Ten days into her new summer job, Isabel made a wonderful discovery: She sort of knew what she was doing. When customers asked what raita was, she could explain it to them. When they wanted to know the best way to order the vegan wrap—with the black bean tapenade or with the low-fat Chinese dressing—she told them. Best of all, waiting tables turned out to be one of those activities, like horseback riding or shopping, that completely occupied her brain. When she was working, there was no massive family secret that she had to carry and no sense of being a third wheel around Rory and Connor. She was too busy to think about anything except remembering that a certain customer didn’t want pickles or had a terrible peanut allergy. It was mindless work, in the best way.
Best of all, there was Evan. By the third day, it was clear that something was officially going on between them, even though they hadn’t kissed since that night they’d met up at the pizza place. After work they’d discreetly slip away for ice cream or just to take a walk down Main Street. It wasn’t actual dating, but it was mutually understood hang-out time, which was practically the same thing. The physical stuff could come later. After everything that had happened with Mike, Isabel was fine with that.
It didn’t sound as if Evan had been gifted with the easiest childhood. His father had taken off when Evan was six. This left him; his younger brother, Sam; and their mom on their own, until his mom married a guy named Phil, who owned a gourmet Italian food shop. Phil was a rumpled, good-natured guy who instilled in his stepsons a deep work ethic and respect for food. Unfortunately Phil was better at sourcing prosciutto and making homemade ravioli than he was at managing a business. When Evan’s mom found out that he was deeply in debt, the marriage fell apart.
“But it’s all okay,” Evan said to Isabel one afternoon, a few days after she’d started work, as they walked down Main Street. “The funny thing is, my mom is happier now than she’s ever been in her life, even though she’s alone. And Sammy seems happier. He went through a tough period with all of it, but now things have straightened out. He’s gotten through it okay. So it’s all kind of wasted energy to be mad or resentful, you know?” The late afternoon sun lit up the tips of his hair and his eyelashes. This was more than Mike ever told me about himself, Isabel thought. At least up until the last day I ever saw him.
“So, my parents are getting a divorce,” she said.
“Oh, that sucks,” he said. He put his hand on her forearm. “I’m sorry.”
Goose bumps rose up on her skin from his touch. “And my mom wants to pretend it’s not happening,” she went on. “It’s like we all have to live in a fantasy. They’ve got this whole act going on in front of their friends. It’s so gross to watch.” She drank the rest of her iced latte. “You ever wish you didn’t know something?”
“All the time. The words to every Justin Bieber song, for starters.”
“Excuse me?”
“Jeff’s uncle has a twelve-year-old daughter,” he explained.
“Oh,” she said.
“Divorce is tough. But you just have to keep living your life. Remember that it’s not about you.”
But it is about me, she thought.
“My mom’s terrified I’m now going to be a waitress for the rest of my life,” she said. “She thinks that this is, like, a career move, or something.” She let herself accidentally brush up against Evan as they squeezed past a crowd of people on the sidewalk.
Evan stopped walking and turned toward her. Right there, on a sun-dappled stretch of Main Street, right in front of Tiffany’s, he leaned down and kissed her.
At first she wanted to pull away. She’d never kissed anyone on Main Street before, in all the eighteen summers she’d spent here. But she’d been waiting too long for Evan to make another move. She circled her arms around his neck and pressed herself close to his firm, lanky torso. His lips were soft but insistent, and the kiss built so quickly that she had to pull away, slightly out of breath.
“Whoa,” she whispered. “In broad daylight, no less.”
He smiled at her. “I’ve been wanting to do that for, like, weeks.”
“We haven’t known each other for weeks.”
“Well, it’s felt like that,” he said. His hands still held her tightly around the waist.
Even after their PDA kiss, they kept their romance a secret from the other waitstaff. Jeff, Evan’s roommate, was the only person who knew that they were a couple. Jeff was the perfect foil for Evan. Short and thick, where Evan was tall and slim, Jeff was fussier than Baybreeze’s worst customers. He claimed to suffer from OCD, Tourette’s, and IBS, though for this last condition Evan believed that Jeff’s junk-food diet was mostly to blame. “He’s like a really neurotic Owen Wilson,” Evan always said about him, and it was true. Jeff never went anywhere without a vial of Purell. Sometimes Isabel would look over and see Jeff hovering around a customer’s table, trying to work up the nerve to clear dirty dishes. “For the love of Mike, stop dancing around and do it,” Bill would bark at him. “You wanna get fired?”
