Chapter 17 #2
But despite her fears, Nora was delighted about their day together.
They hiked for nearly three hours before they took a break, changing into their bathing suits beneath their towels and running into the glinting water.
Nora plunged her head in, then floated to the surface, so that her ears were still submerged and her nose and toes were pointed toward the clouds.
She sensed Max not far from her. She imagined that he was watching her, waiting for her to come back over to him.
She imagined that they’d tread water, laughing and flirting.
But where could all this energy go? What did she want from him and from herself?
But when she stood upright again, she found Max swimming back toward the shore.
Disappointed but also strangely relieved, she watched him stride out of the water, his back muscles rippling.
But he didn’t go directly to their stuff on the sand.
Instead, he turned toward a long plaque set into the concrete not far from their towels.
Nora hadn’t seen it when they’d arrived.
She guessed it was filled with information about the beach, the wildlife, and maybe the island's history. But Max frowned as he read whatever was written there. Then he beckoned for Nora to come over and read it, too. Nora didn’t want to get out of the water. But Max’s expression scared her.
When Nora reached him, she stood, arms crossed, and read:
“The Everett Greenaway Memorial Beach
This beach is named in honor of a beloved Nantucketer named Everett, who was born and raised on Nantucket Island. March 8, 1948 - August 12, 1984”
Nora’s soul floated out of her body. She couldn’t believe the chances. Unless Max had brought her to this beach on purpose? Unless he’d walked her into a trap? She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up at Max. He seemed just about as shocked as she was.
“You didn’t know,” Nora whispered.
Max shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t have come here if I did.”
Nora pressed the tip of her tongue into the side of her cheek. She couldn’t stop reading her uncle’s name. It had been ages since she’d seen it written out like that.
“Why did they choose this beach?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine the connection between Uncle Everett and this gorgeous, sun-dappled stretch of white.
“Rich people love to claim beauty as their own,” Max said. He sounded like his teenage self.
“We’re rich, now,” Nora reminded him in a small voice.
Max gave her a look. “We’re not like them.”
Nora understood what he meant. But a strange feeling of guilt rippled through her.
“You know,” Nora said after a long, awful silence, “I sometimes still wonder what my life would have been like if all that hadn’t happened.
Would I have maintained a relationship with my aunt and uncle?
Would I have stayed in Nantucket and graduated here?
Would I have gone somewhere like Harvard or Yale? ”
Max cracked a sorrowful smile.
“I know it’s no use to think about the past like that,” Nora said finally. “I know it’s no use to try to rewrite history.”
“We all do it,” Max said. “It can’t be helped.”
Nora cupped her elbows. She didn’t know what to say.
“You know, I left the island a few days after you did,” Max said.
“I couldn’t take it. I took the bus to the city and got a room in this awful, awful apartment in Queens.
I worked three jobs, all of which paid me a miserable wage, even back then.
But the eighties in the city were a wild time.
I learned a lot about myself. I grew up too fast. Maybe that’s why I had to leave and move to Europe. ”
Nora pictured Max in all the strange and exhilarating phases of New York City in the eighties, before he’d moved to Europe.
She imagined him with a mohawk and nearly laughed aloud.
But as she turned to look at him, another awful spasm shot through her back.
Before she knew what was happening to her, she fell to the sand, crying out.
It was that old injury again. But it had come at the worst time.
It made her feel like the oldest person in the world.
Max bent down beside her, panicked. “Nora, are you all right?”
Nora touched her back and winced. “I’m fine,” she said, although she clearly wasn’t. “It’s just, yeah. Something’s happening to my back.”
“Let’s wait it out,” Max said, adjusting himself beside her.
Nora braced herself for another wave of pain. “I don’t want you to waste your day.”
“This is exactly what I want to do today,” Max said. “I want to sit on the beach with you.”
Nora closed her eyes. “I wish it wasn’t Uncle Everett’s beach.”
“Me too,” Max said with a laugh. “Even in death, that man owns everything.”
“He’s more powerful than I’ll ever be,” Nora agreed.
Eventually, Nora was well enough to stand up.
But the pain returned shortly thereafter, requiring Max to carry her the rest of the way back to their cars.
Nora felt pathetic. But she pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to the powerful beating of his heart.
She knew that Isaac had never been strong enough to carry her like this.
In a way, it was a romantic gesture, one that suited the pages of a lame romance novel.
But she enjoyed it, despite that.
Back at Nora’s place, Max helped her get comfortable on the back porch before leaving for a while and returning with lunch from the Mexican place they’d wanted to try after their hike.
He also brought ingredients for margaritas, which he prepared before setting out all the food on the long, slender porch table.
Nora felt tender-hearted. She kept telling herself not to fall in love with him.
But goodness, he could make a wonderful margarita: perfectly sour, with a ring of salt around the rim.
She guessed he hadn’t been able to make fantastic margaritas back in ’84.
He had a lifetime of learning in that brain of his.
After a few minutes of eating, of gushing over the food and the cocktail, Nora hesitated, a tortilla chip raised. “The pain comes from my old back injury,” she said finally, maybe because she didn’t want to hide anything like that from Max. Not this time.
Max’s expression didn’t change. “I assumed it was,” he said quietly. “I imagine that thing never really went away.”
“It never did,” she said.
They shared a sorrowful smile, peering back through the past together.