Whole Latte Life

by Joanne DeMaio

  She spots Sara Beth sitting on the bench in the noted spot, legs crossed, hand clutching a big straw tote. “Sara,” she calls.

  Sara Beth stands. Her ankle length gauzy skirt makes her look thinner than she is. Two long strings of beads hang over her fitted top. “Hey Rach. Let’s walk?”

  Rachel steps beside her on the cobblestone walkway. Well okay, now here’s something she notices, one of the reverberations echoing since their New York weekend. No hug. “How are you, Sara Beth?”

  “I’m doing okay,” she says, hiking her bag to her shoulder. “I’m glad you came.”

  “I wasn’t too sure if I should.”

  “I know, after the way I talked to you at the carriage house. Oy, when I think about it. So thanks,” Sara Beth says, and they walk a few quiet steps. “Hey.” She taps Rachel’s arm. “Speaking of that day, my secret’s out.”

  “Secret?”

  “The carriage house. Tom knows.”

  “You told him?”

  “Not exactly. He kind of stumbled on it by himself.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s say he’s trying to get used to the idea.”

  “Idea? What idea?”

  “I’m going to go ahead with my plans. To open a shop.”

  “That’s great,” Rachel tells her, glancing into a shoe store, remembering how Sara Beth kicked her out of that carriage house and out of her life.

  “But I’m only in the planning stage right now. The talking stage.”

  “Didn’t look that way to me.” They approach The Gap and stop in front of a window of mannequins fitted with pastel tees and faded denim, square straw bags slung over armless shoulders. “Seems like you’ve got a readymade shop there. If you hung a shingle out front, you’d be in business.”

  “There’s more to a business than that.”

  “I meant it as a compliment. It looks like you’re past the talking stage is all I’m saying.”

  “Oh. I guess.” They start walking.

  “Is that what today is about? A formal business announcement?”

  Sara Beth glances at her as they walk. “I’m just trying to make small talk.”

  “Well.” Ship replicas crafted of mahogany and fine silk sails line Felucca’s window. Seagoing vessels and schooners laden with sails fore and aft remind her of the shoreline and her day at the beach with Michael. “Good luck with your plan then. Really. You deserve it more than anything.”

  “Thanks. Do you want to go in here?” Sara Beth asks.

  “No. That’s okay.” They start walking again.

  “So how’ve you been? How’s your summer, Rach?”

  Rachel slips off her sunglasses and studies her, squinting. “Gosh I hate it that this is what we’ve become. Polite questions. Forced smiles.”

  Sara Beth motions toward the little café where dark green sun umbrellas have been opened at the outdoor tables. “Let’s get a coffee.”

  When they sit side by side with two large mugs, Rachel hears Sara Beth’s low voice.

  “I feel it too, Rach. That strain.” She reaches over and touches Rachel’s arm. “But I’m trying, I’m really trying, to make a connection with you.” She pauses. “And with Tom.”

  So there is friction between Sara Beth and her husband, too. “Sara. We’re all trying to understand what you’re going through, because we love you. But maybe you’ve lost some connections because you’re not trying to understand us back.”

  “Well help me to. Please.”

  Rachel pulls in her chair and sits straight, elbows on the table, hands clasped beneath her chin. “Okay. Did you ever think that in The Plaza, Michael advised me not to touch your belongings, in case you were dead? That’s what I lived that weekend.”

  “Michael? The guy with you?”

  “The police officer. See what I mean about understanding? He’s a cop,” she says kindly, “and he helped me.”

  A waitress approaches and sets a glass vase crammed with yellow marigolds on the center of their table, smiling briefly before breezing to the next.

  “I’m sorry,” Sara Beth says, moving the vase to the side. “I’m sure you did everything you could. And I understand your worry now.”

  “And it’s not only me. Your husband was devastated. As surprised as he was, all he cared about was that you were okay.”

