Keepsake

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "Smartass," Corinne said, but with surprising good humor. Clearly she had something to say, and nothing was going to wreck her mood. "Everyone out," she commanded.

  Snack and Laura climbed down from the truck like high school kids on a prison tour: whatever was ahead, they didn't look all that excited to learn about it.

  Positioning Snack and Laura next to her on the wraparound porch of the house, Corinne threw her arms wide and said, "Okay. What do you see out there?"

  Not the ocean, that was for sure. The porch faced away from it.

  "I see ruins," Snack said candidly.

  Laura didn't have the heart to agree out loud.

  "Squint a little," Corinne ordered them. "You'll see a thriving business with not only annuals and perennials and shrubs and trees, but garden furniture and water fountains and bird feeders and decorative pottery and ... squint! You'll see."

  "Corinne. I have a one-thirty flight out of Logan tomorrow. Cut to the chase or I'm going to miss the damn plane," Laura said, more leery than ever. "Just tell us what you have in mind."

  "Just this: I want you to spend a month at the Shore."

  A Month at the Shore Sample Chapter 2

  "One month. That's all I ask. I know it's a huge, huge favor. I know I'm asking you to hand over a chunk of your lives to me. But ... one month. That's all. I've never asked either of you for a favor before," Corinne added in an earnest, heartrending voice.

  It was late, two in the morning. Snack and Laura were drooping over the kitchen table: Snack, because he was in his cups; Laura, because she'd spent the previous night crossing the country by plane. Only Corinne, who should have been sleepiest, was still wide awake—feverishly so.

  Laura yawned and leaned her head back, trying to rub the cotton out of her eyes. It hurt to open them, hurt to think, hurt to argue. She longed for bed, the same bed that she'd been so glad to abandon fifteen years earlier. If only Corinne would stop holding them hostage!

  She gazed wearily at her younger sister. "Rinnie, why are you so adamant about this? The nursery hasn't made any money for years. In fact, do you ever remember a good year? I don't. Shore Gardens is a lost cause, believe me."

  Her eyelids eased the rest of the way shut as she repeated her litany. "Too many bad decisions ... too little maintenance ... the overhead, the taxes. If Dad couldn't make it work with three generations of experience behind him," she added, opening her eyes with an effort, "what makes you think you can?"

  Incredibly, Corinne was still more than willing to explain.

  "Because I know what was missing!" she said with numbing enthusiasm. She slapped the table. "You." She slapped the table again. "Snack."

  "We never wanted to stay in the business. Ever," Laura said tiredly. "Everyone knew that—Dad, most of all."

  "I know, I know; I was there for all the battles, and I have copies of all three wills: the old one, the new one, and the one Dad was willing to sign if only you'd come back."

  Snack let out a harsh laugh and said, "I used my three versions to stoke a fire in a cabin I was living in. What'd you do with your set when you got 'em, Laur?"

  "Filed them," Laura said briefly.

  Corinne sighed and went on. "But after you both took off, I wasn't enough to hold up our end. The first four generations had a lot more family around to work the business. Our generation just had me."

  "Hey ... don't go laying some guilt trip on me," Snack mumbled. "I paid the price." He folded his arms over the table and began a slow slide forward on it. "And it was a small price at that, to get out from under the old man's beatings."

  "All I'm saying is that I didn't have the right stuff on my own, Snack. I'm good at some things, not at others."

  Laura said grimly, "Or so you were told by Dad. Repeatedly, I'm sure."

  "But it's the truth," said Corinne, ignoring the sarcasm. "For example, the water lines are a disaster because Dad didn't winterize anything a couple of years ago, and some of them burst. I don't know anything about plumbing, so now I'm hauling hoses everywhere. Watering takes forever. There's no pressure. The hoses leak." She said sheepishly, "That's just one thing off the top of my head. There's so much more."

  "Like, who cares?" Snack said in a sleepy moan.

  "But do you have any idea how many plants we've lost? We could have carpeted the highway from here to Provincetown! Plus, we don't have a catalog, we don't have a computer, we don't do mail order, we're not high-end enough for the big spenders, we're not cheap enough for the Wal-Mart crowd ..."

