Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend (27 page)

more I was getting the distinct feeling that I’d blown this.

Hallie had found the receipt— of course she had. I would prob-

ably never hear from her again. And worse, what if she thought I

was doing this— pretending to be someone else, then leaving the

receipt there deliberately— in order to hurt her again?

I stared out at the pool in front of me. I was sitting on one of

Bruce’s lounge chairs, my phone, fully charged, resting next to

me. I attempted to think of something— anything—else, but all I

could see was Hallie’s face falling when she unwrapped the tissue

paper and realized that I had hurt her, yet again.

I pushed myself to my feet and started to pace past the empty

pool house and around the pool like I’d seen Bruce doing count-

less times. But instead of trying to convince studio executives

that the entire test screening audience hating the movie was a

positive
thing, I was trying to fi gure out how I’d managed to do

the one thing I’d intended to avoid, the one thing I’d been trying

to fi x. It hit me that if I’d just told Hallie who I was from the out-

set, this would have been avoided. She would have been mad, and

rightfully so, but she wouldn’t have made a new friend who then

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turned out to betray her.

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I stopped when I realized that I needed to leave. It would just

be kinder to Hallie if she wasn’t running into me all the time. I’d

go to night, and stay with Sophie until I could talk to my mother

and fi gure out the plan to get to Scotland. I fi gured it probably

wouldn’t be so bad. They had bagpipes there. I didn’t
totally
hate

bagpipes.

All at once, I thought about Josh. I’d have to text him and tell

him I couldn’t have dinner with him, not to mention the fact that

I probably wouldn’t ever see him again. This hit me harder than

I’d been expecting, and I realized just how disappointed I was.

As I turned and headed toward the house, I tried to tell my-

self that it didn’t matter. I was in a mourning period anyway, and

so what if we hadn’t been able to have dinner together. It wasn’t

a big deal. The bigger deal was Hallie, and how I’d managed to

wreck what I’d come here to fi x.

I had just pulled the door open when my phone rang.

I hurried back over to it, and felt my heart start to pound

when I saw it was Hallie calling. I took a breath and answered the

phone, bracing myself for the worst. “Hello?”

“Sophie?” It was Hallie, sounding slightly out of breath, but

like her normal cheerful self. “Hi! I’m so sorry, I was out of town

with my mom and left my phone behind. I just got all your mes-

sages and texts. Is everything all right?”

I felt relief fl ood through me. It was all okay. She wasn’t mad

at me. She didn’t know who I really was. “Fine,” I said, and I could

hear the relief in my voice. I sat down on the lounge chair on legs

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that felt wobbly. “Yeah, I was just . . .” It suddenly occurred to me

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that just because she hadn’t found the receipt yet didn’t mean

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that she wasn’t
going
to. I might not be out of the woods just yet.

“I was just wondering,” I went on, more cautiously, “if everything

went okay with the bathing suit?”

“You know, I haven’t even unwrapped it,” Hallie said, and I let

out a long sigh of relief, holding the phone away from me so she

wouldn’t hear. “After the crisis the other day, it kind of got lost in

the shuffl e. Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” I said, hoping I sounded calm and disinter-

ested. “Just wanted to . . . make sure everything was okay with

it. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Hallie said, and I could hear that she was still a bit con-

fused, probably wondering why I’d texted and called multiple

times about this. I just crossed my fi ngers that she would let it

go. “Well, as far as I know. I could check if you want—”

“No!”
I yelled this without meaning to, then cleared my throat

and lowered my volume. “I mean, no need. I’m sure it’s fi ne.”

“Okay,” Hallie said, sounding more confused than ever. “Well,

I have to get unpacked, but maybe we could get coffee or some-

thing soon?”

“I would love that,” I said, meaning it, but also hoping that

I could spin this into somehow getting to the package before

Hallie opened it.

“Great,” she said, and I could practically hear that she was

smiling. I felt myself smiling back while still acutely aware of

how close I had just come to losing everything. “Talk to you soon!”

We said good- bye and hung up, and I leaned back against the

lounge chair and looked out at the water. I was incredibly re-

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lieved that things hadn’t been wrecked with Hallie. But I was

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also— maybe more so than I had admitted to myself until now—

glad I wouldn’t have to say good- bye to Josh. Not to mention in-

credibly happy not to have to spend the summer surrounded by

fi sh and bagpipes and kilts.

With this comforting thought, I headed inside, to see if there

was any chocolate left in Bruce’s secret stash.

O O O

“I hope you like this place!” Josh said as we were led across

the patio to a prime table, one with perfect views of the

water and of the pink-

and-

orange sunset that was just

beginning.

I gave him an enthusiastic smile back, but I couldn’t help but

feel a little thrown. It was Friday night, and we were at the

Crabby Lobster, which apparently had stayed in business for the

last fi ve years. It was the place that my dad had brought me for

dinner with the Bridges right after I’d arrived in the Hamptons.

It was, in fact, the only place Josh and I had ever had a meal to-

gether, since he’d been along with his mother and sister that

night. It didn’t look like the décor had changed much, if at all; it

still had a beach- shack charm to it. The tables outside were

wooden, with red- painted benches, like picnic tables, and nauti-

cal bric- a-brac decorated the restaurant inside. As we took our

seats across from each other and the hostess handed us our

menus and hustled away, I found myself looking closely at Josh.

