The Summer We Started Over, page 1
The Summer We Started Over is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Nancy Thayer
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Ballantine Books & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thayer, Nancy.
Title: The summer we started over : a novel / Nancy Thayer.
Description: First edition. | New York : Ballantine Books, 2024.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023056257 (print) | LCCN 2023056258 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593724002 (hardcover ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593724033 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Young women—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | LCGFT: Domestic fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3570.H3475 S876 2024 (print) | LCC PS3570.H3475 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20231211
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023056257
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023056258
Ebook ISBN 9780593724033
randomhousebooks.com
Title-page art: dachux21 © Adobe Stock Photos
Cover design: Susan Zucker
Cover images: Ivan Gener/Stocksy (women), Shutterstock (beach path, sky)
ep_prh_6.3_146746586_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Nancy Thayer
About the Author
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one
Eddie Grant was surprised at how well her life had turned out, especially given what an eccentric family she’d come from.
Here she was, twenty-eight years old, living in Manhattan and making a six-figure salary as a personal assistant to the famous and beloved romance writer Dinah Lavender. Eddie got to travel with Dinah, eat at posh restaurants with Dinah, wear fabulous clothes, and meet fascinating people.
And the work she was paid for? She made reservations at restaurants, booked airline tickets, chose between USPS and FedEx when mailing off Dinah’s giveaways, and fixed Dinah’s computer when it confused her, which usually involved little more than turning it off and back on. She knew how to hem a dress in a pinch, help correctly sign documents, post photos on social media, answer Dinah’s hundreds of emails, and keep her shelves of books—the ones Dinah had written, over a hundred and growing—in order. Eddie had created a list of essential phone numbers for Dinah: her editor, her agent, her publicist, her stylist, her therapist, Luigi’s Fine Liquors, and Big Tony’s Pizza. She’d added them to all three of Dinah’s cellphones so that all Dinah had to do was push a button. She’d consoled her when a character in one of her books died, and only once had she reminded Dinah that Dinah was the one who decided his fate.
Dinah worked hard, tapping away at her computer, pacing the floor at night talking to herself about what her heroine should do next, weeping in a perfumed bubble bath because she didn’t like her newest book’s cover. When Eddie first applied for the job of personal assistant, Dinah had stipulated that Eddie live with Dinah, because the writer often worked night and day. Dinah lived in a handsome apartment on Park Avenue. She had people who cleaned and cooked for her, but they didn’t live in. She had friends to dine out and go to the theater with, and she received loving letters and emails from readers around the country, but she didn’t seem to have anyone special in her life.
Eddie had her own gorgeous bedroom and en suite bath. When Dinah had appointments or lunches or dinners, Eddie had free time to visit the Met or the Guggenheim, to see a movie or go out with friends, but she would often simply lie in bed reading. She had a walk-in closet filled with silk, cashmere, Hermès, Ralph Lauren, and Kate Spade. True, many of her clothes had been bought by Dinah for Dinah but she’d tossed them to Eddie before even wearing them. The two women were more or less the same size, although Dinah’s figure was substantially more hourglass.
Dinah was in her forties, and Eddie wondered why the writer had never married.
Maybe, Eddie thought, just maybe, Dinah, like Eddie, had fallen in love with a man who wanted more than she could give. Maybe Dinah was traveling all over the world and writing three books a year so she didn’t have time to think about the love that might have been.
The love that might have been—now there was a Dinah Lavender title.
But Eddie had promised herself not to think of Jeff.
Instead, Eddie thought about her sister, Barrett, who wanted Eddie to come home to Nantucket for a few weeks. And Eddie wanted to go. So much.
First of all, Barrett was finally going to launch her shop, Nantucket Blues, on Memorial Day. It was a huge, exciting undertaking for Barrett. The summer residents would be flocking to the island, and so would the tourists. It would be an enormous help to Barrett if Eddie was around to assist by simply being there. Moral support, Eddie supposed it was called. They’d always been there for each other. Eddie could also help with their father, a handsome, intellectual man who had been so weakened by sorrow that he’d escaped to a farmhouse on Nantucket, brought his daughters with him, and hid himself away writing a book Eddie wasn’t sure he would ever finish.
Also, Eddie hadn’t had an actual vacation in two years. As luxurious and glamorous as life was with Dinah, Eddie still missed home. She missed walking on the beach at sunset and munching a Downyflake doughnut and exchanging glances with Barrett when their father said something hilariously bizarre. She missed sitting on the back porch with a cup of warm coffee in her hands while she sweet-talked the horse, who would nicker with pleasure to hear her voice but canter away if Eddie tried to touch her.
