The woman shifted her gum from one side of her mouth to the other and pointed at a little table by the window. “You can squeeze in there until something opens up,” she said, handing Sylvie a menu.
Miffed but not wanting it to ruin her night, Sylvie went to the chair by the window and texted Mike to find out what happened. They must have messed it up.I have a little table by the window, but we can just call it for the night if you want. Grab another drink somewhere else?She sent it and studied the menu for a little while, expecting the glass door to burst open and reveal blond-haired and broad-shouldered Mike, maybe in a black shirt and pair of jeans, because he liked to change after spending all day at the office. He always said he didn’t want his silly office life to bleed over into his real one. She liked this about him. He knew what mattered in this world existed outside of a conference room. It existed outside of an Excel sheet.
But two minutes, five minutes, and then twelve minutes went by, and Mike still wasn’t there. He hadn’t texted, either. Sylvie checked her phone and decided to order herself a cocktail anyway, thinking that maybe if the servers asked her where her date was, she could lie and say something had happened.Everyone will think I’ve been stood up,she thought, momentarily saddened, before realizing this was a funny joke she could tell Mike later on. He’d say, I hope you gave them quitea show! I hope you cried a little. The sad girl stood at the bar. Boo-hoo.
Sylvie ordered a bright blue cocktail, one that she never would have ordered otherwise, but she’d wanted something silly and sweet, something that made her think of the big blue earth from outer space. She’d wanted to joke about that to Mike, too. But she drank through nearly all of the bright blue cocktail before her phone rang. She yanked it out of her pocket, expecting to see Mike’s name on the screen. But it read “unknown.”
It was a Nantucket area code. Her heart surged.
Not now,she thought.Don’t do this to me now.
But even as she thought it, she didn’t know what she meant.
When she didn’t answer, whoever was calling hung up and tried again. Sylvie’s hands began to shake. A server came by to ask if she wanted another cocktail, and she was so surprised that she nodded and ordered a second. That was when the voice message came in on her phone. She listened to it right away.
“Sylvie Bruckson? I’m terribly sorry to bother you like this. I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I could, but I understand that eight thirty is really too late for a phone call like this. My name is Timothy Everett, and I’m a friend of your father’s. I’m also his lawyer. Give me a call back when you get the chance.”
Sylvie’s pulse was going a thousand miles an hour. My father’s lawyer? She shot to her feet and considered what to do. Her options seemed to be: stand there like an idiot as everyone at the bar stared at her, wait around like a chump for Mike to show, or drop a wad of cash on the table and run. When she opened her wallet, however, she realized that she didn’t have enough cash for such an expensive cocktail. And when the server returned with her second drink, she realized she’d have to pay for two. It took forever for the server to come by with the cardreader, and by the time she did, Sylvie had worked herself into a panic. Everything about the world felt wrong.
“Honey, you shouldn’t let a guy do this to you,” the server said, sensing Sylvie was upset. “He’s showing you who he really is, you know?”
The server was maybe fifteen years younger than Sylvie. Her face said: pathetic.
Sylvie wanted to protest. She wanted to tell the server that she wasn’t freaking out about Mike’s sudden disappearance and that her “freaking out” was about a far more difficult and heavier subject, one that the server couldn’t possibly understand. But wasn’t she sort of also freaking out about Mike? Mike had never done something like this to her before. He’d never not shown up when they’d agreed on a time. What if he didn’t make a reservation after all? What if he got the date wrong? What if, what if, what if?
Sylvie shot out of the bar, feeling like a maniac. She alternated between thinking she’d call the lawyer back immediately and get to the bottom of what was really going on and thinking she’d take a cab to Mike’s place and yell at him about standing her up.Better yet, I’ll fall into his arms and cry,she thought, waving her arms to hail a taxi.
But just as a taxi screamed to the curb, she heard her name and turned to find Mike running up to her. Just as she’d thought, he’d changed into a pair of jeans and a cool button-down. But his eyes were filled with dread. Something was wrong.
“Hey! Hey.” Mike gasped and staggered to a halt.
The cab stopped, and the driver glared at Sylvie for wasting his time.
“Let’s get in,” Mike said, but his tone was stiff and all wrong.
“What?” Sylvie sputtered. Tears filled her eyes.
“Let’s get in the car, Sylvie,” Mike said again. He ripped open the door and gestured for her to slide in. He went in after herand snapped his hand on the leather passenger seat, telling the driver Sylvie’s address.
Sylvie felt as though she were deep underwater. Her heartbeat was murky, and her hands were moving in front of her in slow motion. “What’s going on, Mike?” she asked.
Mike kept his face straight ahead and his hands cupped on his knees. “I’ll explain when we get to your place.”
Sylvie thought she was going to throw up. She felt as though she’d been thrown into a blender with the power turned all the way up. When the driver dropped them off, Mike paid with a swipe of his phone and led her up the walkway, watching her intently as she removed her keys with shaking hands. Beautiful people streamed past them, walking dogs, their laughter twinkling. Sylvie heard the cab drive away. When she dropped the keys for the fourth time, her heart lurched, and she turned to look into Mike’s eyes. She remembered that she'd been watching him only a month ago in Thailand, waiting for him to propose to her. Now, she had the sense that she was looking at a stranger.
“Mike, tell me what’s going on right now,” she stammered.
Mike’s forehead was slick with sweat, which was strange because it had dipped below sixty degrees by now. He was clearly panicking, too. She fought to swing over and kiss his face, to pretend everything was all right.
“Let’s just go in, Sylvie,” Mike begged. “Please.”
Chapter Two
It wasn’t the first time Graham Ellis had handcuffed himself to a construction site. Because he’d previously protested everywhere, from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica to Nigeria, it wasn’t even the worst weather he’d experienced while performing such a feat. But late April on Nantucket could see anything from rain to sleet and sun to violent winds, and the morning he locked himself to the bulldozer had a little bit of everything. At seven, buttercream sunlight crept across the Nantucket Sound, but by seven thirty, when the first of the construction crew came to work to find him there, clouds boiled on the horizon. Rain spat in his face.
“What’s gotten into your head?” one of the guys in a yellow hard hat asked him.
Graham set his jaw. “The construction of this resort will ultimately destroy thousands of Nantucket organisms and alter the microbiome of the Nantucket Sound forever.”
