decide, Luna and I will be fine. You have a job with me as long as you want it, but we will figure it out if you don’t. I think you should do what feels right. It will all work out.
I read the text three times, my eyes welling. He probably had no idea how much I needed to hear that.
Or maybe he did know, somehow.
I puzzled over how to respond. How could I tell him how much his encouragement meant to me without revealing too much?
I went with:
Val
Thank you so much for saying that. It’s exactly what I needed to hear tonight.
Luke
Good. Try and get some sleep?
The question mark said it all.
Val
I’ll try!