Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
August 2001
T he fact that Esme had gotten into Harvard at the age of forty-six was not something Esme took lightly. It also filled the gossip avenues of Nantucket Island—with people from all walks of life turning to one another and asking, Is she really going to do that? After everything that happened to her? It was almost as though they wanted her to curl up and give up and die. It was almost as though—because her husband had left her, her son had died, and her daughters were all across the country and hardly calling her—Esme was not supposed to have a purpose anymore.
Only her father knew better.
Thomas and Esme were at the Book Club late one night before Esme was off to Harvard. When her children were younger, Thomas renamed it the Sutton Book Club so his grandchildren would feel more connected to the space. He’d wanted to pass it down through the generations. He’d wanted it to remain strong. Esme wondered if he regretted changing the name now that everyone was gone, and they remained—two non-Suttons working at the Sutton Book Club like fools. But she never asked.
Some things were better left unsaid.
Thomas put on an old record and surveyed downtown at the window. Esme watched him from the book cart, having spent the better part of two hours putting the books away. How many times had she done this over the years? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? But spending time at the Sutton Book Club with her father was the best thing about her life right now. Just as it had been before LeeAnne’s diagnosis, and everything had turned on its head.
“You’re going to be brilliant, Esme,” Thomas said now, turning to look at her.
Esme’s cheeks flushed with heat. How could she tell him how nervous she was?
“I’m going to roll up as the oldest student anyone has ever seen,” she said. “Nobody will know what to do with me.”
“That’s not true at all,” Thomas said. “The idea that older people can’t or shouldn’t seek more education is outrageous.”
Esme gave him a look that meant stop trying to make me feel better. It isn’t working.
But Thomas wouldn’t let it go. Walking toward her as the light from the streetlamps flashed along his shoulders, he continued, “The brain gets more complex as we get older. We can sit with uncomfortable truths better. We can carry on better conversations and immerse ourselves in scholarship. When I was eighteen, I was distracted.”
“You were at war,” Esme reminded him. It's so awful to think of my father in World War II. The world has changed so much.
“Yes. I was at war. But I was distracted with other things, too,” Thomas said. “I was such a romantic young man. I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to read poetry.” He laughed. “I couldn’t write an essay to save my life.”
Esme knew she could write a killer essay. She knew it was most of the reason Harvard had let her in. The man who’d ultimately swayed the committee had written her a note that said, “This is the best work I’ve seen all year, and I worked part-time at The New Yorker .” Esme hadn’t known what to do with that, so she’d put the note on her fridge and wept all night.
Esme’s case was slightly different from most other college freshman, of course. She wasn’t technically a part of the “freshman class,” and it wasn’t yet sure that she’d go all four years to secure a degree. But Esme had dreams and visions. The only difference between her and the other students was that she’d lived a great deal of life prior to this. She’d be walking through the grand halls of Harvard with her broken heart, trying to pretend that she had sixty to seventy years of life left.
Sometimes during these nights when it was just the two of them at the Sutton Book Club, Esme considered asking Thomas about his emotional state. Had he heard from LeeAnne lately? Did he ever miss Fran? But more often, Thomas either pretended or actually was in a beautiful mood. He spoke of books and poetry and eased himself into old age.
Sometimes Esme really struggled with the idea that her father would die one day.
Other times, she felt sure that he never would.
Thomas met Esme for breakfast the morning she left for Harvard. They sat and feasted on pancakes, bacon, and coffee. They talked about James Joyce and Dostoyevsky and Esme’s coursework for this semester, including a class she’d enrolled in called American Literature of the Twentieth Century. Thomas had never read some of the books on her syllabus, including Faulkner, and had decided to purchase them and read along with her. They could talk on the phone when she wasn’t busy. They could exchange notes.
“You’ll be much more brilliant than the people in my class, I’m sure,” Esme said.
“Don’t flatter me,” Thomas said although the twinkle in his eye told her he was grateful for it.
Just as she’d done when she was nineteen and twenty years old, Esme rented an apartment just for herself. It was hard to believe she was back here near the Harvard campus, walking the same streets she had when Victor had been a student. She remembered her singular belief back then that she was just as smart as everyone there. She remembered resenting them for their opportunities. Why not me? She’d spent so much time thinking, Am I doomed never to meet my potential?
A few days before the first day of class, Esme went to the Harvard Bookstore to buy her textbooks.
