Winter Storms Read Free Page B

she’s taking the stool next to Potter and ordering a glass of sauvignon blanc.
    â€œPut that on my room,” Potter says to the bartender. He smiles at Ava. “I was hoping I would see you here. Gibby went up to bed.”
    Ava’s heart is a hummingbird.
    Potter says, “What do you say we go for a walk on the beach? It’s a beautiful night.”
    Ava sees no harm in a walk. There is a half-moon shining on the water, and the sound of piano music from another hotel floats down to the sand. They decide they’ll walk to the Viceroy and back; that should be enough time for Ava to describe her dilemma. She tells Potter everything: how she had been dating Nathaniel for two years and he took her for granted, how he went away the Christmas before last and maybe slept with his old girlfriend or maybe didn’t—Ava has never been brave enough to ask him—but while he was away, she hooked up with Scott, the assistant principal at the school where she teaches. She’d always known Scott liked her but she had never thought him sexy or desirable until… until he was nearly matched up with someone else. She dated Scott happily for a year while Nathaniel was conveniently away, working on Martha’s Vineyard, and then, as luck would have it, Nathaniel returned to Nantucket on the very day that Scott went on this weird do-good mission with this other hot teacher who had broken her ankle. That was in December, Ava tells Potter, and since then, she has been dating both of them, openly. Her best friend, Shelby, thinks she’s a wizard for living every woman’s fantasy, but Ava is feeling torn in half every second of every day. She would like to feel whole.
    â€œWow,” Potter says.
    â€œI’ve talked too much,” Ava says. They are nearly at the Viceroy; time to turn around. Potter is probably dying to get away.
    â€œNot at all,” Potter says. He reaches for her hand. Ava thinks maybe he hasn’t been listening. She is torn between two other men… and yet Potter is now holding her hand. His hand is large and warm and strong—more like Scott’s hand than Nathaniel’s, although not really like Scott’s hand at all—and holding it feels good. It feels like a fresh perspective.
    â€œWhy did you and your wife split?” Ava asks.
    â€œWe’re both in academia,” Potter says. “She’s a Shakespeare scholar, which is not an uncrowded field, I’ll tell you, and competition for spots is fierce. She got offered a tenure-track position at Stanford and I had the same at Columbia, but since I’d been working there longer, my salary was nearly double hers. At the time, PJ was two years old and couldn’t be separated from Trish, so he went with her. We both sort of thought we might be able to make a bicoastal marriage work, but it didn’t go that way. She fell in love with one of her teaching assistants.”
    â€œOh,” Ava says. “Ouch.”
    â€œHe’s British,” Potter says. “She loves the accent.”
    They’re almost back to the hotel but Ava doesn’t want the walk to end. She says, “Look, there’s our Sunfish!”
    Potter says, “Would you like to sit for a minute?”
    Potter kisses Ava as she sits on the bow of the Sunfish, just once, an exploratory mission, it seems, then they kiss again. And again.
    Potter pulls away. “I’d love to see you the next time you come to the city,” he says. “Or this summer on Nantucket. Can I give you my number?”
    â€œYes,” Ava says. “And your address. I’m going to send you a new hat.”
    Â 
JENNIFER
    S he drives to exit 5 on Route 3 South, pulls into the parking lot of the Mayflower Deli, and waits. At a quarter after twelve, the black pickup drives up and parks beside her. Jennifer removes the envelope of cash from her purse and gets out of the car, scanning the lot for police or anyone who