Slow Dancing on Price's Pier

by Lisa Dale

  He rocked her close and whispered against her hair. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re safe. Everyone’s safe.”

  She pulled away from him, kissed him. It was the rightest thing that had happened to her in hours, if not weeks.

  He gathered her tighter. “I was so worried,” he said. “No—worried isn’t the word.”

  “I need you, Garret. I need you for when things like this happen. And I need you for when eveything’s fine. These last few weeks without you—”

  “I know,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “I’ve felt the same way.”

  In the near-perfect darkness, she looked into his eyes. “Don’t go away again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I just can’t believe that your family wouldn’t let us have this. I love them. I trust them. If they really understood what it was like, they wouldn’t make us be apart. But—Garret—we can’t give up. We have to make them understand.”

  “Let’s not think about them right now,” he said. “Sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  She wrapped his shirt in her fist. “You’re not going?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m right here. Sleep now.”

  She felt his arms around her: She was safe. He loved her. All was not lost. She settled into the crook of his arms and sighed against him, the deafening clamor in her head dwindling, the threat of another nightmare retreating like driftwood floating gently out to sea. She was nearly asleep when one last pang of panic caught her in its grip. And she had to work hard to fumble the words out.

  “Garret. How did you get into the house?”

  “Jonathan unlocked the door for me.”

  The words barely registered. “My Jonathan?”

  He smoothed back her hair, and she felt the deep pull of sleep already drawing her back into unconsciousness. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” His breath was warm on her cheek. “I love you,” he said.

  But she never heard the words. She was falling deeper into his arms, deeper into his love, and deeper into sleep and gentler, safer dreams.

  From “The Coffee Diaries” by Thea Celik

  The Newport Examiner

  Dear Newport,

  In lieu of my regular column, I wanted to write you this: consider it a love note.

  Until the fire at the Dancing Goat last November, I hadn’t realized just how many lives something as simple as a coffee shop could touch. But when tragedy struck, it became clear that the Dancing Goat was more than simply my coffee shop; it belongs to all of us, to the lobstermen who load up their boats in the early morning, to the tourists who stop in with their families and make fond memories of their vacations, and to those of us who work here.

  Your support has been overwhelming—to me and to the baristas here who are as close to me as family. I’ve been blessed by your offers of assistance, your consolation, and your prayers. I’ve learned something tremendous in these last six months—that sometimes the life you build collapses and forces you to start over from scratch. You find reserves of strength within yourself that you wouldn’t otherwise have known existed.

  I’ll say it this way: the Dancing Goat is going to be back and better than ever—but don’t think that means it will ever change.

  EPILOGUE

  Thea stood near the Dumpsters behind the Dancing Goat. Behind her, the sounds of happy conversation and laughter were clipped off by the slamming of the door at her back. She was breathless and tired, her feet sore from hard work—and yet she felt good. An hour ago, she’d propped open the door of the shop for the grand reopening. All her baristas were working at high speed to get drinks out to the crowd. Lettie had been chatting with a young mother who had a dark-haired little baby on her hip. Tenke was singing along to the music, mostly for the benefit of a few teenage girls who had wandered in. Even Dani had been roped into lending a hand.

  Thea knew there was still much work to do, but she needed a break—a moment of quiet. It struck her how ironic happiness could be, that a person sometimes had to step back from it to take it all in. All of her regulars had turned out in support of the shop’s relaunch. Hollis and Dean had come with their chessboard, and they’d only grumbled a little when there wasn’t enough room or quiet for them to set it up. Sue and Ken had staked out a table in the corner, and they watched in happy admiration as Irina worked the room. Only Jonathan had been a no-show—but Thea wasn’t mad. He’d been at the shop last night helping her put in a new faucet at the last minute. Today, he had a long-standing appointment to meet his new girlfriend’s parents. Thea wished him luck.

  She heard the whoosh of the door opening behind her, and she turned.

  “Doing okay?” Garret asked. He came to stand in front of her, and he held her loosely by both hips. She still couldn’t quite comprehend how easy it was to touch him now that the stormiest part of the year seemed to have blown over. To be able to reach out her arms to him, to hold his hand … such gestures became so much more beautiful as they grew more and more insignificant.

  “I’m great,” she said. “It’s a madhouse in there.”

  “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She smiled. She knew they still had a hard road ahead of them. But they would go slow. Though the future was promising, everyone was still sore and raw from the past year. More than once, Thea had heard her daughter shout Fire! in her sleep. But sometime after Christmas, the nightmares had all but vanished. Thea and Jonathan began spending more time with her—the three of them meeting for dinner at least once a week—and Irina’s reckless misbehaving had tapered off. She was a handful, but she wasn’t malicious. She was getting used to a new idea of her family.

  “Did you see the photographer from the paper?” Garret asked.

  “Yes. It’s really cool.”

  “People love this place,” he said. “It’s gets in your blood.”

