by Mia March
Valedictorian, ha. June had been a stupid twenty-one-year-old who’d believed everything he’d said, believed in that kind of falling in love. Idiot. She’d tried to track him down when she’d first found out she was pregnant, went back to that same bar they’d met at every night for two weeks. Walked around that Angel of the Waters statue so many times that cold January she could draw it from memory. But she’d never found him. He was a good-looking guy traveling the country and probably keeping some kind of log about screwing a girl in every state.
June Nash. The good Nash sister, knocked up at twenty-one, before her senior year of college. She’d dropped out, having too much morning sickness to continue, and she’d been such a mess then that she hadn’t taken care of formally withdrawing from her classes the way her aunt Lolly had told her to, so she’d gotten incompletes for the semester and never did go back to finish her degree. When she’d come home, to Lolly’s—“Well, what’s done is done”—she’d driven up to Bangor, his hometown, and asked around about a John Smith, which was ridiculous, of course. Bangor was a city, not a small town. She’d been sent, albeit kindly, on a wild-goose chase where she’d met seven John Smiths, from a seventy-year-old barber to a young lawyer. None him, none related. She’d even gone to Bangor High School and asked to see yearbooks, but the year he graduated (if he really was twenty-one, as he’d said), there were two John Smiths, both blond and both not him. She’d sat in that high school office looking at yearbooks a few years before and a few years after his possible graduation year until the tears came and teenagers stared at her.
She’d told Henry Books the truth about why she was back, why she needed a job, and he’d hired her on the spot as a clerk at Books Brothers, even though he didn’t need help. Henry, a loner with an intense girlfriend, had been a godsend those first months when Charlie was a newborn. Henry gave her as much time off as she needed, even letting her bring Charlie to work and rocking him when he started to fuss, which delighted female customers and brought in business that summer and early fall. But when living with Lolly at the Three Captains’ Inn, living in Boothbay Harbor, period, became too unbearable, she transferred to the Portland store with her baby, the rest of her college fund, and Lolly’s “You’ll be fine, but you can always come home if you want. You know that.”
Yes, she had known that. And that was the dichotomy of Lolly Weller. Ungiving. Giving. That people were complicated was one of the first lessons June had learned in life.
June wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “He stood me up for our third date. After he got what he wanted.”
There was no denying that, so everyone went back to eating. Pushing around their food, really.
“Of course, you might be opening a can of worms,” Lolly said. “I’m not looking for trouble, but I’m just saying. You didn’t know that boy then, obviously. You don’t know what kind of person he really is.”
A terrible combination of anger and shame slammed into June’s stomach. Shame at being called out a fool. For being a fool. And anger at her aunt for not understanding. Never understanding. June had known John Smith for those two days. When she’d tried to explain to Lolly seven years ago that she’d fallen so deeply in love, the kind of love that now made her understand Meryl Streep’s character in The Bridges of Madison County, Lolly had said you couldn’t really love someone—let alone know someone—in two days. “And anyway,” Lolly had added, “you found that out.”
To say that her aunt Lolly had not been much of a comfort in those days, early in her pregnancy, would be the understatement of the century. But Lolly had been there. Had seen June through until she’d moved to Portland when Charlie was almost a year old. She owed her aunt for that and much more. Lolly wasn’t the loving, motherly type with hugs and empathy. She was who she was, and June had accepted that long ago. Not that it made June come around much. But the thought of losing Lolly—
She wouldn’t even go there.
“I’ll help you track him down,” Isabel said, covering June’s hand with her own for a moment.
June looked at Isabel, surprised again.
“Me too,” Kat said.
June waited for Lolly to say something, that she wished her the best, something, but she didn’t.
With her big, black sunglasses and straw hat keeping her incognito from any old classmates, June wound her way through the throngs of tourists on Townsend Avenue and crossed over to Harbor Lane, the cobblestoned path that offered her favorite shops in Boothbay Harbor. The lovely, little Moon Tea Emporium with its five round tables and cheery yellow interior, a storefront palm reader/fortune-teller who was unusually perceptive if not exactly psychic, a gift shop that had been in its spot for generations, its one-of-a-kind wares, such as the lighthouse-shaped watering cans lining the steps, and of course, at the end of the lane, Books Brothers.
