Chapter 29
Hannah arrived at the marina on Friday at a quarter of twelve. Niall had said to meet in front of the shark boats. There were several that offered tours, so it was easy to find them. Niall was there, waiting for her. But she noticed that this area of the marina was unusually quiet. There were no signs of life on any of the shark boats—and no one waiting to board.
But Niall was all smiles as she walked up. He looked cute, too, in Ralph Lauren shorts, a white T-shirt, and a Nantucket sweatshirt in the unique shade that Hannah loved. It was called Nantucket Red and was a soft washed-out red, very popular on the island.
Hannah wore shorts as well and a white tank top with a warm cotton crewneck sweater over it. It was like a sweatshirt, but a little dressier. She wanted layers that were easy to take off if it got hot out there. She’d brought sunscreen as well, and had applied some all over when she got out of the shower.
She looked around again as she reached Niall. There were no other people at all on that dock. “Where is everyone?” she asked.
He laughed. “Well, that’s a funny story. So, I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”
“Bad news, I guess?” Hannah smiled, wondering where he was going with this.
“When I called to reserve the shark tour I discovered that it doesn’t normally run in May. Shark season in Chatham doesn’t start until July—the first sharks are usually spotted around the fourth. Although sometimes it can happen in late May or June, just not enough to guarantee sightings.”
“Oh. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t, either. But I came up with another idea—I knew it was going to be ideal boating weather today. So, I hired a different boat!”
Hannah stared at him, perplexed. Were they going on a seal watch then? Or whales?
“And this is even better. We’ll have the boat to ourselves, other than the crew, of course. Someone has to drive it.”
“Where will we be going?”
He grinned. “We have it for three hours, so all over. We might not see sharks, but we’ll see seals and whales. It’s guaranteed.”
Hannah smiled. His enthusiasm was contagious. “How do they guarantee it?”
“It’s very cool. They do the same thing for some of the high-end shark tours. There’s a dedicated small plane that flies ahead and spots them for us.”
Hannah was impressed. “I had no idea that was possible.”
“Our boat is around the corner on a different dock.” Niall led the way down the empty dock to one with a bit more activity. There were several deep-sea fishing boats that were getting ready to head out. And just beyond that was a more luxurious boat. It also looked set up for deep-sea fishing, but there was a roomy deck area and comfortable-looking chairs and a table that was beautifully set with plates and cups, and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne on ice.
The captain welcomed them onto the boat and introduced himself and his crew. “I’m Dave, and I’m going to be driving you around today. Jim and Andy are here to serve you, whatever you need. Your lunch is ready whenever you want it, just let them know. Our spotter plane is already up in the air looking for sharks, whales, and seals. That’s Mac and he’s the best. If they’re out there, he’ll find them. Make yourselves comfortable and we’ll get underway.” Andy jumped out of the boat and untied the moorings, then climbed back aboard and the boat began to slowly move away from the dock.
They sat at the table and Jim opened the bottle of champagne and filled Hannah’s glass first and then Niall’s. He went into the galley of the boat and returned a moment later with a plate of sliced strawberries, crackers, and cheese and set it in the middle of the table. Hannah took a small sip of the champagne and reached for a strawberry. She looked back at the dock, which quickly grew smaller as they headed out on the water.
“What do you think? This is pretty cool, huh?” Niall helped himself to the cheese and crackers.
Hannah lifted her face and let the sun beam down upon her skin. Its warmth and the slight coolness of the salt air as they picked up speed felt intoxicating.
“I love this. It’s been ages since I’ve been on a boat. I haven’t spent much time in Chatham in recent years.” Hannah realized she’d been missing out and wished she’d come back more often.
“You’re here now. You can make up for lost time this summer. That’s what I’m doing.”
“You haven’t spent much time here, either? Your parents bought their house a few years ago, didn’t they?” Hannah wondered why he was just now spending time on the Cape.
He shook his head. “I was a bit estranged with them for a while. They didn’t approve of some of my choices so it didn’t make me want to be here for any length of time.”
“Oh. Things are better now?”
He nodded. “It’s because the books took off a little over a year ago. They were not super supportive before that. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and work at his company. But that felt like death to me. I couldn’t do it. I spent one summer there and that was enough.”
“What does your father do?”
“All kinds of things in the world of finance. But he’s known for private equity. Buying companies and selling them later at a huge profit. Math was never my strong suit and that is a numbers job.”
“They didn’t approve of your writing?”
“Not at first. Especially when they read my first published book.” He grinned. “The first thing they tell a writer is to ‘write what you know.’”
Hannah thought about his first book, which she’d loved. It featured a highly dysfunctional family and a son who always disappointed them as he tried to carve his own path.
