Summer By The Sea

“I figured it would be. At least we’re talking. That’s a start.”

“I don’t want to start anything with you, Alex.”

“Have I asked you to?”

She pulled into the crushed gravel and oyster shell drive of the Montgomery house. Over the years, the grounds had been kept neat, the place painted every five years. It was a handsome Victorian masterpiece in the Carpenter Gothic style, complete with engraved brass plaque from the South County Historical Preservation Society.

“No,” she admitted, throwing the gear in Neutral. “You haven’t asked me for anything but a ride. So here’s your ride. Good night, Alex.” She thought about tossing off a remark—Say hi to your mother from me—but couldn’t bring herself to do that.

He turned to her on the seat. “Rosa, I have a lot to say to you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Then you won’t. Not right now. See, I’m drunk. And when I say what I want to say to you, I need to be stone-cold sober.”

Three

The next morning Rosa went to Pegasus, a coffeehouse furnished with overstuffed sofas and chairs, low tables and a luxurious selection of biscotti. The cafе offered the New York Times and Boston Globe, along with the Providence Journal Bulletin and local papers. Rosa was friendly with the proprietor, Millie, a genuine barista imported from Seattle, complete with baggy dress, Birkenstocks and a God-given talent for making perfect espresso.

While she fixed a double tall skinny vanilla latte, Millie eyed the stack of notebooks and textbooks Rosa had set on the table.

“So what are we studying now?” She tilted her head to the side to read the spines of the books. “Neurolinguistic Programming and its Practical Application to Creative Growth. A little light reading?”

“It’s actually an amazing topic,” Rosa said over the whoosh of the milk steamer. “Did you know there’s a way to recover creative joy simply by finding pleasurable past associations?”

Millie set the latte on the counter. “Too advanced for me, Einstein. What school?”

“Berkeley. The professor even offered to read my final paper if I e-mail it to him.”

Millie eyed her admiringly. “I swear, you have the best education money can’t buy.”

“Keeps me out of trouble, anyway.” Rosa had never left home, but over the years she’d managed to sample the finest places of higher learning in the world—genetics at MIT, rococo architecture at the University of Milan, medieval law at Oxford and chaos theory at Harvard. She used to contact professors by phone in order to finagle a syllabus and reading list. Now the Internet made it even easier. With a few clicks of the mouse, she could find course outlines, study sheets, practice tests. The only cost to her was the price of books.

“You’re nuts,” Millie said with a grin. “We all think so.”

“But I’m a very educated nut.”

“True. Do you ever wish you could sit down and take an actual class?”

Long ago, that had been all Rosa had dreamed of. Then she’d found herself in the midst of an unspeakable tragedy, and the entire course of her life had shifted. “Sure I do,” she said with deliberate lightness. “I still might, one of these days, when I find the time.”

“You could start by hiring a general manager for your restaurant.”

“I can barely afford my own salary.” Rosa had a seat and opened one of the books to an article on Noam Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar.

Linda showed up wearing a T-shirt that read What if the Hokey Pokey is what it’s all about? and went to the counter to order her usual—a pot of Lady Grey with honey and a lemon wedge on the side. “Sorry I’m late,” she said over her shoulder. “I tried to get off the phone with my mom, but she couldn’t stop crying.”

“That’s sweet.”

“I guess, but it might be a little insulting, too. She was just so…relieved. She’s been worried that I’d never get married. A major tragedy in the Lipschitz family. So the fact that Jason’s Catholic didn’t even faze her.” She held out her hand, letting the sunlight glitter through the facets of the diamond in her new engagement ring. “It looks even better in broad daylight, doesn’t it?”

“It’s gorgeous.”

Linda beamed at her. “I can’t wait to change my name to Aspoll.”

“You’re taking his name?”

“Hey, for me it’s an upgrade. We can’t all be born with names like Puccini opera characters, Miss Rosina Angelica Capoletti.” Linda drizzled honey into her tea. “Oh, and I have news. The wedding has to be in August. Jason’s company transferred him to Boise, and we’re moving right after Labor Day.”

Rosa smiled at her friend, though when Jason had told her that, she’d wanted to hit him. “So we have less than twelve weeks to plan and execute this wedding,” she said. “Maybe that’s why your mom was crying.”

“She’s loving it. She’ll be flying up from Florida next week. There’s nothing quite like my mom in event-planning mode. It’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”

She seemed remarkably calm, Rosa thought. The reality of getting married and leaving Winslow forever probably hadn’t hit her yet.

Linda lifted her cup. “How you doing, Ms. Rosa? Still recovering from the shock of seeing Mr. Love-’em-and-leave-’em?”

Rosa concentrated on sprinkling sugar in her latte. “There’s nothing to recover from. So he showed up at the restaurant, so what? His family still owns that property out on Ocean Road. I was bound to run into him sooner or later. I’m just surprised it took so long. But it’s no big—”

“You just put four packets of sugar in that coffee,” Linda pointed out.

“I did not…” Rosa stared in surprise at the little ripped packets littering the table. She pushed the mug away. “Shoot.”

“Ah, Rosa.” Linda patted her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“It was just weird, okay? Weird to see that someone who was once my whole world is a stranger now. And I guess it’s weird because I had to imagine him having a life. I didn’t do that when we were little, you know? He’d go away at the end of summer, and I never thought about him in the city. Then when he came back the next year, we picked up where we left off. I thought he only existed for the three months he was with me. And now he’s existed for twelve years without me, which is completely no big deal.”

“Oh, come on, Rosa. It’s a big deal. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is.”

“We were kids, just out of school.”

“You loved him.”

Rosa tried her coffee and winced. Too sweet. “Everybody’s in love when they’re eighteen. And everybody gets dumped.”

“And moves on,” Linda said. “Except you.”

“Linda—”

“It’s true. You’ve never had anyone really special since Alex,” Linda stated.

“I go out with guys all the time.”

“You know what I mean.”

Rosa pushed the coffee mug away. “I went out with Greg Fortner for six months.”

“He was in the navy. He was gone for five of those six months.”