So Inn Love

by Catherine Clark

  “I’m guessing there’s a lot she left out,” I whispered back.

  Once inside, I checked out the reception and lobby area—when I’d come through earlier, I’d been in such a rush that it had all been a blur. There were sofas, big, comfy dark-brown leather ones, wicker ones for those in wet swimsuits, tables with issues of current magazines, and bookshelves from which guests could borrow any book they wanted. The reception desk was made of a rich, dark wood. Behind it were mailboxes for the rooms. An old-fashioned silver bell sat on the desk, beside the fountain pen guests would use to sign the Inn’s register. It was like something out of an old movie.

  We used to come to the Inn’s restaurant for lunch when my grandparents rented a small cottage down the road. Only once a summer, though, because it was too pricey, according to my grandmother, who, to be fair, could cook up a lobster and clam dinner herself that was equally good, if not better.

  Still, I used to look at the teen servers and wish I could work here, especially a couple of years ago when I was desperate for a summer job. I always wanted to stay here, too, but my parents pointed out that not only was it too expensive, it would be silly considering my grandparents rented a cottage so close by.

  Now I was going to be working here, at the front desk. Life was so weird sometimes. I was grateful to whoever had dropped out of the staff to make room for me. “Claire, did I tell you? This is where I’m going to be,” I started to tell her.

  “Actually, Elizabeth, I need to talk to you about that,” Miss Crossley interrupted me.

  Liza, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “You do?”

  “Yes. There have been some reassignments.”

  “There have?” I asked.

  “Yes. Even though you were hired to help in the guest reception area, we’ve decided to go with someone with more experience,” Miss Crossley explained. “Caroline pointed out that she has been here longer, and that it is a job she’s wanted all along. So we reassigned you, based on seniority.”

  Or lack thereof, I thought as I checked out the area where I wouldn’t be sitting, wouldn’t be answering the phone, and wouldn’t be greeting celebrities and other interesting people as they arrived.

  Caroline looked at me and smiled. “It takes someone who knows the Inn inside and out. I’m really sorry, Beth,” she said, in a voice so obviously phony that I knew she wasn’t sorry at all. And if she knew the Inn so well, why hadn’t she been the one who got the job in the first place?

  “It’s Liza,” I reminded her. “And that’s okay,” I said, smiling at her. “I’m sure any job here is great, no matter what it is. So, what do you have for me then?” I asked Miss Crossley cheerfully. Stiff upper lip, glass half full, and all.

  “Housekeeping,” she said.

  My heart sank. I was in trouble. They really hadn’t read my application, had they? “Housekeeping” was ranked last on my list of desired positions. I was really terrible about cleaning my room at home. They should have asked my parents for references, because when it came to keeping a place neat and tidy? I had zero skills.

  “Housekeeping,” I repeated slowly. “Well, okay. I can keep house with the best of them,” I lied.

  “Happy to hear that,” Miss Crossley said. “This is a team effort, and we need team players.”

  Okay, I thought. But do I have to be on the clean team?

  I glanced at Caroline, who was smiling happily at her friend Zoe. Caroline had just gotten upgraded from housekeeping to front desk; of course she was happy. But I had a feeling that any idea I had that Caroline and I might still be able to be friends was as dead in the water as my front-desk job.

  It’s us against them, Josh had said. Was it really going to be that bad?

  I was back in my room, tucking the sheets under my thin mattress, when Claire walked in carrying a couple of sodas. “You’re not practicing, are you?” she asked.

  I sank onto the bed with a sigh. “I know you don’t want to hear this, as my roommate, but I’m not the neatest person. Having a job where I’m supposed to clean up after people is like…completely against type.” Miss Crossley had given me a ten-minute seminar on “Ways to Remove Sand from a Carpet” that I’d already forgotten. Or blocked out. One of the two.

  Claire handed me a soda. “You want to switch? I’ll clean, you take kids sailing?”

  “I don’t know how to sail,” I said. “Not well enough to teach it, anyway. I mean, if I were stranded on a desert island and sailing was the only way to get off, I suppose I’d figure it out, but…”

  “I’ll teach you,” she offered.

