“I …” he said, struggling with an answer.
“I was kidding,” Alix said. “It was a joke.”
He was looking at her as though he couldn’t make her out. He opened the back door. “Mind if we go in my pickup?”
“I’ve spent half my life in one,” Alix said, but he didn’t answer.
His truck was old and red, and there was a cooler and a big tool box in the back. The inside of the cab had sand and dirt in it, but no trash. The seats were worn but in good condition.
He backed out onto Kingsley Lane and headed down the way she and Izzy had walked in. The narrow street was quiet.
At the end, just before he turned onto Main, he nodded toward a house on the right. “My cousin Lexie lives there with her roommate, Toby, and they raise flowers to sell.”
“Is that where you got the daffodils and roses?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Toby cut them for me.”
“Did he ask why you wanted them?”
“She. Toby’s real name is … I don’t remember what it is, but she’s always been called Toby. She’s only twenty-two and she’s always spent summers here with her parents, but a couple of summers ago, when they left, she stayed.”
She was looking at him as he drove, his scraggly beard and hair making him look older than the thirty-six she knew he was. “You sound like you’re in love with her.”
Jared smiled. “Everyone is in love with Toby. She’s very sweet.”
Alix looked out the window at the beautiful procession of houses on Main. The cobblestones were jolting the car so much that she had to hold on to the door handle. In spite of the beauty around her, she couldn’t help feeling deflated. Since the moment she first saw Jared Montgomery standing in his boat and smiling at some girl in shorts that were much too short, she’d been on a high. She’d assumed she was going to learn from him, work with him. And that night as she’d reread her poem, she’d even thought of having an affair with him. It would be something to tell her grandchildren. Those thoughts had driven her so that she forgot about her boyfriend dumping her and about her fear of spending a year alone where she knew no one.
But, gradually, everything she’d imagined had dropped down through the cracks. No talking of architecture to this illustrious man. And certainly no hanky-panky with him. He seemed to be attracted to her, but jumped away when her hand almost touched his. He probably had an unbreakable rule against students, but now he was melting into the seat at the mention of some very young girl named Toby—whom everyone loved.
“Are you always this quiet?” he asked. Before them was the glorious town of Nantucket, one divine building bes
ide another. He halted at a stop sign and turned right. They went past a pretty little bookstore, then a magnificent church. It was a street full of houses, each one fascinating.
“It’s like going into the past,” she said. “I can see why you come here to escape. I think maybe my mother visited here, and maybe rather often.”
Jared looked at her quickly. Victoria had been coming to Nantucket every August since he was a kid. She was beautiful and fun and he’d loved every minute he spent with her. But he was well aware that her daughter didn’t know that she came to the island. “This is my place of privacy,” Victoria had often said. Caleb said, “This is where she steals her plots.” On the first day of every August, Aunt Addy handed Victoria one of the journals that had been written by the Kingsley women over the centuries. For the rest of the month, Victoria would spend the mornings reading the antiquated handwriting and making an outline for her next novel. She skipped the boring bits about how many quarts of pickles the women put up, and went right to the drama and excitement.
Victoria had never wanted anyone to know that she—as Caleb said—“stole” her plots, so she kept her visits to Nantucket a secret from her friends, her publishing house, and especially her daughter. But the secret was relative, as everyone on the island knew about it. For eleven months of the year, Kingsley House hosted Addy’s committee meetings and good works, but in August—while Alix stayed with her father—the house rang with music and dancing and laughter.
Jared came back to the present. “Here’s a bakery,” he said to Alix at the next stop sign, “and they do wedding cakes.”
“And Toby does flowers,” Alix said. “I’m going to talk to my friend Izzy, but I don’t think I’m going to stay. It’s just that …”
He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t. Great! he thought. If she doesn’t stay, everyone will be angry at me. His grandfather was convinced that Alix held some key to finding out what had happened to his precious, long lost Valentina. Ken wanted his daughter to assemble a portfolio of work. And Victoria was the worst. She called frequently and though she never came out and said so, he knew she wanted to see Aunt Addy’s own personal journals, which were hidden somewhere in the house.
Besides them, Lexie would give Jared hell for scaring Alix off, and even Toby would probably be sad. And no doubt every relative on the island would say that Jared had run her off because he wanted his house back.
Any way he looked at it, Alix leaving before the year was up was bad.
Alix was looking out the windshield as they went down the streets and around two English-style roundabouts, one of which was called a rotary. Wherever they went, she was amazed by the courtesy of the drivers. Jared motioned to any vehicle that was stuck on a side street to go ahead of him and all the drivers waved back their thanks. He stopped for all pedestrians, who also raised their hands in gratitude. Cars, people, bicycles, road-crossing critters, were all given spaces and all actions were acknowledged with courtesy and thanks.
They pulled into the parking lot of a pretty little building with a big doughnut above the door. DOWNYFLAKE was painted on it.
“Why’s it called that?”
“I have no idea,” Jared said. “You can ask Sue.”
He opened the door for her and they entered a homey-looking restaurant that Alix immediately liked. And she had her first glimpse of what it meant to have grown up on an island. Jared knew everyone. He said hello to the staff and to nearly every table full of people.