She followed the soft curves of the bike path, the sun warming the back of her neck. Sweeping ferns lined either side, and every so often a honeysuckle or a cape rose poked its head out. Maggie threw her hands in the air like a child and shouted, “Heeeello, summer!” No one was around. She could be carefree and thirteen again. How she’d imagined this feeling a thousand times, nurtured it as if it were her own exquisite orchid, in the depths of winter. The thought of the Cape house was the only thing that made Boston winters bearable, with loads of laundry to do and the kids climbing the walls. Just wait, she’d tell herself. Before you know it, you’ll all be back at the summer house.
Eventually, the dirt path turned to pavement and wound past the charming post office (white with blue trim), the town library, an ice cream shop, a handful of quaint shops, and at last, Sal’s Market. Maggie leaned her bike against a post. Like everything else in town, Sal’s looked more or less the same and still sported its cherry red door and gray cedar shingles.
When she swung open the screen door, four tidy rows of supplies greeted her along with the smell of basil and an assortment of freshly picked produce, including fat, gorgeous blueberries and strawberries the size of walnuts. She gathered up a wire basket, threw in two pints of berries and a clutch of basil, and began combing the aisles for the items on her list. She pulled a carton of farm eggs and milk from the refrigerated section, then headed to the deli and fish counter. A small line had formed and Maggie took her place behind a woman in a faded pink sundress and floppy straw hat. Probably a year-rounder, she thought wistfully. When it was her turn, she stepped up and grinned at Sal, who was busily wiping the counter. A white deli hat sat perched on top of his sandy curls, and his butcher’s apron already reflected a swift morning’s business. When he glanced up and saw her, his face beamed.
“Maggie, girl! Welcome back! I was wondering if you all would get in this week.”
She tugged a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She loved that Sal never failed to make her feel like a pretty teenager all over again. “Thanks, Sal. It’s good to be back. You know we wouldn’t miss July down here if we could help it.”
“I always know it’s summertime when the Herington girls are back. The whole gang with you?”
“You bet.” Maggie eyed the specials on the blackboard behind him: STRIPED BASS; BLUEFISH; SCUP; TUNA; HADDOCK; HALIBUT; COD.
“Well, you’ll have to bring those gorgeous girls by the store. And Luke! How old is he now?”
“Just turned five,” Maggie confirmed. “Kindergarten in September.”
“Wow.” Sal’s face softened. “They grow up fast, don’t they?” Maggie nodded. “Are your sisters headed in, too?” She grinned. She knew that Sal had a soft spot for Virgie.
“Yep. Jess should be here today with her family. Virgie gets in on Wednesday.”
Did Sal’s face light up just a tad or was it Maggie’s imagination? He cleared his throat. “That’s terrific. So, what can I get you today?”
“How’s the striped bass?”
“Delectable, as always.” He reached to pull a few fillets from a tray. “How many would you like?”
Maggie did the quick arithmetic in her head for her family and Jess’s. “A baker’s dozen? And a pound of ham and turkey each, please.”
“You got it.” He tugged off a sheet of waxy paper and tossed the fillets on it, then sliced the deli meat and wrapped it all in a tidy bundle. “Enjoy.” He handed it over. “Say hi to everyone for me.”
“Thanks. Will do, Sal.” She made her way over to the checkout counter, taking a quick inventory of her basket to make sure nothing would be too heavy to lug back on the bike, and paid. She was stuffing the groceries into her basket outside when a familiar voice called out: “Maggie, is that you?”
Maggie turned and smiled. “Gretchen! How are you? I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Gretchen had been coming to the Cape for summers nearly as long as Maggie and her sisters. She and her husband had two kids, and occasionally the families would get together for a beach day and cookout. Maggie noticed that her friend had gone blond this summer.
Gretchen ran her hand through her hair self-consciously. “I know. A bit of a shock, right? But I needed something to get me through middle age.” Maggie laughed as she leaned in to give her friend a hug. “It looks great. How are the kids?”