Unfortunately for her, this was not long after Victor Sutton had released one of his first top-selling books on family psychology. No surprise the bookstore had it stocked. There were posters of Victor’s face, which indicated that Victor was a Harvard graduate. From the photos, Victor peered out, giving that half smile. He seemed to watch Esme from the photograph as she collected her course material. Esme had to stop herself from peeling the posters down and throwing them in the trash.
Family psychology? He doesn’t know the first thing!
That was where she saw the handsome stranger for the first time.
Esme stopped near a poster of her ex-husband and watched the handsome stranger as he pulled a textbook off a shelf and looked at the back. He had tousled dark blond hair, broad shoulders, and glasses that gave him the look of a bright and deep thinker. Unlike almost everyone else in the bookstore, he was around Esme’s age. Maybe he was even a few years older although it was difficult to tell at her age. It was all a matter of how well people had taken care of themselves. Maybe this handsome stranger was actually a twenty-two-year-old chain smoker? She smiled at her own joke and realized that she’d stopped thinking about the silly posters of Victor. He’d been gone so many years at this point. He was basically a fiction she’d once told herself. He was nothing.
And just now, the handsome stranger who was either twenty-two and very unhealthy or forty-something and around her age glanced up and met her gaze.
Esme had that wonderful feeling. It was a feeling she hadn’t enjoyed in quite some time. Decades, maybe.
She had the feeling that something was about to happen.
But Esme was frightened of that feeling. She shoved it into the dark recesses of her mind, purchased her textbooks, and retreated home to prepare for her first week of classes. As she went through the lush campus, she passed handsome and well-bred Harvard students in expensive clothing, hugging and kissing each other hello. Some sat beneath oak trees and read books; others snuck off for keggers at their homes. Since Esme had been one of the Harvard Wives, she knew that Harvard students partied just as hard as any other group of college students. Maybe they even partied harder because the pressure was just that much greater.
But Esme was forty-six years old. She had no plans to attend keggers any time soon.
That night, Esme sat alone in her apartment and skimmed through stations, looking for something to watch. When she couldn’t find anything, she walked to the nearby movie theater and saw what was on. She’d see anything. It was invigorating that feeling. Nantucket’s cinema selection was usually quite abysmal. Plus, she hadn’t been able to walk to the cinema. Since she’d been a wife and a mother for years upon years, she’d always been needed.
Right now, she was free.
Esme was thrilled that Good Will Hunting was playing at the cinema. It had come out some years ago to tremendous acclaim, but Esme had been too busy with the girls and the Sutton Book Club to run out to see it before it left the theater. She bought a bag of popcorn and a Diet Coke and cozied up in a seat by herself. A few minutes into the previews, she realized she’d never gone to the movies by herself. What do I feel about this? she wondered. Does it break my heart?
Esme decided it didn’t. That it was actually kind of nice, but it also terrified her. Maybe I’ll be alone at the cinema for the rest of my life.
The film finished and left Esme with a broken heart. It was a gorgeous film with near-perfect acting and a near-perfect script. Her stomach sloshed with too much popcorn and too much Diet Coke, and she realized she hadn’t eaten much of anything today either. Nobody needed her to cook for them. Nobody needed her to pick something up on the way home. Surreal.
But when Esme stepped into the lobby, she discovered the handsome stranger from the bookstore putting on a light jacket. He’d been in the screening, too.
Esme stopped short with surprise, then remembered herself and continued to the door. He wouldn’t remember her from earlier. They hadn’t chatted at all.
But she couldn’t help herself when she pressed the door open. She glanced back and met his gaze. He nodded sweetly, tenderly. And she smiled back.
She thought, I’m sure I’ll never see him again. But he’s so nice to see.He makes me feel young again. This is the first day of the rest of my life.
Perhaps Esme shouldn’t have been so surprised that the handsome stranger was in her American Literature of the Twentieth Century class. It was as though magnets drew them together. As though the stories of their lives were already inextricably entwined.
Esme was there ten minutes before anyone else. She sat in the back row and reread the first few lines of the chapters they’d been assigned in a Zelda Fitzgerald novel. It was a pleasant surprise that the Fitzgerald they were studying first was Zelda rather than Scott. Esme hoped that indicated that the professor was the sort who thought outside the box.
Students filed in. Almost all of them were nineteen or twenty, just as Esme had assumed they would be.
And then the handsome stranger walked in.
He pegged Esme immediately. His eyes were like perfect storms of emotion. Esme thought she was going to jump out of her skin. Does he see how nervous I am? Does he know?
