Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was the first day of spring on Nantucket Island.
Lily Vance was on her mother’s porch, chatting on the phone with a Manhattan-based client about her short-term and long-term goals and how those goals might relate to her desire to have a partner, a marriage, and maybe children down the road.
“The thing is,” Lily said, drumming her thigh with her pen, “I think as women, we’re hyper-focused on getting married at the right time, on having children at the right time, and on performing the rituals of being in love for everyone we know.
I can speak for myself when I say I tried to rush into marriage.
I almost put down the deposit on the venue.
I almost bought a dress. But suddenly, I realized that I didn’t know myself.
I didn’t know what I wanted. And it was unfair to my partner to try to make marriage work when I wasn’t done working on myself yet. ”
Her client—a twenty-seven-year-old woman—had reached out to Lily after a bad breakup last December.
She’d read about Lily’s “combined matchmaking and life-coaching sessions” and been intrigued enough to give her a call.
Lily had sent her a number of exercises—essays to write that would explore her client’s inner life—and after Lily had reviewed them, she decided that, yes, tentatively, her client could begin dating soon.
She was learning about herself and figuring out her own needs.
“But the minute things get out of hand,” Lily said now, “we can pump the brakes and step back.”
Her client breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said. “I was getting dizzy on the apps. Every time I had a bad date, I figured I’d done something wrong, or I just needed to keep pushing myself to meet new people. But I think dating is just as much a mental game as it is a social one.”
Lily snapped her fingers. Already, it felt as though her clients were learning her language. This wasn’t such a surprise, given that Lily had started her own podcast about dating, relationships, and finding your inner voice.
The podcast had already been named “one to watch” by various streaming services and featured by three magazines.
After her call, Lily padded back into the house to find Chad and her mother eating sandwiches in the kitchen light. Chad was sweaty, presumably after one practice or another, and her mother was peppering him for details about his day at school.
“How did it go?” Rebecca asked, turning to Lily. Chad breathed a sigh of relief, no longer the topic. He hurried to the sofa and dropped onto the cushions.
“That’s my twentieth client in a month!” Lily cried, high-fiving her mother.
Rebecca was exuberant. “This new pivot was exactly what you needed,” she said. “Proud of you, honey. Really.”
That evening, Lily went downtown to meet her new friend Rachel for drinks.
Sitting in the fifty-five-degree darkness, lit up by twinkling lights on the wine bar veranda, Lily and Rachel talked about girly things that made Lily feel more like a person than she had since her engagement fell through.
Rachel was dating frequently—sometimes with Lily’s help and sometimes not—and had numerous stories about men she liked and men she didn’t.
Eventually, she said, “Oh, and I met someone I think you would like, actually.”
Lily snorted. “Are you trying to matchmake the matchmaker?”
“Are you suggesting that you’re unmatchable?” Rachel teased.
Lily rolled her eyes. “I think I know every single guy on this island.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Rachel said. “This one is kind of different.”
“Different how?”
Rachel shrugged. “He’s a loner. I don’t think he left his house all winter.”
Bells rang in Lily’s ear. Slowly, she put her glass of wine back down and gave her friend a curious look. She couldn’t be referring to Mick Hamilton. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
“How did you meet this loner guy?” Lily asked delicately.
“He was at the grocery store,” Rachel said.
“It was a perfect meet-cute moment. I accidentally hit one of those big candy displays with my cart, and everything fell over. He came to my rescue, and we helped the staff set everything back up again. I was so embarrassed but also pleased. I mean, he’s handsome.
And I thought he was going to ask me out. ”
Lily could hardly speak. “Did he?”
“He asked me for coffee after,” Rachel said. “I agreed. We walked out to our cars, packed our stuff, and went to the coffee shop down the road. By the time we got our coffees, I was over him.”
Lily erupted with laughter. “What! Why?”
Rachel shrugged. “Girl, he’s not my type of guy. I wish he was. But I thought of you.” She tapped her fingernail on the edge of the table. “Why do I get the sense that you’re freaking out right now?”
Lily poured wine into her mouth and told herself to act normally. She didn’t want Rachel to know she’d already courted a mini crush on the guy (if it really was Mick, that was).
“How did you tell him you didn’t like him?” Lily asked.
“I didn’t have to!” Rachel cried. “He told me it was nice to meet me, but that he wasn’t interested in dating anyone right now. I felt offended. I mean, he didn’t have to ask me for coffee and then break things off!”