“Good,” said Gretchen. “Really good. Except for the times when I want to strangle them, of course. Jasper is eight going on four, and Anna is fifteen going on twenty.”
Maggie hopped on her bike. “I know what you mean. Lexie and Sophie are in those fun ‘tween’ years.” Gretchen groaned sympathetically. “We’ll have to get together. How long are you here for?”
“Three weeks,” answered Gretchen. “We head back for the kids’ camp in August.”
“Give me a call on my cell.” Maggie waved over her shoulder. “We don’t have a landline at the house anymore.”
“What?” Gretchen called after her in mock surprise. “You finally got rid of that vintage rotary phone?” Maggie grinned. Gretchen’s summer house was nothing like hers. A colonial with five bedrooms and three baths, it was a restored sea captain’s mansion that they’d bought when the market was down. There was nothing “camp-like” about it, but Maggie knew that was how her friend liked it. If she couldn’t find luxury living along the beach, Gretchen wouldn’t have deigned to come to the Cape in the first place.
Sparrows chirped in the old oaks and pines that flecked the town square. Maggie inhaled as she rode along, a mix of salt and pine stinging her nose, and felt curiously free. Only a few summers ago she’d fretted she would never escape the days of diapers and binkies and then potty training with Luke. And that cumbersome car seat! It drove her crazy, how Luke would howl about the seat belt cutting into his chest. Until one day, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw all three kids buckled into their seats, the diagonal strap crisscrossing Luke’s shoulder, and Luke uncomplaining. A small miracle! There were so many milestones like these, Maggie thought. They seemingly happened overnight after she’d waited forever for them to occur.
She pulled up to the house and parked the bike. When she stepped inside, all was quiet, the girls still asleep. She set the groceries on the counter and wandered onto the deck, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. There. About a quarter mile down the beach, she could make out the profiles of Mac and Luke. She let herself out the gate and went down the steps to the boardwalk, the sea grass tickling her calves as she pulled off her flip-flops. At the shore line, the icy cold water lapped at her toes, but she knew from years of summers that it would grow warmer as the day went on. She was about to call out to them, but something stopped her.
On the horizon, white fleecy clouds hung in a sky that was colored a perfect robin’s-egg blue. The bright sun danced on the water. Above her, gulls dipped and soared, calling out to one another. Maggie inhaled the salty air and dug her toes deeper into the sand. She was searching for the right word to describe the shimmering world before her. Then it came to her: hallowed. This was hallowed ground, the place that gave her the most peace, her own private retreat.
Each summer, she resolved to toss out her to-do lists, lengthy spools that ran through her mind like ticker tape most days of the year. After years of self-recrimination, she’d resigned herself to the fact that she liked things to be just so. Type A, Mac called her. But in a way that I love, he reassured. But was it really so bad? So what if there were individual cubbies for the kids in the mudroom? So what if the kitchen in Windsor had a whiteboard with the children’s activities detailed in color-coded marker? And her linen shelves were methodically labeled: GIRLS’ SHEETS, LUKE’S SHEETS, M&D SHEETS, PILLOWCASES, EXTRA BLANKETS ?
She kept things organized. She kept the family running. They needed her.
But on the Cape, there was no need for such charts. Because everything was already as it was supposed to be. Que sera, sera. And if anything were amiss, if Arthur, f
or instance, was acting a little odd, well, it would be righted at Pilgrim Lane. That was what the summer house was for. Standing on the beach, she was also struck with the realization that this was the place (the summer house, of course! ) to tell Mac what she’d been dreaming about the last few months, an idea she desperately hoped he’d be open to. Time would tell.
Slowly she lifted her right leg up, toe pointing toward her knee, and swept her arms above her head. Her Tree Pose. She pressed her fingertips together and inhaled, willing her body to remain balanced on one foot. Yes, she thought. She could feel some of the tension slipping away, feel her heart opening to the possibilities of summer.
Until, that is, Lexie shouted from the deck, “Mom! Sophie took my towel!” Followed by a wail, which Maggie was quite certain came from Sophie.
