Whole Latte Life

by Joanne DeMaio

  “You used to always be that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Remember when we met, when you got back from Europe? I couldn’t believe the way you took your education all the way, going to the Louvre to finish your art studies. I liked that about you, the way you were in things one hundred percent. So it’s good to see that again.”

  Sara Beth thinks that was before he knew about Claude being in Europe with her. So there was that. Some things she didn’t take all the way, like her relationship with Claude. She didn’t take it all the way to marriage. Though he proposed, she could not take her life permanently all the way to Europe back then.

  Taking things all the way or not, haircut or not, Tom still resents her changes, resents her running away. She feels it, little ambiguous wisps caught in a room with them, or trapped in the car doing errands. He’s having a hard time with this still. Time alone at dinner will help. They’ll talk.

  They drive sleepy back roads, deep evening shadow laying long among the overhanging trees. Music plays softly on the radio. She never suspects anything until Tom turns onto Old Willow Road and into the carriage house driveway.

  “Tom? What are you doing?”

  In the low blush of twilight, wavering candlelight glows in the paned windows and spills in a pool of gold from the opened carriage house door. Impressionism. The visual effect of light and movement on objects. Beyond the historical carriage house, a field of wildflowers gives way to deep green trees rising against a violet sky. This painting captures the golden light of dusk within the carriage house, illuminating the artifacts inside.

  “Wait.” Tom takes her arm as she reaches to open her door. “This isn’t my doing. I don’t want you to go in there with false hopes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Melissa planned sort of a dinner party. When you showed her the carriage house the other day, well,” he pauses, squinting out the window. “She wants you to know that we understand. Whatever you find inside, she wanted to do for you. It’s her idea.”

  “And you?”

  “I agreed to it because I’m trying. I still don’t like the way you went about all this, but I don’t know if it’s worth losing a marriage over.”

  So there’s that now. No matter how much they try, no matter how considerate they are, the same thought’s occurred to her. What is worth losing a marriage over? A chance, maybe? Or blame? Doubt, imagining life with someone else? Claude?

  Tom lets go of her arm and they step out of the car in silence.

  Some things she can’t help. Like the gasp that escapes when she walks into the carriage house. Life moves in slow motion when her gaze sweeps the room, a room Melissa has transformed. Much of the furniture has been pushed back, leaving center space for a long mahogany pedestal dining table, with a hydrangea, twig and feather centerpiece anchoring the place settings of antique botanical plates and white glazed French dinnerware her mother chose. And candlelight, ornate silver-on-copper English candelabras on the table, French bronze on the sideboard. The room is bathed in age and elegance, even when someone sounds out a jingle on the piano Sara Beth found in the online classifieds: Like-new condition, plays happy songs, needs a good home. And she knew it had been loved.

  “Sara Beth,” Melissa says, hugging her. “When you told me you were opening an antique shop, well, I can’t believe how Mom came through for you. It’s sad now, but she’d be so proud. And this is what I think she’d do for you, a dinner like this.” She stops then, unsure.

  “What?” Sara Beth asks.

  “Maybe it’ll help you, in a way. With everything you’ve been dealing with. You know, missing Mom so much, starting a shop. That’s why I’m doing this. To bring some of Mom into your plans.”

  So the layers build, just like in Impressionism. Wet paint is applied directly over wet paint, before the initial layer is dried. The effect is diffused edges and intermingling of colors. Exactly the way this room depicts her life’s soft edges, intermingling tonight with the colors of her mother in days gone by.

  And it works, Melissa’s Old World dinner party. The French country chairs upholstered in a floral fabric finish the mahogany table. Tea lights adorn the dining table and candles are scattered throughout the large space, turning the furniture into shimmering pools of browns. Sara sits and looks at her life with cautious satisfaction: Tom beside her, her sister Melissa and brother-in-law Kevin, her mother’s dear friends who own the property, Lillian and Edward March, and her neighbors Julie and Connor, who’ve lived beside her and shared in her life for many years now. Somewhere in the shimmering light, she knows her mother is there as well, watching with sweet wistfulness.

