This Is What Happy Looks Like(44)
But she’d made her decision. She’d walked away from him at the harbor that day, and now she was left playing a desperate game of espionage as she skulked around town, trying her hardest not to run into him again.
Because the truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk away a second time.
And so today, like every day, Ellie stood in the doorway of Happy Thoughts, looking left and then right before stepping outside. It had been only three weeks since they’d forked over enough money to get the air conditioner at home fixed, and now, on the hottest day of the summer, the one at the shop had broken down too, sputtering to a halt with one last dying groan. After a morning spent alternately fanning themselves and banging on the rusted hunk of metal, Mom finally sent Ellie out for some iced tea.
On the village green, someone had set up a sprinkler, and there were a few kids in saggy bathing suits running through the water. Most everyone else was inside today, waiting for the shimmering heat to break. But even so, Ellie scanned the area with the nervous air of a criminal as she crossed the green, casting furtive glances at the shops on the other side.
The town’s only deli had replaced a Henley institution the year before, a little general store called Marv’s that had been there as long as anyone could remember, and as a nod to tradition, it was now called the Sandwich Shop Where Marv’s Once Was, which was still inevitably shortened to Marv’s. As soon as she pushed open the door, Ellie sighed with relief at the cool air, which lifted the heavy coat of heat right off her. Her cheeks were still flushed and her tank top was still sticking to her, but she felt immediately better. It was like walking into a refrigerator.
There was a line at the counter, so she lingered near the door, more than happy to take her time as she stood under the air vent. A small table beneath the window held the day’s newspapers, and she picked up the local one, leafing through it idly.
“What can I get you, kiddo?” asked Meg, the owner, who had walked down to the far end of the counter, a notepad in one hand and a pencil in the other.
“It’s okay,” Ellie said, waving a section of the newspaper. It was an unspoken rule that locals were served first here, but she was in no hurry to get back to Happy Thoughts, which felt like a furnace today. “I can wait.”
Meg shrugged. “You look hot,” she said. “Can I at least get you some lemonade or an iced tea or anything?”
“That’s actually what I’m here for,” Ellie admitted. “I’ll take two iced teas.”
Meg gave a little salute and then elbowed her way toward the back, while Ellie returned to the paper. She’d randomly grabbed the real estate section and was skimming a piece about how the disappearing shoreline on one of the barrier islands was affecting the price of the enormous homes there when she noticed a familiar name in a narrow column at the bottom:
As he prepares for a much-needed vacation over the coming holiday weekend, Senator Paul T. Whitman told reporters that he plans to leave work behind for a few days.
“We’ll be celebrating America’s birthday,” he said. “I can’t think of a better reason to knock off and relax with my family.”
The presidential hopeful will spend four days in scenic Kennebunkport, Maine, a town famous for being the summer home of former president George H. W. Bush.
So is Whitman, the senior senator from Delaware, trying to follow in the elder Bush’s footsteps?
“We’ll see,” he said, laughing. “But no politics this weekend. I’m just planning to take my boys out on the boat, catch some fish, and relax.”
Ellie lowered the paper, blinking fast.
Kennebunkport was less than an hour away, and it was this—the proximity of the thing—that made her hands tremble where she gripped the paper. She knew he was always out there somewhere, her father, but she was only ever aware of him in the way you’re aware of a distant planet, always moving, always orbiting around you but never getting close enough to really matter. All her life, she’d heard about him on the news, followed his speeches and campaigns, his family vacations, his dinner parties and fund-raisers, but she was no better informed than anyone else in the country.
He was, in a way, the very opposite of Graham. He was someone who, by all logic, Ellie should know better than anyone, someone who should be so much more to her than just a name in the paper, whereas there was no worldly reason she should ever have gotten to know Graham Larkin any better than the dozens of people lining up along the fringes of the set each day in the hope of getting his autograph.
The bell above the door jangled then, and when Ellie looked over, she drew in a sharp breath. It was as if he’d marched straight out of the thought in her head, materializing on the other side of the glass in a faded blue T-shirt that matched his eyes, which were hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses.
She was so startled to see him there that she found herself moving backward, and it took only two steps before she managed to bump into the display of gum and candy. The whole thing teetered for one horrible, endless moment before crashing to the floor, the packets falling heavily and one of the containers splitting wide open, sending pale green mints skittering in all directions like runaway marbles.
The entire back half of the shop turned to look. Graham pulled open the door the rest of the way, nudging his sunglasses down on his nose to peer over the lenses at the mess. But Ellie remained frozen in place, even as Meg dashed out from behind the counter with a broom. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she was saying, her words loud in the suddenly quiet shop. “I’d been meaning to move that display anyway.”