The Summer of Lost Letters: Chapters 15–20

I’d tamed my flyaway hair with a dime of product and finagled a French twist to keep it off my neck.

“Give me your phone. I’ll put in my number.”
I watched, rapt, as he followed through.

He managed a curt nod.

“You’re early.”
He didn’t deign to respond, which, fair.

“That wasn’t blandishment, was it?” I asked as we settled at the small wooden table we’d managed to snag from a family moving out. You had to be like a vulture to get a seat sometimes. “You didn’t have some secret motive for liking my earrings?”

I usually found temple boring in a familiar way, like eating oatmeal or unloading the dishwasher—occasionally tedious, rarely exciting, sometimes pleasant.

“I studied theater. Not the most lucrative career.”

Who would you rather have, Mom liked to ask. Niko's mom or me? Haley's mom or me?
And though I would have picked Mom every time no matter my actual feelings, I didn’t say you only out of filial piety: I said you because I meant it.

“Do we have to talk about this?” I said plaintively.

“Did you know,” Lexi said, leaning into Stella, “a whale’s limbic systems—the part of the brain used to process emotions—is more advanced than a human’s? So whales can feel more deeply than humans. Imagine if your best friends were being murdered and you were even sadder than humanly comprehendible. That’s how whales probably felt when Nantucket whalers were hunting then.”

“But they could have had a chance encounter, or an ongoing illicit affair.”

Wouldn’t admitting it bothered me be tantamount to admitting my interest in Noah?

We strolled casually, chatting about inconsequential things, though all I could think of was the look on Noah’s face when we talked about alibis.

Noah’s expression grew more and more austere. “I wouldn’t have thought he was your type.”

I gave him my best winsome smile.

The air was heavy, soup-like, and we moved languorously.

“How do you know Noah?” Tyler asked. His gregarious personality slipped slightly, a sharp, acute intelligence shining through.

I felt like I was on a precipice, daring and scared and about to force myself to jump.

“Are you sure? Yeah, I’d like to.”
Exultation rushed through me.

Did I think Noah would turn around and leave if the drain stopper and faucet in my bathroom sink weren’t polished? Would he deride me if my pillows weren’t plumped?

“This guy seems a little tired.”
“He isn’t. He’s stalwart. Why did your dad get mad at you because of a fight between your grandparents?”

“The Barbanels lose the controlling share and it goes to the Danzigers, and they could do whatever they want—oust my dad as CEO, give the control to his cousins, anything.”

I’d skip ahead a hundred pages and skim. I didn’t want spoilers, per se, but I wanted to know the feel of the book so I could align with it: make sure I was rooting for the right love interest, find out if the plot skipped forward ten years, learn if the best friend lived or died.

I’d come across déjà vu-inducing passages and wonder—had the author written the same sentence earlier in the book, like a villanelle poem? Or had I dreamed these lines myself somehow?

He swiveled in his chair and smiled up at me, a bright, beatific smile.

It whisked across the floor and shut us both in a tiny enclave of space, dark and private.

We clutched each other, mirth more hysterical than entertained.

Edward Barbanel towered over us, expression inscrutable.

Edward looked at me again, but this time I didn’t think he saw a granddaughter or a delinquent, but someone from the past. He smiled wistfully.

I felt...like I’d been standing in a room with no light and she was an incandescent flame. I remember her smile.

It listed the ship’s date and berth of both departure and arrival.

“You maligned my home!”
He fell backward on the boat, all mirth. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You take back your vicious insults.”

I would have shoved him if we were closer, but you couldn’t pay me to go within ten feet of him, despite the opacity of the water.

“And I have underwear.” Embarrassingly, I went red again. Apparently I couldn’t even mention something utterly mundane without blushing.

From Hyannis, we caught the Cape Flyer to Boston’s South Station, and then the Red Line whisked us to Harvard Square, that bastion of red brick and ivy.

I’d told Niko and Haley and Jane about the trip, too, and their suggestions had been diametrically opposed to my mother’s.

“So if British Kindertransport wasn’t about supporting the kids, what even was it?”
“Basically expediting visas and legally allowing more kids to enter the country, all at once. Applying for immigration was messy and expensive. You needed documents, the documents cost money, they expired, you had to get them again—you needed a sponsor so you wouldn’t be a financial burden—you needed ship tickets and interviews with the US State Department.”

Hamburg lay northwest of Berlin, not far from Denmark, a port city on the confluence of three rivers.

“My dad used to take us here to see the regatta each fall. He rowed for Harvard.”

“I don’t suppose he expects you to row, too?”
This time some wryness permeated his expression. “Nailed it.”