  “I guess it does.” She took a deep breath. The spring air was tinged with salt. Somewhere, the water was sloshing at the tall posts that held up the pier, and Thea thought about how long it had been here, weathering the years. The seaside was not an easy place to live—or make a living. Salt corroded anything that could rust. Wind peeled paint down to chips. The sun bleached the boardwalk and burned skin. And in the winter, ice storms inflicted their glassy chill on stairs and railings and stones.

  And yet, when Thea had thought about taking the insurance money after the fire and starting over, starting somewhere easier and new, she realized there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

  “Sometimes, I’d give my left foot to know what’s going on in that head of yours,” Garret said.

  “You do,” she said.

  He kissed her, then opened the door. The sounds of the party streamed like sunlight into the late afternoon. “I have to get back to work. Are you coming inside?”

  “I’m right behind you,” she said.

  NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Great big heaping armfuls of thanks: To my editor, Cindy Hwang, for her keen eye and great taste in sushi, and to everyone at Berkley, including Erin Galloway, Leis Pederson, and Rita Frangie. To my agent, Kim Lionetti, for her encouragement, expertise, and lovely, musical laugh. To Rhonda and Jon Mallek (and also Jessica Maarek) of the Fine Grind in Little Falls, New Jersey. (Note: if you’re in northern New Jersey, stop in!) To Lee Hyat, who knows I’d like to carry her around like an angel on my shoulder. To Mike P. Meeker, for policing sections of this book for errors. To Albry Montalbano, plotter, schemer, and friend. To my family—there just aren’t enough words. To fellow book nerds who hang around my blog (you know who you are!): thank you—so much—for inspiring me with your funny, insightful, and supportive comments. Love love love!

  A couple quick things: Price’s Pier was inspired in part by Bowen’s Wharf in Newport, Rhode Island. I’ve taken some liberties with geography (and with certain minor elements of scenes), but I’ve done my best to evoke the larger feel of that part of the city. FYI, I’ve also used the terms coffee shop a
nd café interchangeably, though technically, they’re two different things.

  Finally, thanks to all readers: you give life to the books you love. I wanted to work the traditional closing lines of a Turkish story somewhere into this book. So, in closing:Three apples fell from the sky:

  the first for me, the second for you,

  and the third for the one

  who passes this story on to another.

  READERS GUIDE FOR

  SLOW DANCING ON PRICE’S PIER

  BY LISA DALE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Discuss some of the most pertinent themes of “The Coffee Diaries” and how they relate to Thea’s life. How does the “story of coffee” intersect with Thea’s story?

  2. Thea has a long and somewhat complicated relationship with the Sorensens. While they are like family to her, do you think the way she has treated them—and the way they have treated her—has been completely acceptable? Discuss some of the difficulties that they’ve encountered in their relationship.

  3. Garret’s playboy ways have kept him from settling down. Do you think that he is hopeful for a second chance with Thea, perhaps even before he realizes it? Is the perfect veneer he’s created for himself a shield to make up for the failure he believes he is, especially in love?

  4. Do you think Thea was right to marry Jonathan for “comfort and refuge”? (p.143) Is compatibility without chemistry enough to make a happy marriage?

  5. After the divorce, Thea has “an unsought opportunity—a second chance she didn’t quite know she’d needed until now.” (p. 151) Discuss how this foreshadows her future encounter with Garret. Do you believe she was subconsciously seeking a second chance with him?

  6. Thea’s consistent advice to Irina in a bleak situation is that “it’s going to be okay” (p.175), yet she seems to have difficulty believing that herself. Why do you think she has trouble following her own advice?

  7. At one point, Thea describes her first romance as “One great, juvenile, operatic, and misplaced passion.” (p. 171) She regards her relationship with Jonathan as a more mature and responsible kind of love. Do you think there’s a gap between young love and adult love? Does it show when Thea falls for Garret a second time, or is there no difference at all?

  8. Thea’s column preceding chapter 13 talks about how coffee is an acquired taste. (p. 219) How is this a parallel to her life, and what she is seeking now that she is divorced?

  9. Do you think Garret was right to blame Thea for the fact that he lost his soccer scholarship and that his journey into adulthood didn’t go as planned?

  10. Do you think Thea and Garret’s relationship, from the beginning when they dated secretively, was destined to fail? Did everything that happened from the time they broke up to the time her marriage dissolved need to take place in order for them to find what was there all along?

  11. Thea’s family has obviously always come first in her mind. Do you think she is a good mother despite the emotional turbulence her family suffers because of her love for Garret?

  12. Thea has a desire to think things through before she acts. Do you think she is missing out on life because of her need to not act impulsively?

  13. As a teen, Thea put a lot of importance on losing her virginity; only later do we learn that Garret does too. What caused their first attempt at lovemaking to fail?

  14. Through all their difficulties, the Sorensens try to remain close to one another. Was Sue right to demand “enough is enough” and evict Thea from the family? Should she have put her foot down sooner? Or not at all?

  15. Do you think Thea and Garret were being selfish in rekindling their love, or was it a chance they had to take? Why do you think it takes a tragedy for the family—particularly Jonathan—to accept that Garret and Thea’s love is the real deal?