Page 3 of Seven Summer Weekends

Addison waited in line for a ferry ticket. The woman who sold it to her was wearing a T-shirt with the wordsFire Island, Blissfully Unawareembroidered across her chest. Addison imagined her own version:New York City, Painfully Suspicious.Maybeshe could embrace the ferry worker’s version for her stay—heed her friends’ advice and reinvent herself a bit.

“All aboard, Bay Harbor,” the captain barked, causing Addison’s stomach to drop to her feet, nervous to step into the unknown. With four large bags, two hands, and a considerable line forming behind her, she contemplated her options, when a tall stranger offered, “Need a hand?”

She wondered if his words sprang from valor or impatience.

“I got it,” she insisted.

“Are you an octopus?” he asked with a hint of indignation.

Impatience, she decided.

“I am not.” She smiled in return, attempting to soften him. It worked; he reluctantly smiled back. She quickly sized him up: sarcastic tone, hard-to-earn smile. He seemed like the type of guy Addison usually steered clear of. She favored simplicity in a man. The you-get-what-you-see type.

I got this, she thought, but after a quick glance at the restless crowd behind her, she gave up and accepted. With two bags in hand, she followed the tall stranger to the roped-off luggage area on the boat and placed them down, knowing full well she would worry about her belongings the entire ride.

“Thanks again,” she said, and smiled before heading up the stairs. He matched her expression, and she noted the cute dimple that formed at the corner of his mouth and the mischievous twinkle in his eye. She also noted his ringless finger. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

Her friends had encouraged her to dial down her unapproachable, no-nonsense vibe and embrace hot-girl-summer energy. They dubbed her adventure the Summer of Addison, whichthey insisted must include a summer fling. But Addison was always better at easing into things than jumping off a cliff. When the tall stranger took his grumpy energy to the front of the ferry, she purposefully headed to the back.

Addison slid onto one of the blue metal benches that lined the boat, stared out at the bay, and soon became hypnotized by the whitecaps and the cool breeze running through her hair. She even forgot her troubles, until about twenty minutes later when the island came into view, snapping her out of it. Her stomach churned with excitement, like a bottle of pop at that first turn of the cap. The feeling surprised her. It had been a while since she had embarked on an adventure or thrown herself into uncharted territory. She had stocked up vacation days and lived in the same rental for the past ten years. Never took the time to move. People, especially in her building, had come and gone—getting married, relocating to other cities, fleeing to the suburbs. But Addison had remained where she was.

She thought about her decisions over the years, her broken engagement a decade earlier, new jobs Kizzy had unsuccessfully encouraged her to apply for, the insane amount of time she had wasted at the expense of all else to rise to the top at Silas and Grant. That last bit was the thing that kept her up at night. She knew her life had been unbalanced while it was happening, but she never set out to rectify it. It always felt like a task for another day. Plus, if she had to admit it, she felt much safer throwing herself into work than a romantic relationship with an uncertain future. She had no interest in heartbreak, yet ironically, as it turned out, being fired had cracked her right in two.

Chapter Four

As the boat did a one-eighty in the small basin, Addison headed down the stairs to beat the crowd and claim her luggage. She saw only two pieces, which worried her, until she spotted the tall stranger standing by the door holding the others. The boat landed and, first to exit, she could see him place her bags on a bench on the dock.

“Thank you,” she said, barely audibly and to no one.

She scanned the crowd, pondering which one was the real estate agent she was meant to meet. Smiling faces abounded, except for one. A woman on her phone wearing a conservative getup and Joan Didion sunglasses was shifting her weight impatiently from one leg to the other.Bingo, she thought. Clearly the only person who was there for business versus pleasure.

She was right.

According to Gicky’s attorney, Nan Murphy had been a real estate agent on Fire Island since she was in her late twenties. Now, at sixty, she had outlasted them all. Apparently, she was the child of an affluent New York City real estate family who usedall she overheard at family dinners to corner the market on this narrow spit of sand.

Addison wound her way through the chaotic crowd and approached her with a tentative “Nan?” The impatient woman suddenly morphed into agent mode. A big fake smile lit up her face, followed by a firm handshake and a “Nice to meet you.”

Nan had a golf cart—which was good because Addison’s heels would not survive the cobblestone walk. She helped Addison load it with her belongings. Their mode of transport felt weirdly elitist. Everyone else was fetching and loading up wagons—old-fashioned wooden versions with witty names carved on the back for the sentimental types or industrial-looking green plastic crate models for the more practical.

“There’s a wagon over there, somewhere, with your aunt’s name painted on it. You can come back for it whenever you please. Hopefully, she left the combination,” Nan said as their golf cart scooted off ahead of the throng.

“Wow, the streets are so narrow,” Addison observed.

“You call them narrow streets, we call them wide sidewalks. It’s our version of glass half-full.”

Ugh. The woman had her figured out already. So much for leaving practical, glass-half-empty Addison on the other side of the bay.

Addison guessed that people who chose to live on a tiny sliver of land where the threat of one big wave lingered constantly weren’t overly preoccupied with practicality. Not to mention the fact that they put up with all that schlepping to houses you could get to only by boat.

The broker looked down at Addison’s heels.

“First time?”

Addison blushed and smiled.

They heard the words “Hi, Nan” a dozen times between the ferry dock and the house. By the third or fourth, Addison felt compelled to ask, “Does everyone know you?”

“Everyone knows everyone,” Nan said dryly.

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