by Sarah Jio
“Ah, Boat Street,” he continues, raising an eyebrow. “One of my favorites. It has quite a history, you know.”
“Oh?” I say, taking the receipt.
He leans in as if he’s about to divulge a secret. “A lady went missing there a long time ago. Just disappeared one night. Cops never did figure out what happened to her. And if you ask me, the residents of Boat Street weren’t terribly helpful either.”
A woman with a full shopping cart clears her throat behind us. “Well,” I say. “Thank you, I—”
“Which houseboat did you say you’re living on?” he asks as I take two paper sacks into my hands.
“The last one on the slip,” I say.
His eyes widen. “That one was hers.”
It’s nine, and I should be tired, but I’m not; I’m restless. Insomnia strikes again. I slip into a pair of leggings and a nightshirt and walk out to the deck. It’s been a warm day, a rarity for June in Seattle, I hear. But now the sun is setting and there are dark clouds hovering overhead, waiting for the sun to dip behind the horizon so they can roll in and have their way with the city. I remember seeing a can of cocoa in the cabinet, so I head back to the kitchen and boil some milk in a pan on the stove, then mix in a generous scoop of the chocolate powder. I close my eyes and I can see her, my baby.
“Mama!” Ella says, barreling through the door with James following close behind. Her bunny hat, with the two pink ears, dangles from her neck. She’s missing one of her front teeth, and her cheeks are rosy and full of life. “Look what I made for you at school!” She hands me a painting and I smile. It’s the three of us—me, James, and Ella—standing in front of what looks like a gingerbread house. “It’s the North Pole,” she says. “Look,” she adds, pointing to a sleigh in the sky, “there’s Santa and Rudolph.”
I scoop her into my arms. She’s little for seven, still light enough for me to cradle her. “Oh, honey, I adore it.” Her cheeks feel cold. “Let’s get you warmed up,” I say. “Hot chocolate?”
She claps her hands. “Yeah!”
“It’s supposed to snow tonight,” James adds, planting a kiss on my cheek. His lips are cold. “It’s already in the twenties out there.”
I frown. “Do you still think Santa will be able to come?”
“Of course,” he says. “Santa has four-wheel drive.”
I smile. Even though James has lived in New York for the past fifteen years, he grew up in Montana and spent his formative years helping his parents on their ranch. They still don’t understand how he can be happy going from wide-open spaces to a cramped city, but they’re proud of him, exceedingly proud. James excelled in college, graduating from Harvard with honors and landing an internship at the Washington Post, which led to an editorial assistant position at the New York Times, where he eventually became a travel writer. But when Ella came along, he decided to give it all up and stay home with her. It wasn’t easy coming to that decision, but I’d just been named features editor at Sunrise, and my paycheck was almost double what James was making at the newspaper. It just made sense.
I run my hand through his dark wavy hair, and whisper, “Did you get the presents on her list?”
He nods. “Already wrapped and tucked away in the closet.”
“You’re Superdad, you know?”
He grins. “I know.”
“Mama,” Ella says from the barstool at the island, “Lindsey and Jane get presents on lots of days in December. Can we be Jewish too?”
I smile. “No, honey, we’re Italian, remember? Well, you and Daddy are Italian. But I can join along.”
“And Daddy was born in Italy?”
“Daddy was born in Montana, but your nonna and papa were born in Italy.”
“Can we go there sometime?” She looks just like her grandmother with those striking hazel eyes, and olive skin and wavy hair just like James’s.
“Yes,” I say. “Daddy and I are taking you there next year. You have many cousins who’d like to meet you.”
I hand her a cup of hot chocolate, with a handful of mini marshmallows on top. “Careful,” I say, “it’s a little hot.”
I take Ella’s bunny hat off and untie her braid. James drapes his arm around me as I smooth her hair.
I want to stay here forever, in this vision of my past, but I hear a knock at the back door. I try to ignore it, as if resisting being roused from a good dream. Just five more minutes, I think. Let me sleep a bit longer! But there it is again. Knock, knock, knock.
