Page 72 of The Summer We Started Over

“Simmer down,” Eddie said. “I know she’s not all mine. Here, read her email.” She handed her phone to Barrett.

Barrett read the message. “This is wonderful. Did you reply?”

“Itriedto email her back, but it wouldn’t go through. I’ve tried so many times. It’s as if Coloradocybercafe.com doesn’t exist, because the email is undeliverable.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t, either. It can’t be fake or a scam or a bot. But her email address simply does not exist.”

“Have you tried—”

Eddie interrupted. She rose and paced the room. “Yes. I’ve tried Dove Grant, Robert Grant, Rob Grant, Bob Grant, Stearns Grant, StGrant—”

“Okay, okay. If Dove contacted us once, she will again. She says she’s coming to the island, so she’ll come.”

“But she doesn’t say when,” Eddie said. She plunked down on the bed again. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I mean, what if she changes her mind? Do we just have towait?”

“What else can we do? It’s good that she wants to come here, Eddie. She’s had a lot to deal with. Maybe she had to sort of crawl behind a rock and heal and now she’s well enough to see us.”

“Should we tell Dad?”

“Not yet. Let’s wait and see if you hear from her again.”

Eddie said, “I don’t know whether to be happy or worried about this.”

Barrett was pleased that for once she got to give advice.

“Be happy,” she said. “Now go to bed.”

thirteen

Sundays were lazy for most people, but Barrett, like all the other merchants on the island, opened her shop. Janny didn’t work on Sunday, because business was slow then, and really, Barrett enjoyed her time alone. No famous, glamorous romance writer was here, making Barrett feel boring and, in comparison, flat-chested. No beautiful, brilliant older sister was around, taking care of their father and Barrett, wishing she were really back in the city,anycity like New York or London or Paris or Rome. No unhappy father trudged through life, writing his seven-hundredth version of a book that no one needed.

No, this was Barrett’s place, one she’d created with her own money and dreams. She was really living in Nantucket Blues. As she gently dusted and polished her blue souvenirs, she thought about what blue meant to her. It was the color of the sky and the color of the sea. In the dark universe, the earth was a globe of blue. Blue was breath and breathtaking. Blue held the ships as they crossed the ocean and bluewas the essence of the sky that carried the planes. When she had been a little girl, she’d decided that as long as she could see the sky, she would be happy. A simple, innocent thought, Barrett knew, but not the worst motto to live by.

Laughter and music drifted over the water from the boats moored in the harbor. Chocolate and coffee scents rippled through the air. Today it was hot and super humid. Clothes were damp and sticky and hair that was set to be straight went frizzy and hair that was set to be curly hung flat. Barrett wore no bra and a sundress that hung loosely around her body. She twisted her hair into a whale’s spout on top of her head.

Most days Barrett didn’t turn on the air conditioner, because she thought that keeping her door open invited more people in to browse and buy. But today she turned it on and hung an extra sign in the window:Air-Conditioned.

A man came in and bought a present for his wife. Two women came in to buy mementoes of their island vacation.

Eddie called. “You close your shop at six on Sundays, right?”

“Right.” Barrett watched a man, holding hands with a little girl whose braids bounced as she skipped, come toward the shop.

“I’d better go,” Barrett said.

“Okay, but don’t eat dinner out. I’m fixing a great dinner here.”

“Wonderful!” Barrett clicked off.

“We’re buying a present for Mommy!” the little girl called out.

“That’s so cool!”

Barrett had placed the breakable items above the reach of small children so pieces wouldn’t get accidentally broken, but of course the objects the girl wanted to see were little. Barrett was kindness itself as she reached for a tiny blue glass whale and a miniature porcelain birdhouse. She happily showed ten different pieces before the little girl decided she wanted the blue T-shirt with an image of the island on the front. As they left, a group of women here for the weekend came in, chattering and twittering like robins on the first day of spring. Theybought all of Paul’s work, and some T-shirts, and all the blue baseball caps, even the ones with the smiling sharks across the front.

Eddie told everyone to come for dinner at six-thirty, and everyone came, even Dinah. Eddie took one end of the table and her father sat at the other end. Barrett and Dinah would face each other across the table. Eddie sensed that Barrett was brooding about something, but that would have to wait. Eddie was serving lasagna, garlic bread, corn on the cob, and a green salad.

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