from afar earlier, holding a paper plate stacked with ribs as the residents circled him like hungry sharks. Now it looked like one or two had taken a bite out of him. His expression was harried, and he was walking a little too fast. Maybe it had been wrong of her to leave him to the scrum. She forced a smile and waved him over.
“Theo, this is Sabrina, Nikhil, Josh,” she said, gesturing around. “This is Theo. Brand. My boss.” She added the extra words to mask the fact that they had been talking about his family, but the explanation made it worse. Theo’s eyes flicked to her.
“Hey, nice to meet you,” Theo said to the others. He and Nikhil shook hands in that casual way men sometimes did, bringing their elbows out and almost slapping their palms together. Kate had never figured out where men learned that. Maybe the same place she learned to apologize for interrupting, or to rephrase her ideas in a meeting to make them sound like they were someone else’s.
“Did you compete?” Theo motioned to Nikhil’s T-shirt, which Kate now saw advertised a surfing championship from last year.
Nikhil brightened. “Yeah. I didn’t place or anything. But I think maybe next year I will. Do you surf?”
That set off a conversation about surfing that Kate struggled to follow. Not that she would have participated even if she had known anything about surfing: she was too surprised to see Theo speaking with such ease. She had thought of him as a cranky shut-in, had assumed his keeping away from town had been due partly to his general discomfort with socializing. And he was still stern, of course. But outside that memory trap of a house, talking about a hobby, some of his brusqueness washed away, and he seemed … likable. It was as if she had let a tiger into a living room, thinking a bloodbath would ensue, only to discover that the tiger was vegetarian and would happily watch Dancing with the Stars.
Something like disappointment snuck up her neck. Kate realized that all this time, a part of her had liked that Theo was awful, because it meant that there was someone worse than her. Next to Theo she had been a goddamn sunbeam.
She must have been staring, because as Nikhil and Sabrina started talking about a beach a ways north, Theo turned his head slightly to look at her. The low sun settled comfortably on his cheekbones; the wind had tumbled his hair into dark waves. As always, his direct gaze was disconcerting, penetrating.
Her face reddened, and she buried her nose in the collar of her borrowed fleece to hide it. What was wrong with her? It had been several years since she had been attracted to someone that she also disliked. She had thought that phase of her life was over. She was thirty now. She was supposed to be attracted to reasonable, thoughtful, appropriate people.
When she looked down, to her relief, she saw Oscar edging his way into the circle between her and Theo. He wore his usual worried expression, but his cheeks were red from running around and his mouth was stained Popsicle blue and he wasn’t crying, so it seemed like everything was going well. Kate squatted down to say hi.
“Are you having fun?” she asked.
Oscar shrugged. “I had two macaroni and cheese.”
“That sounds delicious.”
“And watermelon.”
“Yum. Did you make any new friends?”
He hesitated. “Everyone’s looking at us.”
Kate glanced up. It was true. People had gathered closer to their circle without her realizing it, and they kept sneaking looks at Theo and Oscar. Inspecting them, recording them for later analysis.
“Jemima said it was because I had a big spot on my face,” Oscar said, rubbing his cheek. “She said it looks like I have another nose.”
“Oh, Oscar,” Kate said. “She was just teasing you. There’s nothing on your face except your face.”
“No spot?”
“No spot. Pinky swear.”
Oscar nodded and reached for Theo’s leg, pinching the fabric of his father’s jeans between two fingers, as if he were afraid of being left behind.
“Hey, squirt.” Theo rested his hand on Oscar’s head. His fingers were long enough to encompass his son’s entire skull. “What’s up?”
“I want to go home,” Oscar mumbled into his leg.
“We’ll go soon. We haven’t even been here that long.”
“We’ve been here a million and five years,” Oscar said, but he wrapped his arms around Theo’s leg and seemed to give up the argument. Kate patted his back, trying not to laugh.