And there was the money, of course! A thousand whoopie pies was a lot of pies, but even more tantalizing was the prospect of all the referrals a wedding like this could generate. Out of two hundred high-powered, heavily monied guests there were sure to be more than a few with sons or daughters getting married or showered or bar- or bat-mitzvahed or otherwise feted. Rich people were always feting each other.
A phone call from a landlord was almost never an indication of good news to come. Before Joy answered Harlan’s call she ran through her monthly mental to-do list to make sure she’d paid the June rent. She knew she had, because she remembered running into the high school basketball coach, Bernie Bowman (“Double B”) in the post office. Double B was mailing two Block Island sweatshirts to his grandsons in Traverse City, Michigan, and Joy had helped him figure out that the priority flat-rate box was a better deal than paying by weight. And then she’d put the rent check to Harlan through the slot. She was positive she had.
“Harlan!” she said, trying to make her voice sound carefree and non-worried, even though she was neither. She parked on Ocean instead of behind the inn because she enjoyed the walk up the vast green lawn; she liked pretending she was a summer person from the early 1900s, just emerged from her carriage and on her way to an elegant dance. Or would she be emerging from an automobile? Didn’t matter.
“Joy,” said Harlan. “There’s something I gotta talk to you about. And I’m not sure you’re gonna like it.” Harlan’s voice had the gravelly, overworked sound of a longtime smoker. He was a property developer who lived in Providence, and Joy imagined that he could have been part of the murky political underworld occupied by Buddy Cianci back in the day. Possibly he still was.
“Okay,” said Joy. She braced herself. She’d never known a person to say, I’m not sure you’re gonna like it, and then follow those words with a lovely surprise.
Harlan went on to tell her that he’d be increasing the rent for Joy Bombs by seven hundred and fifty dollars per month, effective August 1.
“Harlan!” cried Joy. “That’s a lot of money!” Her pulse started to race.
“I’m really sorry,” said Harlan. “But it’s a business decision.”
“Out of the clear blue sky, though?”
“Not really. Your lease is up for renewal.”
“But—”
“It’s like this. We’re moving my mother into Highlands on the East Side, one of those long-term care places. They have, what is it, yoga and tai chi and all of that.”
“Tai chi?” said Joy.
“Right. Also Halloween parties, that sort of thing. Memory care. My wife and I can’t help her on her own anymore. She’s got a touch of the dementia. So we’ve got to find a place for her to live, and with those places you get what you pay for. She’s got—what? A little bit of my dad’s pension. But basically nothing. So . . . I had to make some decisions. And this is one.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Joy. She really was. “But, with all due respect to you and your mother, an increase like that is outrageous! With no warning.”
“This is your warning,” said Harlan. “If you read the fine print in your lease you’ll see that you’re entitled to a forty-five-day notice regarding rent increases or other changes as you come up for renewal. Now, if I’m doing my arithmetic correctly, this is forty-eight days.” She pictured Harlan counting laboriously on his thick fingers, moving his lips as he counted.
Suddenly the hill to the inn seemed long and steep. How was she going to get all the way to the veranda with the phone, the cooler bag with samples of sixteen different whoopie pie flavors, and the additional weight of her financial panic?
“Joy?” asked Harlan.
Joy shifted the cooler bag. She’d never been the type to be outdone by a small setback, but seven-fifty more a month was really going to sting. Maggie was thirteen and Joy, as hard as she’d tried, had put away only a pittance for college. She’d been paying rent on the cottage and the shop for all of these years and was basically just keeping her head above water. She’d never be able to save enough to buy her own place. She’d die an old lady in a rented cottage, alone except for the cats she’d end up adopting. Not that she’d be able to afford cat food. All this work, all this time, and nothing to show for it.
“You with me, Joy?”
But what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t move! She’d outfitted Joy Bombs with the industrial ovens, the walk-in, tons of heavy equipment. She was still paying back the small business loan, monthly payment by meager monthly payment. And where would she find another location, anyway? The truth was the new rent Harlan was quoting reflected the fair market value. She’d have to suck it up. She’d have to grit her teeth and pretend that Bridezilla was a lovely young woman whose nuptials Joy was very much looking forward to. If Joy could score just a few more events each year maybe she’d be able to absorb the rent increase.
“I’m with you,” she said. “Reluctantly, I’m with you.”
“Joy?” said Harlan. “You need an official letter for that? I can put Stacy on it if you do.” Stacy was Harlan’s longtime secretary. You were supposed to say “assistant” nowadays but Harlan still called her his secretary. Stacy still wore her nails long and painted red; she still frosted and permed her hair.
Joy would just work harder, like she always had. That was the only solution. “No need, Harlan,” she said. “August first, I’ve got it. Save yourself a stamp.” She hung up and tucked the phone in her pocket.
She could see that Kimberly and her mother were sitting in chairs on the inn’s wide veranda. There was a third woman with them whom Joy did not recognize. Most likely a wedding planner trucked in from Boston. Everybody but Joy was wearing sundresses. Kimberly’s was off the shoulder. Her shoulders looked fantastic, tanned and toned, but even before she got all the way to the veranda Joy could see that her Bridezilla mouth was set in a sneer. Joy knew from this that Kimberly had had her heart set on a Boston wedding—the Taj, the Ritz, the Four Seasons. An urban hotel, not an inn on an island that Kimberly obviously thought was second-rate.
