Chapter Three
Dylan wasn’t kidding about having leftover pasta.
As I root around in the kitchen like a postapocalyptic scavenger, I can’t help but notice that not only does the fridge hold three plastic containers of very similar pastas—spaghetti with red sauce, penne with red sauce, and ziti with red sauce—but the pantry is stocked with more than a dozen boxes of dry pasta, at least as many jars of generic tomato sauce, and little else.
I find no fresh, canned, or frozen vegetables.
No jars of Italian seasoning, flavored olive oil, or shredded Parmesan cheese.
As a notoriously lazy cook, I respect the simplicity.
No one would assess the pantry and have a long debate about what’s for dinner, but the uniformity’s a little depressing.
I dig into the ziti, desperate for anything to make my stomach stop rumbling.
I might be the ultimate planner, but I was too anxious to think about food until after I arrived.
Dylan headed to his third-floor bedroom after our brief conversation, shutting the door and showing no signs of emerging again tonight, so with the ziti container in one hand and a fork in the other, I wander the first two floors of the house, taking it all in on my own.
The kitchen, first-floor powder room, and living room all show signs of use and are relatively clean.
The floors have been swept, the main surfaces have been wiped down, and my grandmother’s beloved green velvet Victorian sofa appears to be in good shape, which I think she’d appreciate, given how often she’d lounge on it in vintage silk pajamas as she made notes for her next book while I played solitaire nearby.
The rest of the rooms feel like time capsules, as I suspected they might when Amelia asked why I couldn’t live here.
This house, which was once so lively, feels different without any actual life.
The sofa is only a sofa. The hat rack is a bit of bent wood, vaguely skeletal, with a host of hats but lacking the presence of anyone who might wear them.
It’s all just things, and there are so many of them.
Each opened door reveals more clusters of dust-coated antique furniture, with every surface cluttered with knickknacks.
Fringed lamps. Porcelain snuffboxes. Wind-up clocks.
Stacks of vintage books with their canvas spines peeling away. And of course, pirate paraphernalia.
Although my grandmother started her literary career writing contemporary romances, once she shifted from baristas and barristers to swashbuckling sailors and rebellious heiresses, she went all in, collecting anything that might inspire her and trotting it out at decadent themed parties that packed the house.
Closets are jammed to bursting with cutlasses, empty powder kegs, and jars of gold coins.
Old trunks are full of sailing tack and skull-and-bones flags.
I find iron manacles and strap-on peg legs.
Birdcages. Pistol sets. Maps. A rum collection that’s extensive enough to inebriate the entire adult population of Maine.
And my god, the costumes. I have fond memories of playing dress-up in panniers, Watteau back gowns, and elaborate powdered wigs with ships perched on their frosted rolls, but now I can’t imagine putting most of this stuff on.
It all feels so tacky, so fake. Polyester satin and machine-made lace.
Plastic masquerading as gold and silver.
Fake pearls and pleather boots. Relics not of an age of massive social and political upheaval but of overwrought fantasy.
The idea of the eighteenth century. Not the reality.
My grandmother never cared much for historical accuracy, especially once she added magical curses, immortals, and shape-shifters to her series, though she got a real kick out of my interest in learning the truth behind the legends.
My simplest inquiries about her work inspired long hours of poring through books and websites.
You’d make a wonderful teacher, she said after I rattled on about preindustrial maritime amputations with a curious level of enthusiasm, given the subject matter.
No one had previously told me I’d be good at anything, and her belief in me sank in deep, inspiring my career.
While that career became more of a struggle than a joy, she was right about the teaching.
It was a good fit. I loved that she knew that. I still do.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I set the pasta on an ornate inlaid pedestal table, making a mental note to scour this room in the morning. Then I check my screen.
Amelia: Get in ok?
Philippa: All good. House still standing. Been here about an hour
Amelia: And your housemate?
I sputter out a laugh. Then I pull up a cover image of one of my grandmother’s novels.
Number ten or twelve in the series. The Raven and the Rake by Iris Flynn, a name so beloved my mom kept the Flynn and passed it on to her kids.
The book has a classic clinch cover, like they all do.
A crashing sea with a three-master anchored in the background.
A woman with a low-cut green frock and a massive mane of blue-black hair writhes in the arms of a bare-chested man who looks like he wants to devour her, perhaps with a generous helping of generic tomato sauce.
I send the image to Amelia.
Philippa: I had the wrong Dylan Sterling. The one who lives here was her cover model
Amelia: !!!!!
Philippa: My thoughts exactly
Amelia: I need stories
Philippa: He helped with my luggage. And let me eat his leftover pasta
Amelia: Better stories
Philippa: That’s all I’ve got. I’ll let you know if there’s an Act III
Amelia: I’m counting on it. And buying that book
Philippa: My mother’s travel budget appreciates the royalties
As we continue texting, Amelia tells me about a student requesting a grade change because he didn’t receive weekly emailed reminders of each assignment’s requirements, despite all of the information being available anytime on his syllabus and in the online course materials.
I send my sympathies, newly grateful at my recent—albeit still terrifying and maybe only temporary—escape from academia.
Then I text Amelia a few pics of the house and its contents so we can share a good-humored laugh at my grandmother’s tendency to hang on to everything.
We soon wrap up so I can do some reading and get a decent night’s sleep, or at least try to, given the lumpy mattress that wasn’t changed out with the bedding.
