Half-Hitched

by Isabel Sharpe

  Eating the same thing every day meant she knew how many calories she was getting, and that they’d last through her workout and that she’d be healthily hungry for dinner.

  Unfortunately she was a little late and her usual single table was taken. Heading for her second choice, Addie noticed Linda Persson, assistant director of Human Resources, seated by herself at a table for four. Linda was a lovely woman, but a little...well, she wasn’t very attractive or very funny or very talented or very interesting, and at age sixty wasn’t likely to become so.

  Addie couldn’t bear to see her sitting alone in her beige suit and ivory blouse, forking chef salad into her mouth, trying to look as if she’d chosen to be without a friend in the world because she so enjoyed the experience.

  Sigh.

  Addie put her tray down on the table. “Hi, Linda.”

  “Hey, Addie!” She smiled with such obvious relief that Addie banished the doomed feeling and put herself in the Glorious Martyr column.

  “May I join you?”

  “Of course.” Linda pulled her tray toward herself as if there wasn’t plenty of room already on the large table. “I was just thinking about my plans for the weekend.”

  “Fun ones?” Addie hoped they were special and interesting, because then she could think about something other than Kevin.

  “I’m getting a new mattress Saturday afternoon. And then I’m going to see a movie.” She pushed her too-large brown glasses up her nose. “I like going to movies by myself, do you?”

  Addie nodded reluctantly. She did, but was ashamed not to want a lot in common with Linda. “I don’t mind, either.”

  “I like getting there early because I like to sit in the middle of a row, not too close, and because I like to watch the previews, and have popcorn all to myself. And since no one talks to me, I can really disappear into the film.”

  “Same here.” Actually...exactly the same.

  “And then after the movie I’ll probably go home and organize my kitchen. It’s driving me crazy that the flour and sugar canisters are on the opposite side of the counter from the measuring cups and spoons. I’ve stood it this long, but no more.” She tossed her mousy-brown curls, beaming triumphantly.

  Addie took a long sip of skim milk to wash down her suddenly dry sandwich. She’d made similar changes after Great-Aunt Grace died.

  “Sunday’s my weekly brunch with my friend Marcy.” Linda finished peeling a banana and took a bite. “We have sesame bagels with whitefish salad and read the New York Times travel section to plan fantasy vacations.”

  “Have you been on any?”

  “No, no, they’re just for fun.”

  “Why don’t you go on one?” Addie was as surprised as Linda by the edge to her voice. She read plenty of travel articles, had the money and could take the time, but hadn’t been anywhere, either. “Or two, or three or all of them?”

  Linda shrugged. “I’m an armchair traveler. Saves me trouble and sunburn and storms and delayed flights.”

  Oh, dear. She forgot lost luggage.

  “I’m a creature of habit I guess.” Linda polished off her banana and picked up a brownie. “Like I have the same thing for lunch every day.”

  Addie stopped with a big bite of apple in her mouth.

  “I feel comforted by routines. I like knowing what to expect.”

  Addie told herself to keep chewing, that she was never going to finish the apple while frozen in horror.

  “I was thinking after work today I might stop by the humane society and look at cats.”

  Steady, Addie. She could panic, or she could take this lunch as a sign that maybe she was a tiny little bit stuck in a very small rut.

  “They’re supposed to be great company. Perfect for an apartment. And not as much work as a dog.”

  Large rut. Moon-crater-size rut.

  Help.

  Be rational. Rationality was one of Addie’s best superpowers. She’d use it now, like this: it was good that Addie was faced with the person she could turn into. Especially today, her half birthday, because she had time to change before she turned thirty.

  So she’d change. Starting today. Right after work, instead of going to the gym, then showering and having dinner in her apartment reading whatever parts of the New York Times she’d missed at breakfast and lunch like she did every evening—except when she had book group or dinner with a friend, she was going to...do something else. Like...

  Well, she’d think of something.

