by Mia March
Until six months ago.
On a cold, snowy February morning, they’d been walking up Townsend Avenue to Oliver’s cottage when he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked at her and said, “I love you so much.” Kat had laughed and said, “I think you’re the bee’s knees too,” one of her mother’s expressions, but Oliver turned serious and said, “No, Kat. I mean, I love you. I love you, Kat,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and everyone turned to look at them. Two teenaged girls giggled and clapped. Then he took her face in his gloved hands and said, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
Kat’s response? That funny feeling started in her toes and worked its way up her every nerve ending until she stepped back from him and looked down at her feet, unable to speak.
“I know, I remember. You can’t kiss me. ‘We’re, like, best friends,’” he’d said, his dark blue eyes full of tenderness and something else, something she’d never before seen in his expression when he looked at her. “But I’m serious, Kat. I’ve always loved you. Can you stand here and tell me we don’t belong together?”
“I don’t know,” she’d said. Sometimes she thought she did. Other times she thought there was a man out there she hadn’t met because she’d never left Boothbay Harbor. And still other times, she thought if she and Oliver Tate made love, she might explode.
Lizzie often said she didn’t understand that last one. Explode? What? But Kat’s cousins might get it. If anyone could, Isabel and June could. But she couldn’t talk to them; she’d never been able to.
And forget talking to her mother. Lolly Weller hadn’t smiled more than a handful of times since she’d been widowed fifteen years ago and lost her sister and had raised three squabbling, grieving girls alone. Lolly didn’t say much about matters of the heart at all. Lolly had had a great marriage to Kat’s father until the accident. She’d been happy, well, happier, anyway. But then she’d gone quiet, leaving the girls to fend for themselves with their questions. But they hadn’t turned to one another for answers.
And strangely, Kat had stayed. Right here in Boothbay Harbor, right here at the Three Captains’ Inn, unable to even think of leaving. Her mother needed her, for one. And if she did ever leave, Kat feared she might never come back. She loved her life here. She didn’t love cleaning the Three Captains’ Inn, but she did love baking for the guests, both of which more than covered her beautiful attic room, which could command close to $200 a night in the summer, not that her mother would ever accept rent from her. And within a few months, six months at most, she’d have enough to finally lease a storefront and buy equipment and open Kat’s Cakes & Confections. Even if she could only afford a tiny shop on a side street, it would be hers. Her savings had come from her wedding-cake business and her clients in town—gourmet food shops and coffeehouses that sold her muffins and scones. She was also the go-to baker for the town’s birthday cakes. One mother of a four-year-old had frantically called last Saturday morning and paid her $100 to create a Max and Ruby cake by 4:00 p.m. One hundred dollars for a cake! Not only had she gotten the job done, she’d gotten five calls for children’s birthday cakes the following week.
“Kat, if you let him go, he’ll end up marrying someone else,” Lizzie said, her diamond ring catching the late-afternoon sunlight. “The friendship you’ve been protecting all these years will change once he has a wife. You’ll lose him. Which is exactly what you’re scared of. So you might as well go for it.”
“Lizzie, I…” Kat threw up her hands. She had no idea what she was where Oliver was concerned. Scared? Just not interested that way? Why didn’t she know how she truly felt? “Anyway, I am going for it. We’re dating.”
Lizzie snorted. “You’ve been dating for six months and he hasn’t seen you naked. That’s not dating, Kat. That’s friendship.” Lizzie stood up and slung her tote bag over her shoulder. “I just want you to be as happy as I am, sweetcakes. Cupcake for the road?”
Kat laughed, frosted one more cupcake, and kissed Lizzie good-bye. As Kat glanced at the clock, she realized she had only twenty minutes until Isabel and June were due to arrive. And until her mother made her announcement.
Kat took a deep breath, fortifying herself with the smell of cupcakes, which never failed her. Even when she was unsure what was about to happen. Kat’s least favorite thing of all.
