by Mary Simses
Maybe they didn’t call it a business center, but at least they had the equipment.
“Here we go.” She opened a door behind her desk. Inside a tiny closet, an old computer rested on top of a dusty fax machine. Behind them stood a monitor from the 1980s and a printer with an electrical cord that dangled lifelessly beside it, frayed wires sprouting from the end like crabgrass.
“This is the business center?” She had to be kidding. I was getting frustrated. First the room and now this. I would have to write a complaint letter to the Better Business Bureau. This place was ridiculous.
“That printer doesn’t even work,” I said, pointing.
Paula leaned over the printer and stared at it, as though she might will it to work. “Oh, I think I can get it fixed.”
I was finally at a loss for words. I looked at Paula, who was scratching her head with her pencil, and then I walked through the lobby and out the door. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I had to get out of there.
The morning air smelled of salt and a changing tide and I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself. Stopping at the sidewalk, I turned to look back at the inn, wondering why Brandy had ever booked me in there. With its three stories, white shingles, blue shutters, two chimneys, and a wraparound porch, the building sat about fifty feet back from the road, next to a gray house that was the home of the Beacon Historical Society. The place could almost be cute, I thought, if somebody would just modernize it.
After walking a couple of blocks, I turned the corner onto Paget Street, the main road through Beacon’s tiny downtown. On the right was a seawall with the ocean behind it, whitecaps glinting in the sun. A young mother and two little boys sat on the edge of the wall, looking at something in a pail—shells, maybe, or hermit crabs. Or maybe it was just a bucket of sand. I wished I had my camera. It would have made a lovely photo.
I kept walking, past Tindall & Griffin, Counselors at Law; Harborside Real Estate; and the Shear Magic salon, all of them in old but well-kept houses that had been adapted for commercial use. I kept my eye out for a hotel or some other place to stay but didn’t see anything. Farther along, I passed the Community Bank, its redbrick facade having faded to a pale rose, and I walked by a small white clapboard building with a sign that said Frank’s Tailoring.
Which of these buildings had been around during my grandmother’s day? I wondered. Surely some of them had been. I began to feel happy imagining her on this street, seeing this view, running along this same beach. It was her town, after all, the place where she had grown up. I felt like I was walking in her footsteps.
I passed a place called the Antler, which looked like a pub, judging from the neon Michelob sign in the window. A little farther down I saw the Three Penny Diner, a whitewashed brick building with window boxes of red geraniums that craned their necks to catch the cool Maine sun. I suddenly felt hungry and found myself walking inside.
The diner smelled like cinnamon buns. A young waitress directed me to a booth and I ordered coffee.
“Something to eat?” she asked.
“Do you have any fresh fruit?”
She nodded. “Blueberries, melon, bananas, blueberries, blueberries.” She smiled.
“I guess I’ll have the blueberries.”
She leaned in. “They are the local specialty,” she whispered. “But personally I’d go for a cider doughnut.”
“Excuse me?”
“A cider doughnut. The doughnuts are sooo good.” She drew out the word as though she were stretching a piece of taffy. “We make ’em here.”
I shook my head. “I think I’ll just have the fruit,” I said. “I don’t eat doughnuts, but thanks anyway.”
The table had a little jukebox on it and I flipped through the pages of songs. I found “The Way You Look Tonight,” an old Jerome Kern tune I loved. I put some coins in the machine and Rod Stewart’s voice came through the tinny speakers.
The waitress returned with a mug of coffee, a bowl of blueberries, and a plate with a cider doughnut on it. “It’s on the house,” she said, putting the doughnut in front of me. “I know you’ll love it.”
The coffee was rich and hot and the blueberries were bigger and sweeter than any I’d ever tasted. I peered at the doughnut, covered with fine sugar crystals. Like a siren, it seemed to beckon me. All right, I thought, one little piece won’t kill me. It melted in my mouth, warm and sweet and gooey. I reached for another piece and, before I knew it, the plate was empty. Well, maybe Beacon had something going for it after all.