  “You’re crazy. You’re going to trade being outside on the water all day with inhaling harmful cleaning products?”

  “You can always open the windows to let the fresh air in. You know, your famous ocean breeze,” she reminded me.

  I frowned at her. “Thanks.”

  “Besides, didn’t she say they only use environmentally safe products that are organically made?” Claire asked.

  “Okay, fine, whatever. Organic or not, it’s still strong-smelling stuff to cover other, less pleasant stuff, isn’t it?” I laid back on the bed and groaned.

  Claire collapsed on her bed, laughing. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you. Really.”

  There was a loud, booming knock on our door. I sat up and was surprised to see several guys crowded into our doorway: Tyler, Hayden, Richard, Daunte, and a few others whose names I hadn’t yet memorized.

  “So. You’re the ones with Room Two-thirteen.” Daunte nodded. “All right.”

  “‘All right’ what?” Claire asked.

  “You should keep it down,” Richard said. “There’s a noise limit.”

  “There is?” I asked. Apparently there were lots of rules about this place I hadn’t been clued in to yet. Was I missing all the handouts, or what?

  “Yeah. If you want to be really loud, you have to come down to the beach with us,” Tyler said. “We all go to Crandall’s to kick off the summer.”

  “It’s tradition. You have to come,” Hayden said.

  “Have to,” Claire repeated, not sounding convinced. “Or…?”

  “You know what happened earlier?” Richard asked her. “Cold seawater, up your nose? More of that.”

  “Are you even supposed to be up here?” Claire asked. “I thought there were some fairly specific rules about ‘fraternizing.’ In other words, don’t.”

  “Don’t tell me you guys are follow-the-rules types,” Hayden said.

  “Not always,” I said. “But on our first night? Kind of. Especially since we’re new here, and people seem to love giving us a hard time about that.”

  “We’d never do that,” Hayden said. “Us?”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “And we’d never throw seaweed at you.”

  He smiled at me.

  Caroline pushed her way through the crowd. “If they don’t want to come, don’t make them,” she said. “Maybe they just want to hang out here.”

  For some reason, that settled the matter for me. “Hang out here? In the dreaded Two-thirteen? I don’t think so. Come on, Claire. Let’s go.”

  “But—”

  “It’ll be fun,” I said. “Grab a sweater.”

  “So this is Crandall’s Point. Who or what is a Crandall?” Josh asked.

  “It’s the huge place up there, the one you can see from here.” Caroline pointed to a gigantic, secluded house that looked almost as big as the Inn. “It belongs to the Crandall family and has for years. They made tons of money in the shipping business. You know, back when it was with actual ships. The eighteen hundreds.”

  She was acting like such a know-it-all that it really bothered me.

  “Legend has it that Captain Crandall was out at sea, and he was several weeks late getting home. His wife used to pace back and forth on the widow’s walk up there, looking for him and waiting, and she actually fell off—or jumped, some people say. He came home safely, but she was dead,” I said.

&
nbsp; “What? How did you know that?” Hayden looked at me, impressed.

  “I used to come here with my grandparents. Way back when.” When Caroline wasn’t so annoying.

  “I’ll never look at the house the same way again,” Richard said. “I had thought it was a bunch of old money, but now it’s a lot creepier.”

  I thought of the time Caroline and I had met a Crandall cousin when we were taking a kayak class offered by the yacht club. Afterward we’d decided to go visit him, so we’d gone up to the Crandalls’ house, rung the doorbell, and then ran away when we chickened out. I think a butler came to the door. I’m not sure, because my view had been blocked by the hedge I’d hid behind.

  I wondered if Caroline remembered that, too. “But they don’t own this part, do they?” another new girl named Brooke asked.

  “Own the sand and rocks?” Caroline scoffed. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, they’re not that rich.”

  “So how does the Inn get away with having a private beach, then? They must own it, too, right?” Josh asked.

