Chapter Twelve

As the calendar flipped into July, Dad and I explored the island in the long evening light. He showed me the national forest and boggy marshes thick with cattails. We walked along the harbor, picking out our favorite boats, and sailed around Coatue, the strip of land almost entirely blocked off as a natural reserve. Tourists invaded the island, but Dad and I still managed to find untouched beaches far from town, and I felt so happy, getting back in the habit of spending time together.

Working for Cora also made me happy. She was a mix of droll humor and impressive intensity. Sometimes she’d spend a full day studying graphs with a crease between her brows, downing endless cups of coffee and barely speaking, except for long, complicated calls with collaborators. But when she did talk to me, she was patient and thorough and kind. I learned about the people she worked with—the other astrophysicists studying debris in space, the government agencies involved, the chair of her department—DH—who was not her boss, but not not her boss.

“Does it ever make you mad?” I asked her once, after I heard one of her male colleagues’ voices become a little too condescending.

She was silent for a minute. “Often,” she finally said. “But I love the work. I’m not going to be bullied out of doing something I’m brilliant at. And I remind myself the assholes are products of their society and upbringing, and it’s not about me, and I’m great at my job. And I hope my accomplishments are going to make it easier for future generations of women and people of color. So yeah, I’m mad sometimes. But it doesn’t stop me.”

I wasn’t sure an adult had ever been so honest with me. It was alarming, but I liked it.

The only thing keeping me from being totally happy was my uncertainty regarding Ethan. Were we okay? Were we a disaster? I’d apologized to him the day after making out with him in the storm. “I’m sorry,” I’d said as we’d walked through the gardens in the early morning. We’d fallen into a pattern of going down to the beach for morning swims, and I’d decided the best thing to do was to continue the pattern, to act like the night before hadn’t been a big deal. “I was feeling itchy, and it was storming, and you were there—”

His mouth had twitched. “I was there,” he’d echoed. “Flattering.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—”

“Jordan.” The sky had been bright blue, washed fresh after the storm. “I am very happy to make out with you whenever you want to make out. As long as you’re into it.”

“Oh,” I said in a small voice. A shiver cascaded through me. “Okay.”

We hadn’t talked about it again.

I’d finished pulling all the data Cora had wanted on the Harvard Computers and astronomy on Nantucket, but I continued digging into Andrea Darrel during my off hours. I emailed Harvard to see if there was a way to get digital copies of her box of papers; they said unfortunately not, but I was welcome to submit a form and, if approved, look at the boxes filled with her papers in person.

Bummed out, I mentioned it to Grace on one of our weekly video calls.

“Why don’t I go for you?” Grace said.

“What?” I’d been lying on my bed, but now I sat up. “What do you mean?”

“You said people can go in person, right? I can take the bus into the square and take pictures of the pages and send them to you.”

“Oh my god, Grace. You don’t have to,” I said automatically, though hope flared in me. “I would love if you did, but you don’t need to.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it. Besides…” Her eyes glinted. “This is a perfect ploy to ask Sierra on a date.”

Sierra was the new girl at the diner who Grace had been obsessing over for the last month. “Um, how?”

“You said there’s a visiting researcher form or something? I probably can’t fill it out, but Sierra is eighteen.” Grace, like me, was a September baby—we’d consistently been the youngest in our grade. “I’ll tell her I need her help and she’ll fill it out and we can go together and it’ll be an adventure!”

“Look,” I said, “I don’t want to be too wild or anything, but why don’t you just ask her to see a movie?”

“Too wild,” Grace countered promptly.

“How is this girl going to have any idea you like her if you don’t suggest an actual, you know, date?”

Grace clasped a hand to her heart. “She shall be overcome with love and lust for me when she sees what a good friend I am.”

I snorted a laugh. “Okay. Thank you, seriously. Tell her I insisted you guys go to some super romantic spot while you’re in Cambridge if you need an excuse to check out a sunset or hot chocolate or whatever. Or that I’m treating you guys to dinner so you can take her somewhere nice. Wait, I will treat you guys to dinner, I’m Venmoing you now.”

Despite liking the Barbanel cousins and their friends—especially Abby and her crew—I missed my friends from home as the Fourth of July approached. At home, I always spent the Fourth on the banks of the Charles, listening to the Pops play the 1812 overture as fireworks exploded. We brought card games and picnic blankets and bought fried dough and overpriced lemonade from food trucks, and snuck into MIT to use their bathrooms instead of the porta potties. I knew my friends would be there now, without me. Would we ever all be together again, or would everyone be spread out next summer?

This year, I headed downtown with the Barbanel crew. It was blazingly hot; sweat plastered my tank top to my back. I’d worn my most minuscule shorts to reduce the amount of fabric on my body, yet I still wanted to peel my skin off. In the center of Nantucket, people packed the cobblestone streets, a flurry of patriotism and primary colors.