  “I’m working on being okay. It’s just that I turned forty and they say this is when you surrender some of your dreams. So I wondered why it can’t be a time to pursue them. You never know from day to day when it can be too late. Look what happened with my mom, an aneurysm out of nowhere. So I tried to change my life without disrupting everyone else’s.” She picks up her coffee cup, pauses mid-air and sets it back down. “Which is exactly what I did, didn’t I?”

  Rachel pushes back from her chair and checks her watch. “You used to wear your heart on your sleeve. Your kids, your home, even Addison. I miss that openness. Now you’re changing yourself? A secret carriage house? A new look? I don’t know what’s in your heart anymore.” She stands in the shade of the green umbrella and pulls her sunglasses from the top of her head.

  “Rachel, we have to do this.” Sara Beth watches from her seat. “You’re not leaving?”

  “No. I saw a dress in Ann Taylor I want to try on.”

  “Can I meet you there in fifteen minutes?” Sara Beth motions to her coffee as though she wants to finish it.

  Rachel looks at her, squinting with doubt but knowing they need a breather here.

  “I won’t leave. Promise.” Sara Beth says with a guilty smile. “Then we’ll seriously shop. And talk more. Like old times.”

  Sara Beth comes to the dressing area and taps on the outside entrance. “Rach?”

  Rachel steps out barefoot and slightly tanned wearing a plain black sleeveless sheath, her blonde hair tucked back straight behind her ears.

  “The perfect l-b-d,” Sara Beth says. “You look smashing.”

  Rachel steps on a carpeted pedestal and turns in front of the three-way mirror. “I don’t know.” What she’s doing is harboring thoughts of summer in Manhattan, of needing the perfect dress for dinners in the city.

  “Uh huh,” Sara smiles. “All dressed up with nowhere to go?”

  “Oh, Sara.” She eyes her friend’s reflection in the mirror, wishing she could easily tell her about Michael and New York. That the words would tumble out about this guy and his horse and his ways. That they’d laugh and wink and raise an eyebrow. That she could voice her doubts, too, about his protectiveness, how it’s seeming like an insecurity. Instead she turns to her own reflection.

  Sara Beth crosses her arms in front of her and leans against the doorjamb.

  And the silence, Rachel notices, becomes one of them, a third reflection in the mirror. She picks at a thread on the dress seam.

  “I thought the note was enough.” Sara Beth speaks softly and it makes Rachel raise her eyes to her reflection. “But I screwed up.”

  “What do you mean?” Their reflected eyes lock, so damn anxious to fix this.

  “I gave you the note in the restaurant so that you wouldn’t worry. I thought it would work. I should have told you clearly that I’d be back, but I didn’t even know what to do. I just had to go. To get out of my own skin, to figure my life out, to stop dying of sadness. I never meant to hurt you. Don’t you understand?”

  “I’m beginning to.”

  “I was afraid. Since my mom died, I just fell apart. I lost her and a lot of myself too.”

  “Sara. I could’ve helped you.”

  “How, really? It’s up to me to put myself back together. To remake myself. It’s what I’m still trying to do, little by little.”

  Little by little. Rachel thinks that Sara Beth has this, then: the carriage house, pursuit of a dream, including Owen in her days, communicating this to her husband and girls while trying to say goodbye to her mom, and mending the fence of a friendship. Her plate is full. “But didn’t you see it coming? These things don’t just
happen, and you never said a word. Nothing.”

  Sara Beth’s cell phone rings and she reaches into her handbag. “Jen, Jen. Slow down,” she says, bending into the call. “Where’s Dad? Okay. Put some ice on it, okay? I’ll be right home.” She turns back to Rachel.

  “Family crisis?”

  “Katherine fell off her bike and her arm’s swelling. Tom’s out with Owen. Guess I’m going to the Emergency Room.”

  “Oh boy! You better get going.”

  She tucks her phone away. “Can we try this another time?”

  “Sure,” Rachel says, stepping off the pedestal. What she would like is to go with her. Or to baby-sit Owen so Tom could go, too. Or maybe sit in the hospital with all of them, like she would have in the past.

  Sara Beth doesn’t ask, though. She quickly leaves and Rachel returns the black dress to the rack, thumbing through a few more. So much of their morning was the same as always. The small talk, the slow walk, the browsing. But the important stuff, the easiness evaded them until the end. Then the call came.