  Once they are all seated, the caterer serves the Tomato Bread Salad and Roasted Rosemary Chicken, baby carrots and red potatoes and grilled zucchini, heavy goblets of wine. Someone brought an old record player and a scratchy jazz record fills the room with music.

  “Your girls will love this place, Sara. When will you show them?” Julie asks.

  “In the morning. Maybe we’ll have breakfast here while the table’s set like this.” She turns to Melissa. “Let Chelsea come, too, okay? My treat for her babysitting the kids tonight.”

  “Sure. I just called her. They’re all settled in at your place, Owen’s asleep.”

  “Oh, I hope they love this the same way I loved Mom’s antiquing,” Sara Beth says. To continue this passion of hers and her mother’s to the next generation means the world to her.

  “Love it? They’ll be arguing over who gets to help in your new shop, whenever you finally take the plunge! Kat’ll be whipping out her day-planner, Jen calling dibs.”

  To have her kids back and understanding her, it’s all that matters. Ever since her mother died and she lost her from her life, her plans, her phone calls even, she knows. Every bit of it matters. Every layer of paint. She has to build those same layers with her children.

  When they settle in afterward with coffee, Julie hands Sara Beth a thin, wrapped package. “We love you, hon. Best wishes,” she says with a hug.

  “Oh come on. This was enough, this beautiful meal together.” Sara Beth peels back the wrapping paper on a dollar bill mounted and displayed behind an old cherry frame.

  “It’s your first dollar earned,” Julie explains. “Consider it my deposit on that piecrust tip table.”

  “Thank you so much,” she says, laughing as she gives Julie a hug. Tom reaches over and takes the gift from her. Can’t he feel it? How right this is?

  Edward March excuses himself and returns carrying a cardboard carton. In the past several weeks, Lillian often brought Sara Beth a cup of chamomile tea and they sat and talked about her mother. One of those times, Lillian returned to the main house with a framed Currier and Ives print of two kittens lapping up spilled milk. She wanted to pay for it, but no way would Sara Beth let her. “It’s my gratitude. For bringing Mom back to me like this.”

  Now Lillian, wearing a long layered skirt reaching her ankles, a necklace of coral and mother-of-pearl hanging over her loose tank top, passes the box along to Sara Beth.

  “You need a mascot to keep you company here, and to breathe some life into the stuffier pieces.”

  The carton tips from the uneven weight of an animal crouched in one corner. She opens it to find a tiny silver tabby with silver and black stripes running down her sides in perfect unison. “You didn’t,” Sara Beth says.

  “Remember I said we had a few wild strays on the property?” Lillian asks. “One of them had a litter and this bugger never leaves me alone. When I hang the clothes or do my gardening, she follows me everywhere! She’s a real people cat.”

  And so it goes for the evening, timeless comfort, wine and coffee in wavering shadows of candles and antiques, easy conversation. Sara Beth feels the effort to help her move forward, to accept the place of her mother’s loss in her life. Several toasts ring out, including a personal one between Tom and herself, Tom honoring her mother. Paul Cezanne’s words come to her: We li
ve in a rainbow of chaos. And she knows life can be that, a beautiful chaotic rainbow. Occasionally someone plucks out a bar on the piano.

  “Love the piano,” Melissa says.

  “We’re moving it home, actually. I want to have one in the house again.”

  Still, one thing’s bothered her all night. The final place setting left in front of an empty chair, across from her own seat. She asks her sister about it.

  “I’ve been trying to reach Rachel, but I keep getting her machine. I was hoping if she got the message, she’d show up.”

  Sara Beth thinks of how she and Rachel shopped at Sycamore Square. If in the end she lost her very best friend, was this all worth it? The carriage house doors are thrown open onto the summer night, the sky heavy with stars. Impressionists capture moments in landscapes, moments in people’s lives, caught in fleeting light. There’ll be more moments, that’s all she can believe.