On the other hand, Jeff was there.
Jeff was her age—twenty-eight—an island man who owned his own small but successful contracting business. He was tall, handsome, and funny. He read books almost as voraciously as Eddie did.
They met because of a book he bought.
Eddie, her father, and her sister had just moved from western Massachusetts and the memories there. They’d settled in a big old farmhouse on Nantucket. Eddie found a job immediately, working as a clerk at Mitchell’s bookstore. Located in a historic brick building at the corner of Orange Street and Main, the shop was cozy, bright, and filled with books for every age. Eddie knew something about books—she was passionate about reading, majored in English lit in college, and after graduating, worked for a year in New York, interning with an editor, which was Eddie’s dream job.
Or was it?
She’d been trying to figure that out when her mother left and her brother, Stearns, died, and the family fell apart. Eddie had given up her New York job to return to Williamstown and help her sister and father. Like them, she needed to be near her family to have the courage to continue. Helping them helped her keep up her courage.
After that terrible time, her father had resigned from his professorship at Williams College and sold their large and cluttered colonial house near the college observatory. Eddie and Barrett held secret whispered meetings and decided they had to move with him. They had to help him start again, and that would help them start again, too.
The chaos of packing and moving helped mask their grief and provided a much-needed sense that they were doing something. The moving van, the ferry crossing, and the choice of rooms in the big old farmhouse, all that was healing. Still, their father remained despondent, hiding in his office, intending to write a book, and buying countless books for his research as if they were drugs.
It had been spring by the time they were settled in the house, and businesses were hiring. Barrett worked in retail and waitressed all day and babysat when she had time. Eddie took a full-time job at the bookshop. She felt the pressure of her age weighing on her—she was twenty-five, and ready to start her real life, if only she could decide what that was.
One day Jeff walked into the bookstore, a tall, tousle-haired man in carpenters’ pants and a dark blue rugby shirt.
Well, now he looks interesting, Eddie thought.
He stopped walking. She couldn’t stop staring at him. She smiled. He smiled back at her, nodding as if accepting something.
Eddie said, “Hello.”
Jeff said, “Hey.” Coming closer t o her, he announced, “I’m here to buy a book.”
“That’s good. We’ve got books. Lots of books.” She waved her hands like a magician’s assistant to demonstrate the shelves of books all around them. Settle down, she ordered herself. That’s not possible, her lovestruck self replied.
He took a few steps closer. “I need a gift book. Like a book of photos. Of Nantucket. For my father.”
“Where does he live?” Eddie asked.
“On Pine Street.”
“Oh, Pine Street on the island?”
Jeff was standing next to the counter with the computer. “Yeah, I know it seems odd to give him a book of photos about Nantucket when he lives here, but…”
Eddie leaned on the counter, gently pushing a pile of books aside. “I think it’s wonderful. It must be amazing to live in a place you love so much that you want a book about it.”
“Nantucket’s special.” He cocked his head. “You must be new here.”
He’d missed a spot shaving his smooth, tanned, beautiful neck. She wanted to reach out and touch it. “I am. New here. We just moved here two weeks ago.”
“We?” He drew back slightly.
“Oh, no, not that kind of ‘we.’ I’m not married. I moved here with my sister and my father. We moved to the farm off Hummock Pond Road.”
“Nice.” He was tall, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed.
She took a deep breath. “I’m Eddie Grant.”
“I’m Jeff.” He held out his hand. “Jeremiah Jefferson, actually, but Jeremiah makes me seem like a prim old Puritan wearing a hat with a buckle on it.”
“I doubt that anything could make you seem like a Puritan,” Eddie said, and shook his large, warm, callused hand.
Another customer entered the shop, an older woman with hair like a frozen meringue.
Eddie forced herself to be professional. “Our coffee-table books are upstairs. Lots of gorgeous books about Nantucket.”
“So I should go upstairs,” he said.
“You should.”
“Could you come with me? I mean, to help me choose?”
She nodded toward the other customer. “I need to be here.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be right here. I won’t go away,” she told him.
“He’s not exactly leaving for the moon,” Meringue Woman snapped from her spot in the nonfiction aisle.
Eddie straightened her shoulders. “May I help you?”
“Just browsing,” the woman replied.
