Chapter Six
I’M PERCHED ON THE COUNTER IN DAWN’S BOUTIQUE, brILAND Bloom, flipping through a copy of Graham Vale’s photography book Leisure Class. The space smells faintly of salt and sandalwood—linen dresses, raffia bags, stacks of coffee table books, and handmade jewelry lining the pale pink shelves.
Dawn’s family goes way back on Harbour Island. They run the ferry business down at the dock, but she built this shop from scratch. We met as kids, two barefoot girls running around the sand roads.
“Do you think these were real people or models?”
Dawn shrugs. “Probably both. You know how it was back then. Everyone wanted to be in front of Graham Vale’s lens. Apparently, half the island girls were in love with him back in the day.”
“Can you blame them?” I say, flipping another page. “He looked like he belonged in his own photos.”
Graham Vale’s work is practically island wallpaper.
Every house has a copy of Leisure Class somewhere.
He was the photographer from the sixties through the early 2000s, famous for capturing the rich and sunburned looking effortlessly undone.
Half the photos in this book were shot on Harbour Island.
He still owns a house on the bay, though no one ever sees him.
“It would be cool if you could get Graham to sign these books, you know?”
“Sure, that would be brilliant. But how? He’s a hermit now. I’m not even sure the last time he was on the island. So,” she continues, focused on steaming the cotton gauze dress in front of her, “do you want to unpack last night with Noah, or are you still mentally replaying it on a loop?”
“I’m not mentally replaying anything.”
“Of course you’re not,” she says, flicking the steamer off and turning toward me. “You were literally beaming when you walked up to the golf cart last night.”
I glance down at my phone, the notification still sitting there.
Noah: Last night was fun. Let me know if you’re free this weekend.
I reread it then flip the phone over.
“He’s nice,” I say carefully. “Very easy to like.”
“And yet, you haven’t texted him back.”
“I will, I just…want to breathe it all in. I just got here. I’m still recalibrating.”
Dawn rolls her eyes. “You’ve had one spontaneous golf cart moment and a few flirty wine toasts. He’s not proposing.”
“I know,” I laugh. “But it’s not about him. It’s about me not jumping into something just because it feels good.”
She studies me for a beat, then nods. “That’s fair. If that’s why.”
“The season is just beginning,” Dawn continues, unpacking a stack of dresses from another delivery box. “Everyone’s starting to arrive.”
“I think Allie gets in today.” There’s something about that first wave of arrivals, like summer’s officially started once we’re all back together again.
She glances at me. “And Jack?”
I pause, closing the book and stacking it next to the others. “I mean, we’ve obviously seen each other a few times,” I say noncommittally.
The rustle of tissue paper fills the silence while Dawn keeps unpacking, deliberate and steady.
“It’s weird,” I admit. “Being around him. It’s like my body remembers things before my brain catches up. We fall into this easy rhythm, like nothing’s changed, but of course everything has.”
“Has it been hard? Finally seeing him?”
I nod. “Not in the way I thought it would be. Just…confusing. He’s still Jack, even though it’s been two years. But I don’t know what version of me I’m supposed to be with him anymore.”
Dawn shakes her head and sighs. “I still can’t believe you guys broke up.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “We live different lives except when we’re here. When Jack’s in New York, everything is measured by how loud your ambition is. He turns into a person consumed by the next promotion, the next big deal, as if he has to prove himself to anyone and everyone.”
My throat tightens as I run my fingers across a shell picture frame. “I’ve never doubted him, but that wasn’t enough.”
“I used to fly up on weekends, and we’d squeeze each other into forty-eight hours between client dinners and flights. And every Sunday night, right before I left, he’d promise things would calm down. They never did.”
I can’t stop because I don’t think I’ve ever said any of this out loud.
“He kept building this tower higher and higher because he thought that’s where security lived.
But there was no room left for me. For us.
And the thing is,” I add, softer, “I never felt at home up there. The city’s exciting, sure, but I always felt like I was borrowing someone else’s world when I visited. I’d leave and feel so relieved.”
Dawn exhales, nodding. “You’ve always been an open air and barefoot kind of girl.”
“Exactly.” I smile, a little sad. “But Jack thinks he needs the skyscrapers.”
“Well, you know I’m always team Lucy,” Dawn smiles at me. “He does seem different this summer, though. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe. I guess he does seem more relaxed, less guarded. Almost like the guy I fell in love with.”
After I leave Dawn’s shop, I steer the Jolly down to the Customs building on Government dock, a modest structure with peeling pink paint and a perpetually spinning fan. After I sign the logbook, the attendant disappears to retrieve my shipment.
“Lucy?”