  Snack was letting his head come slowly down.

  "Don't go to sleep on me, Snack!"

  "I'm just resting," he muttered to his forearms.

  Laura's heart went out to her sister, but Corinne was tilting at windmills. For all of the reasons that she had just listed, the nursery was failing. Had failed. Laura had been shocked by the evidence that she saw all around her when she arrived that morning.

  It was over. Everything was over. Corinne should just sell the property and use the money to start up a nice business in a related field. A florist shop, maybe.

  Outside, the wind was picking up, adding its dispirited moan to the grumbling responses that they'd been giving to Corinne's dogged pleas for their help.

  Laura looped her forefingers through her straight brown hair, tucking it behind her ears. "Rinnie ... honey ... can't you hear it?" she asked with a sad smile and a nod at the open window. "That's the fat lady singing."

  "No! I am not done here yet! I have plans, lots of them! I've thought about this for months, for years, but I never had the courage to stand up to Dad. You know how he is—was," Corinne said, her voice catching in her throat.

  "Yes. We do. That's why we left," Laura said softly. "Snack got sick of the strap, and I got sick of the tirades. Neither of us had your strength, Rin."

  She leaned over to rub her sister's back, spinning slow circles of comfort between her shoulder blades. When Corinne was six and Laura was eight, it used to do the trick. But that was then.

  "Laura, we can do this," her sister said, shrugging off the show of sympathy. "You have an artist's eye; look how you fixed up that wreck of a house that you bought in Portland. For gosh sakes, when you were done, it was featured in Renovation Magazine! And so was the garden you created—from nothing, I might add. Think of the marketing angle for us; you're famous now!"

  "That's so ridiculous," Laura said, embarrassed. "One little article—"

  "In a national magazine! It just flew off the shelves around here. And I forgot to tell you, but there was a copy in Dr. Burton's office, and someone tore out the pages for a souvenir. That's how impressed they were."

  A wave of irritation washed over Laura. "I cannot believe you persist in going to that quack," she snapped.

  "But ... we've always gone to Dr. Burton," Corinne said, taken aback.

  True enough. Which was why, when she was thirteen, Laura made a vow never to get sick enough to need medical attention. She'd kept that vow. The next time she saw a physician was when she was eighteen, living on the West Coast, and in urgent need of her first supply of birth-control pills.

  Corinne said, "Anyway, you're changing the subject. This isn't about my doctor, Laura, it's about my doctor's magazine. You were in it."

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm a real celebrity," Laura said tiredly.

  "Plus, you know all about computers. You can streamline our accounting system and get us computerized at last."

  "But that's not what I do!" Laura said, exasperated. She had tried so many times to explain her career. She tried again. "I'm a systems programmer. I don't decide what a system is going to do, I just decide how it's going to do it," she said.

  "But it's all still computers, isn't it?" Corinne asked naively.

  Sighing, Laura said, "My clients are big companies, with very special needs. I generally work as part of a team of ten to twenty people. My expertise is in the communications part: how to make two computers in the same system talk to one another. I implement th
e program, make sure it runs successfully, and leave."

  She got the usual blank look from Corinne.

  "I don't do flowers. Okay?"

  "Gawd. How can you stand that job?" Snack asked, opening one eye. "I'd sooner cut my throat."

  "It's challenging, satisfying work—and it happens to pay well," Laura shot back. "It's clean. It's prestigious. And I get to pick and choose my contracts."

  "Had your fill of down and dirty, have you?" Snack asked, yawning. He nestled his cheek on his arm, ready for bed.

  "Yes, as a matter of fact," Laura said. "If I'm feeling nostalgic for backbreaking labor, I go out in my garden and weed."

  Ignoring the crack, Corinne turned to her brother, reaching across the table to cup her hands over his. Snack didn't bother to raise his head, but she pleaded her case anyway.

  "And you've worked at every odd job there is. You know how to do everything, Snack! You can spruce up the store, and then the greenhouses, and maybe build us a checkout shed for the spring rush. As for this house, it just needs a coat of paint for now, that's all. Not even! Just paint the front, and maybe the west side—just the parts that show from the nursery!"

