by Grace Palmer
Along with every other tree, shrub, and plant on that side of the road. Gone, every leaf and twig gone with them. All to make way for a barren patch of land, in the middle of which hulked a sign proclaiming this as the future site of—
Well, something.
The usual soft morning light felt piercing without any trees for coverage, and Mae had to squint to read the sign as her eyes adjusted.
Whoever was behind this boondoggle had worked very quickly indeed. The grass was ripped clean of the ground, the dirt levelled, a foundation poured. A wooden two-by-four skeleton had gone up overnight, looming over the street like a monster.
Dominic lifted a finger and pointed at the garish sign now staked into the dirt alongside the road, as if Mae wouldn’t see the monstrosity. And as a could passed over the sun, she could finally make out what it said.
COMING SOON: The Sweet Island Hotel. Brought to you by Boston Investment Group.
Mae read the sign again and again, her eyes snagging at the same place each time.
Sweet Island… Hotel.
“They can’t do that,” she breathed in horror. “They cannot possibly be allowed to do that.”
From where they sat in the middle of the road, Mae could see the top of her inn just over the trees. Unlike this apparent hotel, her bed & breakfast sat back from the road, tucked away behind a row of neat, vibrant trees. There was a sign staked next to the gravel driveway—a simple thing, though, just a quaint wooden board with white-painted letters in need of a touch up.
It was homey. Modest. Gentle.
This was the farthest thing from that. The sketch presented on this neon board showed an infinity pool in the back, a wrap-around porch, and a fenced-in dog park next to a children’s playground.
It screamed “Big Hospitality.” It screamed “lots of money.” Most of all, it screamed the beginning of the end for Mae.
“It’s a money grab,” Dominic dismissed between clenched teeth. “Just another attempt to profit off the success of the movie, I’m sure.”
The movie hadn’t become a cultural benchmark by any means, but in the right circles, it had caused quite a fuss. A few opinion columns had made claims in the Nantucket Daily that Dominic was a hero to the local tourism board.
All the chatter had led to some legal trouble. Nothing so terrible—a mere nuisance at worst. The first issue had been someone plagiarizing large sections of Dominic’s book, which his lawyers had shut down immediately.
Then a woman in Boston had falsely claimed her inn was the real inspiration for Dominic’s book, going so far as to forge reviews for her establishment in Dominic’s name. Again, Dom’s lawyers made quick work of things.
This felt much more serious indeed.
“But this is the name of my inn,” Mae said, reading the sign for the tenth time as if doing that might change what it said. “It has nothing to do with your book.”
“Tangentially, it does. Your inn has been mentioned in all of the press about the movie, too. Clearly, these business types want to capitalize on the buzz.”
“They’ll eat me alive.” The words slipped out of Mae’s mouth before she could stop them.
Dominic shifted the car into park in the middle of the road and turned to Mae. “No, they certainly will not. I’ll talk with my lawyers. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“How?”
“A cease-and desist letter, for starters. I bet they could have one sent out by this afternoon.”
The cloud Mae had been floating on was now hanging over her head. She’d been thinking about announcing her engagement this afternoon. Instead, she’d be sending out letters of legal jargon in an attempt to save her inn.
How romantic.
“Trust me,” Dominic said, squeezing just above her elbow. “We’ll fix this.”
Mae wanted to believe him. He said all the right things and sounded like he meant them.
But this felt bigger than a measly letter. Bigger than deleting some plagiarized book listings and removing some false reviews. This was a building. An entire hotel, sprawling and luxurious. Right down the street from Mae’s inn.
She didn’t see how that could be cease-and-desisted out of existence.
2
Eliza
Mid-Morning—Stop & Shop Grocery Store
The bill kept climbing.
Bread, milk, and eggs slid down the conveyor belt and across the red laser, bringing the total on the screen closer and closer to a number that terrified Eliza. Every beep of the scanner felt like the countdown to a detonation.
