“Are you going to go? I heard you play this morning, you sounded good.” I am so awkward saying this, as if paying Wyatt a compliment is going to make me go up in flames.
Travis gets up from his lounge chair. “I’m going to need a beer for this.” He walks into the house.
“Thanks.” Wyatt smiles.
“So will you go?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’ll stop by a few of the events. To see how it all turned out.”
“This is how it happens,” Jack says. “Connections. Good for you.”
Travis is back with beers for just Wyatt and him. I ask, “So why did they decide to move the festival here?” Easy words, neutral conversation. I can totally do this.
“They didn’t really want to try anything new, but I pitched it to them anyway. The quaint small town, easy access from the city. Newport is hard to get to and expensive.” Wyatt sits down in a chair opposite us and his towel falls from his shoulders. Jack and I both stare nervously at those shoulders and Jack tosses him a bottle of sunscreen. Wyatt grabs his T-shirt instead and pulls it over his head. It’s his old Chicago Cubs T-shirt, which has now been washed within an inch of its life. It is paper-thin with a small rip along the neck where his left collarbone is exposed. He might as well be sitting there completely naked. I blink the image away.
Wyatt goes on. “I think what sold them was the fact that Skip Warren got married here. At the Old Sloop Inn actually. The guy in charge is a huge tennis fan, so that sort of legitimized the place.”
Jack leans forward in his chaise. “Skip Warren got married here?” And to me, “Did you know this?”
“I guess. We were kids, I think,” I say.
“You were fifteen,” Wyatt says, and smiles at me the tiniest bit.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know that. I mean, Skip Warren. He’s the whole reason I started playing tennis.” I don’t really have it in me to debunk this statement, but the whole reason Jack started playing tennis is that his whole family has played tennis since they were able to walk.
Travis raises his beer to Jack. “Well here’s to the Old Sloop Inn.”
26
“Absolutely not.” I can’t remember when I’ve been so emphatic with Jack. We’re in the garage apartment, which was my idea because I absolutely need to have sex with him to get my head back on straight. I need a fresh, successful sexual experience to wash the image of Wyatt in that T-shirt from my mind. Jack’s ruined the moment by telling me his parents want to visit tomorrow.
“Why not? They think it sounds like a nice place for the wedding, and they love the whole Skip Warren thing.”
“Skip Warren? Are there real people who care about Skip Warren?” I’m sitting on the nicely made bed while Jack carefully unbuttons his shirt like this is actually going to happen.
He stops halfway down. “I am one of those people. Plus my parents make three. Look, let them come for the day. We’ll see them for a walk around and dinner, that’s it.”
It’s too much. I put my head in my hands and try to think of something to say that will make Jack know how I feel. “It’s too much.”
“Wherever we get married, we’re going to have all of our family together. This is a mini version of it. And if they like it, maybe we will get married out here. Maybe everyone will be happy.”
Jack’s mom, Donna, is an office manager. She’s precise like Jack, and I have to guess that the books where she works are balanced and dust free. I love precise people; I’m marrying one, after all. I like the way she sends me a birthday card that arrives exactly the day before my birthday each year. I bet she renews her driver’s license online before it expires. Like Jack, she has a standing hair appointment to keep the edges razor sharp. People like this don’t blow up their families. People like this have long-term-care insurance and living wills.
My parents have met Jack’s twice in four years. Both times we met for dinner in the city, neutral territory. Jack’s dad, Glen, won my dad over with questions about a New York Times article he’d read about Current. Donna won my mom over by saying that I’m the daughter she’s always dreamed of. They are truly lovely people.
“Okay, fine,” I say.
“Good,” Jack says, pulling down the covers for me. “Because they’ll be here in the morning.”
I’m thrown by this, both the fact that they’re coming and the fact that it was a done deal before I even knew about it. I’m thrown by the prospect of Donna walking into my mother’s kitchen. But I look up at Jack, who is opening himself up to Oak Shore and my family, and I start to undress.
