Page 15 of A Novel Summer
Twelve
The Millers’ apartment above Land’s End looked the same as the last time Shelby had been there. The space was cozy, with wide wicker chairs, hardwood floors decorated with colorful Turkish rugs, and eggshell-colored walls decorated with black-and-white photography of Cape Cod wildlife. The main bedroom had robin’s-egg blue walls, an antique iron bed, and a view of the beach.
Shelby sat on the sofa and opened her laptop. After a quick pizza dinner, she was determined to get some pages written. Why wasn’t the book clicking? She’d been so frustrated she kept looking back at early drafts ofSecrets of Summerto remind herself that writing a bad first draft was normal. No, more than normal—it was necessary.
Maybe part of the problem was that she’d had her MFA program as a support system forSecrets of Summer. Now, she was writing in comparative solitude and a creative bubble. Without the academic structure for sharing work and getting feedback, Shelby hesitated to ask anyone to read her pages. It felt like an imposition now that they were all out in the real world. So she couldn’t get the same outside perspective to keep her on course.
But none of those things were the reason Shelby was writing so slowly. She suspected it was a much deeper problem: she didn’t feel connected to the story. When she wroteSecrets of Summer, she felt an urgency. She simply had toget the story out. Now, she had a contract, a deadline. And she’d do her job. But writing felt more like a waning marriage than a passionate love affair—not that she’d ever been married and, well, her passionate love affair didn’t end very well.
Someone knocked on the door. Startled, she stopped typing. It was something that never happened in New York; friends didn’t stop by unannounced. The only time her doorbell rang unexpectedly was when food delivery had the wrong apartment.
Shelby checked through the peephole and saw Duke Nestley. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and salmon-colored linen pants. His white hair was longer than when she’d last seen him.
“Duke,” she said, opening it. She’d anticipated seeing Duke at her Land’s End reading and had been disappointed when he didn’t show. He was one of the most passionate readers she’d ever known. The summers she’d worked at Land’s End, he stopped in nearly every day. BeforeSecrets of Summerwas published, she’d considered sending him an early copy of the book—what the publisher called an ARC. Then she decided not to, thinking the friendly gesture might feel more like a burden to someone with so much reading to do for work. But she left a signed copy for him at Land’s End. Now that she thought about it, she’d never heard back. Maybe he felt bad about missing her event, learned she was back in town, and decided to talk to her in person. Made total sense.
“Come on in.” She closed the door behind him.
“Hunter told me you’re helping out with the bookstore,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Crazy, right?” Through an open window she heard a neighbor’s music, the unmistakable synth of New Wave. Her summers in Ptown were like an auditory time machine. If she hadn’t lived there all those summers, would she have ever listened to New Order? Depeche Mode?
Duke played a part of her cultural education, too. Shelby, as Colleen’s friend, was included at his occasional dinner party or reading salon. She particularly recalled one enchanting night, before she moved to New York City, when the literary salon stretched until two in the morning. The house flickered with candles, the backyard was strung with lights, and Shelby basked in the company of writers, imagining the day when she’d be a real published novelist.
Her four summers in Provincetown shaped her more than any other time in her life. Surely, she would find enough to draw on to finish her second book.
Duke sat on the nearest chair.
“I haven’t said anything to you about your book because I haven’t known what to say.”
Shelby looked at him, startled. “Oh?” So that was it: he thought the book was bad. She felt her face flush.
“I have to admit I’m surprised—no, I’m hurt—with the way you wrote the character Royce.”
Wait—what? Shelby needed to sit down now, too.
Royce Jones was a secondary character in her book—part of what she thought of as the B storyline. She’d used some details from an old breakup Duke had told her about: a few years ago, he went to a party during Carnival week—the Mardi Gras of Provincetown—and mistook one of the masked revelers for his boyfriend. He realized his mistake as soon as they kissed, but also was quite drunk and things got carried away and before he knew it, he’d left with him. His partner found out and ended their long relationship. But inSecrets of Summer, she changed Carnival to a Halloween party. And not a single detail of the characters resembled Duke or his ex.
“Duke, I’m sorry,” she said, leaning against the couch armrest, her arms hugging herself. How had she so completely misread her own writing? How many other people had she offended with the book? “I would never intentionally upset you. And no one would ever connect you to the character in the book. It’s fiction and Royce is nothing like you.”
“The bumper sticker,” he said.
“What?”
“Royce has a truck with a bumper sticker saying, Gut Fish Not Houses.”
“Okay. And?”
“That’s my bumper sticker. On my truck.”
Shelby felt the color drain from her face. She’d only seen the truck parked in town. She liked the bumper sticker. She imagined she’d like the person who owned the truck. She used it in her book. As far as she’d known, that was the end of the story.
“I didn’t even know youowna truck,” she said. Locals didn’t drive in Provincetown during the summers. They biked; they walked. Fine, the occasional trip to Stop n’ Shop. But she couldn’t place a single one of her friends with a specific car, except the Millers’ blue Subaru. “I saw it on a car parked on Commercial,” she said slowly. “Out on the street. Not at your house. Not with you.”
Neither of them said anything. Shelby felt like she was holding her breath. He seemed sad, as if he wanted to believe and understood how much shewantedhim to believe her.
“Even if that’s true, you did know the Carnival story was mine. And changing it to Halloween doesn’t make it any less mine.” He shook his head.
Shelby swallowed hard. Had she lost perspective after moving away? Had she imagined more distance between her friends and her characters than there actually was?
