Chapter 6
The night Shelby met Jared Kissinger for the first time, she returned to the house she shared with her mother, brother, sister, and Ben, feeling as though she carried a secret in her stomach. She felt sure that Lily would take one look at her and say, “You’re in love.”
“Hey,” Lily said instead, standing at the kitchen counter, “what do you want for dinner?”
Because their mother was up at the restaurant cooking all evening, Lily, Shelby, and Chad were on their own.
Chad suggested their favorite, which they called “snack dinner.” They threw various items they found in the fridge and freezer into the oven: vegetables, frozen pizzas, fish sticks, and mozzarella sticks, then carried everything out to the veranda to eat together near the water.
There was talk of Mick coming by to eat with them, but Lily said, “Mick’s newly obsessed with his project. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Shelby picked up a mozzarella stick and bit the end so that a long, cheesy ooze came out. She laughed, then hurried to clean herself up, her mouth frothing with melted cheese.
“You’ll never guess who I heard from today,” Lily said, reaching for a slice of pizza.
“Who?” Chad asked, his eyes to the water.
“Baxter,” Lily said.
Shelby’s eyebrows rocketed to her hairline. “You’re kidding.”
“He had a really good time with you,” Lily said, shrugging. “I knew there was something between you. You’re both readers. You’re both New Yorkers. And he’s cute, right?”
“He literally told me he just wants to be friends,” Shelby reminded her sister. She didn’t want to say, “I spent an hour crying on your bed after our date, remember?”
“Sometimes guys need a little time to think things over. Right, Chad?”
Chad shrugged and took another bite of pizza. He’d had many girlfriends and had never seemed to have much trouble with dating. Shelby wasn’t sure she wanted any feedback from him. But then Chad said, “Guys are dumb, Shelbs.”
Shelby laughed despite herself. “Well, it’s too late. I met someone else.”
“Ha. Yeah.” Lily took another bite of pizza.
“I’m serious,” Shelby said. “I met a guy today. We’re going out tomorrow night.”
Lily’s jaw dropped.
“Come on. It’s not that weird,” Shelby said, although her cheeks were burning with embarrassment.
“No! I mean, it’s not weird at all. And that’s great! Who is he?” Lily had completely abandoned her food and was fixated on Shelby.
Shelby explained what she knew so far. “He came into the bookstore to buy Moby Dick. He’s funny and charming. I don’t know. I have this feeling about him.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “I’ve never heard you talk like this.”
“I’ve never felt like this,” Shelby said.
“What are you going to wear?” Lily demanded.
That night, Lily and Shelby scoured their joint wardrobe, searching for the perfect dress for Shelby’s date. For more than two hours, they did a kind of fashion show for one another, listening to music and laughing and daydreaming about Shelby’s future.
“I should have known you wouldn’t need me to be your matchmaker,” Lily said. “You were always your own person. You never wanted my help.”
For the date, Shelby decided on a cute jean mini skirt and a black peasant top. Lily agreed that it wasn’t too provocative. It was fun and cool and easy.
Together, they laid out the clothes, then headed to the living room to find Chad, Rebecca, and Ben watching a movie. Rebecca grinned happily at Shelby and said, “Chad says you met the love of your life today?”
Shelby’s stomach fluttered. “Maybe I did,” she said.
She thought, This is the first day of the rest of my life.
As they’d decided via text, the following day at six p.m., Jared Kissinger picked Shelby up from the Sutton Book Club.
They wandered through downtown, buzzing with excitement.
Already, Jared had read another one hundred pages of Moby Dick, and Shelby had also picked up a copy for herself.
There was so much to say about the novel and about Melville himself that they couldn’t shut up.
Eventually, they made their way to a restaurant, where they sat at the seaside and ordered fish and fresh bread.
Shelby found that already, to her, Jared was twice as good-looking as he’d been yesterday, if only because she felt she knew him better.
Was this how it was supposed to happen? Was this how people fell in love?
That night, Jared touched her hand on the table and gazed into her eyes. “I want you to know something,” he said. “This feels different to me. Does it feel different to you?”
Shelby could hardly breathe. “It feels different,” she agreed quietly.
She didn’t need to tell him that she hadn’t dated often before.
She felt that her dates with Hank and Baxter had shown her how monstrous “real” dating could be.
Shelby felt she was the kind of person who met someone and immediately fell in love.
What was happening between her and Jared was how it was meant to be. She was a hopeless romantic.
That night, Jared kissed her for the first time. Her stomach fluttered.
“Let’s see each other tomorrow,” Jared said when their kiss broke. “I can’t wait any longer than that.”
Shelby agreed.
When Shelby returned home that night, she found Lily waiting up for her. Shelby grabbed her sister’s hand and shrieked, and together, the two of them jumped up and down.
“I love him! I mean, I think I already do!” Shelby said, laughing at how ridiculous that sounded.
“Tell me everything,” Lily said, dragging her to her bedroom, where they sat on the floor.
That night in the retelling, Shelby didn’t leave anything out.
For the next few weeks, when Shelby was off work, all she did was spend time with Jared.
There was no end to the joy they could create together, and they continued to read the same things, moving from Melville to Tolstoy and then to Dostoyevsky.
Shelby adored talking to him about her favorite sentences.
She adored talking about plot and characterization and what made these famous books sing.
Between book conversations and extreme bouts of kissing, Shelby and Jared learned as much as they could about one another.
Shelby told Jared about her father, who’d died three years ago.
