Winter's Harbor

by Aurora Rey

  “She was my age.” Alex huffed. “She just had the body of a twenty-two-year-old.”

  Stuart nodded appreciatively. He was madly in love with his wife, but his rapport with Alex included admiring beautiful women, including the ones she dated.

  “Really, though, no one on the horizon?” Stuart asked.

  Alex shrugged. Although she didn’t like to think of it that way, winter was often a dry spell. Most of the women she dated came to town for the summer, or part of it. Most of them also sought her out. She enjoyed the company, among other things, but she rarely pursued women. Since she wasn’t looking for anything serious, it seemed like the responsible thing to do. Usually, it worked. “No one on the horizon.”

  Stuart frowned. “Do you ever think about something more serious?”

  They’d been friends for going on six years. In that time, he’d teased her plenty about dating vicariously through her, but every now and then he got earnest. He was big on family, and deep down, wanted her to find a nice girl and settle down. Alex found it endearing, mostly.

  “Sure, of course I do. That doesn’t mean it’s going to just land in my lap.”

  “You mean the way your flings usually fall into your lap.”

  Alex considered. It was sort of how things worked in P-town. Much like the tourists, many of the residents were seasonal. Although gay men had the reputation for cruising, it wasn’t uncommon for a pretty woman to appear for the season and indulge in a no-strings-attached summer tryst. “Well, yeah. It’s not like I crave one-night stands, but that’s what a lot of the women around here are after. I’m not going to force something just for the sake of having someone around.”

  He sighed. “There’s probably something between forcing it and not even trying.”

  “At best, serious relationships suck all your energy. At worst, they practically kill you.”

  She thought that might earn a chuckle, but Stuart’s frown only intensified. “I know you’ve had your heart broken, but I hate to think you’d miss out on the real thing because you weren’t willing to take a risk.”

  Stuart was probably the only person, besides her sister maybe, who she felt comfortable confiding in. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But still. I’m not into long-distance relationships, and there aren’t any local women I’m interested in. I’m not sure where that leaves me.”

  She looked over at Stuart. He was looking at her with a combination of affection and concern. Wanting to lighten the mood, she said, “Cut it out. You look like my dad.”

  Stuart smiled slightly. “Hey, now, I’m barely old enough to be your big brother.”

  They spent the next hour talking about the rookies for the New England Patriots, and agreed to get together on Sunday to watch the game. “Come to the house. Connie will make chili and the girls will be thrilled to show off their new hockey gear.”

  Alex agreed, and decided she was very much looking forward to a family kind of day. As they walked out of the bar, she found herself thinking that she was lucky to have Stuart. Although it was a somewhat unlikely friendship—straight family man and commitment-shy lesbian—it worked. “I’ll see you this weekend. Four o’clock.”

  “Four o’clock. If you bring one of those chocolate torte thingies, I’ll provide dinner and beer.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Three

  Lia looked through the windshield at her new home. The house was built in the late 1800s and had, at some point along the way, been divided into three condos. Before getting out of the car, she studied the front of the house. It looked just as it did in the photos she saw online—cedar shingles grayed from the salt air, white trim and shutters, postage stamp front porch.

  She hauled one of her suitcases out of the back seat and made her way down the pea gravel path to the side entrance. Bracing the screen door open with her hip, she unlocked the main door and pushed it open. She stepped inside and put her suitcase down, felt along the wall for a light switch and flipped it on.

  She found herself in the main living space of her apartment. The kitchen and living room were one open space. Open shelves in the kitchen revealed a pretty assortment of glassware and serving dishes, along with white plates, bowls, and mugs. Polished concrete counters flanked a gorgeous old farmhouse sink. In the living area, an oversized red sofa sat in front of a large window that overlooked the backyard. There was a flat-screen television sitting atop a shabby-chic dresser. Every other wall was lined with bookcases that were overflowing with books, which were old, new, and everything in between. At the far end of the room, an open staircase led to the single bedroom and bath.

  Lia sighed. It was perfect.

  She’d lucked out, considering how quickly she chose it. Although the decision to leave had been brewing for the better part of two months, deciding where to go, finding a place, and leaving came together in under forty-eight hours. She could admit that was her general way of doing things. She would mull over her options, weigh the pros and cons, and obsess about making the wrong decision for weeks, if not months. When she’d settled on something, though, she wasted no time putting it in motion.

  When Lia discovered that Dani was having an affair—with her administrative assistant of all people—it was no different. At first, she was devastated, heartbroken. She’d never have said things between them were perfect, but Lia always felt like there were more good times than bad. She’d thought the feeling was mutual.

  The more she thought about the affair, however, Lia found she was more mortified than heartbroken. She was embarrassed that she’d been duped, humiliated that the whole thing was such a cliché. It was paired with the nagging feeling that she’d been Dani’s loyal lapdog. She’d followed Danielle and Danielle’s career to New York. Danielle wanted an apartment on the Upper West Side and friends with weekend homes in the Hamptons, so that’s what they had. Lia had convinced herself that she wanted those things as well, that their lifestyle was a big adventure compared to her small town upbringing.