  She said a grateful goodbye to Linda and charged off to finish her day. By five-thirty, her plan had been cemented into action. After work she was going to Blackstone’s on E. 55th. She’d have two drinks and look available. If nothing happened, one point for going and good for her, it was a start. If she talked to at least one guy, two points and a pat on the back. If she was asked for her phone number, three points and a high five.

  Given that it was a hot sunny Thursday in late August, when people were already looking ahead to the weekend, she’d give herself excellent odds on making two points and call it even on three.

  Done.

  Blackstone’s was crowded and noisy, not usually her thing, but today exactly what she was looking for. She pushed her way into a spot at the long bar and managed to get a glass of Chardonnay from the bartender, thinking it might seem more feminine than the beer she was really in the mood for, and wondering if a navy skirt and cream blouse was any kind of come-on outfit. She was pretty sure it wasn’t. But hey, Addie was alive and she was female. That was enough for plenty of guys.

  She stood resolutely, sipping. Looking around. Smiling.

  And sipping.

  And looking around.

  And smiling.

  “Excuse me.”

  Addie turned hopefully to look into dynamite blue eyes. Oh, my.

  “I was wondering.” He quirked a dark brow. Even his eyebrows were sexy. “Is this seat next to you taken?”

  “No.” She tipped her head seductively. Two points! “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t sit. But...his girlfriend did. Then the guy practically climbed into her lap and the two of them started sucking face.

  Okay, then. Time to go.

  She exited the bar, staggering into a guy as the alcohol kicked in. Did he catch her and did their eyes meet and did choirs of angels sing?

  No. He said, “Hey, watch it, lightweight.”

  Right. Fine. Whatever. She’d go back home to her rut and stay there.

  On the way she stopped into the supermarket on Lexington Avenue for a deli sandwich and a cupcake—chocolate with chocolate frosting.

  Girl gone wild.

  She made it home, hungry and cranky, managed a halfway nice smile for the doorman and stomped onto the elevator where she turned and saw Mr. Gorgeous coming into the lobby. Oh, just great. She rushed to push the button that would close the doors so she didn’t have to face more man-failure, but she hit the wrong one and kept them open.

  He got on. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  The doors closed. They stood there in their customary silence. Addie took a deep breath. She had nothing to lose. Face it, she couldn’t even see over the top of her rut.

  “I’m Addie.” She stuck out her hand. “I live on eight.”

  “Oh, yeah, right, hi, Addie.” He couldn’t have been friendlier, took her hand in his strong warm one. “I’m Mike. On ten.”

  She grinned. Maybe her rut wasn’t quite so deep after all. “Nice to meet you, Mike.”

  “Same here.” He looked her over, but not in a leering way, more polite and appreciative. “My great grandmother was named Addie. Not a name you hear a lot anymore.”

  “No.” She wrinkled her nose. Men never associated her name with hot babes they’d luste
d after their whole lives. Always great-aunts and grandmas. Addie’s mom had named her after a Faulkner character in the novel As I Lay Dying.

  So cheery.

  “Any fun plans tonight, Mike?” Ha! Listen to her. No one could accuse her of being boring now. Maybe Mike would even like to split a cupcake.

  “Yes.” He nodded enthusiastically. “My boyfriend and I are going to make enchiladas and listen to Madama Butterfly live from the Met on Sirius radio.”

  Addie tried as hard as possible to keep her features from freezing in dismay. Boyfriend. Of course. “That’ll be great. It’s a great opera.”

  Or so she assumed, not having heard a single note of it.

  “How about you?”

  “Oh, well. I’m going to...” Sit around and cry until her hangover started. “Meet some friends. Later.”

  Like next week in Maine. Where Kevin would be. Though at this rate, he’d turn out to be gay, too.

  Growl.

  She escaped the elevator and let herself into her apartment, stalked to the living room and whapped the bag with the sandwich and cupcake down on the dining room table, not caring if one interfered with the other.

  Let the celebration of her half birthday begin—alone with her take-out meal. And hey, after dinner, she’d meet up with Linda at the humane society and they could each buy eight cats and a truckload of kibble and litter and lock themselves into their apartments for the rest of time.

