by Tessa Bailey
He held it out to Piper. How could this possibly pertain to her? With a mental shrug, she took the note and scanned the four blunt lines with a burgeoning clog in her throat.
No Name bar. Upstairs apartment. Piper Bellinger.
Needs padding installed on the base of the top bunk.
She keeps hitting her head.
Captain Taggart
“Oh my,” she breathed, fanning herself with the note. Am I levitating?
She’d just decided to be friends-only with the sea captain. This definitely wasn’t going to help divert her rather irritating attraction to him.
“He left some cash to cover it,” the man said, reaching out to pat her arm. “You’re going to have to help me up the stairs once we’re inside, I’m afraid. My legs decided they’d had enough living when I turned seventy, but the rest of me is still here.”
“Sure. Of course. Let me take the tools.” Grateful for something to distract her from Brendan’s gesture, Piper claimed the dusty box. “Um. Hannah?”
“What?” Owlish eyes blinked back. “Oh.”
Yawning, Hannah transferred her drunken weight onto the side of the building so Piper would be free to unlock the door. They all went inside, traveling in a comically slow-moving pack toward the stairs. Piper hooked her right arm through the old man’s left, and they followed Hannah’s uneven gait up toward the apartment. “I’m Piper, by the way. The girl from the note.”
“I probably should have checked. My wife would have had some questions if I’d let some stranger squire me up to her apartment.” She laughed, helping him up the fifth stair and the sixth, their pace slow and steady. “I’m Abe. I saw you walking yesterday in the harbor. I’m usually sitting outside the maritime museum reading my newspaper.”
“Yes. That’s how I recognize you.”
He seemed pleased that she remembered. “I used to read the paper outside every day, but it’s getting harder to climb the stairs to the porch. I’m only able to get up them on Wednesdays and Thursdays now. Those are my daughter’s days off from the supermarket. She walks me over and helps me climb them, so I can sit in the shade. The other days, I sit on the lawn and pray the sun isn’t too bright.”
Keeping hold of Abe, Piper unlocked the apartment door. Once they were inside and she’d shoved a bottle of water into Hannah’s hands, Piper gestured to the bunk. “This is the one. You might be able to see the outline of my head on those boards by now.”
Abe nodded and crouched down very slowly to access his toolbox. “Now that we’re in the light, I can see that bruise you’re sporting, too. Good thing we’re getting this fixed.”
While Abe got to work nailing memory foam to the top bunk with a nail gun, Piper tried to avoid Hannah’s teasing pokes in her side. “Brendan no like Piper boo-boo. Brendan fix.”
“Oh, shut up,” she whispered, for her sister’s ears alone. “This is just what people do in small towns like this. Maybe he’s trying to rub LA’s awfulness in my face.”
“Nope. First the lock. Now this.” Wow. She’d really slurred that s. “He’s a real champ.”
“I thought you didn’t even like him. What happened to ‘Leave my sister alone, you bully’?”
“At the time, I meant it,” Hannah grumbled.
“Look, I’m just biding time until I can get back to my natural habitat. No distractions need apply.”
“But—”
“You wouldn’t be encouraging me to make time with a crab fisherman, would you?” She gave Hannah a once-over, followed by a sniff. “I’m telling Mom.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to deliver a rejoinder, but Abe interrupted with a jolly “All finished!”
God, how loud had they been at the end of that conversation?
Abe must have interpreted her worried expression, because he laughed. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, it was nice listening to some bickering between sisters. Ours have grown up, gotten hitched, and moved out, you know. I spend a lot of time with my sons at the shop, but they have the nerve to get along.”
Piper stooped down to help Abe put everything back in his toolbox. “So . . . um.” She lowered her voice several octaves. “Do you know Captain Taggart well?”
Her sister snorted.
“Everyone knows the captain, but he does like to keep to himself. Doesn’t do a lot of jawing, just comes into the shop and buys what he needs. In and out.” Abe slapped his knee and stood. “He’s downright focused.”
