“Well, I feel bad. You don’t want to show some random girl around town.”
“How do you know what I want to do?”
“I mean, do you?”
He smiled, showing straight white teeth. “She didn’t strong-arm me into it. I volunteered.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t orchestrate it. I volunteered to come on this trip, and today she tells me she planned for me to come all along.”
“Sounds about right. She must have been something when she was young.”
“Oh, she’s still something.”
“That she is.” He grinned again, and I felt my defenses lowering.
“Okay, then,” I said, enjoying the feel of the salt breeze from the open window on my skin. “Where are we going first?”
“That depends. Are you hungry?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but now that I did . . . “I could eat.”
“Good. You’re in for a treat, then.”
We drove out past the edge of town to what could only be described as a large shack on a hill overlooking the water, with picnic tables covered in red-and-white checkered tablecloths—the kind with the plastic coating for easier cleaning—held down on each table by rocks and pieces of driftwood.
“This is the treat?” The smell of grease was heavy in the air, and it looked like the birthplace of food poisoning.
“Just wait. Any shellfish allergies?”
“No?”
“Go sit. I’ll get the food.”
“You don’t know what I like.”
He was already walking to the run-down counter and called back over his shoulder, “They only serve one thing.” He stopped. “Oh, wait. Diet Coke or regular?”
I hadn’t had soda in probably three years, but I also wasn’t sure I trusted water from this particular establishment. “Diet.”
He shot me a thumbs-up, and I selected a table closer to the bluff—about two-thirds of them were taken. I could get used to these ocean views, I thought, staring out at the minuscule sailboats. Although it’s probably miserable in winter.
Joe was back quickly, carrying a tray with two cups and two red plastic baskets lined in grease-stained paper. He set the tray on the table triumphantly.
“What is it?”
“What is it? It’s your new favorite food. Your grandmother never told you about Brewster’s clams?”
The name rang a bell. “I think my mom might have.”
“Just try it.”
I pulled one of the baskets toward me, and Joe handed me a soda. I selected one of the strips and gingerly took a bite. “Wow,” I said as I chewed, not caring that my mouth was full.
“Right?” he asked, taking one from his basket. “This place is famous.”
I finished the strip and took another one. “This is amazing.”
He smiled. “And you didn’t want a tour.”
“I was wrong.” I passed Joe my phone. “Take a picture for my mom?” He obliged while I held the battered clam to my mouth, then handed back the phone. I sent the photo to my mother. Then, because I actually looked happy for the first time in months, I uploaded it to Instagram too. #vacation #food #BrewstersClams #HappyAsAClam.
My phone vibrated with a text immediately. My mother sent three shocked-face emojis, then wrote, Brewster’s! I should have come too. That’s it. I’m getting in the car. I chuckled.
“What’s funny?”
“My mom is so jealous she wants to drive nine hours just to eat here.”
“Can you blame her?”
“No.” I took another one. “And okay, if it’s all like this, show me around as much as you want.”
“Now I know how to get you to agree to things. I guess food isn’t just the way to a man’s heart.”
“It’s the way to everyone’s heart. No need to be sexist about it.” I found myself smiling.
He laughed. “Point taken.”
I willed myself not to notice how his eyes sparkled when he laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
August 1950
Hereford, Massachusetts
As the days grew shorter and her departure for college loomed closer, Evelyn decided to go into Boston, ostensibly to buy clothes for school.
“Alone?” Miriam asked suspiciously. She had taken her three eldest daughters to buy their wardrobes. And Evelyn had been a little too happy, a little too eager to comply with her all summer.
“I’ll take Vivie with me.”
Vivie looked giddy at the prospect of an afternoon in the city with her favorite sister, and Miriam’s face contorted. As the youngest, Vivie was often given the least pleasant tasks, which now meant watching her nieces and nephews so her elder siblings got a break. Evelyn offered to help, but more often than not she fell asleep on the beach. Vivie never shirked her duties, but a vague melancholy had settled over her that summer, worrying Miriam. Evelyn saw the indecision on her mother’s face and seized on it.