  She got a big glass of water and opened the sandwich, wolfed it down and opened the cupcake to wolf that, too.

  Her incoming text signal chimed. Addie put down the cupcake and dug out her phone. She could use good news. Maybe Sarah had some more.

  Really glad you’ll be there next week. Seems to me we have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe some unfinished business to attend to, as well?

  Addie drew in a huge breath. Forget guys in bars. Forget Mr. Gorgeous. And definitely forget the cats.

  Next week Addie Sewell was going to blast out of her rut and sail over the moon with The One That Got Away.

  After eleven long years she’d finally get a do-over with her first love, Kevin Ames.

  2

  LAND HO. Derek stood at the front of the Bossons’ forty-two-foot cabin cruiser, Lucky, as she made her way from Machias to Storness Island, which Paul’s family had owned since the 1940s. First boat Derek had been on besides his own in a long time...seven years? Eight? Being a passenger felt strange. Or maybe it was the jet lag from the fifteen hours of travel, Honolulu to Portland, and the five-hour drive that morning, Portland to Machias, to meet Paul.

  Lucky left the chop of open sea and purred into the protected cove on the island’s north side, a mile from the mainland. Derek had visited the Bossons here only once, several years earlier, but the place was as picturesque and familiar as if he’d just left. The cove boasted a sand beach—unusual along Down east Maine’s rocky coast—with the same driftwood branch he remembered lying across it. The white boathouse still stood among the birch, spruce and firs, its doors padlocked. Birds darted over the rocks on the cove’s other side. Peaceful. Remote. Hard to imagine any of the world’s constant turmoil still existed. Same way he felt leaving civilization and taking to the sea on Joie de Vivre, the eighty-foot yacht in which he’d invested—his parents would say wasted—a good chunk of his inheritance from Grandma and Grandpa Bates.

  Paul directed Lucky’s bow toward the mooring, which Derek snagged with the boathook, inhaling the cool air’s clean pine-salt scent as he tied her on.

  “Nice place you got here.” He and Paul were the only ones on the boat. Most of the wedding guests had already arrived, but Derek hadn’t been able to get a flight out of Hawaii until after his last charter ended yesterday. Or was it the day before? God he was tired. But he wouldn’t miss Paul’s wedding for anything.

  “Yeah, it works for us.” Paul grinned and slapped him on the back. He had one of those eternally youthful faces, round cheeks, sandy hair and bright blue eyes. At twenty-nine he didn’t look a day older than when Derek found him ten years earlier vomiting up too much summertime fun, lost and disoriented in a not-great part of Miami. Derek lived there at the time, working jobs on whatever boats he could, in the years before he got serious about his maritime career and enrolled at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Since Paul had had no idea where his friend Kevin lived, Derek let him crash on his floor in the tiny apartment he’d sublet when he wasn’t at sea. Didn’t take him long to figure out Paul was a good kid caught in a bad situation—a delayed adolescent rebellion against real and imagined pressures of adulthood.

  Derek got Paul a job on a boat for the summer, helped him get off booze and back on track to finish college at Notre Dame. In the ensuing years their friendship surpassed big-brother mentor and younger screw-up, and became close and satisfying. About as close and satisfying as any relationship Derek could have these days.

  He helped Paul load last-minute supplies into the onboard dinghy and lower the boat into the smooth water.

  “You won’t know a whole lot of people.” Paul climbed into the dinghy and manned the oars. “Sarah, of course.”

  Of course. Derek settled himself in the bow seat. He’d emailed Paul’s sister before coming, hoping she’d put aside her grudge against him, but Sarah was a passionate woman prone to the dramatic, and apparently hadn’t forgiven him for thinking it was an extremely bad idea for them to sleep together. Her reply had been coldly formal, but at least she’d replied. “How is Sarah?”

  “She’s Sarah.” Paul spoke of his twin with exasperated affection. “Two parts fabulous, two parts crazy-making. She has her best friend Joe here, and her friend from grade school Addie Sewell.”

