He had been in love with her. Besotted by her. He still was.
He wondered what Zoe’s life was like this summer. He figured she had turned down all catering jobs. Possibly she’d even taken a leave of absence from her job with the Allencasts. She had a small trust fund, enough money to live on for a little while, anyway. Although maybe not: the Allencasts paid her health insurance, which she would need now as she never had before, given Hobby’s condition.
Jordan envisioned her working for the Allencasts for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening, then spending the rest of her time at home with Hobby. She wouldn’t go out at night. She was just as definitively exiled from their previous life as Jordan was, even though she was right there.
He pictured her on her back deck, drinking wine. He pictured her screaming at the ocean. He pictured her in bed, lying among the dozen pillows that she required, crying for Penny. Her little girl.
He tapped the keyboard, and the screen sprang to life. He would email her, he decided. She might not respond, she might delete the message, but even if they were no longer lovers-for so many reasons-they were still connected, they were still simpatico. He knew she thought about him, they had a shared view of the world, they spoke the same language, they held common opinions. They were friends, goddammit, above and beyond and before everything else, they were friends, and he was going to email her. The house was empty, Ava and Jake would be gone for hours, and how often was he going to get a chance like this?
To: Z
From: J
Subject:
But what should he say? “I love you”? “I miss you”? “I’m thinking about you”? “I never stop thinking about you”? “I feel as if my heart had been ripped out and fed to a koala bear, and koala bears are surprisingly nasty little creatures”?
Zoe was right: it was always all about him.
Maybe “How are you?” Or “How are you doing?” “What are you thinking about?” “How is Hobby?” “Is there any moment of your day that is even a little bit easier than the rest of your day?” “Are you working?” “Do you need anything? Do you want anything? Aside from the obvious…”
Jordan deleted the unwritten email.
He succumbed to his nagging curiosity and pulled up the on-line version of the Nantucket Standard. When he saw the lead story, he coughed.
Island Remembers Nantucket High School Student
It was an article about Penny.
Jordan read every word, then he read it again, thinking he must have missed something. He read the quotes from Annabel Wright and Winnie Potts (Winnie’s should have been edited, possibly even cut, he thought; it was too honest for this kind of piece). He read Hobby’s quote and felt tears coming to his eyes: “I guess I’ll have to find a way to take care of my mother…” Jordan’s sadness, and his shame and regret-he should have published this article, or one better than this, before he left-were cut only by the fact that there wasn’t a single mention, anywhere, of Jake. Very little about the crash itself-only a brief acknowledgment at the lead-in that Penny had died in a one-car accident-and nothing, not a word, about her boyfriend, his son.
It was beastly. If Jake saw this, he’d… well, he’d feel empty and bewildered and hurt. New, fresh hurt on top of all of the other hurt.
Jordan shut down his computer. He dropped his head into his hands and yanked at his hair. Then he raised his face; he could see himself now in the dark screen of the monitor. He adjusted his glasses and sniffed.
He and Jake and Ava were gone from Nantucket, yes, they had gone away, but the surprising thing was that they had also, apparently, been forgotten.
He still had hours before the others would get home. Nothing good could come of his sitting in the house alone, he knew, and so he went out and wandered the streets of Fremantle. It was, he had to admit, a charming city. He headed up Charles Street and across Attfield, admiring the bungalows, many of which were better kept up than the one they had rented. He liked the classic limestone with redbrick quoins around the windows, the tin roofs, the bullnosed terraces that curved over the deep front porches. There were variations on the theme: on one house the trim had been painted lavender, another had stained glass in its front windows, and in yet another someone was practicing scales on the piano. Jordan stopped for a second to listen. If he were a different kind of person, he would be able to take enjoyment from the place where he found himself, rather than longing to be somewhere else.
But he wasn’t that kind of person.
He stepped into a pub called Moondyne Joe’s. He could have gone to the Sail & Anchor, which was a little nicer (or more “toff,” as Ava would have said) and which had chili mussels on the menu and artisanal beer and a scrubbed-clean clientele. Or he could have gone to the Norfolk Hotel, which had an outdoor courtyard and two guys strumming Midnight Oil songs on the guitar. But Jordan was in the mood for someplace dark and gritty. He had discovered Moondyne Joe’s on one of his aimless walks through the city. It was the kind of place where men drank up their dole money; it attracted a tough, tattooed crowd. It smelled like cigarette smoke, beer, and old beer. The concrete floors were sticky, and there was no “food” to speak of other than a warming case that held a selection of Mrs. Mac’s meat pies. A TV hung in the corner of the bar, a huge, boxy thing that seemed as outdated as a cassette deck (the Ute that Jordan had bought from the car-rental agency had one of those). When Jordan was here before, it was midafternoon on a Tuesday, and there were only four or five men at the bar keeping the bartender-a stout, matronly woman who looked as if she ought to be running a home for wayward boys-company. But today the place was packed, and Jordan found himself elbow to elbow with fifty or sixty sweating blokes. (That seemed such an appropriate word for this breed of Australian men; Jordan reminded himself to look up its etymology when he got home.) He wanted to step back out onto the street, but once he was in the pub, he felt committed. Stepping back outside because he didn’t like the looks of the other patrons would have been a cowardly move.
Everyone’s focus was on the TV. A game was on: rugby. And then Jordan remembered what he had read in the sports section of the Sunday Australian: the Australian national team was playing New Zealand. The All-Blacks. The All-Blacks were world-famous; they did a version of the traditional Maori Haka dance before each game. They were documented badasses.
Jordan moved toward the bar. He fought off the mental image of himself as an effete, intellectual newspaper editor hailing from a country that wasn’t even tough enough to field a national rugby team. He was so far out of his element here that it was almost comical, but a beer might help.
The bartender-the same middle-aged woman as before-gave him a Carlton Mid-Draught, and while he had her attention he ordered a shot of whisky as well, and then, in order to gain a few more inches of bar space, he bought the muscled behemoth to his right-a man wearing a fluorescent green vest over his bare chest, who smelled like the lion cage at the zoo-a shot of whisky too. This man-he was a decade younger than Jordan-eyed the shot warily.
“What’s tha?” he said.
Jordan nodded at the TV. He didn’t want to speak and thereby reveal himself as an American just yet. “Game,” he said.
The man needed no further explanation. He threw back the shot. “Thanks, mate.”