Now That You Mention It: A Novel

by Kristan Higgins

  And so we moved to a back room where there were only three tables, all empty. “Thanks, Ame,” he said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said. “Brian will be your waiter back here. Give a shout if you need anything.” She started to leave, then turned back. “How’s your sister?” she asked.

  “She’s...she’s doing okay,” I said.

  “Tell her I said hi.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  She left, and the relative quiet settled around us.

  “How is your sister?” Sullivan asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “She doesn’t speak to me.”

  “Why is that?” His brown eyes were steady on mine, and there was something about the intent way he looked at me, the gentle calmness of his face. All of a sudden, there was a lump in my throat. I shrugged.

  “You and me, we both have problem siblings,” he said.

  “How’s your brother?”

  Sully glanced out the window, a rueful look on his face. “Well, he stole about a thousand dollars from the boatyard last week.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, whatcha gonna do?”

  “Call the police?”

  “Not an option.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “Well, you should know. He’s lost a lot in life.”

  “Are we still talking about that fucking scholarship?”

  Sully laughed out loud. “Listen to you! Dr. Stuart dropping the f-bomb.” I felt my cheeks warm and took a sip of my drink. “No,” he continued. “Not the scholarship. Not just the scholarship, I should say. He lost the chance to do something with his life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, he’s not quite dead, is he? There are a lot of choices he could make that would serve him better than being a druggie and a drunk. And as for loss, I have to ask you—what about you? I mean, you’re the one who got hurt in that accident, Sullivan. Because of your brother being coked up that night. And you’re the one who was in the hospital and a nursing home for six months. You’re the one who’s losing his hearing because of it. If anyone’s lost something, I’d say it’s you.”

  He looked at me for a long minute. “Some people can handle things better than others.”

  “So it’s your job to look out for him?”

  “Ayuh. Don’t you look out for your sister?”

  “No. She’s in jail, currently refusing to answer any letters I send her.”

  “But you’re looking out for her daughter.”

  He had me there. “Yes.”

  “And I’m guessing that you’ve had some losses, too. But you’ve handled them better, that’s all.”

  I mulled that over. “Is that a compliment or a chastisement?” I asked.

  “Both?” He grinned, and his face went from ordinary to wicked in a flash.

  Sullivan Fletcher was...yeah. He was. My knees tingled with all that he was.

  “You got a boyfriend?” he asked. Not terribly subtle, but again, we were in Maine.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “We broke up just before I came back here.”

  Our waiter chose that moment to place our food down. “Hi, I’m Brian!” he said, as if he’d just been named and couldn’t get over the wonder of it. “We have the delicious lobster roll for the beautiful lady, excellent choice, I might add, sweet potato fries, a personal favorite, and coleslaw that our chef makes with just a little bit of radish to really bring out the flavor. And for the gentleman, the scallops, which I totally adore, by the way, the mashed potatoes with scallions and a little bit of sour cream, hey, we all have to live life, am I right, and the brussels sprouts, my favorite veggie, let me tell you. All our produce is locally sourced and organic, of course. Can I get you anything else? Fresh ground pepper, grated cheese, extra bread, ketchup, more butter, sea salt, pink salt, Himalayan salt, a foot massage?”

  That last one may have been merely implied. “I think we’re all set,” I said.

  “Fantastic! Enjoy!” Brian cooed. “I’ll check on you in a few! Mangia!”

  “Sometimes being hard of hearing is a blessing,” Sully said.

  “I stopped listening ten seconds in,” I said, and he grinned.

  For a few minutes, Sullivan and I just ate. I was starving, I realized. And lobster that was swimming at the bottom of the icy Atlantic a few hours ago, now drenched in butter and served on a soft Portuguese roll...yes, yes, I would run tomorrow. But today, I’d just eat lobster. Eat and ask prying questions, that was.

  “How are things going with your sign language and all?” I asked, licking butter off my fingers in that classy way.

