Whole Latte Life

by Joanne DeMaio

  “Didn’t think so.” The blacksmith bends at the waist, Maggie’s rear hoof gripped between his knees as he files. His heavy boots are splattered black from the anvil work, serious safety glasses are strapped onto his head. “So what’s bugging you, kid?”

  “Rachel.”

  “Ah.” He drops Maggie’s leg and picks up a horseshoe with tongs, thrusting it into flames to soften it before moving over to the anvil and pounding the shoe flat and hammering the toe clip. “Trouble in paradise?”

  Michael strokes Maggie’s mane, then picks up one of the sweet Macs kept for the horses. “No trouble.” He looks at the apple and takes a bite.

  With sparks flying as he pounds the shoe, Coach yells back, “I’d like to find me a little summer paradise.” He moves back to Maggie and lifts her leg to check the fit of the shoe.

  “The thing is, Rachel’s at the cottage more than she’s not. She’s got the summer off and takes the ferry from Connecticut.”

  “So far, so good, guy.”

  He takes another bite of the apple, notices Maggie eyeing him and gives her what’s left. “That’s half the reason I rented the place. It’s an old bungalow, not much to it. And the thing is, we agreed straight off to take the summer to see if we could make a go of this, long distance and all. It’s pretty easy to do when you’re at that place.”

  “That can be close quarters, too, a little beach place like that.” Coach adjusts his leather apron. “If it weren’t meant to be, might seem more like cabin fever.” He dips the shoe into a bucket of cold water and the hot iron sizzles like bacon on a grill.

  “But we’re doing pretty good. Except we’ve only got a few more weeks. Rachel’s a teacher in Connecticut. She can’t stay around here forever.”

  “Why not?” Coach asks, lifting his heavy cap and wiping his brow. “Don’t they use teachers in New York?”

  “What?”

  “Listen, Officer. How old are you now? Forty-five, six?”

  “Forty-four.”

  “Ain’t no spring chicken. So what are you waiting for? You got to propose, right away.”

  “Whoa. It’s only been a couple of months.”

  “Think things’ll change in the next few?” He bends Maggie’s leg and sets the cooled shoe in place.

  “Damn straight. Weekend commutes, long distance phone calls. Email.”

  “Ain’t nothing like having that warm body close by.” Coach, bent over, pounds a four-inch nail through the shoe holes into Maggie’s hoof. She doesn’t even flinch. “It’s good you got yourself a lady after all you been through. You’re doing all right. So you got to propose, that’s all there is to it.”

  “But her life’s in Connecticut. She’s tight with her daughter. Her friends. Her home’s there. I don’t know if she’d leave and I don’t know if she’d have me.”

  Coach glances up at him. “Make it special, guy. Treat her right, so she wants to stick around here.”

  Around here? It makes him think of Rachel’s rush to get home recently. She spends a few days at the cottage, enjoying the beach, gardening and sketching while Michael works. One day rolls into the next, overlapping into sweet evenings when he goes there after work. They sleep beneath a cottage window open to the sky above the sea.

  Then, just as suddenly, she leaves. There is mail to be checked, or yardwork to do, or a dentist appointment. Maybe driving back and forth gets too tiring. He doesn’t think it’s because she finally met Summer this past Sunday. With a vase of silk flowers between them at Max’s, she reached out to his daughter, thanks to a lost baseball wager.

  Maybe the summer is too much about him and not enough her. Rachel misses Sara Beth and Ashley. She lost strong connections this year.

  “We’ve only got a few weeks,” Michael tells him. “And one of those weeks, Rachel won’t be here. It’s mine and Summer’s week. Our vacation.”

  The blacksmith picks up Maggie’s other hind leg and pulls off the shoe with a pair of pliers. “You take care of that daughter of yours. She almost lost you and needs to know you’re here for her. I’m sure your Rachel understands?”

  “She’s a good person. Loyal too. If you could’ve seen what she did for her friend a few months back. It’s pretty admirable.”

  Coach files the bottom of the hoof. “Good woman’s hard to come by. Been with my old lady thirty years now. Sweetest damn years of my life.” He places a hot shoe on Maggie’s hoof. The fit needs adjusting. “You of all people, being shot and all, don’t you want that?”

