An Unexpected Suitor

by Anna Schmidt

  Harry shrugged. “I was going to send them back. You’d be saving me the cost of that. We’ll work something out,” he assured her and headed off to the kitchen.

  “Come on, girls,” Jasper called. “By the time we get back to the cottages to collect our swimwear and then down to the beach the afternoon will be half-gone already. That okay with you, Mr. Starbuck?”

  “Fine. Enjoy yourselves.”

  Jasper and Billy each took a Kowalski twin by the arm and headed off. Ellie leaned down and kissed Nola’s cheek. “Don’t overdo,” she advised. “Come along, Countess.”

  “Olga is quite apprehensive around you,” Nola said once they’d all left. “You do have that effect on people, Harry.” She brushed past him on her way into the kitchen.

  “I certainly don’t seem to scare you,” Harry countered as he followed her and set the dirty dishes in the sink.

  “I don’t work for you. Olga confided to me recently that she’s concerned about her future in the theater. Now that she’s getting older, she’s aware that roles she might play are limited. And both Jasper and Billy care a great deal about impressing you. It makes them vulnerable. It’s quite a powerful thing to hold a person’s future in your hand.”

  “People determine their own futures, Nola. If they do a good job then they’ll succeed. Neither I nor my personal opinion of any one of them has a thing to do with it.” He had always been known as an easygoing if somewhat unconventional employer. A man who asked no more of others than he expected of himself—and those who worked for him were well aware of that. At the cabaret he had done his fair share of the labor when a worker had fallen ill or been injured. It bothered him that she might think he was some kind of demanding overseer. “Ask anyone who works for me and they will tell you—”

  “As I said, I do not work for you.” She ran water into the dishpan. “I’ll see to these later. If you’ll just pack the ice cream in ice, I’ll get my parasol so we can take that walk.”

  “Now who’s giving orders,” Harry grumbled as he stalked outside.

  From her bedroom window Nola watched as Harry meticulously cleaned up the mess left after making the ice cream. His shirtsleeves were still rolled back and she watched in fascination as he lifted the wooden churn as if it were no heavier than the pitcher of lemonade. He settled it on one shoulder and carried it off to the kitchen. A memory stirred.

  That night when she had gone to find her brothers after her mother collapsed and Harry had run for the doctor, he had come back. He had stayed until he was certain her mother was going to be all right. And when he had reluctantly taken his leave, Nola recalled now that her mother had said, “Harrison Starbuck is going to make a fine family man one of these days. In spite of his reputation for rebellion, he cares so deeply about other people—especially people in need.”

  Nola couldn’t help wondering what her mother might think of this Harry Starbuck. A minute later he was back in the garden, brushing the caps of the strawberries from the table onto the tray. He glanced around, then tossed them onto the compost heap she kept behind the garden shed.

  Licking his fingers, he took a visual tour of the garden as if to be sure he wasn’t missing something, then satisfied, he gathered the last of the glasses and utensils onto the tray and carried them into the house. The garden was as pristine as it had been earlier that morning. “I’m just getting my jacket,” he called. “I’ll meet you out front.”

  The screen door to the kitchen banged shut behind him as he rounded the side of the house, rolling his sleeves down and fastening the cuffs. She couldn’t help noticing the boyish way he chewed on his tongue as he worked the fastening. It made him seem more vulnerable than she’d ever thought him before. Even as a young boy he had always seemed to be perfectly in control. She wondered why he had not yet married and decided that her mother had been wrong about him. The only “family” Harry concerned himself with was the company of actors charged with staging his latest play.

  They crossed the footbridge to the stairway in silence, then Harry took her elbow as they started down the stairs. “Thank you,” she murmured, trying hard not to dwell too long on the warmth of his fingers through the thin lawn fabric of her sleeve. When they reached the last step, he immediately released her and walked alongside, his hands clasped behind his back. She couldn’t help recalling the flirtatious way Violet Gillenwater had snaked her hand through the crook of his elbow when the two of them went walking.

