That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (free e reader txt) 📗

like he’s dead. But they come for dinner, every year, on Ryan’s birthday. They won’t speak to him, but they leave five hundred dollars on the table when they go.”

“God, that’s awful.” Diana couldn’t imagine how it would feel if her own parents had behaved that way toward her.

“It’s a sad old world,” Reese agreed.

The next morning, Diana got to Provincetown an hour early. She bought Ryan a birthday card at Adams Pharmacy, which had creaky wooden floors and smelled like camphor and menthol cigarettes, and, after carefully perusing the offerings of several different boutiques, a pair of cashmere socks. “They’re like hugs for your feet,” she told him.

“Oh, thank you, baby,” he’d said, and hugged her tight. After that, Ryan was her champion. The night she’d dropped a tray of glasses and the whole restaurant had applauded, he’d hurried to her side. “Show’s over,” he announced, with his hands on his hips, and he’d helped her sweep up the mess. He’d slip her grease-spotted paper bags full of day-old malasadas and croissants from the Portuguese Bakery, where his roommate worked, and seat the best tippers in her section.

As the weeks went by, Diana acquired a few regulars. A drag queen who performed under the name Heavy Flo (real name: Phil Amoroso) would make it a point to sit in her section and greet her with “How is my beautiful girl?” Dora Fitzsimmons, a taciturn woman with frizzy gray hair who ran a sailing camp in the West End, would come in every Tuesday at five o’clock precisely and order a burger, well-done, served with a pile of curly fries. Curly fries weren’t on the Abbey’s menu. “But they served them when this place was still D’Amico’s,” Reese explained. That had been almost twenty years previously, but the chef kept a bag of fries in the freezer, and would throw two handfuls into the deep fryer for Dora. Dora never said anything to Diana, other than “please” and “thank you,” once she’d given her order. She’d greet the bartenders, and give Reese a nod, then read the Provincetown Banner while she ate her dinner. She’d leave without a word of farewell, but there would always be a ten-dollar bill under her water glass.

Almost everyone was nice. But when the staff gathered at the bar at the end of the night to divvy up the tips, when shots were poured and plans were made to go to the Crown & Anchor for Jonathan’s singalong, or to meet at the Boatslip for drinks, Diana would say good night and return to her cottage, to read for an hour or two, then fall asleep.

On a sunny Monday morning in October, she drove down to the dog shelter in Dennis. “I’m just looking,” she told the woman behind the desk, who gave a knowing nod. “Take y’ time,” she said. Diana walked along the row of cages, looking into pair after pair of beseeching eyes. There were dogs that jumped, dogs that licked, dogs that whined as they nudged at her hand with their wet noses. At the very end of the corridor, she found a scrawny, shivering dog with a patchy white coat who just huddled in the corner of her pen and looked at Diana, too scared to even approach.

Diana crouched down with a bit of Pupperoni in her hand, and extended the treat through the bars. She waited, patiently, as the dog regarded her. “It’s okay,” Diana said. “I won’t hurt you.” Finally, she set the treat on the floor and the dog, trembling all over, made her way to the front of the cage. She took the treat in her mouth and held it there, looking up at Diana.

“Go on,” said Diana. “It’s okay. It’s for you.” Instead of eating it, the dog carried the treat back to her bed, where she carefully nudged it under a wadded-up blanket and curled up on top of it with a sigh. Twenty minutes later, Diana had filled out the forms, paid the fees, purchased a leash and a collar and a ten-pound bag of kibble, and was driving back to Truro with Willa on a blanket on the passenger’s seat.

Willa’s skin was dark gray beneath her patchy white fur. Her ears were enormous and pointy, and her bushy eyebrows protruded like fans over brown eyes that looked weary and sad. Diana knew that Willa had been found on Skaket Beach at the end of summer. Had some family that had loved her for years taken her on one last vacation, then abandoned her? Had she been startled by the fireworks on the Fourth of July, and run away from some campsite or cabin or hotel room and gotten lost? Or had she run from a home where she was kicked and yelled at, taking off in search of a better life?

“Poor Willa,” Diana murmured as she led the dog into the cottage. Willa took a tour, carefully sniffing at the baseboards, the legs of the director’s chairs, the bottom of the couch, and the refrigerator. “Are you hungry?” Willa had wagged her stump of a tail, and looked up with her head cocked to the left. In the kitchen, Diana filled a bowl with kibble, and another with fresh water, and watched as Willa nudged at the bowl, looking up after every few sniffs like she was trying to make sure no one would snatch it away. She ate a few careful mouthfuls, then looked up, this time with her head cocked to the right.

“Go on,” Diana said. “It’s okay.” She lifted the bag. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Willa ate more, but she didn’t empty her dish. Diana kept her distance, watching out of the corner of her eye as Willa took a mouthful of kibbles, walked to the corner, let them spill out of her mouth, and nosed them under the couch. Diana retrieved them and, under Willa’s reproachful gaze, put them back into her bowl. “You can eat