Chapter 25
Istared at my screen until it turned to the screen saver and then turned black. My legs carried me to the fridge. My hands poured a glass of wine. My bare feet took me out to the deck. Wrung out like a washcloth that’d been twisted too many times, that was how I felt.
All the certainty I had drummed up leading into today had depleted with each confused look and pitying comment.
“The work is just too grueling for some people.” John’s condescending comment rattled through my brain on a loop. I spent my entire life trying to prove how smart and hardworking I was. But in the end, he was right. I couldn’t do it. I was “some people.”
I fixated on the half glass of pink wine on the wooden table, now glistening with condensation. The first few sips didn’t provide the relief I was hoping for, and I’d forgotten about it while I ruminated.
The sliding door squealed open. I turned as Luke stepped out. “Hey,” came the deep timbre of his voice, “I was hoping you’d still be here. How’d it go?”
I shrugged, a single, stubborn tear burning a stream down my cheek.
He sat down across from me, elbows resting on the table, leaning toward me, giving me his full attention.
A deep breath escaped my lips. “I quit.”
His eyes brightened. “That’s great, right?”
“I don’t know. Yes. I mean, I made up my mind, and I’m glad I’m not going back but I also…” I shrugged again. “I feel like a failure,” I whispered, like it was a secret I didn’t want anyone but him to know.
“Val, you are not a failure. You changed your mind about what you want.”
I nodded, pulling my lips between my teeth.
His head tilted back to the sky and then he stood abruptly, his large frame towering over me. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I have an idea.”
“What’s your idea?” I asked even though I was already pushing my chair back to follow him inside.
“Do you trust me?” He pulled a cooler out of the pantry and added some ice packs, beers, and the nearly full bottle of my rosé from the fridge.
“Of course,” I said, though my tone was skeptical.
He tipped his head toward the table. “Close that laptop and leave it behind.”
Windows down and Rolling Stones on the radio, Luke drove his truck along the beach road that ran from Edgartown to the neighboring town of Oak Bluffs.
I waited for him to pull into each open spot that appeared along the beach, but he kept driving, tapping his hand on the steering wheel, peering over at me every few minutes.
For the first time all day, my body relaxed, sinking deep into his passenger seat. It was hard not to let the salt in the air, the warm wind whipping in through the windows, and the views of the happy beachgoers and the Atlantic beyond lift my spirits.
At least I get to enjoy a full summer here.
The next time Luke turned to look at me, I smiled at him.
His cheeks tugged up too, his brown eyes glittering like he was keeping a secret. So freaking handsome, this man.
When we eventually passed a sign for Aquinnah and Menemsha—named for the island’s Native Wampanoag roots—I figured out where we were headed.
“Are we going to Menemsha?” I couldn’t conceal the excitement in my voice.
I glanced at the clock on the dash: 6:30.
The sunsets at the beach in Menemsha—a tiny fishing village on the western side of the island—were unparalleled.
Mimi and I drove out there in May to try and catch a sunset, bringing sweatshirts and blankets, but it was so cloudy that we couldn’t see anything.
I leaned my head out the window. Clear blue sky stared back at me.
Reading my mind, Luke said, “We can stay for the sunset. Luna is all set at Clara’s.”
I wondered how long he’d planned this, or if he got the idea when we were sitting on the deck.
We rolled past the rock walls that lined the road.
The farms and little houses zipping past us were so much more spread out on this side of the island.
I envisioned the beach and the jetty and the little inlets of Menemsha.
Drew and I used to hunt for crabs and other critters in the shallow, rocky inlet for hours when we were young. When things were simple.
“Did you ever bring Luna to that little inlet where kids always look for crabs?” I asked Luke, raising my voice enough that he could hear me over the wind and the radio.
“Oh, yeah. She loved it. Never wanted to leave. Pruned up like a raisin by the time I dragged her out.”
I smiled, picturing it.
We parked at the end of the lot, where the sand spilled over the low wood retaining wall right onto the pavement.
Some people were packing up after a day at the beach, and others, like us, were just arriving for the sunset.