June pulled open the door with its red canoe handle and smiled as always at the interior. Books Brothers was like stepping into a magical living room lined with bookshelves and bamboo rugs. Comfortable, old chairs and throws invited sitting to read, and the artifacts on the walls and lining the tops of the shelves told of all kinds of sea adventures. Above one row of shelves was a battered, old red canoe. Above another, a local artist’s photo essay on Boothbay Harbor. Teachers loved bringing kids on field trips for Henry to talk about where he’d gotten his finds.
She smiled at the clerk, a college student as June had been when she’d started at Books Brothers. “Henry in his office?”
The young woman shook her head. “Out on the boat. Docked, I mean.”
June headed back past bestsellers and biographies and memoirs and Local Maine Interest, past the Kids’ Corner, which Henry had built out of a lobster boat’s facade. A little face appeared in the ship’s round window and June smiled. At the back of the store, she pulled open the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and went through another door, which led directly onto the pier where Henry’s houseboat was docked. Henry was kneeling at its starboard, a small can of something at his feet and a sander in his hand.
“Hey,” she said, pushing her sunglasses atop her head. “She giving you trouble?”
He stood up and smiled at her, his pale brown eyes squinting like Clint Eastwood’s. “This boat is never trouble.”
On the outside, Henry’s houseboat looked like a regular, albeit large, motorboat. But down the steps, it turned into a cozy home, with two bedrooms, a living room, a galley kitchen, and a bathroom. Many of Henry’s artifacts decorated the walls and surfaces, as did his art collection. And a photograph of Vanessa Gull, his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Beautiful in a goth way, Vanessa was the least-friendly person on earth, which was likely why June suspected Henry liked her. She didn’t believe in niceties. And Henry didn’t like phonies. They’d been a couple on and off since June had first worked at the Boothbay Books Brothers. A long time. A few years ago, during a holiday visit, June had brought Charlie over to the boat to say hi to Henry, and Vanessa, who’d been there, had said to June, “Something about you bothers me,” and stalked off in her shiny dress and Frye harness boots. Like Henry, Vanessa was ten years older than June and made her feel like an awkward kid. June was glad she wasn’t around now.
“I’ve come to officially accept your offer,” she said. Yesterday, before she’d driven up from Portland, she’d called Henry and was about to launch into her tale of woe, but he’d cut her off with an “I already know. You can start next weekend if that works. Manager, same salary.”
She’d told him she wasn’t sure what her plans were. If she could actually live in Boothbay Harbor again.
“It’s been a long time since you left, June,” he’d said. “You can let all that go. Job’s yours if you want, but let me know this weekend—next weekend’s Labor Day and I need to have someone in place for the rush. Don’t make me hire Vanessa.”
She’d laughed. Vanessa had once covered for her in
the store and scared away three customers who complained bitterly to June and Henry later. Vanessa was barred from working in the store ever since.
“Good,” he said now. “To give you some time with your aunt, why don’t you start Friday for the Labor Day weekend crush. It’ll be just you most days, with Bean as salesclerk on the weekends and holidays. You and Charlie will stay at the inn, right?” She’d told Henry about Lolly’s announcement when she’d picked up Charlie after dinner last night. The way he’d wrapped his arms around her, held her close, made the world go away for those fifteen beautiful seconds.
“For now,” she said. “We’ll see.”
“Well, you know you’re both welcome here anytime it gets too crowded.”
God, she loved Henry Books. He was like a gift, the wise older brother she never had. She used to think about him a lot, about the way his driftwood-brown eyes did crinkle like Clint Eastwood’s when he smiled. That his thick, dark, straight hair fell from a cowlick above his left eyebrow. How tall and rangy and muscular he was. The way he was a Mainer through and through, a man of the sea, but reminded her of a cowboy firmly rooted in land.
