Page 90 of Summer People
I nod but force my lips into what Libby would claim is a smile. What else am I going to do? ThePink Ladynow resides in the yard next to Hunter’s boat. I want to be irritated. I’ve tried, but I gave up after I pulled up yesterday and found Sutton and Libby, clad in bathing suits, lying out in the boat, reading the second Baby-Sitters Club book together.
The boat will never putter around in the ocean. It barely made it to the island as it is. But it could be fun on a lake. Maybe I could rent a slip on lake Sebago. Or maybe buy a lake house. We could leave the island for weekends sometimes.
It’s so easy to picture the three of us on the lake. I don’t know about water skiing, but the girls would love tubing.
“You’re smiling about this?” Wilder’s voice jars me from my daydreaming.
I swallow. More and more, I find myself lost in the idea of a future for us. It’s a topic I need to bring up to Libby soon. Because it’s already August.
Which reminds me… “When are you sending Nicole home?”
Groaning, he runs his hand over his patchy attempt at a beard. “Dude, I’ve tried. But she’s a teacher and she doesn’t go back to work until just before Labor Day. She just keeps staying. She’s been in and out of the inn and rented two different cabins. Even my beard doesn’t scare her. She thinks it’s cute.”
I wince. I wish I could say the beard had filled in over the last month. It has not. It’s still as ratty and awful as it was on the Fourth of July.
“Something’s not right there.” He slumps back in his seat.
“Your five minutes is up,” Libby says, tapping Wilder on the shoulder. “The meeting’s about to start, and I’m sitting next to Fisher.”
With a deep sigh, my best friend shifts over.
“All right,” Cank calls from the front of the room. “Who wants to start?”
Libby raises her hand, and when Cank nods her way, she says, “I have a suggestion.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“Well, I have a list.”
I run a hand over my face and stifle a groan. Here we go.
She clutches my thigh. “Shush, you. It’s for your own good.” Straightening, she affixes that bubbly smile to her face again. She’s always excited, and although I’m wondering what she’s getting me into now, I can’t fucking stop smiling.
Wilder glances past Libby and cocks a brow at me. I ignore him, choosing to focus on the front of the room rather than allow him to silently give me shit for being happy. Who’s he to talk, anyway? He’s wearing the crazy rooster shirt.
Libby clears her throat. “I think we are over-utilizing our sheriff.”
What the fuck? I whip my head around and gape at my girlfriend.
Without even looking my way, she pats my leg. “We don’t pay him. And yet we use him for pretty much everything.” She takes a deep breath and stands. “We need a mailman.”
All around me, people shrug and nod.
As my face heats, I sink lower in my seat.
Worrying her lip, she eyes Doris. “And the grocery store needs their own delivery person.”
Doris tuts and crosses her arms. “Well, maybe people should stop ordering difficult stuff.”
I straighten instantly and glare at the older woman. I’ve warned her more than once to be nice to my girlfriend. Maybe the diet ginger ale and the sherbet are items she can’t order in bulk since they likely won’t sell well to the rest of the island, but nothing Libby has requested has been extravagant. Sure, Doris doesn’t make much money off Libby’s orders, but she’d do it for others without complaint.
The older woman shifts nervously in her seat, realizing she has now earned my ire.
Libby’s shoulder drops just a bit and she swallows thickly. But then Flora giggles, and my girl’s back straightens.
She cocks a brow in the baker’s direction. “And clearly we need an exterminator for Flora’s squirrel problem.”
Cank chuckles, though he quickly covers it up with a cough. “Anything else, Ms. Sweet?”