I turn to see Helen from the art gallery approaching.
“I thought I saw you driving the Jolly the other day. Are you picking up house supplies?” She asks, giving me a hug hello.
I shake my head. “Art supplies, actually. Hopefully everything made it.”
“I’d love to see what you’re working on.”
“If I ever get started,” I laugh. “But I’ll come by the gallery soon. I saw you have a new Amos Ferguson painting that I’m dying to see in person.”
Her eyes brighten. “Swing by this week, I’ll make sure you get the full tour.”
After I unpack my paints at the house, I drag the easel out onto the back porch, the old boards warm beneath my bare feet.
The shade from the house, along with the breeze off the ocean, keeps me cool enough in the afternoon heat.
I queue up the Folklore album and squeeze dollops of blues and greens onto my palette.
I layer strokes across the canvas, letting the water take shape.
The curve of the waves, the shadows in the sand, the weightless sweep of clouds.
I’m not painting anything exact, just trying to capture a feeling.
Time blurs in the best way. Starting a fresh canvas, I pull in more color this time, dipping my brush into a rich lilac.
It’s the first time I’ve felt pulled toward a blank canvas in weeks, maybe months.
Back home, I’d been stuck in a loop of commissions, everything careful and boxed in.
Here, it’s looser. The colors want to move again, and I finally want to follow them.
My phone rattles on the arm of the porch chair.
Allie: You home? Come over, we have snacks and a baby!
I grin. It’s the kind of interruption I welcome, and it pulls me out of my trance.
I slip on my sandals and walk the two doors over, spotting Allie on the porch swing, rocking Felix in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The swing creaks, same as it did when we were kids swapping secrets, only now she’s cradling a newborn instead of a box of Goldfish.
“There you are,” she says softly, grinning as I step up onto the porch.
I lean in and kiss her cheek, peeking at Felix asleep in her arms. “How did you smuggle this angel onto the island?”
“Oh, it’s a trick,” she says, adjusting his sleeve with one hand. “He’s like this just long enough to make me forget how tired I am before he turns into an eating machine.”
I laugh and drop into the chair beside her. “How was the trip?”
“Not as easy as it used to be,” she laughs. “I plan on doing absolutely nothing today except existing.”
“I’ll keep you company.”
She tells me about the chaos of life with a new baby, her husband’s refusal to pack anything until this morning, and how the only thing she’s looking forward to more than wine is a nap.
“So,” she says, tilting her head. “What’s new with you?”
“I’ve just been settling in over at the house,” I say, telling her about the plan to rent it out with Milly’s help. “Between the two of us, she’s definitely the one in charge. I think Gran trained her for this moment.”
Allie laughs. “Your Gran could get a room full of grown men to move furniture with just a look.”
For a second, we’re both quiet, and I’m remembering how Gran would put us to work in the kitchen, the sound of her gold bangles clinking as she moved. It’s nice to remember her like that, not just in the empty spaces she left behind.
Allie tilts her head. “How has it been seeing Jack? He mentioned you came over for margaritas.”
“Yeah,” I let out a slow breath. “We’ve seen each other a couple times.” It’s not untrue. But it leaves a lot unsaid. Allie and I have been close since we were kids, which makes the Jack of it all…complicated. She’s had a front-row seat to every season of us.
Allie studies me for a beat longer, then leans back into the swing, her gaze softening.
“I’m glad,” she says. “You two were always so close. I hate how weird it got there for a while.”
I nod, my shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, me too.”
When we take the baby down to the beach, Allie digs in the basket for a towel, and my gaze catches on one of Jack’s old shirts, the cracked Harbour Island Sailing Club logo making my chest tighten.
I remember the summer I first ended up with it.
Jack was helping with the sailing club, half counselor, half ringleader, and way too sure of himself.
One of the campers was a kid I babysat, and I learned exactly how early I could arrive for pickup without looking obvious, parking myself in the same patch of shade.
One sweltering afternoon, he hauled a Sunfish sailboat out of the water and tugged his shirt over his head, skin slick with salt and sweat. He caught me watching and grinned, then tossed his shirt at me.
“Hold this before I melt.”
It smelled like coconut sunscreen and sun. When he told me to keep it, I pretended it was nothing. But later that night, laying in bed, I replayed the moment over and over.
I wore it everywhere that summer, over my bikini, knotted at the waist with cutoffs, even once to the sailing club cookout, where he leaned in and teased, “Pretty sure it looks better on you, but don’t tell the rest of the club.” My stomach flipped, heat rushing to my face.
It’s faded now, but one glimpse and I’m right back there, seventeen, sunburned, trying not to smile too big every time he looked my way.