Page 6 of Summer Longing
“Well,” Dakota said casually, as if pointing out the obvious, “she does have the biggest Instagram following in the entire office.”
“Right,” Olivia said, her mind racing.It’s okay,she told herself.You’ve got this.The only answer to work problems was to work harder.
Elise and Fern closed the shop at six and, exhausted, retired upstairs for an early night.
The studio apartment above the tea shop had needed a lot of work. While the storefront had come with beautiful moldings and a filigree ceiling, the living quarters on the second floor had fallen into disrepair. Over the winter, a contractor had updated the electrical wiring and plumbing, plastered the walls, and stripped the floors. But the bedroom furniture had arrived just days ago.
Their first night in their summer accommodations, both Elise and Fern shifted uncomfortably in the unfamiliar bed.
Elise closed the book of essays and placed it on her nightstand alongside the blue candle she had bought to match the walls, which were painted a shade called Sapphireberry. At the shop, she’d been told the candle was for healing, forgiveness, fidelity, happiness, and opening lines of communication.
It’s going to take a lot more than a candle tonight,Elise thought.
She lit the candle.
Next to her, Fern paged through a short-story collection. Elise knew neither one of them could absorb a word of any book. They hadn’t spoken since midafternoon.
“Do you think this blue is too blue?” Elise said, to break the ice. She had selected the bright color herself, and Fern, who usually had a more conservative eye for interior design, had not protested. In an attempt to overcome Elise’s reluctance about renting out the house for the summer, Fern had given Elise a lot of leeway in decorating their new living quarters.
Fern closed her book and looked at her. “Are we going to talk about what happened today?”
Elise sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry a million times. It was a temporary freak-out.” She reached for Fern’s hand and Fern didn’t pull away. That was a good sign.
“We have a contract with our tenant. This is business,” Fern said. “What you did today undermined everything we’d agreed on.”
Elise nodded. Starting Tea by the Sea was a risk financially, and renting out the house for extra income was insurance. They were already renting the building Tea by the Sea was in and working long hours there. It made perfect business sense to give up the house for the summer.
Except Shell Haven was not business. It was personal. It had never been just a house. It was their first step toward starting a family.
Their decision to move to Provincetown was not based on the natural beauty of the place or the fact that Provincetown was one of the country’s oldest artists’ colonies. It wasn’t that it had two bookstores within a mile of each other and a magnificent library in between. It wasn’t that Commercial Street had only one traffic light (if you didn’t count the flashing light where Commercial and Bradford merged). It wasn’t the literary festival or the film festival or the wildlife sanctuary or the lobster rolls at the Canteen.
It was that they could live their life together without anyone raising an eyebrow. Ever.
But while they succeeded in finding their dream home, one thing had not come easily. Their first attempt at IVF failed. Their second attempt worked but ended in a miscarriage, as did their third.
Their fertility doctor, a specialist in Boston named Dr. Sparrow who was as tiny and birdlike as her name, tried to keep their attitudes positive. Elise clung to her words of encouragement like gospel. Still, it didn’t happen for them.
Frayed from the hormonal roller coaster, Elise barely recognized herself. She felt betrayed by her body for failing to carry the pregnancy to term. As for her relationship with Fern, it became less like a love affair and more like a business partnership struggling to get a failing endeavor off the ground. They were miserable.
“Enough,” Fern finally said after the second miscarriage.
“We can take a break,” Elise agreed.
“No,” Fern said. “Not a break. I’m done.”
She didn’t even want to try anymore. At first, her decisiveness was a relief. Elise was too emotionally exhausted to make rational decisions.
After a few months, when her head cleared a little, Elise thought maybe Fern could try to carry their child.
“Elise, I meant what I said. We can’t keep going down this road. Financially, physically—it’s not healthy. We gave it a shot, it didn’t work, and we need to be happy with what we have. Each other.”
“But we always planned to be parents,” Elise said.
“It’s out of our control.”
“You’re just giving up! What about what I want?”
But Fern wouldn’t hear another word about it. The last conversation had been over Valentine’s dinner at Napi’s Restaurant; they’d ended the evening with an argument and went to bed without speaking. There was a time when it seemed they might break up over it. But they’d gotten past it. Now there they were, sleeping in their new bedroom above the tea shop. Surrounded by bright blue walls.
