Summer Harbor

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Summer Harbor Page 5

by Susan Wilson


  He leaned into the half-empty refrigerator. “There’s nothing to eat.”

  “There’s ham and cheese. And, unless you drank it all at breakfast, there’s milk. We’ll go out tonight for dinner.”

  “Can I pick?”

  “Sure. There’s not much to choose from here in Hawke’s Cove, so we might want to head over to Great Harbor.”

  “How about the Osprey’s Nest? The place near the boat landing.”

  Kiley pulled a face. “That’s kind of a dive.”

  “So?”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “Local color. Let’s live dangerously.” Will tossed the packet of ham onto the table. “Let’s be anti-Harris tonight.”

  Kiley laughed. The Osprey’s Nest really was about the last place her parents would frequent. Their dining experience in Hawke’s Cove was exclusively at the Yacht Club, which served a mediocre dinner every second Thursday. Otherwise, they’d trek to Great Harbor to one of the better restaurants. They’d be horrified to know she’d brought Will to the Osprey’s Nest.

  Maybe it was a rebellion against her father’s ridiculous demand. Maybe it was an attempt to rekindle the compromised closeness with Will. Or maybe it was because the Osprey’s Nest was where the waterfront types went. People who made their living with boats and nets and lobster pots, like Grainger Egan.

  “All right, we’ll go. Now, eat lunch; then let’s get to the beach.”

  “Aren’t you eating?”

  Kiley tested the knot in her stomach and shook her head. “No, I’m not hungry.”

  • • •

  Will had been restless at the beach. After swimming, he’d been unable to focus on reading, tossing his Sports Illustrated carelessly on the sand. He’d lain down on his beach towel, but not fallen asleep. Kiley offered to walk up the beach with him, but he shook his head. “Do you mind if I take the car and do a little exploring?”

  “I guess.” Kiley hid her disappointment at being abandoned. She could stay here by herself and walk home, or have him drop her off at the house before he went rambling. She didn’t quite feel like either. She, too, felt a restlessness that had nothing to do with boredom. “I guess I could stay here and wait for you to pick me up.”

  Will toed a line in the sand. “I might be gone awhile. Why don’t I take you home? I’ll meet you at the Osprey’s Nest at, like, five?”

  A little trigger of anxiety added weight to her stomachache. Was he up to something? Deliberately, Kiley pressed that thought out of her mind. Will just needed some time to himself. “If you’ll put most of the stuff in the car, I’ll walk home. I want another swim.” Kiley stood up and folded her beach chair. “Don’t go too far, okay?”

  “Just to Great Harbor.”

  He gathered the umbrella and chairs, leaving Kiley with her book and a towel and her own restlessness.

  Six

  Will stood in the doorway of Linda’s Coffee Shop for a moment before spotting Grainger seated at the counter. Leaving the beach, he’d seen Grainger’s truck pulling out of the gas station. Impulsively, Will followed, parking a few spaces down from where Grainger had left his truck. Will hadn’t been very discreet this morning, and was pretty sure Grainger had seen him. This time he was certain that Grainger hadn’t. He watched as the man got out of his truck, gave the gray dog in it a pat, and headed into the coffee shop.

  There were two empty seats to Grainger’s left, and Will chose the farther one, keeping an empty place between them. He picked up the laminated menu to feign activity as he stared at Grainger’s reflection in the mirror behind the counter, his face framed between a cardboard ice cream cone and the chalked daily specials.

  The face reflected there was a little bristly, with an unshaven Saturday look. His eyes were on his menu, never looking up. When Grainger removed his cap, setting it on the stool between them, Will saw that his hair was darker than the gray showing had suggested. Grainger kept his eyes down for so long that Will was startled to see him suddenly looking directly at Will’s own reflection, a similar curiosity on his face. Will ducked his eyes, but couldn’t keep a flush of guilty surprise from coloring his cheeks.

  “Large coffee, Donna, and a piece of apple pie. To go.” Grainger handed the girl the menu.

  “And you?” Donna moved down to where Will sat.

