He thought I had the day off from work, and we’d left it that he’d pick me up at my house just before noon, when the tide was almost high.
Mom was supposed to be out of the house first thing with Kat and Grandma for their trip to Boston. My plan was to call in sick after they left. But Mom slept through her alarm. And Grandma took forever on the phone with Roger. Then Mom kept popping her head in my room to see if I changed my mind about going with them. I thought about faking sick right then, but I knew Mom would cancel their plans and stay home if she thought I wasn’t feeling well. I finally left the house to avoid talking about it anymore.
Which is why I had to go to work and then pretend to be sick.
It was a foolproof plan until I got on the phone with my father and acted the way that I did. I hadn’t planned on getting angry with him. But hearing his voice made me furious. I wanted to shout into the phone, See—your ridiculous rules are making me sneak around like a child. But he wouldn’t see it that way. In his eyes, I was a child.
When Dad said he’d motor in to take me home, I thought I’d blown it. But then Boon had walked in, and I’d used the moment to duck out.
And my plan had worked.
I’d raced home on my bike and changed my clothes. I left a note on the table for my father that I’d felt better and had gone to Betsy’s house and would be home after dinner.
Alex had picked me up, and we’d launched the boat from the dock right at high tide, and spent the afternoon taking turns tacking.
Alex was just as good at fixing the boat—the repair held up great—as he was sailing it, and we got her moving a couple of times. We tied up to the mooring in the river and spent the rest of the day lounging on the boat, dipping in the water when it got too hot. We stayed on the boat until the tide started to ebb. My father and the shop a million miles away. This morning a lifetime ago.
Now we were parked in the lot at Breakwater Light, eating clam chowder from to-go cups and watching tourists take selfies atop the rock cliff; the ocean spread out in the background.
The Clam Shack at the base of the lighthouse was famous for its lobster rolls. But I’d suggested it for dinner because it was at the end of a long road up on Elk Point, almost the end of the earth, and one of Alden’s busiest tourist spots because of the view.
I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. And by anyone, I meant my father.
In front of us a handful of picnic tables sat overlooking the water. The sun was still hot, even though it was almost dusk, so we parked in the shade and rolled down the windows. The ocean breeze cooling us off, but forcing us to jam our napkins under our legs so they didn’t fly away.
Alex was sitting next to me, a lobster roll balancing on his leg, and the empty chowder cup on the seat between us. I’d opted for a hot dog, and Alex insisted I was just being polite since he was paying, refusing to accept that lobster wasn’t one of my favorite foods. He hadn’t let it drop since we started eating.
“I just don’t get it,” he repeated again, taking a bite of the lobster roll, pausing while he chewed. He wiped his mouth with his napkin several times before he spoke. “I mean, is it that you think it’s too much work to get it out of the shell, or you just don’t like it?”
“We serve fresh lobster at the shop. Getting it out of the shell is part of my job. It’s messy, but not hard.”
“But you secretly hate it. Of course. A lobsterman’s daughter—animal-rights advocate at heart—is forced into butchering the lowly crustacean and becomes a vegetarian, taking a moral stand against cruelty to animals. That’s it, isn’t it?”
My mouthful went down the wrong way, and I chugged my soda to swallow it. “I’m eating a hot dog,” I pointed out when I could finally talk. “I’m all for animal rights, but there’s a food chain, and I’m okay with that.”
Alex shrugged, apparently out of theories.
“I guess I’d eat it if it was, like, the last thing left on Earth to eat. But I don’t love it. Not like you do,” I offered.
“Not even when it’s like this?” He held up the remainder of the lobster roll. “Buttered and toasted. Open on the top. Perfect amount of lettuce. Not too much mayo.”
I shook my head. “Maybe one a year. Definitely not like you eat it.”
He eyed me suspiciously, as though I’d just told him an elaborate lie. “All right, then,” he said after a minute. “What is your favorite food?”
I shut one eye, thinking. “Cheeseburgers.”
“Drink?”
“Um, Diet Coke. No wait. Lemonade. But only the kind they sell at fairs—fresh squeezed, with lots of sugar, and if you order a large, you get the oversize plastic cup with the lid and the straw. I’m a sucker for a good cup.”
“Dessert?”
“My grandmother’s date nut bread,” I said, and laughed when Alex’s nose wrinkled. “Just kidding. Probably ice cream. Black raspberry. But it might be a tie with crème br?lée. My dad makes a mean one.”
Alex gave me a funny look. “Really? I can’t picture that.”
I shrugged. “He just likes using the torch.”
Alex gazed out the window and nodded, as though this made perfect sense.
“Now you,” I said. “Favorite food. Drink. Dessert.”
He breathed in, looked up. “Lobster. Root Beer. Tapioca pudding,” he said in one breath.
I stared at him. “Ew,” I said finally.
“Ew to which one?”
“All of them. Pudding? Out of all of the desserts in the world, you choose pudding?”
“Have you ever had homemade tapioca pudding?” he asked. “It’s delicious.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had tapioca pudding, never mind homemade.”
“Well, then you are not qualified to judge. Someday we’ll visit my hometown, and we’ll sit at the counter at the Corner Café, and you will have the homemade tapioca pudding, and you will be a changed woman,” Alex said with satisfaction. He pointed at me and gathered up the empty bowls, napkins, and spoons. He piled them on the disposable tray and got out of the truck. He shoved the door closed with his foot, balancing the tray in his hands.
I watched him walk to the trash barrel on the other side of the parking lot. He’d been joking, of course. But the thought swirled around my head. Us. Together. In his hometown. My elbow was on the door, and I put my chin in my hand, covering my dopey grin in case Alex happened to look back at the truck.
We’d spent the last several weeks having lunch almost every day on the hood of his car in the town parking lot.
We talked about movies. Books. His family. And mine. His friends. And mine. We talked about the future. How he wanted to start a boat-building company. How the smell of a bilge on an old wooden boat, the mixture of cedar and salt water and pine tar was one of the best smells on Earth.
I told him I had my eye on Emerson, my mother’s alma mater, but my home would always be in Maine, where the seasons changed just when you got used to the one you were in. We talked about everything.