by Rebecca Ryan
We all loved swimming at the old quarry though. Filled with fresh water, with great jumping cliffs and heated by the sun, the water there was warm, clean, and sparkling. Summers were spent with part of each day carved out to go swimming at the quarry.
No sea monsters in sight.
I hear sand giving under feet and turn around. A tall guy, with dark sunglasses set on his head, is wandering down to my spot.
I turn back to view the water, surprised when he arrives just a foot from my right elbow.
"You're Claire Russo?" he asks.
What is it with these city guys and their voices?
I need to get to a city, I decide. "Yes. Do I know you?"
"No. But I know your new neighbor." He looks like an attorney—and probably is.
I feel my back stiffen and pull a strand of hair from my mouth, trapped there by the breeze. "Is he siccing you on me now?"
He pulls the sunglasses off his head and tucks them in a very nice suit pocket.
He's clearly buying time, trying to arrange his thoughts, and I change my mind. He’s not an attorney. They always have their battle diatribe locked and loaded.
"What? No. I'm just a friend, a business partner. At least I think we still are. I'm Nic," he says.
Now I turn to face him. "Well, Nic, then you know his plans for the shoreline here?"
"I do."
"Well, so do I, and it's not happening," I say.
"Look, he's prepared to pay you double. He'll probably go triple if you really want to bleed him."
I kind of want to scream. "I don't want to bleed him. Don’t make him the victim here. This is my house, my practice, my clinic, my pasture, and my land. I don't want some eyesore development in here. See me standing here? I do this every evening. Even in winter. In summer I swim along here. I'm not giving it up."
The guy sighs and looks out at the sea, hands in his suit pockets. I'm surprised the fancy suit has real pockets. I bet he never puts anything in them—it might corrupt the lines he cuts in space.
"He wants to make a park," he says.
The seething in my stomach stops and I feel a little weightless. "What?"
"I can't go into details, but he wants to make a park—for families—and make it accessible."
For The Inn. I get it, make it a part of The Inn, so he can show this expanse of scenic ocean views and scatter some uncomfortable Adirondack chairs across the edge of the cliff. Somehow, though, I can’t seem to quite reclaim the self-righteous part of my rage.
A park.
I say it out loud. "A park?"
He shrugs noncommittally and takes his shades off. He's really handsome in a city-transplant kind of way. Boyish, but there's something else there.
"I let anyone hike along here. There's not a single 'No Trespassing' sign," I say.
The guy won't look me in the eye. "All I can tell you is Finn's a great guy. His motives are honest. Sometimes he's too honest." He leans in a bit in my direction but never takes his eyes off the ocean. "Ask him yourself what he wants to do."
"I have."
He pulls at his cuffs like he's getting ready to deliver some truth. "Without that fire in your eye."
And then he grins at me—grins—and walks back to his car.
***
Laurel's place is cute now that Devon's rooming with her. I'll give Devon that. For a daredevil personality, she has a good eye for design. They live straddled above the Camden Chowder Place—or the CCP as we locals call it— and Weaver's grocery, which gets noisy in the summer but is cozy and pretty quiet the rest of the year.
When I pull in the back alley behind the other wharf shops, I find the unloading zone she's painted herself and park. The place came without guest parking, so she made space next to the dumpster.
Devon's the middle sister if you don’t count Chloe, smack between me and Laurel. I kicked her out my first year of vet school over this thing she did and I don’t think she's really forgiven me, but whatever. She and I are the we- don’t-talk-about-it-sisters—about everything. We talk about the present, not the past or future. We don’t want to relive what came before and we don’t care to take advice from each other about the future. It's weird because she and Laurel can go back and forth about men, food, jobs, politics, and it's all good, but if I step into it, I've stepped into it.
That's what happens when you’re the one left in charge, I guess.
And that's why it's so weird when she weighs in on Finn Colton, his friend, and the park.
"I don’t see what the big deal is then," she says, wrapping her thick straight hair in a bun. There's no tie though, so it slides out again and frames her face.
"He says it's a park, but he could change his mind. Besides, I’d have to move," I say.
Devon shoots me a look. "Might be good for you."
She's whisking up avocado for guacamole and her strong, thin arms catch the candlelight. She's making an effort tonight and I need to rein it in.
Trying not to be so big-sistery, I swallow what I was about to say. "I know you think I need to get out of Maine for a while."
"Not Maine," she argues.
"Well, off the coast." I open the bag of corn chips and shake most of them into a wooden bowl. "I'm not going anywhere."
We need to change the subject. Devon just moved back a month ago and now she thinks everyone has to leave home to come back. For someone who's always taken incredible physical risks, culminating in becoming a professional smokejumper, she makes sporadic leaps into Zen. The leaving-returning-finding-yourself loop is one of her mantras.
I don’t need a mantra or visualization. I need practical imaging in a machine form for my patients.
"Who's that from?" I ask, plunging a chip into her guacamole. She always adds crab meat and a squirt of lemon. It’s delicious.
"What?" she says, but sticks her hand in her sweatshirt pocket.