  “Addie.” Derek frowned, trying to get his tired brain to function. “That’s a familiar name, have I met her?”

  “Nope.” Paul corrected his course with a few strokes of his right oar. “Grade school friend of ours. I was crazy about her for years.”

  “Oh, right, the woman who walked on water.” Derek had been curious about her. Paul was easygoing about pretty much everything—once he stopped drinking—but this Addie had him in knots. As far as Derek knew, Paul had never let on to Addie how he felt.

  “Yeah, I had it bad.” Paul shook his head, laughing. “Ellen finally exorcized her completely. Addie’s a great friend now.”

  “Okay. Sarah, Addie. Who else?” The boat nudged onto the generous expanse of sand exposed at half tide. Derek jumped out and grabbed the bowline, pulled the dinghy up onto the beach. At high tide, there was barely enough beach to walk on. At low, twelve vertical feet out, there was ample sand, then ample mud, sprinkled with rocks and starfish, clusters of mussels, and a hidden bounty of steamer clams.

  “Some friends from college and a few from work in Boston. Nice people. Oh, and Kevin Ames, who can’t make it until tomorrow. I think you met him once.” He gave Derek a sheepish look and started unloading the skiff onto a waiting wheelbarrow. “Maybe not under the best circumstances.”

  “Right.” Kevin had been the friend buying Paul booze in Florida in spite of his obvious issues with alcohol, and encouraging him to drop out of college and “find himself.” He’d reminded Derek of his own brothers: wealthy, self-centered and entitled, sure rules were for other people and that they’d automatically rise to the top—like most scum. If it wasn’t for the sea, which had started calling to Derek in middle school and soon after took him away from the life his parents planned for him, he’d probably be that way himself.

  Years of hard work clawing up the ranks from deckhand to captain was enough to beat the entitled out of anybody.

  They finished loading the wheelbarrow, secured the dinghy against the rising tide and made their way through the Christmas-tree smelling woods, then up a wide bumpy path through blueberry bushes to the back door of the house, a rambling two-st
ory Victorian with weathered gray shingles and dark green trim and shutters. Pitched in nearby clearings were several colorful tents, obviously for overflow guests, though the house had six or seven bedrooms from what he remembered.

  “Hey! Hurry up. Ellen needs the cheese you bought for nachos.” Sarah jumped down from the house’s back deck and strode to meet them, followed by a tall, dark-haired guy in jeans and a Green Day T-shirt. “Hi, Derek.”

  “Hey, Sarah.” He smiled, relieved when she managed a chilly grin back. Apparently she’d be on good behavior for her brother’s wedding. “It’s good to see you. You look great.”

  He wasn’t lying. She’d dropped the few extra pounds she’d carried, had shortened and shaped her curly blond hair, and moved with more mature grace, though she still evoked a tall firecracker about to go off.

  “Thanks. You look...” She scowled at him. “Like you haven’t slept in years.”

  “Not sure I have. Hi, I’m Derek.” He offered his hand to the guy hovering behind her, noting the wary look in his eyes. Was this Joe? Looked like Sarah had shared her I’m-the-victim version of their story with him.

  “This is Joe.” Sarah pointed.

  “Good to meet you.” Joe shook Derek’s hand then picked up a grocery bag under each arm. “I’ll take these up to Ellen.”

  “Come on in. We’re having drinks, getting organized to take a picnic supper down to the beach.” Sarah turned and charged back up the stairs to the house, throwing Derek an inscrutable look over her shoulder that made him a little nervous. He’d had to put her off gently on that same beach five years ago, and he really didn’t want to go through that drama again.

  The pine and faint wood smoke smell inside the house was instantly familiar. Paul’s parents were on the mainland, so instead of Mrs. Bosson at the stove, there was a blonde, attractive woman Derek identified as Ellen by the adoring look she sent Paul, and whom he instantly liked by the bright smile she sent him. The aroma in the kitchen was fantastic.