  “I’m thinking that four small tables each with four chairs will present an inviting environment without appearing too deserted on those occasions—rare, I’m sure—when you have no customers for your ice cream.” It was as if no time at all had passed since he’d first offered the idea of café tables.

  “I will make do with what I have, Harry,” Nola said. “But I do thank you for the kind offer.”

  “I have a dozen of the things with four chairs for each, but a dozen in that space would be too much. Six, perhaps—eight at most.”

  Nola sighed. “Do you ever listen, Harry Starbuck? I mean it’s no wonder you were in constant trouble at school.” She stopped and faced him, lifting her parasol higher so she was certain he could see her face. “I do not need—or want—your tables and chairs.”

  Harry grinned. “Come on, Nola. Of course you do. Do you think these young prima donnas from the city are truly interested in ‘roughing it’? Roughing it for them means going without the upstairs maid for a week. It means dressing themselves for the day without help. It means…”

  “I am well aware of the expectations of my clientele, Harry. I am perfectly capable of attending to their needs on my own.”

  Harry studied her for a long moment, so long that Nola could feel the sun warm her face through the protection of the parasol.

  “That’s your problem, Nola,” he said. “You’ve never allowed yourself to need anyone.” He walked on without her.

  Nola stood rooted to the spot where he’d left her. Should she go after him and protest the unfairness of that comment—especially coming from him? Should she return to the tearoom? Should she ignore him and join the others?

  Billy was waving at her from the beach. “Nola! Over here!” He indicated two beach chairs that they had placed in the shade of a decaying old shipwreck. “Best seats in the house,” he shouted.

  Just then Deedee ran up behind him and dumped a child’s sand bucket filled with sea water over him. Billy gave a cry of alarm and took off after her. The four young people were soon splashing happily in water up to their waists. Nola couldn’t help smiling at their antics.

  And what’s so wrong with how I live my life? It gives me pleasure—and purpose—to help others the way I’ve helped these delightful young people. The way I helped my brothers and my sister build lives for themselves when others would have split us apart. The way I’ve…

  “I’d like to apologize.”

  Nola had been so intent on watching the others and reconstructing her defenses that she hadn’t noticed Harry retracing his steps. He was next to her now, his expression contrite. “What I said—it was unfair. I barely know you, after all.” He grinned and cocked his head to one side. “I wouldn’t mind remedying that, though. It occurs to me, Nola Burns, that if we stop fighting each other, we could be a staggering force for good.”

  “I wasn’t aware we were fighting, Harry,” she said sweetly. “I thought we were out for an afternoon stroll along the beach.”

  Harry laughed. “Excellent point, my lady. Shall we?” He offered his arm.

  Nola hesitated then accepted his peace offering. Inside she felt a tremor of pleasure as she considered how it must look from the bluff above—the two of them walking across the sand to the beach chairs. She glanced back and saw the unmistakable figure of Oliver Franks watching them. And although she was well aware that Oliver and Minnie Franks had joined the ranks of those who disapproved of her associating so closely with Harry and his troupe of actors, she could not help feeling relief that it was Ol
iver and not Rose.

  Chapter Twelve

  On the day of the clambake, the men and boys were the first to arrive on the beach to deliver the stones, logs and potato sacks. Next the girls came to gather the seaweed so vital to the proper preparation—and to have an excuse to flirt with the boys. They wore their best summer dresses in spite of the need to climb over rocks and scour the shoreline for just the right variety. The local girls showed the summer girls how to look for rockweed, favored because it had pockets that allowed the best combination of air and water to create the steam necessary to cook the meal. The girls wore their hair braided and interwoven with colorful ribbons or piled atop their heads like crowns. The boys watched them even as they pretended to focus on the work of delivering the logs and rocks for the large fire pit they would dig later.

