A Month at the Shore

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  He was about to intercept her, but the sound of Snack's voice raised in anger had them both turning in the direction of the compost pile.

  They saw Gabe sitting on the tractor, and Snack looking determined to knock him off.

  "Now what?" Laura moaned, and without bothering to excuse herself, she rushed over to defuse the situation. Snack was working hard and staying sober, but he tended to get cranky by afternoon, probably because he was working hard and staying sober.

  She got there in time to hear her brother say angrily, "Gabe, I said get off. Get off the damn tractor. Now."

  "What're you, nuts? What's the matter with you?" Gabe looked dumbfounded, but he wasn't moving. "Your sister asked me a week ago to move the compost pile, and I'm moving the compost pile. You have a problem with that, talk to her, not me," he said, pointing over Snack's shoulder at Laura.

  He started the tractor up and began dipping the blade into the side of the black hill of decayed, rich soil.

  The action infuriated Snack; he grabbed Gabe by his belt and literally yanked him part of the way out of the ancient tractor's iron seat. With a surprised oath, Gabe resisted and managed to keep himself upright, then suddenly reversed himself and jumped down to the ground on his own, ready for battle. Laura rushed at her brother, and from somewhere, Kendall Barclay jumped between Gabe and Snack.

  "Gabe, get a grip," Kendall warned, pushing him back. "Let it go, man; let it go."

  Laura was having more trouble than that in subduing her brother. For the first time in her life, she realized that he was bigger, stronger, and more volatile than a baby brother by rights should be. She wouldn't be able to control him at all, if he weren't willing to be controlled.

  This time, he was willing. He whipped his arm out of her clutches, but he settled for nothing more violent than a fierce glare at their neighbor and councilman.

  "If anyone's moving that pile, it's going to be me," he growled. "Now get the hell out."

  Gabe exchanged looks with Laura and then with Barclay. He hunched his shoulders and threw out his hands, like a merchant who's made his best offer. "Fine with me. I've got other things to do, believe me."

  He tucked the side of his shirt back into his jeans and shook his head at Snack like a disappointed parent. "You don't even bother to vote, do you?" he said in quiet reproach, and then he left with Barclay, who was doing his best to escort him out quietly.

  Laura was furious. "Snack, you idiot. We could've really used his help. Not to mention, he's on the town council, and who in his right mind wants to piss off a councilman? Not to mention, Corinne is going to be crushed when she hears about this. I swear to God, if you've fouled things up between Gabe and her—"

  "Fouled what up? There's nothing to foul. What're you talking about?"

  "Oh, forget it. Why wouldn't you let him move the compost? What were you thinking?"

  He got that evasive look that Laura knew so well and that more properly belonged on the face of a teenager—but Snack was thirty-one years old.

  Thirty-one, and what a mess.

  "I didn't like the way he just walked in and took over," Snack said at last. "Like he's John Wayne or something, here to save the ranch. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it ourselves."

  "Fine. We'll leave the compost pile right where it is. It's been an eyesore for thirty years; it can stay there another thirty, ah reckon," she said, mocking his John Wayne comparison.

  "I'll move it myself," Snack promised grimly. "I'll start tonight—after you go to bed and leave me the hell alone."

  ****

  That night, a weary Laura lay on her lumpy single bed.

  She'd been in Chepaquit two weeks. It felt like two years. The long hours were getting to them all. Gabe and Snack in a near fistfight? They'd all grown up together, for heaven's sake!

  She thought of her sister, bursting into tears after Laura was forced to explain why Kendall had been seen escorting Gabe off the property.

  Rinnie has a thing for Gabe; I'm sure of it now.

  And as for Kendall Barclay—what was that all about? Why would a bank president take such a personal interest in them all?

  Easy. Because the personal interest was in their highly desirable property.

  Still ... Laura had dated her share of men; she knew the signs of one coming on to her. It certainly seemed as if he were coming on to her.

  Or not. Obviously she'd misread his intentions. All he'd wanted was a little advice. For which he apparently was willing to pay. How kind of him to throw her that bone.

