Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  She followed his gaze. The abundance of books was no surprise; he had already said he was a reader. As she approached the shelves, though, she was drawn to a familiar spine. She pulled it out. Salt. And it wasn’t alone. There were three other copies—actually, six, if you counted three that, glancing around in bewilderment, she saw in the shadows of the copy machine. Eyes whipping back to the shelves, she spotted the title Salt on the spines of three others, though these were different. They were paperbacks.

  But Salt wasn’t out in paperback, at least not yet, or it would have been on sale in the airport.

  Curious, she pulled out one, then another. Their covers had different designs, like someone was trying to decide which one to use.

  Someone?

  In the space of a stunned breath, little things came together—things Leo had said that reminded her of Salt, his familiarity with island life, the fact that the boat at his dock was like the one the hero built, even his disdain for the book, which might ward off suspicion.

  Her gaze flew to his. “You?” she whispered, incredulous. “You wrote Salt?”

  He didn’t speak, didn’t smile, didn’t show a trace of emotion.

  Trying to grasp it, she put a hand on the top of her head. “Self-published. Self-promoted.”

  “It isn’t rocket science.”

  Disbelieving, she looked at the book again, then back. “You wrote this?”

  A touch of color hit his cheeks. “Is that so improbable?”

  “Yes! To hear Quinnies tell it, you’re just a troublemaker who shoots gulls.” Her own suspicion dawned. “None of it’s true, is it. They were protecting you.” That brought another thought. “They all know?”

  “Mostly. The guy driving the mail boat sees me getting books and bags of forwarded mail. He’s a gossip.”

  “Why ‘forwarded’ mail?”

  “I have a P.O. box in Portland.”

  “So no one can track you here.”

  “I don’t want publicity.”

  “Like the kind our cookbook could bring?”

  He sputtered wryly. “Looks like I’ve ceded that fight.”

  Charlotte felt a dull pain. “Maybe me, too. Nicole won’t want me touching it now.” But she couldn’t think about that, with the reality of Leo Cole sinking in. Feeling Bear’s warmth by her leg, she touched his head for balance. “You wrote the hottest book of the year, and the world hasn’t a clue. This is mind-boggling.”

  He said nothing. Clearly, he didn’t think it was so mind-boggling. Clearly, he was feeling vaguely threatened that she knew his secret. “Does your publisher know your real name?”

  He shook his head. “Everything goes through a lawyer in Boston.”

  “Even phone calls?”

  “Those, too.”

  She scrunched up her face. “You don’t want even a little of the glory?”

  “No.”

  Well, he certainly knew what he wanted on that score at least. Fanning the three paperbacks, she held them out. “Which did you choose?”

  “I haven’t yet. The hardcover’s doing well enough so that this won’t come out for a while. Which do you like?”

  Charlotte didn’t have to study them. “The blue one,” she said. It was a stylized ocean scene with a boat, though whether at sunrise or sunset, she didn’t know, which added to the poignancy of it. She fitted the books back on the shelf and, puzzled, returned to Leo. “How did you learn how to do this?”

  “I didn’t design the cover. My publisher did.”

  “No, I mean, writing a book. I agonize over a piece that’s twelve pages. Salt is four-hundred and eighty-three.”

  His mouth slanted, though not exactly in a smile. “You remember that.”

  “Oh, I do,” Charlotte replied, clear-minded on this. “I was loving the reading so much that when I started to worry where it was headed, I skipped to the end. I hated that ending. I haven’t finished the book.”

  “Are you angry?”

  “Absolutely. You tugged at my heartstrings, then tore them all out and threw them away. I like my fiction happy. Real life is bad enough.” Again, she thought of Nicole. Pushing the thought away again, she approached the desk. Some of the notes there were handwritten, others typed. One of the neater piles held what looked to be letters. “From fans?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She was in awe. In the next instant, though, her eyes flew to the screen. “A sequel?” she asked excitedly, desperate for a happy ending.

  “No. Salt’s done.”

  “Then this is a whole new one?” She looked at the header. Next Book, it said.

  He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “It’s not going very well.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Salt wrote itself. This one’s a struggle. Maybe it’s the interruptions, you know, doing stuff on the Web to promote Salt. It’s time-consuming.”

  “But you don’t need much sleep,” she remembered him saying.

  “The issue isn’t sleep. It’s fear.”

  “Fear?”

  “That a second one will bomb.”

  “What does your publisher say?” She pointed her chin, about Next Book.

  “Nothing. I haven’t sold it to them yet.”

  “Can I read it?” Omigod. That would thaw Nicole.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it isn’t worth shit. I’m thinking Salt should be the first and last.”

  “But you have a special talent.”

  “Lots of people do. They just don’t know what to do with it. I figured out that part.” But he was reaching inward, troubled again. “It isn’t just fear. It’s the next part.”

  “What part?”

  “Success. Fans, bloggers, the media—they all want a piece of you, and the more successful you get, the more demanding they are. I won’t leave the island to do what writers usually do.”

  Knowing him even in a small way, Charlotte could understand that. He liked his privacy.

