Page 83 of The Book of Summer

Outside the market (“Fancy Groceries, Deli Meats,” the sign promises), Evan puts a hand at the woman’s back and leads her inside the store. This is quaint, way too quaint. Bess drops an f-bomb, much to her own surprise.

Bess waits. Her heart is thrumming. She moves when people need to retrieve their bikes.

“Just stretching my lower back,” she mumbles to someone, who doesn’t believe her at all.

Finally, Evan and the Ball Cap exit the store, carrying multiple bags. Bess crab-walks closer but can only make out a tube of salami, two baguettes, and what she hopes is sparkling water. The makings of a picnic, if Bess were to guess. How delightful for a Thursday morning. Don’t these people need to work?

He takes the woman’s bag. They’ve come in her car, a wagon of sorts. No wonder Bess didn’t recognize it. As Evan relieves her of her load, she gives him this look, like he’s just plucked a rainbow from the sky and looped it around her neck. Bess can’t blame Ball Cap one goddamned bit. It’s the exact way she looked at him last night.

And just like that, both doors slam shut and they drive away. A burp rises in Bess’s throat. She spits on the ground.

Bess’s knees crack and sting as she rises to standing. Some dude in yellow spandex scowls in her direction. She’s been holding on to his bike and he makes a big show of unlocking it. Words cannot express how little Bess wants his toy. With a muttered and quarter-hearted apology, Bess turns and heads back up Baxter Road.

She’s forgotten about the possible coffee and food, the things that seemed so appealing only half an hour before. Bess kicks the road as she shuffles along. She’s mad at Evan, or mad at her situation, who knows. In Sconset, it’s hard to remember that sometimes people get on with their lives. Tears prick at Bess’s eyes, or maybe it’s only the sand. Either way, it’s back to Cliff House for Bess. Back to wrapping up and plowing forward. Here’s to new beginnings. Here’s to new mistakes.

34

Thursday Afternoon

“Forty-six,” Bess counts. “Forty-seven.”

Forty-seven pieces of workaday dinnerware are spread out before her. Bess suspects they hold no inherent market value, but they’re her grandmother’s, so what then? Everything in the whole house was Ruby’s first, adding a layer of meaning to dishes and tchotchkes and everyday junk. She’s starting to think there are only two answers to the Cliff House problem. Keep everything, or throw it all away.

Be reasonable,Grandma Ruby would say.

Maybe Cissy’s right. Bess has lost her solid New England sense. But she’s knocked up, almost divorced, and living in San Francisco, so good luck getting it back.

As she remains befuddled by the sheer amount ofstuff,Bess’s stomach roars. With the morning’sabortedfailed coffee-and-muffin mission, Bess’s entire sustenance that day has consisted of two handfuls of almonds found in the kitchen. And they were stale, softer than nuts should be. She refuses to eat Cissy’s peaches and Brie.

The doorbell rings. The sound is so unexpected, Bess wonders if it’s merely the internal clang of her own exhaustion. Lord knows Cissy doesn’t have visitors these days. Gone are the bridge games and tennis matches and drinks on the veranda. After all, it’s hard to play tennis without a court, difficult to lounge on a smattering of bricks.

The bell rings again. Bess goes to answer it.

“Oh!” she exclaims, both tickled and peeved when she wrenches open the sand-and-salt-stripped door. “Evan! Hi!”

He smiles in return, a tray of coffee balanced in his left hand, a white bag clutched in his right. Suddenly she remembers that Evan Mayhew is a lefty. It’s why he made a choice first baseman back in the day, according to Cis anyway. Bess just thought he looked hot in those pants.

“What are you doing here?” Bess asks.

Shouldn’t he be working? Or trying to feel up some broad beneath her hoodie at a picnic lunch? Granted, the weather has worsened today. Perhaps they canceled their meal.

“You said you needed help.” Evan steps through the doorway. “I’m the help. Also, I brought you coffee and lunch. Sandwiches. Chips. Sea salt and vinegar, to be exact. Your favorite, right?”

Bess ogles the bag.

“Let me guess,” she says. “Leftover salami?”

“Why? Did you want salami?”

“Not particularly, no.”

Evan’s face tenses, like he’s smelled something rotten.

“Well, okay,” he says. “Then it’s good I brought turkey and roast beef. You can have either. Or both. I’ve already eaten.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“Is everything okay, Bess?”

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