  She’d also considered herself to be intelligent and independent. In the end, she felt like a weak willed fool. She hated that most of all.

  At first, she’d moved into the guest room. She told Dani she needed space, some time to sort out her feelings. Dani, ever reasonable and sure of herself, respected that choice. It was only after several weeks that she began to suspect Dani was merely waiting her out, waiting for her to see that their life together was more important than some indiscretion that had come between them. The realization made her angry, perhaps even angrier than the affair itself, and pushed her over the edge.

  Lia went online and started researching her options. She wanted out of the city, that much she knew. Without much direction, she typed “short term lease gay” into the search engine and landed on a website called Home Away From Home, and an advertisement for vacation rentals in Provincetown. It was both different and familiar, and it was near the ocean. When she saw the price of a one-bedroom condo—a month for less than the price of a week in July—she looked no further.

  She contacted the real estate company that managed the property, negotiating an additional ten percent off by signing a six-month lease. She sent the paperwork and paid her security deposit and first month’s rent via PayPal before she told another soul about her plan. When Dani had come home that evening, she’d already started packing. She explained her plan, expecting Dani to put up a fight. Instead, Dani nodded soberly and agreed that, if Lia felt she needed a break, she would respect it. Lia was very explicit that her leaving was neither impulsive nor temporary, but she got the sense that Dani didn’t entirely believe her. At that point, the last thing she wanted was another argument, so she didn’t press the matter.

  The next morning, Dani wished her safe travels and went to work. Lia stood in the living room for a good twenty minutes, wondering if she should try to get a storage space for her books and the other things from the apartment that were officially hers. Overwhelmed by the idea, she filled two boxes with
her favorite books and photographs of her family. She loaded them, along with three suitcases and several duffel bags, into the trunk and back seat of her car. She pulled out of her overpriced parking spot in the building’s basement garage, turned into traffic, and didn’t look back.

  Now here she was. The manic feeling that had buoyed her through the packing and the leaving, the driving and the arriving, was gone. She couldn’t decide if she was unsure of her decision or, perhaps more likely, unsure of herself.

  Lia hefted her suitcase up the narrow staircase to the bedroom on the second floor. For some reason, the fact that the apartment had two levels appealed to her. It was one of those things that she’d fixated on as a child, living in a sprawling 1950s ranch style house. It was a fixation that had not been alleviated by the two-thousand-square-foot Manhattan apartment Danielle had chosen for them. At the top of the stairs, the bedroom opened up through a door to her right and the bathroom, she surmised based on the tile floor, was to the left. She pulled the suitcase into the bedroom.

  Lia nudged it into a corner, then flopped on the bed and looked around. Like the living room and kitchen, the bedroom had a definite Cape Cod feel without being overtly beachy. The walls were a bluish gray that was a shade darker than she would have been bold enough to choose. The quilt on the bed was mostly blues and grays, the curtains and the furniture white.

  It felt homey and comfortable, neat without being spare. She could imagine herself in the bed with only the small lamp on the nightstand to illuminate the pages of her book. She could imagine waking up slowly, stretching and rolling around before starting the day. Although she had no sense of direction and couldn’t begin to fathom whether the wide double window faced east or west or south or north, she imagined a certain amount of light would filter in when day broke. It was, in every way possible, exactly what she wanted—needed—right now.

  Lia was surprised to realize that she’d begun to cry. For a moment, she sniffed, determined to pull herself together and focus on the positive. It occurred to her, though, that there was no one to see whether or not she put on a brave face. There was no one to feel sorry for her or to try and convince her that everything would work itself out in the end. There was no one, even, to tell her that tears were a waste of time.

  So she let them fall. She curled up in the middle of the bed, hugged her knees to her chest, and sobbed. She sobbed until her eyes were puffy and she’d given herself a headache. When she stopped, the pale light of late afternoon had disappeared and she was completely in the dark. She stayed where she was and, for a moment, thought about not moving until morning.

  Instead, she sat up and willed her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Eventually, she could make out the outline of the furniture and the door. She made it to the light switch without tripping on anything and flipped on the overhead light. She winced at its brightness, then took a deep breath. She blew it out and took another. She realized just how long it had been since she’d really filled her lungs.

  Whether it was the increased oxygen flow or the good long cry, she felt considerably better. Her eyes still burned, though, and her head throbbed. She unzipped the suitcase and dug around for her travel bag of toiletries. She stripped off her clothes and walked to the bathroom. When she flipped on the light, she let out an audible “ohhh.”

  Centered under a window was a gorgeous claw-foot tub. She set down her things and opened the door to the tiny linen closet. In addition to a big stack of towels, she found a nearly-full bottle of almond oil bubble bath. She lifted her eyes in a silent prayer of gratitude and began the process of drawing herself a bath.

  An hour later, Lia pulled herself from the now tepid water. She toweled off and studied herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Unlike a lot of her straight friends, she had never been terribly obsessed with her body. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but she’d always thought the proportions were good. Now, however, knowing Danielle had chosen a petite and perfectly tanned twenty-four year old instead of her, she looked at herself with a more critical eye.