“It was autobiographical?” she asked.
He nodded. “Very much so. Though ironically, neither of them realized it until other people pointed it out to them. They were not amused.”
“What did you do for work before you got published?”
Niall raised an eyebrow. “I’ve actually never had a real job. I have a trust fund. A sizable one. And after the first blowup when I told my father I wanted to be a writer and I wasn’t going to join his company, he threatened to cut me off. Shut the trust fund down.”
“So what did you do?”
Niall leaned back and grinned. “I spoke his language. I made a deal with him. He would agree to give me five years to write something publishable, that would generate a real income. If I failed to do that, I had two choices. I would either work for him, or continue writing—without the support of the trust fund.”
Hannah was fascinated. She couldn’t imagine having the luxury of a trust fund so she could just write, without having to work a job. She wondered if Niall realized how privileged he was. “How long did it take you?” she asked.
He grinned. “Four and a half years. I went to Europe for a year and lived high, staying in all the best hotels, going to all the ‘in’ bars, looking for inspiration everywhere. And I found it. I fell in love in Paris. It was a whirlwind affair. Literally an affair.
“She was married. I didn’t know that at first. By the time I did, it was too late for it to matter. I was head over heels. But she tired of me and ended it. And that’s when I started the book that I sold. I’d written a few others before it, but nothing stood out. I didn’t even send those books out because I knew they weren’t worthy. They weren’t going to save me from my father’s company.”
Niall was spoiled and cocky and somehow still endearing. Hannah actually felt for him, not knowing that the woman he fell for was married. “So, heartbreak was your inspiration?”
He nodded. “I spent a week in bed at first, utterly devastated. She wouldn’t even take my calls. I tried to resurrect it, but she was done with me. And of course it was for the best. What saved me was starting the book. It honestly seemed to write itself. I channeled all the pain and frustration I felt and told my story.”
“And it sold right away?”
He laughed. “Not exactly. It took another year to get an agent. Most passed on the book. They didn’t think the market wanted a dysfunctional family saga. But Byron got it. He said it reminded him of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less than Zero or Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and he said books like that never go out of style. He thought the timing could be good as there hadn’t been anything similar in decades.”
“You sold at auction, if I remember?” It had been in all the trade publications. A staggering seven-figure advance for a debut novelist. Hannah had read it with envy. And to think he didn’t even really need the money.
Niall nodded. “We did. It was a ten-way auction, which I guess is unusual according to Byron. He sold the film rights first, and word got out, so once he submitted the novel to editors, things happened very quickly.”
“How did your parents take it?”
“Not well, at first. My father never makes a deal that doesn’t benefit him. He thought he had me and there was no way I’d meet the terms as he’d laid them out. He knows most writers don’t make a living, even if they do get published. But once he saw the size of the deal and then the accolades when the book was released, he came around. Now they both like to brag about me.” He smiled and reached for his champagne.
Hannah was interested in everything Niall had to say but couldn’t help but notice that he did most of the talking and it was all about himself.
Jim came over and asked if they were ready for lunch. “We have lobster rolls or chicken salad.”
Niall looked at Hannah. “I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer so I made sure we had a few options.”
Hannah smiled. “I’d love a lobster roll, thanks.”
“And I’ll have the chicken salad. Thanks, Jim.”
“You don’t like lobster?” Hannah was surprised.
He shook his head. “I can’t stand it. I’m not really into any seafood actually. My parents pushed it hard on me growing up and I did try it all. Raw oysters, shrimp, caviar.” He shuddered. “They love caviar. Nasty stuff if you ask me.”
Hannah laughed. “I’ve never actually tried it, but it doesn’t look all that appealing.”
Niall lifted his glass and sipped his champagne. “Enough about me. Tell me all your secrets, Hannah.”
She smiled. “I don’t think I have any. My life isn’t as glamorous as yours.”
“Glamour is definitely overrated.” Niall looked lost in thought as if remembering something unpleasant. He snapped out of it quickly, though, as Jim returned with their sandwiches and set them down, along with two cups of steaming clam chowder and a bowl of potato chips.
“You hate seafood but you’ll eat clam chowder?”
Niall grinned. “I know. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. I like tuna out of a can, too… go figure. That’s it, though.”
Hannah took a bite of her lobster roll. There were big chunks of sweet fresh lobster, tails, knuckles, and claws all lightly tossed in mayonnaise and stuffed into a buttered and grilled hot dog bun. It was perfection.
They were just about done eating when Andy came over to them with good news.
“The plane spotted seals in a harbor nearby. We’re going in for a closer look.”