Virgie
Virgie watched Thomas pace back and forth across Larry’s office, his gestures growing more animated by the minute. It wasn’t hard. Larry had raised the blinds that divided the glass window of his office from their cubicles. When they were on the outside, looking in, the journalists joked it was because Larry wanted to keep an eye on them. But when someone else was on the inside with Larry, looking out, it was a different story. A closed door with the boss meant a colleague was getting fired, being promoted, or being handed a coveted story. Whatever it was, it rarely meant good news for those outside the fishbowl.
Virgie was playing Candy Crush on her computer, pairing colored jelly beans while she snuck looks. She had a pretty good idea of what was happening. Thomas had been itching for a big story for months and had stumbled upon the same one she had: Liz Crandle, a prominent Seattle attorney, was accusing a partner at her firm of sexual harassment. Allegedly, the partner had offered more compliments on her breasts than her legal briefs. The story probably meant a gazillion dollars in a settlement since it was evident the firm was eager for the whole mess to disappear. But Virgie had an “in” and Larry knew it. She and Liz bought their morning coffee at the same shop down on the pier. They’d exchanged hellos a few times, even commiserated over bad hair days together. Virgie was pretty sure she could scoop an exclusive before the other local stations got wind of it.
She shook the tingles out of her hands. Lately, all the caffeine she’d been drinking was giving her the shakes. She knew she had to quit, but her job demanded constant focus. If she ever wanted to get promoted to anchor desk, she couldn’t afford to miss a beat. It felt like ages since she’d had a good night’s sleep; insomnia had become her new bed partner. Of course, some of that sleep deprivation was due to Jackson, and she felt herself flush at the thought. Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. She wanted to write his name in big, loopy letters on her notebook as she had done with her high school boyfriends. She and Jackson had been dating for only three weeks, but Virgie couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was almost refreshing to be dating in her thirties; there was no need to play it coy. No wondering whether the object of her affection would call. No games, no secrets, they’d told each other on their third date. And Virgie had thought, Finally, someone who gets me.
As if Jackson had felt his ears burning, her cell phone chimed with a text. Dinner tonite?
She picked it up off her desk. “Yes!” She began to text back immediately, before downgrading the exclamation point to a period. Then: Where?
A minute later, his reply: Romeo’s? Seven?
She smiled. Romeo’s was a cozy little Italian place perched on a corner with a view of Elliott Bay. Chic without being pretentious. She texted back: Perfect. See you then. She and Jackson had dined there once before, when Virgie pronounced the scallops and fettuccini worth dying over. That and the enormous decanters of wine that sat on each table easily made it her new favorite place.
She checked her watch. Already 3:30 and she was still waiting for Larry to tell her the story was hers. What was taking him so long to break the news to Thomas? She wanted to get a four-mile run in before dinner. She looked up at Larry’s office. Any minute now. Thomas stood at the door, his hand resting on the handle. A moment later, he exited and cast a glance her way before hurrying toward his cubicle. If Virgie had read the vibes right, the story was all hers.
Larry stood in the doorway of his office. “Virgie, can I talk to you for a minute?” She tried her best to act surprised. A few colleagues smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Larry was a smart guy. He knew better than to hand a sexual harassment story to a male reporter. It should be a woman—someone who would be sympathetic, someone whom Liz Crandle would want to spill her heart out to. Heck, Virgie even knew what kind of coffee she liked. Actually, it was tea. Chai tea, extra foam. Virgie was already considering where the interview should take place. Liz’s home? Or maybe she should suggest a more neutral setting. Perhaps the coffee shop.
She shot Larry an assured smile and breezed into his office. She was glad she was wearing her red Jimmy Choo pumps since now they would be forever linked to the day she’d caught her big break.
Larry shut the door behind her and gestured to a chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.” He cleared his throat and shuffled the papers on his desk.
“What’s up?” She aimed to sound cavalier.
“Listen, I know you’re keen on the Liz Crandle story—” he began.
