A Month at the Shore

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "I'm not saying I'm not grateful. I'm just saying—" He frowned again and rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture of frustration that he had inherited from his father. "What happens if we do manage to turn the business around? I'm not staying on, and neither are you. Once Rinnie has to pay for help to replace us, that's it: back down the toilet goes Shore Gardens."

  "That's Rinnie's problem, isn't it? We're just agreeing to grant her the favor she's asked, that's all. One month."

  "Dammit, Laura! Where're you coming from, all of a sudden?"

  All evening long, it had been the two of them against Corinne. But sweet Corinne had stood up to their pounding, and an admiring Laura had just decided to switch sides. Snack had every right to feel double-crossed.

  Laura pulled at one of the thin gold loops hooked through her earlobes. She said to her brother, "A month, Snack. How about it?"

  His face flushed. He threw a longing glance at the worn-down stairs that led to his old room and his lumpy bed. He was tired and crabby and ready to pass out; Laura recognized the signs from their youth.

  "Oh, all right," he snapped. "One fricking month. That's it."

  Corinne leapt from her chair and threw her arms around her brother in an enthusiastic hug. He grimaced and caught her wrists from behind his neck, breaking the circle of her embrace. "Now can I go to fricking sleep?"

  "Yes, yes, anything, yes," said his overjoyed sister. She watched him go, virtually hopping up and down in place, and then she called out after him, "Snack!"

  He turned around, sagging visibly. "Now what?"

  "Win or lose, I'm making you and Laura co-owners."

  "Of—?"

  "Everything. The business, the buildings, the land. Everything; just the way it should be. If I can't turn the business around and I'm forced to sell, then you get a third, and so does Laura."

  "What! Corinne!" cried Laura, stunned by what she was hearing.

  Bleary-eyed, Snack asked, "You serious?"

  "Yessir!"

  "Well ...." He looked uncharacteristically at a loss. "Whatever," he muttered awkwardly, and he turned and began ascending the stairs. "G'night."

  Chapter 3

  As soon as Snack was out of earshot, Laura said to Corinne, "Are you crazy? Why did you say something like that?"

  "Because it's true. I'd always planned on reinstating the two of you. It's only fair."

  "Not me. Uh-uh, Rin. Count me out. I don't want any part of this. Do not write me back into anything. I refuse to accept. Helping you out for a month is one thing, but I've made my own way, and it would feel like—I don't know—wrong. That's all. Wrong. You're the one who stayed."

  "Don't be silly. This will work, trust me. I've thought about it for a long time," Corinne said. She began gathering the empty beer cans for rinsing and recycling.

  "Thought about it? You haven't thought about it at all!" Laura said, tagging after her. "For one thing, if you tell Snack he's going to get a third of Shore Gardens whether it succeeds or not, do you really think he's going to try to make it work? Get real, will you? You'll be lucky if he doesn't hold an open house for interested developers every Sunday from one to three."

  Laughing, Corinne said, "Bring me those dirty plates, would you? This will work," she insisted. "Snack will rise to the occasion. You'll see."

  "Corinne. You are so naive." Feeling churlish for slamming her brother, Laura dropped the subject altogether for the moment. She had other concerns. "One month," she warned. "I can't do more. You have to realize that this is going to be very hard on—"

  My career. God, it sounded so mean-spirited, given Corinne's almost saintly generosity. Laura settled for saying, "I can do a month. I had planned to take a couple of weeks off anyway. The only thing is," she muttered as an afterthought, "I thought I was taking them off in Hawaii."

  "With Max. I know," Corinne said, looking up from her soapsuds with a tragically sympathetic look.

  "Oh, Corinne ... stop," Laura said, flushing with annoyance. "I will board that plane tomorrow if you're going to be wringing your hands over Max and me every time I turn around. It's over, and obviously it was no great loss."

  "I know. It's just that you sounded so ... happy."

  "Well, I was wrong. I just thought I was happy."

  "Love is blind," Corinne agreed.

  "Love is stupid! It has nothing to do with anything. The only thing that matters in life is what you make of yourself, not what someone else makes of you. And on that note, let's get back to your dream. You missed two payments, no more than that, right?" she asked her sister.