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Why had he picked it? Did he have any recollection of the previ-

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ous time we’d eaten here?

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“So you’ve been here before?” I asked in what I hoped was a

casual tone.

“It came highly recommended,” he said, looking slightly wor-

ried, like I was questioning his restaurant taste. “I’ve heard it’s

really good.”

I nodded as I looked down at my menu, which seemed to fea-

ture mostly seafood in different fried, steamed, and breaded

forms. So Josh didn’t remember. It probably wasn’t so strange that

he couldn’t recall coming here, once, fi ve years ago. I remembered

it because it was my introduction to Karen and Hallie, and be-

cause of everything that came later. But if that hadn’t been the

case, I probably wouldn’t have remembered either. I certainly

couldn’t name every single restaurant I went to when I was eleven.

“Great,” I said with another smile.

“I mean, Hallie’s here all the time,” he continued, and I saw

that he still looked worried. “So she must really love it.”

At the mention of his sister’s name, my hands tightened

around the menu. “Oh,” I said. I looked down at it, noting with

surprise just how many forms of chowder one could order, then,

trying to sound breezy, added, “Did she say anything about me?”

Hallie and I had been exchanging texts, trying to make a

plan to get coffee, and so it seemed like everything was fi ne be-

tween us— that she still hadn’t found the receipt— but I was still

waiting for the other shoe to drop. When Josh had come to pick

me up— I’d been waiting outside, early, dressed and ready to go,

to try and make up for the lack of all these things the last time—

I’d searched his face for clues that his sister had said something

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about me, about who I really was. But I hadn’t been able to see

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anything amiss. And if she had said anything, I doubted he’d be

sitting across from me, looking ner vous that I wouldn’t like the

restaurant that he picked. I looked up at him, but only saw a

slightly baffl ed expression on his face.

“About you?” he echoed. “Like what?”

“Just . . . anything,” I said. He still looked confused, and I let

out a breath, feeling my heart start to slow. It seemed that I was

still in the clear.

Josh shook his head. “No. Just that she was really grateful for

the help when you stepped in as a babysitter the other day. She

said to tell you hi.”

I nodded, and felt myself smile, relaxing once again. I hadn’t

yet confessed to my dad about the suit I’d charged on his card,

but I’d told myself that it was because he, Rosie, and Bruce had

all headed into Manhattan for the weekend to take meetings

with the New York studio executives. I had tried to pretend that

I didn’t want to stress him out before some important meetings,

but deep down, I knew I was just avoiding having to confess.

Also, on the day of his departure, I really didn’t want him to

think of me as irresponsible. I’d had to argue for twenty straight

minutes to convince him that I didn’t need a babysitter to stay

with me while they were gone.

I glanced back up at Josh and caught his eye. He gave me a

quick smile, and then we both looked away. A slightly uncomfort-

able pause followed, and we both took long sips of our water in

sync. It was what I’d been worried about since he had come to pick

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me up earlier in the week wearing a nice shirt and carry ing

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fl owers— that maybe this was more than a dinner between friends.

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And the fact that I’d wanted to spend more time getting ready—

and then had spent at least two hours primping before he picked

me up— was proof that this feeling wasn’t just limited to Josh.

But I was in the Hamptons for Hallie. She had specifi cally

asked me not to date her brother, and I wouldn’t. I would just

keep things platonic and steer the conversation into dull, unro-

mantic waters. And maybe Josh and I would be friends. The only

other guy friends I had were Ford, and I didn’t think he counted,

since I’d kissed him, and Reginald the vegan, who had really

been Teddy’s friend, and not mine.

“So,” I said, after casting about for subjects that would make

it clear we weren’t going to stray out of friend territory, my eyes

fi nally landing on the menu, “fi sh. They’re crazy, right?”

Josh raised his eyebrows. “Uh,” he said. “I guess.”

“Did you know that salmon can live in both fresh and salt

water?” I asked, glad that all the fi sh facts I’d picked up over the

years from Walter were fi nally useful for something. “Also, the

longest migration on record for a salmon is twenty- four hundred

miles.”

“That is a . . . fact to know,” Josh said, looking maybe a little

concerned. “Are you, uh . . . into salmon?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his expression. “No,” I said. “But

my stepfather is.”

Josh frowned, and I had a feeling he was going to ask for an

explanation, but before I could tell the story of Walter and his

ridiculous job— he called fi shing “the world’s
true
oldest profes-

sion,” despite the fact my mom was always begging him not

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to— a tall guy in a red baseball cap slouched up to the table.

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“ ’Sup,” he said in a bored- sounding voice. “Welcome to the

Crabby Lobster. I’m Ty, and I’ll be your server for to night. What

can I get you?”

I blinked at him. I thought there was something about him

that was familiar, but nothing was clicking into place.

“Sophie?” After a moment, I looked at Josh— I still hadn’t

quite gotten the hang of responding to that like I would if it were

actually my name— and realized that both he and Ty were star-

ing at me, waiting.