Nantucket Red (Nantucket Blue) by Leila Howland Read Free Book Online Page A

called Easy Spirits. They were the ugliest shoes I’d ever seen, but Mom insisted that there was no way to be a good waitress without comfortable shoes. She should know. She’d waitressed all through college and teacher school. I extended the handle and tilted it on its wheels. I slid my purse over my shoulder and tucked it safely under my arm. My picture of Nina was in there, and I didn’t want anything to happen to it.
    “Don’t forget this,” Mom said, handing me the lacrosse stick I’d almost left in the backseat.
    “Oh, yeah, thanks. I’m going to need that.” I had to practice my stick work. Stacy, the Brown lacrosse coach, was going to be posting weekly videos with practice drills, and we were supposed to be running an average of five miles a day. I stuck my lacrosse stick through a loop in my backpack.
    “Well, I have one more thing for you,” Mom said. “I figured since you found mine so interesting last year, you might as well write your own.”
    She handed me a package. I unwrapped it. It was a journal. It was dark purple with gold along the edges of the paper. It smelled like real leather. It felt solid, substantial. I put it in my purse with the picture. “Thanks, Mom.”
    “Oh, and I almost forgot. Paul said to call him if you need anything. He’s out there pretty much full-time through August.” She handed me the business card of Paul Morgan, the lawyer I met last summer on the island and tried to fix her up with before I realized he was gay. They were now Facebook buddies who always liked each other’s posts. “Stick it in your wallet so you won’t lose it. You’re doing the right thing,” Mom said, taking my face in her hands, “but it doesn’t mean I can’t be a little sad for myself. I was looking forward to us being roommates.”
    “Oh, Mom. You and Brad are good together. You don’t want me around.”
    “What if I do? What if I need you?”
    “You’re going to be fine.” I hugged her, grabbed my own wrist behind her back, and squeezed her tight.
    “Hey, you’re going to be fine, too. Aren’t you and Jules friends again?”
    “Kind of,” I said. I hadn’t even told Jules I was going back to Nantucket. I kept making myself promise I was going to tell her by the end of the hour, the end of the morning, the end of the day, but here I was, about to get on the ferry, and she still didn’t know.
    “And what about Zack?”
    “I can’t think about that.” I felt a wave of seasickness even though I was still on land.
    “Remember, there’s nothing more attractive than self-confidence.”
    “But Mom, I’m trying not to think of him at all.”
    “Oh, well, in that case.” She fished around in her purse and pulled out a Sharpie. As a teacher, Mom had a Sharpie and a dry-erase marker on her at all times. I was about to ask her how she knew about Parker when she uncapped the Sharpie and drew a big blue number eight on my palm.
    “There. So you keep your eyes on the prize. Eight thousand dollars.” She glanced at her watch as I studied the inky evidence of her most un–mom-like move to date. “Honey, you have to go. Your ferry is going to leave any minute and you still need a ticket.”

Twelve
    “ CALM DOWN MISSY , you’ll make the two o’clock,” the Santa Claus look-alike at the ticket counter said as he slid me my change and added, “but you’ll have to step lively. The heavens are about to open.”
    “Thanks.” I stuffed the bills in my pocket, grabbed my roller bag, and pivoted toward the door. The rain slicked the pavement as I darted to the boat, handed my ticket over, and clambered up the metal ramp, the last one aboard. As I yanked my bag over the gap between the ramp and the deck, my lacrosse stick slipped out of the loop on my backpack.
    I bent down to pick it up and my purse slammed against the cold, wet deck. My picture of Nina, I thought. I slid to my shins. My hood fell off just as the rain escalated from shower to downpour. I shoved the purse