  “Umm, a chocolate cone. I guess.” Will fished around in his pockets to see if he had enough money.

  The waitress made Will’s cone first, so he went out the door and positioned himself on a bench across the street from the coffee shop. In a few minutes Grainger came out. Anticipating that Grainger would go to his truck, Will stood up, still licking the rapidly melting homemade ice cream into a controllable ball. Instead, Grainger crossed the quiet main street and walked up to him, then sat down on the bench, throwing one arm casually over the back of it. “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Will felt childish, standing there, six feet tall and licking an ice cream cone like a kid.

  “You’ve been following me.”

  Will coughed, the ice cream suddenly too cold. “I’m not following you. Are you, like, paranoid or something?”

  “A little. Sit down.” Grainger’s voice was firm but not frightening, something like his basketball coach’s voice. A little gravelly and deep, the voice of a man who spoke only to say something useful. “What’s your name?”

  “Will. Will Harris.”

  “Harris.” Grainger took a deep breath. “What do you want, Will Harris?”

  Will stayed standing. The July sun, tempered only by the faithful southwesterly breeze, licked at Will’s bare neck, and he twisted his Cornell baseball cap around to shield his neck with the bill. “I was, like, wondering if you can give me sailing lessons.” Will stuffed the end of his cone into his mouth. He was pretty proud of himself, coming up with a plausible cover story so quickly, thanks to the “Egan’s Boat Works, Repairs, Hauling, and Lessons” painted on the side of Grainger’s truck.

  Grainger said nothing, just stared out into some middle distance, which might have been the sliver of harbor visible between the facing buildings, or the street, or someplace behind his eyes. At the prolonged silence, Will finally sat beside Grainger on the green park bench.

  “Why don’t you ask your mother to give you lessons?” Grainger’s voice cut through Will’s nervous embarrassment at having been caught out. His tone was half contemptuous, half curious.

  Will had tossed out the idea of sailing lessons only to save himself, but now he was annoyed that Grainger hadn’t immediately said yes. In habitual contrariness, Will met the argument. “We don’t have a boat.”

  “Yes, you do. It’s in my boatyard.”

  “Oh. Well, Mom’s busy.” Will was nonplussed to have such easy confirmation this stranger knew his mother.

  “I’m expensive.”

  “I have a little money. Enough for a couple of lessons, I’m sure.”

  “Why do you want to sail?”

  “It’s sort of in my blood. My grandfather’s told me about how he sailed in races. I’ve just never had the opportunity to learn.” Although he’d grown up listening to Pop talk about his glory days, detailing every race buoy by buoy, he’d never given sailing lessons a thought until this minute. Suddenly he could believe that this was a lifelong ambition, now that he’d spoken it.

  “I don’t know.” Grainger shook his head, lifted his cap off, and ran a hand through his hair, then resettled the hat back on his head. “I’m pretty booked.”

  Will could have just said okay and gotten up to leave; but he found that he couldn’t. Here was this man who held a clue to his own past, even if it was only in having known his mom as a girl. Will couldn’t let go of the idea that Grainger would be able to tell him something important, something no one else would ever be able to, and he was determined that Grainger wouldn’t just shrug him off. “Mr. Egan, maybe just one lesson?”

  Grainger had been leaning
with his elbows on his knees, and now he sat back and looked Will in the eye. For an uncomfortable minute he seemed to be assessing Will, holding him up against some measure.

  “All right. Meet me at the boat works on Tuesday morning. Seven-thirty.” He put out his hand for Will to shake. “One lesson. If you look like you can become a sailor, we’ll see about a second.”

  “Okay. Great.” Will felt the grip of Grainger’s hand grow stronger, almost painful.

  “One free lesson. To see what you’re made of.” Grainger let go of Will’s hand, gathered his lunch bag, and started to walk away, then turned back. “How is she? Your mother?” Did Will imagine a fiber in that voice pulling it tight?

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that question. The truth was, she was still mad at him, and acting all weird about being here in Hawke’s Cove. “Good, I guess.”

  Grainger nodded and turned to cross the street, moving with the broad, open step of a man who had spent a lifetime on the water.