  “Rachel?”

  She turns around and Sara Beth is behind her, breathless. Her sunglasses are on, car keys in her hand. “After my coffee, well…” She holds out the Felucca’s bag. “This is for you.”

  “Me? A boat?”

  “You liked them when we walked past the window. Maybe you can use it in your beach room?” She takes the mahogany ship from the bag, pulling it from the puffs of tissue. “This is what you and I need. Some time on a boat.”

  “A boat? I don’t know if that’ll do it.”

  “No, really. It would.” She glances at her watch and hesitates. “On a boat, with all that water, we couldn’t get away from each other. No cell phones, no dressing rooms, no cars, no emergency rooms. A boat would be the perfect thing.” She puts the ship back in the bag. “Please take it.” She hands Rachel the bag.

  “This town’s feeling way too small for me.”

  “The shopping didn’t work?” Michael asks. He had finished mowing the lawn under the noonday sun and opens a bottled water.

  “It started to, but there was a family emergency. Is it too late for me to come there?”

  “I’ll come to Addison. I don’t want you on the road.”

  “No, no.” She walks outside with her cordless, closing the slider behind her. “I need a change of scenery. I’ll be fine driving.”

  “When?”

  “Two hours, one if I floor it.”

  “Very funny. I’ve got a double shift tomorrow. It’ll be an early night.”

  “I need to see you.”

  “Okay, then. But take your time. I’ll be here,” he says. “Be sure to fill your gas tank.”

  “I will,” Rachel replies.

  “Good. And make sure to leave a light on a timer. Maybe check your oil before you head out.”

  “Michael. Please.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just takes a long breath.

  “I have to pack an overnight bag. Do I need anything? A change of clothes for dinner or a club?”

  “Casual, Rachel. Dress casual.”

  “What a perfect surprise this is. I thought I’d be spending the weekend in the city.”

  They stop at the boardwalk before driving to the cottage. “Someone I met once told me salt air is the perfect remedy to any worries,” Michael says. “Try it.”

  So Rachel does, inhaling deeply. They sit at the end of the boardwalk, a sandy beach and Long Island Sound spread before them like a watercolor painting. The waves break along the beach, the sun sits low over the western jetty.

  “Listen,” Rachel says, holding still.

  He tips his head to concentrate on the beach noises and Rachel kisses his cheek, then gently turns his head so that he hears the comforting noise behind them. Rising and falling lightly against their moorings, the subtle pull of the current in the boat basin brings the secured boats to life. They creak and sigh against the pilings, like the sound of a huge ocean fish.

  “Boat talk,” Michael says.

  She glances over at him. Even though his dark hair is cut short, it can’t fight the salt air and a natural wave emerges. His face is tanned from being outdoors on the job, but it looks weathered, too, faint scars showing through the tan, as though he is a fisherman back from the sea instead of a Manhattan mounted police officer.

  “I’ve missed this,” she tells him. “I was so busy getting Ashley ready for college last year, we never made it to the beach. Instead it was dorm shopping and student orientation.”

  “Do you miss her today?”

  “Oh my gosh, do I ever. She seemed pretty chill with us, don’t you think?”

  Michael nods. “I’m glad I met her.”

  “She loves the beach too. She says that she learned an important lesson from our summers at the beach.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There are two kinds of people in this world. Beach people and lake people. Whoever she ends up marrying will have to be a beach person.”

  “Ashley’s all right.”

  Michael is a beach person; anyone could see that in him. He knows about the mystical healing power of the salt air and appreciates the language of the boats behind them. He skims a mean stone on the Sound’s choppy water and the very first thing he did this afternoon was splash a handful of salt water on his face and neck, then run his wet, salty fingers through his hair.

  “Why don’t we go to the cottage? I’m not sure what we’ll find. You might not like it, I don’t know.”

  “I still can’t believe you rented one. I told you you’re spontaneous.”

  “Believe me, it was spur of the moment. Want to check it out?”

