Page 22 of The Book of Summer

Monday Morning

Bess must be suffering some off-brand, New England version of island fever, because she’s inexplicably agreed to play accomplice in one of Cissy’s harebrained schemes.

“Sure, Cis,” she idiotically said. “Whatever you need.”

Sometimes Bess forgets that hers is not an ordinary mom.

As she crosses Baxter Road, Bess tries to script an introduction that doesn’t sound batshit insane. Chappy Mayhew is insufferable by nature but she’s about to hand him a blank check for mocking.

Why? Why is it so damned hard to tell Cissy no?

With an inhale, Bess nudges open the gate and walks toward the front door. She is at once charmed by the quaint fishing shack. The place is all Sconset enchantment with its weather-beaten, splintered face, the picket fence, and the roses, which are just beginning to bloom. By summer’s end, the cottage itself will be blanketed in bright pink flowers. It will also have a panoramic ocean view, once Cliff House falls out of sight. Some bastards have all the luck.

Bess knocks, quickly, with a rat-a-tat-tat. It’s feasible that no one is home (oh please, oh please) and she can crawl back into bed. Alas, to her great dismay, clomping footsteps answer Bess’s call. The door opens before she can escape.

“Listen, Chappy, I’m sorry to bother you, but you know how Cissy is. Here’s the thing…”

Bess releases every last molecule of oxygen from her lungs and glances up, face flaming. But it is not Chappy Mayhew standing before her. It’s worse.

“What the hell?” she squawks, with unnecessary volume.

Bess clears her throat and lets it fall to a whisper.

“Do youlivehere?” She drops the question from the side of her mouth, as if it’s a secret and there are curious ears nearby. “You live with your dad?Still?Or did someone kick you out? Oh, this is sad.”

As the man belts out an all-too-familiar laugh, Bess blushes ever more furiously. Of course. Of course he’d answer the door. Tall and tanned and sandy and perpetually unbothered: Evan f’ing Mayhew, in the radiant, windburned flesh.

“I see you’ve inherited your mother’s social graces,” he says with a grin.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“I’m here to build a bookshelf for my dad. Oh man.” He chuckles again. “I can hear Cissy now.Chappy Mayhew knows how to read?I walked right into that one, didn’t I? It’s great to see you, Bess. Please. Come in.”

Evan steps out of the doorway and makes a sweeping motion with his hand.

“Thanks,” she mumbles.

Bess fiddles with her hair as she skulks through the entryway. She really should’ve done more than whip it back into a ponytail and flat-iron the hell out of her bangs. She also should’ve worn contacts, or at least something other than glasses so old they make Bess seem like she’s going for that hipster, “pre-cool” look typically associated with unicycles and twisty mustaches.

“Well, good to see you and everything,” she says, following Evan into the kitchen.

God bless it, she is wearing sweatpants. Purchased in the late nineties.

“‘Good to see you and everything,’” Evan says, never missing a thing.

He opens the fridge.

“Oh, Codman, I miss that mushy streak of yours. Beer?”

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

“Light beer?”

“Tempting, but no.”

“So…”

Evan rests his back against the counter. He crosses one disturbingly muscled arm over the other and gives Bess a thoroughly invasive visual head-to-toe. Meanwhile, Bess wants to shrink into the corner, or disappear behind her bangs, which is the exact point of them.