Just before she walked up the inn’s steps Joy turned and looked out toward Great Salt Pond, which connected to Trims Pond, which connected to Harbor Pond. Block Island was lousy with ponds—365, one for every day of the year. She took a deep breath in then exhaled slowly. This was her home. Her island, her business. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Joy debated what to do after the meeting when she remembered that Peter Womack, Maggie’s fourth-grade teacher, was bartending at Poor People’s Pub this summer. She’d known Peter for years and years. Peter was also divorced, and Holly was always after Joy to date him. But Block Island had just under a thousand year-round residents: the problem with dating was that you only had so many false starts before everyone in town would know the things you wouldn’t do in bed and—sometimes worse—the things you would do after two and a half glasses of Chardonnay.
She went home for her bike, then rode to the pub and locked it up outside.
“Make me something,” she told Peter, sliding onto a stool.
Peter raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?” he asked. “Something besides the Decoy Sauvignon Blanc? You always order the Decoy.” Before taking the job at Poor People’s Pub, Peter had bartended at Ballard’s, and before that at Captain Nick’s; he’d served Joy a lot of glasses of Decoy Sauvignon Blanc.
“I know,” sighed Joy. “I’m a creature of habit. It’s not my favorite of my personality traits, believe me.”
“Nothing wrong with habits,” said Peter.
“Especially if you’re a nun,” said Joy.
“Ha!” Peter laughed, loud and genuine. “I always forget how funny you are, Joy Sousa. What do you want me to make you?”
“Something fun,” Joy said. “Something summery and fun.” She looked carefully at Peter. He was cute, if a tiny bit pudgy, and he was single. Also, he thought Joy was funny. Maybe she should overlook her rule about on-island dating. Then she remem
bered that she wasn’t looking to date anyone at all, because she was a self-sufficient modern woman who did not need a man to be happy. Peter drew his eyebrows together, thinking. “Summery and fun, no problem.”
It was only four-thirty. The summer sun was still ridiculously high in the sky, shining like crazy, almost bragging, and the sunburned tourists were only just coming off the beaches and starting to think about cocktails and appetizers. The bar was mostly empty.
“Maggie’s with the ex-husband,” Joy said. “And the newish wife. And the two-year-old.” She appreciated that Peter winced on her behalf.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Good for Maggie to spend time there.”
“I’m just worried . . .” Joy paused. What exactly was she worried about? “I’m just worried Maggie is going to feel like she’s been replaced.” Tiki was cute, even Joy had to admit that. She had Dustin’s piercing blue eyes and Sandy’s full lips.
“Nobody could replace Maggie,” Peter said, loyally and also accurately. “I saw her the other day, you know. She’s looking so grown up!”
“Don’t say that, Peter. I’m not ready for that.” Often Joy still thought of Maggie as a six-year-old with a missing tooth and a little-kid version of a beer gut; sometimes it downright shocked her to see Maggie’s long limbs and watch the face of a young woman, the new dips and hollows in her cheekbones, start to emerge.
Peter smiled. “I know. Time marches on, the bastard.”
“Where’d you see her?”
“She was hanging out with some summer kids. Here and there.” Island kids always hung out with summer kids: the infusion of new blood was part of the reward for the long winter. “Just be careful she doesn’t get her heart broken.”
Do u rly think i should go 4 it, thought Joy. Her mind contracted. She wanted to put Maggie’s own heart inside a UPS box with plenty of bubble wrap and Styrofoam peanuts. She wanted to keep it there forever. Safe.
“Let me ask you this, Peter. You’re a teacher. You speak Text, right?”
“I have a passing knowledge of it. I wouldn’t say I’m one hundred percent fluent.”
Joy took a cocktail napkin and pointed at the pen behind Peter’s ear. When he gave it to her she wrote T:)T and pushed the napkin toward him. “What’s this mean?”
He squinted at it. “Oh!” he said finally. “Think happy thoughts.”
That was a nice sentiment. Joy could live with that.
“How strong do you want this drink?”
Hes so much older, she could not live with. A strong drink was in order.
“Strong, but with the strength mainly masked by tropical fruit flavors,” said Joy.
“Got it,” said Peter. “The wheels are turning. Give me just a minute. But don’t watch. That spoils the magic.”
Joy moved her eyes away from Peter and allowed her gaze to roam the length of the bar, where she was surprised to see a solitary figure slouched on a stool. How had she not noticed him when she came in? The more she squinted at him, the more familiar to her he was, and after a full minute she realized that he was the man who had parked the Le Baron so obnoxiously in front of her parking space the week before. The sad sack! His shoulders were slumped forward in the same way they had been that day, and his head was down; both of these positions suggested an attitude of supplication or defeat.