“See you guys later,” Ethan said once we got downtown.

David smirked. He, like me, was one of the few wearing not red, white, and blue, but instead a blue romper to match the new color of his hair. “You bet you will.”

“Where are you going?” I looked back and forth between the brothers.

“Dunk tank,” they chorused.

My mouth parted. “You’re participating? You’re going to get dunked?”

“Depends how good your throwing arm is,” Ethan said. Then he grimaced. “Unfortunately, my family all have great throwing arms.”

David patted Ethan on the back. “You’re doomed.”

So of course we went to the dunk tank as soon at Ethan’s shift started. He lounged in his seat above the water, heckling players as they tried to throw their balls hard enough to trigger the mechanism to plunge him down. I wished I didn’t think he looked like a prince lounging on his throne—I’d tried so hard since our stormy makeout to avoid noticing how hot I found Ethan—but he did, like a laid-back, devil-may-care lordling, ready to greet his adoring crowds. I wanted to crash him into the tank in an epic wave, then watch him burst out, spewing water and laughing.

I waited in line with all the Barbanels, cheering on the failed attempts to soak Ethan to the bone. A few girls stood before us, though only one seemed interested in playing. She stepped up, flashing a grin at Ethan. “You ready for this?”

“You know I am.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was used to seeing Ethan’s grin directed at me. I knew he was a flirt, but I rarely saw him in action.

The girl wound up her arm like an all-star pitcher. She was pretty, her blond pigtails decorated with red-white-and-blue streamers, wearing a white tank top and denim shorts. She released the ball to her friends’ cheers, but missed the target completely.

Ethan laughed. “That your best shot, Thompson?”

“Not even close,” she returned, winding up her arm one more time.

This time, she hit the target, but not hard enough to trigger the game. But the third time, her ball hit the center. The floor opened up beneath Ethan, and he plunged into the water.

Everyone cheered. The girl’s friends clapped her on the back, and she laughed giddily.

Ethan came up sputtering. His white T-shirt was plastered to his skin, and the water weighed his hair down so it lay flat against his head. The way it did when we went swimming together early in the morning, which I considered a private, intimate look. It felt weird for so many other people to see it.

No, I was being weird. There was nothing private about our relationship. We were just—roommates. We’d hooked up, sure, but it hadn’t meant anything. There was nothing between us.

This didn’t stop my whole body from clenching as I watched the girl walk up to the edge of the tank, where Ethan had made his way to the ladder.

She greeted Ethan with a giant smile. “Told you I’d knock you down a peg.”

Something hot and unpleasant twisted my stomach as Ethan returned her grin, swiping wet hair out of his eyes and leaning against the tank’s rail. “I didn’t expect you to be so literal.”

She laughed. “When are you done?”

“Got another hour.”

“Want to get ice cream?”

“Why not,” he said. “Love ice cream.”

I hated ice cream. I hated everything, including myself, for apparently developing emotions despite strict instructions to the contrary.

“Great,” the girl said, and with a flip of her pigtails, she walked away.

Ethan watched her go appreciatively before hoisting himself up the ladder and out of the pool. His gaze swept the audience as he returned to his seat, and halted on me. Or, more likely, on his family surrounding me. His grin widened. “Oh, hey.”

I didn’t want to be here anymore.

“Get ready to live in that dunk tank,” David said.

Ethan was looking at me. He didn’t break eye contact, either. “Ready.”

“I’m actually hungry,” I said, turning toward Shira. “I’m gonna go grab a bite. I’ll meet you after.”

Shira’s gaze darted to Ethan. “Sure. Text and we’ll find you.”

I nodded and pivoted away.

The crowds were thick, and I didn’t have a destination. I wasn’t hungry; I just didn’t want to stand there smiling at Ethan like this was all fun and games when I was pissed off. Which I had absolutely no right to be. But also, this was exactly why I didn’t want to get involved with Ethan, why I’d known hooking up with him had been a mistake. If I gave Ethan an inch I’d give him a mile, and then I’d be falling head over heels and when I landed my heart would splinter like glass.

“Hey!” Ethan’s voice sounded behind me. “Jordan, wait up.”

I turned, astonished. His hair and T-shirt were already drying in the heat. My fingers itched to fix his unruly curls. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have an hour left?”

“I traded for later. Why’d you run off?”

I’d gotten so used to having Ethan to myself. To knocking on his door early in the morning and heading down to the beach. To hanging out in the cousins’ room late at night, chatting with Shira and Miriam while he played video games. Last night we’d grilled tomatoes together for dinner and my fingers still smelled like garlic from chopping so many cloves. I’d become used to his attention thoroughly focused on me.