  “It’s okay. Kind of hard to learn on your own, so it’s good of Audrey to help me. She picks up on it faster than I do.”

  I smiled. “She seems really smart.”

  “She is.”

  I took a sip of my drink and watched him a second. When he looked up from his plate, he said, “Sorry, did I miss something?”

  I shook my head. “But on the subject of what you can’t hear...are you okay with that? Are you sad or angry or...depressed?”

  He smiled a little. “Not really. I mean, I’ve known this was happening for a long time now.” His smile faded. “I try to listen to things more, try to store them up. The birds in the morning. Favorite music. Audrey’s laugh. Trying to fill up my head with the best sounds. Been watching a lot of home movies lately.” He gave a half shrug and looked back at his plate.

  Le sigh. I hoped I wasn’t visibly swooning, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “What’s your favorite music?” I asked.

  “Bach’s cello suites,” he said. “Well, that and ‘Purple Rain.’”

  “God, I love that song! And I used to listen to Bach’s cello suites when I was pulling an all-nighter in med school,” I said, smiling. “It was supposed to help with studying.”

  “I guess it worked,” he said.

  When he smiled, I could see that his incisors were just a little more pointed than average, giving him a vampiric look. I pictured those teeth on my neck and my girl parts gave a mighty throb.

  “So why did you come back here, Nora Stuart? You, who haven’t been back in all this time?”

  It was his voice. His soft, deep voice, and I hoped he could hear it, because it was so delicious, that voice, the timbre and hint of roughness in it, like the stones on the shore tumbling over each other after a hard ocean wave.

  I cleared my throat. “What was the question again?”

  Another wicked smile. A dastardly, bad-boy smile on this ultimate dad. “Why’d you come back to Scupper?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I was hit by a pest control van. Beantown Bug Killers. My life flashed before my eyes.”

  “Did it?”

  “No, actually. But I...I wanted to spend some time with my mom. And my niece.”

  “Scared you good, did it?”

  I nodded.

  “And that thing...that not-good thing that happened to you. The thing you mentioned the night you almost shot me. Was that being hit by pest control?”

  I picked up a sweet potato fry and broke it in half. “No.”

  He waited.

  “A man broke into my house and beat me up and tried to rape me, and then when that didn’t work out, he, uh, he tried to kill me. With a knife. But I got away, and they never caught him, and that was last year, and please don’t tell my mother.”

  I sucked in a breath and grabbed my mojito and drained it. Didn’t quite mean to dump the worst night of my life in his lap, but there it was.

  “How is everything?” Brian asked, appearing with a huge smile. “Gotta love that lobster, am I right? We buy it right off the—”

  “Not now,” Sullivan said.

  “Got it!” Brian said. “Cal
l when you need me!”

  He left, and the quiet floated down around us again.

  Sullivan didn’t say anything.

  “Freaky story, huh?” I said. I wished I’d ordered another drink.

  “How’d you get away?”

  I sighed. “I just...went. I was lucky. I ran. I didn’t... I didn’t even know what he was planning.”

  “Yes, you did. You knew.”

  He was right. I had known. Lizard Brain hadn’t said the word knife or killed, but it had said the word now.

  “You were more than lucky. Jesus.” He took a deep breath. “Good for you, Nora. Good for you.”

  I looked down at the table. “Thank you.”

  Sully reached across and tilted my chin up so he could see my face.

  “Thank you,” I repeated.

  This time, his smile was gentle. “You’re an impressive person,” he said, and I laughed. “You want dessert? Seems like you earned it.”

  I suddenly wanted to be naked and in bed with the man in front of me.

  “How we doing, kids?” Brian sang.

  Not that man. Sullivan.

  “We’ll take the check,” I said.

  “You got it,” Brian said. “Back in a flash, you two!”

  “I hate that guy,” Sullivan said, and I laughed so long and hard tears ran down my face.

  Sully just sat back, watching me and smiling.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the houseboat, I was all nerves and idiocy.