Who was this guy? Looking at him was enough to make Joy feel depressed herself. Or maybe it was her own life that was depressing her. Maybe it was the thought of lonely year piled upon lonely year, and the starkness of the realization that in five years Maggie would be gone, and, let’s face it, probably Pickles too, that made Joy do what she did next: crook her finger at Peter and, when he bent toward her, whisper, “Make two of whatever it is you’re making, and send one down to that guy. He looks like he could use a lift.”
“You sure?” said Peter. “Because that guy—”
Joy didn’t let Peter finish. She could be a creature of habit every other damn day of the year. But today it was summer, and she was free of her usual obligations, and the sun was shining with a vengeance, and she would not let herself turn into a person whose own daughter would feel sorry for her when she was in college. No, today Joy would dispense a small act of kindness on a stranger who looked like he might need it.
“Nope,” she said, holding up a hand to Peter. “No arguments. Just do it.” Then, because that sounded bossy, she added, much more gently, “Please.” The sad sack was wearing a gray T-shirt, which, if Joy remembered correctly, was the same thing he’d been wearing when she’d seen him crying in the Le Baron. Was he too sad even to change his clothes? Oh, boy. What a thing.
Peter made the drinks, served Joy hers, and carried the other one the length of the bar and placed it in front of the downtrodden man. Joy took a sip of her cocktail. It tasted like a sunset and a tropical vacation and a ride on a catamaran all rolled into one. She saw Peter say something to the man and gesture toward Joy and she put her head down, studiously inspecting her fingernails. She felt strangely self-conscious; she never bought drinks for random people. But the guy seemed so very sad.
Because she was looking down she didn’t see the man push away the drink. It was only out of the corner of her eye that she saw him get up. She felt his departure behind her, so rapid that she had the sensation of a dry desert wind blowing at her back.
She looked at the man’s empty barstool, then back at Peter. “What the hell?” she asked. “What the major hell?”
“I was trying to tell you,” said Peter. He shook his head. “I didn’t think he would want it.”
“Why?”
“He was drinking seltzer.”
Joy sighed. This was ridiculous. “Who comes to a bar to drink seltzer? Alone? At four-thirty in the afternoon?”
“Actually,” said Peter, “he’s been here since around three.”
“Even worse.”
Peter shrugged. “People do funny things all the time.”
“Did he sip it?”
“The seltzer?”
“No, Peter, the cocktail.”
“No.”
“Not at all, not even one sip?”
“Not even one sip.”
“Bring ’er back, then,” said Joy. “I’ll have them both. Unless you want the second one.”
“No way,” said Peter. He winked. “Those drinks are way too strong for me. I’m working, Joy.”
Chapter 8
Anthony
Anthony was gazing at the ocean from the back deck of the cottage. The disgraced writer, surrounded by beauty from every angle, beauty he did not deserve to see, much less partake in, was deep in thought.
Christ, what a load of crap. This would be the most boring book in the world if he ever wrote it. He couldn’t even head-write anymore, and he’d always been able to head-write, even as a kid. How did he expect ever to get any sort of traction again if the best stuff he could come up with was pat and overly sentimental?
There was a rusty grill on the deck, an old-fashioned Weber, charcoal, and a set of mid-century patio furniture, black, wrought-iron, the kind that leaves designs on the backs of your legs. Anthony sat down. It was extremely uncomfortable furniture. He got up again and scanned the beach. There were a few surfers, though the water was flat. You had to appreciate that they were out there anyway. Three families were setting up camp for the day. They had pop-up beach tents and coolers and trolleys that had giant wheels on them and bags of sand toys. Looking at the sand toys made his soul ache. The previous summer he and Cassie and Max had spent a week on Nantucket and Anthony had helped Max build an entire sand village on Children’s Beach. They’d spent a whole afternoon on it.
Aside from the families there was also the same (or a similar) knot of teenagers that had been there almost every day: girls in bikinis tossing their hair around, slim-chested, hairless boys goofing around in front of them. The bizarre mating rituals of the young. The disgraced writer observed the bizarre . . . No, never mind. It was so uninteresting
to read about somebody watching somebody else. Unless you were reading a thriller and you knew the person watching was either going to murder or get murdered. Just ask Leonard Puckett. (House with a View, a stand-alone.)
Anthony could also see one towheaded boy of four or five, wearing green pajamas, marching toward the ocean like a man on a mission, arms swinging, knees high. He looked an awful lot like— Who did he look like? Anthony wracked his brain while he waited for one of the parents to go after the kid. All of the parents were too busy setting up their elaborate beach homes-away-from-home; nobody was watching the boy. The boy was getting just a little too close to the water. (Also, who brought their kid to the beach in pajamas? Every other kid there was wearing a bathing suit and a sun hat.)
“Hey!” called Anthony. “Hey, the kid!” The calling was futile—the wind snatched away his words as soon as he uttered them. “Hey!” he called again, louder this time. “The kid! Watch that kid near the water! Watch your kid!”
Oh, hell. They couldn’t hear him. Anthony ran down the deck stairs and pushed his way through the path that led to the beach. Once there, he scanned the sand. No small boy. His heart was thumping against his rib cage; his breath was ragged in his throat. He was out of shape, that was for sure. He searched the beach again. The families were to the left. He thought he saw a flash of green far to the right. He took a deep breath, and he ran.
The Islanders Page 5