“He is,” Piper agreed, thinking a little too long and hard about those green-and-silver eyes. How they tried so hard to stay above her neck. When Abe cleared his throat, she realized she’d been staring into space. “Sorry. Let me help you down the stairs.”
“I’ll be on my way,” Abe said when they’d reached the first level, a smile wreathing his mouth. “Say, have you gone to see Opal yet?”
Opal. Opal.
Piper rooted around her memory bank for that name. Hadn’t Mick Forrester mentioned an Opal and written down the woman’s address? Why did everyone think she would visit this person? Obviously, she needed to get some answers. “Um, no. Not just yet.”
He seemed a little disappointed, but hid it quickly. “Right. Well, it was nice to meet you, Piper. Don’t forget to give me a wave when you see me outside the museum.”
“I won’t.” She handed him the toolbox carefully, making sure he could take the weight. While watching him head for the door, his feet shuffling, the stiffness in his legs obvious, an idea occurred. “Hey, Abe. I’ve got a pretty flexible schedule here, and the museum is only a quick walk. So . . . like, I don’t know, if you wanted to sit outside and read your paper more than twice a week, I could walk over and help you climb the porch.”
Why was she nervous this little old man was going to turn her down?
Is this what a man felt when he asked for her number?
Her nerves settled when Abe turned to her with a hopeful expression. “You would do that?”
“Sure,” she said, surprised by how nice it felt to be useful. “Friday morning? I could meet you outside the hardware store after my run.”
He winked. “It’s a date.”
* * *
Hannah had sworn off booze, so they avoided any more trips to the winery. Instead, they cleaned. Even put up some green-and-white striped curtains in the apartment. On Brendan’s suggestion, they visited the lighthouse and took a day trip to the beach, although the abundance of rocks and the need for a sweatshirt by three p.m. made it nothing like the coastline in California. Still, Piper found herself relaxing, enjoying herself, and the rest of the week went by faster than expected.
She went out on her run Friday morning, finishing up outside the hardware store where Abe waited, a rolled-up newspaper tucked under his arm. He peppered her with questions about life in Los Angeles on the walk over to the maritime museum—he was yet another man who’d rarely ventured outside of Westport—and she left him in the Adirondack chair with a promise to meet him again tomorrow morning.
Piper walked down to the end of one of the docks in the harbor and dangled her feet over the side, looking out at the wide mouth of the Pacific.
What was Brendan doing at that very moment?
She’d kind of hoped distance and time would rid her of the adamant tingle she felt every time she thought of him. But three days had passed, and his image still popped into her mind with annoying regularity. This morning, she’d woken up with a start, jerked into an upright position, and the memory foam had blocked her forehead from ramming into the upper bunk. And she’d drifted back down to her pillow with an enamored sigh.
Was he thinking about her?
“Ugh, Piper.” She surged to her feet at the end of the dock. “Get your life together.” She needed another distraction. Another way to absorb some time, so her thoughts wouldn’t keep drifting back to Brendan.
Maybe now was a good time to solve the mystery of this Opal character.
Piper had taken a picture of the ad
dress Mick gave her outside No Name, and she scrolled to it now, tapping it with her thumb. Distraction achieved. She’d told Mick she’d visit the woman, and with a whole day in front of her, there was no time like the present.
She punched the address into her map app, snorting to herself when she arrived after a mere two minutes of walking. Opal lived in an apartment building overlooking Grays Harbor, and it was kind of weird, buzzing someone’s apartment without calling ahead of time, but the vestibule door unlocked immediately. With a shrug, Piper took the elevator to the fifth floor and knocked on the door of apartment 5F.
The door swung open and a woman Piper estimated to be in her late sixties leapt back, a hand flying to her throat. “Oh God, I thought you were my hairdresser, Barbara.”
“Oh! Sorry!” Piper’s cheeks burned. “I wondered why you buzzed me up so fast. You are Opal, right?”
“Yes. And I’m not buying anything.”
