“You heard, right?” she’d asked eventually, and he nodded. “I guess everyone knows about us now.”
Beside her, a slow smile had bloomed across Graham’s face, and he crooked a finger into the darkness. “That guy?” he asked, pointing at a random man dragging a cooler across the lawn. He scanned the crowd for more. “And her?” he said, nodding at a pregnant woman before shifting his gaze to an elderly man with a cane. “And him?”
Ellie laughed. “Yes,” she said with mock exasperation. “Probably him too.”
Graham leaned toward her, so that their faces were only inches apart. “So that means we can do this now?” he asked, and then he kissed her, a kiss that seemed to go on forever.
She grinned as they finally broke apart. “I guess so.”
“That’s not such bad news then.”
“No, I guess not, when you put it that way.”
“As long as you’re okay,” he added, and she nodded.
“I am,” she said. “You?”
“I’m great,” he said. “Strange, isn’t it?”
She’d smiled. “Not a bit.”
Now he was leaning across the table, his face framed by the nautical map on the wall behind him, looking at her with concern.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. Though I still haven’t read any of the articles. I’m just operating under the assumption that every teen girl in the country probably wants to kill me. But it could have been a lot worse.”
“How’s that?”
“Your scandalous behavior managed to overshadow all the stuff about my dad,” she said, picking up her menu and smiling at him over the top of it. “Imagine that.”
“So that means your mom’s okay with everything?”
“She will be,” Ellie said. “We both will.”
Graham nodded. “I’m glad.”
“She took it better than expected. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve guessed I’d be locked in my room tonight.”
He waved this away. “I’d have come to rescue you,” he told her. “I might not have a white horse, but I do have a very portly pig.”
“How romantic,” Ellie said, and Graham straightened his menu.
“So what’s good here?” he asked. “I didn’t end up staying for dinner last time. There was this girl I had to go find…”
“So this is kind of like take two?”
“No,” he said, suddenly serious. “This is definitely a first.”
Ellie looked down at the menu in her hands, but her stomach had dropped. They’d known each other for only a few weeks, but it felt like they’d already said good-bye so many times, and she wasn’t sure she had it in her to do it again.
She laid the menu aside. “I know this is awful,” she said, “but I’m actually not that hungry.”
To her surprise, Graham nodded. “I was sort of hoping you’d say that.”
“You were?”
He nodded again. “I think we should skip right to dessert,” he said with an enormous smile, the kind that started in his eyes and lit up his entire face. “I think I’ll have a whoopie pie.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’ve been coming to this place since I was a kid,” she said, reaching for the menu. “Trust me, they don’t have them here.”
Graham was leaning back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. “You think you know this place better than me?”
“I know I do,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. “Unless…”
It had been a long time since she’d actually looked at the menu before ordering, but she opened it now, and the tiny print swam before her in the dimly lit room. She pulled a votive candle closer, the pool of wax sloshing in the little glass holder.
“Unless what?”
“Unless you did something,” she said. “Which would explain why you’re acting so weird.” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Now I’m thinking maybe you worked something out with Joe…”
“Me?” he asked in his best innocent tone. “Do you really think that in between filming a movie and traipsing around the state of Maine with you I’ve had time to figure out where to get whoopie pies, then make sure to have them here on this particular night, on the off chance that you were still speaking to me after everything that happened, and would agree to have dinner here together?”
Ellie looked at him levelly. “Yes.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Definitely,” she said. “But I’m betting on you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Meaning?”
“I think you did do all that,” she said. “I think I’m about to have my first-ever whoopie pie.”
“Even though it’s not on the menu?”
She nodded, though a little less certainly. “Even though it’s not on the menu.”
“Okay,” he said, putting his elbows on the table and giving her a long look. “Then I’ll bet you a thousand dollars.”
For a moment, Ellie didn’t move. She simply stared at him, her eyes wide.
“Deal?”
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse. She set the menu back on the table in front of her, shaking her head. “Graham…”
He was still smiling. “It’s just a bet.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he said quietly, the candlelight flickering against his face.
She knew what he was doing; of course she did. And all of a sudden, she understood that it had happened, all of it; that he’d figured out a place to buy whoopie pies, had them sent to the Lobster Pot; he must have talked it all out with Joe ahead of time, orchestrated the whole thing so that she’d bet the right way. And he’d done it all for her.
Her heart was loud in her ears as she looked at him across the table, and she didn’t notice that Joe was at her side again until he cleared his throat.
“And what will we be having?” he asked, ready with a pen and a notepad. But neither of them answered. Graham was still focused on Ellie.
“Deal?” he said again, and she found the word no was lodged in her throat so that all she could do was blink back at him. Taking this as a sign, he turned back to Joe, beaming. “I think we’re gonna skip right to dessert.”
“Of course,” Joe said, and Ellie saw his mustache twitch. “Anything in particular?”
Graham could hardly contain his enthusiasm. “We’ll have two whoopie pies,” he said a bit too loudly, and all Ellie could do was watch with slightly widened eyes as Joe bobbed his head, snapped his notepad shut, and whisked the menus away from them.
When he was gone, Graham turned back to Ellie. “Well, look at that,” he said with an expression of mock despair. “I guess I must have lost.”
She shook her head. “You’re a horrible actor.”
“Hey,” he said, but he was grinning. “I’m just trying to be a good sport.”
“Graham,” Ellie said, looking down at her plate. “I can’t.”
“You can’t eat a whoopie pie?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually,” he said. “I have the money. You need the money. It’s as simple as that.”
“I can’t let you do that,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Throw in a poem and we’ve got a deal.”
She looked at him blankly.
“At the end of the course, I want one of your poems.”
“I don’t write poetry,” she said. “I just like to read it.”
“Okay,” he said cheerfully. “Then I’ll take one by a dead guy. In one of those frames. How’s that?”
“Graham,” she said, her voice cracking. “This isn’t your problem.”
“It’s about you,” he said with a little smile, as if that were reason enough, as if that explained everything.
She felt a rush of gratitude then, a slow yielding of the most stubborn parts of her. No matter how hard she tried to steer her thoughts elsewhere, they kept circling back to the pictures she’d seen of Harvard, the redbrick buildings and leafy sidewalks, the classrooms where she’d learn about her favorite poets. It was easy, in a way, to imagine herself there, and she could feel herself giving in to the pull of it.