When Dylan notices Caroline, he waves (in her seventeenth summer, Caroline has fully blossomed, boobs, booty, and all), and at the same moment, Aubrey flips Caroline off, which answers the question of whether she should go over to say hello.
For a few years, Caroline doesn’t see Dylan either in person or online. His Instagram account vanishes. Caroline goes so far as to follow the Syracuse lacrosse team’s account, but she spies him only once, as a freshman on the bench. He doesn’t appear to be on Snapchat—or if he is, Aubrey has made him block Caroline, which is amusing to think about. Hold grudges much? It was a high-school party!
Caroline next bumps into Dylan as she waits to pick up her family’s order from LoLa Burger. Caroline is deep into her phone when she feels a tap on her shoulder, and there stands Dylan in all his super-hot glory. Dylan asks where Caroline is working for the summer and she says that she just finished a six-week film course in Rome and has to be back in the city by mid-August, so there wasn’t really time to commit to a job.
“Do you babysit?” he asks.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Caroline says. “No.”
“Too bad,” he says. “I could use someone. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old named Orion.”
“You do?” Dylan is a couple years older than Caroline, but even so, she thinks of him as her age, and people her age don’t have children of their own. She wonders if Aubrey is the mother, then tries to imagine what Aubrey would look like pregnant (the phrase swallowed a watermelon comes to mind).
Before Caroline can ask, her order is called. The bag smells seductively of hot, crispy truffle fries. Caroline smiles at Dylan, thinking, He got beautiful, bitchy Aubrey pregnant and now he’s a father at twenty, what a waste! “Good seeing you!” she says. “Bye!”
Lights, camera, action! Caroline thinks. There’s no more time for backstory; Dylan is upon her.
“Hey there!” she says. She looks at Orion, who, as if scripted, is doing a weird-little-kid thing—sucking on a piece of fatty bacon. “This must be your son. He looks just like you.” (Caroline is stretching the truth; the kid has a pudgy, mottled face and fair, flyaway hair.)
Dylan is staring at Caroline as intently as he would be if she were directing this scene—Inhale her with your eyes!—and Caroline dearly wishes she’d blown her hair out that morning rather than defaulting to messy bun.
“This is the O-Man,” Dylan says. “O-Man, say hi to Caroline.”
O-Man raises his arms to be picked up, the bacon drooping from his mouth like a cartoon tongue.
“Do you need a ride?” Dylan asks Caroline. He surveys her suitcase and the lumpy bag of equipment. “I take it you’re here for the big weekend?”
“I’ve been hired to film it,” Caroline says, then considers how ridiculous this sounds. It isn’t Coachella. “My mom wants me to take some footage for her website.”
Dylan grins. He’s still staring at her, and O-Man is still sucking on the bacon, and Caroline is still missing Isaac, although she has to admit, this is a nice distraction.
“Let me give you a ride home,” Dylan says. “I just have to wait for… Orion’s mom. She has him this weekend. She’s going to meet us here aaaaaaany second.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Caroline says, checking her phone. Still nothing from her mother. “My mom is picking me up.” Caroline sees a blue Jeep coming in hot. Behind the wheel is a woman with long straight hair wearing a baseball cap backward (a cute look, one Caroline can’t quite pull off), and surprise, surprise—it’s Aubrey!
The only thing better than Caroline recognizing Aubrey is Aubrey recognizing Caroline. She gets an incredulous expression on her face—really, it’s meme-worthy. She screeches to a halt, flings open her door, and storms around the front of the car. She snatches Orion up off the ground while at the same time ripping the bacon from his mouth, which she then whips into the street.
Orion starts to cry. “My bacon!” His voice is sweet and clear, and in that moment Caroline both loves him and feels sorry for him.
“I cannot believe this!” Aubrey says. She gives Caroline the most withering of looks—Caroline suddenly feels like she needs a shower—then turns to Dylan. “How long has this been going on?”
Dylan seems pretty relaxed, maybe even a little amused. “About five minutes. We just bumped into Caroline on our way out of the diner. Orion was showing her his bacon.”
Aubrey buckles Orion into a car seat that seems a little janky in its positioning in the front seat of the Jeep (there is no back seat), and Caroline is tempted to speak up. Maybe she is maternal after all?
Aubrey looks at Dylan. “Have your mother come at five on Sunday. I have plans.”
“Plans with…” Dylan says.
“Plans with none of your business!” Aubrey says.
Caroline can’t believe she’s stuck in the middle of their domestic spat.
Dylan pauses. “My mother is busy all weekend,” he says. “I’ll come get him.”
Aubrey slams the car door shut so hard, the entire Jeep shudders. Orion cries louder, craning his neck around to see the fate of his bacon, which has just been snatched up by a seagull. “Whatever, have fun with your little girlfriend, you pathetic piece of—” She starts the car and drives away, flipping them both off as she goes.
“Wow,” Caroline says.
“Looks like someone made her jealous!” Dylan says, clearly delighted. He grabs Caroline’s suitcase and hoists up her equipment bag. “Come on, I’m parked over here.”
Caroline follows Dylan to a truck so big it qualifies as “monster.” He opens the passenger door and offers Caroline a hand as she climbs up into the seat (this requires her standing on the running board). The truck is so high off the ground that Caroline feels like she’s viewing the parking lot from the second story of a building. She revels in the novelty of a man with a truck. Isaac doesn’t even have a driver’s license.
Dylan climbs in, aims the air-conditioning vents toward her, and changes the radio station from Kidz Bop to the Coffee House, which is playing an acoustic version of “Night Changes.”
Whoa.
“To Squam?” Dylan says.
It takes Caroline a second to equilibrate. She’s in a truck next to Dylan McKenzie listening to One Direction. For a second, she’s sixteen again.
“Yes,” she says. Then: “I can’t believe you remember where I live.”
“It’s all my mother has been talking about for days,” Dylan says. “Staying at your mother’s house in Squam. She’s been trying to downplay it but I think she’s really excited about this weekend.”
Caroline finds she’s happy to hear this, for Hollis’s sake. Dylan turns the song up, and spontaneously, they both sing along, Everything that you’ve ever dreamed of disappearin’ when you wake up… It’s such a meet-cute, Caroline can hardly stand it!
She sends her mother a text: Nvm. I found a ride.
11. Provisions
Molly Beardsley, devoted fan of the Hungry with Hollis website, is so invested in Hollis’s Five-Star Weekend going well that she wakes up at six a.m. in Twain Harte, California, and checks the weather 3,107 miles away on Nantucket Island. Friday is going to be clear and sunny with a high of seventy-six degrees. Molly is overjoyed for Hollis! All her fans wish they could somehow watch Hollis prepare for the weekend. How is she handling the details? Does she have one master list or several sublists?
Long before Molly Beardsley is awake in California, Hollis is driving past a field of lilies, zinnias, cosmos, and snapdragons in rainbow-hued rows at Bartlett’s Farm. It’s a vista worthy of Monet, of Renoir, and Hollis considers stopping to take a picture, but she’s on a mission. She pulls into the parking lot of the farm market at 7:55.
She did end up reading some of the debate on her website. Is it too soon for Hollis to be hosting a girls’ weekend?
Oh, probably, she thinks. But it has lifted her spirits and given her something to look forward to. And since she’s throwing it, she’ll do it her way. End of discussion.