  "Yes," Corinne said firmly. "I paid this month right on time. So I don't understand why I got a threatening notice yesterday."

  "Don't worry; we'll take care of it. I'll write a check for the missing payments tomorrow."

  "I'm so embarrassed about this, Laur. But you know you'll get the money back, don't you?"

  "Never mind; it's not today's problem." Laura was back in business mode now, and on firmer terrain. Facts and figures, that's what she could count on. Everything else was just fluff. "When did Dad take out this loan from—who's the outfit? Great River?"

  "Great River Finance." Corinne shrugged her strong shoulders as she dried her hands on a ratty old dishtowel. "I haven't looked at the books close enough to figure that out, yet. They're all just mishmash to me, anyway, especially the way Dad kept them."

  "Yeah. I remember. Everything in shoeboxes."

  "All I know is that there's a book of payment coupons from Great River Finance for this year. I'm not that worried, though, because Ken Barclay did say something about how if I found myself over my head, I shouldn't panic."

  "Kendall Barclay! When did you talk to him about this?"

  "Originally? A few months ago. I ran into him when I was in the drugstore, getting something for an awful cold I had. I was depressed and really out of it, and to tell the truth I didn't register half of what he said."

  Kendall Barclay.

  Laura could picture the name so clearly, written in her own flowery handwriting on an envelope of thick pink paper, the very best she could find in the Chepaquit Pharmacy.

  Dear Kendall, Thank you, thank you, thank you, it began. You're my knight in shining armor. You saved me, and I'll never forget you for that.

  She had rewritten the note at least three times, phrasing her gratitude more effusively each time. Kendall Barclay had been too skinny to look like a knight, and he'd ridden into the woods on a bike and not on a horse—but no one could deny the courage that he'd shown.

  Laura still couldn't believe that she had ever been dumb enough to think that the son of Dr. Burton could have had a crush on someone like her. But that's what she had believed. When Will Burton asked her to go with him for a walk in the woods, she had pictured nothing more daring than a romantic kiss and an embrace.

  How naive. How dumb. How arrogant.

  After the doctor's son and his buddies had assaulted her and beat up Kendall and then had fled like the bullying cowards they were, Laura had dropped to her knees beside her fallen hero: blood was trickling from his mouth, and one of his eyes was bruised and swelling. Tearing off a scrap of her already torn blouse, she had wiped away the blood from his chin.

  "Are you all right, Kendall?" she'd asked stupidly.

  How could he possibly have been all right?

  But he had answered with a dazed, "Y-yuh, I'm all right."

  And she had taken him at his word.

  "Don't look at me," he had mumbled, averting his face. "Go home. Go home,'" he had repeated more fiercely. "They won't come back now."

  He was the pampered son of a town scion; the other kids knew that, and the other kids despised him for it. He was picked on almost as much as the dirt-poor Shore kids, but for the opposite reason: because he was so rich.

  Laura, probably more than anyone else, had understood the humiliation Kendall was feeling as he lay on the ground. She had wanted to respect his wishes, whatever they happened to be, so she'
d stood up abruptly and run through the woods and made her way home. She'd been able to sneak past her father and change her shirt before he came in for supper and yelled at her for being late.

  And the very next day, she had biked to the Chepaquit Pharmacy and had bought the heavy pink stationery.

  And very shortly after that, Kendall Barclay had basically spit in her face.

  Kendall Barclay.

  It must have been twenty years since she'd seen him.

  She murmured to Corinne, "So tell me what he said in the drugstore that you do remember."

  "Well ... he apologized for not being able to come to the funeral, I remember that. Wasn't that nice of him? Bankers don't have to do that. And he said we could talk anytime. That I should just phone and ask for him personally, and we would set up a time."

  "A time to do what?"

  "I guess, to talk about if I need a loan? I'm not really sure. But he knows what's in our account—nothing—so maybe he thought I'd be looking for another loan soon. Needless to say, I've been so busy that I never did get around to arranging an appointment. But when I ran into him in town at Sam's Market last week, he was just the same."

