Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

Ava is so in love with the beach shack that she takes a picture of the menu and texts it to Kevin, saying, You could do this at home! Quinns’ on the Beach! Kevin and Isabelle are running the inn, but Kevin has been looking for a second business opportunity. This is it! Ava thinks. Isabelle is a fantastic cook; she will be able to figure out the smoked-tomato tartar sauce, no problem.

Ava’s reverie is interrupted by Potter and Gibby. “You’ve discovered our secret,” Potter says. “We’ve eaten here six days straight.”

“Jonum, phtzplz,” Margaret says. Ava puts a hand on her mother’s arm. The last thing Margaret needs is to be photographed with her mouth full of shrimp taco. She’ll end up front and center in Us Weekly ’s “Stars-They’re Just Like Us!” (They talk with their mouths full!) Besides, Ava fears Margaret was trying to say Join us, please.

“We’re almost done,” Ava says, though she’s taken only two bites of her heavenly sandwich.

“Hey, do you want to go for that sail later?” Potter asks.

Ava looks up at him. He’s wearing orange board shorts and a white polo shirt. He has a little bit of gray in his dark hair, and his eyes seem very blue, probably thanks to his tan. He’s way too handsome for her. He must be pursuing her because she’s Margaret Quinn’s daughter.

“Let me see how I feel later,” she says.

The blue eyes light up. “Great!” he says.

When he and Gibby walk away, Margaret says, “You’d be a fool not to go.”

“Mom,” Ava says. “I have too many men in my life as it is.”

“Sometimes what you need is a fresh perspective,” Margaret says. “Go for a sail. It’s not like you’re marrying the guy.”

Ava decides to ignore the fact that Potter is so good-looking and go for the sail. The first thing that happens is that the wind whips Potter’s Cisco Brewers hat right off his head, and before either of them can react, it’s dancing off toward the horizon.

“My favorite hat!” Potter says.

“Don’t worry,” Ava says. “I’ll get you another one.”

Potter Lyons is thirty-six years old. He’s divorced and has a five-year-old son, also named Potter Lyons (though he goes by PJ), who lives with his mother in Palo Alto, California. Potter has a doctorate in American literature and teaches English at Columbia University. He wrote his dissertation on Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and he teaches the most popular class in the department, which is entitled the Nautical Novel: From the Odyssey to Spartina . He lives in a three-bedroom condo on the Upper West Side, only ten blocks north of Margaret, and he owns a sailboat, Cassandra, which he docks on the Hudson.

“Was Cassandra your wife?” Ava asks.

“My grandmother,” he says.

Potter then tells her that his parents were killed in a car accident when he was in high school, and his grandparents-Gibby and Cassandra-took over raising him.

“My grandmother died a few months ago,” Potter says. “So I planned this trip for Gibby. He needed to get away.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ava says.

“But enough about me,” Potter says with a grin. “What do you think of me?”

Ava laughs. She thinks he’s charming and smart, and she loves that he brought his grandfather on vacation.

“Just kidding,” he says. “I want to hear about Ava.”

“We’d have to sail to Cuba and back,” she says.

He says, “I like complicated women. But just start by answering me this: Are you single?”

“No,” she says. “I have two serious boyfriends.” She is embarrassed by how absurd this sounds. “I love them both. I can’t decide between them.”

“Well, you know what that means,” Potter says.

“What?”

He winks at her.

By the time Ava and Potter pull the boat back onto the shore, Ava has a fresh perspective: There are men everywhere-cute and smart and successful and available. Her choices aren’t limited to Nathaniel and Scott.

She really likes Potter, for example.

“Do you want to meet for a drink later?” she asks.

“It’s our last night,” Potter says. “I think I’d better keep it just me and Gibby.”

“Oh,” Ava says. “All right.” She feels a little… stung. How is this possible? She’s been alone with this guy for only an hour. She wonders if she said something that turned him off. Possibly the thing about two serious boyfriends.

She hastens back to the infinity pool, where she finds Margaret lying on her chaise, eyes at half-mast. Ava is very proud of her mother. She works at her laptop for only an hour in the early morning, and she calls Drake every night before bed. Margaret is nothing if not disciplined, and on this trip she has been very disciplined about relaxing.

“How was the sail?” she asks. “Helpful?”

“Sort of,” Ava says.

That night, Margaret and Ava wander down the beach to a place called Straw Hat, where all of the chandeliers are made of straw hats. It’s the most charming thing Ava has ever seen, although she wonders when the hats will catch fire.

Ava drinks too much at dinner and starts to cry. “How did you know about Dad?” she asks Margaret. “How did you know he was the one you wanted to marry?”

“I was young and in love,” Margaret says. “I didn’t think about it. When he asked, of course I said yes. Kelley was amazing. He’s still amazing. We wanted all the same things. We wanted careers in New York, we wanted a brownstone on the Upper East Side, we wanted three or four children. And guess what? We got everything we wanted, but we couldn’t handle it. One of us had to give in, to concede, and that ended up being your father.” Margaret takes a sip of wine. “A better question was how I decided about Drake, because I was very unsure for a long time. But then I realized that all marriages are a leap of faith. You love as hard as you can, you try to think of the other person first, and you hope for the best.”

“What does it mean that I can’t pick between them?” Ava says. “I like them both exactly the same amount, but for different reasons.”

Margaret smiles. “I think it means you should keep your options open.”

Ava and Margaret decide to have a nightcap at the bar at the hotel-and there, sitting alone, is Potter.

“Actually,” Margaret says, “I should call Drake. He has an early surgery tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll head up to the room,” Ava says. “I don’t want to sit here by myself.” But at that instant, Potter sees Ava and waves hello. Or maybe he’s waving her over; Ava can’t tell.

“I’ll just say good night now,” Margaret says. “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart.”

Ava watches her mother leave the bar and she nearly follows her out, but in another second, she’s taking the stool next to Potter and ordering a glass of sauvignon blanc.

“Put 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.