  “Look at them,” Ellie sighed as she helped Nola set up the stand for serving her ice cream samples. “The potential for romance is so thick you can almost smell it. Ah, to be young again and in love.”

  Nola had been watching a group of men digging the first of the cooking pits. Harry Starbuck was at the center of that group, wielding the shovel as the other men shouted encouragement and waited their turn at the digging. At Ellie’s comment she forced her attention up the beach to where the girls were giggling as they carried mounds of rockweed in buckets of sea water over to where the boys had gathered. “It’s a bit like a dance—a kind of ballet,” she said wistfully.

  “Why, Nola Burns, you are such a romantic,” Ellie teased. “So, tell me, when you were that age, was there one boy?”

  No!

  Yes. The incorrigible Harrison Starbuck.

  Nola shrugged and turned her attention back to attaching bunting to the table of the stand.

  “There was,” Ellie guessed, moving around so that Nola had no choice but to face her. “You’re blushing.” She popped herself onto the edge of the table and leaned closer. “Tell me everything. Was he quite handsome?”

  Nola laughed. “Oh, Ellie, at that age all older boys are attractive,” she said.

  “Ah, so he was older—unattainable?”

  “This is ridiculous. I don’t really recall.” But she did. Suddenly every detail of the clambake the summer that her brothers and Harrison Starbuck graduated came rushing back. The fact that commencement exercises were scheduled for the following day and that everyone knew of Starbuck’s plan to leave the island for New York made that clambake seem more bittersweet than any that had come before—or after. For in spite of the fact that she and Starbuck had barely encountered one another on more than a dozen occasions, she had felt so keenly the agony that she might never see him again.

  “Oh, dear Nola, how sad you look. Did the cad break your heart?”

  “Of course not,” Nola replied and tried to cover her snappish answer with a laugh. “How could he when he barely knew I was alive?”

  “And you never had the chance to let him know? Did he marry?”

  “He moved away,” Nola said. “Ah, here come the others.” She had never been so happy to see Judy and the troupe of actors as they pulled up in a box cart loaded with the supplies needed for serving the ice cream.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a jug of your famous limeade in that cart, would you, Mrs. Lang?” Harry asked.

  Nola wheeled around. He had removed his hat and was mopping sweat from his brow with the ever-present bandanna. She tried focusing her attention on anyone but him. Still, she felt her cheeks burning at the very real presence of the boy who had once haunted her girlhood dreams.

  “You’ll have to ask Nola,” Judy replied. “She’s in charge.”

  “I see.” Harry turned his attention to Nola, a twinkle of amusement lighting his eyes. “Should have known,” he added. “Here, let me give you a hand with that, Mrs. Lang.” He moved to the cart and helped with the unloading, chatting with the others and flirting with Judy in the process.

  Is that how you see me? Nola wondered, her high spirits of earlier crushed by the realization. Am I eternally the bossy one? The one always in charge? She turned away and looked for something to occupy her, something that would block out his laughter, his deep velvety voice, his very presence.

  “Here.” Harry thrust a paper cup filled with limeade under her nose and then gulped down another cupful in practically one swallow. “You’re looking quite well today, Nola. No aftereffects from the accident?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, still unable to tear her eyes away from his.

  He plopped his hat on her head and pulled it down so that the brim shaded her face. “Still, that sun’s hot today. We wouldn’t want to mar that beautiful skin of yours with freckles and such.”

  “I have a hat,” she protested, touching the brim of his.

  “This one suits you, I think. Hang on to it for me. I’m going for a swim.”

  And before Nola could further protest he took off running across the beach, pulling off his shoes and socks and shirt at water’s edge and leaving them in a pile as he plunged into the water.

  “Was it Harry?” Ellie asked, coming alongside her and watching Harry swim against the current. “That boy from long ago?”

  Nola choked on the last of her limeade. “Whatever would make you think that?”

  Ellie wrapped her arm around Nola’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, really. If it was, maybe God’s given the two of you a second chance and if it wasn’t maybe God’s decided it’s high time you had your first chance at true love.”

