by Lillie Vale
I rested my cheek in the crook of his neck. He was sensitive there and went tense when I brushed my lips against his clavicle. “Your art is amazing,” I whispered. “If you get in, you should go to RISD.”
I felt rather than heard him exhale. “You’re still up for a long-distance relationship, right?” he asked.
This was it, my chance to come clean. But taking it back was cruel, even if it was true, and I didn’t want to let him go. Maybe throwing everything into the ring and doing something scary and potentially heartbreaking was the right call. Maybe everything was aligning this way to make me see that a long-distance relationship wasn’t the end of a relationship, but just another path to get where I needed to go.
He was waiting for an answer. I swallowed. “I—I said I was, remember?”
“No, I remember. I just wanted to double-check.”
“I’m not a multiple-choice quiz,” I said with a smile that felt just a little bit wooden. Pulling away to look at the boat, I let my smile drop the moment he couldn’t see me anymore. The truth was that he was right to second-guess me. I wished I had a life eraser that could sweep away the wrong answer and give him the right one this time.
He opened his mouth—maybe to talk about RISD, maybe to press me further—but I knew I couldn’t let the conversation keep going. I didn’t want to talk about plans that might or might not happen. I’d done that often enough with Elodie; I wasn’t up for a round two.
Choosing to focus on a different plan instead, I asked, “Hey, do you still want to visit Stephen King’s house? I have the day off tomorrow.”
Levi shrugged, looking embarrassed. “You know, the main reason I said yes was so I could spend more time with you. I love his books but don’t really want to gawk outside his house. I’m up for doing anything that you want to do.”
I thought for a moment, then asked, “Would you like to go blueberry picking? They’re in season right now and I’d love to use some in my baking.” Judging from the grin that slipped over his face, he was into the idea.
“How far is it? I can drive us,” he offered. “I’ve already exhausted all the places you circled for me.”
I felt bad that I didn’t feel guilty about distracting him. Maybe I had some of Penny’s Slytherin wiles after all. “Not too far. We could stop at some pretty spots and you could sketch, if you wanted. I know a couple that weren’t on your map.”
“I’m in,” he said, a smile spreading from cheek to cheek. “Can you meet me at the house at nine in the morning?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
* * *
I could have chosen one of the many blueberry stands that dotted Maine’s highways, but I had a special destination in mind.
“Hey!” I called out, approaching Levi’s house. He was waiting for me on the porch and raised a hand in greeting.
“What’s that?” he asked as I got closer, eyes trained on the bright blue cooler I had in my hand. “Did you walk all the way down with that? You could have called me.”
He’d noticed my lack of bike. “Got a ride from someone,” I said. “Mind if I put this in the back?”
When he unlocked the car door for me, I leaned in and slid the cooler onto the floor. His sketchbook lay on the seat, a freshly sharpened charcoal pencil point sticking out to mark his place.
“Just some lunch,” I explained, closing the door behind me.
His face lit up. “Yum. I thought we could just grab sandwiches somewhere, but your cooking sounds way better. What do you have for us?”
“Cobb salad, sans blue cheese because I didn’t know how you felt about it, Mexican Coke, and pecan pie brownies.”
He made a noise of appreciation and I grinned, thinking of the age-old adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Food was something my mom’s boyfriends had always appreciated, because she’d taken it to heart, if her amazing Sunday dinners were anything to go by.
More interested in hanging out with my friends than playing happy families, I usually spent Friday night and all of Saturday with Penny. Mom probably intended for me to stay at one of my preppy friends’ houses, where the mother and the father wore Ralph Lauren polos and kissed their kids good night, but instead, I spent those lost weekends at Penny’s. Her parents were happy to let us use the kitchen under supervision, which was great for when the novelty of Penny’s Easy-Bake Oven paled.