We backtracked to the fish market that sold only fresh, raw fish and plastic-wrapped, pre-made lobster rolls.
Luke bought us two rolls and guided me back out the door with a soft nudge of his fingers on my lower back that sent shivers up my spine.
We set up beach chairs near the rocky jetty, right above the line of seaweed left behind from high tide. Luke poured me a glass of wine into a red Solo cup. “Sorry, no fancy beach-worthy wine glasses.”
“It’s perfect.”
He took out a can of beer for himself, cracking it open with a snap.
Warm wind blew in off the waves. A few children still swam in the water, their parents watching from the sand.
A sailboat and a motorboat were anchored a hundred yards out from the frothy shore.
It was much quieter here than in Edgartown Harbor, which boasted hundreds of boats on moorings and stakes, shuttles constantly traveling out and back, and fifty-foot yachts regularly docked near the yacht club.
Despite the quaint beach’s popularity with locals and tourists alike, Menemsha had maintained its fishing village vibes—like nothing had changed since the filming of Jaws.
At the end of the jetty, the silhouettes of a few evening fishermen held their lines in the water.
I sipped the wine, the slight citrus notes bursting on my tongue, the tartness cleansing the back of my throat. It was impossible not to let the peacefulness of this place sink into my chest. My next breath came out as a shudder. Water filled my eyes.
I cried because I was relieved, and sad, and because I didn’t have a concrete goal for the first time in my life and the uncertainty of it overwhelmed me. As much as I tried to talk myself out of it, I felt like I’d failed.
Luke squeezed my knee briefly but didn’t look at me, somehow giving me both comfort and privacy while I had this moment.
Please leave it there, I wanted to say when his fingers released.
My body craved the warmth and the weight and the tethering effect of his hand on my skin.
A minute later he silently handed me a napkin.
“Thank you.” I laughed through the tears.
He peered over at me. “Wanna talk about it? We don’t have to, if you want to just process. I’m content with silence.”
He meant it. Our conversations were always easy, but he never spoke just to fill the air.
I watched the calm waves ebb and flow. “Part of me feels like there’s something wrong with me, and that’s why I couldn’t do it anymore.
I wasn’t smart enough or hardworking enough to hack it.
Other people could, but I couldn’t, so they must be smarter or better or tougher than I am.
That’s what one of the partners said: ‘The work is just too grueling for some people.’” I lifted my fingers to make air quotes.
“I feel like it’s a waste that I spent ten years of my life—more if you count college and high school—learning this skill and attaining this earning potential and now I might not use it. ”
I turned to face him when I finished speaking, and Luke’s gaze pierced through me.
His jaw flexed. “I don’t think that’s true at all,” he said, adamant.
“I have no doubt that if you decided your purpose and joy in life was to make partner at that firm, then you would have done it. I don’t think it’s that you can’t, or that people who can are somehow better than you are.
You just decided you want to do something different, something you seem to love more. ”
I closed my eyes and pictured it: making partner, the announcement, the fancy celebration dinner, the congratulations from colleagues.
How would I feel? Proud of myself, sure.
But would I be happy? Would it feel worth it to have spent a decade of my early adulthood crunched behind a computer screen, running on little sleep, barely being present for important events with family and friends?
No, I wouldn’t all of a sudden be happy.
And no, it wouldn’t feel worth it.
Maybe it was okay to want something different.
“You’re right,” I said. This time I felt like I believed it.
“And in terms of feeling like you’re wasting those hard-won skills… Have you heard of the sunk cost fallacy?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and shook my head.
“It’s this economic psychological principle. Almost all people feel that if they’ve sunk a lot of resources into an endeavor, then the right thing to do next is to continue sinking resources into it, even if that’s not rational and leads to a worse outcome.”
I nodded. That was exactly how I felt.
“So that little devil on your shoulder telling you that you have to keep doing it because you already put so much time and effort and money into it might be totally wrong,” he added.
His eyes searched my face.
My mouth curved up as the tightness in my chest loosened. “You’re so right,” I said again, the image of a little red animated devil on my shoulder making me smile.