“Right, but.” Augusta looked at the teenager who was tallying up her groceries, as if for help. The teenager smiled bashfully. “Never mind. Did you each have a honey stick? Are those fifty cents? Let’s make sure to pay for those.” Augusta pulled out her wallet.
Caroline wanted strawberries, but even more fiercely, she wanted to say something to Augusta. She wanted to apologize, but what if Augusta hadn’t seen the story? Had Fran told her about it? She didn’tknow, she felt hot and nervous, and before she had time to decide Augusta looked up and they locked eyes.
“Hi, Augusta.” Caroline quickly rushed toward her. “Hi. I’ve been meaning to reach out to you.”
Augusta’s face changed in an instant. It was as though a cold breeze had blown up through her body. Her nostrils flared slightly and her eyes unfocused, looking through Caroline and beyond.
“Jane? Charlie? Can each of you take one of these bags of corn out to the car? I’ll just pay.” Augusta turned and plucked her credit card from her wallet and held it over the reader.
“Mom…” Jane looked back and forth from Caroline to Augusta, confused.
“Come on, children. We don’t talk to strangers. Let’s go.” Augusta tucked her card back in its leather pocket and slung a net bag over one shoulder. She collected her receipt and folded it neatly, slipping it into her purse before hefting the flat of berries to her chest. She breezed out, her children trailing behind, sucking on their straws of honey.
Caroline stood there, awash in humiliation. The cashier looked at her curiously. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned and scurried to her car. No strawberries. No pretty rhubarb or purple beets. She sat with her hands on the wheel, dust swirling in through the open windows, coating her throat, making it impossible to breathe.
Blood And More Bugs
Years ago, Caroline had read an interview with Joan Didion, who talked about her work as a journalist. She said that some of her success was because she was so small. She could take up very little space and became nearly invisible, free to spy unobserved. Well, Caroline hadnow rendered herself invisible too. Augusta had blanked her. Fran had blanked her. She was the ghost of Greenhead, alone and unseen, and instead of feeling free, Caroline felt like a piece of shit.
She started going to the grocery store in Topsfield, afraid of running into someone at Marini’s or the Greengrocer. She made coffee at home instead of going to Zumi’s. When she walked at Crane Beach or in the dunes, she wore a low hat and sunglasses, like a disgraced celebrity incognito. She kept hoping to run into Van, hoping to explain herself, but she didn’t. It was July, it had been six months since that cold winter day at Castle Hill, six months since she’d seen his face. At night she had dreams of Van, vibrant and sometimes highly sexual, Van appearing in her cottage, kissing her, explaining in great detail how she needed to help him build a boat out of old plastic bottles. One night Caroline woke from a dream so vivid she felt sure Van was right there next to her in bed, certain his hands had just been on her body. When she realized she was alone, the grief was so sharp she couldn’t stand to roll back over alone, and she threw off her sheets and stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water. It was like being haunted or being possessed. It was like going insane. She was desperately in love with a person who had utterly vanished.
She pulled out her phone and opened Instagram, finding the page for Crane Castle where they sometimes used Van’s pictures of nesting plovers or beach roses. Van had an account, he never posted anything himself, but she saw that he had liked a photo of a horseshoe crab. She toggled over to his profile to see if he’d posted a picture of Dylan, but he hadn’t. His page still contained one sad photo of a tick and nothing more, his profile picture a gray outline of a head. Caroline meant to navigate away but somehow, instead, her thumb hit the call button. The screen changed to a green phone and Caroline realized with horror that she was calling Van at three in the morning. She jammed herfinger on the red button to hang up, pounding the screen until it disconnected, flooding her body with relief. Thank Christ. She pictured Van across town, asleep in Bailey’s bed, his phone charging next to him. The next time he logged into Instagram he might see a missed call but knowing how disinterested Van was in social media it could be months from now, or he could never even notice.
Caroline’s phone rang, a piercing shriek in her silent cottage, and she jumped, hand shaking.
“Hello?”
“Hey, did you call me?” Van sounded sleepy, his voice low and quiet.
“Oh, God, Van, I am so sorry. It was a butt dial. I’m so sorry.” Caroline made a silent screaming face at the dark window of her kitchen.
“I wasn’t asleep. I was on my phone scrolling.”
“Still, I’m so sorry about that. Total accident.” Caroline bit her lip.
“So, it was a butt dial?”
“Yeah, my mistake.”
“Caroline,” Van said, his voice teasing. “You know nobody butt dials anymore. That was a Nokia thing. You have an iPhone.”
“No, I know—”
“And I’m not sureexactlywhat you’re doing at three in the morning, but I feel like your phone wasn’t in your back pocket?”
“Van…” Caroline groaned. “Ugh, I was looking to see if you posted any baby pictures on Instagram.”
“Oh,” Van said softly, and she heard a catch in his voice. “I haven’t. But I could send you some. If you’d like.”
“Yeah, I’d really like that.”
“Okay, I will.” They were both quiet for a moment. “Anything else you’re thinking about?”
He said it so kindly, with so much care, that Caroline felt a longing spread all the way from her throat to her stomach. He was the nicestman she had ever met. “I fucked up,” Caroline croaked, her voice breaking. “My story. I made everyone so upset.”
“There have been some big feelings,” conceded Van. “But that’s what writers do, right? You write about what you know, you write about the people you know.”
“It’s all I’ve ever been able to do. I can’t just make it up.”