on, had I gotten that magazine internship and been helping out during Regatta Week. Levi Summers’s yacht is probably the first in line, and if I looked hard enough, I might even spot Adrian on crutches. But I don’t look, because I don’t care about him. He’s a mosquito to me now.
The lamps along the Harborwalk dim. A cheer goes up. A loudspeaker announces something in a faraway voice. And like a game of dominos being played with lightning bugs, thousands of white lights suddenly ripple on across the darkness—a wave of fairy lights from stern to bow, deck to deck. It’s shockingly pretty, and the delighted roar of the crowd behind me goes all the way through my spine.
The yachts get smaller. I slow down and begin looking at every boat in line, searching for the Karrases. What boat would they take out? The Nimble Narwhal, I assume. Problem is, all the fishing boats look pretty much the same when they’re covered in white lights. I squint into the brightness, heart pounding, trying to catch my breath. And then—
A siren-like noise cuts through the twilight, and the crowd roars behind me again.
The torches have been lit. The flotilla begins moving.
Slowly, at first—just the big yachts up front.
But as I desperately look for the Karrases, I get more and more panicky. Maybe they aren’t here. Maybe they’re skipping it. It’s only the biggest event of the summer—I should know where he is. And I would know it, if I’d only trusted Lucky when he’d asked me to!
Then—
Right there.
The Narwhal. I do see it.
I see it chugging away from the Harborwalk, three boats from the end of the line.
Already in the flotilla.
Already gone.
I’m too late.
END OF THE LINE: Red graffiti spray-painted over the private property sign posted at the southern end of the Harborwalk. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 25
And I know it’s not rational, but it felt as if that was my last chance to fix things with Lucky, that watching the Narwhal getting smaller and smaller as it headed off with the other boats in the flotilla was like watching him sailing away to the other end of the world and not just to the other end of the harbor.
Like the universe was trying to tell me to quit.
To give up.
Accept defeat and move on.
And maybe that’s not true, but it’s enough to sober me up and make me step back to think about things. Because it’s not as if having proof that Lucky didn’t send Adrian the photo changed anything; I already knew in my heart he hadn’t sent it anyway. I think it just felt like it gave me permission to go talk to him. Or a push. And then when that push didn’t pan out, that felt like a sign.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mom asks a few days later as she adds money to a parking meter where the Pink Panther is parked. It’s almost lunchtime, and we’re in the historic district while Evie watches the Nook. We’re on a food mission. There’s a colonial landmark tavern here called the Fife and Drum—the oldest tavern in Beauty. They have amazing lobster rolls on freshly baked bread with lobster that they bring in from up the coast. The lobster salad is on their menu all the time, but the lobster rolls are sort of a town secret: They only sell them one day a week between noon and one from June until October. They’re dirt cheap, and they only sell one per customer. We’re headed there now to stand in line.
“I hope this isn’t bargain lobster that’s going to make us sick,” I tell Mom.
“Why would everyone in Beauty line up for food that makes them sick?”
“You have a point.”
“Besides, it’s the thrill of the unknown that makes it fun,” she says, brows waggling behind her cat-eye glasses.
“Okay, cookie egg roll.” The raw cookie dough inside made everyone violently sick. Even my grandma, which made it almost worth it, because my Aunt Franny said it was revenge for the bargain biscuits that Grandma made her eat in Nepal.
“It will be fine,” she assures me as we pass a pair of cosplaying colonial men, bewigged and dressed in white breeches and red regimental coats, one of them toting a drum across his chest—we’re getting close to the sandwich of our dreams. “Tell me what happened between you and Lucky on Victory Day at the flotilla.”
“Nothing happened. I was wrong, that’s all.”
“About what? Come on, talk to me.