Page 83 of Summer Longing
“Oh,” she said, “I’m not on vacation. I came out here because I thought my mother was sick.”
“She’s sick?”
Olivia shook her head. “No, Ithoughtshe might be. She sort of implied she was sick. Or maybe it was just a misunderstanding. I don’t know. But I rushed out here because it seemed like something was wrong.”
“The call of duty,” he said.
“Yeah. Basically.”
“I think that’s admirable. I wish my sister were more considerate when it came to our parents.”
“She’s young,” Olivia said. “And to be honest, I wasn’t that generous with my attitude when I got out here. I couldn’t wait to leave.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
He grinned and looked pointedly out at the water surrounding them. “We’ve got time.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Right now there’s no reason to run back to New York. I’m regrouping, I guess you could say.”
“What about your job? You mentioned that night at Rachel’s house that you do social media stuff.”
Incredulous, she leaned back on the crate to see him better. “You remember that?”
“I mean, it wasn’t that long ago.”
No, it wasn’t that long ago. But it had been such a throwaway comment and he’d barely seemed to recognize her that night. Maybe she’d misread the situation. “Well, yes—my career is about social media.Wasabout social media. Now, I don’t know. I messed up at work and everything unraveled. One careless mistake, and eight years of nonstop effort was just completely destroyed.” She had to stop feeling sorry for herself. She could only imagine what Marco thought of her in that moment. Pathetic.
And yet there was no indication of judgment on his face when he said, “Maybe it wasn’t a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“You might have done something subconsciously to sabotage yourself. Happens all the time.”
“Trust me, it was a mistake. My career means everything to me.”
And yet, now that she could reflect back on that time from a distance, she had to admit she had not been happy. She had not been happy for a long time.
Maybe not until that very moment.
They settled back into their work rhythm until the tides were ready to turn and once again submerge the cages. Marco transferred oysters from the buckets into mesh bags and she closed the cage she was working on and fastened the latch.
Water had soaked through her gloves, and her hands were uncomfortably moist. Now that she was done handling the oysters, she peeled the gloves off. “Do you need help carrying stuff?” she said, wiping the back of her shorts. At some point her knapsack had fallen to the ground and it was now covered with sand, seaweed, and salt deposits. She felt sweaty; her hair was matted down under her baseball cap. She could only imagine what she looked like—didn’t want to imagine.
“Can you grab the crates?”
They walked side by side back to the boat.
“So what happens to the oysters now?” she said.
“The first thing is to get them cooled down quickly. Ever hear of vibrio?”
She shook her head.
“Well, since you don’t eat oysters anyway, I know I’m not risking turning you off.”
You couldn’t turn me off if you tried.“Oh, wait—does it cause food poisoning?” she said.