  Seven

  At first Kiley was annoyed with Will for being late, then a little worried. As far as she knew he was only over in Great Harbor, poking around and looking for some new CDs. He’d promised to be on this side of the bridge by five, and to meet her here at the Osprey’s Nest for an early dinner. Kiley assumed that Will would be a little late, and had taken her time walking into town from the house. It was now five-forty and she was fighting the sense of maternal panic that always overruled rational thought.

  Will had been so remote since the pot-smoking incident—not so much sullen as distracted. Unfortunately, she’d been equally distracted with the house. No, being truthful, it was being in Hawke’s Cove. Her initial hope, that bringing him here would open up the doorway of communication, was instantly put to the test when Will asked her about the photograph, and she’d failed. She wanted him to reveal his thoughts to her, yet she was unwilling to do the same. Well, maybe tonight she could get him to let her in a little. In her heart of hearts, Kiley knew that there had to have been some catalyst for Will’s behavior that night, something that pushed him into doing it. Will reacted to things.

  Kiley sighed. There was so much going on right now that this silence, whether it was a defense mechanism or simple weariness, must not be allowed to continue. All too soon he would be far away, only a disembodied voice on a phone. Living a life separate from hers.

  The waitress came over a second time to try and take her order. “You ready?”

  “No. I’m still waiting for my son. He really should be here any minute.” Kiley resented her disagreeable need to explain to the waitress. “I’ll just have a glass of water in the meantime.”

  “You bet.” The waitress brought over a pint glass of ice-cold water, then moved away.

  Kiley sipped the water, wondering if she hadn’t asked for wine because she didn’t want to look like some pathetic creature, making those around her speculate that she was only pretending a son was expected. After all, a lady never drinks alone.

  The customers within her view disabused her quickly of the notion that anyone was even aware of her presence in the small tavern. Mostly men, mostly tucking into heavy dinners of meat loaf or fried chicken; even if they had made note of this lone woman in the place, it had made no mark on their communal consciousness. These were men tired from a long day of physical labor; the invisible Covers, surfacing only to mend a sail, repair an engine, or help move a boat out of storage. Men in oil-weathered jeans and rubber boots who belonged to a different Hawke’s Cove from the one she knew. These were the men from whom Grainger had sprung.

  Her parents hadn’t approved of her friendship with Grainger. “He’s a townie. You should be nice, but you don’t want to encourage him.” The implication being, “he’s not our kind.” Even Grainger’s accepted place with the MacKenzies failed to temper their opinion. The MacKenzies were “saints” for taking him in, but the boy was beneath regard.

  Kiley wondered if Lydia’s late-in-life fear of being robbed had actually been foreshadowed by her rejection of Grainger’s annual offer to help unload the car. “Scurry along, we can manage.” Kiley could still hear her mother’s imperious rebuff; as if he would make off with the silver. And she’d been left to struggle with the over-heavy bags.

  Then Grainger got the job teaching the young ones to sail the club’s Dyer Dinks. Her mother’s open disapproval changed into political correctness amongst her bridge partners, whose children “loved” him. But he still didn’t attend the Friday night dances. Kiley wasn’t able to avoid that enforced clubbiness, but as soon as she could, she always slipped out through the back hallway emergency exit, where Mack and Grainger would be standing under the lone streetlight in the club’s dirt-and-crushed-clamshell parking lot, waiting for her to make her escape.

  When Mack’s parents finally joined the Yacht Club, both the MacKenzie boys, and Grainger as their guest, began to come to the dances. It was so hard to get either Mack or Grainger to dance with her. The pair preferred leaning against the wall with cans of soda in hand. Sometimes Mack’s older brother, Conor, fresh from college, would take her out on the floor in a deliberate tease to his brother and Grainger. Then he’d pay her a courtly bow and rejoin his own social circle, leaving Kiley to catch her hammering breath.

  Grainger always wore tan chinos and the same blue polo shirt with the collar turned up, as current fashion dictated. Kiley suspected that Mrs. MacKenzie had given him those clothes, probably castoffs from Conor, since Grainger owned only faded jeans and unremarkable T-shirts.

