37. Night Changes II
Brooke needs to talk to Hollis alone. She needs to explain. But Hollis is busy flagging their server and asking for the bill. Dru-Ann offers a credit card, and Gigi offers a credit card; Hollis says, “No, no, everything this weekend is my treat,” though her cheerful tone sounds forced. All of the heat and light they brought with them into the restaurant has been sucked out. What can Brooke do to salvage the evening?
“We’re going to the Chicken Box now, right?” she says. She’s been looking forward to the Chicken Box all weekend. It’s just a bar, there isn’t one piece of chicken, but Brooke has the perfect buzz for dancing to live music on a beer-sticky floor and pretending she’s single again.
Gigi says, “I’m absolutely knackered. I’ll get a taxi home, but you all have fun, thanks for dinner, Hollis, good night!” She’s out of her seat so quickly that by the time Hollis looks up from calculating the tip, she’s disappearing through the door.
“To be honest, I’m not sure I’m up for the Box,” Hollis says.
“Me either,” Tatum says quickly. A text has just come into her phone from Kyle: Jack and I are having a drink at Queequeg’s. Let me know when you’re finished, we’ll meet you out front.
“So nobody’s going to the Box?” Brooke says. Why is she surprised?
Everyone heard what Electra said: Charlie is being sued again for sexual misconduct, and Brooke is tainted by association. Nobody wants to hang out with her.
Dru-Ann sighs. “I’ll go with you.” She checks over her shoulder; Gucci Bex and Laura Ingalls are sitting at the sushi bar. “But let’s leave right now.”
“Thank you!” Brooke says. “I just have to use the ladies’ room real quick —”
“Now,” Dru-Ann says. “Before I change my mind.” She winks at Hollis and mouths, You owe me. Then she takes Brooke’s hand and yanks her out of the restaurant into the dark Nantucket night.
“Do you want a ride home?” Hollis asks Tatum.
“Are you crazy?” Tatum says. “The boys are at Queequeg’s. They want us to meet them.”
“What?” Hollis says. “No, I can’t. I’m not doing that.”
“Why not?” Tatum says.
“It’s too soon for me to move on,” Hollis says.
“Holly,” Tatum says. “Real talk here, you and me.” She squares Hollis’s shoulders and looks her in the eye. “No one is asking you to move on. It’s one drink. And it’s not like I’m setting you up with a stranger. It’s Jack Finigan. Don’t overthink it.”
“If I go anywhere, it should be to the Box,” Hollis says. “Caroline is going to the Box.”
“Trust me,” Tatum says. “The last person Caroline wants to see at the Box is her mother. I’m making an executive decision. You’re coming with me.”
As Hollis follows Tatum out of the restaurant—with a wave to the nice blond woman who saved her from Electra—she thinks, The night has already sort of fallen apart, everyone else has left. It’s just one drink. It’s not like she and Jack are getting back together and planning a Viking River Cruise.
“Fine,” she says.
When Hollis sees Jack standing on the sidewalk in front of Queequeg’s, she nearly turns and runs. He’s so handsome. He’s wearing jeans, flip-flops, a white linen shirt turned back at the cuffs. He flashes his dimples as she approaches.
Jack says, “You can’t get enough of me.”
“This wasn’t my idea,” Hollis says, but she lets half a smile slip onto her face. “In fact, I actively resisted.”
“Actively?” Jack says. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“I have an idea,” Tatum says. She looks a thousand times happier than she did at dinner, and for this reason alone, Hollis is glad they came. Kyle has his arm wrapped around Tatum’s shoulders and she leans her head into his chest.
“Let’s go to the Brotherhood for a drink.”
Ha! Hollis thinks. Thirty million years ago, the four of them ate dinner at the Brotherhood before their junior prom. The restaurant has been sold and
renovated and sold and renovated again since then, but the downstairs still has the feel of a cozy, brick-walled pub with low lighting and a fireplace.
However, when they arrive, Tatum leads them upstairs to the new Cisco Surf Bar.
There was no upstairs to the Brotherhood when they were growing up, but now one side is an upscale whiskey lounge and the other side is a cheerful, hip space where the walls are lined with surfboards and Lauren Marttila photographs. There are, miraculously, four seats at the bar, near where a guy is playing acoustic guitar. They take the seats; the boys get beers, and Hollis and Tatum order espresso martinis.
When Hollis clinks her martini glass against Jack’s frosted Bud Light bottle, she says, “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you.” She isn’t sure what to call the feelings welling up inside of her. Nostalgia, maybe? She thinks back to May of 1986.
Hollis’s junior prom dress is white; her father, Tom Shaw, is uncharacteristically mushy during the pictures. He kisses Hollis on the forehead and says, “Do me a favor and don’t elope tonight.”