CHAPTER 4
Isabel
Isabel sat in the parlor of the Three Captains’ Inn, staring straight ahead at a dour painting of her great-great-grandfather and his two brothers, the sea captains who built the inn back in the 1800s. She’d arrived ten minutes earlier and found her aunt Lolly in the kitchen, transferring steaming farfalle from a colander into a serving bowl. Lolly had touched Isabel’s forearm in greeting, her version of a hug, said no to offers of help with dinner or setting the table, and told Isabel to make herself at home—relax in the parlor or backyard or out on the deck. That was it. No How are you? No Where’s Edward? No I’m so happy you’re here.
Just the usual standoffishness. Lolly had barely looked at Isabel.
Which was a good thing, since Isabel’s eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Last night, after she’d learned that the anonymous note was not only meant for her but heartbreakingly accurate, she’d driven back home, filled two suitcases with clothes and toiletries, and then driven for hours until she’d had to pull over and let out the wrenching sobs that had dogged her through Rhode Island and Massachusetts and New Hampshire. She’d been somewhere in southern Maine, Ogunquit or Kennebunkport, found a motel, and had curled up in a ball on the bed and cried so loudly she was surprised no one had called the front desk.
She’d ignored the twenty-plus calls from Edward last night and all day today, listening to her iPhone chime over and over, oddly comforted that he’d cared, at least, to keep calling. To beg forgiveness.
Or so she’d thought, until she’d finally answered his call a half hour ago—almost twenty-four hours since she’d found him with that woman. She’d been on Route 27 just past Wiscasset, fifteen minutes from Boothbay Harbor. The familiar landmarks, the blueberry stands, the Chandler Farm, with its hilly acres of belted Galloways, their oblong black-and-white, furry bodies stark against the green backdrop of forest, made her feel less alone, and she’d pulled over alongside the white fence and answered the phone.
She’d listened to him, to what he’d said, and everything had gone so silent. Her ears felt stuffed with gauze and her mouth had gone dry and she’d started to cry again, when she’d thought she was all cried out. She’d tried to focus on the bulls beyond the fence, on the two geese that walked right past an orange barn cat, already busy stalking a leaf carried by the breeze. She’d dropped the phone in her lap, heard Edward say, “Isabel? Are you there?” And then she’d hit END CALL and sat there staring at the geese, at the cat, at the bulls, feeling so… shocked… until someone had knocked on her car window and asked if she was lost and needed directions, what with her Connecticut license plate.
From her car window she’d bought a pound of blueberries to have something from the comforting farm, and the middle-aged woman in green Wellies and overalls imprinted with the Chandler Farm logo had given Isabel some wildflowers and said, “With my compliments. I hope they brighten your day.” People in Maine were like that. Kind.
“So where are you from?” a young woman sitting across the parlor from Isabel asked. A guest. With a deep tan, huge, pearly-white sunglasses pushed atop her head, and a People magazine on her lap. She hadn’t been sitting there a minute ago. Isabel was so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even noticed her walk in. Isabel envied the woman her ease, the cocoa-butter scent of sunblock, the ability to read a celebrity magazine.
“I’m not a guest here,” Isabel said, staring harder at the painting. “I mean, I’m not from here, though I sort of am, but I don’t live here now. I’m visiting.” I don’t know what I am, clearly, Isabel thought.
&n
bsp; “I thought you said you weren’t a guest here,” the woman asked, wrinkling her freckled nose in confusion. “I’m from New York. The city. I’m going home tomorrow and wish I could stay here forever.”
Isabel nodded. She couldn’t handle small talk. And there was nowhere to go. A couple stood on the deck, sipping wine. Lolly was in the kitchen. And Kat was everywhere.
Naturally, Kat appeared in front of her with a plate of cheese and crackers and fruit and set it down, smiling at Isabel. “Help yourself,” she said to Isabel and to the guest.