“That’s right,” she interrupted. “We get coffee at the same place. I’m sure I could get an exclusive with her before KCB swoops in.” KCB-TV was their archrival. KCB’s newscasters were sharp, slick reporters, and they’d been beating up her station in the ratings for the past five years.
“I’m sure you could.” Larry hesitated. “But it turns out that Thomas’s brother-in-law is running buddies with Miss Crandle. He’s already made the case to Liz as to why she should talk to Thomas.”
Virgie felt a tickle in her throat and coughed. “You’re joking, right?”
Larry shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry. I wanted to give this one to you, but Thomas is having none of it. He refuses to step aside.”
A flush of anger flickered up her neck. She could feel red splotches blooming on her skin. “You don’t really think Liz is going to confide everything to a guy about this story, do you? That’s just bad judgment.”
“You’re probably right. But she seems to have made up her mind. I have to at least give Thomas a shot.”
Virgie stood up, clasping her notebook tightly. She didn’t want to turn around and face her colleagues, who were undoubtedly watching her through the glass now.
“This was my story, Larry, and you know it.” She frowned when her voice cracked.
“I’m sorry.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll make it up to you. You’ll get the next big one.”
“Right.” She couldn’t help herself, the sarcasm cutting through the air, even though they both knew that Larry could fire her on the spot.
“Virgie,” she heard him begin, but she couldn’t stay in his office a moment longer for fear she might say something she’d regret. She marched back to her desk, her skin burning. She jammed her notebook and cell into her gym bag, shut down her computer, and told her assistant that she was heading home to review notes for a story. It was a lie, but no one would miss her today; it wasn’t as if she had an anchor spot on the six o’clock news after all. She was only in charge of her show, Verbatim with V, which ran twice a week. It was mostly fluff, but it got her face time on the air.
The elevator pinged down twelve floors, Virgie cursing under her breath. To be honest, she didn’t care that much for the Crandle story, but it smacked of high ratings, the kind that got producers’ attention. She knew if she did the story right, it would be a feather in her broadcasting cap. Well, screw you, Larry, she thought. She winged through the revolving door into the bright, sunny day. If her boss was too big an idiot to see what a bad call this was, then the station didn’t deserve her. She fantasized about who else she might work for in the Seattle area. Maybe Channel 7? PBS? Surely, they didn’t play favorites like this. But something e
lse was bothering her.
She couldn’t tamp down the feeling that Larry had passed her over for another reason. Maybe he was afraid that the story would hit too close to home. More than once, he’d tried to convince Virgie to go out with him; more than once, she’d declined. Maybe he worried talking to Liz would get her thinking about her own workplace environment. Of course, that was preposterous. Virgie knew Larry was harmless in the way that most overweight, balding, forty-something men were. Virgie wasn’t threatened by her boss in the least.
Only in the sense that he held the keys to her career.
As she walked along Twelfth Avenue, she realized that the day had settled into a beautiful warm afternoon. Bright red begonias blossomed in storefront window boxes, and a mild breeze floated off the water. When she first moved here, seven years ago, she’d worried about the rain. She thought maybe she was one of those people who needed sunshine to be happy. And while it was true that Seattle had more gray than sunny days, the summers had turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. She’d quickly fallen in love with the place and its clean streets, its environmentally conscious people, its tie to the San Juan Islands.
Her phone chimed in her bag, and when she retrieved it she saw Jackson’s text: Can’t wait. Ah, Jackson, she thought. Sometimes you just make the world a better place.
At the club, she changed into her workout clothes and headed for the treadmill. It felt good to let her mind wander as she ran. If she wasn’t going to be Seattle’s most successful news journalist, she reasoned, at least she could be its fittest. She still had her figure from college, tall and lean. She drank an ungodly number of green toxic-looking shakes for breakfast; she used more skin creams than should be allowed; she whitened her teeth every few years; she got Botox injections like the best of them. After all, thirty-five could be said to be past your prime if you were a woman in the news industry. On television. Not the same for gray-haired wise men like Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite. But Virgie wanted to be the next Barbara Walters, the next big thing.
The Summer of Good Intentions Page 2