“It’s so… disgusting,” Jeff would say, marveling at the idea of it.
The other waitresses, Sadie and Nicole, weren’t really friend material. Both of them were going into their junior year at college, which meant that Isabel might as well have been six years old to them. Sadie was from Port Chester, went to Colgate, and loved clubbing. She was the one who had sprained her foot. Nicole was from Piscataway, New Jersey. Like Sadie, she was a seasoned pro at waiting tables. She memorized every order without writing down a word, no matter how many changes a customer made to a dish. Isabel would watch, amazed, as Nicole typed several orders into the computer from memory. “You get used to it,” she’d say, and then stalk off.
A few days after Isabel and Evan’s sidewalk kiss, Sadie finally deemed Isabel worthy of conversation.
“So I’m having a birthday thing tonight,” she half said, half yawned as she sidled up beside Isabel at the pass-through. “Everyone’s invited. Even those weirdos,” she said, nodding to the two busboys, Marcus and Warren, who cleared tables and filled water glasses with silent, unhappy efficiency.
Isabel flinched at the dubious honor of being included along with weirdos. “Where are you doing it?” she asked.
“The Ripcurl. Out in Montauk.”
Isabel’s heart stopped for a moment.
“It’s a really cool place,” Sadie went on. “Lots of cute guys. Oh, and don’t worry. They don’t card.” She winked, as if she knew what had happened the last time Isabel had gone to the Ripcurl. Then she grabbed her orders—a Reuben with fries and a tuna melt with a garden salad—and headed back out to the floor.
Isabel stayed at the pass-through, even after her turkey burger had been shoved in front of her by one of the line cooks. The Ripcurl. Mike. Suddenly she remembered everything about that night they’d gone there—how his snotty friend Leelee had denied her a drink, how she’d heard about Mike’s older, model girlfriend, how they’d fought in the parking lot, and then how they’d gone back to his place and slept together. For a place she’d been to once, for approximately an hour, it had way too many associations.
“Hey, are you going to Sadie’s birthday thing tonight?” she asked Evan as soon as she could corner him for a second.
“I think so,” he said. “Not that she’d show up for my birthday party in a million years.”
“I’m not a big fan of the place where she’s doing it. It’s kind of cheesy. Lots of guys in baggy white button-downs.”
“Then we have to go. I love the baggy button-down.”
She laughed. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
She knew that she was overreacting, but it didn’t stop her from trying to recruit Rory to go with her.
“I can’t,” Rory said later that afternoon, as they took a walk with Trixie down the beach. “Connor’s having his St. Paul’s friends over tonight to make lobster rolls.”
“Then you have to come,” Isabel said. “Don’t tell me you want to hang out with those dweebs.”
“I’m trying to make an effort. You know how it is.”
And you’re definitely not making an effort with me, Isabel wanted to add.
Rory picked up a stick and hurled it down the beach, sending Trixie dashing to get it. “What exactly is freaking you out about going to the Ripcurl?”
“Weird memories, I guess. It’s where Mike’s friend works. We went there one night. The night we slept together the first time. But I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Of course it’ll be fine. And you could always tell Evan about Mike. If you wanted to. I’m sure he’d understand.”
“No,” Isabel said. “There’s no reason to do that. It’s not like Mike is a thing. He’s in the past.”
Rory gave Isabel a sidelong glance. She seemed to want to make a comment about this, but restrained herself. “Maybe you, me, Connor, and Evan can have dinner sometime. How about that?”
“I don’t usually have my brother hang out with the guy I’m dating.”
“He’ll be nice, I promise,” Rory said. “And I think he and Evan would really hit it off.” She grabbed the stick from Trixie. “And if I can get Connor to hang out with Evan instead of Augusta Rapton, then I’m all for it.”
“I hear that.”