  “Course I do.”

  “Propose on the beach or some crazy thing. Make it special for the two of you.” He pounds the shoe on the anvil. Maggie turns back, watching over her shoulder. “She’ll come around.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Michael pats down his pockets, as though looking for his keys. “I’ll be back for Maggie in a while. You okay here?”

  “Oh sure. Maggie’s good company. Go call your lady.” He sets the refitted shoe back on the hoof, holding up her foot and pounding in a nail. “Rachel ought to be arrested for larceny,” he calls after Michael. Michael doesn’t know if he means for him to hear or not, but he does, even though his voice drops for the next part. “Snuck right up and stole your tough old heart but good.”

  “Summer,” Rachel says. “When I think of what you did, it scares me.” They walk along the water’s edge, Rachel’s camera hanging around her neck. “Hitchhiking! You could’ve been hurt!”

  Summer shuffles her bare feet in the sand, stealing a glance at Rachel. “I couldn’t take it there anymore,” she says. “The kids on my new street are so weird. Like I mean, first they started mixing rum in their coke. Now guess what they’re drinking?”

  Rachel crouches down for a low shot of a beached rowboat. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “It’s gross. They sneak their parents’ vodka and fill up their water bottles with it.”

  The rowboat is nestled in a bed of sea grass. “Sounds like they’re bored. But you’re getting off the subject. Couldn’t your mother have given you a ride here?”

  “She’s at the floor place all the time. It’s like a power trip for her.”

  “Well your father will hit the roof when he hears what you did.”

  “Oh, I’m so sick of his worrying. And lately he’s getting worse, acting like I don’t know how to leave the house. Next time, maybe I’ll go somewhere else.”

  “No you won’t. Next time, call me. If I’m here, I’d rather pick you up then have you get yourself killed. It’s so dangerous! I’ll always worry about it now, that you might do it again.”

  “Sorry. Sometimes I really hate my new house.”

  “Please promise me you won’t hitch again. Call me, your dad, anyone!”

  “Okay, okay, I promise.” She tips her face up to the sun. “But I love it here.”

  “I know what you mean. Are you all moved in to your new home yet?”

  “Yes. It sucks.” She kicks sand while she walks. “I’m going to have to go to school with these jerks.”

  “You’ll meet more friends once you start. Your dad says they have a Marine Studies program.”

  “They do. Half the day you go to regular classes, then after lunch you go to the Marine program.” Summer watches her change to a zoom lens.

  “I’ll bet they take lots of field trips to the marshes and beaches around here.”

  “They even do work on a research vessel. How cool is that?” Summer asks. “But I could never get accepted into it. It’s really competitive. And Dad will never let me go out on a research boat. What if I drown? What if it gets windy? He ruins everything sometimes.”

  “From what I’ve heard, you ace your science classes. Your dad’s very proud of you, even if he doesn’t show it. And if you’re accepted, you’ll meet more kids like you. And,” she crouches to focus a long shot of the beach, “you might decide to study it in college.”

  “Maybe. But I’m still going to miss Emily. She’s my best friend, you know?”

  “I
have a friend like that. We’ve been beachcombing all our lives. Walking and talking on the shore.” They reach the stone jetty at the end of the beach. The tide is out and Rachel moves over the exposed rocks. “You’re lucky to have Emily. And with email and cell phones, you’ll stay in touch.”

  “Could I take a picture?” Summer asks.

  “Here.” Rachel lifts the camera strap over her head. “Do you know how to work it?”

  “I think so.” She lifts it to her eye and scans the area. Her blonde hair is braided and fine wisps escape and frame her face. Her feet are bare and she wears madras shorts and a pale yellow halter top, pure summer cool.

  “There’s a good one,” she says from behind the camera.

  A seagull perches on a nearly submerged rock. Rachel shows her how to control the depth of field, zoom in close, focus and shoot. “Snap a few pictures. Maybe you can use one in the Marine program.”

  Summer takes another shot. “Omigosh! Maybe they’ll do marine photography. Wait till I tell Em. Do you mind if I take some more?”