“Hello? Is anyone home?”
I snap out of my memories and turn around to see a man I don’t recognize peering inside the houseboat from the back door. He’s wearing a long-sleeve plaid shirt with a navy fleece vest and jeans. His short sandy blond hair looks mussed, and I have absolutely no idea if it’s on purpose or because he doesn’t care.
“Yes,” I say, a little taken aback. I force myself to smile even though I don’t feel especially chatty. And I would prefer to be wearing something other than a nightshirt when meeting neighbors, especially handsome male ones.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but I just thought I’d check to make sure everything’s all right.”
Suddenly I smell smoke, but I don’t know where it’s coming from.
“I smelled something burning.”
For the moment, I’m less concerned about who this strange man is and more worried about burning the houseboat down. “I don’t know what happened,” I say, looking down at the stove. “I just turned on the burner to warm up some milk for hot chocolate and . . .” I see smoke coming from the oven vent; I open the oven and the smoke billows out.
I jump back, and the neighbor guy, whom I haven’t properly introduced myself to yet, runs in and opens the front door to let the smoke out. He then presses a button below the range hood and the fan turns on. He looks inside the oven, then nods. “No fire,” he says. “Something must have burned in there.”
“That’s so strange,” I say. “I must be tired. I thought I was turning on a burner. I guess I somehow turned on the oven instead.”
The man extends his hand. He looks younger up close, the way most people do in their thirties or early forties, when the subtleties of age show in the lilt of a smile or the curve of the eyes. He’s no more than thirty-eight, I’d guess. “I’m Alex,” he says.
“Ada,” I say. “I just moved in yesterday.”
“Welcome to the dock,” he says, smiling. “Technically, I live on the next dock, but Jim and the others have made me an honorary neighbor.” He leans in and cups his mouth as if he’s about to let me in on a little secret. “If you want to know the truth,” he says with a wink, “my dock’s a bit of a buzzkill.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, grinning. We walk out to the deck, and he points to the houseboat across from mine. It’s a little smaller, more masculine, somehow, with its straight lines and modern roofline. “I moved here five years ago. Got the place for a steal because it was this close to sinking.”
“Oh, wow,” I say. “So you remodeled it?”
“Yes,” he replies. “Anyway, sorry to barge in like that. But after the houseboat fire in 2003, I’m a little skittish about smoke on the lake.”
“Fire?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’d just moved in the month before. Five houses burned on a nearby dock. It was awful.”
“Wow,” I say. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, thank God,” he replies. “And it’s an amazing thing, too, because when a houseboat catches fire, the next goes very quickly. You can’t be too careful out here.”
“Sorry for the scare,” I say.
“It’s OK.” He grins. “Actually, if I’m being completely honest, it was a very creative excuse to meet the new neighbor.”
I feel momentarily embarrassed when I remember that I’m wearing my old ratty black leggings and a green flannel nightshirt. But I recall something Joanie said about Seattle being allergic to fashion, and I feel a little better. And why do I care what I look like, anyway?<
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“Well,” I say, “it’s very nice to meet you.”
“Will you be staying long?” Alex asks. He pulls his left hand from his pocket and I notice, without trying, that his ring finger is bare. I’ve long been suspicious of mature, good-looking men who are single. I once briefly dated a thirty-year-old financial planner who seemed perfect. I even met his family at his sister’s wedding, and was secretly dreaming about ours when I found out that he was gay and that our entire relationship had been concocted to convince his family that he was straight.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be here,” I say honestly. “I signed a lease through the end of summer, but it’s somewhat open-ended.”
He nods. “What do you do, in . . . ?”
“New York. I’m from New York.” I’m surprised I’ve told him this, but he’s easy to talk to, and his presence makes the burden I carry feel a little lighter. “I’m a writer,” I say. “Well, an editor, at Sunrise.”
“The magazine?”
“Yes,” I say. “How about you?”
