Page 63 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

Her brows are almost to her hairline. “He WHAT?”

If I wasn’t blushing before, I would be now. “He kissed me,” I say quietly.

“OH MY GOD!” Laurel’s never been great about controlling her volume. She hits the counter for emphasis. “How did you not lead with this?”

I shake my head. “It’s not going anywhere. I told him we can’t…we work together. I can’t do that again.”

“Because of Kyle?” She scoffs when I nod. “Ivy, come on. That was a really shitty, really unique situation. That’s not going to happen again.”

“I can’t go down that road a second time. No matter how unlikely it ending the same way might seem.”

“But you’re leaving at the end of the summer. Even if things went bad, it wouldn’t matter.”

“Exactly.” I nod once for emphasis. “I’m leaving. So even if things didn’t go bad, what’s the point?”

She surveys me carefully, then asks, “But what if they were great?”

And for that, I don’t really have an answer. If I leave Farnsworth, who’s to say that I can’t leave for somewhere specific? Somewhere like Ogunquit? I don’t need to run away to just anywhere that will have me. I can pick the place where I want to spend my life.

And what if I did move here? I could date Oliver, maybe rent this cottage a while longer, and work at the bookstore. Maisie did say she’d need to find someone else in the fall, and that she wanted to step back even further.

The idea hits me all at once and is so appealing, makes so much sense, that the logical side of my brain immediately slams on the brakes. My head starts to shake violently as if of its own accord. No. No, no, no. I’m not quitting my job to work retail at the beach with a guy I’ve only kissed once. Well, a few times. A guy who probably hates me now that I’ve rejected him. Even if his was the best kiss of my life.

“They wouldn’t be,” I say quietly, putting my mug in the sink and leaving the room as quickly as I can.

Laurel and I spend most of Sunday on the beach. The weather is perfect, with a warm breeze and just enough sunshine that the water feels shockingly comfortable. We splash in the waves, read our books, and even dig around in the sand a little with a red shovel another family accidentally left behind near our towels.

“This brings back a lot of memories,” Laurel notes with a smile when the waves start encroaching on the moat we’ve built.

“It sure does. In the old days, we’d be scrambling backwards, trying to build a new moat in a hurry right now.” I look at her questioningly, but she wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t think I have it in me to scramble anywhere today.”

“I don’t blame you.”

As recollections of our mutual pasts continue to run through my mind like a film reel, it occurs to me that I still haven’t told Laurel about the few diary entries of Eleanor’s I read the other day. Or about the missing pages. It’s been bothering me, not knowing why the pages are gone, or what happened to the man who won our grandmother’s heart at the dance hall. Why she married my grandfather if she was in love with someone else.

And I’m not sure I can really discuss this with anyone besides Laurel. At least not while my dad is still mired in grief. I decide to go for it. “I read some more of Eleanor’s diary,” I begin.

“Oh?” Laurel waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “Anything juicy?”

“Well, actually,” I shift up on my elbow so I’m facing her, “it seems like she might have enjoyed a physical relationship with her Prince Charming from the dance hall.”

“Must run in the family.” She grins smugly.

Comparing Porter to anyone my grandmother might have loved feels wrong to me, but I don’t want to insult my cousin. “It sounded like Grandpa actually helped set up a picnic on the Marginal Way for Eleanor and her paramour. And she and that guy maybe…consummated their relationship there when her parents thought she was out with Janie.”

Laurel gasps. “Wow, Grandma was a badass!”

I giggle a little. “Evidently.”

Laurel’s lying back on her towel, one arm draped over her sunglasses to block any light that might worsen her hangover. “What else happened?”

“Well, she cuts from the juicy stuff to her wedding in November. But there’s actually something weird—some pages are missing in between. Almost like someone ripped them out.”

My cousin doesn’t react. “The binding was probably just old.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I’ve been around books long enough to know how damaging time can be. But something about which pages are missing still strikes me as odd. It feels like they must contain critical pieces of the story. “Doesn’t it seem weird to you, though? She’s falling in love with this guy, she sleeps with him, and then she marries somebody else? And all the details in between are gone?”