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I. But then he called yesterday and left a message on the machine! He asked if there was anything he could do. He sounded very kind, very concerned. I haven't had a chance to call him back yet."

  "He's got an agenda," Laura said firmly. "It's obvious."

  Corinne blinked. "I thought he was trying to be nice."

  "You would. Don't you see what his game is? As you say, he knows you're broke. Now that Dad's gone, he sees his chance. He'll give you a loan, wait for you to default on it, and then put this place up for auction. Guess who'll buy it back? His bank. Well, don't lose a second's worth of sleep over him, Rinnie. I'll take care of Kendall Barclay."

  "I haven't lost any sleep over him," Corinne said as she gathered table crumbs into the palm of her hand. "Why do you dislike him so much?" she added. "You've been this way about him ever since I can remember."

  "He's a jerk. A rich, privileged, arrogant, money-sucking jerk."

  "Laura. Just because his family was rich and ours wasn't, that doesn't make him arrogant. Or money-sucking. Or a jerk. He couldn't help who his parents were."

  "But he could help who he was. What kind of person he was."

  "When did you even see him last? High school?"

  "I ... don't remember," Laura said, sliding the chairs back under the table.

  "Well, he turned out very nice."

  "There you go again! Don't you get it? You may as well stick his business card in the box with the ones from those developers who keep coming around here. Because that's what he's after, you dope: your land."

  "Why would he want our land? He has his own land."

  "Why does anyone want land, especially with sweeping views? Because they're not making any more of it. Don't you remember the time that Dad told us Kendall seemed to be hinting that he'd like to buy us out? You own a nice little piece of the Cape, Rinnie. You're just minutes from Chatham, but with a heck of a lot less danger of being washed into the ocean. Do the math. Kendall Barclay wants your land. Period."

  Corinne tossed the paper-towel napkins into the rusted, grimy garbage can that was snugged up against the gold-tone stove. "I thought he was just trying to be nice."

  ****

  Tired as she was, Laura felt too uneasy and too melancholy to sleep. Disregarding the cold spring fog that had rolled in so predictably after the warm day, she propped her bedroom window open with a stick and pulled a chair up close so that she could better hear the plaintive moan of the whistle buoy offshore. She leaned her forearms on the sill and allowed herself to drift.

  Laura had grown up to the sound of that buoy. She was able to picture the big red mark lifting and falling as it rolled on the ocean swell; it was part of the panoramic seascape that was visible from the hilltop nursery. When she was a teenager, it had seemed to her that the buoy's breath-over-a-bottletop moan perfectly expressed how she felt about life in the village of Chepaquit.

  Bleak.

  It was impossible for Laura to call up wonderful childhood memories, as others did, of carefree days on the shore. There weren't any. The nursery was a full-time chore, day in and day out. There were always plants to water, seedlings to transplant, stock to move, orders to fill, plants to water and water and water.

  Even in the dead of winter, even in the dog days of summer, the work was never done. Laura had no friends in school because she'd never had the time to participate in any activities. She and her brother and sister were always getting special dispensations, and the other kids naturally looked on them as the hardship case they were.

  Of course, it hadn't helped matters that their uncle Norbert had been sent to jail for killing his wife. Uncle? All she knew of him was that he was a man with a violent temper who'd strangled his wife one day after an argument over a burned supper: a dumb, stupid, overcooked roast. Even though the murder had happened before their time, they had all grown up with the horrible stigma. How could they not? Shore Gardens had been co-owned by two Shore brothers, Oliver and Norbert.

  Take away the murderer, and then there was one.

  Take away Oliver, and now there was none.

  The old generations had all passed on, leaving Laura, Snack, and Corinne to find their way as best they could.

  Sitting at the window, looking out at gray nothing and shivering from the penetrating chill, Laura couldn't shake her sense of foreboding. Something about Chepaquit wasn't right. It was as though the village had been cast under an evil spell. People ran off, people died young, people were sent away.