  I'll give him an hour, she decided. Not a minute more.

  But it still seemed ... somehow it seemed ... as if he'd been coming on to her. And the amazing thing was, she wanted that to be true. And it wasn't. Which she found as disappointing as it was annoying.

  But! The good news was that she must be over Max; why else go second-guessing about whether Kendall Barclay, ooh, ooh, liked her or not? How pathetic. She was thinking like a thirteen-year-old. If it weren't so sad, she'd confess all of it to Corinne.

  No, not Corinne. Corinne wouldn't understand. Right now, the person Laura most wanted to confide in was not Corinne, not one of her friends or neighbors back in Portland, but Sylvia Mendan—Sylvia, wise beyond her years, who knew everything there was to know about the male sex. She knew it as a teen; God only knew how much wiser she must be now.

  Sylvia. Where was she now? Married? Divorced? Kids? It was impossible to imagine her as being anything but a stunningly beautiful, superbly confident young woman. She would always and forever be eighteen, and Laura would always and forever be a novice at her feet.

  ****

  An hour later, Laura was awakened by the sound of low voices from the front porch below.

  It was Corinne, having a conversation with Gabe, and they both sounded on completely friendly terms. Half-asleep, Laura let out a huge sigh of relief—and then, intrigued by the thought that the two could be carrying on an intimate conversation so late at night, she did a bad thing and crept over to the open window to eavesdrop.

  Silly her; she should have known better. Her sister was much too considerate to speak in anything above a whisper. Still, it was obvious that she sounded very happy, and that was very good.

  Gabe Wellerton's voice carried more clearly than Corinne's, and Laura was able to hear enough to know that he was sorry for the ruckus he'd caused earlier.

  "Snack and I ..." Something something, "oil and water ... Snack's got major, major problems ... your father... good kid ... working ... listen to him go ... ever sleep?"

  And in the distance, not far from the shed where he had been beaten by their enraged father one terrifying night, Snack worked the tractor, burrowing, lifting, and filling the rusted dump truck that stood silently by, ready to move the compost someplace more discreet.

  Chapter 11

  The letters on the white banner were three feet high and painted in different bright colors: FOUNDERS WEEK SALE, May 24-31.

  "The finishing touch; it's perfect, Snack," said Laura, genuinely impressed. She'd forgotten how skilled he was with a brush.

  But above and beyond the variety of her brother's talents was the unexpected surge in his output. "When did you sleep?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "Haven't, yet. I'll grab an hour or two after I hang this across the front of the shop, then come back out and start hitting the compost pile again."

  He had the slightly crazed look of someone on too much espresso, and yet he seemed intensely focused. Snack was a man with a plan—possibly the first of his life.

  She watched him set a rickety wood ladder against the front of the building and wished they could afford an aluminum one. "How long were you out there last night, anyway?" she asked. "I fell asleep and you were still going."

  "I packed it in around two—when Officer McCray came and told me to knock it off. He wasn't just passing by either; someone had called and complained. I wonder who," he said dryly as he nudged the ladder into a better angle. />
  "Don't go there, Snack," Laura begged. "Don't. The sale starts the day after tomorrow; it would be nice if it weren't to the sound of gunshots. Besides, you know it wasn't Gabe. Someone in town must have seen you and decided to pull your chain."

  "It worked." Snack suddenly registered that Laura wasn't wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Acknowledging it with a low whistle from his perch on the third rung, he said, "Steppin' out?"

  Laura was wearing the pretty yellow dress she'd bought at T.J. Maxx; she now had the tan to set it off. She was wearing makeup that she'd applied as artfully and subtly as she knew how. She was even wearing lacy underthings instead of her cotton work versions, simply to revel in the delicacy of them. And, most luxurious of all, she was wearing thin strappy sandals which—after weeks of wearing heavy work shoes—made her feel sinfully exposed and feminine.

  She felt pretty. She felt good.

  She felt guilty for leaving Snack and Corinne toiling in the fields when she herself was not.

