He was being sarcastic. I chose to ignore it.
“Of course not. He looks like he’s in a hurry. I don’t want to interrupt him. I’m just curious. These are our new neighbors, after all.”
“You’re as bad as Miss Shaw,” Derek said. “Nosy old spinster.”
I shot him an offended look as I concentrated on turning the Beetle out of the parking lot and onto the Augusta Road in the direction of Guido’s. “Am not.”
“Are, too. Or you will be if you don’t look out. You already live alone with three cats.”
“I’m getting married!” I said.
My boyfriend grinned. “Yes, you are. And your future husband is just giving you a hard time. You won’t ever turn into Hilda Shaw. You have too many friends and too many interests to end up sitting behind your kitchen curtains petting Mischa and watching the neighbors.”
Jemmy and Inky loved my aunt, but they merely tolerated me. They wouldn’t let me pet them, so if I were to sit behind the kitchen curtains petting a cat, it’d definitely be Mischa. I wouldn’t be watching the neighbors, however; the kitchen faces the back of the house, and all I can see from there is the backyard, with what’s left of the garden shed, and the trees.
“Thank you,” I said. “I think.”
“My pleasure,” Derek answered and stretched his legs out.
Five minutes later we pulled into the parking lot outside Guido’s Pizzeria.
It was barely five o’clock, but already the place was hopping. The parking lot was more than half-full—a few trucks, plus a whole army of small economy cars with out-of-state license plates—and although I’ve seen the inside more tightly packed than it was right now, there was someone at almost every table. We made our way through the crowd, ducking and weaving, until we got to a small table for two near the swinging door to the kitchen. Candy, in her customary tight jeans and cropped pink top, was wending her way between the patrons, ponytail bopping and bubble gum snapping.
“Hi!” she said when she got around to noticing us—or rather, Derek. “What can I get you to drink?”
Derek ordered a beer for himself, and since he had Candy’s attention and I didn’t, he added a Diet Coke for me.
She popped a pink bubble. “Be right back.”
“See?” I told Derek when she’d sauntered off, tail swinging, “It’s like I’m not even here.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry about it, Tink. I know you’re here. Who cares what Candy thinks?”
He reached across the table and took my hand, looking deeply into my eyes. I leaned forward, irresistibly drawn, while tucking a strand of yellow hair behind my ear. That’s the reason he calls me Tinkerbell: lots of kinky, Mello Yello hair I often pile on top of my head when I work, like Peter Pan’s little fairy friend. That, and the fact that when he came up with the nickname, last summer when we first met, I was pouting a lot, because I wasn’t getting my way. Oh yes, and he thinks I’m cute, or “cunning,” as they say in Maine. For Halloween last year, we dressed up as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Derek looks quite fetching in tights.
“Who do you want to be for Halloween this year?” I asked dreamily. Those blue, blue eyes never fail to have an effect on me.
Derek straightened and let go of my hand. “Don’t you have enough to worry about without making Halloween costumes? We’re getting married in October, aren’t we?”
I sat back myself. Obviously the hand-holding was over. “We could combine the two. How would you feel about getting married in costume?”
“Not good,” Derek said.
“People do it, you know. Themed weddings. And it would be fun. We could be Peter Pan and Tinkerbell again. Or you could be Robin Hood and I could be Maid Marian. You already have the green tights and the tunic from last year, and the hat with the jaunty feather. All you’d need is a bow and arrows.”
“And then for Halloween I suppose you’re gonna repurpose the bow and arrow and turn me into Cupid? With little angel wings and a diaper? No thanks.”
“But I really wanted to be Maid Marian,” I said, pouting.
“You can still be Maid Marian,” Derek said. “I’ll be Friar Tuck.”
