Page 107 of Summer Longing
“Hey, you leaving?” Marco said. He was holding a shopping bag. He’d been at a meeting, so he was dressed up, by his standards, in jeans and a button-down shirt. And yet when she tried to transpose the image in front of her to the streets of Manhattan, she could not.
“I was having lunch with your mother and sister but I came down here to take a phone call.”
“Everything okay?” he said.
She nodded, but the expression of concern on his face made it clear he knew she was distressed.
“It was my former assistant. She’s starting her own company and she asked me to be a partner.”
“In New York?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
Marco reached for her phone, took it from her hand. “Don’t run off so fast,” he said. He smiled, but his tone was serious.
“I’m not running off. I mean, at some point I have to get back to my life.”
His dark eyes were as intense and focused as she’d ever seen them, and his jaw was set in that serious way of his, the way that made her want to lean forward and put her head on his shoulder and hold him tight.
“If New York is your life, then what has this been?” He was no longer smiling.
“Marco, come on. You said yourself you don’t get involved with summer people.”
His expression changed so fast, it was like a switch had been flipped. With a nod, he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t even know where that came from.” He handed her the shopping bag.
“What’s this?”
“Your Carnival costume. No pressure, but for what it’s worth, I hope you stick around long enough to wear it.”
Carnival. It was three weeks away. An awfully long time to carry the secret.
Herring Cove Beach offered a perfect view of Long Point.
At the beginning of the summer, Ruth had been walking along the edge of the ocean when, out of nowhere, she heard the old song “Last Dance,” by Donna Summer. She looked around to find the source of the music and saw a tanned man wearing a lime-green Speedo, a scarf around his neck, and nothing else; on his left shoulder he carried one of those boom boxes that she hadn’t seen in ages. Standing in that sun-dappled spot, hearing that song and breathing that salt air, transported her to the summer of 1978. She felt the freedom, the excitement, the sense that everything and anything was possible. It hadn’t just been her youth; it was the energy of the town—artistic, wild, unpredictable.
It was falling in love with Ben.
When the man passed her by, the music was swallowed by the roar of the ocean, and she was almost shocked to find herself standing alone, a fifty-eight-year-old woman with more of her life behind her than ahead of her.
Today, her mind was planted firmly in the present. Although, the way things were going, that was no picnic either.
So when she spotted Ben a few yards away, she almost thought she was seeing things. She dropped her beach blanket and bag on a stretch of dry sand, adjusted her straw sun hat, and walked over to where he sat facing the water in a folding beach chair. He wore a Philadelphia Eagles baseball cap and was absorbed in a book.
Ruth was standing close enough to his chair to touch it before he noticed her. “This is a surprise,” he said.
“No class today?” she said.
“The class ended,” he said, closing his book. “I thought you knew that.”
She pointed back at her towel and bag. “My stuff is over there. Mind if I join you?” She didn’t wait for a reply before retrieving her things and setting up right next to his spot. “So how would I know that your class ended? I’ve barely seen you.”
“I thought Olivia might have mentioned it because I told her I’m leaving in a few days. And she might be leaving soon too.”
Ruth felt her spirits plummet; it was like a physical pain. “She didn’t mention it. So…you’re both leaving. I thought maybe she’d spend the rest of the summer, since she’s been having such a nice time with Marco.”
“Well, you know about the job offer? Her former assistant wants to partner with her to start their own company. Olivia sees it as the obvious next move.”
Ruth nodded noncommittally, not wanting to admit that Olivia had not spoken to her in weeks. July was quickly becoming August and their relationship was worse than when the summer began.
