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“I know,” he says. “I was watching you. I thought you might be looking for me.”
“What?” Hollis says. “Why didn’t you say something?”
He sighs. “Oh, Holly, because you weren’t mine anymore.” He reaches for her again. “Come here.”
She leans into him and without even thinking about it, she raises her face to his and they kiss, despite her tears and her runny nose. Hollis’s emotions are heightened,operatic,and tagging right along with her grief and confusion is her desire. How long has it been since she’s been kissed like this? She and Matthew were a long-married couple; they didn’t make out. Somewhere along the way, kissing like this—with hungry, nearly desperate lips and tongues—just stopped happening.
But now, with Jack, it’s ecstasy. Hollis can’t get enough. The years fall away from her, she’s a kid again, seventeen years old, parked in this very same spot in late August of 1987. She’s leaving in the morning for Chapel Hill. She wants—needs—this to be a kiss they both remember the rest of their lives.
Jack pulls away and Hollis thinks,Right—what are theydoing?She isn’t ready for this kind of thing (though she does, in the moment, feel very ready). She wonders if Jack just isn’t into it. Mindy, after all, is ten years younger than they are. He might not want to be kissing a fifty-three-year-old woman.
“Headlights,” he whispers. “Over there. Are they coming this way?”
Hollis follows Jack’s finger—through the trees, she sees a car. She wills it to turn off onto another path—the moors are crosshatched with narrow sandy roads—but the lights are coming straight for them. Is it the next generation of young lovers hoping to park here? She waits for them to notice the spot is occupied (by a couple of old people) and move on. Then she says, “Do you think it’s Kyle and Tatum?”Thatwould be funny. It’s possible they guessed where Hollis and Jack would end up, and at Tatum’s insistence (she’s the prankster), here they are.
The car gets closer and Hollis says, “Should we just go?” There’s nothing more incriminating than getting caught in a parked car. But it’s too late now; the car has pulled behind them, blocking their way out of the Round Room.
“Oh, shit,” Jack says.
It’s the Nantucket police.
Eeeeeee!Hollis thinks.This is truly mortifying.In all the times she and Jack parked here, they’d had only two snafus: the dead battery (it was how they learned not to play the radio unless the engine was running) and getting stuck (during a particularly muddy April). They’d never been caught by the police; the cruisers back in those days couldn’t make it down these roads. The vehicle behind them now is an SUV.
The officer gets out of the car—Hollis hears his door slam, though she’s too embarrassed to turn around—and a voice says, “Good evening, folks. How we doing?”
Jack opens the door and steps out and Hollis thinks,Just let me disappear.
Jack says, “Holy cow!Kevin?”
Officer Kevin Dixon can’t believe his eyes. He swings by the Round Room on a routine check (rising seniors Zack Crispin and Abigail Montero have been parking here lately, and he told them next time he’d call their parents), but it’snotZack and Abby this time, it’s a couple Dixon’s own age. It’s not only a couple his age, it’s Jack Finigan and Hollis Shaw.
What?Dixon thinks. Has he stepped into a time machine? Is it 1987 all over again?
“Holy cow! Kevin?” Jack says. “It’s Jack Finigan, man, how the hell are you?”
Dixon shakes Jack’s hand, then brings him in for a bro-hug. Jack Finigan was a tight end and one hell of a blocker for Dixon at tailback. Dixon hasn’t seen the guy in freaking eons; he never comes to any of the reunions. “Good to see you, man.” He turns to Hollis. “Hey, Holly, how’re you doing?”
“Hi, Kev,” Hollis says. She gets out of the passenger side and comes over to give him a hug as well. Dixon has seen Hollis around, mostly driving—in this very Bronco, come to think of it; it’s a beauty, hard to miss—but they haven’t talked much. One year he saw her at the Pops, another summer he bumped into her at Wicked Island Bakery (she was after the morning buns; he wanted the egg sandwich with short ribs). Dixon’s ex-wife is obsessed with Hollis’s website and actually brags to her friends that Dixon and Hollis went to school together. And of course, Dixon read in the paper that Hollis’s husband died. Was that this past winter or the winter before? Dixon is getting to the point where the years blend. He won’t offer condolences on the husband because it’s pretty clear that Hollis and Jack are here together. Like,together-together. That’s very funny because isn’t this the place where Hollis and Jack used to park in high school? Theyownedthis spot back in the day; nobody dared challenge them for it.
Dixon wants to ask what they’ve been up to, maybe congratulate Hollis on all her success, but it’s obvious he interrupted something out here. Hollis’s hair is mussed and she has dark mascara tracks down her cheeks. The last thing these two probably want to do is chat.
Dixon raises a hand. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m just on the lookout for kids drinking or smoking. It’s so dry this summer that one cigarette butt could set the moors on fire. Anyway, good to see you both.” He laughs. “You were definitelynotwho I expected to find!” Dixon heads back to his car and as he backs up, he watches Jack and Hollis climb back into the car.
Good for them,he thinks, and he chuckles about it all the way back to Milestone Road.
38. What Happens at the Box
The first person Caroline sees when she walks into the Chicken Box is… Dylan McKenzie.
Wait—what?she thinks.
He’s standing at the bar by himself, and when he sees Caroline, his face brightens and he holds out a cold Corona.
“I hope this is okay,” he says. “They don’t have Pol Roger.”
“Um, hi?” Caroline says. “What are you doing here?”
“We had a buyout tonight, private party, so I finished early and I figured you’d be here.”