  Before he opens his eyes Sunday morning, Michael breathes in the aroma of fresh brewed coffee and salt air. The salt air gives it away. No way is he at home in Queens. He sits up on the chaise to slats of sunlight streaming in through the porch lattice windows. A high shelf is filled with big white conch shells and rows of painted sea gulls, in flight, nesting, perched, mounted on driftwood.

  Yesterday they were busy and now the sills are cleaned, the spider webs wiped out of corners, the walls sponge washed, the rag rugs beaten over the clothesline, the pillows fluffed. With a soapy solution, Rachel swiped out the flower boxes outside the porch, preparing them for fresh soil and summer blossoms.

  Michael stands and stretches, then rubs a stiff shoulder muscle before following the coffee aroma into the kitchen. “Rachel?” he calls as he pours himself a mug.

  “Out here.” On the back porch, the windows are opened to the distant sea. She is freshly showered, her damp hair combed back off her face. “Good morning, you.” A cup of steaming coffee sits in front of her as she surmises his tousled hair and shadow of whiskers. “Sleep well?”

  “Morning,” he says, and kisses the top of her head. “Sorry about last night. You should’ve woken me.” After picking up staples at the grocery store, they returned to the cottage with a take-out fried clam dinner. That and a glass of wine were the antidote to patrolling Manhattan, to Summer’s impending move, to worrying how to keep Rachel in his life. He’d fallen fast asleep on the porch. “Where’d you sleep?”

  “I found the linen closet and made up a bed.”

  “Were you comfortable?”

  “Very. I took a walk on the beach—”

  “Alone? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Michael, it was fine. There were other people around. Then I came back and found a magazine to read.”

  “What’ve you got there?” he asks, sitting beside her with his coffee.

  “It was on the front porch yesterday, leaning against the lamp.” Rachel turns a plaque around. “It must hang on a wall somewhere.”

  Michael centers it in front of him, a navy blue plaque with a sea gull painted on the bottom, blades of sea grass painted lightly around it. The words Little Gull curve across the top in faded silver letters.

  “This belongs outside, near the door. Come on, I’ll show you.” He grabs a cinnamon roll she’d heated, and they pick up their coffees. She hands him a napkin and follows out through the front porch. “It’s the cottage name.”

  “Little Gull? That explains the painted seagulls on the porch. What a cute idea.”

  “Didn’t your cottage have a name?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “Rachel. It is an unspoken law that summer cottages be named. You didn’t notice the others when we came in yesterday?”

  “Jeepers. They’re all named?”

  First he rehangs Little Gull on its nail, finagling it precisely straight. “Bring your coffee. You’ll see.” They head down the street toward the boardwalk, passing a white cottage with deep blue shutters. Painted on the corners of the shutters are simple white sailboats.

  “There,” he says, pointing with the pastry in his hand. The sign above the cottage door says White Sails. A pale yellow cottage the color of the summer sun bears the name Early Dawn. Fiesta is next door to Siesta. Another snow white bungalow with board and batten siding and multi-paned porch windows seems as elegantly detailed as a Swan’s Feather.

  “It’s a fairy tale,” Rachel says, reading the signs while sipping her coffee. Michael finishes the sweet roll and wipes his fingers on the napkin.

  “There’s another.” A renovated home is reshingled, reroofed and reporched. The brass knocker on its door is a golden anchor. Large crank-out windows open to the sea. Finally is its name.

  They reach the boardwalk and at the far end of the beach, a bank of fog burns off in the rising sun. Seagulls swoop and cry, searching for washed up crabs, diving into schools of minnows.

  Rachel mentions her old wish for her own place at the beach some day, for a piece of heaven. “The cottage names remind me of it.”

  “Of your wish?”

  “Well think about it. If heaven is paved with streets of beach sand, these would be the street names. Finally and Fair Weather and Grey Mist and White Sails and Life’s Dream.”

  Michael drinks his coffee and after a moment, agrees. “Where else could you be?”

  “It’s because of Sara Beth that I rented the cottage.”