  Snack's answer was a sleepy moan. "Is that all?"

  "Okay, skip the greenhouses, then," Corinne said, rolling with it. "That's not as urgent, now that the cold weather's over. They're too far gone, anyway. Maybe—maybe just knock down the one by the road! Bulldoze it, that's what you can do! And relocate that giant compost pile that's next to it. It's so in the wrong place."

  Snack's head came up. "Bulldoze the greenhouse! Move the compost! What the hell are you talking about?"

  Corinne backed off, drawing her pale brows together in a fit of second-guessing. "All right, maybe not; it was just a thought. I have other ideas, lots of them! Please. Snack, please," she begged. "Give me a month of your time to turn this place around. To turn our reputation around. Let's make the name Shore something to be proud of again. That's all I ask."

  Snack dragged himself to his feet. "You're nuts," he said wearily. "I'm going to bed."

  A look of dismay passed over Corinne's face. "No!" she said, grabbing his forearm. "You can't go to bed. We made a pact: no one sleeps until this is resolved, one way or the other."

  "Watch me," he said, sloughing off her grip.

  "Oh, Snack. Why did you have to drink all that beer?" Corinne said, more sad than angry. "Why do you always do that?"

  An ironic grin, highlighted by a chipped front tooth, came and went on his lean, stubbled face. "Rinnie, dear sister. I do what I want. If I want to get fall-down drunk, that's my perrog ... prerga ... prerogative."

  Laura decided that she'd better step in. She was all too aware of her brother's moods, which could turn on a dime from bemused to resentful. Although Snack seemed okay about being cut from their father's will, it was obvious that somewhere deep down inside, resentment still bubbled in him.

  Laura sat back in her chair and said, "Snack, Rinnie already admits that she's crazy. The question is, just how crazy are we? Let's assume for the sake of argument that I'd be willing to throw a month of my life into this broken-down wreck of a business. Would you?" she asked him with a carefully offhand air.

  Her brother's laugh was soft and incredulous. "What, kill myself for a lost cause like this? Do what you like, Laur ... but count me out."

  It was his attitude to life itself: count me out. Without knowing why, Laura decided to call him on it.

  "Snack, let me put it another way, because Corinne is far too polite to bring it up: it's Corinne—not me, not you—who stayed behind and made life a little more bearable for Mom. She did it for over a decade. She's asking us for a month."

  "Rinnie didn't have to stay," Snack said sullenly. "No one was holding a gun to her head."

  "But she did stay, didn't she? And we owe her, don't we?" Laura suggested quietly.

  "I'm not saying I'm not grateful. I'm just saying—" He frowned again and rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture of frustration that he had inherited from his father. "What happens if we do manage to turn the business around? I'm not staying on, and neither are you. Once Rinnie has to pay for help to replace us, that's it: back down the toilet goes Shore Gardens."

  "That's Rinnie's problem, isn't it? We're just agreeing to grant her the favor she's asked, that's all. One month."

  "Dammit, Laura! Where're you coming from, all of a sudden?"

  All evening long, it had been the two of them against Corinne. But sweet Corinne had stood up to their pounding, and an admiring Laura had just decided to switch sides. Snack had every right to feel double-crossed.

  Laura pulled at one of the thin gold loops hooked through her earlobes. She said to her brother, "A month, Snack. How about it?"

  His face flushed. He threw a longing glance at the worn-down stairs that led to his old room and his lumpy bed. He was tired and crabby and ready to pass out; Laura recognized the signs from their youth.

  "Oh, all right," he snapped. "One fricking month. That's it."

  Corinne leapt from her chair and threw her arms around her brother in an enthusiastic hug. He grimaced and caught her wrists from behind his neck, breaking the circle of her embrace. "Now can I go to fricking sleep?"

  "Yes, yes, anything, yes," said his overjoyed sister. She watched him go, virtually hopping up and down in place, and then she called out after him, "Snack!"

  He turned around, sagging visibly. "Now what?"

  "Win or lose, I'm making you and Laura co-owners."

  "Of—?"

  "Everything. The business, the buildings, the land. Everything; just the way it should be. If I can't turn the business around and I'm forced to sell, then you get a third, and so does Laura."