“No, I’m not selling anything. I’m Piper. Bellinger.” She put out her hand for a shake. “Mick told me I should come see you. I’m . . . Henry Cross’s daughter?”
A different kind of tension gripped Opal’s shoulders. “Oh my Lord,” she breathed.
Something charged the air, causing the hair on the back of Piper’s neck to stand up. “Did you . . . know me when I was a baby, or . . . ?”
“Yes. Yes. I did.” Opal pressed a hand to her mouth, dropped it. “I’m Opal Cross. I’m your grandmother.”
* * *
I’m your grandmother.
Those words sounded like they were meant for someone else.
People who got ugly knitted sweaters on Christmas morning or fell asleep in the back of a station wagon after a road trip to Bakersfield. Her mother’s parents were living in Utah and communicated through sporadic phone calls, but Henry’s . . . well, she’d stopped wondering about any extended family on her biological father’s side so long ago, the possibility had faded into nothing.
But the woman hadn’t. She was standing right there in front of Piper, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.
“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered finally, after an extended silence. “Mick told me to come here. He assumed I knew who you were. But I . . . I’m so sorry to say I didn’t.”
Opal gathered herself and nodded. “That isn’t too surprising. Your mother and I didn’t end on the best terms, I’m afraid.” She ran her eyes over Piper once more, shaking her head slightly and seeming at a loss for words. “Please come in. I . . . Barbara should be here for coffee soon, so I’ve got the table set up.”
“Thank you.” Piper walked into the apartment in a daze, her fingers twisting in the hem of her running shirt. She was meeting her long-lost grandmother in sweaty running clothes.
Classic.
“Well, I barely know where to start,” Opal said, joining Piper in the small room just off the kitchen. “Sit down, please. Coffee?”
It was kind of disconcerting the way this woman looked at her as if she’d returned from the dead. It felt a little like she had. As if she’d walked into a play that was already in progress, and everyone knew the plot except her. “No, thank you.” Piper gestured to the sliding glass door leading to a small balcony. “B-beautiful view.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Opal settled into her chair, picking up a half-finished mug of coffee. Setting it back down. “Originally, I wanted an apartment facing the harbor so I could feel close to Henry. But all these years later, it just seems like a sad reminder.” She winced. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so casual about it all. It helps me to be blunt.”
“It’s fine. You can be blunt,” Piper assured her, even though she felt a little jarred. Not only by the sudden appearance of a grandmother, but by the way she spoke of Henry like he’d only passed yesterday, instead of twenty-four years ago. “I don’t remember a lot about my father. Just small things. And I haven’t been told much.”
“Yes,” Opal said, leaning back in her chair with a tightened jaw. “Your mother was determined to leave it all behind. Some of us find that harder to do.” A beat passed. “I’d been a single mother since Henry was a little boy. His father was . . . well, a casual relationship that neither of us had a mind to pursue. Your father was all I had, besides my friends.” She blew out a breath, visibly gathering herself. “What are you doing back in Westport?”
“My sister and I . . .” Piper trailed off before she could get to the part about confetti cannons and police helicopters. Apparently the need to make a good impression on one’s grandmother was strong, even when meeting her as a fully grown adult. “We’re just taking a vacation.” For some reason, she added, “And doing a little digging into our roots while we’re here.”
Opal warmed, even appearing relieved. “It makes me very happy to hear that.”
Piper shifted in her chair. Did she want her father to become a more . . . substantial presence in her life? A serious part of Piper didn’t want sentimental attachment to Westport. It scared her to have this whole new aspect of her world, her existence opened up. What was she supposed to do with it?
She’d felt so little at the brass statue—what if the same happened now? What if her detachment from the past extended to Opal and she disappointed the woman? She had clearly been through enough already without Piper adding to it.