Had milk always been so expensive? No, right? Well, yes, of course it had; this was Nantucket and it being an island and all made everything pricier, but surely this was worse than ever?
“Were these Honeycrisp or Gala?” the cashier asked, holding up a shiny red apple.
She was young. A high school student, if Eliza had to guess, judging by the unburdened, dewy glow to her skin. She probably lived at home. Rent-free. Oh, how good she had it. She didn’t even know. She didn’t have the faintest idea.
When Eliza didn’t answer, the girl thrust the apple out so she could see. “There’s no sticker,” she explained.
Gala apples were cheaper, but Honeycrisp had a better flavor, or so Oliver said. He’d seen some documentary about how they genetically engineered them for maximum something-or-other and yada yada yada, and now he refused to eat anything else.
Eliza considered lying. The girl was waiting for her to answer. Just say Gala. You could use the savings. Just say Ga—
“Honeycrisp,” she blurted. She winced as the cashier punched in the code.
Boom. Another twelve dollars. Gone.
Eliza managing the family’s finances had always made sense. She used to be an investment banker, she was good with numbers, et cetera. But that skill meant next to nothing as the cashier dragged more items across the scanner. Six dollars for a pack of strawberry-banana baby yogurt. Four dollars for a box of Cheerios.
Eliza tallied the prices in her head, one step ahead of the cash register, but no amount of mental math could change the total in their bank account.
And Oliver had no clue.
More than once, him picking up a gig at a last-minute wedding in ‘Sconset had been the difference between paying the electric bill or not. They’d dipped into overdraft territory two or three times during the fall, and each time, Eliza waited until Oliver took the girls to the park before calling up her bank and begging them to spare her the penalty.
Eliza never told him. Why bother? It hadn’t come to that. They’d always made it, always scraped by, and she hadn’t the slightest of doubts that they always would. It was Eliza’s job to manage the finances, so she would. So far, she had.
Strawberries were in season. Wasn’t that supposed to make them cheaper?
Beep. Nope.
A bagger arrived, another high school student with hair curling low over his ears, and shoved the strawberries in a plastic bag. Too late now. No turning back.
Pressure built in her chest, pushing against her ribcage. Her lungs stretched uncomfortably. Yet Eliza couldn’t breathe, couldn’t inhale or exhale the way she was supposed to. Most of all, she couldn’t stop imagining her family.
They’d be playing at home right about now, Oliver no doubt marooned on the living room carpet with an ocean of toys around him. Winter had taken a shine to a Dr. Seuss book that Eliza had bought the week before, a story about an elephant named Horton. It was the only thing she wanted to read. Eliza had the whole thing memorized from front to back.
Right now, it felt like Horton was standing on her chest. His meaty elephant paw pressing down on her sternum, driving every last bit of air out of her.
“Any cash back?” the cashier asked, flipping the end of her dark brown ponytail over her shoulder.
Was it Eliza’s imagination or did the cashier sound smug? Like she already knew there was no extra cash to be drawn from?
“No, thanks.” Eliza wouldn’t let the gi
rl get to her. She’d keep her head high. Maintain what little dignity she had left.
“That’ll be $121.45.”
She could already feel it—the pushing forward of her shoulders. The sinking of her chest. Her body folding in on itself, disappearing beneath the crush of Horton’s big, stupid foot as she inserted her card into the card reader.
She’d gone twenty dollars over budget. Twenty dollars that would have to be found somewhere else. Maybe she could cancel Netflix without anyone noticing. Maybe she could talk Oliver into staying in for date night. Eliza could offer to cook.
“Have a nice day.” The cashier smiled and held out a long receipt for Eliza to take.
The fluorescent lights overhead burned hotter, brighter, like a stage spotlight illuminating Eliza for everyone to see. It couldn’t be just her imagination, could it, that the grocery store suddenly felt warmer? Sweat was building up under her collar, and as she reached for the receipt—with herky-jerky movements, like a wooden puppet lacking joints and grace—she could swear she felt it trickling down her wrist.