  Once Kiley gave up the struggle to get the boys to dance, the trio would duck out through the back hallway and down to the empty beach. They’d scamper down to the club’s private beach and shed their clothes, swimsuits underneath. Laughing, they’d plunge into the warm evening water. In the darkness that surrounded them, they’d tread water and stare at the Yacht Club lights reflected in the water in runny streaks of yellow, and think themselves rebellious. The music blared from the speakers—Pointer Sisters, Don Henley, or Donna Summer. Phosphorescence glittered greenish on the edges of the gently rolling waves tonguing the sand. Under cover of darkness, their intimacy was pure, eternal. They would always be friends.

  Blind to each other in the darkness, their hands, gently stroking the surface of the water, would sometimes bump. Once a hand touched her breast and in the embarrassed silence, she assumed that whoever had touched her was as shocked as she had been. Her nipples had been prominent as the slight breeze over the water chilled her skin.

  It was the first time that Kiley considered that their triangular friendship would be endangered if any one of them tampered with it. She dived beneath the dark water. Impossible. Nothing between them could ever change.

  Kiley slowly became aware that she was looking at each nearby face, as if looking for one familiar to her. She dropped her eyes to the table’s slightly sticky oilcloth cover. What were the chances that she’d recognize him anyway? The last time she’d set eyes on Grainger Egan was nineteen summers ago—a lifetime. Will’s whole lifetime. Then she was equally afraid that he might be here and she wouldn’t know him. Men changed more than women. Her fifteenth high school reunion had proven that. The handsome boys had run to fat and most were balding. Their necks had thickened and their voices were too loud.

  What would she do if she saw him? What if he was here and she did recognize him? Could she withstand the possibility that he would look at her with the same hatred he’d looked at her that last time? There had been no healing between them. And what would he do if he knew about Will? How was she ever going to deal with Grainger about her father’s boat, when she was so afraid to encounter him at all?

  Kiley shivered in the faint air-conditioning. Someone walked over your grave. That’s what they said when you got inexplicable goose bumps.

  The bell over the door clanged, and Will came in. Kiley shivered again, relieved to see him, happy to see his smile.

  Eight

  Will knew he was late; his mother’s
worried face was a pure indicator. He hadn’t meant to be so late, although a little late would have been typical. He knew he was getting too old to use the “lost track of time” excuse, especially with the new watch his grandparents had given him for graduation. Maybe this would be a good time to suggest again that if he had a cell phone, she’d never need to worry about him. He flopped down in the seat to the left of his mother, breathless with his rush to park the car and get to the restaurant.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Ummm, I got lost. There’s that other road before you get to the bridge. I went right instead of left at the fork.”

  “Will, you can read signs. Don’t play with me.”

  “Well, maybe I did spend a little more time at the mall than I should have. It’s pretty small, but they’ve got a great music store.” Will opened his backpack and pulled out five new CDs. “I sort of got carried away.”

  Will’s eclectic tastes were fanned out on the square table: Alicia Keys, No Doubt, Coldplay, and India. Arie, mixed in with a bargain-bin copy of the early Beatles.

  The waitress returned to take their order. Kiley ordered her glass of wine.

  “I hope you bought batteries. There’s no CD player in the house.”

  “I know. I did.”

  Will was glad that his mom forbore to mention the amount of money he had spent on the five CDs, even though he had every right to spend his money the way he saw fit. When he actually took off for Cornell, then he’d bow to economy. Right now he was still warm from his grandparents’ largesse. They’d been so happy Kiley had agreed to go to Hawke’s Cove that they’d handed Will a nice “allowance” to make up for his losing a month’s work at the burger place.

  If Grainger agreed to keep teaching him after his first lesson, he’d use the rest of that money for that. Maybe there was something to heredity. His grandfather had been a competitive sailor. The waitress placed their dinners in front of them. An idea niggled at the back of his mind, prompted by the photo of his mother and the two boys leaning against the little boat, now tucked into his back pocket.

 

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