Summer by the Sea

by Susan Wiggs

  “Not as long as you don’t act like a freak. Let’s go get your bags.”

  His luggage consisted of a camouflage duffel bag patched here and there with duct tape. Aw, Rob, thought Rosa. You couldn’t get the poor kid a decent bag?

  As they walked to the car, Pop touched the stiff spikes of the Mohawk. “I bet your parents didn’t see this.”

  Joey’s ears and cheeks turned red. “That’s right.”

  “They’re gonna tan your hide when they see you.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  In spite of herself, Rosa felt a grudging admiration for the kid. “I’m glad you’re here, Joey,” she said. “It’s going to be a great summer.”

  eighteen

  Alex wasn’t much for shopping, but Rosa’s lasagne, which he still dreamed about, was long gone. If he was going to spend the summer in a house by the sea, without a deli around the corner or a pizza delivery service, he would have to pay an occasional visit to the Winslow Stop & Shop.

  In search of shaving cream, he stumbled into the wrong aisle and was confronted by a frightening display of feminine products. Eager to escape the panty liner zone, he tried walking briskly away—too briskly. At the end of the aisle, he took a corner fast and sharp, T-boning an unsuspecting cart with his own, causing bottles and cans to rattle and roll.

  “Sorry,” he said, but when he recognized his victim, he grinned in delight. “Hey, Rosa.”

  “Hey, yourself.” Her smile, in contrast, was merely polite.

  “Imagine running into you here,” he said lamely. He had a reputation as a smooth talker, but he couldn’t think straight when she was around. She wore a black top with skinny straps, low-slung jeans that showed a perfect olive-toned inch of skin above the waistband. And, God love her, she had a navel ring. Alex was a goner for them, and had actually seen very few up close and personal. The women in his world didn’t self-mutilate, as they liked to call it. A tiny golden ring in a gorgeous female belly button was high art as far as he was concerned.

  He felt like an idiot, standing there while an invisible hormone rush bathed him in painful lust. He distracted himself by checking out the contents of her cart. Tomatoes and grapes, a lot of leafy green bunches, cartons of ricotta and yogurt, three paperback romance novels. A bag of Chee•tos—“Dangerously Cheesy”—seemed out of place, as did the two gallons of milk and the package of Oreos.

  She noticed his inquisitive stare. “I bet you’re thinking I’m a closet junk-food junkie and romance novel addict.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes and no. I’ll pass on the junk food, but don’t get between a girl and her romance novels.”

  “Yeah?” He picked one. “Cattleman’s Courtship by Lois Faye Dyer. ‘Will a sophisticated city slicker find love with a rugged rancher?’” he read from the back cover. Tossing the book back into her cart, he said, “Bet not.”

  She sniffed. “Shows how much you know. They’ll work it out.”

  “Why read it if you know the ending?”

  She fixed him with a you’re-too-dumb-to-live stare. “Because it’s wonderful, every time.”

  Okay, so maybe she was in love with falling in love. Alex supposed he could understand that. It was all heady stuff—the blast of emotion so intense it made you light-headed, the physical burn of passion, the yearning so strong and sweet it made your heart ache. Alex was familiar with the symptoms. He’d experienced them all.

  But only once.

  “So the junk food’s for...?” he asked. “You have a pet on a strange diet or something?”

  “Nosy, aren’t you? Actually I’m—” She broke off as a lanky, half-grown boy emerged from the magazine aisle. “There you are, Joey,” she said, then turned to Alex. “Alex, this is Joey Capoletti.”

  Holy crap, he thought. Her son? He panicked as his mind raced through a swift calculation. Could this giant, spike-haired, nose-ringed kid be...no way. Alex rejected the notion. The kid was thirteen if he was a day.

  Relieved, he reached out to shake hands. “Alexander Montgomery. Nice to meet you.”

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Joey’s my nephew,” Rosa said, and her wickedly amused smile indicated that she’d seen Alex’s momentary panic. “He’s spending the summer with my dad.”