“We’ll wait until senior prom, sir,” Jack says with a wink as he helps Hollis into his pickup, which he has washed and vacuumed for the occasion.
At dinner at the Brotherhood, at a table right downstairs from where they are now, Hollis and Tatum order the chicken piccata—they both want burgers, but they’re worried about onion breath and spilling ketchup on their dresses—and the boys whisper about whether they’ll be carded if they try to order beer.
“Yes, you’ll get carded,” Tatum says. “We’re high-school students going to our prom. Terri’s brother is the manager. Everyone here knows us.”
There’s an older couple sitting at the next table; they lean over and say, “Enjoy it, kids. It goes by so fast.”
Yeah, yeah, Hollis thinks. Hold on to sixteen as long as you can, blah- blah-blah. All the four of them want, in that moment, is to be older.
When they finish eating, the server tells them that the couple picked up their entire check.
“Damn!” Kyle says. “I knew I should have gotten the lobster.”
It goes by so fast, Hollis thinks now. What if she’d had a crystal ball that night and could see the four of them together thirty-seven years later at the new bar upstairs? What would she have thought? It’s dizzying to consider.
Jack takes a sip of his beer. “You won’t be sitting for long.” He goes over to the guitar player, whispers something in his ear, slips him some money.
Does Hollis know what’s coming?
Of course she does—but the first chords of the song give her the shivers nonetheless. The guitar player sounds just like a young Mick Jagger. “I know living is easy to do…”
Suddenly Jack is behind her, singing in her ear. “The things you wanted, I bought them for you.” He reaches for her hand. “Dance with me, Holly.”
Hollis looks at Tatum but she and Kyle are in their own world. Kyle is stroking Tatum’s hair; Tatum’s eyes are closed.
Hollis is shy—nobody else is dancing—but what does she care about anyone else? She and Jack slow-dance in the space between the guitar player and the bar. Hollis clings to Jack, inhales his scent, thinks about the boy who rode his bike seven miles out to Squam every Saturday morning and chopped wood with Tom Shaw just so he could spend an hour with Hollis on the beach alone. She thinks about her father saying, Don’t elope tonight, and Jack responding, We’ll wait until senior prom, sir. He’d been kidding but also serious. They had planned to get married. All the years they’d dated, that had been the plan.
Oh, Jack, she thinks. She can’t imagine how badly she hurt him.
Wild horses, she thinks. We’ll ride them someday.
But things had turned out the way they were supposed to. Hollis was meant to marry Matthew, that much she’s sure of.
There’s a tap on her shoulder. It’s Tatum.
“We’re leaving.”
“But you’re coming back to Squam tonight, aren’t you?” Hollis says.
“I’ll bring her out there,” Kyle says with a wink. “But we’re taking the long way ’round.”
After they disappear down the stairs, Jack says, “Can I buy you another drink?”
“I’ve had enough, I think,” Hollis says. “I parked my Bronco on India Street, but I should probably get a cab.”
“I’ll drive you home in the Bronco,” Jack says, “and catch a ride home
with Kyle.” He tilts his head. “But we’d better take the long way ’round.”
Hollis would have said there was no way she would recognize their spot—the place, deep in the moors, where she and Jack used to park in high school— but Jack drives there without even having to think about it. It’s a quarter mile from Gibbs Pond, where the high-school parties are, a tiny enclave surrounded by fir trees: the Round Room. All these years later, it looks exactly the same—one reason, Hollis thinks, why she’ll always support the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. Jack cuts the engine and snaps off the lights. There’s a smattering of stars straight up but the crescent moon is obscured by the trees.
Hollis says, “How many couples do you think parked here after us?”
“And before us,” Jack says.
“But it was ours for years,” Hollis says. They came here nearly every weekend junior and senior years and the summer in between. The other kids knew to stay away.
“I want to talk,” Jack says. “Tell me everything.”
“You tell me everything,” Hollis says. “What happened to Mindy?”
“We had a good run,” Jack says. “Seven and a half years. She was a cool chick; she gave me space. She worked for a drug company selling Botox and whatnot. It was a little disturbing, all those women wanting to freeze their faces, but she enjoyed it. She was good at darts and made a mean chicken
cacciatore.”
“But?”
“She wanted to get married. I threw her a surprise fortieth birthday party at my bar and after everyone left, she sat me down and told me I needed to
put a ring on it or she was leaving.”
“Ultimatum 101,” Hollis says.
“She married someone else; she’s happier now. It all worked out.”
“Except you’re alone,” Hollis says.
“You can be in a relationship and alone,” Jack says. He clears his throat.
“How are you doing, Holly? I imagine it’s been rough.”
Hollis exhales. “I’m not sure I have the words to describe what it’s been like,” she says. “Everything changed in an instant. My whole life became that car wreck. But I had to be strong—for Caroline, obviously, but also because I
thought that’s what people expected.”