Still, it wouldn’t exactly hurt to find out a little more about Henry Cross, this man who’d fathered her and Hannah. This man people spoke of with a hushed reverence. This man who’d been honored with a memorial up on the harbor. Would it? Just this morning during her run, she’d seen a wreath of flowers laid at its feet. Her mother had been right. He was Westport. And although she’d felt less emotion than expected the first time she visited the brass statue, she was definitely curious about him. “Do you . . . have anything of Henry’s? Or maybe some pictures?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” Opal popped up, moving pretty damn quickly for a woman her age, crossed to the living room, and retrieved a box from a shelf under the television. She took her seat again and removed the top, leafing through a few pieces of paper before pulling out an envelope marked Henry. She slid it across the table to Piper. “Go ahead.”
Piper turned the envelope over in her hands, hesitating momentarily before lifting the flap. Out spilled an old fisherman’s license with a grainy picture of Henry in the laminated corner, most of his face obscured by water damage. There was a picture of Maureen, twenty-five years younger. And a small snapshot of Piper and Hannah, tape still attached to the back.
“Those were in his bunk on the Della Ray,” Opal explained.
Pressure crowded into Piper’s throat. “Oh,” she managed, running her finger over the curled edges of the picture of her and Hannah. Henry Cross hadn’t been some phantom; he’d been a flesh-and-blood man with a heart, and he’d loved them with it. Maureen, Piper, Hannah. Opal. Had they been a part of his final thoughts? Was it crazy to feel like they’d deserted him? Yes, he’d chosen to perform this dangerous job, but he still deserved to be remembered by the people he loved. He’d had Opal, but what about his immediate family?
“He was a determined man. Loved to debate. Loved to laugh when it was all over.” Opal sighed. “Your father loved you to pieces. Called you his little first mate.”
That feeling Piper had been missing at the memorial . . . it rode in now on a slow tide, and she had to blink back the sudden hot pressure behind her eyes.
“I’m sorry if this was too much,” Opal said, laying a hesitant hand on Piper’s wrist. “I don’t get a lot of visitors, and most of my friends . . . Well, it’s a complicated thing . . .”
Piper looked up from the picture of her and Hannah. “What is?”
“Well.” Opal stared down into her coffee mug. “People tend to avoid the grieving. Grief, in general. And there’s no one with more grief than a parent who has lost a child. At some point, I guess I decided to spare everyone my misery and started staying home. That’s why I have my hair appointments here.” She laughed. “N
ot that anyone gets to see the results.”
“But . . . you’re so lovely,” Piper said, clearing her throat of the emotion wrought by the pictures. “There’s no way people avoid you, Opal. You have to get out there. Go barhopping. Give the men in Westport hell.”
Her grandmother’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I bet that’s more your department.”
Piper smiled. “You would be right.”
Opal twisted her mug in a circle, seeming unsure. “I don’t know. I’ve gotten used to being alone. This is the most I’ve talked to anyone besides Barbara in years. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to be social.” She exhaled. “I’ll think about it, though. I really will.”
Offering a relationship to this woman wasn’t a small thing. This was her grandmother. It wasn’t just a passing acquaintance. It could be a lifelong commitment. A relationship with actual gravity. “Good. And when you’re ready . . . I’m your wingwoman.”
Opal swallowed hard and ducked her head. “It’s a deal.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, until Opal checked her watch and sighed. “I love Barbara to death, but the woman is flakier than a bowl of cereal.”
Piper pursed her lips, studied the woman’s close-cropped gray hair. “What were you planning on having her do?”
“Just a trim, like always.”
“Or . . .” Piper stood, moving behind Opal. “May I?”
“Please!”
Piper slipped her fingers into Opal’s hair and tested the texture. “You don’t know this, Opal, but you’re in the presence of a cosmetic genius.” Her lips curved up. “Have you ever thought about rocking a faux hawk?”
Twenty minutes later, Piper had shaped Opal’s hair into a slick, subtle hill down the center of her head, using the lack of a recent haircut to their advantage by twisting and spiking the gray strands. Then they’d broken out a Mary Kay makeup kit Opal had caved and purchased from a door-to-door saleslady—leading to her current suspicion of solicitors—and transformed her into a stunner.