"I can still see the envelope."
"Nobody you need to know about," she says and turns her back to shove it deeper.
I drop it. A past boyfriend, maybe. She's had several of those. She’s a risktaker in bed too.
"Have you spoken with David?" I ask her. David was the fire chief I had to deliver a report to.
"Yes." But there’s a shrug.
"So, what’s the verdict?"
"I don’t know. We're supposed to meet in an hour," she says.
Typical David. "Well, that's interesting. I'm supposed to meet him in an hour too."
"Are you shitting me?" she asks.
***
David Keller, the fire chief, is a youngster at forty-five and though driven, dedicated, and fearless, time management is not on his list of superpowers. I think the alarm at the fire station and the need to always be on call even when he isn't, means his entire life is double-booked. His mind always operates in two places and they never overlap. So that's what he does constantly: double-book.
A beer after work with a guy in the squad and a town council meeting? No problem.
Judging at the county fair and taking his mother to a doctor's appointment? Again, no problem.
The big joke in town is always who or what he’d actually show up for.
We pull into the station outside Echo Bay proper. It’s actually the Thompson County Fire Brigade, which always makes me laugh. "Brigade" makes it sound like all they do is show up for parades and throw candy.
A guy I don’t know is hosing down the driveway. We wind our way inside the nicely decorated firehouse—a great space filled with shelving, sectional sofas, art, a huge flat-screen TV, and plants. The kitchen has three microwaves, a massive gas stove, three fridges, and exposed shelves with frost glass cabinet doors and under-counter lighting. When the T.C.F.B. hosts trainings or staging exercises, I swear the other firefighters in the state are jealous.
David rises as we come in and does his usual stammering and glancing at his watch, apparently surprised he’s scheduled us at the same time.
"It's fine," I say. "I can
upload the pictures from the barn fire and print them and write up my report here. You can chat with Devon."
Devon is here for a job. The first woman in the department and he can't turn her down. It's the law now.
She tilts her head defiantly at him. "Why don’t you show me around first?"
A tall man, solidly built with the stress on built, we could see him flexing under his blue shirt just reaching for a pencil.
He smiles. "I'd rather do the interview first."
Devon cocks her head. "You know I’m the most qualified applicant. Who else do you have? Some overweight, pimple-faced kid, just out of fire school camp?"
Taking a step back, I raise a hand to cover my smile. He knows her firebrand pedigree: fast track training and then a year with the Montana smokejumpers with thirty-five jumps under her belt. Her very first day of training, she texted Laurel she had to run a mile and a half in under eleven minutes, do forty-five sit-ups, twenty-five push-ups, and seven pull-ups. It only got worse. Jumping out of airplanes into fires with a hundred pounds of gear on her would be hard to eclipse with someone who’d only shut down a controlled fire. She'd cut her teeth on the terrible wildfires that ravaged three states last year. She'd survived one jump into a tree that fell and spent three days on her own. Finally, she could deadlift double her own weight: two hundred and forty pounds.
Devon is a daredevil monster. And a chameleon. Looking at her, you'd have no idea and might guess: maybe a Pilates instructor?
She doesn't know I know about the burning tree falling with her.
Thank God for Laurel. She's how I find out stuff.
"Okay. But we still need to talk," says David. "If you work here, you work under me." He gazes at her. "No pun intended, but this isn’t going to work if you bring your baggage."
I turn back to his computer and insert the flash drive with the pictures loaded on it.
Their baggage bag is full—bursting.
"I think I can let that go," she says.
"Really?"
"Yes," and she meets his gaze.
Funny, because this morning she was reliving getting kicked off the soccer team in high school all over again. David had been her coach and he would not have a girl on the team. He never said it, but the outcome remained.
The computer screen winked and photos of the terrible fire populated.
"Why don't we compromise and walk around, and I'll show you what we did to accommodate you?" he says.
I’m sure he means a separate dressing area and bunk.
"You mean to update your facilities?" she challenges.
I feel—rather than see—his shoulders sag a little. "Yes. Excellent point," he says.
I hit the print button and slowly the gruesome pictures begin to stack. Luckily, my sister and the chief finish the tour and have their walking interview all without the siren going off.
"We'll get you sized for gear," David says, opening the glass door to where I’m planted at his computer. He glances at me. "You done?"
"Almost," I say. Trying to reach a perfunctory tone in the fire report is tough. The pictures are heartbreaking. I know David will edit out any of my pathos if need be.
"I make my own," she says. "That’s what we do." She means smokejumpers—they make their own gear.
David actually breaks into a grin. "Well, here you won’t have to do that. You're five-six, one twenty—"
"Two. One twenty-two," she says.
"We’ve got two respirators to choose from," he tells her.
"I've got my own, thanks."
"I'm done," I say, even though I'm not. Standing, I continue to type the last bit.
"We're going to need that printed and signed," David says, hands on hips. "And we'll see you here Monday to meet up with the guys."
"Yes, sir," she says.
"I told you, we're not going there."
"Yes. Chief."
"Not that either."