The drive to Nectar Creek Farm took about an hour, but we took a few stops along the way. This part of Maine wasn’t lush and green, but I loved letting my head rest against the window and watching the stark, craggy coastline whiz by. The highway we took was rock-bound, water on one side of us, soaring granite cliff on the other. Every so often there’d be a pullout, and whenever we found one with available parking, Levi would scoot in.
Forty miles away from home, we took our third stop and Levi reached for the back seat, snagging his sketchbook. “Last one, I promise,” he said as we got out of the car.
“I don’t mind,” I told him, watching as the awe on his face morphed into studious concentration as he flicked his dulling pencil point in long, sharp strokes across the paper.
I wasn’t immune to Maine’s beauty. Happy to let him have all the time he wanted, I wandered away, leaving him to lean against the wooden railing, sketching furiously. My feet tumbled over pebbles and sandy beach and grassy dunes until I came to the water. It was calm, unbroken by seagulls or children splashing. It pulled me in, seducing me with its endlessness. I stood there for what could have only been a few minutes, but it felt like much longer.
A young couple with a toddler stood at the water’s edge, both parents pointing to the waves. In the distance, a foghorn bellowed.
“I get it now.”
I started, my shoulders jerking forward when I heard Levi’s unexpected voice next to me. “Get what?”
“Why you don’t want Oar’s Rest to become commercialized. No chain hotels or five-star restaurants. No real estate tycoons buying up land and spitting out parking garages and shopping centers.” Levi stared across the water.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “Yeah.” Eyeing him sideways, I asked, “Did you get your sketch?”
He exhaled roughly. “Yes. But I can’t replicate the water and the sand.” He stared at the sea and its vastness. “When I look out there … it’s so haunting. I don’t know how to explain it.”
He didn’t have to. I understood.
Levi looked up at the sky, his unneeded sunglasses tucked into the V of his neckline. “Even though the world is so gray right now, which you’d think would make sketching easy…” He laughed. “It somehow seems harder.”
“You’ll get it.”
Levi’s grin was blinding. “Thank you. It’s sweet you’re trying to make me feel better,” he said, voice light and teasing. “But the way our eyes perceive color and depth and just … everything? It sometimes feels impossible to re-create, and maybe we’re not supposed to. Maybe we’re just supposed to enjoy it the way it is.” He stared directly at me as he said the last sentence, and I felt heat creep down my neck.
“Do you want to stay?” I asked, breaking the intensity of the moment.
“It’s beautiful here. We could stay a bit longer, if you don’t mind?” His eyes searched mine. “Unless we’re in a rush to get to the blueberry farm.”
The low growl of my stomach decided for me. “Nah, we can stay. I’m hungry. I’ll grab the food,” I said, already breaking into a jog as I beelined back to the car. The door was unlocked, and after I grabbed the cooler I joined Levi on the beach.
It wasn’t clean like Oar’s Rest’s beach, pristine with looked-after sand, free of trash and debris. The place we’d stopped looked like a party spot, with broken bottles near the shore, amber shards embedded in the damp, packed sand.
Sprinkled among them were flat, smooth stones in varying shades of green. Some were deep green, like moss or the underbelly of a frog. Others were almost white, resembling the surface
of a honeydew melon. And falling in the middle were green stones that were the color of a dying fern, the shade dull and uninspiring.
“These are pretty.” With careful fingers I pried tiny pieces of stone from the sand, sifting through muddy grain. Using some water, I washed the grit off the rocks. “Probably just pieces of a bottle, though.”
Levi got up from the grassy patch we were sitting on, leaving the cooler lid open. He crouched at my side and took my hand in his. He lowered his eyes, gazing at the rocks. “The edges don’t look sharp.”
“I think it’s just because they’ve been polished smooth from the water.” I closed my fingers over them, made to throw them back into the sea, but Levi’s gentle touch on my wrist stopped me.
“Wait. They’re pretty,” he said. He uncurled my fingers and with an indulgent smile, I scattered the pieces into his waiting palm.
“They’re junk,” I said mildly. “Smashed glass that’s been in the water too long.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”
“And this is beauty to you?” Amused, I smiled at him. “Treasure, even?” I nudged him in the side.