“I’m a photographer,” he replies. “I do food photography, mostly. But don’t let that fool you into thinking I can cook, because I can’t. Not even scrambled eggs.”
I grin. “You can’t cook and you take pictures of food?”
“I know, it’s nuts,” he says. “But if you make it, I’ll shoot it.”
“I take it you like to eat the food?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Best part.” He peers around the corner of the kitchen. “I gave Roxanne a few of my books to keep here, for the renters.”
“The owner, right?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Last I heard she lived in Alaska.”
I nod, remembering what the clerk at the grocery store said about the missing woman, but I don’t mention it.
“Anyway, I’m sure the cookbooks are still around here somewhere.”
“I’ll look for them,” I promise.
He smiles. “Well, I’d better be going. Nice to meet you, Ada.”
“Alex, right? I’m terrible with names.”
“Me, too,” he says, heading out the door. I watch through the window as he steps into his canoe and glides across the little channel back to his houseboat.
I climb the ladder to the bedroom and attempt to sleep, but after twenty minutes, I’m still not drowsy. I remember reading a magazine article advising that if you’re not sleepy, get up and do something for twenty minutes, then try again. I prefer this to Ambien, anyway.
I look through my suitcase—I haven’t unpacked my things yet—until I find a novel, but after two pages, I lose interest. I remember Alex’s books, and I’m suddenly overcome with curiosity. I walk to the bookcase I glanced at when I first arrived and scan the spines. Lots of novels; some well-loved paperbacks that look like they’re held together by love and a single drop of glue; a guidebook about the Northwest, and one about dog-friendly hiking in Seattle; and then I see a stack of larger books high on the shelf. I stretch to reach the one that looks like a cookbook and pull it down. I see the name Alex Milstead on the cover and smile. It’s a cookbook about barbecue, written with a woman named Kellie Adams. I thumb through the pages. Wow. He’s really good. The images are crisp and bright, as good as anything I’ve seen in the pages of Sunrise. I look at the front cover again, and see it has won a James Beard award. Impressive. Curious, I turn to the last page, where I find the author bios. From her photo, I can tell that Kellie Adams is quite beautiful. And prolific—according to her bio, she’s penned fourteen award-winning cookbooks, and I recognize one of her titles, Sunday Brunch, because we featured it in Sunrise a few years back. I immediately wonder if she and Alex were ever involved. I turn to his bio: “Award-winning photographer Alex Milstead spent years photographing the conflict in Sudan for Time, before trading in his bulletproof vest for an apron. Though he’s a self-proclaimed novice in the kitchen, his photos have appeared in Gourmet; O, The Oprah Magazine; the New York Times, and many other publications. He lives on a houseboat in Seattle.”
Wow, he’s accomplished. I set the cookbook on the shelf and rub my eyes, then yawn. Finally, drowsiness is setting in. I walk back to the living room and notice the water glass I left on the coffee table. Well, it’s not so much a coffee table as an old wooden chest-turned-coffee-table. It’s very old, held together with tarnished brass hinges. I set the water glass on the counter in the kitchen, then turn back to the old chest. There’s a little lock attached to one of the hinges, and when I attempt to tug it open, it doesn’t budge. What could be inside?
I walk up the ladder and crawl into bed. Even after two years, it still feels strange to sleep alone. Strange and lonely. The porthole is open, and I can hear the rain falling outside. It’s soft at first—just a fine mist hitting the lake. Then I hear a thunderclap and the pitter-patter amplifies.
God’s tears.
I pull the goose-down comforter up to my neck and listen to the pelting rain outside. The steady sound consoles me, and as I close my eyes, I decide that Seattle may be the perfect place for someone with a broken heart.
Chapter 7
PENNY
Dex walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s put on cologne and slicked his hair back the way I like.
He kisses me lightly and I breathe in the smell of his skin, piney and sweet. I wonder if he’ll notice my dress—red and white checked, a bit lower cut than my usual style—but instead he walks to the counter and pops a few green olives into his mouth. “Did you remember to pick up vermouth?”
