A bad breakup? I thought. Then I said, “I don’t always have the choice.”
“Clearly. So why would I make it worse by then pushing for more details? People will tell you what they want you to know. I’m annoying, not an asshole.”
I had to admit this was not what I was expecting. But as I went back over what Mrs. Kirby had said again, I realized it made sense he’d drawn this conclusion. Everyone had breakups they didn’t want to talk about. Why would he assume it was anything else?
As if to punctuate the moment, the dog burped, spitting water. I opened my mouth to say something, to respond, but realized, again to my surprise, that I had a lump in my throat. I swallowed. “I don’t think he’s a Jerry.”
“No?” He squatted down, giving the dog another scratch. “You might be right. No worries. He’ll tell us his name when he wants us to know it.”
“He’ll tell us?”
“Well, in his way.” He patted his head. “Stay here. I promise I’ll come back. Okay?”
In response, the dog wagged its entire back end. As we walked away, it was still going full speed.
It was the shortest of walks back to the conference room, not nearly enough time to explain what I’d been thinking when I asked him about what Mrs. Kirby had said. The truth was, I felt I owed it to Ethan that he not be just a boy I once loved, much less one more face in a news story you dreaded having to hear. He was more than that, and yet talking about him to others felt, too often, like appropriating something. What did it take to claim a person, really? One perfect night? A few weeks of phone calls, hundreds of texts, all of them full of future plans and promises made? I’d spent less than a day with Ethan, but still felt he knew me better than just about anyone. You can’t measure love by time put in, but the weight of those moments. Some in life are light, like a touch. Others, you can’t help but stagger beneath.
This was on my mind all afternoon as Ambrose and I rinsed mason jars, packed them with flowers, then put them in lined boxes to be transported to the armory for table décor at the rehearsal dinner. Occasionally he went to check on the dog, bringing him snacks, more water, an old dishtowel I’d found under the sink to curl up on, but otherwise we worked in silence. People will tell you what they want you to know, he’d said. If that was true, I would have brought up Ethan right away, not just with him but everyone I met. That’s what you do about the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Unless, I guess, it is also the worst.
At six p.m., Mom and William left for the venue, releasing us to our respective evenings. I was expecting to be asked to transport Ambrose and the dog to wherever their next place might be, but then, as I was locking up, a black VW Jetta pulled up at the curb. A pretty redhead with seriously ripped shoulders, wearing yoga clothes, sunglasses perched on her head, was behind the wheel.
“Hey,” she called out to me. “I’m looking for Ambrose?”
“He’s around back,” I replied. “Should be out in a sec.”
“Thanks.” She smiled, then pulled down her mirror, taking out a lip gloss and applying a coat. Was this Milly? Someone else? Of course I wouldn’t ask. He hadn’t told me.
A moment later Ambrose came around the corner holding the scarf, the dog lunging excitedly at the opposite end. “Annika,” he said. “Namaste!”
She smiled. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“I am full of surprises.” He climbed into the passenger seat, then patted his lap. As the dog leapt in, Annika burst out laughing, reaching over to rub his head with one hand. Ambrose waved at me, and I nodded, then started over to my own car. When I looked back a moment later, they were pulling out of the lot, the dog’s head poking out the window. On the way home, I changed the radio station six times before I decided, finally, on silence.
CHAPTER
8
“OKAY, SO that’s the Big Dipper,” I said, pointing. “See how it looks like a ladle? And below it is the Little Dipper. And under that, the little one that looks like a crown? That’s Cassiopeia.”
Ethan turned his head to the side: I felt his hair brush my cheek. “And what about that one?”
“Which?”
He lifted his arm, moving a finger in a circle. “That clump there, at the bottom.”
“I have no idea.”
He shifted again, this time facing me. “I thought you said you knew this stuff.”
“Some of it,” I said, rolling toward him as well. “Okay, I know those three.”
He laughed, that sudden burst that was even more startling close up. “And here I thought you could get us home strictly by celestial navigation.”
“Nope. We’d be screwed,” I told him. “Sorry.”
“Hey, at least you can name a few. I’ve always just made up my own.”
“Your own constellations?”
“Sure. It’s like inkblots. You can tell a lot about a person by what they see in the sky.” He moved onto his back again. “Take that weird square, over there. I’d call that Dented Laundry Hamper.”
“It just doesn’t have the same ring at Cassiopeia.”
“But it’s clear what it is.” He pointed again. “Okay, and that one, over on the left? That’s Dish Scrubber.”
Now that I looked, I could sort of see the resemblance. “So what does it say about you that so far it’s all household items that you see?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he replied, and I smiled, already recognizing this as a classic Ethan expression. “I think it speaks to my domesticity. Also, lack of imagination.”
“What about that one?” I asked, lifting my finger to point.
He didn’t even hesitate. “Potholder.”
“And that, the cluster by the Big Dipper?”
“EKG.”
“That’s not a household item.”
“Well, maybe not at your house.”
This time, I laughed, and as I did, he reached up, taking my pointing finger and pulling it toward him. I shifted my grip, interlocking my hand with his as he placed it on his chest, then curled up against him.
After the dance—sweet, awkward, perfect—we’d walked past the end of the world, through the shifting tides. It was then he’d taken my hand, wordless, easily. A stretch of dark, damp sand later, we found ourselves on the other side of the Colby peninsula. When the lights of the boardwalk appeared in the distance, we both stopped walking.
“Not yet,” he said, and I knew exactly what he meant. We sat down and started looking at the stars.