As the guest chatted with Kat about the number of lighthouses you could see from Boothbay Harbor—the guest “could only spot five and aren’t there seven? I have to see all seven before I leave”—Isabel stared at the hunks of Gouda and Brie, at the plain and seeded crackers on the plate dotted with tiny flowers. Do not cry. Stare at the little cheese knife. Stare at the painting. Focus on one of the great-great-uncles, on his wiry beard. Do not fall apart in this chintz-covered parlor.
“Are you okay, Isabel?” Kat asked, peering at her.
She forced something of a smile. “I’m fine. It’s nice to see you, Kat.” She focused on Kat, tall and thin and so pretty, not a shred of makeup on her face. She’d cut her hair, Isabel thought, even though she hadn’t seen Kat since last December. Kat was a low-slung-Levi’s and hemp-fibered-and-embroidered-tank-top kind of woman, exactly what she wore now, and the haircut, the poker-straight blond hair just grazing her shoulders, the fringe of bangs, made her look a bit older, more sophisticated.
“Edward with you?” Kat asked, glancing out the window for the familiar black Mercedes that Edward liked to use for long drives. But it wasn’t there, of course. Just Isabel’s silver Prius.
“He couldn’t make it,” Isabel said, looking away as the image of Edward, naked except for his open shirt, hit her again. How could he? How could he? she kept thinking over and over as though there were an answer.
We made a pact, Isabel…
And then he’d gone and broken the ultimate pact they’d made.
And with a woman who was a mother. The very thing Isabel wanted to be so badly. The very thing that had driven them apart, driven Edward away. It didn’t make sense.
Kat nodded and then the guest peppered her with questions, leading Kat over to the hallway where an antique sideboard held maps and brochures. Isabel noticed Kat glance back at her, as though she wanted to say something else, stay with her, but Isabel looked out the window. She and Kat had never been able to talk to each other. They were six years apart, and when they’d become roommates when Kat was ten and Isabel sixteen, Kat’s silence, the way she’d appear so suddenly, this thin, pale, always barefoot little girl, spooked Isabel, clammed her up.
Kat returned, holding a tray with a pitcher of iced tea, lemon slices floating, and two glasses. She poured a glass for Isabel and one for herself, then sat down on the love seat perpendicular to the chair Isabel was in. “June arrived a bit before you did, but she took Charlie over to Books Brothers so that Henry could watch him for a couple of hours.” Kat leaned closer to Isabel. “Apparently, my mom told June that it would probably be best if Charlie not be here for the announcement.”
The announcement. Isabel had forgotten all about it. “Not be here? Why not? What is she announcing?”
Kat picked up her glass and poked at the lemon wedge. “I have no idea. I’ve asked her three times in the past half hour, but she won’t say and keeps telling me to set out appetizers.”
“Do you think she’s selling this place?”
“Why would she?”
Isabel could think of a number of reasons. But she could tell she’d offended Kat and she didn’t have anything left inside her to deal with it. “I’m going to use the bathroom. Back in a minute.”
She just needed somewhere to escape to with a door so she could take a breath. The bathroom on the first floor was occupied, so Isabel headed upstairs. She was about to go into the tiny powder room on the second floor when she saw that the door to the little room that had served as the Alone Closet was ajar. She pushed open the door and the Alone Closet was just as Isabel remembered. An old love seat, a faded, braided, round rug, an end table with an old lamp, and a small bookshelf filled with books and magazines. Isabel was struck with a flash of herself as a sixteen-year-old, of running up here that New Year’s Eve after the fight with her mother, furiously moving the big, heavy vacuum cleaner against the door that had no lock.
The Alone Closet. Where she’d spent much of her time at the inn during the two years she’d lived at the Three Captains’. When the three girls had suddenly had to share one big room in the inn, Lolly had turned a utility closet on the second floor into the Alone Closet and put a sign on the door that you could flip over: OCCUPIED or VACANT. If one of the girls needed some space, somewhere to go inside the bustling house where she could be alone, she’d go to the Alone Closet.