“You didn’t like him either,” Lily reminded her.
“Nobody likes to be dumped,” Rachel said.
“But listen. He gave me his business card. Here.” She slid it across the table—a familiar scrap of cardstock that brought Lily all the way back to her first month on Nantucket, when she’d recruited Mick as a client.
MICK HAMILTON, it read, just as she’d known it would.
Lily pocketed the card.
“By the way, I saw that gossip column.” Rachel eyed Lily nervously, as though she’d been waiting to bring this up but hadn’t known how. “About Liam?”
“Oh. The one with Bex?” Liam and Bex had been photographed making out in a Los Angeles park.
From the looks of things, they weren’t only promotional photographs.
They were hot and heavy. In fact, the skateboarder had recently contacted Lily to ask if she could fix him up with someone else, which was sweet.
She’d told him her business model was slightly different now, and he hadn’t gotten back to her. That was fine, too.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked, wincing.
“I’m fine!” Lily laughed. “Honestly, my relationship with Liam feels like a blip, now. We were together a little more than a year, and I lived with him in LA for a while. But none of it was right.” She wet her lips. “I did hear from his mother, though.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “What! You didn’t say! You had a bizarre relationship, right?”
“I don’t think I would have had the will to end things if it wasn’t for his mom,” Lily said, thinking back on that small and sweet woman with the heart of a champion. “She sent me a postcard that said in Japanese, ‘Love isn’t always the relationships you build, it’s what you feel for yourself.’”
“Cryptic,” Rachel said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever see her again,” Lily said. “But I’ll probably think of her for the rest of my life.”
It was a little more than a week after that that Lily got around to calling Mick Hamilton. When he answered with a smile in his voice, she hurried to say, “I’m sorry it’s been so long. I had a few things to work through.” She didn’t even say hello.
Mick laughed gently. She could see him in his studio, sunlight spilling over his handsome face. “You don’t have to apologize. I had a few things I needed to work out, too.”
“Do you want to meet up and talk about all the things we’ve figured out?” Lily asked. Her heartbeat was like a rabbit’s.
“I’d like that very much,” he said.
It was a clear, warm day, and they agreed to meet on the beach for a picnic.
Mick packed champagne, smelly cheeses, and homemade bread, and Lily offered brownies, hummus, and olives.
Lily fluttered a blanket on the sand and watched as Mick removed cheese from its packaging.
She wondered if he was as nervous as she was.
“I heard what happened with my friend Rachel,” she said suddenly, surprising herself.
Mick raised his chin and looked at her, surprised. “Rachel’s your friend!”
“She doesn’t know we know each other.”
Mick blushed. “Did she tell you I acted like a really strange guy?”
“She told me I would like you,” Lily said. “I don’t know what that means about me.”
Mick stood, a smile working its way across his face. “I liked you from the minute I met you, Lily Vance.”
“I liked you, too.” Lily swallowed the lump in her throat. A gentle breeze shifted between them. “I still do.”
“Let’s see.” Mick winked.
Together, they sat on the blanket, spread cheese on bread, ate olives, and watched the sunshine play over the waves. They chatted about what they’d been up to the past six months, about Lily’s breakup and Mick’s brief stint in Manhattan, about Mick’s art and Lily’s decision to expand her business.
“I’ve thought about leaving Nantucket a few times,” Lily admitted. “I can handle all my clients from here, but it would be easier to be in a city, maybe. I don’t know.”
“But your family is here,” Mick said gently.
“Exactly,” Lily said. She explained what she’d learned about Yoko, about how painful the past thirty years of her life had been because she hadn’t had family nearby. “She left her culture behind for a husband who didn’t respect or even really like her. I don’t want to make the same mistake.”
“You won’t,” Mick said. “That isn’t your style.”
Lily and Mick talked until the sun dropped like a burning coin into the ocean, casting them into chilly darkness.
They got in Mick’s car, turned on the radio, and talked some more.
And through their conversation and their laughter, Lily realized their souls were similar.
They seemed to speak the same language. Never had she felt this way with Liam.
She hoped Liam felt that way with Bex—or would find someone who set his heart on fire, someday.
She hoped he wouldn’t treat that future partner the way Kendall had treated Yoko.
Patterns needed to be broken. Love needed to reign supreme.