“You look nothing like Friar Tuck.” Tuck—at least the stereotypical Tuck—is short and fat and bald. Derek is tall and lean and still has all his hair. It’s dirty blond bordering on light brown, with streaks through the front and crown in the summer from time spent in the sun, and it’s almost always just a touch too long. I’m rather fond of it, and I’d hate to have to shave a bald spot to make him look the part. It would grow back in, I know, but still…not something I’d want to remember from the happiest day of my life. Just imagine the wedding photos.
“Fine,” Derek said. “I’ll be the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“Maid Marian can’t marry the Sheriff of Nottingham. And besides, he wore tights, too. They all wore tights back then. Friar Tuck probably had tights under the cassock.”
Derek huffed. “I’m not getting married in tights. In fact, I’m not getting married in costume at all. No themed wedding. A monkey suit is as far as I’ll go.”
“Tuxedo?”
“If you insist,” Derek said. “Now can we please talk about something else?”
“I suppose. What?”
“The condo. Talk to me about the condo.”
Fine. “We start by tearing out, the way we usually do. Get rid of everything we don’t plan to keep. The old kitchen cabinets and sink, the avocado green appliances, the vanity cabinet and commode.”
“Not the commode,” Derek said. “It’s the only bathroom in the apartment, and I’d hate to have to knock on Miss Shaw’s door to ask her if I can use the facility. She’d probably watch me through the keyhole.”
I shuddered. “Lord, yes. No, let’s make sure we won’t have to do that. That should take us most of the first day, don’t you think?”
At that point, just as Derek was nodding agreement, Candy came back with our drinks and derailed the conversation for the moment. She pulled her order pad out of her back pocket. “What’ll you have?”
Derek ordered a pizza with everything except pineapple and anchovies, and Candy turned away. She was just about to slip through the door to the kitchen when a man grabbed her arm and held her back. He looked to be a few years older than Derek, late thirties, and was good-looking, in a slick sort of way. Dark-haired and olive-skinned, he reminded me of the late and mostly unlamented Tony “the Tiger” Micelli, former reporter for Channel Eight News.
Candy smiled when she saw the man, but whatever words he muttered in her ear made the happiness slip right off her face. When he walked away a few seconds later, without a backward glance, she stood watching him, for once chewing on her bottom lip instead of her bubble gum.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Who is he?” Derek grew up in Waterfield; if anyone knew, he would.
“Who?” He glanced over his shoulder. I indicated the man, now on his way into the hallway in the back, where the bathrooms were. Derek shook his head. “No idea. He’s not from around here. Or if he is, he’s new.”
Over the past five or six years—since Melissa dumped Derek and started selling real estate, extolling Waterfield’s virtues as a sleeper community for Portland and Augusta—our little town’s population has practically doubled. There have been new subdivisions cropping up like toadstools all over the place, many of them built by my now out-of-business cousins, the Stenham twins. This guy must be one of the newcomers.
“He’s too old for her,” I said.
“It’s none of your business,” Derek answered. And since he was right, I left it at that.
—3—
“I can’t imagine living under this kind of scrutiny every day of my life,” Derek muttered under his breath the next morning as we stood in the parking lot under the watchful eye of Miss Hilda Shaw, unloading tools from the back of the truck. “No wonder the Antoninis left.”
I grinned. “Guilty conscience?”
He shook his head. “No. B
ut I don’t have to have done something wrong not to want someone watching my every move.”
Too true. We had only been here twice, and Miss Shaw was already getting on both of our nerves. Didn’t she have something better to do than sit behind her curtains watching everyone else? Couldn’t she go read a book or something? Or watch a soap opera?
“Maybe she’ll get used to us,” I said optimistically. “Maybe she’s just interested in us because we’re new.”
“She’s not.”
It wasn’t Derek who said it. I looked up to meet the gray eyes of a short and slender man in a charcoal gray suit, who had stopped beside the sedan in the next parking space. He stuck out a hand. “I’m William Maurits, 1B.”
“Avery Baker,” I said, shaking the hand, “2A.”
Derek reached past me to shake Maurits’s hand as well. “Derek Ellis. We’ve met before. What’s that you said?”