  Joey was a punk, Alex saw, his sagging black jeans hung with chains from pocket to pocket, his T-shirt em-blazoned with some sort of tribal symbol. He’d apparently inherited his aunt’s penchant for piercing, only on Joey it had run amok. There was enough metal attached to him to set off alarms at airports.

  But Alex knew appearances could be deceiving. For Rosa’s sake, he hoped that was the case with this character. He suspected he was right when he saw the magazine Joey held—Scientific American.

  “So, what do you think of Winslow?” Alex asked him.

  “It’s okay.” The boy’s gaze wandered to a blond girl shopping the aisle with her mother. She looked to be about his age and had the sort of long-legged, flowerlike beauty of a girl in the mysterious process of becoming a woman. They made eye contact, a message passing between them. “It’s pretty nice here.”

  Rosa nudged him. “You’re liking it better and better, huh?”

  His ears turned red and Alex felt sorry for him. He thought he recognized the girl’s mother from the club—somebody Brooks. But the moment to introduce them was past, so he changed the subject. “When I was a kid, I spent every summer here. I’ve known your aunt since she was nine years old.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m working on our family’s old house,” Alex went on, trying to figure out how to engage the boy’s interest. This was his first real break with Rosa. If he could make friends with the kid, maybe she’d give him the time of day. He glanced again at the magazine. The cover story was something about planetary transits. “You know, I used to have an old telescope.” It had been stashed in a window seat of the parlor, and as far as he knew, it was still there. “I was going to see if someone at the high school wanted it, but if you’re interested—”

  “That’d be great,” said Joey.

  “I don’t think so,” said Rosa.

  Alex ignored her. He had an ally now. “Why don’t you come by this afternoon and I’ll show you what I’ve got?” He sensed Rosa winding up for a protest, and quickly added, “You’re not busy this afternoon, are you?”

  “Nope,” said Joey, also ignoring Rosa. “I’ve got a job at the ice-cream place, but I’m off today. What time?”

  “Will two o’clock work?”

  “Sure.”

  “Your aunt knows where I live. She won’t mind giving you a lift.” Alex didn’t want to give her a chance to back out, so he said, “I’d better get going. See you this afternoon, Joey. You, too, Rosa.”

  “Bye, Alex.” She aimed her cart and sped toward the baking aisle.

  Pretending great interest in a display of bagels in cellophane, he furtively watched her go. Then he threw a few frozen dinners and bags of pretzels into the cart, followed by milk and cereal, juice and beer. His major food groups covered, he checked out and started loading his purchases into the back of his Ford Explorer. On the far side of the parking lot, he saw Rosa and Joey getting into her red convertible. She wore sunglasses and a long polka dot scarf to protect her hair from the wind, and she was using the rearview mirror to put on a stroke of red lipstick.

  That was too much. Alex grabbed his cell phone and dialed her number—the one she’d left stuck to his door the day the papers reported his mother’s suicide. He’d immediately programmed it into his phone.

  “Rosa Capoletti,” she said in a businesslike tone. Alex could see her holding the tiny phone to her ear with one hand and clipping on her seat belt with the other.

  “Have dinner with me,” he said.

  There was a beat
of shocked silence. Then she cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “What’s your schedule like?”

  “It’s full. Forever.”

  She was pissed that he’d invited Joey over, Alex thought. Too bad. “I won’t accept that.”

  “Then I suppose,” she said as she put the car in gear, “you’ll have to find a way to deal with it.”

  “Stalking,” he said with a laugh. “Would stalking work for you?”

  “I have to go,” she said, steering toward the parking lot exit.

  “All right. But you might want to fix your scarf,” he said. “It’s caught in the door.”

  Her brake lights flared as she hung up and craned her neck around. She didn’t spot him, though he stood in plain sight, leaning easily against the back door of the Explorer. She opened her car door, liberated the scarf and sped off.

