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

local musicians gave free concerts in the summertime. The summer people packed picnics and came to listen, letting their kids run and dance in front of the bandstand while they drank wine out of plastic cups and ate fried chicken from the Blue Willow or pizza from the Flying Fish in Wellfleet.

On Monday mornings, the field hosted a farmers’ market. That day, half a dozen farms had come, displaying their wares on folding tables. There were jars of honey and beeswax candles, pumpkins and squash and turnips and wreaths made of cedar and pine. Diana was browsing the offerings when Michael Carmody appeared beside her, holding an enormous, oddly shaped tomato in one of his hands.

“Eight dollars for this?” he asked the young woman minding the cashbox.

“It’s delicious,” she said. “Last ones of the season.”

“But it looks like a tumor.” He held the tomato out for Diana’s inspection. The tomato was more oval than round, big enough to fill his palm, with odd bulges beneath its yellow-gold skin. “Would you pay eight dollars for this?” Before she could answer, he turned back to the girl. “You know what, I think I’d pay eight dollars so I wouldn’t have to eat it.”

“Your loss,” she said. “That right there is an Early Girl. Sweetest tomato you’ll ever taste.”

“Really?” He studied it skeptically.

“You get some good sourdough bread, toast it up, slice your Early Girl. A little mayo, little salt, a few grinds of pepper. Best sandwich in the world.”

Michael considered the tomato, then handed the girl a ten-dollar bill and said, “Keep the change.” Turning back to Diana, he said, “Want to split it? I’ll buy the bread if you supply the mayo.”

She shook her head.

“It’s just a sandwich!” he said. “In broad daylight!” When she walked to the fence, where she’d left her bike, he followed her, and when she turned around, he was right on her heel.

She lowered her voice. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

“Well,” he said equably, “I would like to get to know you. But I will respect your wishes. If you want to be left alone, I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself.” He made a show of turning away from Diana, toward the center of the field, where an older man, gantry-thin with a dandelion fluff of white hair, was playing “Turkey in the Straw” on the banjo, with an adoring circle of children at his feet.

Diana had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the music. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to get to know me?”

From underneath his baseball cap, Michael Carmody gave her a look that was equal parts incredulous, annoyed, and amused. “Are you fishing for compliments?”

She looked down at her feet and didn’t answer.

“You honestly have no idea why a man would be interested in you.”

“I know why a man would want to sleep with me,” she said bluntly. She’d meant to shock him, and, from his face, she could see that she had.

“Look,” he finally said. “You’re pretty, which you know, because, if I remember right, your cottage has a mirror. And you seem interesting. And your dog already likes me, which is half the battle.” He rubbed his hands together. “But if you’re not interested, that’s okay. I promise, I can take no for an answer.”

He looked at her for a minute. When she didn’t say anything, he nodded, and said, “Okay, then. See you around, Early Girl.” He turned around, cradling his tomato in one big hand. Diana watched him. Her heart was beating fast, and she could taste iron on her tongue. She felt relieved, and angry, her insides fizzing with adrenaline and the memory of terror. But she also felt something else, something it took her most of the bike ride home to identify as regret.

Fall burned down into winter. The skies were gray in the daytime, dark by five o’clock; the trees brandished bare limbs against the sky. Four members of the waitstaff and two of the line cooks left for Key West, where they had jobs waiting. Ryan used what he’d made over the summer to go to Los Angeles for a month for auditions. Reese warned her, again, that the tips in the winter months wouldn’t amount to much. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

Diana promised she’d be fine. If she’d had to pay rent, it might have been a stretch, but Dr. Levy told her she could have the cottage through the spring.

“It’ll get better in the summer,” he said. “You’ll make, like, triple the money in high season.” Diana nodded, even though she’d already decided that there was no way she could stay on the Cape through the summer. Not with all the memories it would bring up; not when everything she saw and heard and smelled would remind her of that summer.

All through the winter, she took Willa down to the beach every morning, to frolic with her pack of regulars, a corgi and a golden retriever, two chocolate labs, and a few other rescues. The big dogs would chase tennis balls into the water, while the small dogs watched from the shore and gave each other looks that seemed to ask Why on earth would they do that? Diana met their owners; her fellow washashores, women and men who’d had other lives in other towns and cities, who’d landed on the Cape and decided to stay. One woman was a sculptor, one man was a writer; a married couple were university professors who kept a pied-à-terre in New York City for the school year. All of them loved the Cape, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, and they were happy to tell Diana where to go and what to do.

On Sundays, she’d bundle up and join Charlotte the sculptor and ride her bike to Provincetown for a restorative yoga class. When it was over, she’d treat herself to a latte at Joe, then pick up a few