“Yes,” Zach says, a hint of misery creeping into his voice. “I did.”
“Tell me you love me,” Carson says.
“I can’t.”
“Tell me you love me!” Carson says, so loudly that a mother packing up her kids after a day at Jetties Beach turns around to stare. Carson flips her off.
“I can’t, Carson. I’m sorry. Please don’t call me again. Goodbye.” Zach hangs up.
Carson throws her phone at the dashboard; the screen cracks down the middle, just like her heart. She stares out the windshield at the Oystercatcher. She can’t work; she’ll have to call in sick. It’s three o’clock on the nose. If she calls in, she’ll be leaving them in the lurch, big-time. She has nothing left but this job.
She opens her door, climbs out, and somehow puts one foot in front of the other.
But oh, she’s in a mood.
Jaime （girl） is as chipper as a Girl Scout on the first day of the cookie sale. “Thank you for the gift card,” she says. “I love Lemon Press.”
Carson stares at her. “I know I should say you’re welcome, but you’re not welcome.” She steps a little closer to Jaime and notices that she has a new nose piercing, a diamond chip embedded in the side of her nostril surrounded by sore-looking pink skin. “I resent having to pay you off to ensure that you’ll help me out. Girl, do you think Gunner ever bought me so much as a freaking latte? He did not, but I still worked my ass off for him. And why? Because I’m a team player, that’s why.” Carson sniffs. “I know you think you’re taking over my job when I move on, but you’re not, Jaime.” Carson waits a beat. “Because you’re not hot enough.”
This lands hard because it happens to be kind of true, and Jaime knows it. She’s not beautiful like Carson. It isn’t fair, but if Carson can teach anyone a lesson, it’s that life isn’t fair.
A dozen Island Creeks, a dozen Wellfleets, two dozen cherrystones, and a round of kamikaze shots. Carson glances up at that—yep, the guy ordering is in his fifties. Nobody young orders kamikaze shots or even knows what they are.
“And pour one for yourself,” he says, leering at Carson. He’s suntanned and wearing a tailored shirt. Breitling watch. He’s with a bunch of other guys his age, all of them with slicked-back hair and needlepoint belts and horn-rimmed glasses, half of them staring at their phones, the other half watching him trying to flirt with Carson. The guy ordering （and paying, she assumes） isn’t wearing a ring.
She pours the shots, including the one for herself, which she throws back quickly. Technically, it’s not allowed, but every bartender in America does it.
The guy plops his neon-orange American Express down; this must be a new color to announce one’s douchebag level of wealth. Brock Sheltingham—a name straight out of a Vivian Howe novel.
“Keep it open, please,” Brock Sheltingham says.
The shot goes to Carson’s head. It doesn’t help that she made the kamikazes with tequila, her nemesis. Not only does Carson hate the taste but it reminds her of her mother. It also doesn’t help that the gentlemen want to do a second round of kamikaze shots. Fine; Carson makes them strong, thinking that when these guys leave her a ten-thousand-dollar tip, she’ll be internet-famous.
If that happens, Carson will give a thousand to Jaime to make up for the horrible thing she said.
Carson does the second kamikaze shot as well; to decline seems rude.
Two chards, a sauvignon blanc, a martini, no olives （why even bother having a martini?）， two Whale’s Tales, a dozen cherrystones, and an order of calamari. Reconnect with my wife. Carson has no one but herself to blame. She was the one who canceled her Uber and sneaked onto the elevator and up to the eleventh floor of the Boston Harbor Hotel. She’s young, but she knew what she was doing was wrong. She could have left it as a onetime fling, but no, she had stayed at the Boston Harbor Hotel for the entire three-day conference, ordering up room service like Eloise at the Plaza, leaving only to attend her bartending class and then going right back to Zach’s bed. It could have ended there; it could have been a conference affair—this seemed like a thing that must happen all the time between consenting adults—but Carson gave Zach Savannah’s address and he returned to Boston the following week. For an additional two and a half days, they had lived together in Savannah’s beautiful town house. Zach had cooked for her—pasta carbonara and Caesar salad with homemade dressing and a simple chocolate mousse—and by the end of his stay, they were in love. The rest of the relationship has been texts, phone calls, surreptitious meetings at the end of Kingsley Road, the naughty, delicious buzz that arrived over the holidays when they were both seated at Willa’s dining-room table at Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.