Later that night, Isabel met Evan and Jeff at the restaurant after the dinner shift. They piled into Evan’s forest-green Saab and drove east toward Montauk.
“It’s right here,” Isabel said, pointing out the turn.
Evan pulled into the driveway. Apparently the Ripcurl’s popularity had only increased, judging from the bumper-to-bumper line of luxury SUVs and convertible sports cars in the drive.
“Dude, look at the aloha shirts on those guys,” Evan said, pointing to the valets. “We should have gotten jobs here, just to wear those shirts.”
“You need shoulders for an aloha shirt,” said Jeff. “Which you don’t have.”
“I have shoulders.” Evan turned to Isabel. “Do I not have shoulders?”
“Watch out!” Isabel yelled. “You’re about to hit that Porsche.”
They finally inched their way up to the valet.
“Aloha, welcome to the Ripcurl,” he said as she opened the car door.
“Aloha,” Evan replied.
Isabel stepped out of the car and looked at the line of people waiting outside the closed doors. A small part of her hoped that they wouldn’t get in.
“So let me guess,” said Jeff, as they walked to the entrance. “This place has a surfing motif.”
“You got it,” Isabel said.
“Why aren’t we surfers, man?” Jeff asked Evan. “That’s where we went wrong in life.”
“Would you like me better if I were a surfer?” Evan asked her, snaking an arm around Isabel’s waist.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“See?” Evan said.
“Whatever,” Jeff said. “I still feel like it reflects badly on our manhood.”
The bouncer at the door stopped them with his hand. “The line starts there,” he said, pointing into the distance.
“We’re here for Sadie Klein’s birthday,” Evan said.
Without a word, the bouncer unhooked the velvet rope and ushered them inside.
“So Sadie’s got some clout around here,” Evan said.
“Yeah, who knew?” Jeff said.
Inside, the crowd was so thick that they could barely move through the front room. Isabel’s memory of bankers in baggy white button-downs turned out to be completely wrong. The crowd was much more Brooklyn hipster than Wall Street analyst, and as she and Evan and Jeff made their way through the different rooms, she felt the kind of joy that only being in a really cool, really exclusive bar can give.
“Where do you think she is?” Evan asked, scanning the people draped along the rattan-frame sofas and clustered around the bar.
“Maybe check outside?” Isabel suggested. “I think there’s a patio straight ahead.”
Evan fought his way through the room until Isabel felt a rush of cool air on her face and smelled briny sea air. Outside, the patio was almost as packed as the rest of the Ripcurl. Japanese lanterns in shades of pink and lavender hung over long picnic tables stocked with girls sipping tropical drinks in bright pastel colors. Guys in dark jeans and jackets circled around their tables, waiting to make their move. A few had already done so, and out of these, most had found seats near Sadie, who held court at a table on the opposite side of the patio.
“There she is,” Isabel said, grabbing Evan’s arm. “I see her.”
“Wow. She really is kind of popular,” Jeff said behind her.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” said Evan.
They moved toward the table, single file, and as Isabel passed one of the tables, someone with thick dark hair, tan forearms, and a familiar slouch caught her eye. Her heart leaped into her throat. It was Mike. He sat with his hands wrapped around a Stella Artois, chatting with his friend Gordy and his roommate Esteban. He hadn’t seen her, but she felt the urge to turn and run anyway.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. She tugged on Evan’s hand.
“Okay,” Evan said, looking over his shoulder.
“Be right back.” With one last glance in Mike’s direction, she pivoted around and walked back into the club.
He didn’t see you, she thought as she pushed her way through the crowd toward the bathroom. He has no idea you’re here.
But unless he decided to leave soon, he was going to see her, eventually. And they were probably going to have to speak. She felt the contents of her stomach shift around. If she didn’t get to the bathroom pretty soon, there was a good chance she might throw up right in the middle of the Ripcurl.
She’d almost reached the hall that led to the bathrooms when she felt a tap on the shoulder. She turned around.
Mike stood in front of her. “I thought that was you,” he said.
He stood closer to her than she would have liked, and when someone pushed up against him from behind, his hand brushed against hers.
She didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.