Levi grinned. “Something like that. Everyone’s a bit of a diamond in the rough, aren’t they?”
I thought of myself, all my uneven edges and chipped shoulders, and gave him a rueful shrug.
He pocketed his treasure trove, and together, we made our way back to the cooler, me thinking of the many faces of jewels and how, in the right circumstances, all of us could be those rubbed-smooth bits of glass, just waiting for someone like Levi to think they were worth hanging on to.
* * *
We returned from Nectar Creek Farm with purple stains on our fingers and tongues. With Levi’s help, I carried wooden crates of blueberries inside Busy’s, much to Lucy’s amazement. Using her back, she held the door open and gaped after us. Her face was shiny, tendrils of hair stuck against her forehead in damp curls. “You guys picked a shit-ton,” she said.
Inside, the place was stuffed to the gills. Every single table was full. The book club ladies were back, making no secret that they were more interested in the crumb cake than in conversing—they were eating more than they were talking.
Lucy returned to the clamor, shuffling between tables, her hair escaping her messy bun. Her pencil worked feverishly over a notepad as she took orders.
Ralph was engaged in a heated game of chess with one of the fishermen from the docks, and their match had garnered a small but vocal audience of other old-timers. From the way he was rubbing his hand over the shiny baldness of his head in swift, agitated motions, I could tell that Ralph was trying to worm his way out of a corner.
Middle schoolers were curled up in the corner booths. A few of the girls were resting their heads on their friends’ shoulders as they slurped frothy beverages and scrolled through their phones. The guys were at the table next to them, an impressive number of empty milkshake glasses pushed to the center as they gestured animatedly through some story, voices overlapping and fighting for dominance. There was also a steady, impatient line at the counter. Tom was working the register, apologizing profusely, and his elbow knocked over a to-go cup.
“Oh shit,” said Lucy, rewinding her thick brown hair into a messy bun.
Tom would never ask me to pitch in on my day off, but I didn’t hesitate to grab my apron. “Lucy, can you get those berries in the fridge? I’ll take over here.” I shot a welcoming smile at a customer.
“I’ll help, too,” Levi said, slinging his arm around my shoulder just long enough to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Hand me an apron, ladies.”
My heart went all soft and squishy. “You’ve got it,” I said, pulling a fresh one out of a drawer.
Lucy shot him a smile of thanks and joined me on the other side of the counter. “Levi, do you think you could slice and plate four pieces of chocolate cake? And take this tray of coffees to”—she pointed—“that table?”
“Sure thing.” Levi reached behind the counter to grab a knife.
I started the blender, churning cold-pressed coffee and ice together until clear fragments bobbed to the surface of the pale, caramel-colored liquid. A generous dollop of whipped cream and butterscotch drizzle later, I had three tall glasses of sugary goodness.
I threw Levi an appreciative glance as he mopped up a spill. “Thanks.”
He grinned. “No problem.”
The activity didn’t let up for the next thirty minutes as customers poured in and out of Busy’s. By the time the line dissipated, I was exhausted. I had no idea how Lucy had kept up with the pace all day.
“Thanks, Babe.” Tom included Levi in his appreciation, giving us both a huge, tired smile. “It’s been a crazy day.”
The next hour passed quickly between dishwashing, tidying, and swabbing down tables. Lucy gave Levi a crash course in cappuccino foam art—after swearing him to keep all our secrets, of course—while Tom poured fresh beans into the coffee grinder and set it whirring. While Lucy and Levi perfected their foam hearts, I began to count up how many of my pastries were missing from the display case in order to calculate the day’s takings.
Freshly ground beans always made the coffee taste a little nuttier, a little richer, and no one said no to my complimentary top-up. By the time I returned to the counter, coffeepot empty, it was time to start winding down.
“We’ve got things covered here. You should take off early,” I said, squeezing Lucy’s shoulder.