“Which people?”
“My friends, my community, my blog’s subscribers. Everyone sees me as, I don’t know, some kind of—”
“Domestic goddess?” Jack says. “Earth mother?”
He’s probably not far off. “They see me as in control—steady, well adjusted. I’m the one who provides comfort. I didn’t feel like I was allowed to fall apart.” Tears drip down her face. It feels so good to cry that she just lets the sobs come. Jack reaches out and pulls her into his arms. He murmurs into her hair, “I’m here, Holly berry.”
Hollis sits up and gropes at her feet for her bag, where she keeps a pack of lavender-scented tissues; she’s on brand even when she’s having a breakdown. “There’s guilt too,” she says, then blows her nose. “Matthew and I were having problems. It was a low-grade fever, nothing splashy or dramatic; we just drifted apart. He was always working, then my website took off and I put my energy there. Caroline was away at college. Both of us talked to the dog more than to each other.” Hollis wipes under her eyes. “We had a conversation the morning he died… we were both trying to express how unhappy we were. He told me that I’d changed, that we’d changed, and
he was right.”
“Oh, Holly.”
“When things were bad with Matthew, I would check up on you. I’d stalk your Facebook page. I did it when I was feeling low and I wanted to remember what it felt like to be really loved.” The tears start up again.
Whatever she thought might happen this weekend, it wasn’t ending up in the Round Room confessing all her secrets to Jack Finigan. “I saw the picture of you and Mindy—”
“Three years ago?” Jack says. He’s laughing and she can’t blame him; it sounds so silly.
“I wanted to know if you were still with her,” Hollis says. “I guess what I really wanted to know was if you ever thought about me.”
“Of course I thought about you, Holly. You’re a part of who I am.”
“But you never come back here.”
“I come back now and again,” he says.
Without thinking, Hollis says, “I saw you once.”
“That one Thanksgiving,” he says.
Yes, she thinks. What year would it have been? Caroline was in middle school, so maybe almost ten years ago. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, and Hollis, Matthew, and Caroline were downtown for the tree-lighting ceremony. It was a favorite evening of Hollis’s—all of Nantucket coming together on Main Street, the ceremonial lighting of the Christmas trees in town. Hollis was wearing a chunky knit sweater and a down vest; she and Matthew and Caroline usually walked to Languedoc for lobster bisque and steak frites after the lighting. Hollis had been swaddled in a bubble of contentment.
But when the switch was flipped and Main Street came aglow, Hollis was arrested by the sight of one face through the crowd. She squinted. Was it him? Was it Jack? Yes—and he was looking at her. He smiled, flashing his dimples, and lifted a hand to wave.
Hollis felt a rush she hadn’t at all expected. Jack! She was suddenly self- conscious. She looked around for Matthew, but he and Caroline were over on the sidewalk with their phones out, snapping pictures of the trees. Hollis knew she appeared to be alone, and she was glad. She locked eyes with Jack, thinking, What do I do? A normal response would have been to lead Matthew and Caroline over and introduce them. This is Jack Finigan, a friend of mine from high school. Matthew would have known that it was Jack, her old boyfriend, though he wouldn’t have cared one bit; Matthew was the least jealous person Hollis had ever known. Why didn’t she do that? The answer: She didn’t want to introduce Jack to her family; she didn’t want Jack to know she had a family. In that instant, she’d wanted to go over and hug Jack, kiss him, even. She’d had the urge to pull him down Quince Street, hide between two of the summer homes, and make out.
Instead, she lamely waved back, then looked away, and when she rejoined Matthew and Caroline, she claimed she had a headache and should probably go home. “I’ll take a cab,” she said. “You two go to dinner.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Matthew said. “We’ll all go home. There are a ton of leftovers.”
This was true; Hollis cooked Thanksgiving for ten people, even though there were only three of them. “We had leftovers for lunch,” she said. “You two go, keep our reservation, it would be rude not to. I’ll get a cab and see you back at the house, love you, bye.” Hollis then weaved her way through the crowd to where she’d seen Jack standing, but he was gone. She had
wandered around searching for him, fully aware that she was acting like a crazy person—she was a happily married woman, a mother—though at the time she hadn’t cared. She’d just wanted to see him. Had he been with someone? She knew this was possible, but if he was alone, they could have a moment. That was all she’d wanted: a moment with Jack, alone.
“I came looking for you,” Hollis says now. “I ditched Matthew and Caroline and tried to find you.”
“I know,” he says. “I was watching you. I thought you might be looking for me.”
“What?” Hollis says. “Why didn’t you say something?”
He sighs. “Oh, Holly, because you weren’t mine anymore.” He reaches for her again. “Come here.”