“It’s not because you’re new,” William said, and switched the briefcase back into his right hand now that the handshaking was over. He lifted his chin, perhaps in an effort to appear taller, since he wasn’t much bigger than me. “I’ve been here for ten years, and she still watches my every move.” He shot something akin to a glare at the lace curtains. “Nosy old biddy. Always has to have her beak in everyone’s business.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have much of a life of her own,” I suggested.
William glanced at me. “She doesn’t. Never married, never had children.” He chuckled. “Not that I have room to talk. I never married or had children, either. Married to the job, I suppose.”
“So maybe she’s lonely.”
William shrugged. “Possibly. All I know is, she spends all her time sitting at that window. I’ve never seen her come outside the building. She even has groceries delivered.”
“Is she ill? Or disabled?” Some sort of mental illness maybe? Agoraphobia, like Kate had suggested. That’s what it’s called when people are afraid to go outside, right?
“No idea,” William said. “All I know is, she’s a nuisance.” He nodded politely before disarming his car alarm and getting in.
“Cheerful fellow,” Derek remarked when William had pulled out of the parking space and was waiting to join traffic on the Augusta Road. “You got what you need?”
He ran an experienced eye over the tools I had assembled.
“I think so. If you’ll take the big toolbox, I’ll take this little one. And if we need anything else, the truck will be right downstairs; it’s not like it’s a long walk to get something.”
“I don’t want to parade in front of Miss Shaw any more than I have to,” Derek said, and hoisted the big toolbox. “C’mon, Avery. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Let’s.” I grabbed the small toolbox and followed him toward the front door, twiddling my fingers to Miss Shaw on the way.
Just as we reached the front door, it opened from the inside, and Candy tumbled out, followed by another young woman. She was shorter by an inch or two and, unlike Candy, seemed determined to make as little of herself as possible. Like Candy, she had a blond ponytail—baby-fine hair scraped straight back—but it looked less jaunty, just sort of hung there. Candy was polished to a high sheen, with iridescent blue eye shadow, a thick layer of mascara, and pink lip gloss, while her friend looked like Plain Jane, with not a stitch of makeup on her face. I had wondered whether Candy’s faded jeans and cropped top were a uniform of sorts, clothes she wore to Guido’s to maximize her earnings, but it must be her usual mode of dress, because she was wearing the same tight jeans and the same short and tight sort of top now, when I assumed she was on her way to school. Both girls had bags over their shoulders, and Jamie was jingling a set of car keys in her hand. Unlike Candy, she was dressed in leggings and an oversized and baggy sweater that hung almost to her knees and hid any hint of a figure. The color was a dark navy blue bordering on black that overwhelmed her pale complexion and delicate features.
“I always told you it was stupid—” she said, with a soft Southern drawl to her voice, and stopped abruptly when she saw us. “Sorry.”
“Good morning.” Derek flashed his patented Derek-grin, the one that never fails to give me a little swoop to my stomach. Candy blinked. After a second, she seemed to recognize him.
“Oh. It’s you. Hi.”
“Hi,” Derek said, just as a clatter from inside the building announced the arrival of someone else. After a moment, a pair of long legs in jeans appeared on the stairs, and a second later, the rest of Josh Rasmussen became visible.
“Oh,” he said when he saw us. “It’s you.”
Derek arched a brow. “Didn’t you expect us?”
“Yeah. Sure. It’s just…” He shook his head. “I gotta go, or I’ll be late for school. I’ll see you later.”
He pushed past us and headed for his car, a small, brand-new, dark blue Honda parked in the lot. It had replaced the dark blue Honda he used to drive, after that one had ended up in the Atlantic Ocean a month or so ago, and had been declared a total loss by the insurance company.
“Probably can’t wait to see Shannon,” I said to Derek. He nodded.
“We’d better go, too,” Jamie told Candy. “Don’t want to be late. Excuse us, please.”