At nine fifty-seven, I sat on the bed, the only comfortable spot in the room, and dialed the number for the conference call. There was nothing but static on my cell phone. Looking at the signal bars, I saw they’d been reduced to nubs. No wonder, I thought. There was no signal. I picked up the room phone and found it was dead. Complete silence. Not even a click.
Grabbing my cell phone again, I darted around the room, trying to find a signal. I need bars, give me some bars! This was an important call and I had to get connected. How could everything be going so wrong?
Then I remembered the bathroom and my conversation with Hayden the night before. The connection had been perfectly clear. I ran in, closed the toilet seat, opened my laptop, and sat down. For the next ninety minutes I dished out legal advice on a two-hundred-million-dollar real estate deal while sitting on the toilet.
When the call was over, I reapplied my lipstick and freshened up my eye shadow in the bathroom mirror. Then I took a manila envelope with our firm’s name on it—Winston Reid Jennings, Attorneys at Law—and placed my grandmother’s letter inside for safekeeping. On the outside of the envelope I printed the words Mr. Cummings.
As I walked to the door to leave, I noticed the construction worker’s leather jacket hanging over the back of the chair, where I’d left it to dry. Might as well drop it off, I thought as I grabbed it.
The jacket was still damp but the leather felt supple. It had a soft lining and handsome stitching. I looked at the label. Orvis. I thought they only sold dog beds and camping gear, but here was an attractive jacket. I found a plastic bag in the closet and put the jacket into it.
Paula was sitting at her desk, eating a carrot and smoothing out the fold in a newspaper when I walked into the lobby.
“Miss Branford,” she said. “I think the printer will be fixed this afternoon.”
“Thanks,” I said, wondering who could possibly fix that old thing. “But I don’t need it anymore. I got through my call without it.” I started to walk on but then I stopped. “By the way, I’m pretty sure I’ll be checking out today.” I raised my eyebrows. “In case somebody wants that suite.”
Paula glanced at me and then went back to the newspaper. “But your reservation is for two nights.” She took a bite of her carrot.
The bag with the jacket was beginning to feel heavy. “Yes, I know, but I’ll probably be done here today. Of course, you can keep the extra night’s—”
“Whoa!” Paula’s mouth was open, carrot in midair. “Somebody fell through the dock at Marlin Beach. It’s here in the Bugle.” She brought the paper closer to her face. “Yesterday afternoon, right down by the new house that’s being built. And they were trespassing.”
My stomach began to do a little somersault. “Really?” I said, the second syllable not quite making it from my throat.
Was my name in there? Could they have put my name in there? I didn’t want Paula to know it was me. I didn’t want anyone to know it was me. I’d always prided myself on being in control, for being able to take care of any situation. That episode with the dock was something I wanted to make disappear.
I took a step toward Paula, telling myself to calm down. No one on that beach knew my name. It couldn’t possibly be in the newspaper.
“I hope they’re all right,” I said, trying to look concerned. “What does it say?”
“Oh, not much. Some tourist.” Paula paused. “Drowning.”
Drowning? They had to put that in th
ere? I wasn’t really drowning. I was just…a little tired, that’s all.
Paula turned to me, head cocked, lips pursed. “A guy swam out…did the rescue. Neither one was identified.”
Something twisted inside me. “A guy swam out.” I tried to sound blasé. “Lucky,” I said.
“Hmm?” Paula asked, still staring at the paper.
“She was lucky he was there.” I edged closer to the desk, trying to sneak a look, but Paula folded the paper in half and turned it over.
“Good guess,” she said, taking another bite of carrot.
“Pardon?”
She looked at me. “You knew it was a woman.”
I did?
Oh, my God, I did. Think, think. Say something. I waved my hand as I headed toward the door. “Well, statistically I had a fifty percent chance of being right. It was just…a good guess.” I could feel Paula’s eyes on my back, as though I had a target painted there. I walked outside and down the front steps, telling myself not to worry. My name wasn’t in the article, or Paula would certainly have said something.