  Her full breasts weren’t as perky as they’d been when she was in her twenties. There were stretch marks on her abdomen and she had what her mama called chicken skin on her upper arms. Her thighs rubbed together when she walked. Lia lifted her breasts and let them fall, then poked her midsection. She flexed her biceps, did a couple of yoga poses. She frowned at the mirror, then smiled.

  Fuck it. I already hate her. I’m not going to start hating myself on top of it.

  She walked into the bedroom and checked the clock. It was 7:48. She contemplated putting on clothes and going in search of dinner, but decided the bed was far more appealing. She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old Smith T-shirt and crawled under the covers. She was asleep almost immediately.

  Chapter Four

  Alex hoisted the twenty-quart mixing bowl onto the table. She tipped it onto its side and coaxed the massive blob of dough onto the work surface. With a wide, stainless steel bench scraper, she began portioning off pieces of dough that would become loaves of seven grain bread. She didn’t bother weighing them individually, but a scale would have shown each to be within an ounce of two pounds. Making bread for ten years had that effect on a person.

  Once the dough was divided, she shaped each ball into a fat log and plopped them into the loaf pans she’d greased earlier. She slid the pans into the proof box and set the timer for ninety minutes. Her other timer buzzed, announcing that the sourdough bread in the oven was done. She pulled the pans and moved them to a cooling rack.

  Production in the off season was very different. During the summer months, Alex kept a staff of fifteen, mostly culinary students looking to build their resumes while enjoying as much of summer as possible. Alex taught them a lot and paid them enough to enjoy their off hours. It was a win-win arrangement, and she’d developed relationships with some of the schools so that the quality of the interns outweighed the high turnover.

  Winter, however, was a different story. She had Jeff, her full-time manager, and a part-time cook named Darcy. They both lived in town year-round and didn’t mind transitioning to a wider variety of responsibilities when customer traffic dwindled. Between the three of them, they covered breakfast and lunch six days a week with no trouble. Alex also changed her baking routines. She experimented with recipes, with refrigerating and freezing dough, so that she could offer freshly-baked breads and pastries every day without the impractical task of making small batches of everything from scratch every day.

  Today’s schedule included multi-grain and sourdough, muffins, and brownies. She’d bake croissants that had been shaped earlier in the week and frozen, along with cookies. She would also whip up some individual bread puddings with the day-old bread. She’d be done by eleven and ready to assemble salads and sandwiches for the lunch crowd.

  While she worked, Alex listened with one ear to the goings-on in the front of the bakery. Jeff was chatting with the regulars, flirting where flirting was welcome. She poked her head out now and again, once to give Jeff a break, but mostly to check the cases and say hello to some of her favorite customers. It was work she loved and she took pride in it.

  When Darcy, her lunch cook, walked in at nine, Alex was surprised by how quickly the morning was passing. She raised a flour-covered hand in greeting and then repositioned herself in the small kitchen so that Darcy would have room to work. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “Good morning, boss. How goes it?”

  “It goes, it goes. What magic do you have in store for us today?” Hiring Darcy was one of her best decisions. Alex had given her some recipes as a starting point, but handed over most of the control over the lunch menu within a month of her starting.

  “Well, it’s Tuesday. That means French onion soup and crab and corn chowder. I thought I’d get crazy with the mac and cheese and do a pancetta and portobello mushroom.”

  “God, just hearing you say that makes my stomach growl. I look forward t
o conducting some quality control.”

  “I’ll be sure you get first taste.” She tucked her bag and coat into the cubby in the corner and donned an apron and the ball cap she wore to keep her hair back.

  “Best perk of being in charge, for sure. How’s Liam?” Alex had a soft spot for Darcy’s son. He was a serious, intellectual sort—a particularly endearing personality for a six-year-old. He also had his mother’s striking blue eyes and dark hair. Even if he stayed nerdy, Alex was sure that the girls, and maybe the boys, would have a hard time resisting him.

  “Oh, he’s loving life. He comes home from school every day and insists on going right to his desk to do his homework.” After washing her hands, she started pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator. She piled them on the work table and took out a large cutting board.

  “They give that much homework in first grade?”

  Darcy shook her head. “I think he invents more than half of it.”

  Alex laughed. “Sounds like a good problem to have. I hope the habit sticks.”

  “Ha. You and me both. I just signed him up for karate so he doesn’t spend all of his time reading. I think I won him over by calling it the study and practice of an ancient martial art.”

  “You’re hilarious. Let me get these in the oven and I’ll clear out to let you work.” Alex slid two pans of shortbread cookies into the oven and went to the sink to wash up. “I’m going to go check things out front. Will you pull those in twenty?”

  Darcy glanced up from slicing onions to double check that the timer was on. “No problem.”

  Alex left the kitchen and walked out to the front of the shop. Jeff was handing change to Kyu, the manager of the SeaSpray hotel next door. “Hey, Kyu,” Alex said jovially.

  “Hey, Alex. Keeping warm over here?”

  “We’re trying. How’re things across the way?”