“I think I saw Lorcan out there with his dogs earlier,” said Levi, forehead scrunching as he tried to replicate the heart Lucy had shown him.
Lucy’s eyes sought out mine. “Are you sure? It’s your day off.”
“Positive. I’m the manager, so it’s my call,” I said.
“Authoritative.” Lucy’s nose crinkled as she laughed. She removed her apron. “So this is me falling in line, I guess.”
Levi glanced up at us. “Did I steam the milk enough? It looks frothy to me, but I’m no expert.”
Lucy waved a hand at the still-hot stove. “Yes, that needs to be steamed more.” She headed to the door. “Hey, did you guys see what’s going on out there?”
“What?” I asked.
“A ton of people are showing up with their sandcastle equipment.” She twisted around. “You two have been practicing, right? We could really do with some solid competition this year.”
“Fighting words, Lucy Bishop,” I said, laughing. I met Levi’s eyes. “Trust me, we’ll be ready for you.”
eighteen
“So when am I going to get to taste some of your blueberry concoctions?” Levi asked me the next day at Busy’s.
I laughed. “Tomorrow morning I’ll be here early. You, Tom, Ralph, and Lucy will get first crack at the blueberry streusel when it comes out of the oven. I’m stopping at the Dairy Bar for some of their blueberry ice cream, too. It’s the best combination.”
“I’ll be here,” said Levi. “And don’t forget about the exhibition this weekend. I can’t wait for you to see what I’ve spent the summer on.”
It was like a sucker punch. His words were a reminder that summer was nearly over. He hadn’t mentioned staying here to continue art classes again, and I didn’t know how to ask, even though I desperately wanted to know. If that didn’t pan out, it was long-distance or bust. I forced a smile. “I can’t wait to see,” I said, remembering the watercolors of Busy’s and Oar’s Rest. “Are they all the landscapes you showed me?”
“Not all of them,” Levi said, mouth quirking into a slow smile. His blue eyes smoldered in a way that made me wonder what he meant.
“Indecisive or evasive?” I quipped.
He shrugged in an I’m-so-innocent way that I didn’t buy.
“I knew I called you Mystery Boy for a reason,” I said.
He burst into laughter. “When did you do that?”
“The first day we met! I didn’t know your name, remember?”
“And you couldn’t come up with anything sexier
than Mystery Boy?” he asked with a good-natured grumble.
“You’re the exact opposite of mysterious. You always tell me what you’re thinking. That’s a pretty sexy quality in a boyfriend,” I said. A second later, I realized that the title of boyfriend wasn’t likely to last for long. The countdown to the exhibition had started.
If it surprised him, he didn’t let on. “I’m gonna get going. I have some very mysterious boyfriend stuff to work on at the art center,” he said with an exaggerated wink. “I’ll see you at the lighthouse for dinner, though?” He glanced down at his berry-stained hands, which, even after thorough washing, hadn’t quite scrubbed the bruised, purple tint.
Before I could say “Okay,” he leaned forward, pressed a soft kiss to my cheek, just enough that I felt the tip of his nose graze my skin, and then drew away.
“Thanks again for yesterday,” I said, a little breathless from the rush of butterfly flaps in my rib cage.
“No problem. I had fun.”
I smiled. “Me too.” I looked behind Levi, where the gaggle of teens in the corner booth had just started getting up, everyone making a reach for purses and phones. They’d left a mess on the table: crumbs, napkins, and messily stacked cups and plates. “I’d better get that,” I said, already reaching under the counter for a wet rag.
He followed my gaze and nodded. “See you soon.”
I felt my eyes crinkle when my smile widened. I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face. Convinced I was sporting a pretty Joker-esque expression, I tried to downplay it. Was this how everyone felt when they were with someone who made their heart beat faster? When they didn’t have to hold back and keep each other a secret? When they could be unashamedly, unreservedly happy? I couldn’t believe I’d gone without it for years.
“You look happy,” Lucy said, reaching for the tip jar. “It’s a good look on you,” she said with a soft smile.
