Girls of Summer(23)

She got to the subway, boarded her train, and tapped her fingers impatiently. At South Station, she raced for the bus at terminal number 18, arriving, puffing, just in time for the bus.

She bought her ticket and climbed into the long narrow dimness of the vehicle. It was crowded as usual because it was Friday, so she grabbed the first seat on the bus, where she had a touch more legroom, and settled in for the ride. The portly driver boarded the bus, muttering to himself. The doors wheezed shut. The bus beeped as it backed out, and by the time they were on the road, Juliet was asleep, her head resting on the window.

She woke now and then, blearily staring out the window at the road below. Interstate 93 and Highway 3 glistened with rain. She fell asleep again.

Often a bus driver would take pity on people trying to make the eight o’clock ferry and drive them right to the Steamship Authority. This driver was a good guy, and Juliet stuck a five in his hand in gratitude. She got her ticket in the terminal, slogged out to the ramp leading up into the interior of the Eagle, muttering to herself as she did every time, “Why in the bleeping world did they give a ship a bird’s name?” She climbed the metal steps to the passenger deck, found a seat at a table, and dumped her backpack.

   For a moment, she just sat and caught her breath. She felt as if she’d run the seventy-one miles herself. She was awake now, so she bought herself a bowl of clam chowder and a water (the plastic bottle was recyclable). She opened her laptop and worked on a report on leash laws across the country, answered emails, and nodded to herself: She’d done two day’s work tonight. She deserved to play hooky.

The trip wasn’t an easy one. The winds had stirred the ocean into high waves that caused the ferry to rise up and then drop. It was like a roller coaster with an added side to side wobble. Luckily, she didn’t have motion sickness, but other passengers were lying down with brown paper napkins soaked in cold water on their foreheads.

At the table directly facing hers, a man sat working on his laptop. He was handsome, older, probably forty, with streaks of white in his dark hair. His jaw was accented with dark stubble. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes. His navy blue zip-up sweater looked like cashmere. Juliet thought, Great, another money manager coming to the island. Then she considered her own clothes—skinny jeans, high black leather boots, black turtleneck.

He raised his head and caught her staring. His eyes were blue. Intensely blue with those extra thick black lashes that only guys seemed to get. He smiled at her. Juliet smiled at him. Their gazes held. Juliet felt herself flush and dropped her eyes.

Hello, sunshine! her body said. Stop it, she told herself. He was undoubtedly married with at least two kids. His wife probably had long blond hair, not short dark hair that she hacked off around chin-level whenever she felt like it.

   “Bumpy ride,” he said.

She looked up. “It is,” she agreed.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’m used to it. I grew up on the island.”

“Did you really?”

A woman in the booth behind him snored explosively.

“Do you mind?” He gestured, rising.

“Sure,” Juliet replied.

He stood up—he was tall. He moved around to sit across from her. “I’m Ryder Hastings.” He held out his hand.

Juliet shook his hand. It was firm, warm, and smooth. So not a manual laborer. “Juliet Hawley.”

“And you grew up on Nantucket?”

“I did. My mom still lives here. I’m on my way to visit her. I live in Boston.”

“Are you a student?”

“No!” she replied sharply. She hated that he thought she was so young. But she had to admit, dressed as she was, she looked like a student. “I work in tech. For Kazaam.” She was not about to tell him she programmed a website about dogs.

“Oh, so you live in Cambridge.”

“Yes, well, uh, I always say Boston because some people think Cambridge means I live in England. Cambridge, England.” She wanted to slap her forehead because a man who looked this sophisticated would know that Cambridge, Massachusetts, was just across the river from Boston.

Ryder laughed. “Yeah, I know. I live in Marblehead. I’m with Ocean Matters, a group working on changes in coastal towns.”

“Tell me more.”

“Okay. So, we’re private, and privately funded. We’re concerned with rising seas, water quality, water pollution, coastal erosion, the loss of eelgrass, that sort of thing. We work with the commonwealth and all of the country’s east coast from the top of Maine down to the tip of Florida. It’s all one coastline, after all.”

   “I guess we don’t think of ourselves as being part of the East Coast,” Juliet mused. “But of course we are.”

“By we, you mean Nantucket?”

Juliet nodded. How long are you going to be on the island? she wanted to ask.

Ryder said, “Nantucket’s ecosystem is tied directly to the main coastline. A great white shark has an appetizer near Martha’s Vineyard, an entrée at Chatham, and dessert at Great Point.”

Juliet grinned. Before she could reply, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re now arriving at Nantucket. Would all drivers please return to your cars on the lower deck. Everyone else, please use the stairs on the starboard side.”