  “In a minute, okay?” The late sun warms her skin. But there’s more, in this one moment. There are waves lapping at the shore, a sea breeze touches her, the salty scent of the ocean rises. One moment, and all this.

  They pass cottages freshly painted beach colors of white and creamy yellow and pale blue. Pots of red geraniums sit on front steps, tall shrubs of beach grass grow like natural fountains.

  “There. On the right.” Michael points through the windshield, scrawled directions gripped beneath his hand on the wheel. The pale gray cottage sits on a hill not far from the beach. It is an old bungalow with a big enclosed front porch. Errant branches sprout from the shrubs and brittle curls of paint peel from the wood siding.

  “Goodness gracious!” Rachel leans forward in the seat. “It is so pretty.” She rushes up and unlatches the old hooks and pushes open the porch lattice windows, stiff on their hinges. Breaths of summer surprise the sunny room. Oh! it seems to say, and it brightens and the wooden gulls and vases of sea glass stand up straighter. Michael shoulders open the inside door because his arms are holding two bags of groceries. The summer air spilling inside the dank cottage works its magic. Drab living room furniture transforms as Rachel opens the window blinds and hefts up the sticking windows. Lumpy couches and chairs become comfortable and overstuffed, slip covered in sun faded stripes and soft plaids. Golden light paints the rickety end tables a distressed white. Tabletop clutter morphs into wooden seagulls, delicious novels and clear glass lamps filled with seaglass and shells.

  Rachel moves to the bedrooms, bringing along the wand of her touch. It lights on white wicker covered with pastel linens that beguile the weary eye with images of the sea. Thin cotton curtains, the kind that puff out with gentle sea breezes, frame the white-painted windows. In one bedroom, side-by-side paned windows overlooking the distant Sound bear only a crisp white valance, white as a sunstruck sail on a boat.

  Michael calls to her from the kitchen. Fruit and a box of pastry are on the counter along with the extra flashlight and smoke detector he bought, and late day sunrays stream in through the window. Dried flower bunches hang from painted ceiling beams. He stands at the French doors opening to a back porch, a room big enough for a lunch table and a corner to deposit your sandy flip flops.

  “What do you think?” he asks.
<
br />   Rachel turns on the kitchen tap. The water spits and sputters until finally flowing in a clear stream. Then she reaches over the sink and cranks open the window.

  “Do you like it?” Michael asks. He leans against the counter, watching her.

  The cottage is high on a hill and she sees the Sound through the window, blue gray on the horizon. She turns to Michael, steps close to him leaning against the counter with his wavy hair and slow smile and his hands reaching for hers.

  “It’s heaven,” she says, and he kisses her tenderly once, then again near her ear as his arms circle her waist, pulling her close against him. She moves her thumb to his lips, sweeping it across and thinking how lucky she is when she feels his mouth on hers again, hears her whispered name.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It feels like they’ve been dating, Tom a little awkward and Sara Beth unsure. She figures it’s something you have to do every ten years or so in a marriage. Go out on dates. It even made it into her journal.

  We’re dating again, Tom and I. Maybe it’ll help, maybe I’ll see he wasn’t to blame for your dying. I don’t know. I’m not sure anything can convince me of that. My life’s all maybes lately. Maybe it’s time I tell him I feel like it was his fault. We’ll see.

  Love,

  Sara Beth

  If this is going to work, he has to know how she feels. She’s moved back home, and tonight Tom’s taking her out to dinner.

  “Dress up. We’re going somewhere special.”

  Black, she decides. A black silky halter, black skirt, with the gold scarf from the Greenwich Village boutique and a gold bangle bracelet.

  “I can’t believe you cut your hair,” Sara Beth says in the car, checking out the new Tom, buzz cut and all. “It’s a new you.”

  “I wanted to see how it felt to change my life a little.”

  “And?”

  “I guess I’m still getting used to it.”

  Sara Beth brushes her hand across his head. “Well the new me sent in the small business loan application. I included a business forecast, projected expenses, expected revenue, even seasonal shopping swings.”