  “I doubt God has time to concern Himself with such trivial matters,” Nola said primly as she turned away and began organizing the dishes for the ice cream.

  Harry swam as if his very life depended on each stroke. He pounded the water with his power, fought against each current, every wave that threatened to carry him back to shore. Back to her. When he had exhausted himself he rolled to his back and floated just beyond the breakers as he looked up at the cloudless sky.

  What is it about this woman? What do You want from me when it comes to her? Leave her alone? What?

  It had all started so innocently—a simple business transaction. He’d gone through hundreds of them in his lifetime and admittedly some had run their course more smoothly than others, but this one was different.

  Because she’s a woman?

  “Because she’s this woman,” he corrected himself. With anyone else he would have long ago walked away or turned the entire project over to Alistair to handle, but he’d found it impossible to leave her alone. When he wasn’t face-to-face with her, he was thinking about her, reliving some moment they had shared. If he didn’t know better he’d think he was falling…

  In love? Impossible. Nola Burns and me? I know You’ve got a sense of humor, Lord, but this? I’m all wrong for her—vagabond theater guy meets uptight New England spinster? It’s classic melodrama, and forgive me, but bad melodrama at that.

  He studied the sky for a sign that he was right. Maybe a sudden gathering of cumulus clouds spelling it out for him. But the sky remained clear, cloudless, calm. Harry closed his eyes and slowly backstroked his way down the beach.

  What was it Rachel had advised? Listen?

  With a frustrated growl he rolled over and swam back toward shore until he could stand. And as he emerged from the surf, the first place he looked was to where he had left her, but the stand was deserted.

  The other men had completed the task of lining two long pits with carefully selected stones the size of grapefruits, then added hardwood logs that would be set on fire. Now he saw the fires to heat the stones had been lit. Nearby the boys and girls had joined forces as they washed and sorted the mounds of clams that had been dug the evening before. Not ten feet away sat a group of mothers and older women, shucking corn and washing yams, all the time keeping a watchful eye on the young people.

  “I’m going to change,” Harry called to his cohorts, receiving a wave in return as he retrieved his cast-off clothing and walked toward the stairway. He’d left his bicycle on t
he bridge and as he pulled on his damp shirt scratchy now with sand, he refused the inclination to glance up toward the tearoom or rather the windows he now knew were her private quarters. Instead he raced up the stairs and mounted the bicycle then pedaled past Nola’s place as if some demon were chasing him.

  Nola was halfway back down the stairs to the beach when she remembered that she’d left Starbuck’s hat on the kitchen table after going home to get more spoons for scooping the ice cream. She could picture it lying there, its honey color in sharp contrast to the dark wood of the table. She had stood right in the middle of her kitchen staring at the thing and the way it seemed to dominate the room in exactly the same way that Harry Starbuck dominated any room he entered. How could she have forgotten it?

  She considered going back for it, but then she saw Judy trying to haul a heavy block of ice by herself and decided Starbuck—and his hat—could wait until tomorrow. After all, by the time the clambake was ready the sun would be setting and the shadows would lengthen. He wouldn’t need his hat at all. She’d send it along with one of the actors when they went to rehearsal the following day.

  “Judy, put that down,” she called as she hurried toward the stand. “Where are Jasper and Billy?”

  “I moved blocks of ice long before those two showed up,” Judy fumed, but she set the block of ice down and took a moment to steady her rapid breathing. “You look nice,” she said, eyeing Nola from head to toe.

  “I look exactly the same as I did before I went to get the spoons.” Nola was reluctant to admit, even to herself, that she had taken a moment to repin her hair before heading back down to the beach. She thought about explaining that Harry’s hat had caught on several of her hairpins when she removed it. Either she had to put her hair up properly or have it falling down in the midst of serving the ice cream.

  “You did your hair up different,” Judy observed. “Looks nice. Better than Starbuck’s hat.”