When they’d worked together, Henry had treated her like the scared twenty-one-year-old she was, like a kid who’d gotten herself in a situation, instead of like a woman, and she’d stopped thinking of him as any kind of romantic possibility. Anyway, she’d been very pregnant and then taking care of a newborn and infant in those days, and Henry had been out to sea or being mauled by Vanessa. The woman always reminded June of Angelina Jolie in her Billy Bob Thornton days, all long dark hair, kohl eyeliner, and ferocious sensuality. June Nash, in baby spit-up and Danskos, could hardly compete.
“Thanks again for last night, for watching Charlie for me,” June said. “He’s crazy about this boat and loved that you took him clam digging.”
“He’s a great kid,” Henry said, and June knew he meant it. She felt her heart swell with a little bit of pride, a little bit of I did something right.
“Go be with your aunt and your family,” he said. “I’ll see you Friday and we can go over anything that’s changed or is handled differently here. Be sure and tell Lolly if I can help in any way, to just call.”
“Aye, aye,” she said, slipping her sunglasses back on and heading up the pier. Six free days to spend with Charlie and helping out at the inn was perfect.
“Oh, and, June,” he called out. She turned around. “You need anything, you know where to find me.”
She nodded and smiled. She didn’t have much, but she had Charlie and Henry Books. And from the way things had gone last night and today, she was starting to have her family again.
CHAPTER 6
Kat
Late Sunday afternoon, a bracing wind whipped through Kat’s hair—still smelling faintly of the chocolate and icing she’d used to make a birthday cake earlier—as Oliver drove them “somewhere secret” in his convertible. They were heading around the far side of the peninsula. He had a surprise for her was all he would say. The wind felt so good, overtaking everything, especially thought. She watched the excursion boats in the gray-blue water, people pointing at a whale finally making an appearance. She was so numb that she was grateful to just sit, focus on the splash, on the sound of the car gears shifting.
She had blue icing under her thumbnail, she realized now. But there had been no time to shower or even wash her hands. She’d been working on the pirate-ship cake for five-year-old Captain Alex when she’d every now and then heard her mother training Isabel on the art of inn management. “If a guest calls for you, drop everything and see to him or her, even if you’re in the middle of lunch or on the phone. If you see any type of mess, whether trailed sand or a dirty cup, take care of it immediately.” In between, there were guests to greet and questions to answer about maps and how to get to the Botanical Gardens, and if they had only a day left, should they go to Portland or head up to Rockland and Camden? Her mother’s voice was sure and strong and business as usual, and for a little while Kat was so absorbed in creating a perfect bridge for the top of the pirate cake that she forgot about words such as cancer. Until she heard it from the backyard, through the open window, two couples, guests, chatting over wine, Lolly’s complimentary cocktail hour from five to six. “My sister had ovarian cancer,” one of the women was coincidentally saying. “She fought for as long as she could, but she passed away two years ago.” And then another voice: “My mother too. Breast cancer.” Then: “I’m so sorry.” And tears and a man’s voice saying, “Come here, honey.”
Kat had stood so still, her eyes closed, her hands, her lips, trembling. “Please don’t take my mother,” she’d whispered, her hands moving into prayer formation. And then her mother had come into the kitchen for another hunk of Gouda, saying something about the fog burning off, and when the door swung behind Lolly again, Kat burst into tears. She’d moved away from the window and over to the nook that was hidden from view and slid down and cried into her forearms. She couldn’t lose her mother.
She’d sat there until a memory made her laugh. She and her parents in the backyard at the far end of the property, lying side by side, Kat between them, pointing out which clouds looked like what. Kat had a reindeer. Her mother had a car. Her father had a turkey, which made Lolly Weller howl with laughter.
But then the memory had faded and Kat had gotten up, sober and sad, grateful that Oliver had been due to pick her up any minute to “take you somewhere you need to go.” She’d had to get out of the inn, away. He’d shown up, on time as always, looking so incredibly good, also as always, tall and muscular in worn jeans and a dark-green T-shirt, his thick, wavy, sandy-blond hair all tousled.