  "What! Corinne!" cried Laura, stunned by what she was hearing.

  Bleary-eyed, Snack asked, "You serious?"

  "Yessir!"

  "Well ...." He looked uncharacteristically at a loss. "Whatever," he muttered awkwardly, and he turned and began ascending the stairs. "G'night."

  A Month at the Shore Sample Chapter 3

  As soon as Snack was out of earshot, Laura said to Corinne, "Are you crazy? Why did you say something like that?"

  "Because it's true. I'd always planned on reinstating the two of you. It's only fair."

  "Not me. Uh-uh, Rin. Count me out. I don't want any part of this. Do not write me back into anything. I refuse to accept. Helping you out for a month is one thing, but I've made my own way, and it would feel like—I don't know—wrong. That's all. Wrong. You're the one who stayed."

  "Don't be silly. This will work, trust me. I've thought about it for a long time," Corinne said. She began gathering the empty beer cans for rinsing and recycling.

  "Thought about it? You haven't thought about it at all!" Laura said, tagging after her. "For one thing, if you tell Snack he's going to get a third of Shore Gardens whether it succeeds or not, do you really think he's going to try to make it work? Get real, will you? You'll be lucky if he doesn't hold an open house for interested developers every Sunday from one to three."

  Laughing, Corinne said, "Bring me those dirty plates, would you? This will work," she insisted. "Snack will rise to the occasion. You'll see."

  "Corinne. You are so naive." Feeling churlish for slamming her brother, Laura dropped the subject altogether for the moment. She had other concerns. "One month," she warned. "I can't do more. You have to realize that this is going to be very hard on—"

  My career. God, it sounded so mean-spirited, given Corinne's almost saintly generosity. Laura settled for saying, "I can do a month. I had planned to take a couple of weeks off anyway. The only thing is," she muttered as an afterthought, "I thought I was taking them off in Hawaii."

  "With Max. I know," Corinne said, looking up from her soapsuds with a tragically sympathetic look.

  "Oh, Corinne ... stop," Laura said, flushing with annoyance. "I will board that plane tomorrow if you're going to be wringing your hands over Max and me every time I turn
around. It's over, and obviously it was no great loss."

  "I know. It's just that you sounded so ... happy."

  "Well, I was wrong. I just thought I was happy."

  "Love is blind," Corinne agreed.

  "Love is stupid! It has nothing to do with anything. The only thing that matters in life is what you make of yourself, not what someone else makes of you. And on that note, let's get back to your dream. You missed two payments, no more than that, right?" she asked her sister.

  "Yes," Corinne said firmly. "I paid this month right on time. So I don't understand why I got a threatening notice yesterday."

  "Don't worry; we'll take care of it. I'll write a check for the missing payments tomorrow."

  "I'm so embarrassed about this, Laur. But you know you'll get the money back, don't you?"

  "Never mind; it's not today's problem." Laura was back in business mode now, and on firmer terrain. Facts and figures, that's what she could count on. Everything else was just fluff. "When did Dad take out this loan from—who's the outfit? Great River?"

  "Great River Finance." Corinne shrugged her strong shoulders as she dried her hands on a ratty old dishtowel. "I haven't looked at the books close enough to figure that out, yet. They're all just mishmash to me, anyway, especially the way Dad kept them."

  "Yeah. I remember. Everything in shoeboxes."

  "All I know is that there's a book of payment coupons from Great River Finance for this year. I'm not that worried, though, because Ken Barclay did say something about how if I found myself over my head, I shouldn't panic."

  "Kendall Barclay! When did you talk to him about this?"

  "Originally? A few months ago. I ran into him when I was in the drugstore, getting something for an awful cold I had. I was depressed and really out of it, and to tell the truth I didn't register half of what he said."

  Kendall Barclay.

  Laura could picture the name so clearly, written in her own flowery handwriting on an envelope of thick pink paper, the very best she could find in the Chepaquit Pharmacy.

  Dear Kendall, Thank you, thank you, thank you, it began. You're my knight in shining armor. You saved me, and I'll never forget you for that.