“Don’t lie,” Lincoln said. “Don’t you fucking lie, Mick. The cops will be here tomorrow and they’ll dig up every inch of this place. If she’s here, they’ll find her.”
Laughing was exactly the wrong thing to do, of course, but really, he couldn’t help himself. Lie your ass off for forty years and everybody believes you, but when you finally decide to tell the truth…“Lincoln,” he said, “I don’t have the first clue what you’re—”
But this was as far as he got, because Lincoln, showing no signs of back stiffness now, came flying out of his chair. Grabbing Mickey by the throat with his left hand, his right was balled into a fist and cocked. He would’ve thrown the punch, too, Mickey was certain, if the door to the deck hadn’t slid open just then. Seeing Delia in the doorway, blinking and groggy, Lincoln let go of Mickey’s neck, straightened up and turned to face her. When Mickey rose to his feet, Teddy did, too.
“It’s okay,” Mickey told her, his voice raspy. “Come on out and meet my friends.”
For a tortuous moment nobody moved. But then Teddy went over to where Delia stood in the doorway and put his arms around her. Startled, she glanced at Mickey over his shoulder, but allowed the embrace. After another long moment Teddy stepped back so he could study her at arm’s length. “You look like your mom,” he said, smiling.
The smile she returned was Jacy’s, to a T.
* * *
—
THEY’D AGREED TO MEET at the restaurant adjacent to the ferry landing in Woods Hole, but he wasn’t sure she’d show up. Their hasty plan was hatched yesterday afternoon when Lincoln was on the phone with Anita, and Teddy, in one of his periodic funks, had gone for a walk.
But a lot had happened since then, and Mickey wouldn’t have blamed her for having second thoughts. “Since when have we started keeping secrets from each other?” he’d asked her, the question not entirely rhetorical. She and Teddy had snuck off to Gay Head earlier in the day, and to judge by his demeanor when they returned, something must’ve happened there. Poor Teddy. They were all hopelessly in love with her, but he seemed the furthest gone. Had he lost his composure and confessed his feelings, begged her not to marry Vance? Had she then clipped his wings? She would’ve done so gently, of course, because Mickey suspected Teddy was her favorite. On the other hand, if he’d violated their unspoken pact, well, didn’t he kind of have it coming?
Thinking this, he immediately felt guilty. After all, if their pact was unspoken, who could say they even had one? He’d always assumed that that’s what all for one and one for all amounted to—a coded agreement that they’d never go behind one another’s backs in pursuit of Jacy’s affections, which was all the more convenient since she was engaged to someone else entirely. If it existed at all, their understanding amounted to little more than a noncompete clause that there would be no need to ever enforce. Yet in a sense they had been competing, even when they were together, and if Jacy was going to marry someone not named Mickey, he preferred it wouldn’t be to someone named Lincoln or Teddy. A shameful admission, but there it was, and unless he was mistaken his friends felt the same way. Vance probably was a complete asshole, and Jacy certainly deserved better, but Mickey had accepted the idea that they would get married as one of the many things in life he was powerless to alter, like his father’s death or his own lottery number. But if Jacy were to end up with either Teddy or Lincoln, well, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that.
Anyway, it was possible that after last night’s all-for-one singing and boozing she’d thought better of their planned assignation and hopped on a bus to New York City, as she’d originally intended. In fact, looking around the restaurant and not seeing her, he felt both crushing disappointment and—hey, relief. But then a young woman in a big floppy hat and dark glasses, sitting by herself on the deck, waved to him.
Going outside, he pulled up a chair opposite her. “Is that supposed to be a disguise?” She looked like a hippie version of Audrey Hepburn in Charade.
Jacy narrowed her eyes theatrically. “Were they suspicious?”