Page 27 of The Book of Summer

Still, Evan doesn’t say anything.

“I know what you’re thinking!” she chirps, returning to her schoolgirl self, desperate with the need to fill every gap in conversation. “What fool would let this fox out of his clutches?! Look at me!”

Bess gestures toward her sweatpants, her braless tee. She should’ve gotten a boob job back when Brandon suggested it. She’d been indignant at the time—she’s a doctor, for the love of God!—but the man had a point. Her breasts, they are not so great.

“Bess…” Evan says, and reaches for her hand. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re sorry? Question mark?”

“If you need me to be sorry, that’s what I am.”

“You should write for Hallmark with that level of inherent sympathy. How compassionate.”

She is thoroughly vexed but the comment is so Evan. The very worst of him, as a matter of fact.

“Lizzy C.”

Bess lurches.Lizzy C.His old nickname for her; he was the only person to ever use it. She wishes he’d knock it off.

“I didn’t mean—” Evan starts.

“Thanks but don’t bother with the ‘sorry’s. It’s really for the best and I don’t have a shred of regret. About the divorce, anyway.”

“That’s what I suspected, which is why…” Evan shakes his head. “Here’s the deal. What’s his name? Your ex? Brian?”

“Brandon. You don’t remember his name?”

Then again, why would he?

“Brandon,” Evan repeats. “Yep, sounds like a douchebag all right. Listen, I don’t know much about him. Or you anymore, for that matter. But as for Brandon, I only met him twice. Once at your wedding, and once when you trotted him out to some party at the Yacht Club.”

“Did I really bring him only twice?” Bess says, trying to remember.

Though they never made it to Sconset during their four-year marriage, they had dated for two years before that and met further back still, when they were both at Stanford, Bess for medical school and Brandon for business. No, it must’ve been more than twice.

“Are you sure?” Bess asks, mostly to herself. “Twice?”

“I can’t besure.It’s not like you kept me apprised of your comings and goings. Plus, I was in Costa Rica for a while. You could’ve visited a hundred times in those years.”

“Probably not a hundred.”

Costa Rica. Bess feels a kick to the gut.

“Look, maybe I’m wrong,” Evan says. “Even if I was around, you’d hardly want to introduce Mr. Fancy-pants to your random townie ex-boyfriend. Best to keep the locals on the down low.”

“Please,” Bess says, and lets her eyes skip away. “I told him plenty about you. Plen-ty.”

Evan doesn’t really think that, does he?

Evan doesn’t truly believe that he is some boyfriend from the closet of the unmentionable and denied? Bess has those types from college, to be sure, but her only remorse about Evan is in how it ended. Or didn’t end. Or whatever it was that happened.

Bess chose Boston College for undergrad because it was closest to home, and therefore closest to him. She thought they had some unspoken agreement, but then Evan left. He went to Costa Rica for a summer, which turned into six years once he found a native to shack up with. The woman was Latin and glorious and sent a ripple of envy through every male who’d been bred on the island. Son of a gun, Evan Mayhew leapfrogged them all.

When Evan showed up at Bess’s wedding, she wasn’t sure if he’d come on a plane or from across the street.

“Oh no, he’s been back for years,” some now nameless and faceless Nantucketer told Bess as they waited for refills of wine.

“What happened?” Bess asked whoever it was.