She's Up to No Good(61)

“Good?” he asked.

“I—how do you get a picture like that with a phone? I mean—here,” I said, taking a quick shot of him and turning the phone for him to see it. “My pictures don’t look like that.”

He laughed. “You also didn’t look for lighting or try to create a mood; you just snapped.” He handed the phone back. “Close your eyes.” It was the second time that he’d asked me to do that today, and there was something exciting in the request. I closed them. “Picture me. Not the picture you just took. How do you actually see me?”

I thought about the smile he’d given me. He had smiled like that at the caption on the earlier picture too. Like there was a secret we shared. And the promise of more to come. He was vibrant and alive, and he made me feel like I was too.

I opened my eyes.

“Now tell me where to go and what to do.”

Looking around, I gestured back to the railing. “Angle your body toward the island,” I said slowly, thinking. I stood along the railing as well, farther down, parallel to him, then came back and turned his head so he was looking at me, my hand lingering a second too long, and I thought his face moved a fraction closer to mine.

But I wasn’t sure.

So I pulled away and went back to the spot I had staked out, five feet from him, and took a deep breath.

“Am I going to like whatever is out on the island?” I asked. When his lips curled into that same smile, I took the picture, then looked at it.

“So?”

I held the phone out for him to see. It was the best picture I had ever taken. Not on par with his, of course, but better than anything I had done before.

“I like how you see me,” he said, taking the phone and sitting back at the table, zooming in to examine the photo. “You’re good.”

“I’ve got a good teacher.” I sat as well and took another sip of my drink. He reached out to hand me my phone, and I leaned in to take it, and for a moment, we both held on, our hands touching. I looked at them, his right and my left, which still looked so naked without its wedding ring.

I took the phone and leaned back in my seat. It was too inebriating. The whole situation. Being away from home, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, the drinks, the way he looked at me, the moonlight. And while I knew full well what my friends, my cousin, and, hell, even my grandma would tell me to do tonight, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a vacation fling in me. It wouldn’t make me feel better. I wasn’t Stella getting her groove back. If I tried to get over my failed marriage by sleeping with someone new, I’d only wind up even lower than I had been. And that was all this could be. I needed to remember that.

“I—I should head back,” I said, rummaging for my wallet.

He looked at me quizzically. “What just happened?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. If I let my mouth open, I had no idea what kind of disastrous truth about how I felt would come spilling out. And while I wasn’t ready to act on anything, I also didn’t want to scare him off, which I knew I would if I answered his question.

“Okay.” He gestured toward the waitress for a check. “Are you good to drive, or should I walk you back?”

Under other circumstances I would have driven. I’d only had two drinks. But his wife . . . “You don’t have to walk me home. I know the way.”

He lowered his head and leveled a gaze at me. “I won’t try anything. But it’s pitch black up the hill. I’m not letting you walk back alone.”

“I didn’t mean—I wasn’t saying—” I was somewhat saved by the arrival of the check. Joe started to put a credit card down, but I had clearly just insulted him. “Let me,” I said, putting a hand over his. “As a thank you. For today. And yesterday.” He started to protest, but I cut him off. “Fine, as payment for services rendered—that picture from tonight is going to be my new social media profile picture.”

He finally smiled again and let me put my card down instead. “How do I pay for the picture of me, then?”

I heard my cousin Lily’s voice in my head as clearly as if we had spoken on the phone instead of texting. You know what it means. I grinned back. “You’ve got tomorrow at the island to figure that out.”





I lay in the brass bed of my room that night, having changed into pajamas, washed off my makeup, and brushed my teeth, looking at the picture I took of him. I like how you see me, he’d said.

Sitting up suddenly, I swiped back to the picture of me and zoomed in. I looked glamorous and flirtatious and confident and so, so beautiful. That—was how he saw me?

I was still smiling when I finally put the phone down to go to sleep.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


June 1951


Hereford, Massachusetts


When Evelyn returned home for the summer, the cottages hadn’t yet been opened for the season. Which suited her just fine. It wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been for their previous assignations, and she and Tony could take their time without needing to dive under a blanket for warmth.

But always, the impending conversation with Joseph loomed in the background.

“When, then?” Tony asked when Evelyn again said to wait. “I’ll wait until you finish college to marry you, if that’s what he wants, but I don’t want to sneak around for three more years.”