“I know,” he said softly.
“They gave me a book contract, Van. To turn the story into a novel. And they want to make it a movie.”
“They do?”
Caroline couldn’t read Van’s tone. “Are you angry, Van? Do you hate me?” Caroline stood in her kitchen, staring at her reflection in the dark window. There were no lights on Little Neck and in the darkness she felt that she and Van might be the only people in the world.
“I could never hate you, Caroline,” replied Van quietly. “I need to go.” And he ended the call.
Caroline felt nearly hungover the next morning, unable to eat, to think, or to write. The walls of her cottage closing in on her, Caroline dragged the kayak from her yard down to the water. She had read that the film crew was shooting out on Labor In Vain Road. If she paddled through the marshes to Gould’s Creek, she could go all the way up to the little bridge right by where Palmer Preston’s first wife lived, maybe see the action from the distance. She covered her nose and arms in sunscreen and tossed a water bottle into the hatch, shoving off the pebbly beach out toward Steep Hill.
It was hard at first, the waves of the open ocean slapping the side of the kayak, the wind whipping on the water, but as Caroline followedthe bend of Little Neck and entered the mouth of the river it got easier. Bigger boats motored past her, giving her a wide berth, and yet their wake still rocked her plastic shell. Her arms were tired, but the paddling wasn’t as hard as she might have expected. It was like she was being drawn to her destination by forces beyond her control. She turned into Gould’s Creek, leaving behind the bigger boats. Only little motorboats could follow, the muddy river too shallow at mid-tide. Caroline zipped along through the marshes, passing a few wooden docks piled with canoes and kayaks of their own. The banks of the river had been roasting in the sun and smelled strongly of peat moss, Caroline could hear crickets chirping and birds singing. A cormorant stood elegantly on one leg and turned its long neck to watch her pass. She felt better than she had in days. This is exactly what Van would have recommended. Somehow, out in nature, moving her body, her problems didn’t seem quite so terrible.
The tide was pulling her along, she realized, that’s why it felt so easy to paddle. As the water flowed from the ocean up into the salt marsh it swept Caroline’s lightweight boat with it. She would have to remember to save some energy for the more difficult return home. The wind was gone back in the creek and when a buzzing fly circled her head, she stopped rowing to wave it away. She pulled her water bottle from the hatch and as she did, another fly landed on her arm and she slapped it dead, its fat fly body bouncing off the deck of her kayak with an audible bash. It had been a greenhead, a wicked, blood-licking greenhead. Caroline hadn’t realized it was already the season and she shuddered. So much had happened over the past year. Dylan had been born, Van had left her, she’d published her story. This July would be so different from the last. She wouldn’t be going to Maine with Van. She wouldn’t be watching basketball with Fran or helping the little boys gather sticks or sitting around the table playing Family.
Up ahead was the Labor In Vain bridge and just next to it was the small dock belonging to the Palmer Preston house. She could see there were a few cars and a truck parked along the side. A small tent had been set up on the dirt where the dog walkers usually congregated, underneath the tent was a folding table, maybe serving coffee or sandwiches, and even from forty yards away Caroline could see that the people milling about were part of the film crew, all dressed in jeans and black t-shirts in the blazing heat.
Another greenhead buzzed by Caroline’s face and as she waved it off, she felt a searing pain on her shin. A fly was biting her, but she couldn’t extract her leg from the cockpit to kill it. “Fuck!” she screamed, rocking back and forth and nearly capsizing. She was bleeding, she could feel it. “Goddamn it,” she muttered to herself. She turned the bow upstream toward home and started paddling, but the current was much stronger than she had expected. She rowed hard, but another fly landed on her shoulder, and she swatted it away and in the ten seconds it took her, the little kayak had been swept back again. The fly circled and then flew down into the cockpit toward her feet. “Go away! Go away!” Caroline screamed.
She was being pulled backward, faster and faster, the tide sucking her little kayak closer to the bridge. She jammed her paddle into the mud and pulled her legs out of the hull, hoisting herself from the boat and into the waist-deep water. It was impossible. There was no way she could row home until the tide turned. She was starting to cry in frustration, and she dragged the boat over to the muddy shore and stood, dripping, waving away flies and trying to figure out what the hell to do. Greenheads loved wet skin, she remembered, and her bare legs would soon be covered in welts.
“Are you okay?” called a woman in a baseball hat and sunglasses. She clambered down across the muddy rocks from the tent. She waswearing an earpiece and holding a half-eaten sandwich. “You’re bleeding. Do you need a ride?”
“Oh, yeah.” Caroline smiled miserably. There was something ironic about the whole thing: the Palmer Preston film team saving her after sending her to this horrible little town in the first place. “That would be amazing.”
“Let me call someone.” The woman pulled a walkie off her belt. “Ned? Can you bring your car down by craft services? Ned?”
“Oh, no, never mind…” With mounting horror, Caroline realized what she had done. Somehow Caroline had managed to conjure Ned Clark, like an evil genie from a lamp.
Ned pulled upto the bridge ten minutes later dressed, as always, like he was about to win a new round of funding from a venture capitalist fraternity brother, wearing a white linen shirt and leather belt. To his credit, he didn’t look altogether shocked to see her and he helped Caroline haul her kayak off the riverbank and onto the roof of his car, not seeming to mind the brown water that ran down his sleeves.
“If you wanted to see me you could have just called. You didn’t have to come spy on production.”
“I wasn’t spying.” Caroline frowned. “How would I know you were here? You’re a literary agent, not a gaffer.”
“Sure.” Ned raised an eyebrow. “What are the chances a producer would be on the set of his own film?” He handed her a bottle of Poland Spring and while she wanted to rebuff him and his single-use plastic, her own metal water bottle was empty, so she accepted it with a nod.
“I didn’t realize greenhead season had started.” Caroline wiped at her shin, smearing the blood with her hand.
“The location scout says that out in the marshes they get the greenheads a few days early.” Ned opened the passenger door and Caroline climbed in, noting the expensive leather interior, the air conditioning blowing quietly. He buckled his seatbelt and started the car. “I heard you sold a novel.”
Caroline had spent so much time hating this person that it was oddly perplexing to be in his presence, like meeting Vladimir Putin in a pottery class, or sharing a park bench with Elon Musk. She felt both deflated and righteous and didn’t know what to do with her face. “It’s based on the story in theNew Yorker.” She shrugged nonchalantly.
“Congratulations.”
Caroline looked at him like he’d dropped to one knee and offered her a rose. He was being inappropriately sincere. “Thanks,” she muttered.
“So, do you always row your boat outside the homes of women who hate me?” Ned asked archly.
“Palmer Preston’s first wife isn’t your biggest fan?”
“Nope. She actually threatened to sue us. Obviously, the studio lawyers have been through all this before, so I don’t think she has a leg to stand on. I mean, if the royal family couldn’t stop them from makingThe Crown, I don’t think Preston’s ex can stop a movie that his estate wants to make.”
“Why doesn’t she like it?” asked Caroline curiously.
“The script focuses heavily onTarbox.That book ruffled a lot of feathers.” Ned drove slowly down the sun-dappled road, curving past the grassy field full of dog walkers, past the hiking trails and houses nestled in the woods. It was annoying to see he was a comfortable driver. She’d been hoping an adulthood of taxis and subways meant he was as impaired as she was.
“I didn’t realize people had mixed feelings about Preston’s books. Itseems like he’s such a big local hero.” The town of Greenhead found any excuse they could to celebrate the man. They had a ceremony when they cut down the tree by his house, they had a party on what would have been his birthday, they probably had an envelope of his hair clippings in some barber shop for all she knew.