  She scrambles out over the rocky jetty, engrossed in the world a camera opens up for her. One without stepparents and new neighborhoods and schools and bored teenagers.

  Rachel watches her find beach scenes, feeling like a concerned parent. The poor girl hitchhiked to the cottage sullen and unannounced. She already spent a day or two at the beach with her father, and they all had dinner together, but Rachel doesn’t know her that well. So when Summer showed up at the cottage door, she did what any parent would do. She made her a grilled cheese sandwich before convincing her to walk on the beach. That part came so easy. Summer is definitely her father’s daughter.

  “It’s a go,” Tom says that evening. “Done deal, sweetheart. They accepted it.”

  Sara Beth cradles the cell phone tightly to her ear. This is thee call she’s been waiting for, the one moment that’s been crystal clear in her mind. Okay, for about twenty years, but still. A page just turned in her life.

  “Say it again?”

  “The house is ours, Sara. They’ve agreed to the price and to the contingency of our house selling.”

  “We can start packing?”

  “Looks that way. Is the inventory done?”

  She glances at the opened tin box of index cards. “I just need to double check some details.” It is safe to imagine now. To mentally arrange the furniture in its new home in a Currier & Ives location. She never dared to before, afraid she would jinx herself.

  Melissa pulls into the carriage house driveway, her tires crunching over twigs. Sara Beth watches her sister and is bursting to tell her the news. “In here, Lissa!”

  “Hey,” Melissa says.

  Sara Beth pulls another ladderback chair up alongside hers. “Here. Sit.”

  Melissa takes a seat cautiously. “Uh oh. What’s going on?”

  “We did it.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.” Sara Beth nods briskly.

  “You bought the house?”

  “We made a low offer, they countered higher this morning, we countered again and they signed off on it. You are now talking to the proud owner of Addison’s as yet unnamed antique shop. And at the new Sara Beth, proprietor extraordinaire.” She stands and curtsies.

  “Well I’ll be damned.” Melissa looks around the room. “Tom came around?”

  “We’re both really trying. And once he saw the house as a significant home for a partner in the local law firm, you know, right off The Green in the historical district, he agreed. It’s perfect for both of us.”

  “I’m so happy for you. So when’s this all supposed to happen?”

  “In my head, it’s happening right now.” She spins around. “I picture my shop set up with lots of crocheted doilies and small lamps on the furniture. Like this.” She reaches past her index cards and pulls the chain on the brass desk lamp, then walks to the Shaker pine chest, plugs in the cord of a Steuben glass lamp and turns that on too. They cast a glow on the room. “See? Lamps give it warmth. And I’ll have china dishes, and an old mantle clock on a pine shelf. One that chimes. So my clients can picture the furniture in their homes, with their lamps and knick-knacks. Oh, and, and lace curtains! Lots and lots of lace curtains on all the windows. For Mom. So that the sun always shines through.”

  “It sounds beautiful.”

  “It is. Well, it will be anyway. I wish Mom were here.”

  Melissa pulls a tissue from her purse and hands it to her. “Oh, she is. I can feel it.”

  All around Sara Beth, the deep walnut and mahogany browns and cherry reds shimmer. Tapestry upholstery and brass hinges add richness to the space. The formal paintings contrast with the whimsy of her china pieces. Okay, so maybe one more email wouldn’t hurt. She deserves to know.

  Melissa picks up a small frame on her desk. “This is pretty.”

  It’s Claude’s dried flower chain, preserved on acid-free paper and custom mounted in an old goldleaf frame. “Thanks. That one’s mine. For decorating only. And the rest, well, I need a mover who specializes in antiques.”

  “You’ve got some valuable furniture under this roof. Has it been appraised?”

  “Next week. The inventory is done and the appraisal is next. I’m bringing in a specialist.”

  “And how. He’s got his work cut out for him.”

  “I’ve got a lot of information to help. I’ve been logging details and furniture history for weeks now.” She walks through her space, hugging herself.

  “Wow. All of a sudden this is happening so fast.”