Ten minutes later they pulled into a harbor and Dave slowed the motor a bit so they could glide in more quietly. They walked to the edge of the boat for a better look and as they got closer, Hannah could see dozens of seals sunning themselves on a jetty. She pulled her phone out to take a picture and zoomed in to get a close-up of their faces. They looked totally blissed out and sleepy in the warm sunshine.
They stayed in the harbor for a bit, idling the motor and moving around for better views, before heading back out into the open ocean. They went out a bit farther this time instead of just hugging the coastline. And a half hour later, the spotter plane radioed Dave that two humpback whales were in the area.
Dave slowed to an idle when they reached the location given by the pilot. They sat there for another twenty minutes, waiting for a whale to appear. Hannah took her sweater off and Niall did the same with his sweatshirt. When the boat wasn’t moving, they felt the heat of the sun more and it was hot. It felt good, though. Hannah reapplied sunscreen to her face and shoulders. Her fair skin had a tendency to burn easily if she wasn’t careful. She offered the sunscreen to Niall but he shook his head.
“I never burn. Thanks, though.” His skin was darker so she imagined he tanned easily.
“Look to your right!” Andy got their attention and they looked off the right side of the boat. About twenty feet away, a stream of water shot into the air and a moment later a whale surfaced slightly and then its huge tail flipped out of the water and down again.
“Did you see that?” Niall asked.
“I did. Oh wow…” Hannah clicked record on her phone and shot a video of a whale jumping out of the water almost entirely and then coming down hard with a loud splash. For the next fifteen minutes the whales surfaced over and over again and then the show was over.
“That was incredible. I’ve only been on one other whale watch before. It was in Provincetown and I went with my mother and aunt. They were handing out Dramamine when we boarded and I took one, just in case, for seasickness. That was a mistake. It made me so sleepy I had to go lie down and missed most of the cruise. I did wake up in time to see one whale though.”
Niall laughed. “I bet you never took Dramamine again after that?”
“No. I should have known better. I don’t even get seasick!”
The boat continued on for another hour before turning to head back into the Chatham harbor. The time went by so fast. Hannah put her sweater on as the air grew chilly as they picked up speed. It had been such a fun afternoon. Niall was easy to talk to and complicated. She’d learned a lot about his background and it was so different from anyone else she’d ever known.
As they neared the spot where they’d seen the seals earlier, Andy came over to them excitedly. “This is crazy, but we’re heading back in for a closer look by that jetty. The plane spotted Heath Ledger. We almost never see them in May.”
Hannah was confused. “Heath Ledger?” The only Heath Ledger she knew was a famous talented actor who’d tragically passed away several years earlier.
“Scientists that study the great white sharks tag them so they can track them by radar. Heath Ledger is one of the sharks. One of over two hundred and seventy tagged so far.”
“No kidding?” Niall picked up the binoculars that the boat supplied and scanned the water, looking for signs of the shark.
“We probably won’t see anything until we get much closer,” Andy said.
A few minutes later, Jim hollered back, “Fin spotted by the tip of the jetty.”
“Must be feeding time,” Niall said as he picked up the binoculars again and then handed them to Hannah to take a look. Andy had explained earlier that sharks were often found where there were seals as the sharks liked to feed on them.
They drew closer to the jetty and Dave cut the motor completely and the big boat swayed back and forth. They sat like that for ten minutes before Andy excitedly told them to go to the left side of the boat and look in the water. They did and saw the biggest fish Hannah had ever seen about ten feet below the surface. It swam by slowly, flicking its tail as it went, and it was terrifyingly large.
Niall whistled softly. “That has to be twelve or maybe fifteen feet long?”
“He’s close to fifteen, I think,” Andy said.
The shark swam by them again and then vanished into the ocean’s depths.
Dave turned the boat around and headed back toward the marina. They arrived twenty minutes later and once they were docked and tied up, Dave came out to bid them farewell.
“I hope you enjoyed the day?”
Niall shook his hand. “It was outstanding. The trifecta of sightings. I didn’t expect to see more than seals, to be honest.”
“It was wonderful, thank you so much.” Hannah shook the captain’s hand as well and then Niall handed cash tips to all three men. They thanked him gratefully and said their goodbyes.
They walked down the dock and back to the parking lot. When they reached Hannah’s car, she stopped and thanked Niall again. “This was one of the most fun first dates I’ve ever had. Thank you so much.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome. Does that mean my chances for a second date are pretty good?”
She laughed. “I’d say so.”
“Good. I look forward to it then. I’ll be in touch soon.” He gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek before heading off to his own car, a Range Rover, which was parked nearby. Hannah appreciated that he’d kept things casual all around. It had been a fun day and it left her intrigued to spend more time with him.