Page 28 of It's a Love Story

“The library,” I say. “Maybe I’ll go there today to work.” He doesn’t reply until he’s placed the skillet back on the stove.

“I love pancakes,” he says. “Did you like them?”

“I did. But tomorrow I’ll remember not to have a muffin before . . .”

He reaches out and covers my mouth with his hand. He seems as surprised as I am that he’s done this, but he leaves it there for a second. I take in the smooth feel of his palm on my lips, and he watches me. His hand smells faintly of lemony dish soap, and for a quick second I think that lemony dish soap on smooth warm skin might be sexy. When he finally removes his hand, I force my lips into a hard line to squeeze away the tingle he’s left there.

“Sorry,” he says and hides the offending hand in his pocket.

“Yes,” I say, though he didn’t ask me a question. I’m nonsensical now that his palm has been on my lips. I don’t know what that was, but it is unsettling. Dan has plenty of ways to get under my skin; we don’t need another one.

“She cannot know about the muffins,” he says. “She’d kill a man for less.”

I smile at that, the fierceness with which his mother runs her kitchen. He smiles back.

“So the library today?” I ask, folding a dish towel and hanging it on the oven.

“Jane. Janey—I still can’t believe that. We’re on Long Island. In August. You have no projects going and are probably going to get fired. Let’s go to the beach.”

CHAPTER 13

THEREAREAHUNDREDGOODPLACESTOBUYABATHing suit in Los Angeles. Four of them are within a mile of my house. I have several in my middle dresser drawer that I like and that would be better than anything currently on offer at Sundries in Oak Shore. This is a business trip, to New York. Nothing in those words indicated that I’d need a bathing suit.

Dan knows the girl who works there. Her name is Taylor, and she’s in her twenties. Early twenties, I’d guess. She brightens when she sees him and touches his forearm unnecessarily. “It’s sort of late in the season,” she tells us. “And we don’t really restock. Let me pull what we have in your size.”

She busies herself at the racks, and I swear to God she just pulled a yellow one-piece with strawberries on it. It looks like a bathing suit for a very tall five-year-old. “Has anyone seen Jack Quinlan in town this week?” I ask.

“Karen from the pharmacy said he was in buying Tylenol yesterday, but he left immediately in a Mercedes G- wagon. He hasn’t been hanging around.”

I practice again in my head:Hi, Jack, I’m Jane Jackson. “Jump-Start Love Song”? Yeah, right. Good times. Listen, I need you to write a song for me.

I am trying not to feel hopeless as I head to the tiny dressing room with an armful of bathing suits, even though my pitch is lame and Dan and his lemony hands think I’m going to get fired. The strawberries become more appealing as I sort through the ruffles and eyelets. One even has a little skirt. I settle on the quietest one, a royal blue one-piece with pale blue polka dots. I am a hundred percent sure Eleanor Roosevelt had this exact same suit.

I rip off the tag and put my shorts and T-shirt back on. I buy a straw hat and a bag of peanut M&M’s out of habit. “Don’t tell your mom,” I say.

“It’s fine, she doesn’t make lunch,” Dan says.

*

BACK ON OURbikes, we head through town to the beach. We drop our bikes by the dunes without locking them or even discussing it. I don’t bring up the fact that we’ll be walking home after someone steals those bikes because I am trying to fit in. We kick off our sneakers and carry them as we walk along a narrow path of sand through the grassy dunes. The sand is silky white and peppered with shells and hot rocks that press hard against my feet. It reminds me of Clem’s birthday when I took us to a spa for hot stone massages, except this is free. When the path ends, we are on a wide stretch of beach and the ocean roars in front of us. Groups of kids are busy digging and building things, and behind them, gulls break the straight line of the horizon. As we get closer to the water, the cool mist of the waves hits my face. I try to remember the last time I went to the beach at home. Most days I run to the water, have a look, and then head back.

Dan pulls two towels out of his backpack and hands me one. We spread them out on the sand and plop down. He’s brought a book, a not-so-subtle clue that he doesn’t intend to talk to me.

“Moby-Dick?” I ask. I can’t wait to lie here and have him explain existential angst and the quiet merits of the seafaring lifestyle.

“Sula,”he says. He’s flat on his back and holds the book up for me to see. I read it in college and highlighted the part where she wants to dig into his skin to get inside of him. Something about fertile loam underneath his hard gold exterior. I’d wondered about Toni Morrison, such a genius, letting herself get so romantic. I’d wondered if she’d ever fallen in love like that and then had to claw her way out.

I’m about to say something to this effect, but he closes his eyes, so I do the same. It’s strange that we’re not talking. Who ever heard of two people going to the beach together in complete silence? I try to think of something for us to argue about. I wonder if there’s something I could say aboutSulathat would make him put his hand on my mouth again. I wonder if I’m starved for touch; I think this is a thing that happens to primates.

I fidget with the bottom of my shorts and try to mold my back into the sand beneath me. I am not stripping down to my polka-dotted bathing suit. The other thing I’m not doing is relaxing. I know about relaxing because I live in the world, but it is not a thing I seem capable of. On the days I don’t run, worrying is my cardio.

I steal a look at Dan, and he is dead to the world, barely a breath rising in his chest. I don’t know how he does it. I take a deep breath. The waves crash in a regular rhythm and a breeze blows off the water. I concentrate on the soft touch of the air as it moves up my shins and along my body. I pull my phone out of my bag and check my work email. Nothing.

“Do you hear it?” The sound of his voice startles me. “The ocean?”

“No, the quiet,” he says. “Nothing makes me appreciate the quiet like coming home.” He turns his head to me and squints against the sun, one eye open. “They’re really loud.” I laugh. “I like them. They’re all so good-natured.”

“Mostly,” he says. “For entertainment in my family, we just bust on each other and argue. About sports, about music. We once argued about asparagus for an entire meal.”

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