Chapter 3
August
Callie’s car smelled like sugar and flowers the entire two hours from Millhaven to Sable Cove, and I had talked for most of it.
About the market, about Cliff, about Gerald’s new rattle that I was choosing to ignore.
About everything except the one thing sitting in the middle of my chest like a stone I kept stepping around.
When we turned into the driveway, I stopped talking.
The Sable Cove estate did that to me every time.
It was the kind of house that looked like it had always been there, like the ocean had grown up around it instead of the other way around.
White-washed walls, wide wooden decks, and a patio that looked straight out at the water.
Every summer I walked in here and felt, for a few seconds, like I had transitioned into someone else’s life by accident and decided to stay.
I got out of the car.
From the driveway, I could see the whole family on the patio.
They were all gathered around the big table, mid-brunch.
Jennifer was laughing at something. Douglas was leaning back in his chair the way he did when he was relaxed and in charge at the same time.
Poppy was bent over something on the table, both hands busy, completely absorbed.
And then there was Fletcher.
He was sitting upright at the far end of the table, saying something. I couldn’t hear him from here. But I could see the person sitting right next to him.
She was tall, even sitting down. Slender.
The kind of put-together that takes real effort and looks like it doesn’t.
She had on a wide-brimmed hat and a peach dress that caught the light, and she was sitting like the patio, the ocean, and everything around it had always belonged to her and she was simply allowing the rest of us to use it.
Callie came around the front of the car and stood next to me.
We both looked at the patio.
“Oh no,” Callie said.
“Oh no indeed.” I said.
I caught myself. “I mean— well. He’s single. He was single. He can date whoever he wants.”
“Not when he’s hopelessly in love with you.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, okay.” Callie held her hands up. “You want me to say he doesn’t love you, I’ll say it.
He doesn’t love you.” She paused. “But his eyes are going to say something completely different the second he sees you. And you’re going to see it.
And then you’re going to look at me and pretend you didn’t. ”
“That is the cheesiest thing you have ever said.”
“That look he gets,” Callie said, ignoring me completely. “Like he is two seconds away from grabbing you and kissing you like a soldier who just got home after a year away. Everyone has seen that look, August. You have seen that look. So don’t stand here in this driveway and pretend you haven’t.”
I looked back at the patio.
Fletcher had picked up a pitcher and was filling the girl’s glass with an orangy drink. She tilted her head toward him when he poured, and said something, and he nodded.
“Do you think that’s just orange juice?” I said.
Callie squinted. “Maybe.”
“I hope it’s a mimosa. I need a mimosa, Callie. I need at least one mimosa if I’m going to sit at that table and act like a normal person.”
Callie put her hand on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything.
Then Jennifer looked up from the table.
She saw us in the driveway and said something to the group. Every head turned. Jennifer raised her hand and waved. Fletcher was the second person to wave. I lifted my hand and waved back, and I kept my eyes on the girl in the hat.
She was looking right at me.
I couldn’t make out her expression from here. I just knew she was looking.
By the time we got to the patio, everyone was standing. Everyone, except Fletcher’s girlfriend.
Jennifer reached me first. She pulled me in and held on, both arms wrapped all the way around, the kind of hug that doesn’t leave any room for you to feel like an outsider. She smelled like sunscreen and coffee, and like a mom.
I felt my whole body unclench by about thirty percent.
“You brought flowers,” Jennifer said, pulling back and looking at the bundle in my arms.
“And donut pillows.” I held out the tin. “Still warm.”
Jennifer pressed a hand to her chest like I’d just told her very good news.
“I controlled myself,” Callie announced, coming up behind me, “for the entire two-hour drive. The car smelled like a donut shop. I did not touch a single one. I need you all to acknowledge that.”
“We acknowledge it,” Douglas said, opening the tin and keeping it on the table.
He hugged us both, one arm each, solid and warm. He told us we were looking lovely. He said it the way he said most things, like he meant it and didn’t feel the need to add anything else to it.
Then something small and fast came barreling into me from the left.
Poppy.
She was nine years old and she hit like a cannonball.
Both arms around my waist, face buried in my side, hands already leaving small white sugar prints on my dress.
Jennifer and Douglas had adopted her from Vietnam three years ago, and in three years she had made herself completely and permanently at home in every room she walked into.
She and I had gotten along immediately. I think it was because we both talked too much and neither of us was sorry about it.
“You have sugar on your hands,” I told her.
“I know,” she said into my dress. “I found the donuts.”
“Poppy,” Jennifer said.
“I only had one.” Poppy looked up at me. “It was very good. You should make them professionally.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You should stop thinking and start doing.” She nodded firmly, like she was closing a board meeting. Then she let go of me and threw herself at Callie.
Fletcher came over.
He hugged Callie first, pulled her in tight. They stayed like that for an entirety of three seconds, both of them not saying anything. Both of them just happy to be together on that warm, beautiful morning. Then he stepped back and looked at me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
My face went warm. It always went warm. Five years and my face still did this every single time like it had never once learned its lesson.
We didn’t hug. We didn’t hug and neither of us moved to fix that and I was not going to think about it.
“August, this is Margaux,” Fletcher said.
I turned.
She was still sitting. The hat was still on, even with the umbrella over the table keeping the sun off. She looked at me through the little gaps in the brim, her eyes moving over me once, quick and light, the way you skim a page you don’t think has anything interesting on it.
“Hi.” Her voice was very sweet. Almost too sweet, like tea with one too many sugars.
“Hi,” I said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Margaux’s parents are partnering with us on a new construction project,” Jennifer said, settling back into her chair. “That’s how she and Fletcher met.”
I nodded. I smiled. Margaux smiled back.
Calie and I sat down across from them both.
Margaux moved closer to Fletcher almost immediately. Just a shift, a lean, her shoulder finding his arm. Then she took his hand on top of the table. Fletcher smiled at her and put his arm around her briefly, a sideways half-hug that lasted a second.
He was looking at his glass. He looked at it a lot. Like its very existence depended upon how long he could look at it.
“Your dress is pretty,” Margaux said.
I looked up. “Thank you.”
“It’s very vintage.” She smiled. “Like a housewife from the 1950s. Very sweet.”
The heat started at the bottom of my neck and moved up.
“Actually the floral pattern on her dress is based on a textile print from 1800s,” Poppy announced from the end of the table, not looking up from arranging sugar cubes on her plate.
“I read about it in my trivia book. It was very fashionable in Europe at the time. Women wore it to formal garden parties. So technically it’s more high society than housewife. ”
Margaux looked taken aback by Poppy’s well of trivia knowledge. She kept sipping her mimosa and smiled at Poppy with a tight curve that did nothing to hide her annoyance.
Fletcher looked at me.
He smiled. A real one this time. Not the small tucked-away one from the market. This one was different. It reached somewhere close to his eyes and stayed there for a second.
I smiled back.
I looked down at my mimosa that Jennifer had just poured, and took a long sip.
I was going to need the whole glass.
***