She leans into him and without even thinking about it, she raises her face to his and they kiss, despite her tears and her runny nose. Hollis’s emotions are heightened, operatic, and tagging right along with her grief and confusion is her desire. How long has it been since she’s been kissed like this? She and Matthew were a long-married couple; they didn’t make out. Somewhere along the way, kissing like this—with hungry, nearly desperate lips and tongues—just stopped happening.
But now, with Jack, it’s ecstasy. Hollis can’t get enough. The years fall away from her, she’s a kid again, seventeen years old, parked in this very same spot in late August of 1987. She’s leaving in the morning for Chapel Hill. She wants—needs—this to be a kiss they both remember the rest of their lives.
Jack pulls away and Hollis thinks, Right—what are they doing? She isn’t ready for this kind of thing (though she does, in the moment, feel very ready).
She wonders if Jack just isn’t into it. Mindy, after all, is ten years younger than they are. He might not want to be kissing a fifty-three-year-old woman.
“Headlights,” he whispers. “Over there. Are they coming this way?”
Hollis follows Jack’s finger—through the trees, she sees a car. She wills it to turn off onto another path—the moors are crosshatched with narrow sandy roads—but the lights are coming straight for them. Is it the next generation of young lovers hoping to park here? She waits for them to notice the spot is occupied (by a couple of old people) and move on. Then she says, “Do you think it’s Kyle and Tatum?” That would be funny. It’s possible they guessed where Hollis and Jack would end up, and at Tatum’s insistence (she’s the
prankster), here they are.
The car gets closer and Hollis says, “Should we just go?” There’s nothing more incriminating than getting caught in a parked car. But it’s too late now; the car has pulled behind them, blocking their way out of the Round Room.
“Oh, shit,” Jack says.
It’s the Nantucket police.
Eeeeeee! Hollis thinks. This is truly mortifying. In all the times she and Jack parked here, they’d had only two snafus: the dead battery (it was how they learned not to play the radio unless the engine was running) and getting stuck (during a particularly muddy April). They’d never been caught by the police; the cruisers back in those days couldn’t make it down these roads.
The vehicle behind them now is an SUV.
The officer gets out of the car—Hollis hears his door slam, though she’s too embarrassed to turn around—and a voice says, “Good evening, folks.
How we doing?”
Jack opens the door and steps out and Hollis thinks, Just let me disappear.
Jack says, “Holy cow! Kevin?”
Officer Kevin Dixon can’t believe his eyes. He swings by the Round Room on a routine check (rising seniors Zack Crispin and Abigail Montero have been parking here lately, and he told them next time he’d call their parents), but it’s not Zack and Abby this time, it’s a couple Dixon’s own age. It’s not only a couple his age, it’s Jack Finigan and Hollis Shaw.
What? Dixon thinks. Has he stepped into a time machine? Is it 1987 all over again?
“Holy cow! Kevin?” Jack says. “It’s Jack Finigan, man, how the hell are you?”
Dixon shakes Jack’s hand, then brings him in for a bro-hug. Jack Finigan was a tight end and one hell of a blocker for Dixon at tailback. Dixon hasn’t seen the guy in freaking eons; he never comes to any of the reunions. “Good to see you, man.” He turns to Hollis. “Hey, Holly, how’re you doing?”
“Hi, Kev,” Hollis says. She gets out of the passenger side and comes over to give him a hug as well. Dixon has seen Hollis around, mostly driving—in this very Bronco, come to think of it; it’s a beauty, hard to miss—but they haven’t talked much. One year he saw her at the Pops, another summer he
bumped into her at Wicked Island Bakery (she was after the morning buns; he wanted the egg sandwich with short ribs). Dixon’s ex-wife is obsessed with Hollis’s website and actually brags to her friends that Dixon and Hollis went to school together. And of course, Dixon read in the paper that Hollis’s husband died. Was that this past winter or the winter before? Dixon is getting to the point where the years blend. He won’t offer condolences on the husband because it’s pretty clear that Hollis and Jack are here together. Like, together-together. That’s very funny because isn’t this the place where Hollis and Jack used to park in high school? They owned this spot back in the day; nobody dared challenge them for it.
Dixon wants to ask what they’ve been up to, maybe congratulate Hollis on all her success, but it’s obvious he interrupted something out here. Hollis’s hair is mussed and she has dark mascara tracks down her cheeks. The last thing these two probably want to do is chat.
Dixon raises a hand. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m just on the lookout for kids drinking or smoking. It’s so dry this summer that one cigarette butt could set the moors on fire. Anyway, good to see you both.” He laughs. “You were definitely not who I expected to find!” Dixon heads back to his car and as he backs up, he watches Jack and Hollis climb back into the car.
Good for them, he thinks, and he chuckles about it all the way back to Milestone Road.