The stranger who would one day not be a stranger walked through the aisles and grabbed a seat directly beside her. Esme stared straight ahead. She thought she was going to faint.
She thought, All the young people in this class don’t know we have a history. They think we’re sitting by each other because we’re both the oldest.
But very soon after that, she decided she didn’t care what the young students thought about her and the handsome stranger. This was her story. Not theirs.
The teacher went around the room and asked everyone to introduce themselves. “Tell us your name, where you’re from, and what your major is,” he instructed. He started with the young-looking woman in the corner, who announced she was from Alabama and studying Romanian Literature and Linguistics.
A few minutes later, they came to the handsome stranger with the blond curls.
“My name is Larry Gardner,” he said. “I’m from all over. The plan is to major in American literature, but I’m open to change down the road.” He smiled in a way that spoke of sincerity, that spoke of the fact that his life was weaving and winding, and he didn’t know where he was headed next.
Esme went soon after. “My name is Esme Rainer,” she said, happy not to use her ex-husband’s name. “I’m hoping to get a degree in Library Science.”
“And where are you from?” the professor reminded her.
“Oh! Right. I’m from Nantucket.”
The professor raised his eyebrows. “You’re from Nantucket. Wow. I have a house there.”
Of course, you do, Esme thought. She couldn’t help but feel annoyance toward people who made Nantucket their temporary home. Their home when it was convenient for them. They didn’t understand the perils of winter. They didn’t understand the magic of the air when the tourists departed for the year.
“I had a student from Nantucket,” the professor said. “He must have been around your age.”
Don’t judge my age, Esme wanted to snap.
Larry turned and gave Esme a look that meant, I’m here for you if this gets ugly.
It got even uglier, in fact.
“Victor Sutton? I’m sure you’ve heard of him,” the professor said.
“Victor who?” Esme asked.
“Sutton,” the professor said firmly. “He’s something of an international celebrity at the moment. His book is everywhere. Maybe you saw it in the bookstore?”
Esme pretended to look dismayed and raised her shoulders. “I’ve never heard that name before.”
A few other students in the class raised their hands and said, “I saw it,” or, “I’ve already read it,” or, “My father went to Harvard with Victor Sutton.”
Esme maintained a bemused smile. She refused to let anyone know her connection to Victor. She’d come on her own terms.
Larry didn’t take long to ask her out.
But he did it in the classic college way, the romantic way. He waited until an essay was due, and then he asked Esme if she wanted to meet to go over each other’s papers. She suggested a coffee shop around the corner, but he said it was always too busy. Could she meet at his place instead?
Esme was floored when he gave her his address so casually. They were on campus, beneath a canopy of trees. September 11th had happened only a few days ago, and there was an immediacy to everything: a devastation. Maybe Larry didn’t want to let another moment pass before he really and truly lived.
Esme understood the feeling. The only time they had was now.
Esme went to Larry’s apartment that night. She wore a turtleneck and a pair of jeans with a belt and felt slender, pretty, and young. She knew she wasn’t, not really. But there was something about surrounding yourself with youthful and optimistic young people. It got in your blood.
Larry opened the door, dressed in a pair of jeans and a button-down. He looked like a writer on a book jacket. He was soft-spoken and so kind—Esme could already sense this. In every way, he was Victor Sutton’s opposite. In every way, he intrigued her.
Larry opened a bottle of Italian wine as Esme assessed his apartment. It was a little bit bigger than hers, with soft sofas, big monstera plants, and modern art paintings that hurt her eyes. It was well-curated in a way she didn’t usually associate with men’s spaces, which felt sexist to her. Larry was a different kind of man.
Esme wanted to get to the root of it as soon as possible. When he handed her a glass of wine, she raised her chin. “Why are you here?”
Larry’s raised his eyebrows in surprise. But it also revealed he was keen to open up.
“In this apartment? Or at Harvard?”
“Both.”
Larry smiled and raised his glass. “I got divorced a couple of years ago. I sold my company. I found myself with money and time and nothing to live for. So I asked myself, what do I really want out of life?”
“And what was your answer?”
Larry wet his lips. “I want to be a life-long learner. I want to extend myself outside my boundaries.” He palmed the back of his neck with his free hand. “My wife and I, I mean my ex-wife, and I had a pretty awful time of it. We loved each other when we were young, but things got very messy. We should have ended it a long time ago. She cheated when we were in our early thirties, and we went through years of therapy to fix it. We clung as hard as we could.” His eyes were illuminated. “She loves that family psychologist the professor asked you about. The one from Nantucket?”