  “Some ancient law preserves their right to it, I think,” Hayden said. “They don’t own it, exactly, but no one else can use it. Go figure.”

  “So, can these Crandall people see us down here?” Claire asked.

  “No. Well, if they can, they don’t care we’re here,” Zoe said. “At least they’ve never said anything before.”

  “Having said that, I wouldn’t run around naked or anything,” Hayden suggested. “Just to play it safe.”

  “Oh, good, I’m glad you warned me, I was just about to do that.” Claire rolled her eyes. “You know, you can take them out of high school, but can you take high school out of them?” she asked, and all of the girls laughed.

  “Yes, but it’s a painful procedure,” Zoe said, and we laughed again.

  Some of the other guys walked up carrying pieces of driftwood they’d collected. They dropped them into a fire ring made of stones and arranged them for lighting.

  “Are we supposed to have fires here?” Claire asked as Richard struck a few matches and tried to get the fire going.

  “We always do. It’s fine,” Hayden said.

  “Fine, as in allowed? Or fine, as in you’ve never gotten caught?” Claire asked.

  “We never got in trouble last summer,” Caroline said.

  “Obviously people can see us out here, so if it was a big problem, they’d tell us.” Hayden shrugged. “We don’t cause any trouble around town, so it’s no problem.”

  “You know what? I still think I’m going to take off,” Claire said to me in a soft tone.

  “Are you seriously worried? They wouldn’t fire us. The Inn opens tomorrow, they need us,” I said.

  “Who needs us?” Josh asked as he crouched in the sand beside me.

  “Miss Crossley, the Talbot family, you know—everyone,” I said.

  “They do need us, but you should know—they’re not afraid of canning employees,” Zoe said. “Last summer they fired a couple of people.”

  “Oh yeah,” Caroline said. “What was her name, the one with the tattoo…?” She looked meaningfully at me, and I held up my arm to show her it had washed off. She ignored me.

  “Terri,” someone else added.

  “Right. And what about that guy who partied with the guests after a wedding, and they found him sleeping on the front porch?” Caroline said. “Theo. Remember?”

  “Miss Crossley went on a lecture for like a day and a half about how wrong that was,” Zoe told us.

  “Okay. That’s all I need to hear,” Claire said, standing up and brushing the sand off the back of her shorts.

  “Come on, relax. We’re not doing anything illegal,” Hayden said. “It’s a bonfire. People build them on the beach all the time.”

  “Yeah, but…wasn’t there something in our handouts about no beach parties?”

  “What are all these handouts everyone keeps talking about? Why didn’t I get them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but I have them all back at the room,” Claire said.

  “Miss Crossley would love to give you your own copies, too,” Tyler said. “She can probably quote them from memory.”

  “Anyway, technically this isn’t a beach party. It’s a gathering,” Daunte said. “Stick around.”

  Despite everyone’s protests, Claire took off to go back to the dorm along with a few others, while the rest of us sat around the bonfire.

  “Okay, so you guys have to give us the dirt.

  The skinny. The four one one,” I said.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Caroline said. Why did everything she said to me end up sounding so disapproving? She sounded like a very uptight librarian at a very uptight library.

  “You know, could you please give us the benefit of your venerable experience?” I turned to Caroline. “Is that better?”

  A few of the guys laughed, including Hayden, and so did Zoe.

  “Tell us what we need to know so we don’t screw up,” Josh said.

  I nodded. “Nice translation. Thanks. Most of you guys have been here before, so tell us about it.” I took a handful of sand and let it run through my fingers.

  “Okay, well, here’s what I would say.” Zoe lifted a chunk of her long, straight dark-brown hair and flipped it over her shoulder. “You want to get on Mr. Talbot’s good side, as soon as you can.”

  “Oh yeah. If you can do that, you’re golden,” Hayden put in.

  “Is it hard?” I asked.

  “And which Mr. Talbot?”

  “Yeah, aren’t there two of them? At least?”

  “There’s the younger one, who’s not that young—he’s like forty-five—and then there’s the older one, who’s seventy,” Zoe said.