I nod. “I also got the little toothpicks you like,” I say, pointing at the box. We’ve had many parties here before, and yet I feel that tonight must go off without a hitch. I feel that Dex is counting on me to be perfect. The oven timer beeps and I jump.
“What are you making?” he asks.
“Your favorite artichoke dip.”
“Oh,” he says.
“What? I thought you liked it.”
“I do. I just thought you’d make the bean dip.”
I feel like crying. I feel like dropping the Pyrex casserole dish on the tile floor and calling in the ducks to clean it up. At least they’d appreciate my cooking.
Dex puts his hand on my arm. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The artichoke dip is wonderful.” He pulls me closer to him. “You are wonderful.”
I force a smile, but the wound still stings.
Dex dips a slice of French bread into the artichoke dip, then turns to me before I can slap his hand away. “Did you invite the new guy?”
“The boat builder, you mean?”
He nods.
“Should I?”
He looks at his watch. “Why not? He seems like a nice enough fellow.” He scratches his head. “I wish I could remember his name.”
Collin. His name is Collin. But I don’t say anything. I’m embarrassed to admit that I know.
“Well, I have to get dressed,” he says. “Do you want to go extend our welcome?”
“I don’t know,” I say, turning back to the stove. “I still have a lot of prepping to do.”
“Don’t be antisocial, Penn,” Dex says. “He’ll think we’re a couple of hermits.”
“OK,” I say, untying the strings of my apron. Dex walks down the hall to get dressed, and I pinch my cheeks in the hallway mirror before stepping outside to the deck. Collin’s houseboat is on the next dock, so instead of walking all the way around, I decide to paddle over in the canoe. I slip off my heels and climb into the boat, brushing away a seagull feather on one of the oars. I push off from the dock and a moment later, the tip of the canoe hits Collin’s dock. I find a cleat, and I tie the canoe to it before climbing out of the boat.
Timidly, I look around the deck. Collin’s tools are laid out neatly next to a green metal toolbox with a rusted handle. The wooden sailboat looks more beautiful up close than I could have imagined, and I find myself in awe of it. I see he’s been working on the railing,
and I run my hand along the teak, which has been sanded smooth as silk. I stand up and walk to Collin’s back door. I knock, but there’s no answer, so I cup my hands around my eyes and lean in to have a look.
Inside, the houseboat is tidy and sparsely furnished with a small sofa and coffee table. I notice what looks like an army medal lying on the coffee table and a few photographs splayed out. I squint but can’t make out anything in particular. On the floor is a record player, with the sleeve of a Frank Sinatra record beside it. I love Frank Sinatra.
I turn around when I hear footsteps behind me. Collin sets a grocery sack down and smiles awkwardly.
“Hi,” I say quickly. “I—I just—I just paddled over to invite you to our cocktail party tonight.”
“Oh,” he says, smiling.
The silence between us feels thick and stifling. I don’t know what more to say, so I shuffle back toward the canoe.
“Did you enjoy having a look?”
I shake my head. “Having a look at what?”
“My house,” he says. “I saw you peeking inside.”
My cheeks burn and I feel foolish, like a little girl who’s been caught sneaking into her mother’s makeup bag.
“I wasn’t peeking,” I say. “I was only trying to see if you were home.”
“Of course,” he says. He’s still smiling, and his head is cocked to the right as if he finds my embarrassment highly amusing.
“Listen,” I say, stepping back into the boat. “Forget it.” I untie the canoe and give myself a shove backward. “I was only trying to be hospitable.”
I secure the canoe to our dock just as Naomi and Gene appear in front of our deck. “Good evening, Penny,” Gene says.
I step out of the canoe, feeling Collin’s eyes on my back, but I don’t turn around.
Naomi takes a step toward me and straightens a wayward lock of my hair with her hand. “You look shaken, dear,” she says, casting a glance in the direction of Collin’s houseboat. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s perfect,” I say in my most confident voice.