She glanced into the round mirror on the wall. She was surprised she could look the same when her entire life had changed—shoulder-length, highlighted light brown hair falling right into perfect long-layered place, her light makeup, her usual slightly dressy outfit and high heels—except for her hazel eyes… sad was the only word to describe them. But they were less red-rimmed than when she’d glanced in the rearview mirror before she’d braced herself to get out of her car and walk up the steps to the inn.
Isabel braced herself again and headed downstairs. Now her sister, June, and Kat were in the parlor, Kat holding a cracker, and June holding a glass of iced tea and looking completely lost in thought.
“So Edward couldn’t make it?” Kat asked as she reached for another cracker, clearly to have something to do. Isabel noticed Kat’s cheeks redden as if she realized she’d asked that exact question ten minutes ago.
Isabel was about to say that he was away on business, but just shook her head and reached for a cube of cheddar cheese. Her sister, in her trademark outfit of jeans, white button-down shirt, and wine-colored Dansko clogs, a puzzle-piece pin that Charlie had made her only jewelry, sat on the sofa. She slid a pen from the loose bun at her nape and then gathered her wildly curly auburn hair back into a topknot.
“Hi, June,” Isabel said, not even sure if her sister realized she’d come in.
June put her glass down and stood up. “I didn’t even see you, sorry.” She gave Isabel something of a hug, then sat back down. “Edward chatting up a guest about the Red Sox outside?” June asked with a bit of a smile.
Isabel squeezed the cube of cheese in her fingers. “He couldn’t make it.”
Lolly, who’d kept herself scarce for the past half hour, appeared in the open doorway of the parlor. “Dinner’s ready.” Saved, Isabel thought. For the moment, anyway.
“You look so nice, Aunt Lolly,” June said, and her aunt certainly did. Lolly had changed from her usual outfit of cotton tank top, gauze skirt, and flip-flops into a peach-colored cotton dress and taupe ballet flats. Instead of her usual long braid, her gray-blond hair was in a neat bun at the back of her head. She also wore lipstick. Lolly never wore lipstick.
“Wow, what’s the occasion?” Kat asked as they followed Lolly across the hall into the big country kitchen, where Lolly, who had declined continued offers of help, had everything set out on the table—a tossed salad, pasta primavera in a pesto sauce, a plate of cheese, a beautiful round loaf of Portuguese bread, white wine, and the bouquet of wildflowers that Isabel had brought.
“Oh, I forgot the Parmesan,” Lolly said, walking to the refrigerator and ignoring Kat’s question. Then she forgot the dressing. And the butter. She got up and down from her chair at least ten times. What was this big announcement? Something that clearly had her rattled. And that she didn’t want a child around to hear.
When everyone was seated at the rectangular farmer’s table, napkins on laps, the serving bowl of farfalle making its wa
y around, Kat and June and Isabel had spent at least five minutes glancing at one another with questioning looks and shrugs. Finally Kat said, “So, Mom, what’s the announcement?”
“Let’s hold off on that until we’ve eaten,” Lolly said, then sipped her wine.
Isabel glanced at her aunt. Lolly’s plate was empty; she always waited until everyone else’s plate was full before she helped herself. But even as plates filled up, Lolly had taken only a small piece of the bread and poured herself a quarter glass of wine.
Dinner was a repeat of the parlor. Usually Lolly could be counted on to fill the silence, tell a dry story or two about a town referendum or a past guest, but she stayed quiet. June pushed pesto-coated farfalle on her plate. Kat slid worried glances at her mother. And Isabel tried not to let images of Edward enter her mind. But here at the inn, where he’d been such a vital part of her life, he was all she could think about.
“So how’s Edward?” June asked, taking a sip of her wine.
“Great,” Isabel said, stabbing a cherry tomato. She wondered if anyone would be surprised if she stood up and said, You know what? He’s not great. He’s having an affair and I caught him in the act and I have no idea what my life is now. No idea who I am without Edward, just like you said, June. No one sitting around this table liked Edward much. They had once, of course. But Isabel seemed to be the only one who hadn’t noticed how much he’d changed. Or maybe she was the one who’d changed.