“It’s nice to see you,” he added. He seemed almost as nervous as she was. “You look great.”
Words still eluded her. In the dim light, his liquid brown eyes were even more mesmerizing than she remembered. His hair was longer, which made him look older, more mysterious. His lips, however, were just as full and inviting as they’d been last summer. Had he kissed anyone since then? she wondered.
“I’m here for someone’s birthday,” she said, pulling herself together. “With my boyfriend. We’re here together.”
Mike nodded, as if she’d just told him the time.
“He’s out on the patio,” she continued. “With his friend. I’m with him.”
Another person brushed past them, and they stumbled toward each other. When their arms touched she felt an actual current jump his skin and go through hers.
“So. Yeah,” she said. “I should probably get back to them—”
Mike smiled. “How’s your summer been so far?” he asked.
“Good,” she said. “Fun. I’m waitressing.”
“You are?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s great,” she said, tossing some hair over her shoulder. She waited a beat. “How’s yours?”
“Good. I’m working at the surf shop in Montauk. It’s pretty cool.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Surfing as much as I can. You know.”
She could feel herself being pulled toward him, as if his torso were one gigantic magnet. If she didn’t leave quickly, she was going to be in trouble. “That’s great. I should probably get back—”
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.
“You’ve been thinking about me?” she repeated.
“I had a feeling you were back in town.” He touched her arm. “I wanted to call you.”
She shook her head.
“I miss you,” he blurted. “I want you to give me a second chance.” He paused. “I think I deserve that.”
She blinked, letting this sink in. “You want what?” she asked. “I don’t hear from you all year, and now you miss me? And you deserve a second chance?” Her breath started to come fast. “Are you kidding me?”
“Isabel, I wanted to call you. Of course I did. But you blew me off pretty hard that last day. I don’t know if you remember—”
“I think I had a right to blow you off,” she said.
“Okay, I was a jerk,” he said. “I know that. I’ve had nine months to think about that.” A wounded look appeared in his eyes. “But if you give me another chance, I’d do better this time.”
The words made something melt inside her. She pictured herself taking one small step, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him hard on the mouth. It would be so easy, so simple. And standing in front of him, she could feel that this was exactly what she wanted to do.
But then her anger returned. “It’s too late. I’m with somebody now.” She stepped backward into the hall. “Good-bye, Mike.” She felt dizzy. She needed to throw some cold water on her face. She turned to go.
“Isabel,” Mike said, but she kept walking.
In the ladies’ room she locked herself in a stall and put her palm on the door to steady herself. Her heart rose and dipped, as if she were in the middle of turbulence. It almost didn’t seem real that she’d seen him. There were too many crazy things that had come out of his mouth. She’d need the entire night to process them all. Alone, and definitely not here.
She left the ladies’ room and made it back to the patio. Mike’s seat at the table was empty. Sadie was sitting down, carousing with some guy wearing too much hair gel. Evan and Jeff sat beside her.
Isabel waved to Sadie and then leaned close to Evan. “I have to go,” she announced. “Like, now.”
“I don’t feel well,” she said. “I think it’s something I ate.”
Evan studied her face for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure he believed her. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Hey, Sadie,” she called over to the birthday girl. “I have to take off.”
Sadie looked over her shoulder, gave Isabel a flimsy wave, and went back to talking to her admirer.
“Okay, then I guess we have to go,” Evan said. “Dude, I’m going to take Isabel home. You want to come or stay here?”
Jeff picked his hand up from the table and began wiping it on his pant leg. “Ugh. This table’s covered with something sticky.”
As they stood up to say their good-byes to Sadie, Isabel snuck a glimpse of Mike’s table. He’d sat down again and now had his back to her. He probably would leave her alone the rest of the night if she stayed, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
“All right, let’s go,” Evan said, guiding Isabel in front of them with his hand on the small of her back.
She felt Mike’s eyes on her as she passed his table. A small voice inside her begged her to turn around and make eye contact. This isn’t what you want, it said. You still care.
But then Evan’s hand sought hers as they reached the inside of the club, safe from Mike’s gaze, and she knew without any doubt that she’d done the right thing.