  In Laura's mind, the one chance to have the spell broken was lost when Sylvia left. Sylvia—bright, beautiful, independent Sylvia, who had breezed into town, made everyone love her, and then had breezed right out again, breaking Laura's heart. Until the day that Sylvia quit her job at the nursery, Laura had truly begun to have hope. She used to think, If Sylvia likes Chepaquit, then so can I.

  If Sylvia can impress people, then so can I.

  If Sylvia can make work seem like fun, then so can I.

  If Sylvia fears no one, then ... why should I?

  It was the single, most exciting time of Laura's life, filled with potential. At last she'd had a role model to show her the possibilities.

  But then one day Sylvia left as suddenly as she'd appeared, without a goodbye, without a word to Laura or to anyone else ... and the spell resumed. It truly was like a fairy tale. Life in the village became more oppressive than ever. The ones who stayed, died. First Laura's mother, and now her father. Neither had made it to sixty-five. Was that so much to expect?

  I miss you, Mom, came her sudden, fervent thought. She brushed away a sting of tears. Today, right now, more than ever.

  So, yes, Laura would grant Corinne her month. But Laura would not be able to lift the spell. Only Sylvia could do that. After the month, when they inevitably admitted to defeat, Corinne would have to sell the acreage—to Kendall Barclay and his crowd, in all likelihood—and Laura would whisk her sister off to wonderful Portland, with its impressive blend of high tech and high mountains. Portland, where the growing season lasted year round. Portland, where she and Corinne could grow old together instead of alone.

  The wind eddied and lifted the buoy's moan closer to Laura's open window. It was a ghostly dirge, come again to haunt her: No-o-oh, it moaned, followed by mournful silence. Again: No-o-oh, and mournful silence. And again.

  She was sorry, sorry, sorry to be back. They said you couldn't go home again—but that was such a lie. Sometimes you were forced.

  She sighed and caught a whiff of cigarette: Snack must be awake too, in his room. She wondered what thoughts he was having that were powerful enough to keep him from sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Laura had forgotten what "up with the chickens" really meant. Over the years she had evolved into a night person; five
a.m. was nearer to her bedtime nowadays than it was to her breakfast.

  She dressed quickly in the May morning chill and made her way to the kitchen, where the aroma of strong coffee—even of sizzling bacon—wasn't enough to convince her that life was worth living.

  "Here's the number one reason why your plan is doomed, Rinnie: the hours," she mumbled as she filled a mug for herself.

  Her appallingly cheerful sister laughed and said, "I know. They suck. But you'll fall back into it; it's like riding a bike." She eyed Laura's workclothes and said, "Is that what you're wearing? Skin-tight jeans and a white linen shirt?"

  "They're all I have," Laura said, yawning. "When I packed my carry-on, I wasn't exactly planning to dig ditches."

  "You look great, by the way," Corinne said, a little glumly. "I'd give anything to fit into those jeans. What are they, size eight?"

  Laura laughed. "Get real. Size ten. A very generous ten."

  "I keep forgetting what an hourglass figure you have," her sister said, sighing. "And you've lost weight besides?"

  "Yeah. After Max dumped me, I—yeah. I lost some weight," Laura admitted. "That's when I bought these jeans—which was a total waste of money," she added wryly, "because as soon as I get done moping over Max, I plan to put those pounds right back on. And that's a promise."

  Instantly Corinne was all sympathy. "Is it definitely over, then? There's no hope?" she asked as she laid out oversized plates for the oversized breakfast to come.

  "Hope? How can there be hope?" Laura had wanted to get in and out of Chepaquit without going into details of the breakup, but now that she was committed to staying a month ...

  Better to get it over with.

  "The fact is, I told Max about Uncle Norbert."

  "Oh, no. You didn't," Corinne groaned. "You didn't go into any details, did you?"

  Laura shrugged. "Max asked how he got caught. I told him that after Uncle Norbert strangled Aunt Mary, he left her body in bed and went off on a camping trip, trying to make it look as if someone broke in and killed her—even though he and Aunt Mary lived in a mobile home a few feet from our house. Even though he hadn't said boo about any trip to Mom and Dad before he took off. Even though he was arrested still wearing the shirt missing the button that Aunt Mary pulled off in the struggle."