  Okay, thought Alex. Time for Plan B.

  nineteen

  The minute they pulled into the driveway of Alex Montgomery’s house, Joey felt like he’d entered a different cosmos. The place looked like it could be haunted, a classic old New England house with tall, narrow windows and peaked gables, a porch wrapping around three sides and a huge garden with a pond. About fifty yards beyond that was a beach.

  The guy called Alex, who had been hitting on his aunt, came hurrying out of the house like he couldn’t wait to see Joey. But of course, his face fell when he saw it was Grandpop, not Aunt Rosa, who had driven Joey over. Clearly Alex had been counting on seeing her. He totally dug her. You could tell that a mile off.

  “Hey, Joey.” He was acting cool now, like he didn’t even mind that Rosa hadn’t shown up.

  Then when Grandpop got out of the car, it was like the hot summer day turned winter-cold. “Hello, Alexander,” said Grandpop.

  “Mr. Capoletti.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your mother.”

  Aw, jeez, thought Joey. He’d hoped the subject wouldn’t come up. Now everything was going to be all awkward.

  “I appreciate that,” said Alex.

  Grandpop nodded and then said, “I will wait out here, Joey.”

  Joey figured Alex would insist that Grandpop come in, sit down, have a drink, whatever, but Alex just headed for the house. Must be some bad blood between the two, Joey figured.

  “I’ve got the telescope right here,” said Alex, walking over to a giant bay window. The lid of the window seat was propped up with an old fishing pole. Alex shone the beam of a flashlight into the cobwebby depths of the storage space. When he straightened up, he was holding an old telescope by the optical tube.

  Joey felt a little beat of excitement, but he was careful not to let it show. Once you show how much you want something, it could get taken away. Joey was the youngest of four kids, and he’d learned that the hard way.

  “Could I...see that?”

  “Sure.” Alex handed it over. “There are some other pieces and accessories in here. I’ll just see if I can find them....” He turned and started rummaging in the window seat.

  Joey checked out the telescope, rubbing his thumb over the tarnished brass latitude scale on the equatorial mount. It was a Warner & Swinburne, and he didn’t know that much about it except that it was a valuable antique.

  “So there’s this,” Alex said, handing him a tripod and brass finderscope. “And I found these lens boxes....”

  “Are you sure you want to let me use this?” Joey asked.

  “No.” Alex spoke over his shoulder as he kept rummaging.

  Joey’s heart sank. “Then—”

  “I want to let you have this.” He pulled out a long black case. “For keeps.”

  “Uh-uh.” Joey shook his head. “You don’t want to do that. You don’t know what you have here.”

  “A Warner & Swinburne refracting telescope, made in Boston in the 1890s,” Alex said. “It’s worth a few hundred bucks to collectors. I’d rather give it to someone who might use it and maybe even learn something. It’s nowhere near as good as a modern scope, but Maria Mitchell used one like this at her observatory in Nantucket. It’s all yours. The best place for viewing is Watch Hill. It’s about a mile north of town.”

  “Why me? You don’t even know me.” Just then, Joey got it. “Oh, I see. You’re being nice to me because you have the hots for my aunt.”

  “Did Rosa tell you that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then how—”

  “Duh.” Joey shook his head.

  “What did she say about me?” Alex asked.

  Joey snorted. “I thought I was finished with junior high.”

  Instead of being offended, Alex laughed. “When it comes to women, you’re never finished with junior high. Hang on a second while I make sure I gave you everything.” He pulled a bunch of old stuff out of the window seat—flat vinyl records by groups like The Byrds and the Herb Alpert Band, clothes someone probably should have thrown away decades ago, a stack of old piano music, copies of Life and Time filled with past history.

  “Check this out.” Alex handed him a clear plastic bag filled with political buttons with slogans like Nixon. Now More Than Ever. and Goldwater in ’64. Joey wondered who the heck they were. Old failed candidates, probably.

  Joey picked up a framed picture of some woman and dusted it off. She had long red hair, and she was leaning against a blue car and laughing into the camera. “Who’s this?”