"Captain?" Her question is so coy.
"I go by Keller."
Devon shrugs. "So, not Davey anymore?"
He sets his jaw. "No."
***
On the drive back to her place, I find out what happened during the tour of the firehouse.
"Oh, he's still an asshole," she says, looking out the window. Her bare feet are up on the dash—a habit from high school. "They have this little bitty double bunk set up in case we get another woman firefighter, I guess, and a partitioned corner to dress in. He's done everything by the book. There's even a women's dispenser in the clearly marked unisex bathroom."
I blank for a moment at "dispenser."
"Tampons and pads," she explains.
"Are you kidding? How long has that been there?”
"I don’t know. I guess they got it all in when they renovated."
That was nearly a year ago, way before they knew she was coming home and needed a job, which meant all this gender-equal space was in the works before she arrived and was not built specifically for her. I don’t mention this though—the last thing I want is to appear to be standing up for David Keller.
He had Devon kicked off the soccer team her junior year when he was the coach and it would take a lot for them now to meet halfway.
Suddenly her voice grows soft. "Is Travis due home soon? I miss him."
I grip the steering wheel. "We all miss him." Sometimes I think people assume I don't miss anyone, or need anyone, or cry. I pause for a moment and take a breath to make sure nothing snarky comes out. "Not 'til Thanksgiving."
"Fuck."
When we pull up to the store we both hop out. I need new hoof trimmers and eggs, and she needs bread.
But she goes soft around the edges; Travis can do that to people. This softening makes her ask, "Do you ever think about Chloe?"
A steel trap door slams shut in my mind. "No."
Tossing her long dark hair over one shoulder, she offers advice I don't want or need. "You've got to forgive her, Claire."
My silence should be enough, but she presses on.
"She's been gone for so long. It’s not her fault. Mom and Dad—it wasn’t her fault."
Now, it’s my turn. "Shit."
Chapter Six
Finn
The town of Echo Bay is a smudge of buildings by the sea. A grocery store with a thirty-five percent mark-up in the summer and a single gas pump, an antique store, a barber shop/hair salon hybrid, the infamous Pine Cove Café, Cod's End on the Wharf, the Camden Chowder Place, a clothing store with very expensive bamboo clothing, the ferry landing, and storefront, and two stores that defy characterization. One was an ice cream dip at one end, a novelty store in the middle, and an art gallery at the end. The second was a Korean restaurant called Shin La, but the front display case housed the biggest donuts I've ever seen. One of their bear claws was nearly the size of a frisbee. Their dumplings were delicious. I had some last night.
Everything else—all the fisheries, wholesale lots, and dry docks—were along the shore, but so small and well maintained, nothing created an eyesore.
I peel off Route 1, the road that snakes up the coast, linking all the finger peninsulas jutting into the Atlantic, and was looking for Fourteen Belmont Place in Belfast.
I’ve never met the guy, this attorney. I’ve only spoken with him on the phone, and he said the owner—George Johnson—wanted to meet. I can’t believe this guy has any will to get me my land. He sure didn’t help the first time around.
The land came with The Inn. It's all right there on the county map, but George had it carved off, created a trust, and gave it to Claire Russo for a dollar—and I didn't find out about it until the closing.
And now he wants to talk.
I pull in and park, glancing at the small white Victorian house with red shutters and ancient shrubs.
Is every business in Maine operated in repurposed houses?
"Nice to meet you finally," says Glen Gilbert.
I have a hard time trusting people with two first names. There's a handsome gu
y with a tight cut and sheer fade, slightly graying, who’s sitting down in a leather chair opposite Gilbert's desk. His hands are folded in his lap and though he glances at me, his face is impassive. Gilbert gestures to the other chair, but I decide to stand.
"Dr. Johnson here understands you feel like you were cheated out of some land you thought came with the property," says Gilbert.
"Well, it did come with the property up until a month before the final sale." I turn to the man in the chair. "Dr. Johnson—"
He waves a hand and cuts me off, "Call me Geo," he says, speaking slowly. "That's Gee-O."
"Like the rock. You know like a geode," Gilbert offers by way of explanation.
I stare at the ornate molding running along the edges of the tin ceiling and feel like I'm in a time warp.
What the fuck?
"Okay. Well, Geo, I want to buy that land, but the person you sold it to for a buck or whatever that was, won’t sell," I tell him.
Geo rises out of his chair and stands eye-to-eye with me—no easy feat as I'm six-two. His suit is pressed and his tie gleams; I don’t feel appropriately dressed in my work boots and jeans.
"Let me show you something," he says and pulls out his wallet. His dark hands thumb through a few hazy plastic photo holders before he pulls one out.
It’s a cropped Polaroid of a family sitting on the front porch of The Inn. A pretty good-looking family, handsome father, willowy blond mother, three raven haired little girls, and a fourth tousled blonde one.
"That's Claire," he says, tapping the blonde little girl with her arm around her father's neck. "Her family owned The Inn. Those girls grew up running it. Except for Claire. She worked with her dad in the clinic."