Esme let out a big laugh. It was too loud, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.
Larry’s smile was one of confusion.
“I’m sorry,” Esme said. “Therapy is good, usually. And I’m sure Victor Sutton is—fine.”
Larry cocked his head. He gave her a look that meant he didn’t fully believe her.
So Esme blurted it, “Victor is my ex-husband.”
Larry’s eyes widened with genuine surprise. He set down his glass of wine. “Oh.”
Esme laughed nervously, wondering if she’d just given away too much of herself. Now, I’m going to have to drop this literature class. It’ll be too weird.
“I think he’s a hack,” Larry said suddenly.
Esme let out another laugh, followed by another until she was fully giggling there in Larry’s divorcé bachelor pad. She felt as though she were melting.
“Let’s sit down,” Larry said when she calmed down a bit. He led her to the sofa, where she sat on her knees and then folded herself into a cross-leg. She looked anxious and excited, like Valerie always when her older sisters let her play a game with them.
“I’m sorry I interrupted your story with my own,” Esme said finally.
Larry waved his hand. “You didn’t. My only story is that I’m divorced and starting over.”
“I’m divorced and starting over, too.”
“Any kids?” Larry asked.
“Four.” Esme always said four even though Joel had been gone so long now.
“That’s a number,” Larry said.
“You?”
“No kids,” Larry said. “We fought too much. We always said we would do it when things calmed down between us, but they never did. I know it sounds strange, but I don’t regret it. If we had young children right now, I wouldn’t be able to be here. At Harvard.” He filled his mouth with wine. “With you.”
Esme’s heart pumped. She felt she couldn’t trust herself. If Larry kissed her tonight, she’d let him. If Larry opened his heart to her, she’d dive right in.
He’s different from Hank. He’s different from Victor.
Maybe this is the kind of man I always should have been with.
Esme had to bite her tongue not to ask Larry why he hated Victor Sutton’s book so much. She didn’t want to seem like a petty ex-wife.
Very soon after that, Larry and Esme exchanged essays and sat quietly, sipping wine and jotting down notes while they read each other’s work. Esme was fascinated with Larry’s sentence structures, with his quick jumps from theme to theme that shouldn’t have worked but did. She underlined so many lines that his essay began to look like a child’s drawing.
They’d given each other an entire hour to read and take notes. When the hour was up, they looked at each other and burst into laughter again. Esme had the sense they would always be laughing. She wasn’t wrong about that.
“I love your writing,” Esme breathed. “And I so rarely think that about anyone’s writing.”
“You’re quite pretentious?”
“All librarians worth their weight are,” Esme said.
“You’ve earned it,” Larry told her. He wet his lips. “You’re a much better writer than me. But you already know that.”
Esme sniffed. She did. But she wasn’t willing to admit it. She didn’t want to be rude.
Larry read one of her lines aloud to her. His tone dripped with shock. “I mean, that’s brilliant. That’s the kind of thing that should be in a literary magazine.”
Esme blushed and searched through his essay to find a line to read back to him. Larry blushed, too.
It was clear he wasn’t used to receiving compliments. Maybe his ex-wife hadn’t been so keen on shelling them out. Victor hadn’t been keen, either.
That first night was when they shared their first kiss.
Neither of them was surprised.
It was as though the story of their romance was already written.
By Christmas, they were a full-fledged couple. By Christmas, Larry knew that Esme didn’t speak to her children like other mothers did. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to. She did. But she didn’t want to make it harder on anyone. “It’s like we all have to find our way after Joel’s death,” she explained late in bed one night. “I don’t want to push anyone too hard. I’m frightened I’ll break our relationship down for good.”
“They’ll come back to you when it’s right,” Larry said, kissing her softly.
The next semester, Esme moved in with Larry. Esme felt like a blushing freshman girl who’d fallen in love with her first college boyfriend.
She knew that the other college students didn’t see them that way. But Esme and Larry held hands through the quad, laughed together, collaborated on papers, read books together, went to the theater to see movie after movie, went out to dinner, and enjoyed a college experience that wasn’t so different from the one Esme had imagined for herself.
“I feel like I met you at the perfect time,” Esme said, tears running down her face one night. “You saved my life.”
Larry kissed her on the forehead and wrapped his arms around her. “You saved mine, too.”