“Obviously,” she says.
A coupe glass of Pol Roger appears, and as Caroline sips it, she wishes Isaac could see her. She considers taking a selfie and texting it to him, but that feels childish and predictable. She considers taking a selfie and posting it to her Instagram stories—Isaac pretends not to have time for social media, though Caroline knows he creeps on her account occasionally—but does she want to be that girl, taking selfies and posting them? She does not. She tries to channel Gigi Ling. She will be present: Sip her champagne, admire the deft handiwork of the oyster shucker on the other side of the bar, listen to the music (“Kids” by MGMT). She assumes Sofia is back at the clubs and Isaac is in the loft alone, maybe waiting for his DoorDash from Momoya, maybe working, maybe watching My Octopus Teacher for the umpteenth time (he says he finds something new to admire about the film with every viewing). Should Caroline step outside and call him?
She should not. Dylan appears; he’s ready to go. He asks the barback for “wine on wheels,” and the barback hands him a fresh bottle of Pol Roger and two plastic cups. He and Caroline head down Straight Wharf to the parking lot. “Your chariot awaits,” Dylan says, and he opens the passenger door of his monster truck.
They drive to Monomoy Beach, which is dark, quiet, and empty. Dylan pulls a blanket out of the back seat (he came prepared, Caroline thinks at first, but then he shakes it free of Cheez-Its crumbs and she realizes it must be Orion’s playground blanket). They sit in the sand and Dylan pours them champagne. It’s the most romantic setting Caroline can imagine; the crescent moon shows off like a diva in the spotlight. She tries not to think of Isaac. She tries not to think about not-thinking about Isaac.
Dylan says, “So how were things at the house?”
“They did shots of tequila, talked about orgasms, and slow-danced together.”
Dylan chokes on his champagne. “That sounds like cinematic gold.”
“It was a start,” Caroline says. The night went pretty much as Caroline had expected, though she realizes there’s stuff going on below the surface. How does she mine it? Maybe she should divide and conquer. Talk to the women individually.
“It seems like your parents are still really in love,” Caroline says. “You’re lucky.”
“They are,” he says. “It’s disgusting.” He laughs, then says, “Were your parents happy before your father died?”
“They were happy enough that I never had any reason to wonder if they were happy,” Caroline says. “I’m not sure they were as happy as your parents.” Caroline shivers—the off-the-shoulder blouse and flirty skirt she’s wearing aren’t enough for the breeze coming off the water. Dylan gallantly removes his blazer and drapes it over her. “Do you remember the night we met?” she asks. She reminds him of the Whalers sweatshirt and then Aubrey appearing out of nowhere. “This is a sweet reprisal. Minus Aubrey.”
“She’s like Voldemort,” Dylan says. “One should never speak her name.”
Caroline has questions about Aubrey: What is their deal? Was Aubrey getting pregnant the reason Dylan left Syracuse? How did that feel? Why did they break up? Dylan seemed pretty tickled by how jealous Aubrey was when she saw Caroline. Does he still have feelings for her?
But Caroline can take a hint. She tosses the topic away like a pebble into the water.
The champagne is gone, and Caroline has to pee. Caroline asks Dylan if he minds driving her back to the parking lot so she can get her Jeep, and he says, “Do you want to go to my house? You can use the bathroom and we can have one more drink.”
She considers saying no. She woke up at four o’clock that morning in New York, a moment that feels like it happened three days earlier, and she’s supposed to start filming the next morning at eight because her mother has arranged for a yoga instructor to come lead a practice at the house. Caroline will capture shots of the five stars in child’s pose or warrior three.
Besides this, she misses Isaac. But Isaac is with Sofia. Please, no trouble, Sofia said. Why hadn’t Caroline listened? Sofia might have been predicting what would happen: Caroline obsessed with someone who isn’t hers. Caroline in agony.
“Sure,” she says.
When they get to Dylan’s house on Hooper Farm Road, he opens a couple of beers and they settle on the sofa.
“What was it like when your father died?” he says.
“What was it like?” Caroline asks.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Dylan says. He spins his beer in his hands, then sets it down without drinking. “It just seems like a big deal.”
Is Dylan McKenzie interested in her as a person? she wonders. Is she interested in him as a person?
“He was in a car crash.” Caroline takes a breath. “It was a week or two before Christmas, my father was driving to Logan in a snowstorm. He was flying to Germany to speak at a conference; he was running late; the place he spun out was a road near our house—a couple of deer ran in front of his car.” Caroline pauses. She wonders about the seconds right before the crash, after Matthew lost control of the car. Was he scared? Did he know he would die? Did he have time to cry out? Did he think about Hollis and Caroline? “I was at college in my World Cultures final; my mother texted me saying there was an urgent situation and please call. My mother is really prone to hyperbole. I thought urgent meant that she needed more gift ideas for me or my dad. I finished my test and went to Sweetgreen for lunch, and then my mother called again, and honestly, I almost sent her to voice mail. But at the last minute I answered and she told me.”
Dylan sucks in his breath and Caroline hears her mother’s voice. Caroline, are you in a safe place to talk? This had been such a strange question, and Caroline thought, Where is safer than Sweetgreen? But she heard something unusual in her mother’s voice—this call was not about Christmas presents—so Caroline fit the plastic top over her crispy rice bowl and stepped out onto the Bowery. She said, Okay, Mom, tell me. What is it? What’s wrong? And her mother said, There was an accident. Your father…
Caroline’s crispy rice bowl had hit the sidewalk, splattering everywhere. Caroline ran, blinded with tears, back to her apartment. She called her best friend from high school, Cygnet, who went to Columbia. Cygnet rode the subway downtown and somehow got Caroline to JFK and then onto a plane to Boston, though Caroline doesn’t remember much of this.
What was it like? Caroline thinks. It was like being suspended over a deep, dark endless hole knowing you were going to fall in and never get out. She would never see her father again.
Suddenly, Caroline is crying and shaking. Dylan is holding his head in his hands and saying, “Shit, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Caroline nearly tells him it’s fine, he was sweet to ask—but does she really need to make Dylan McKenzie feel better about himself right now?
After a minute or two, Caroline regroups. “That’s how it is these days,” she says. “Most of the time I’m fine, and then… I just lose it.” She wipes under her eyes. “I should probably get home.”
Dylan scoots closer to her on the couch and kisses her. The kiss is nice; he lingers and kisses her again and slips his tongue between Caroline’s lips, and just as Caroline is asking herself if she wants to do this (she should want to do it; this is super-hot Dylan McKenzie, her teenage crush, and Isaac is probably making love to Sofia at that very moment, and Caroline desperately needs a rebound), Dylan pulls away.
He shakes his head. “I don’t ever bring girls home,” he says. “Because of Orion. It just feels… wrong.”
“I get it,” Caroline says. She doesn’t get it, she’s not a mother, but she finds she’s relieved that things aren’t going any further.
“Why don’t you just sleep here on the couch?” Dylan says. “We’ve both been drinking and after that story…”
Caroline sinks into the sofa cushions. Going to town, then having to drive all the way back to Squam seems impossible. Dylan drapes a blanket over her shoulders, then kisses her forehead like she’s four years old. But it feels nice, and Caroline closes her eyes.