Page 7 of What August Heard
“Hey, sexy.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
A pause. “What’s up? Fletcher, I just called to hear your voice.”
I looked out the window. Thirty-two floors of organized city. “Right. Sorry. You all packed for the trip?”
“I am, yes, but I’m out shopping right now. I want to get a swimsuit that matches yours. Can you send me a picture of your swim trunks?”
“I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
“You just answered your phone in a meeting?”
“It just ended.”
“So send me the picture.”
“Margaux.”
“Fletcher, it’ll take two seconds—”
“I’ll send it later.”
She made a sound, short and pointed, like air going out of something small. “You’re always busy. You’re always too busy.” Then, before I could answer: “Fine. I’ll look through my online orders and find something that works. I also need to get gifts for everyone in your family.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I do. This is the first time I’m meeting them not just as Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy’s daughter. I’m coming as your girlfriend. I have to make an impression.”
“They’ll like you as you are.”
“Fletcher.” She laughed, the way she did when she thought I was being simple. “I can’t just show up. I have to show up correctly. Anyway, I have a spa appointment in twenty minutes so I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yeah. Tonight.”
“Bye, sexy.”
She hung up.
I kept the phone in my hand for a moment. Then I set it face-down on the corner table, next to the dahlias.
The flowers smelled like the farmer’s market. Like Millhaven on a Thursday afternoon. Like something I had decided, a long time ago, that I didn’t get to keep.
I picked up David’s corrected file from the printer and sat back down at my desk.
I had work to do.
***
Chapter 3
August
Callie’s car smelled like sugar and flowers the entire two hours from Millhaven to Sable Cove, and I had talked for most of it. About the market, about Cliff, about Gerald’s new rattle that I was choosing to ignore. About everything except the one thing sitting in the middle of my chest like a stone I kept stepping around.
When we turned into the driveway, I stopped talking.
The Sable Cove estate did that to me every time. It was the kind of house that looked like it had always been there, like the ocean had grown up around it instead of the other way around. White-washed walls, wide wooden decks, and a patio that looked straight out at the water. Every summer I walked in here and felt, for a few seconds, like I had transitioned into someone else’s life by accident and decided to stay.