  Actually, she liked his privacy, too, though that thought took her by surprise. She was trying to understand it, when he said, “What’re you thinking?”

  Perplexed, she was trying to decide. Touching Bear again, she said, “You wrote Salt. I’m not sure I like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” She was unsettled, but couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “It should make you like me more. It means I’m loaded.”

  She grunted at the absurdity of that. “Money means diddly to me. Actually, knowing you’re loaded scares me to death.”

  “Because you’re jealous.”

  “Of what?”

  “My success.”

  “No way. I can’t compare my job to yours. Every assignment is different. I get to go different places and talk with different people. I don’t want to write a book.” Thinking of the cookbook, she added, “At least, not a novel.”

  “So what scares you?”

  She tried to think it through. What she liked about Leo was that he was self-contained, that his ties to the island were exclusive. Her future was strewn all over the world, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was rooted here. She found comfort in roots. When she was with him on his private little tail of Quinnipeague, she felt safe.

  How to reconcile that with the concept of international bestsellerdom? And how to reconcile any of it with the future? She had no idea.

  So she simply said, “I liked your life when it was simpler. The real world is complicated. Yours is basic and down to earth. At least, I thought it was.” Needing a break from the hot seat, she asked, “Why are you telling me all this now?”

  He didn’t blink. “I know about you and Julian. You were worried I’d tell. Now you have something on me. That’s insurance, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Insurance. Charlotte wasn’t quite sure there was such a thing. Life did what it wanted whether you had insurance or not. Take the situation with Nicole. Julian could
have had any number of other diseases, and this wouldn’t have happened. That he should have MS, that no treatment was working, that his body had a rejection problem—Charlotte wouldn’t have dreamed it in a million years.

  And yet, it was all she thought about as she walked back to Nicole’s. Leo had offered to drive her, but there was too much going on in her head. She needed exercise. She needed fresh air. She needed a buffer between his life and hers.

  It didn’t completely work. She got caught up remembering what he had said when she asked if she could tell Nicole about Salt.

  He had shrugged his consent. “You have something on her. She won’t tell.”

  “Is that what it’s all about,” Charlotte asked sadly. “Having something on someone?”

  “It isn’t the way I want life to be. But life never is.”

  She wondered if he was preparing himself for her leaving, which made her wonder exactly what their relationship was. She didn’t know—didn’t even know what she wanted it to be.

  Inevitably, though, as she neared the house, Nicole replaced Leo. There were immediate issues here, starting with getting inside. For all she knew, the doors would still be locked and Nicole would refuse to answer the bell. For all she knew, her luggage would be on the front steps.

  But oh yes, she did have a bit of insurance against that. She couldn’t dream that Nicole was angry enough to turn her back on those stem cells.

  * * *

  There was no luggage on the front steps, and the door was unlocked. Cautious, Charlotte let herself in. She smelled coffee and was desperate for a cup, but didn’t feel she had a right to help herself. For all she knew, Nicole had left the door open only so that she could get her things. Her welcome here remained in serious doubt.

  Nicole was in the Great Room. She didn’t rise or even turn, though she must have heard the door. Only the top of her head, blond hair uncombed, showed above the sofa cushions. She sat facing the sliders, which were open to salt air and a frothing surf.

  Charlotte went only far enough to enter Nicole’s periphery, and the sight tugged at her heart. She was a knot on the sofa—legs tucked under her, elbows at her sides, profile tense.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said with her heart in her mouth. “If I could erase that night, I would. It meant nothing.”

  “I wish it had,” Nicole murmured. “At least then someone would have gotten something out of it.”

  But someone yet might, Charlotte thought. “The stem cells are yours. Say the word, and I’ll have them sent.”

  Nicole didn’t acknowledge the offer. She lifted her mug, sipped her coffee, tucked the mug back in her lap. Finally, sounding curious but detached, she asked, “Why did you agree to work on the cookbook? Did you want me to find out about this?”

  “God, no. I only agreed, because I figured you wouldn’t. Ten years had passed. I was dying to see you. Maybe I felt that helping with it would go a little way toward compensating for what I did.”

  “Nothing can do that.”

  “Maybe not. Tell me what you want me to do. I’ll leave, if you want.”

  Nicole turned her head only enough to suggest she was looking at Charlotte, without actually doing it. “And let you off the hook? No. I have to think of myself right now. The cookbook is my future. You agreed to help. You owe me.”

  “I do,” Charlotte said, knowing it would be easier for her to leave, but feeling that for once she just couldn’t run. “I’ll help any way you want.” She paused. When Nicole simply took another sip of coffee, she asked softly, “Did you tell Julian?”

  “No.”

  That puzzled her. The stem cells alone would have been reason for her to call, and as for the affair? The old Nicole had been so angry last night that she would have yelled at him for an hour.

  But the Nicole on the sofa seemed different. This Nicole was subdued. She was more controlled. In a cool voice, she said, “I told my mother. Not about you, just about Julian’s MS. So that’s one good thing. She’s coming up.”

  Charlotte loved Angie and wanted her there for Nicole’s sake. Facing her now? That would be hard.