Eliza needed to get out of the store.
Then she’d be able to breathe. Once she was outside, Horton would lift his foot and set her free, grant her a moment to catch her breath and compose herself.
Eliza shoveled the grocery bags back into her cart as quickly as she could and made a beeline for the exit. She kept her head down as she went, because it felt suddenly as though every person in the store was staring at her and her alone. The cream tiles on the floor were chipped, the polish flaking away under the stress of thousands of feet walking over them every day.
One foot in front of the other. Breathe. Breathe. Brea—
“Ah!” Her cart jolted to a jarring stop. Someone had yelped in surprise.
She’d T-boned another cart coming into the store. The woman pushing it had dropped her purse in the accident and was bent over picking up the spilled items.
“I’m so sorry,” Eliza muttered, pulling her cart back.
She was a few steps shy of the exit. No sweat—she’d just manage this little oopsie-daisie and then be on her way with a minimum of conversation, out into the sunshine where Horton had promised to relent and let her breathe.
The woman’s car keys had slid underneath the rack of red plastic shopping baskets to Eliza’s right. Eliza bent down to pick them up. “Range Rover” was stamped into the chrome backing.
The woman stood up and turned, brow furrowed until she saw Eliza. Then she smiled. “Eliza?”
Eliza stammered a nonsense response. Nothing but strangled sounds.
The woman grinned and, instead of grabbing the car keys Eliza was holding out to her, wrapped both of her hands around Eliza’s, squeezing tightly. “Eliza Benson, I can’t believe it’s you! How long has it been?”
Her nails were long and polished with white French tips. They bit into Eliza’s skin. Had someone turned up the temperature? Eliza was sweating. Her heart thundering against her ribcage.
“I suppose it isn’t Benson anymore, is it?” the woman continued, ignoring Eliza’s ongoing silence. “Your mom told me you got married when I ran into her at the hair salon.”
“Hair salon?” Eliza sounded like she’d never heard of the term before.
“Cindy’s, down at All That Jazz? She’s a magician with these wiry grays.”
Eliza didn’t notice any grays in the woman’s perfect helmet of hair at all. Just golden blonde, sprayed within an inch of its life.
Try as she might, Eliza couldn’t place the woman. She recognized her, vaguely. But there was no name filed away in her mind. No clue as to how this woman might know Mae and none whatsoever why she should know anything about Eliza.
“How have you been, darling?” the woman asked, shifting her hands from Eliza’s hand to her elbow. “You just had a baby, right?”
“Last June.”
How fast twelve months with Summer had gone! And yet, it seemed longer in some ways. Especially since they’d spent most of the cold months in and out of the hospital for a cough that lingered in Summer’s lungs and refused to leave. The preemie baby was still on the breathing treatments (fifteen dollars and sixty cents per treatment, three to four times daily—the number flashed in Eliza’s head like skywriting).
“A year already? Goodness, how time flies.” The woman smiled wistfully, shaking her head. “I’m still waiting on my Lauren to give me a grandbaby. She’s so busy with that coffee shop, though. I’m not sure she’ll ever settle down.”
Lauren. Two Birds Coffee. That’s how she knew this woman.
Eliza hadn’t been to the shop in a few months—who could spare six bucks plus a tip for a latte that made her heart race and her hands shake?—but she knew Lauren. They’d gone to school together.
Eliza let out a stifled chuckle and smiled, but Lauren’s mom’s eyes crinkled in concern.
Oh no. She wasn’t playing this right. Everyone knew. She was falling apart and everyone could tell.
“I’m good,” Eliza choked out.
Truthfully, she’d lost track of the conversation. What had the woman asked? Had she asked anything at all? Eliza couldn’t remember.
“How are you?” she finished, shifting the focus from herself.
The woman’s expression eased immediately. “Fine as ever. Lauren is good, which is all that matters to me. I’m actually here buying stuff to make a roast. It’s her birthday tomorrow. She loves roast.”