  "I am not 'steppin' out.' I have a chore to do," she said defensively. "Just so you know, it's strictly business."

  "Of course. That's what I assumed," Snack said with a deadpan look. "Let me take a guess: business with Kendall Barclay?"

  "I'll be back in an hour."

  "Uh-huh."

  "An hour and a half, tops."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Cut it out, Snack," she said, annoyed. "It's important to me that I look good for this meeting—for reasons you wouldn't understand."

  "Please. I'm a guy; don't insult me."

  "I didn't think that was possible."

  "Tsk-tsk. That tone definitely doesn't go with that dress."

  "This from the resident expert on good taste. Oh, why am I standing here bickering with you?" she said, glancing at her watch. "I'm going to be late!"

  "Hey, you can't go now. Someone has to feed the banner up to me while I hang it."

  "I'm not that someone," said Laura. She was feeling a surge of tension for no real reason; Triple Oaks was only a five-minute ride from the nursery.

  "Hold on, I see Billy. Billy! Over here!" she cried, waving to the heavy-set man just getting out of his car in the stone-topped lot. "We need a favor."

  Billy, who was back to making flower deliveries for them after a six-month hiatus, came right over—as always, happy to help. He was tall, six-foot-three or-four, the perfect candidate for the job. Snack explained, slowly and clearly, what they were going to do, and Billy picked up the free end of the banner and clutched it in one of his beefy hands while he waited for Snack to pound in the first nail.

  "Thanks, Billy," said Laura. "Please tell Corinne to give you something extra when you go in to be paid for today's delivery."

  Billy looked confused by that, so Laura took her wallet out of her bag and began fishing for a couple of dollars.

  "You look real pretty today," he said, staring at the hem of her dress. "Real pretty."

  "Thank you, Billy. This is for you," said Laura, handing him the singles.

  He stuffed them into his shirt pocket with his free hand.

  "Don't forget to see Corinne and get paid after you're done here," she reminded him.

  He gave her a disarmingly confused smile. "But you just paid me," he pointed out.

  "No, that was for helping Snack. I mean for the delivery."

  "Oh ... okay," he said, but it was obvious that things weren't okay.

  In desperation to get on with her task, Laura said, "Tell you what. I'll pay you for the delivery myself, how's that?" She got her wallet out again. "And Snack will explain to Corinne what I did."

  Billy jammed the ten and the five—twice his usual pay—into his shirt pocket without looking at them. He said, "Should I wait to hang the banner before I see Rinnie about getting paid?"

  "But I just—! Yes. All right. That would be good. First the banner. Then Corinne. Thanks, Billy."

  She glanced up at her brother, who was waiting on the ladder and shaking his head in resignation. "Billy. Billy. Will you hand me the damned banner?"

  Billy whirled toward the ladder, wrapping the banner around his legs like a Roman toga.

  "Thanks, Billy," Laura said to the back of his balding head. "See you all later."

  She hurried to the pickup, aware that putting Billy back on the payroll was going to eat mightily into their profits, if they didn't lose money outright on his deliveries. It seemed to her that he was slower now, dimmer now, than he used to be when they were all in school together and he worked part-time at the nursery. Or maybe she had just become used to the high-tech overachievers in the rat race back in Portland.

  The wonder of it was that Billy was still able to drive. She made a mental note to verify that he actually had a valid license. Their insurance company might frown on a fender bender that involved a subcontractor who did not.

  ****

  Triple Oaks was named after three huge white oaks that once dominated the front lawn of the Barclay estate. In 1991, Hurricane Bob roared through and took out the east-most tree. Now there were only two, both on the west side of the entry, and they gave the house an unbalanced, lopsided look.

  Item number one: replace the missing oak.

  Laura sat in the pickup, parked at the far end of the drive, and took notes as she took in the-view. She saw nothing growing under the two remaining oaks except for the occasional, pitiful blade of grass; the rest was dirt, with scattered remnants of a layer of mulch.