I went around the back to the parking lot, where the sun glinted off the black paint of my BMW, reflecting the roofline of the inn. I programmed the GPS for 55 Dorset Lane, where Chet Cummings lived, and turned on the music. Diana Krall’s voice filled the car with an up-tempo version of Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” I could hear Gran saying, Ellen, musically speaking, you were born in the wrong decade. The thought made me smile.
The computer’s female voice guided me toward Dorset Lane, and as I drove I pictured Chet. Puffs of snowy white hair, creases in his face, and kind eyes. He would invite me in for tea and tell me all about his love affair with Gran and how it ended. He would still be wistful. But not angry.
He would have cookies—probably Pepperidge Farm. Maybe the ones with the apricot jelly in the middle. Gran always liked those. He would take me through his house and show me an old photo album with pictures of Gran in it.
I reached Dorset Lane, a residential street lined with older, well-maintained homes, and I stopped in front of number 55. Chet Cummings’s house was a white-shingled, two-story colonial with green shutters and a stone chimney. A brick path led the way to a porch that spanned the front of the house. The yard was bounded by a four-foot-high boxwood hedge.
The house looked as if it had recently been painted. The man must have some competent help, I thought, to keep the place looking this nice. I noticed a green Audi in the driveway as I picked up the envelope with my grandmother’s letter and stepped from the car.
Here I am, Gran. I hope you’re watching, I thought as I walked up the porch steps. I felt both nervous and excited about meeting this man who had once been so important to my grandmother. I took a deep breath and knocked on the screen door, rattling the frame. Then I stared at the wooden door behind the screen and waited for Chet Cummings to open it.
I listened for footsteps, creaking on stairs, thumping over floorboards, but there was nothing. Just a dog barking somewhere down the street. Maybe Chet lived alone and couldn’t hear well. Maybe he wore a hearing aid. Gran had worn one. It used to screech when the battery was low.
Opening the screen door, I knocked on the wooden door. A white Volvo station wagon came down the street and pulled into the neighbor’s driveway and a woman got out. She looked around forty. She stared at me as she carried two bags of groceries into her house, her blond hair bouncing as she walked.
I knocked again, louder this time. He has to be in there, I thought. His car is here. I wondered if he had turned off his hearing aid. I walked around to the side of the house and peered through a window. I could see a dining room with a pine table and chairs. On two of the chairs, piles of papers were stacked high, as though someone were sorting through months of mail. In the middle of the table, stretched out on its side, lay a sable-brown cat. So he likes cats, I thought. I’d always been a dog person myself.
I walked the perimeter of the house, peering through windows, tapping on the glass. When I got to the kitchen I called out. “Mr. Cummings, Mr. Cummings. Are you home?” I rapped on the window. “I need to talk to you. Please. I’ve come all the way from New York!” The only sound was the chatter of birds.
Disappointed, I walked across the lawn to the car. I’d been so eager to meet him, to talk to him, to find out what happened, and now I felt only frustration and emptiness. Come back later, I told myself. He’s eighty, he’ll be here. He can’t be out forever.
I drove back to town, following Paget Street along the beach to the construction site for the new house. Relieved that Roy’s truck wasn’t there, I parked next to a dusty Jeep in a dirt clearing. Two men were putting tar paper on the roof and pounding nails.
The front door was open so I walked in, jacket in hand. The place looked like a maze, with studs where walls would be and cables and wires and pipes running everywhere. Circular saws whined and workmen strode around with nail guns and electric drills. Orange power cords snaked across the floor amid sawdust, chips of wood, and cigarette butts.
I walked to the back of the house and stopped in the doorway of a large room. Through the windows, the beach stretched out behind the house, black lichen-covered rocks jutting into the ocean. To the right was the dock where I’d fallen in. I noticed a new heavy black chain and padlock on the gate. Wooden barricades blocked the sides of the dock to prevent access from the beach.
“Need some help?”