  After their coffee, Michael took a quick shower and called his daughter to be sure she was home, before they headed back to Queens. He wants to get to work early. Rachel likes that even though the hostlers groom Maggie daily, Michael brushes her mane and tail before his shift. He says it tunes her in to him. Maggie’s ears listen to his voice saying she is the prettiest horse in the department.

  “Sara Beth?” Rachel turns to him in the truck cab.

  He keeps his eyes on the highway. “She got me thinking, watching her have a breakdown in the city, then finding the gumption to put herself back together as someone new.”

  “And that made you rent a cottage?”

  “I’m just saying that maybe she’s on to something.”

  “I don’t know.” Rachel remembers how afraid she was when Sara Beth disappeared. “She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

  “Listen. Maybe turning forty scared the hell out of her. It was like a door opening on her life. And you’ve got Sara Beth looking in, saying Damn it, I’m going through, come hell or high water. She saw that life’s short and she resolved to make it sweet in the face of all odds.”

  “You’ve given this some thought.”

  “Because I see you’re still bothered by her. And I see a correlation between her situation and ours.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No,” Michael tells her. “We gave ourselves the summer to see what happens between us. To me, that’s like Sara Beth turning forty and seeing the time she has left. Sensing some day it will end, she decides she better do something with it now.”

  “So forty shook her up?”

  “No. What’s left of life at forty shook her up. And summer’s damn short, too. Kind of like life, once you’re forty.” He signals a lane change, then reaches over and takes her hand. “If one summer’s all the time I have with you, then, like Sara Beth, come hell or high water, I’m going to make the most of it. If you’re with me on this.”

  “So you rented the cottage.” If Sara Beth only knew she was behind all this.

  “I know you’ve got a whole life filled with people who love you in Addison. And I don’t know if this can work, what we have. But I’d hate to give up without finding out.” Michael slows for his exit and as he pulls off the highway, picks up a key from beside a wrapped cinnamon roll on the console. “Here.” He presses it into her palm. “It’s an extra cottage key. Use it Rachel. Whenever you want to. Even if I’m at work, or with Summer, just know you’ve got a place at the beach for the next month.” He maneuvers the busy streets and the city heat works its way into the pickup.
“Anytime. But be careful, okay?”

  “About what?”

  “Being alone there. Locking up, drawing the blinds.”

  “Michael, you’ve got to stop that.” He glances over at her. “Telling me to be careful. I know you care, but sometimes you go overboard. It’s a little insulting.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course you can take care of yourself. It’s just that I worry.”

  After they drive along for a while, Rachel says, feeling the key in her palm, “See, here’s the thing. I know what you’re saying about my life back home, and it’s true. But there’s more. There’s you. You’ve been my knight in shining armor, a little overprotective, but still, ever since sitting up there on your chestnut mare that day…”

  “Maggie.”

  “And you swept right into my life. We did Manhattan and The Plaza and, well, bowling and cupcakes, all in a whirlwind. And now this.”

  Michael turns the truck onto his street.

  “Little Gull is like an answered prayer,” she continues. “The easiness of the beach, and of a little cottage. But I’m afraid there’s a catch, that you’ll sweep right by, or change your mind, or, I don’t know, worry too much.”

  Michael parks his truck in the driveway beside her car. He glances at her, then gets out and walks around. She’s afraid that she hurt him and he misunderstands. When he opens her door, she explains, “What I’m saying is that Anchor Beach is the perfect place for us to—”

  “Stop. Let me finish for you.” He pulls her close, moves his hands to her face and kisses her. It insists, that kiss, that he will not sweep past like Sara Beth and Carl and Ashley. He pulls back and moves a strand of hair from her face. “Anchor Beach is the perfect place to find answers, okay? There’s no way I’m sweeping right by you.” His arms slip down around her waist, holding her close. He bends like he’s going to kiss her again but stops just shy and touches her lips with his finger. He hitches his head back toward his tended home. “See that house there? This is it. This house and Manhattan and a month at the shore.