“Oh. Mhmm.” Eliza was crumbling, and Horton was stomping on her chest now, crushing her, squeezing her ribs until they’d give way and then smushing the rest of her to jelly.
“We thought about taking the boat out, but with the weather turning tomorrow, we’ll probably just stay in.”
Right. The storm. Brent had mentioned a storm the day before. Eliza had asked how he knew, since he never much bothered with checking the forecast anymore, and he’d said, “When you know the ocean as well as I do, you notice the subtle changes. She’s riled up.”
“You and your husband and the kids should come for dinner sometime,” Lauren’s mom was saying. “And invite your mom and Dominic, too. I’d love to catch up.”
“Okay. Sure. Sounds lovely.” Eliza had no idea what she was agreeing to. She just needed to get out of the store.
The automatic doors opened and closed as customers entered and left. Occasionally, a bit of outside air reached Eliza. She yearned for more of it. The store felt stale, stagnant, like standing in a boiler room in a knitted sweater.
“Here.” The woman dug into her purse. “I’ll write down my number and—”
Eliza’s vision blurred at the edges. She was going to pass out. She needed air, stat, and she couldn’t linger with this woman and her non-gray helmet of hair for a moment longer.
“Good seeing you,” Eliza said, slapping a smile on her face. “Tell Lauren I say hi.”
“Well, hold your horses, dear, don’t you—”
“Bye!”
Eliza had to get out. Now. Everything in her body told her to move or she would die.
So she moved. Even as Lauren’s mom called after her, Eliza kept moving. Through the automatic doors and into the parking lot. Immediately, the sea-soaked air washed over her, and the pressure eased slightly.
Eliza inhaled deeply and then pushed the air out, letting it hiss between her teeth. She did that twice more as she walked across the hot asphalt lot to her car.
Once her groceries were loaded in the backseat, Eliza ramped her shopping cart into the grass median and left it. She hated when people did that, but she didn’t dare go back inside. The thought of running into Lauren’s mom again or the smiling cashier with the nice skin made her stomach churn.
Exhaustion is all this was. And as a new mother, who could blame her? Eliza simply didn’t have the energy for small talk or making plans with people she barely knew, and if she had to scurry away from that interaction—a little bit rudely, she’d be the first to admit—then oh well, no harm, no foul.
And besides, she’d been right about the fresh air doing her heaps of good. She was feeling better and the tightness in her chest had eased. Horton the elephant had lumbered off.
So long as Eliza didn’t overextend herself, she could manage.
She had to. There was no other choice.
3
Sara
Little Bull Restaurant
There was nothing quite like the first day at work after a week-long vacation.
As she walked back in through the double doors of Little Bull, Sara couldn’t decide whether she wanted to shred her chef coat into a thousand pieces or to kiss and hug every inch of the stainless steel countertops.
She’d missed her kitchen while she was in Charleston. The unique perfume of lemon-scented cleaner, seared meat, and powdered sugar in the air couldn’t be replicated.
Admittedly, that might be for the best. As far as candles go, it wouldn’t exactly be a bestseller. But Sara liked it. She’d also—guiltily—liked handing the reins to Jose for a week while she and Joey lounged poolside at the hotel on someone else’s dime.
A culinary advocacy group called Rising Stars had sent Sara a letter several months back informing her she’d been awarded the organization’s premier award. Should she be interested, a paid, week-long trip to Charleston would be arranged. While there, Sara could attend the ceremony and the accompanying entrepreneurship conference to hob-knob with big shots and drink sweet tea vodka cocktails to her heart’s content.
Turned out, Sara had been incredibly interested.
Joey, however, had expressed doubts. “They are just giving you an award?” he’d asked.
“And a trip,” Sara had reminded him, holding up her phone to wave the resort’s photo gallery in her boyfriend’s face. “There’s a pool and a sauna.”
“Are you sure there’s no ulterior motive? They’re not gonna knock you out in a bathtub and steal your kidneys or something?”