27
So much for leaving on Wednesday. Jack’s parents are arriving at noon, and I think I hear Jack tell my dad that we’re staying through the weekend. This can’t be right. Jack leaves for a morning at the gym, and Gracie challenges me to swim all the way down to the cove. We walk down to the water, and worries chase each other around in my head—the state of my job, what Jack’s parents are going to think of Mom’s driftwood collection, the possibility of running into Wyatt again when I’m half-dressed. The cold water tickles my feet and soon I am swimming alongside Gracie. The knots start to untangle. As I get into a rhythm and my stroke clicks in, I see things from a different perspective. I recognize it as the braver, lighter perspective of a younger me. I think about my job and how much I’ve learned there. If I’m fired, I have the skills to find another one. Maybe even one where there’s room for new ideas. I picture my mother making paper and think how impressed Donna might be by that. How many people know how to make paper? My what-ifs have lost their heaviness.
When we get to the cove, I am shocked by the beauty of the linden tree. I haven’t been down here in years, and it’s the same, if bent slightly more by the wind.
“I can’t believe you swam that far,” says Gracie.
“I know. I wasn’t thinking about it, I just kept going.” I’m out of breath, but I like the way my body feels. We sit down at the base of the tree, side by side, with all the shells scattered in front of us.
“You seem happier,” says Gracie. She’s making a circle in the sand with her index finger.
“Happier than what?”
“Than in the city. Happier than when you’re dressed in stiff clothes. I don’t know why you’re so weird about coming to the beach.”
I put my arm around her. I do know why, but she doesn’t need to hear it. “It sounds like Jack wants to stay the rest of the week,” I say. “Can we do this again tomorrow morning?”
Gracie smiles at me like she hasn’t seen me for a long time.
* * *
Jack and I meet Donna and Glen at the Old Sloop Inn for lunch. I was relieved when my parents decided to stay home and get things organized for dinner on the back porch. I almost asked my mom to put her papermaking operation away and move the seaweed into Dad’s studio, but the sight of her puttering around her chaotic kitchen and humming softly to herself gave me pause. My mother is so happy and complete in the world she’s created. I am sometimes so uncomfortable in mine. I envy her this and decided not to say anything. How many people know how to make paper?
“This is so exciting!” Donna says, giving me a tight hug. “Skip Warren. I had no idea.” This confuses me a bit, because I was sure she was about to say our wedding was the exciting thing.
“I can’t believe it either,” says Jack. “And don’t you love this place?”
We walk through the small lobby into the main dining room, where the wedding would be. It really is charming, with whitewashed wood and lighting fixtures secured by nautical rope. It has a beachy elegance to it that I like, I guess the next best thing to having the whole thing outside.
“It’s great,” says Glen. “Let’s see about the food.” Then to me, “Your parents are all for this place, right?”
This Old Sloop Inn thing seems to be getting away from me. If I throw my parents in as a yes, this will feel like a done deal. “They just want whatever we want.” We sit at our table, and Donna and Jack carefully unfold their napkins and spread them on their laps.
“Donna and I drove by Warren Woods on our way into town,” Glen says. “Gorgeous park. Perfect place for a rehearsal dinner.”
“That’s a great idea. The whole wedding weekend will have kind of a low-key theme,” Jack says. I’m sure I’ve misheard him because there’s no way I’m having a Washed-Up Tennis Player–themed wedding.
“It’s a great park,” I say. “Travis used to play baseball there in the summertime. But Jack doesn’t want to plan anything outdoors in October.”
“Well, no, there I would. It probably won’t rain.”
“And we’d have a plan B for sure,” says Donna. “I have the perfect caterer, and they work with a rental company who will bring in everything we need.”
The three of them are nodding and smiling like we’ve just discovered a new clean energy source. I can’t think of any reason to disagree with them. My parents are going to be ecstatic.
* * *