  That was the one my grandfather knew. He called him “Bucko,” but his name was actually William.

  “The younger one goes by William, the older by Bill,” another guy explained. “Not to us, though, of course.”

  “Isn’t there a Mr. Talbot the third, too?” Josh asked.

  “Yeah, Will, but he’s only five,” Hayden said. “So you don’t need to worry, unless of course you end up having him in your play-group one day. Who’s got the little tykes group this summer?”

  A couple of girls raised their hands.

  “I hear he’s kind of a brat. Is that true?” one of the girls asked.

  “He’s not bad. At least he wasn’t last year.”

  “Anyway. How do we get the adult Talbots to like us?” I asked. I hoped I might have a head start, since my grandfather knew Mr. Talbot Senior. Still, it had taken me two years to get hired, despite that. Hopefully Mr. Talbot Senior hadn’t soured on Grandpa, for some unknown reason. Hopefully Grandpa had been keeping up with his calls and Christmas cards and old-boy network stuff, like sharing jokes and cigars now and then. Virtually. Via e-mail.

  “It’s easy,” Hayden said. “Just flatter them.”

  “Yeah, but not in a phony way,” Zoe said. “They’re really nice guys, actually. Whatever happens, they’re just trying to protect the Inn’s image, so every once in a while, they flip out over something small,” she explained.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “You’ll just have to find out on your own,” Caroline said, in a somewhat ominous tone, as if I were bound to screw up. I got the impression that if I were drowning, she wouldn’t throw me a life preserver. I don’t even think she’d try. She’d probably turn and walk the other way.

  What had I done? Was I forgetting some major slight on my part? Or was she remembering one that never happened?

  I usually find a way to get along with almost everyone. The real person to worry about wasn’t going to be a Talbot. It was her.

  “Okay, so you asked us what you need to know about the Inn,” Hayden said. “So tell us what we need to know about you.” He looked right at me.

  “Me?” I asked. “Don’t start with me.”

  He laughed. “Why not?”

  “I don’t k
now. I’m not that interesting,” I said. That wasn’t it, but I just didn’t feel like talking about myself to a bunch of people I didn’t know. “I’d rather hear about stuff from you guys.”

  “‘Not that interesting,’” Josh repeated. “Hm. You know, the people who say stuff like that are always the most interesting.”

  “You know, that’s true.” Hayden smiled at me across the bonfire.

  Why were they ganging up on me? “What can I tell you? I’m from a suburb outside Hartford, I’m cocaptain of the volleyball team, my birthday’s March twelfth, which means I’m a Pisces. Oh and I also like piña coladas and walks in the rain,” I said. “That’s about it.”

  “Righhhht,” Hayden said slowly.

  “Okay, you’re right, you really aren’t interesting,” Caroline declared.

  “Fine, then.” I turned to her. “Why don’t you talk about yourself?” She probably liked to do that.

  “We could be here for hours,” Daunte joked.

  “Stop it.” Caroline laughed and tossed a handful of sand in his direction.

  “Not cool. Not cool. I have contacts, remember?” Daunte rubbed at his eyes.

  “You know, we could sit here all night trading astrological signs. But I think I’d rather go swimming. Anyone else?” I asked.

  “Race you,” Hayden said as he jumped to his feet.

  “No fair—I don’t know the way—”

  “The ocean? It’s right over there,” Tyler said.

  “I know, but—”

  “Last one in is a rotten quahog!” Hayden yelled.

  “Ew. Smelly,” Caroline was commenting as I took off running for the water, stepping over rocks and stripping off my clothes as I did.

  Don’t worry, it wasn’t that racy—I was wearing a bathing suit underneath.

  I was tiptoeing into my room later that night when I knocked a book off the edge of the desk. It crashed to the floor and I saw Claire turn over in bed. “Sorry—I was trying not to wake you up so I didn’t want to turn on the light,” I said.

  “It’s okay. I heard you guys coming a mile away.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Remember not to say anything personal as you’re walking up the path—you can hear everything,” Claire said. “So how was it? Sounded like fun.”