As the car headed down a side road to nowhere that she could think of, she reached into her purse, pulled out her little notebook and a pen, and wrote, Where are we going? Then held it up for him to see.
He glanced over and smiled. “Write for me, ‘You’ll soon see.’”
When Kat was little, she and Oliver would sit on the wide window ledges of their bedrooms, which faced each other across the side yard, and have conversations by holding up big pads of paper they’d write on. Their own text messaging, pre-cell-phone. Sometimes it was enough just to see him sitting there. When his parents or her mother would call one or both of them inside, Kat would feel the lack of him. Oliver’s parents had long ago sold their house and now lived up in Camden, but sometimes, such as this past Friday night, Kat wished she could have gone to the ledge and held up her big pad with I’m so scared written across it, soothed by Oliver’s Anything you need, I’m here.
This past Friday, after the movie, after she and her cousins had spent a couple of hours talking in the room they now shared, Kat had slipped out of bed, written a note, and quietly left to drive to Oliver’s cottage. He’d taken one look at her stricken expression and seemed to know it was about more than her cousins’ coming. She’d told him about her mother. Said words that got caught in her throat, such as stage four. Metastatic. Chemotherapy. He’d held her close against him and let her cry, as he had so many times before. They’d talked for a bit, but there was nothing to say; I don’t know was the only response to all her questions, all his. They’d lain on his big leather sofa, his arms wrapped around her, and when she woke up a couple of hours later, she’d left him a note and driven back home, slipping back into her room, both startled and unsettled at the sight of Isabel and June fast asleep in the trundle beds. They were there because of Lolly, and the unfamiliar sight of her cousins in her room only reinforced how scary the situation was. The minute she’d lain down in her bed and pulled the quilt up around her chin, she’d felt scared again and wished she’d stayed with Oliver, his arms tight around her. She’d gone back over Saturday night after dinner, and they’d repeated much of Friday night. It was just what she needed. Little talking. Good soup. Strong arms. Someone who’d known her mother—and her—forever.
She wasn’t much in the mood now for surprises or secrets. She wanted to tell Oliver to turn around, just take her to his house and draw her a bath and let her stare at the bubbles or the ceiling, but the words didn’t come and she just let the car go. She was scared, scared in a way she hadn’t been since her father died. Between her mother and her cousins, Kat couldn’t take one more “surprise.”
“We’re here,” Oliver said, pulling up alongside a gravel path, nothing but trees beyond. “Look out my window.”
Kat realized how lost in thought she’d been. To their left was a meadow, a field of wildflowers. She could see pink and red sweet williams, her favorite. Foxgloves and black-eyed Susans and sweet yellow buttercups. She smiled. The flowers were better than a hot bath.
“Come.” He took her hand and led her to a weathered wooden bench right in the center of the field.
Kat breathed in the scents of flowers, of sun and warmth and nature. For a moment she had an urge to spin around, her head back, and let the flowers and sunshine work their magic. Here, there was nothing but earth and sky. Possibilities. But she just lay down, her arms stretched high above her head. She plucked a buttercup, one of the first flowers Oliver had ever given her as a kid, and held it to her face. “This is beautiful and wonderful, Oliver,” she said as he lay down next to her. “Just what I needed. It’s like being transported to a fluffy cloud in a brilliant blue—”
But the fluffy cloud in a brilliant blue sky made her think of her parents again. Of the day they’d looked up at the clouds and spotted reindeer and turkeys and cars, her mother’s laughter at the notion of a turkey-shaped cloud. A sound Kat hadn’t heard in a long time. Not that same laughter, anyway.
“I knew you’d like it,” Oliver said.
She felt the tears come and she couldn’t stop crying. Her mother was dying. For as long as Kat could remember, her mother had been reserved, standoffish. And since Kat’s father died, Lolly had retreated inward even more. Put some kind of thicker wall up between them, between her and everyone.