She told him about leaving Maine and coming to Nantucket Island.
She told him about her Grandma Esme and Grandpa Victor and how romantic it seemed to get back together after so many years apart.
In return, Jared told her about his formidable parents and their demands on his life.
“They wanted me to go to Harvard, and after four years of Harvard undergrad, I’m in grad school there, too,” he said, his eyes shadowed.
“But it’s Harvard,” Shelby said. “It must be extraordinary! It must be a dream.”
“Honestly, I think it’s stifling,” Jared said. “Everyone there thinks they’re the smartest person in the universe. The professors are competitive with one another and never allow for any other opinions. It’s a strange and usually menacing environment.”
Jared was studying business, as his father had demanded that he follow in his footsteps and take over the family construction business—one that had been instrumental in building much of Boston.
As an undergrad, he’d minored in English literature, and he continued to seek out literary education even outside the classroom.
Imagining a future with Jared felt easy and alive.
Shelby imagined that they’d marry and live somewhere near Boston, so that Jared could manage the family business.
Shelby would get a professor job somewhere, maybe at Tufts if not at Harvard.
Maybe she’d even have an in at Harvard, given her husband’s proximity. Her heart throbbed with excitement.
When Shelby and Jared had been dating for nearly a month, Rebecca tugged Shelby into the kitchen and asked when she was going to have Jared over for a family dinner.
Shelby’s ears rang with surprise. She wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to her.
Then again: she felt greedy about her time with Jared.
She didn’t want anyone else to be around so that they could dig deeper into one another’s souls.
“Bring him around tomorrow night,” Rebecca insisted. “I’m not working, but I’ll make something delicious for all of us. Grandma and Grandpa want to come, too.”
Shelby raised her chin and told herself to be brave. It was a big thing, bringing your future husband back home to meet your family. But she was confident that they would all love one another. How could they not?
Dinner was set for seven thirty. Jittery with excitement, Shelby set the table outside, updating Lily on everything that had transpired since she’d last seen her.
Lily had been busy in New York City, going to a matchmaking conference and meeting up with old friends, which meant she’d missed a few leaps and bounds in Shelby’s new relationship.
Now, Lily said, “It sounds like you guys are already so serious! How do you feel about tonight?”
“It’s going to be great,” Shelby said, smiling wider. “You’re going to love him.”
“I can’t wait,” Lily said. “Mick’s excited, too. Imagine. If everything works out, Mick and Jared will be brothers-in-law.”
Shelby laughed, imagining a future of couple vacations with her sister and Mick. Maybe Chad and whoever he wound up with would come, too. It all sounded so adult.
That night, Jared dressed the part of a handsome Harvard graduate.
He wore a suit jacket and a pair of slacks, and his hair was gelled in a way that kept it out of his eyes.
He’d brought flowers for not only Rebecca, but also for Grandma Esme, and he shook every man’s hand earnestly, looking them in the eye. Shelby swooned with happiness.
“It’s such a pleasure,” Rebecca said.
Out on the veranda, Rebecca opened a bottle of wine and poured everyone a little glass, even Chad. Shelby caught Lily and Mick giving one another funny glances. Under the table, she took Jared’s hand, feeling a wave of anxiety that only he could quell. But he didn’t seem nervous at all.
“So, Jared,” Grandpa Victor said, “your family has a summer house here on the island?”
“That’s right,” Jared said. “The Kissingers. We’re up along Siasconset Beach.”
“Of course. I’m friendly with your father,” Victor said proudly. “I’ve heard about his boy. The Harvard grad.”
Shelby beamed.
“And of course, I’ve heard about you,” Jared said. “The renowned therapist. It’s a pleasure.”
Victor laughed and reached for his wine. “How did you come to meet my granddaughter?”
“We met at the Book Club,” Shelby said in a small voice.
Esme cast Shelby a smile. “Shelby was always meant to be with another reader.”
“It’s hard to find people who read nowadays,” Jared agreed.
“It’s awful,” Lily said. “I realized I’ve only read two books the entire year! I’m so lazy.”
Mick laughed and said, “I’m sort of the same. I hate it.”
“Tell us your tips, you two,” Lily said. “How do you read so many books a week?”
Jared and Shelby laughed and looked at one another. Shelby wondered if her family could feel the magic swimming between them.
“It’s rare to meet someone as well-read as Shelby,” Jared said tenderly. “She’s read all the greats. Dostoyevsky. Faulkner. Tolstoy. Kafka. And she gets them, too, which is another rare thing.”
“Why wouldn’t she get them?” Lily interjected, her smile waning the slightest bit.
“Oh, I don’t mean anything by it,” Jared said. “It’s just that people don’t read that much anymore, like we said.”
“What about some of the women writers?” Grandma Esme asked, her smile firm.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, there are a few,” Jared said thoughtfully.
At this, Shelby felt a funny lurch in her gut.
Rebecca burst with laughter. “I get it. You’re joking,” she said, waving her fork toward him. “Of course you’ve read women. You can’t read some of the best books in history without reading women writers.”
Jared laughed. “Sure. Yeah. Sylvia Plath was pretty good. What’s her name, the other one? She was good, too. But great? I don’t know.”
There was a strangled moment of silence. Shelby didn’t dare look up at her mother, nor her grandmother, nor her sister. Her thoughts were tangled up.
And then, Jared let out another rogue laugh. “I’m kidding, obviously. Women writers are great. You know I think they’re great.”