After putting away what remains of the ziti, I make a grocery list—one that includes fruit, vegetables, eggs, cheese, bread, and herbs—with a reminder to ask Dylan what he likes, discounting the obvious.
I’m a mediocre cook at best, so I harbor no illusions about earning my housemate’s benevolence with delicious meals, but we both have to eat, and I’ve always preferred cooking for more than just myself.
I pause by a family photo on my way up the stairs.
The eight of us huddle close together on the shore, with the sea stretching out behind us.
My grandmother, my parents, and all five of us kids, ranging from age seven to seventeen, with me right in the middle, at the awkward age of twelve.
My dad’s honey blond, and my mom and grandmother have umber hair, while my siblings and I are all brunettes, ranging from Riley’s light chestnut to Haley’s dark chocolate.
My own hair is a bland, medium brown that doesn’t have a picturesque descriptor.
I once thought it looked like pine bark, but only because I’d spent so much time climbing the nearby trees.
It’s in two long, messy braids in the photo, with wispy bangs windswept over my forehead.
Riley’s clowning around, arms outstretched, standing on one leg and pulling a face.
My grandmother prevents him from toppling with a hand on his elbow.
My parents hold hands, my mom’s head tipped onto my dad’s shoulder.
Haley and Eleanor have their arms around each other and their cheeks pressed together, wearing matching floral swimsuits and twin grins.
Louisa’s on my dad’s shoulders, laughing, with her hands gripping his hair like reins.
I’m standing in the middle of the photo, gangly and awkward, wearing a gingham bikini top and cutoff jean shorts, with a pail in one hand and a trowel in the other, frowning like Wednesday Addams at her surliest.
My grandmother loved this photo, hanging it in a place of honor where she’d pass it often, though it always made me a little sad.
Everyone in my family looks so happy, so at ease with themselves and each other.
Smiling, touching, playing, glowing in the sun.
I look like I’m in a completely different world, lost in thoughts that have nothing to do with anyone around me, as though I was wrangled for the photo under duress and the instant someone gave me permission, I’d run back toward the water to dig uselessly for clams.
As I shift my stance, I catch my reflection in the glass that protects the photo. I look notably similar at ages twelve and thirty-four, even though I wear my long hair in a tidy ponytail these days, I haven’t had bangs in over a decade, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in gingham.
But the frown? It’s almost identical.
Ditto with the sense of aloneness.
I’ve often gravitated to aloneness, though I never meant to cultivate it as my default state.
It’s a fine line between alone and lonely, between needing to be away from the noise, the bustle, and the judgment of others and not wanting a life built on silence and solitude.
I chose to spend my summers with my grandmother, here on the coast, where she let me read for days on end, uninterrupted, or hang out on the boat, perfecting my knots, rather than nurturing friendships by going to pool parties and barbecues.
Similarly, I chose to move away from my family and build a life in Chicago, where “building a life” meant sequestering myself in my office or apartment, reading papers, planning courses, prepping lectures, and writing books and articles, as befitted my career.
I’ve used work as an excuse to avoid social gatherings or put time and energy into dating.
But I often wonder, did I make these choices because they were what I wanted, or were they what I wanted because of the choices other people made?
And what if both are true, plus something else besides, something that’s simply me, who I am and who I was always going to be?
How do I reconcile my need for aloneness with the growing sense that I’ve been missing something that would prevent the aloneness from becoming a place I can’t escape?
Again, the thought comes unbidden.
If my grandmother was still alive . . .
Again, I shut it down, this time with more effort than the last.
I can practically feel the house sighing with me as I head up the rest of the stairs to the second-floor landing.
Light seeps beneath the door from the room at the top of the next flight, the room Dylan’s using.
Rhythmic footfalls echo quietly in the hall, accompanied by the occasional creak of a floorboard.
It sounds like he’s pacing, slowly, thoughtfully, not in anger, but I worry I’ve stressed him out with my presence here.
How could I not? He’s been residing in this place uninterrupted for more than half a decade, accustomed to his routines.
Now he has to share with a total stranger, one who could overturn everything he’s grown comfortable with.
I might not want a life of constant solitude and silence, but maybe he does.
Or maybe he doesn’t.
With a bracing breath, I pad up the stairs.
I’ll ask about the grocery list. Or thank him again for sharing the place with so little notice.
Or I’ll say a quick and polite goodnight, offer a few friendly words, just enough to make sure we’re not establishing weird patterns of completely ignoring each other.
That’s what someone who is good with people would do, right?
The tread beneath me creaks ever so slightly as I reach the second-to-last stair.
The sound of pacing stops, and a shifting shadow beneath the door goes still.
I wait, second-guessing my plan as I picture Dylan frozen midstep on the other side of his door, the way a deer freezes when it’s startled and trying not to be seen.
Of course he doesn’t want to be seen. He doesn’t want to talk, either.
If he did, he wouldn’t have fled to his room and shut the door.
Also, he already told me not to buy him groceries.
His signals were clear. I’m not being friendly.
I’m being pushy and invasive. Two things I never want to be.
I count to ten. The hall remains silent. The shadow doesn’t move.
Slowly, slyly, reluctantly, I turn around and return to my room.
The bed, as predicted, is as lumpy as ever. I barely sleep a wink.