  Alex’s face changed. Not a lot, but it hardened as if he’d just gone into the deep freeze. He took the photo and stared at it for a few seconds. “My mother, about twenty years ago.”

  “I’m sorry she died.” Grandpop had explained the situation to him on the way over and it was a total bummer. The woman had killed herself. “It sucks,” he added, and then he made himself shut up. Every word in the English language was lame in a situation like this.

  “It does suck,” Alex agreed. “I suck at dealing with it, too. I try not to think about it, and then all I do is think about it.”

  “So you should think about it,” Joey said. “Maybe you’re supposed to.”

  Alex grinned a little. “Maybe.” He quickly dumped the old papers back into the box. “Anyway, I think you’ve got everything, Joey. Go see if you can get the thing to work.”

  * * *

  Rosa was keyed up and distracted at the restaurant that evening, but she tried not to let it show. She greeted customers, monitored the kitchen and generally conducted herself as though this were any other night. No one could tell how rattled she was about Alex Montgomery.

  Or so she thought.

  Vince cornered her in the prep area of the kitchen. “All night you’ve been acting like you got a bug up your ass.”

  “How would you know how I’d act if I had a bug up my ass?” she asked. “For your information, I’ve never had one, so even I don’t know how I’d behave.”

  “Just like you are now,” he said without missing a beat. “Testy and maybe a tad distracted. I know I would be.”

  “Sicko.” She brushed past him and headed toward the insulated double doors to the dining room. But before going out, she glanced at the monitor, which panned over the dining room, foyer, deck and parking lot. She squinted at the parking lot view and jumped back. “Oh, shit.”

  “I thought you were done with this conversation,” Vince said. He glanced at the video monitor. “My, my,” he said. “Miss Rosa has a suitor.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Leave this to me. I’ll make him go away.”

  Rosa cursed herself for not keeping a poker face when she’d spotted Alex. She was terrible at playing it cool. She always wore her emotions with the flash of the latest fashion accessory. “That’s okay, Vince. I’ll deal with him.”

  Vince kept watching the monitor. “No need. Ted
dy beat you to it.”

  She looked up to see Teddy and Alex in the parking lot, nose to nose, chest to chest, like an umpire and an irate player. Teddy was a large, formidable man. Most people knew better than to mess with him. His thick finger jabbed at Alex’s face, but Alex didn’t back down.

  “Shit,” Rosa said again, and rushed for the back door. She burst out into the breezy summer night. Her work clothes—a formfitting black dress and spike heels—were not designed for sprinting. Scurrying, maybe, if she was careful.

  She scurried as fast as she could to the front parking lot, arriving in time to see Alex trying to push past Teddy toward the restaurant. He didn’t get far. Even as Rosa called out “No...” and lunged toward them, Teddy coldcocked Alex. She watched helplessly as Alex toppled like a heap of unmortared brick, and a puff of dust rose around him.

  “For Pete’s sake,” Rosa yelled, “what are you doing, Teddy?”

  “Guy wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he said, glaring at the groaning, groggy man on the ground. “He upsets you.”

  She started to say, “He does not...” but that would be a lie. Alex Montgomery upset her in the most fundamental way, making her body tremble and her palms sweat. But that was her fault, not his.

  “Help him up,” she said.

  Teddy held out a hand to Alex, who looked dazed as he tentatively shifted his jaw from side to side. When he saw Teddy’s beefy paw outstretched, he leaned away.

  “He won’t hit you again,” Rosa promised.

  “He doesn’t need to.” Alex eyed Teddy ruefully. “He got me the first time.” He stood up and dusted sand and gravel from his tailored beige slacks.

  Rosa turned to Teddy. “Why don’t you go back inside?”

  “But—”

  “I’m fine, Teddy. Promise.”

  He ambled away, casting glances over his shoulder, and she knew he and all the others would be glued to the security monitors. It was stupid, she told herself, yet she felt like some sort of damsel in a joust.

  “Are you all right?” she asked Alex.

  “Just peachy.” He rubbed his jaw, wincing at his own touch.