  Item number two: ground cover. Pachysandra, if nothing else. Even dull ivy would do. No, not ivy; without care, it would run up the trees.

  At the head of the drive stood the house itself, a stately piece of architecture in the Greek Revival style, painted white, with many windows, a low-pitched roof, and a triangular pediment on the front and side gables. But virtually every one of its extra-long ground-floor windows was completely hidden behind overgrown rhododendrons.

  Item number three: whack back the rhodies, and let the sun shine in.

  Item number four: replace some of the rhodies altogether with Japanese andromeda for variety and also for fragrance when the windows were open.

  But the andromeda would need to be mature from the get-go in order to compete with their muscular cousins. Where could she get her hands on some? Corinne would know. Yes.

  Laura sat with her yellow pad, jotting down ideas at a furious pace. The one thing she did not want was to show up on Kendall Barclay's doorstep without a thought in her head. That impression went a little too well with dirty fingernails and a smudgy face.

  So engrossed was she in recording her suggestions that when she next looked up, it was to see the lord of the manor himself with a bemused smile on his face as he strolled down the brick drive to her rusted pickup.

  Laura tucked her clipboard under her arm and scrambled down from the truck. She had no intention of accepting any money from Kendall Barclay III, but she had every intention of handing him a list of landscaping ideas that would blow his argyle socks off.

  ****

  It amazed Ken, simply amazed him, how the mere sight of Laura Shore reduced him to a fourteen-year-old kid again. The raging hormones, the hungry looks, the crushing desire to see her naked—that was him, all right, then and now.

  She had avoided him every chance she got back then, and in retrospect, he couldn't blame her. In school he was Skinnykenny Barclay, local rich geek, spurned by every kid in class for trying to be one of them.

  Well, he wasn't one of them. Never had been, never would be; he'd had too much money behind him for that. Ken had understood, even if his old-fashioned father had not, that it was false to pretend to be less than you were—as false as pretending to be more than you were. He never should have tried to act as if he were just another middle-class Chepaquit kid; it had only got him more reviled. For better or for worse, Ken was what he was, a privileged townie.

  Laura Shore had lived a life devoid of privilege, and yet look at her now: smart, sassy, and sexy as all hell. The soft bounc
e of her breasts beneath her dress as she walked gave him a sustained rush of pure pleasure. He couldn't think of a single woman he'd ever been with who'd affected him quite so viscerally.

  This, despite the fact that she was waving a clipboard in greeting, which reminded him that she was there on business.

  Ostensibly. The fact was, he had been on the verge of asking her out when she'd snorted in disbelief. Taken aback, he'd punted and come up with Plan B: an offer to pay her for some landscaping advice. Not too imaginative, but ... here she was.

  "Mr. Barclay, how are you this fine evening?" she asked with light formality.

  She was being ironic again. She liked to do that, and he didn't know why. To put more distance between them? It was maddening, when he was trying to put less.

  "I'm pretty well, thanks." He gestured around him. "Well, what do you think? Have I overplayed the disaster aspect?"

  She sighed and said, "No, I think you got it just about right."

  "The shade from the trees is too deep," he said, oddly driven to defend himself. "Nothing will grow."

  "Yes it will. We can fix that."

  "And on that side, the grass won't grow at all where the tree used to be, even with sun."

  "Because you didn't take out the stump completely. We can fix that too."

  "And, I don't know—everything doesn't look right. I can't put my finger on it, but it all looks ignored, somehow. I don't like that look."

  "Really?" she asked, angling her head at him.

  "I take it personally. I don't tend to ignore things."

  He didn't have a clue what he meant by that. He was finding that when he was around her, his mind occasionally turned into a potato.

  They were walking slowly toward the house, and she was saying something about groundcover, and something else about the overgrowth in front of the windows, and he realized that he would be perfectly content to walk with her across the country and back again.

  Actually, that wasn't quite true. He liked the sound of her voice, true enough, but it was the accidental brush of her bare arm against his that had him resolved to find some reason, any reason, for her to hang around. This was new, this instant, electric response; he was curious to see where it went.