  Nicole did turn then, finally emotional. “You bet, it’ll be awkward for you. But I don’t really care. You should feel guilty every time you look at her. I hope you suffer.”

  It wasn’t the suffering that bothered Charlotte, as much as the hatred. Nicole wasn’t a hater. Knowing that she had caused this was as bad as everything else.

  “But you’ll have to look at me, too,” Charlotte said deferentially enough. “Are you sure you want that?”

  Nicole’s nod was slow and long. “I want my cookbook done. Besides, if you think you can run off with those stem cells, think again. Julian will go after you.” She paused, bewildered. “Did you always want him?”

  “I never wanted him.”

  “Was it jealousy—you had no one and didn’t want me to, so you did what you could to spoil my marriage?”

  “If I’d wanted that,” Charlotte argued, “I’d have told you about this long ago. I know you’re trying to figure out why it happened, Nicole, but I’ve already told you all I can. I was lonely, so I drank too much. Julian wasn’t any more aware of me than I was of him.”

  Nicole’s eyes were cold. “But he wasn’t calling my name when he made love to you.”

  “We weren’t making love. There were no words at all. It was an animal act.”

  Nicole stared at the ocean again. Then, recomposed, she said, “You were at Leo’s, weren’t you?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go. For what it’s worth,” she added, because she couldn’t let the inference go unchallenged, “there were no animal acts there. I was distraught, and he is a friend.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  Charlotte wanted to lie. But that would only add to her guilt. “Yes.” When Nicole shot her an alarmed look, she said, “He won’t tell.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because he told me something personal that he doesn’t want getting out. If he talks about you, I tell the world.”

  “Like the world would care about Leo Cole?” Nicole asked in disdain.

  Charlotte would have leapt on that disdain if the situation had been different. But leaping anywhere wasn’t wise, when she was already on thin ice. She waited until Nicole sank deeper into the sofa before saying, “It would.”

  “Honestly. The world?”

  “He wrote Salt.”

  Nicole snorted. “And I’m Lady Gaga.”

  “I saw his office. I saw the books there—including paperback copies that won’t come out for a while. I was just as skeptical as you, Nicole. But think about it,” she said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. “He’s the perfect one to write about island life.”

  “And about caring for women?”

  “The bad things we heard were rumors. He isn’t that way.”

  “So he says. But men lie.” Another cutting look. “We both know that.”

  Here, too, Charlotte couldn’t let the inference go. “Did Julian ever lie to you?” she asked, mildly annoyed. She was starting to hear self-pity, which never sat well with her. “Did you ever ask him if he’d slept with me? Did you ever ask if he even liked me?”

  “Yes. When you two first met. You were my best friend. I was desperate that he like you.” She seemed to know that Charlotte had made a point, though, because she hit back. “He didn’t want you involved in the cookbook. He didn’t want you here with me this summer. I don’t think he ever really liked you at all.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Charlotte insisted, turning the argument around. “What happened between us was impersonal. It was once, and it was mindless.”

  “That doesn’t mean it was right.”

  And what could Charlotte say, other than to return to the purpose of the firestorm? “You need to tell Julian about the stem cells.”

  “I don’t need to do anything.”

  “Okay. You’re right. But you said he migh
t die. Using those cells would lower the risk.”

  “If they’re a match.”

  “The match will be at least half, since he’s the parent.”

  “Are we sure he is?”

  Charlotte was suddenly weary. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. If you doubt it, do a DNA test. Honestly, Nicole, would I lie about something like this, knowing it could be disproved”—she snapped her fingers—“like that? The bank I used did a DNA test before it froze the cord blood. Compare those results to Julian’s DNA, and you’ll have your proof.”

  Nicole was silent. Though her coffee had to be cold, she sipped it anyway. She was going through the motions, Charlotte realized, holding it together as she wouldn’t have thought her friend could do. Not that she’d thought Nicole could build a hugely successful blog, either. But this was different. This was emotional. Maybe those four years of secrecy had given her a hidden strength.

  Charlotte waited, allowing her time to ask more. Into the silence, she finally said, “So what do we do now?”

  Nicole looked at her. “Now?”

  “You don’t really want to play Scrabble with me. So where do we go from here? I’d be glad to take a room in town if that’ll make you more comfortable. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Nicole was quiet for another minute. Then, “Stay here. The house is big enough for two of us. Today’s the Fourth. Do what you want during the day, but we should go to the barbecue together tonight.”

  “Together?” Charlotte asked in surprise.

  Nicole was impassive. “I don’t want it any more than you do, but we have to pretend nothing’s wrong. I don’t want anyone doubting that this cookbook will come to be. We have to look like a team.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Easily. I’m good at putting on a show. I’ve been doing it for four years.”

  Since Julian had been diagnosed. “Nicole, about the stem cells—”

  “Do you ever think about her?” Nicole cut in, albeit with a chink in her indifference. “Do you wonder what she’s like?”

  The child. “I try not to.”

  “You’re her mother.”

  “Only biologically.”

  “But you have to wonder.”

  “I gave up that right when I signed the agreement.”