But I had absolutely no claim on him. It’d been eight days since we’d hooked up, and I’d told him it’d been because I was itchy and he was there, nothing more. “I wanted food.”

“Then let’s eat.”

Strange, how the simple suggestion unknotted the tension inside me, how though I hadn’t been hungry, now a bite sounded nice. Except—“If you eat now, your appetite will be spoiled for ice cream,” I said, more snippily than I’d intended.

Ethan grinned and wrapped me in an unexpected bear hug, lifting me off my feet. I squealed in surprise. “What are you doing?!”

He put me down. “I like when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“That’s cute.” He tweaked my nose, which I would have burned anyone else alive for doing. “Let’s get lunch.”

We got lunch.

We watched the fireworks from a beach, giant bursts of color splashing against the night. Afterward, I followed the Barbanel cousins to a party, squeezing into a Jeep in a pile of sticky limbs and driving to a sprawling house mid-island.

Ethan and I collapsed on a love seat while around us, people laughed and danced. “Yo, Ethan!” a guy shouted. “Come play beer pong!”

“I’m busy!” Ethan called back.

“I’m serious!” his friend said. “Stop flirting and help me out! These two are undefeated!”

“Go on,” I said, amused. “You can’t let them continue undefeated.”

“I suck at beer pong. He’d be better off with someone else.”

“Really?” I grinned. “I’m great at it.”

“Of course you are.” Ethan seemed flatteringly content to ignore his friends’ calls and stay on the love seat with me. “So what’s the plan for your dad and Cora? If you’re going to play matchmaker, you need a plan, right? You can’t be all willy-nilly about it.”

“Willy-nilly?”

“Yeah. It’s a real, important, serious phrase conveying the lack of your seriousness.”

“Okay, Willy.” I rolled my eyes, then stopped, realizing willy was slang I hadn’t intended. “Uh…”

Ethan’s brows shot up. “Excuse me, what are you calling me?”

“Nothing.” I started to shake with laughter. “Nothing. Where do you think the term willy-nilly came from?”

“You’re much cruder than I gave you credit for.” Ethan shook his head solemnly. “Shouting willy everywhere.”

“Stop it,” I said, unable to contain my laughter. “You’re like a twelve-year-old boy. That’s not what I meant.”

He gave a mock-reluctant sigh. “If you say so.”

“I really hope willy-nilly doesn’t refer to…I’m googling it.” I pulled up Merriam-Webster on my phone. “Oh. Will I, nill I. That makes more sense.”

“Does it? Nill I?”

“Seems—Old Englishy?”

“What was your alternate etymology?” Ethan asked with a grin.

“Use your imagination.”

“Oh, I will.”

I gave him a gentle shove, amused and wishing I didn’t feel so delighted by Ethan all the time.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s game-plan this. Do we write your dad and Dr. Bradley notes and sign the other person’s name?”

“You’re ridiculous. No. That’s a terrible idea.”

“No ideas are bad ideas.” He put his arm around my shoulder and tugged me to his side.

It felt good—too good—and I wanted to snuggle into his side. Which meant I should probably pull away. As a compromise, I decided to call him on it. “Oh, are you yawning?”

“Nah, I’m counting shoulders. Didn’t you notice? Need me to demonstrate? Because I totally can.”

“Oh my god, you are a twelve-year-old boy.”

“Aren’t we all twelve-year-old boys on the inside?” Ethan said philosophically.

“No. I’m not.”

Ethan laughed. “I’ve always thought it’s cruel kids become a bar or bat mitzvah at twelve and thirteen. It’s the most awkward age in the world.”

“I wouldn’t know. I never did.”

“Really?” He turned, his face close. “How come?”

I shrugged, embarrassed and overly warm. “I don’t know. I mean, I do know. Dad and I aren’t really religious, and I only went to Hebrew school for two years when I was little.”

“Maybe you saved yourself a lot of awkwardness.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I think I might have liked to, though. Sometimes, I feel a little…I don’t know. Not Jewish enough.”

“Honestly, I think a lot of people can feel that way,” Ethan said. “At least according to my mom and the aunts after a glass of wine.”

I had noticed the women of Golden Doors did, in fact, thoroughly enjoy a life discussion in the evening over a glass of wine. “Really?”

“Yeah. And they, at least, don’t think it’s possible to not be Jewish enough, especially if you want to be. Besides, you can always have an adult bat mitzvah. Miriam’s mom did that.”

That made me feel a little better. I wasn’t sure if I did want to, but I liked the idea of the option being available. And it made me feel better, too, to hear the women of Golden Doors didn’t have standards I couldn’t meet. “So was yours awkward?”

“Oh, definitely. But also great. I was the king of the dance floor.”

My lips turned up. “I bet you were. Bet you have great moves.”