They disappeared into the parking lot and went in different directions. Candy headed for a small white hybrid, while Jamie got into a nondescript compact, pale blue. A few seconds later, all three cars were lined up at the exit, waiting to merge with traffic on the Augusta Road.
“Want to take bets on which of the neighbors we’ll see next?” I asked Derek.
He shook his head. “I’d rather just get inside before we see any of them. We’ll never get any work done this way.”
Since he had a point, I scurried through the door and up the stairs after him, with only a sideways glance at Miss Shaw’s door on my way past.
We spent the next several hours causing major destruction. It’s quite cathartic, actually. I enjoyed ripping out all the worn and torn ugliness, and imagining all the pretty and shiny we would be installing it its place. Derek went to work with pliers and wrenches, taking the plumbing to the kitchen and bathroom sinks apart preparatory to tearing out the sinks themselves, while I armed myself with—of all things—a shovel, and went to work ripping up the vinyl floor in the kitchen. That took us through to lunch, when we broke out the sandwiches and drinks I’d packed and made ourselves comfortable on the small balcony.
The front door was actually on what I’d consider to be the back of the building, where the parking lot also was. On the front—or other—side, there were balconies overlooking a wide expanse of grass and a line of trees. We were into September, and among the fir trees were a few oaks and birches that had just started to turn yellow, bright against the blue autumn sky. Some of the leaves had given up the ghost and were drifting lazily toward the green grass.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the crisp, clean air. “Pretty.”
“It’s a good place to live,” Derek agreed.
I glanced at him. “Did you ever want to live anywhere else? You were a doctor; you could have gotten a job anywhere.”
He shook his head. “I always planned to come back here, to take over Dad’s practice.”
“What about Melissa? You were married when you graduated. Did she want to live somewhere else?”
“If she did, she never said anything about it,” Derek said. “She’s still here, yeah?”
She was. And I’d wondered about that. She’d come to Maine with Derek, and after their divorce, she’d stayed on with my cousin Ray Stenham. But he was out of the picture now, too—and would continue to be for a while longer, I hoped—and since then, Melissa’s most recent beau had met with an untimely death. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d decided to leave Waterfield to start fresh somewhere else. After all, there wasn’t really anything left for her here.
Except her career, I suppose. She’s Waterfield’s most premier real estat
e agent, which means she’s doing quite well financially, and from what Derek had said, she’d always been concerned with position and social standing and with being “somebody.” That’s why she’d made sure to marry a doctor, he’d said—for the money and the prestige. If living in Waterfield gave her both, then that might be reason enough for her to stay. I could understand, even if I sort of wished she’d pack up and get out of what was now my town.
“What about you?” He glanced at me. “Is this your way of telling me you’re sick of being here and you want to go somewhere else?”
“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “I’m perfectly happy.”
“Good to know. Why did you ask?” He stretched out his legs and leaned back on the plastic chair. It groaned in protest.
“Just curious. I never used to consider living anywhere but Manhattan. I was born there. I went to college there. I lived there my whole life. When I first came here, I didn’t think I’d survive the summer.”
Derek grinned. “What changed your mind?”
I smiled back. “You did. I figured you’d never agree to move to Manhattan with me.”
And at that point I’d noticed all that Waterfield had to offer. There was clean air and a slow pace and friendly people—not that New Yorkers aren’t friendly; they’re just busier as a rule, and don’t have as much time to sit and talk—and there was Aunt Inga’s house, and the cats—who wouldn’t be happy in a New York apartment, especially one where I wasn’t allowed to have pets—and Derek, and everyone else I’d gotten to know, and did I mention the clean air and the slow pace and—oh, yes—the ocean? We New Yorkers like being close to the ocean.
Downstairs, we heard the sound of a door opening, and a second later, a tiny figure burst out onto the green grass. A little boy, maybe two years old, in striped overalls and a red shirt. He had a shock of jet-black hair, and was squealing with laughter as his short legs pumped. A few steps behind came a woman with long, blond hair, whose voice floated up to us. “I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you!”
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