  “I know. Listen.” Sara Beth takes Melissa’s hands in hers. “Come home with me! I can’t think straight right now, I’m so excited. Tom’s washing the car with Owen. Then we’re taking the kids out for pizza. Bring Kevin and Chelsea.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! I want to celebrate. Finally.”

  “Let’s close up then. You done here?”

  “Almost. I fed the cat and the inventory’s set.” The opened metal box on her desk overflows with cards and handwritten receipts and notes scribbled onto scraps of paper. “All I have to do is lock up.”

  She collects her daisy chain and her purse, switches off and carefully unplugs the Steuben glass lamp, then says goodnight to Slinky. “Let’s go,” she says, tucking the framed daisies into her satchel and triple locking the heavy carriage doors.

  So now she has this: Reality, and it’s as perfect as she knew it would be.

  Subject: Good News!

  From: SaraBeth

  To: Elizabeth

  Date: July 17 at 10:30 PM

  Hey Mom,

  It’s late, but I just got in and wanted to tell you something…I’ve found a home for our antique shop! And that lace we bought? It’ll be so perfect in the windows. So how’s this for a name: I got the idea from my first Sotheby’s piece, the white candlestand I told you about? It’s circa 1765. That’s what I’m going to call our shop, because it’s where I began, with that piece, in New York that weekend. Circa 1765 Hope you like it. Miss you…

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sara,” Lillian says from the other side of the screen door. It isn’t yet eight in the morning. “I know it’s early, but do you have a few minutes?”

  “Lillian? What’s the matter?” Sara Beth asks, tightening her robe.

  Tom comes up behind her and sees the Marches on the front step. His tie hangs loose around his collar, his top button still undone. He reaches around Sara and opens the door.

  “Lillian. Edward. Come on in.”

  “Are you both okay?” Sara Beth asks.

  “Yes, hon. We’re fine.”

  “Edward,” Tom says, shaking his hand. “What’s going on?”

  “Sara. Tom.” Lillian takes a quick breath. “There’s been an accident.”

  “Let’s go into the kitchen,” Tom says. “Please, after you,” he motions to them and knots his tie as he goes. The
kids, still in their pajamas, crowd behind him.

  “Daddy, up!” Owen cries, his arms outstretched. “Up!”

  “Katherine. Jen. Take Owen upstairs and get him dressed. And make your beds.” He eyes the girls as his voice drops. “Stay upstairs until I call for you.”

  “Dad!” Jen insists. “Why can’t I stay?”

  “Because you’re the oldest and I need you to be in charge of the others. Get going.”

  “Tom?” Sara Beth asks. You sense bad news, sometimes, and this is her way of asking if he knows it too, the way she does, how bad this is about to be.

  “I’ll put on more coffee. Why don’t you set out some cups?”

  Lillian sits beside Edward, holding his hand beneath the table while Sara Beth sets out china cups and saucers with silver spoons. Country roses edge the antique white china. She reaches for the pewter creamer and sugar bowl on the pine hutch beside the table. Lillian watches, a sad smile escaping in spite of what is to come because anyone can see this room is pure Sara Beth; the vintage china with a fine crack here and there, hinting at its pedigree. The dull glow of old pewter and a painted country hutch.

  “Wait till the kids are settled upstairs,” Sara Beth says as she lays out cloth napkins like this is normal. As though her guests are simply here on a social call. “I don’t want to upset them.”

  Tom pours the coffee and they finally both sit with the Marches. “Okay then. Tell us about this accident.” As the words come out, Sara Beth knows.

  Lillian pours a splash of milk into her coffee. She stirs it lightly with the sterling spoon, taps it on the edge of the cup and sets it on her saucer. “I’m so sorry. There’s really no easy way to say this.”

  “It’s the carriage house, isn’t it?” Sara Beth asks.

  “There was a fire,” Edward says quietly.

  “What?” Tom pulls his chair in closer. “How bad?”

  “We’re so sorry,” Lillian answers. “It’s completely destroyed.”

  A silence changes the room. Pictures form in their minds, then are discarded with disbelief.

  “Destroyed?” Tom asks. “What do you mean, destroyed?”