Big Summer(45)

“It sounds wonderful.” I could picture it—a sunny day, a little girl squealing in excitement as her line bent, Nick standing behind her, coaching her as she pulled in her fish. I could also picture myself with Nick standing behind me, his chest against my back and his arms holding mine.

“It’s great,” he said, nodding. “I love being outdoors, working with my hands. I’m always sad when summer’s over.”

For a moment, I let myself imagine relocating to some quaint Cape Cod town and working with Nick. Getting the boat ready, spraying off its decks or coiling ropes or whatever else one did. Spending days out on the water, in the sunshine, listening to whoops of excitement as people felt the tug of a fish on the line. Heading back to the dock as the sun went down, with the wind in my hair and Nick behind me, his hands warm on my shoulders. Taking pictures that would never be posted or shared, shots of the day that would just be for us.

Nick twirled an oyster shell around his plate with one blunt fingertip. He looked a little sad.

“Everything okay?”

“Oh, sure. Just lots of memories here,” he said, his voice low.

“Did you go fishing when you were a kid?”

He jerked his head up, looking almost startled. Then he smiled. “Nah. It wasn’t my family’s thing.”

I wanted to ask him more about his family and what their things had been. I wanted to hear all about the Lady Lu, and where his favorite beaches were, and how he liked to cook his bluefish, but that was when the dinner bell began to clang.

“Hope you like lobstah,” Nick said cheerfully. He extended his hand, and I gripped it, careful not to let him take too much of my weight as I rose. His palm felt warm and callused, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world when he kept holding my hand as we made our way to the buffet line. The sky was streaked in a hundred shades of orange and gold, and the wind had picked up, sending a fine layer of sand skimming across the beach and churning the tops of the waves into lacy white foam.

“Magic hour,” I murmured, looking at the light. Then I remembered that I wasn’t just here for fun.

“Hey,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Would you mind taking a few pictures?”

“For the ’gram?” he asked with a sly smile.

“Hey, I’m a working girl.” I opened up the camera app, handed Nick my phone, and waded into the water, gathering my skirt as the water swirled, warm and foaming, around my knees. I could feel the tide’s pull, the suck of the sand beneath my feet. I could smell lobsters and grilled corn on the cob and a whiff of corruption; crabs and fish decaying in the seaweed under the water.

“Turn that way,” Nick said, pointing with his chin.

“Oh, are you my art director now?” I asked, turning as he’d directed and smiling as the wind lifted my hair.

“Very nice,” he said as the bride strolled by. I called, “Hey, Drue!”

“There you are!” she said, and came trotting past Nick and splashing into the water, where she stood beside me and linked her arm with mine.

“One, two, three,” Nick called. I smiled, tilting my head against Drue’s. I could feel her trembling, like there was an electrical current running through her, and her eyes were very wide.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Sure!” she said. She must have gotten her teeth freshly bleached, or had new veneers put on. Her smile had always been bright, but now it was practically radioactive. “I’m better than okay! I’m getting married tomorrow!”

“I know! I know you are!”

She hugged herself. Ankle-deep in the water, she danced a funny, skipping jig, waving her arms, kicking to splash me as Nick said “Smile!” Maybe she wasn’t anxious, I told myself. Maybe she was just exhilarated, euphoric at the prospect of her big day and her life with Stuart.

A minute later, Drue smacked a kiss on my cheek. “Post these!” she instructed, and went trotting away. When Nick gave me my phone, I scrolled through the pictures, holding my breath as I looked. Darshi, who’d become my unofficial Instagram photographer, knew that if she didn’t shoot me from above, I risked looking like a collection of chins on top of boobs, but even without that warning, Nick had done a decent job. Better than decent, I thought, looking at one of the last shots he’d taken. Drue and I had both been laughing, facing each other, with droplets of spray that she’d kicked up arcing in front of us. Our mouths were open, eyes closed as we’d laughed, with our hair and skin glowing in that lovely, peachy light.

“Hey, these are great!” I said.

“Glad to be of service.”

I threw a quick filter on the best shot and posted it alongside the words “Beautiful dress, beautiful night, beautiful bride,” taking care to use Drue’s wedding hashtag and to tag all the pertinent accounts, including Leef. As soon as I was done, Nick took my arm and led me to the buffet. People were lining up, the men resplendent in their linen shirts and madras shorts, the women in brightly colored sundresses. I could smell seafood and woodsmoke, perfume and aftershave, wine and beer and champagne, and, underneath it all, the briny scent of the ocean.

Nick and I filled our plates with lobster and clams and corn on the cob, and returned to our spot on the silky rugs in front of the fire at the farthest reaches of the party, in a nook that seemed custom-made for two. We ate, and finally he started to talk about himself: the time he and his cousins had taken their grandmother to play bingo in Provincetown, only, unbeknownst to them, it was drag bingo, and they hadn’t had the heart to tell their grandmother that the woman in emerald sequins and matching eye shadow cracking jokes and calling numbers at the front of the room wasn’t a peer from her assisted living and was not, in fact, a woman at all. “You’d think her name might’ve been a giveaway.”