If I started towards the restaurant now, he’d see me, and I had enough on my mind. So I stalled as he passed, checking my reflection in my fingerprint-smudged back window. Who had been touching the outside of my car like this? It was tempting to blame Morris, but I knew that was just reflex.
“Emaline?”
Crap, I thought, even as I arranged a surprised look on my face and turned to face him. “Oh, hi,” I said. “Theo. Right?”
He nodded. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
It was a weird line, which—judging by the slight flush over his face—I was pretty sure he realized about the same time I did. It made him look kind of cute, though: like embarrassment worked for him. “So,” I said, “how’s the Clyde project going?”
“Good, really good,” he replied, stepping aside so a BMW searching for a space could pass on his right. “We’ve gotten some great interviews with locals this week. Up until now there’d been a lot of resistance, for whatever reason.”
“Really.”
He nodded. “Ivy says it’s often like that in rural areas when you come in asking questions. There’s a sense of protectiveness of the subject, a need to keep away outsiders.”
“Or maybe,” I said, “it’s just that nobody has anything to say.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “Clyde Conaway has a real story. Even if part of it is that no one wants to tell it. Actually, I was thinking that I needed to get in touch—”
“Emaline!”
I turned, and there was Benji, about a foot taller than the last time I saw him, running in that sloppy, ten-year-old way right towards me. He was grinning and his hair was too long, hanging in his face. When he was about an arm’s length away, he launched himself right at me, throwing his arms around my waist.
“Hey,” I said, surprised by this sudden show of affection. Benji had always been sweet, but we’d seen each other only a handful of times, each separated by multiple months. “How are you?”
“Good,” he said, still hugging me tight. I looked over his head, to the Subaru, where my father was standing watching us, his keys in one hand. As soon as our eyes met, he started walking, as if he had to be sure it was me first. “We’ve been in the car forever.”
“I bet.” I ruffled his hair, because that’s what you do with kids this age (I thought). Must be, because he loosened his grip, stepped back, then looked squarely at Theo. I had not been planning any introductions, but now they seemed unavoidable.
“Um,” I said, very much aware of my father coming ever closer, “this is my brother, Benji. Benji, this is Theo.”
They exchanged hellos, and then my father was joining us. Unlike Benji, he didn’t look all that different from the last time we were here. Same black-framed glasses, same kind of clothes: a white button-down shirt, jeans and loafers, no socks. “Hello,” he said to me, and then somehow we were hugging, quickly and awkwardly. “How are you?”
“Good,” I said, already stepping back. “How was the trip?”
“Great. The hardest part was getting out of the city. The GW was backed up for miles.”
Theo smiled. “It always is.”
My father looked at him for a moment, then extended his hand. “Luke, right?”
“Actually, no,” I said quickly. “This is Theo. He’s down for the summer.”
“From the city,” my father said, clarifying.
“I’m in school at NYU,” Theo told him.
“Studying what?”
“Filmmaking. I’m down here doing an internship with a documentary filmmaker.”
“Really.” My father looked surprised. And oddly, pleased. “I know a few of those. Who is it?”
“Ivy Mendelson.”
“Cooper’s Way,” my father said. Theo smiled, nodding. “I saw that a couple of years back at the Tribeca Film Festival. What brings her to Colby?”
“This artist, Clyde Conaway?” Theo replied. “He’s from here. So we’re doing background, interviews, getting footage.”
“Right, right.” My father looked at me and smiled. I was not sure what was going on here. Then he said, “So . . . are you joining us?”
Just then, I heard a beep, followed by an engine approaching. I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Luke: his truck had had a loose tailpipe for months now, and I could hear it loud and clear as he pulled into a space somewhere behind me. There was a bang, and the sound of rattling keys. He was a jingler, too.
“I’m just picking up some food, actually,” Theo finished. “For the third night in a row. Ivy thinks this is the only place on the island where she can get anything other than a shrimp burger.”
“She’s right,” my father—who had not lived here since before my birth—told him.
“Did somebody say shrimp burger?”
Of course that was Luke, ambling up behind me. His hair was damp, his skin pink from a day in the sun. I couldn’t help but notice that he and I were the only adults not wearing designer eyewear. “Hey,” I said, as he wrapped one hand around mine.
For a beat we all just stood there, staring at each other. Then Luke, who was capable of being social in any situation, stuck out his free hand to Theo. “Luke,” he said.
“Theo.”
“You must be Emaline’s father,” Luke said next. They shook, formally, and then he pointed at Benji. “Little man. Benji, right?”