  Why? Because it was Sullivan Fletcher, a boy I’d known my entire life. A man now, a man whose daughter looked up to me, a man who’d been married to one of the girls who’d left scars on my adolescent soul, a man whose brother and mother hated me, etc.

  Also, there was Bobby. Not Bobby, not really, but...he’d confused me again, this time by sending a very romantic email, this time detailing all the stuff we used to do before the Big Bad Event. My old life, my Perez self.

  I wasn’t staying on Scupper Island forever. I wasn’t sure I should start something with Sully, no matter how many pheromones were clogging the air, and yeah, it was childish and dopey, but I wasn’t sure I could be my Perez self when Sully had known my island self. I realized that was stupid and dopey and childish, but I also knew Sully deserved me to mull that over before anything happened between us.

  He was far, far too good to be someone’s summer fling.

  He turned off the engine. “I’ll walk you in,” he said.

  Shit. How would I tell him no? He was too delicious, too nice, that voice, those eyes, that sense of calm and granite reliability, and also, remember that hug after Audrey’s diagnosis? That. Yes.

  Boomer barked sharply. “It’s me, buddy,” I said. He barked again, not happy about Sullivan (or not happy that he wasn’t being allowed to leg-hump Sullivan, more likely).

  Sully and I stood outside the door, moths fluttering around the light.

  I would have to reject him now. Damn. That would not feel good.

  “Thank you for dinner,” I said. “I had a really nice time.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “Thanks for coming out on such short notice.”

  Maybe I’d let him kiss me. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? And then, once he kissed me, I was pretty sure sexy time would be inevitable.

  “Good night,” he said at the same second I said, “Want to come in?”

  “Excuse me?” he said, and yeah, yeah, I was glad he was hearing impaired. Sue me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Good night. Yeah. Have a safe trip home. Back to your house, I mean. Where do you live, anyway?”

  “Oak Street.”

  “Bon voyage, then.” Jesus, Nora. Shut up.

  He looked at me another minute. Maybe the kissing idea wasn’t dead yet.

  Nope, it was. He gave me the Yankee nod and walked back down the dock.

  Date over.

  Then again, I guess it hadn’t been a date.

  Except it had felt so stinkin’ romantic.

  “Sure, Nora, it was,” I said as I got the key out. “Who doesn’t want to hear about jail and home invasions? Totally romantic.”

  “What was?” came a voice, and I nearly wet myself.

  Luke Fletcher stood on the deck of the houseboat. My heart leaped into my throat.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?” I asked. Boomer barked from inside. Shit. My one-hundred-pound dog was inside. My hands started to shake.

  “Just thought I’d stop by for a drink. You know. Because we’re neighbors.”

  “Your brother just left.”

  “So I saw.” His voice was friendly. That scared me more, for some reason. Oh, right. Because the other guy’s voice had been friendly, too, sometimes. When he wasn’t beating the shit out of me.

  I swallowed. “Well, I’m tired, Luke. Maybe another time.”

  “Don’t fuck with my brother.”

  “I wouldn’t. Don’t worry.”

  “I wouldn’t. Don’t worry,” he mocked in a falsetto. Boomer barked again.

  Then Luke jumped off the boat onto the dock next to me, and I flinched. I hated myself for it, but I did. Inside, Boomer went crazy.

  But Luke just brushed past me, close enough that I had to move. He followed his brother’s path down the dock, heading left down Spruce Brook Road toward the boatyard.

  My legs were shaking. I opened the door and let Boomer go out. My dog ran after Luke, barking. Good. Let my dog maul him and eat him.

  “Boomer!” I called after a minute (not really the dog-mauling type), and my good dog turned back. Besides, what if Boomer just licked Luke? Best keep up the pretense that I had a ferocious watchdog before he could prove me wrong.

  As I locked up a few minutes later, I wondered if Sully had come in, after all, would Luke have stayed up on the deck.

  Stayed and watched.

