This Summer Will Be Different(18)

It’s cooling off quickly, and Bridget returns with a blanket from the steamer trunk, the bag of peanuts, and the bottle of rye, which she sets on the coffee table between flickering citronella candles after pouring us each a glass. Bridget’s alcohol tolerance is almost zero, and I doubt she slept better than I did last night. She’ll put herself to bed before the sun sets.

“What’s with the photos on the fridge?” I ask as she takes a seat at the other end of the sofa.

Christine had a thing against hanging family pictures. “I know how beautiful my children are. I don’t need to announce it to the world,” she told me the first summer I stayed here.

Bridget shrugs a shoulder. “My mom’s gone soft in her retirement. I used to think she loved horses more than people. But she really misses us, even though Wolf visits all the time.” She observes me over her glass. “Did you see the photo of you and me?”

“I did.” I take a sip. “I can’t believe that was only two years ago. We look so much younger.”

She hums. “Did you notice Wolf ogling you?”

“What? No,” I say too quickly.

“What’s up with you two?” She’s yawning when she asks, so it sounds casual, but every inch of me stiffens.

“What do you mean?” I’ve come close to telling Bridget a sanitized version of my history with Felix more than once. A few years ago, I’d resolved to come clean immediately after a visit to the island, but then a week passed, and another, and it didn’t seem urgent to tell her. The excuses for keeping my hookups with Felix a secret stacked up. But when I got back from PEI last summer, I was determined to do it once and for all. I made a dinner reservation at a nice restaurant so she wouldn’t lose it in public. I drank several glasses of wine, but by the time the bill came, I still hadn’t mustered the courage. This won’t be the first time I’ve chickened out.

“I can tell something’s going on,” Bridget says. “He barely looked at you today and—” She waves her arm around the deck.

“And what?”

“He’s not here. He’s usually within five feet when you’re around.”

“He’s busy at the cottages.”

In my weakest moments, I read the online reviews, scanning for mentions of Felix. There’s one, written by a woman named Nova Scarlet from last fall, saying the “hot caretaker and his tight white tees” were the highlight of her trip. She put a winky face emoji at the end of the sentence. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what it implied.

Bridget gives me a dubious look, then throws back the rest of her whiskey, coughs, and refills her glass. For her, this is excessive.

“So I have an idea,” she says.

“Uh-oh.”

“A fucking brilliant idea,” she clarifies.

“I’m terrified and intrigued. Continue.”

“I think we should go full PEI.”

“And what does that involve? Fiddle lessons from your granddad? Jumping off Covehead Bridge? Eating all the seafood?”

“Definitely. That’s always been rule number one.”

“Eat our weight in oysters is rule number one.”

“Oh, we’ll be doing that. Wolf’s shucking in Tyne Valley in two days. We’re going, and you’ll love it.”

Felix competes at the national oyster-shucking championship every year. I’ve never been here to witness it, but I know he’s good. He came first place in the junior division when he was seventeen. It’s not hard to believe. I know what he can do with his hands.

“And if I can’t pressure Wolf into staying here, he’ll spend the night Sunday,” Bridget goes on. “It’s too far to drive back to his place after the contest.”

My brain goes straight to Felix first thing in the morning. Sleepy eyelids. Pillow creases. Pajama pants. Honey in his tea and on his lips.

“Wait,” I say, batting the images away. “Did you just say Sunday? I was thinking we’d fly back Sunday night.”

“Wolf will be offended if you don’t go.”

I doubt that.

“I’ll be offended, too,” Bridget adds.

I sigh. If I get back first thing Monday, it’ll be fine. I’ll be harried, but I’m used to harried.

“Okay,” I say. “You win. We’ll go to the shucking thing, which means we’ve got oysters covered.”

“Then there’s rule two, obviously,” Bridget says. “We leave the city behind. For the rest of the week, we do all the greatest hits. Sandcastles. Seafood. Lighthouses. Coastal drives. No wedding talk. No work talk. We pretend like we’re twenty-four again.”

On that first trip, Bridget and I bopped around Prince Edward Island in a rental sedan, singing at the top of our lungs. It was our first time driving together—neither of us had a car in the city—and she took me to all the big tourist spots. Green Gables, the black-and-white-striped West Point Lighthouse, a hike in PEI National Park, a feast at New Glasgow Lobster Suppers. I kept a strict seafood-only diet when we dined out, gorging myself on lobster rolls, oysters, mussels, chowder, and fish and chips. I tried (and failed) to find a piece of sea glass by the shore.

It’s not like Bridget to be so nostalgic, and the no wedding talk provision doesn’t escape me, but she hates feeling backed into a corner, so for now, I let it slide. I should be able to figure out how to crack her in the next forty-eight hours.