Startled, I turned and saw a man on a stepladder, his big stomach hanging over the belt of his jeans. He glanced at my linen pants and silk sweater as he attached a cable to a beam with a staple gun.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for someone who was working here yesterday. Short hair, beard.”
The man took a pencil and made a mark on one of the beams. “Oh,” he said. “You mean Walter.” He stepped down from the ladder and headed toward the wooden skeleton of a staircase. I followed him.
“Walter? Where’d you go?” he shouted, as he climbed the steps while I waited below.
“What’s up, Hap?” came a voice from somewhere above us.
“Got a lady here needs to see you.”
A moment later Walter came down, holding an electric drill. “Did you say—” He stopped and a big smile spread across his face. “Hey, how are you? You doin’ okay?” He nudged Hap. “This is the girl who fell in yesterday.”
Hap nodded. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Roy took a swim and went after you, huh?” He grinned and looked me up and down. I wondered what they had all said to one another about the incident. Had any of them seen the kiss? God, I hoped not. I could feel my neck and cheeks flush.
“Yes,” I said. “He, uh, helped—”
“You doing all right today?” Walter asked, running a hand across the fuzz on his head. “You must have been pretty shook up after that.”
“I’m doing fine, thanks,” I said, moving out of the way as two men walked by carrying a stack of two-by-fours. “I just came by to—”
“Roy’s a real good swimmer,” Hap interrupted, a twinkle in his eye. “You were lucky, drowning and all.” He hitched up his jeans and tucked in his shirt where it had popped out in the back.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly drowning,” I said, throwing back my shoulders. “I’m actually a very good swimmer. I was on the swim team in prep school and we—”
“Hey, Walter,” a deep voice boomed down from upstairs. “I need a hand here.”
Walter nodded in the direction of the stairs. “Sorry. We’ve got an inspection tomorrow. It’s a little crazy right now.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to return your jacket.” I handed him the plastic bag. “Thanks for letting me use it.”
He stared at the bag. “My what?”
“I would have gotten it dry-cleaned, but I’m leaving today and I wanted to make sure you got it back.”
He took the bag and looked inside. “Oh, okay,” he said. “It’s n
ot my jacket—it’s Roy’s. But I’ll see he gets it. He’s at another job right now.”
Roy’s? That was Roy’s jacket? The jacket with the cozy lining? The one that was so warm?
“Yes, okay,” I said. “I’d just like to get it back to its owner, so if you could give it to, uh, Roy…” I turned and walked away before I finished my thought, suddenly feeling a little strange.
In the car I set the GPS for the Victory Inn. After a few turns, I saw a red clapboard house with a sign in front that said GROVER’S MARKET. It must be the ocean air, I thought, as I realized I was hungry again and pulled into the lot.
A cluster of people stood in the back of the store at the deli counter, waiting to order lunch. I grabbed a menu and looked at the selections. There were several tempting salads, including one with field greens, goat cheese, pecans, raisins, and fresh sliced apple. The tuna salad also looked good—albacore, diced celery, onion, capers, and mayonnaise, served on mixed greens. Capers? I’d never heard of putting capers in tuna salad. It sounded interesting.
Farther down the menu I saw the sandwiches. Rare roast beef and Brie with sliced tomato on a toasted French baguette. That sounded great, but I’d have to forgo the Brie—too much cholesterol. But then, without the Brie, what did you really have but just another roast beef sandwich? The chicken salad sandwich also looked good, with baby greens, tomato, sprouts, grapes, and crumbled Gorgonzola, but there was the issue of the cheese again. Then I saw something that really caught my eye—the Thanksgiving Special. Oven-roasted turkey breast, savory stuffing, and fresh cranberry sauce on whole wheat bread. Perfect.
Behind the counter a teenage boy and a pregnant woman were busy making the salads and sandwiches, pouring soup, wrapping cookies, and placing orders in white boxes. While I waited my turn, I studied the shelf of desserts. Lemon pound cake, carrot cake, double chunk brownies, walnut fig bars, chocolate croissant bread pudding, blueberry pie, and strawberry rhubarb pie.