  19

  Dear Lily,

  I’m staying in Oberon Cove this summer. At night, I can hear the riptide on the other side of the island. Do you remember when we came to this cove to fish, and you caught a striped bass bigger than you were? It flipped off the line, and Dad caught it like it was a pop fly.

  I took Poe fishing Friday afternoon, but when she caught a whiting, we threw it back. She wants to be a vegetarian now. Sorry about that. Her hair is growing out black now, but I told her I’d help her keep it blue if she wants.

  Love,

  Nora

  On Sunday, I stopped by my mother’s place before heading for the long trip to Boston on the ferry. It was Bobby’s turn with the dog.

  She was splitting wood in the back, something she did with an axe, not a log splitter. Tweety, whose devotion to my mother kept him close to her, even outside, dived at me, making Boomer leap behind my legs. I swatted at the bird, not hitting it (alas). Mom looked up briefly, then resumed chopping.

  “Maybe Poe should be doing this,” I suggested.

  “She’d cut off her thumb,” Mom answered. “Also, she’s still in bed.”

  “Well, wood chopping is a good life skill. Everyone should be able to use an axe.”

  “It’s a maul.”

  “Maul, then. Maybe there’s a kid you could hire to do this? One of the Bitterman kids? Don’t they have four boys?”

  She swung the axe, and another log split neatly in two. “You got a problem with me cuttin’ wood, Nora?”

  “Not really, no.” My mother was just past sixty and stronger than most NFL players.

  But someday she’d be too old for this. And I’d be going back to Boston in two months. Mom was still alone, despite my feeble attempt at the dinner party. I had, however, registered her on LivelySeniors.com and was presently fielding a few offers.

  She was getting older. The gray streak that had run through her
thick hair as long as I could remember was white now, and wider every year.

  I sat on a log and watched for a minute or two as Boomer got in his last sniffs of pine needles before we left. “Mom, I might have a problem with Luke Fletcher,” I said.

  She placed another log on the chopping block and thwacked it in half, then in quarters. “Why do you say that?”

  “He was on my houseboat the other night. Uninvited.”

  “Tell him to leave you alone.”

  “I have.”

  “Want me to talk to him?”

  The image of my mom cleaving Luke in half was rather beautiful. Then again, I was terribly brave and strong myself. “No, I can handle it. I just... I don’t know. Can you tell me a little more about him, what he’s been doing since I left?”

  “Well, if we have to talk, stack those logs and be useful,” she said. I obeyed, not mentioning that I wasn’t really dressed for physical labor. Mom wouldn’t want me to be a pussy about clothes.

  I stacked, she chopped, and after a few minutes, she said, “Welp, he flunked outta UMaine. Came back here and helped his father at the boatyard, but then Allan Fletcher died all of a sudden, so the other one, Sullivan, he took over. Did a fair job from what I heard. Luke, though, he wasn’t much for it. Always was a drinker and a druggie.”

  I picked up some of the logs she’d halved. Tweety screeched at me for getting too close to his beloved. I mentally flipped off the bird. “What drugs? Do you know?”

  “Nothin’ more than what I heard. Heroin, cocaine, cough syrup, you name it.”

  “How did Mr. Fletcher die?” I asked, dumping my armload of logs on the woodpile. Since I hadn’t asked Mom directly about Mr. Fletcher over the years, she hadn’t told me.

  “Bad heart, I think. Or a brain bleed. One of those. Sully found him dead out by his truck. Anyways, Luke... Teeny gave him some money, and he headed off to the big city or some such.”

  “New York?”

  “Portland.”

  “When did he come back?”

  Mom’s axe—maul—swung again. “Oh, he comes back every now and again, usually when he needs money. Teeny used to put him up, but Sullivan had a problem with that. I guess Luke stole her engagement ring and pawned it. So Sully has him stay at the boatyard.” She paused and wiped her brow. “That Teeny always favored the bad seed. Made me feel bad for Sullivan.”