Page 71 of The Summer We Started Over

She clickedSendand sat with both hands pressed to her heart while she waited for Dove’s reply. She realized Colorado was two hours behind Nantucket, and maybe Dove wasn’t at the Coloradocybercafé computer. Maybe she wasn’t waiting for a reply. Surely she knew they would want to see her.

Should she wake her father and tell him? Was Barrett home from her date with Drew?

Barrett would turn cartwheels!

Eddie stared at her mailbox. Nothing new arrived. Eddie tapped her fingers on her desk.

Nothing new.

She stood up and paced the room. It was so easy to get superstitious with internet communication, because the entire system was so mysterious and even unbelievable that entire words and manuscripts could pass from one state to another in an instant—really, it was impossible, but it happened, so why wasn’t it possible that her messages could pass instantly, mysteriously from her mad hopes into Dove’s mind?

The laptop chimed.

Eddie flew back to her desk and plonked down in her chair.

Email not deliverable.

“Come on!” Eddie yelled at the computer.

She opened Dove’s email again and wrote her own message again and clickedSendagain.

She went to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Yahoo, and Google and searched forDove FletcherandDove Grant. Nothing.

She wanted to throw her laptop out the window. No, she wanted to throw it on the floor and jump up and down on it in a frenzy of frustration.

Rationally, she knew that wouldn’t help. She knew that computerscould make human beings insanely angry beyond all logical limits. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, that she hated the internet.

Was there anything she could do?

Her computer chimed.Email not deliverable.

Eddie closed her laptop. She wondered how many people had died of heart attacks because of the cold, uncaring, incomprehensible unresponsiveness of computers.

She really did want to break something. Maybe Bill Gates’s nose.

It was after one o’clock. Eddie went downstairs and roamed through the dark house. The hall light was off, which meant Barrett was home and in bed. Duke was on his back, snoring, looking ridiculous, by the kitchen door. She stared out the kitchen window. The spotlight on the barn illuminated the backyard. Everything was still. Everything quiet.

Everything except her brain.

She returned to her room, got ready for bed, wondering if she should tell Barrett and her father about Dove’s email, or if it would make them as frustrated as she was.

But she hadn’t imagined it. Dove had contacted her, and she and Bobby were coming to the island to see them.

—

Barrett was lifting the white sheet, preparing to slide into bed, when someone knocked on the door, and without waiting, Eddie entered.

“Barrett,” Eddie said. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay, but why be so drama queen about it?” Barrett sat on her bed. She was tired and she had to work tomorrow.

Eddie sat at the other end of the bed. “I just got an email from Dove.”

“You’re kidding!” Barrett shivered.Dove.

“Not kidding. It was really odd. She found my email address, and she said she’s coming to Nantucket this summer and bringing Bobby.”

“Really? Why didn’t she write me? Dove isn’t just yours!”

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