“You sound like you doubt me.” He launched to his feet. “Let me prove myself.”

“Oh, wow, no, you don’t need to.”

Ethan rocked his hips from side to side, doing the shopping cart thing. I wrapped my arms around my knees and burst into uncontainable giggles as Ethan twirled in a circle, hands in the air.

David came by, his severe expression at odds with his romper and the lei he’d acquired. “Ethan. You’re embarrassing me.”

Ethan grabbed his brother’s hands and started shaking them in the air, too.

David let him, but shot me a long-suffering glance as if to say, You see what I have to put up with?

When the song finished, Ethan returned to my side, grabbed my seltzer from my hand, and took a long swig. “Back to your dad and boss. Are you sure he even wants to date?”

“I think so.” I recalled the conversation I’d overheard between Dad and Aunt Lou. “And I worry about him. He’ll be alone when I’m at college.” I shrugged. “Don’t you have people you worry about?”

He glanced over at his brother, still dancing. “Yeah.”

“See? Even though you know someone can take care of themselves—you still worry.”

He chewed on his lip. “I guess, for me, it’s less thinking he can’t—it’s thinking he won’t. David can be so angry sometimes, I worry he won’t give things a chance. I worry he’ll turn up his nose instead of being happy. And our little brother, Oliver—he’s artistic, which is great, but he can be so sensitive and get hurt. And Miriam—” He shook his head.

“What?”

“She’s so empathetic. The other day, people were shitting on Pepsi as inferior Coke, and she got this sort of sad, worried look in her eyes. I asked her why, and she said—I kid you not—she felt bad for Pepsi because some people considered it their second choice. She felt bad. For a corporation. She said it wasn’t for the corporation, it was for the people who worked there who tried really hard at their jobs and took pride in them and she didn’t want their feelings to be hurt if they overheard someone speaking unkindly.”

I took that in. “Wow.”

“Yeah. How’s she’s supposed to function in the world if she’s feeling so much for everyone?” He sighed. “So yes, I get worrying about people.”

“And you have a lot of people to worry about, if it’s all your cousins.”

“Tell me about it,” he said wryly.

I opened my mouth to ask who worried about him, then, but before I could, the blond girl with streamers in her pigtails from earlier approached. “Ethan Barbanel. I can’t believe you blew me off earlier. I can’t believe you blew ice cream off.”

I tensed.

The girl didn’t look mad; she looked flirty, hand propped on her hips, lips curved. Only her eyes looked flat. She reminded me of myself, and I didn’t like it. It reminded me how I never took guys I liked to task for blowing me off, how I laughed and pretended it didn’t matter. How I tried to be a Cool Girl, free whenever they were next free.

Ethan scratched his head. “Oh, hey, Kylie.”

I muttered, “You at least texted her?”

“Yeah,” he said, then seemed to realize introductions were in order. “Uh, this is Jordan, my boss’s daughter. She’s staying with us for the summer. This is Kylie.”

“Hi,” I said, despite the sinking feeling in my stomach at her brittle smile. This girl probably had something with Ethan. Well, what had I expected? We weren’t a thing. We weren’t anything. We were two people who lived in the same house and liked to make out with people, occasionally each other, for fun.

“How can I make it up to you?” Ethan asked the girl.

“You can get me a drink right now,” she said.

Ethan hesitated, glancing at me. But this was good. This was the reminder I needed. Ethan and I were not a plausible match, which I knew five hundred times over. I forced a smile. “You guys go on,” I said, light as a feather. Hopefully not stiff as a board.

“Jordan…”

“It’s all good.” I hopped to my feet. “I’m gonna dance with David.”

And I did. David and I dance-shouted through the next several bops, screaming ourselves hoarse and jumping so enthusiastically I thought I might strain a limb or lung.

Was this…emotional growth? Not doing what felt good in the moment because I knew it would sour into regret? I deserved a prize.

Unfortunately, the prize I wanted was Ethan.

When I found my ability to keep from looking at Ethan and the girl decaying exponentially, I sent myself home. At Golden Doors, I found Miriam in the cousins’ room, and we watched three episodes of the latest messy reality dating show. When Miriam started nodding off around one in the morning, I ushered her to bed. Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I checked my email—and found Grace had sent me photos of Andrea Darrel’s Cambridge diaries.

This is just the first box,Grace had written. Tbh your girl wrote a LOT. Sierra and I are going back next week to take pictures of the rest. She’d included a selfie of her and a cute girl with an asymmetrical haircut posing in front of a cardboard box, each holding a journal. Also we went to JP Licks and Felipe’s on your dime! Another photo, this one of them cheersing with burritos on a rooftop.

Smiling, I opened the first photo. In the unwavering yellow light of my screen, I enlarged the old pages filled with cramped, slanted letters and began to read.