She also knew that Arietta wouldn’t spill the beans when Fred was around.
When they heard the car in the driveway, Shannon shivered with fear.
“Why don’t you bring him in? Introduce him to us?” Arietta suggested.
But Shannon shook her head. She needed to figure out what he’d brought her first. Her mind had been a mess of curiosity. Was it a book that reminded him of her? Something she’d left at his house that he wanted to return?
Also, she needed to see the look in his eyes and deduce if he was in love with her.
Shannon hurried out front, where she found Russell getting out of his car. The sight of him after so many weeks made her stop in the walkway in front of the house. Her pulse was fast and erratic. His hair had grown a little bit, which suited him. It made him look artistic and free.
“Hi,” Russell said. And suddenly, the spell burst between them. Shannon rushed over to him and hugged him—the way she always had when they’d been friends and friends only.
“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed into his ear.
Russell held her a little longer than he had when they were friends and friends only, though.
Shannon suggested they drive to her favorite private beach, the same one where, once upon a time, her mother had been a lifeguard who’d fallen in love with her father. They didn’t talk on the drive, maybe because there was too much at stake. Once there, they walked through the sand, Russell with a backpack on his shoulders and Shannon with her towel in her arms. It was slightly overcast, and this particular beach had fallen out offavor with most of the Nantucket elite, which meant they had the beach entirely to themselves. There wasn’t even a lifeguard in the lifeguard chair, which gave everything a ghostly feel.
Shannon tried to imagine her mother in that lifeguard chair, age nineteen, watching out for a beach teeming with beautiful Nantucketers. Her mother had been gorgeous enough to rip a handsome Nantucketer—her father—out of the orbit of his wealthy world.
It must have been a magical summer.
Shannon and Russell spread out their towels, then sat in silence and watched the water for a while. Shannon’s skin felt like it was on fire. She yearned to reach over and touch Russell’s hand. She realized that she’d been yearning to touch him for weeks, that her dreams had been busy with thoughts of him. But in her waking life, as she’d taken care of her father and tended to her mother and tried to figure out the drama with the blackmailers, she hadn’t allowed herself to engage with her own emotions.
She wondered what would happen if she kissed him now. She wondered if Russell would push her away. She wondered if he’d say it was a mistake.
“I do, you know,” Russell said finally, his eyes flitting to her. “I do have feelings for you.”
Shannon’s heart flipped over. She wondered if she was dreaming. “I have feelings for you, too.”
“Maybe I always did,” Russell continued. “I was committed to my relationship with Mimi. Of course I was. But lately, I’ve been wondering if it was the right relationship for me.”
“Me too,” Shannon said. “I wonder, sometimes, if I got into the first relationship that was presented to me rather than dating around and seeing who I really liked. Cole liked me first, so I fell in love with Cole.” She shrugged.
Russell nodded. “It’s strange how life goes. There are so many decisions we’re supposed to make when we’re too young to make them.”
Shannon thought of her mother, who’d married her father when she was younger than Shannon. Had Arietta ever regretted marrying Fred? Had she ever wondered if she was too young to make such an enormous decision?
“I’m so grateful that Cole broke up with me!” Shannon said suddenly, smiling. “But I feel pathetic that I didn’t know how to do it myself.”
“I feel the same.” Russell rubbed the tops of his knees.
Shannon thought about what the Salt Sisters had told her—that she didn’t need to get into a serious relationship right away, not so soon after her breakup with Cole. She and Russell could go on dates, kiss and talk about what they wanted in their lives. Maybe it would work out, and maybe it wouldn’t.
It was important, she knew, to try. It was important to open yourself up to change.
Rather than get into all that right now, though, she remembered, “You said you wanted to show me something?”
Russell grimaced and reached for his backpack. “I’m nervous to show you.”
“Why?” Shannon wanted to laugh, but something held her back.
From his backpack, Russell procured an envelope. At first, Shannon thought it was maybe an envelope from the blackmailers. Maybe they’d decided to target Russell, if only to get to her mother’s money some other way. But then she realized the envelope was yellow, with a note on the back that read "flashcards."
“It’s an old envelope that I used a few semesters ago,” Russell explained. “I found what’s in it in an old shoebox. Someonethrew them out.” His eyes echoed fear that Shannon couldn’t understand.
Shannon opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of photographs. She remembered how Russell had always liked to walk through the houses around campus and go through the boxes of things people were throwing out. He’d found lamps and old books. He’d found cashmere sweaters and exercise equipment and hundreds of photographs. Shannon had never understood why someone would throw out old photographs. Maybe they were photos of memories that were no longer important. Maybe they couldn’t bring themselves to throw their memories in the trash. Maybe they liked the idea of their memories having a life elsewhere.