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Caroline’s at this moment are something along the lines ofWhaaaaaa? Is this happening?Is Dylan McKenzie really walking up to her?
Dylan McKenziesounds like a character fromBeverly Hills 90210,and Dylan looks like one too—thick dark hair that’s weekend-mussed, defined cheekbones, and soulful brown eyes. Caroline thinks he might have gotten hotter since she last saw him—and how is that possible?
Caroline first meets Dylan at a bonfire at Clark’s Cove when she’s sixteen and Dylan is eighteen. She knows who he is, naturally, because he’s hot and popular—a lacrosse star at Nantucket High School who’ll be going to Syracuse on a full ride. He marches right up to Caroline, beer in hand, and Caroline thinks he’s going to tell her she’s too young for the party or that summer kids aren’t allowed.
But instead he says, “You’re Caroline, right? Your mom and my mom were friends growing up.”
Caroline nods eagerly, relieved she isn’t being asked to leave, though she isn’t sure what he’s talking about. “Your mom is…”
“Tatum,” Dylan says. “Tatum McKenzie.”
“Yes!” Caroline says. Hollis has mentioned that someone called Tatum—it’s a memorable name—was her best friend, her “partner in crime,” though Caroline highly doubts there was any actual crime, her mother is so square. Caroline never paid close attention to the Tatum stories, because what does her mother’s ancient history have to do with her own life? Nothing—until this moment. Caroline has never met Tatum; if pressed, Caroline might say she’d assumed the mythical Tatum had moved away or even died.
“They werebestfriends,” Caroline says. “Partners in crime.”
Dylan grabs two Twisted Teas and leads Caroline to a spot in the sand where they sit down side by side. He asks where she goes to school (Wellesley High), where she lives on the island (Squam), if she plays any sports (soccer, but she sucks; she perseveres only because it looks good on college applications). Dylan enlists a sophomore to fetch them each another drink, then he notices Caroline shivering and asks if she wants to move closer to the fire or wear his Whalers hoodie. Obviously, she takes the hoodie. Caroline’s friend Cygnet watches with wide eyes from the other side of the bonfire; Caroline can feel her phone blowing up in her pocket but she doesn’t want to text with Cygnet while she’s sitting next to Dylan McKenzie wearing his sweatshirt.
At some point, Dylan’s leg taps against Caroline’s leg and then their bare feet commingle in the cold sand and she thinks,Dylan McKenzie is into me. How is this possible? Caroline is nowhere near the prettiest girl in Wellesley; she’s not even in the top ten (there are a lot of pretty girls in Wellesley). But that summer, Caroline has undergone something of a metamorphosis. Her hair has lightened to a sandy blond, she’s grown a couple of inches and developed a waist, and her skin has finally cleared up. When Dylan puts his arm around her shoulders, she thinks,This is happening. It kind of makes sense: Dylan lives on an island, he’s probably sick of all the girls he goes to high school with, and Caroline is someone new.
But then there’s a disruption. Someone kicks sand in Caroline’s face and knocks her drink over. Dylan leaps to his feet and grabs the arm of a girl who looks like a young Kate Moss.
This girl glowers at Caroline and says, “Take that sweatshirt off and get the hell out of here before I cut you, you bitch.”
“Aubrey,” Dylan says. “Chill.”
Caroline is so flustered, so intimidated, and so anxious to shed the sweatshirt that she pulls it off too quickly and takes her T-shirt along for the ride, flashing the entire party her pink Victoria’s Secret bra. There are whistles and whoops; Caroline’s face burns hotter than the fire. She and Cygnet beat a hasty and ignominious retreat while Aubrey shouts threats at their backs.
In the middle of the night, Caroline plays that scene in her mind the way itshouldhave ended: With Caroline casually, carefully doffing the sweatshirt, balling it up, handing it to Aubrey, and saying,Sorry about that, psycho.
The next day, when Caroline tells her mother she met Dylan McKenzie (she doesn’t get into the details), Hollis sighs. “I should have figured the two of you would meet at some point. You know, for a long time, his mom, Tatum, was my best friend in the world.”
“Okay, so, like, what happened?” Caroline asks.
Her mother shakes her head. “I moved away,” she says. “And Tatum stayed.”
The following summer, Caroline sees Dylan and Aubrey at Cisco Beach. By this point, Caroline has done some digging on Aubrey Collins and learned that Dylan and Aubrey have been together—if social media is to be trusted—for a long time. (There’s one Instagram post of five red roses for five years of dating.)
When Dylan notices Caroline, he waves (in her seventeenth summer, Caroline has fully blossomed, boobs, booty, and all), and at the same moment, Aubrey flips Caroline off, which answers the question of whether she should go over to say hello.
For a few years, Caroline doesn’t see Dylan either in person or online. His Instagram account vanishes. Caroline goes so far as to follow the Syracuse lacrosse team’s account, but she spies him only once, as a freshman on the bench. He doesn’t appear to be on Snapchat—or if he is, Aubrey has made him block Caroline, which is amusing to think about. Hold grudges much? It was ahigh-school party!
Caroline next bumps into Dylan as she waits to pick up her family’s order from LoLa Burger. Caroline is deep into her phone when she feels a tap on her shoulder, and there stands Dylan in all his super-hot glory. Dylan asks where Caroline is working for the summer and she says that she just finished a six-week film course in Rome and has to be back in the city by mid-August, so there wasn’t really time to commit to a job.
“Do you babysit?” he asks.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Caroline says. “No.”
“Too bad,” he says. “I could use someone. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old named Orion.”
“Youdo?” Dylan is a couple years older than Caroline, but even so, she thinks of him as her age, and people her age don’t have children of their own. She wonders if Aubrey is the mother, then tries to imagine what Aubrey would look like pregnant (the phraseswallowed a watermeloncomes to mind).
Before Caroline can ask, her order is called. The bag smells seductively of hot, crispy truffle fries. Caroline smiles at Dylan, thinking,He got beautiful, bitchy Aubrey pregnant and now he’s a father at twenty, what a waste!“Good seeing you!” she says. “Bye!”
Lights, camera, action!Caroline thinks. There’s no more time for backstory; Dylan is upon her.
“Hey there!” she says. She looks at Orion, who, as if scripted, is doing a weird-little-kid thing—sucking on a piece of fatty bacon. “This must be your son. He looksjustlike you.” (Caroline is stretching the truth; the kid has a pudgy, mottled face and fair, flyaway hair.)
Dylan is staring at Caroline as intently as he would be if she were directing this scene—Inhale her with your eyes!—and Caroline dearly wishes she’d blown her hair out that morning rather than defaulting to messy bun.