Eddie managed to maintain some kind of poise as the man went up the stairs to the second floor. The shop had other customers, and Eddie attended to them happily, knowing the man had to come downstairs sooner or later, and the other clerk was on her lunch break.
He came down after a few minutes, carrying a heavy coffee-table book about Nantucket.
“Beautiful book,” Eddie said, ringing up the sale and putting the book into a paper bag.
“Beautiful,” Jeff had agreed, his eyes meeting hers.
“Would you like a bookmark?” she asked.
“Sure. And I’d like to take you to dinner tonight.” As he reached for the bag in her hand, his hand touched hers, and he kept it there.
He was steady, and warm, and confident, Eddie thought. She wanted to turn her hand over and slide her palm against his. Of course that would mean she had to drop the book, and she wouldn’t do that.
“I’d like to go to dinner tonight,” she told him. “I get off work at six.”
“Good,” Jeff said. “That will give me time to show you some of the island.”
* * *
—
At six o’clock exactly, Eddie stepped out from the bookshop onto the sidewalk. The sky was still light, the trees lush with new green leaves, the window boxes spilling over with flowers.
“Hi.” Jeff was right in front of the shop, leaning against his truck. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely!”
Jeff held the door open for her and she slipped inside. He got into the driver’s side, and the cab was filled with his wide shoulders, long arms, handsome face. Being that close to him was exhilarating. Is it too soon, Eddie thought, for me to throw myself on him?
“Have you spent any time at Madaket?” Jeff asked as he backed out onto the cobblestone street.
“No. We’ve been to Surfside Beach a few times, but we’ve been too busy getting settled to see all of the island.”
“Good. I’m taking you to Madaket. It’s the western end of the island.”
“Sounds good,” Eddie said. She was insanely attracted to him in an urgent, visceral way. Madaket. The moon? She would go anywhere with him.
“Why are you named Eddie?”
Eddie laughed. “I’m Edna, actually. My father named his children after his favorite poets.”
“Edna St. Vincent Millay,” Jeff said.
He knows about poets. She said, “That’s impressive! Do you live here year-round?”
“Absolutely. I was born here. I grew up here. I went away to college, and I worked in Boston for a few years. But I missed the island, so I returned. I can’t decide if that’s a sign of strength or weakness.” He kept his eyes on the road.
“Strength or weakness?” Eddie thought about it. “I suppose that’s the way men would put it. I guess I would say that I have to choose between being responsible and being…free.”
“You must be the oldest child,” Jeff said.
Eddie glanced over at him. “How can you tell?”
“The oldest child feels responsible. The younger child feels he has to measure up to the powerful older child, especially if he’s male.”
“Ah. You must have a brother.”
“I do. And I’ll never measure up to him.”
Eddie joked, “What is he? A Navy Seal?”
“Actually, he’s an Army Ranger,” Jeff said.
“What? Really? Wow. You’re right. You never will live up to him. Do you have a younger sibling?”
“Nope. And thanks for that vote of confidence.”
They laughed together.
“The truth is,” Jeff continued, “he’s my hero. He’s four years older than I am. We used to fight when we were kids, but whenever I got in trouble, he had my back.”
“Were you a troublemaker?”
“Nah. Not a real troublemaker. I was a clown, mostly. Until I got into high school and realized that I’m better looking than he is.”
“Probably humbler, too,” Eddie said.
“Actually, yes. I am humbler than he is. He’s got a powerful ego. He likes competition, traveling, surprises, being tested.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t. I’m a pretty traditional guy. I’d like to have a life like my parents have. Live on the island, marry the woman I love, have a couple of kids, spend time with friends.”
Anxiety nipped at her. Before she had time to think it through, she added, “What about reading books?”
“Books are part of my life. Always will be.” Jeff pulled into a small parking area. “We’re here.”
She jumped out of the truck and followed him along a sandy path and up a high dune.
“Oh, wow.”
From here, she could see a long beach stretching into the distance, the blue ocean gliding up onto the shore, gentle waves breaking into white fans.
“Beautiful, right?” Jeff said. “Believe me, it’s seldom this calm. We’re on the ocean side of the island. The waves can be ferocious out here. I’ll bring you out sometime when we’ve got some wind.”
He’ll bring me out here sometime? He was already planning another time to be with her? Her knees went weak. She stumbled.
He caught her arm. “This dune is steep. It will be nice and flat down by the water.” He held her hand as they slid down the dune, and he didn’t let go once they were on the shore.
They strolled down the beach. The sun dazzled the water with colors. It was warm, and the air smelled like heaven.
