Haven Point

by Virginia Hume

  She believed forgiveness would help Oliver. He was a better husband than the man she’d found in that room at the Waldorf Hotel, but some part of him was still closed off.

  Though she knew it might not last, the innocent confusion she saw in his eyes gave her hope. He looked like a child with questions, open to answers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  August 2008

  Haven Point

  SKYE

  Skye was simultaneously maneuvering a hinky-wheeled grocery cart and examining Gran’s shopping list when she almost smacked into someone at the end of an aisle. When she looked up to apologize, she was surprised to see Ryan Donnelly.

  Nearly as startling as running into him was his appearance. Ryan was usually smartly dressed and brimming with energy, but today he wore a tattered T-shirt that looked two sizes too small. His hair was stringy, and dark circles rimmed his eyes. Skye detected none of his usual animation. He certainly didn’t seem happy to see her.

  “Hi, Ryan. It’s been ages. I didn’t know you were going to be here this week.”

  “Yeah, Congress is out, as you know. I’m off for a bit.” His eyes roved around the store as if he was in a terrible hurry to be anywhere other than where they stood.

  “So, how are you?” Skye asked.

  “Fine. I’m fine … uh…” He grasped for something to say. “Did you hear there’ll be a clambake tonight?”

  “Gran mentioned it. I’m going to try to come by. Seriously, are you okay?” She peered at him a little more closely. “You don’t look quite yourself.”

  “Yeah, fine, totally. Just getting some stuff … Been a little crazy…” Ryan’s voice trailed off as he pointed imprecisely toward the deli counter.

  “Okay, see you later, Ryan.”

  That was weird, Skye thought as she put the groceries in the car. It did seem fortuitous to have bumped into him, though. Skye was still bothered by her fangirl reaction to Ben the night before. Seeing Ryan, Haven Point outsider, was a reminder of what had bothered her about Ben in the wake of her mother’s death: He was the consummate Haven Point insider.

  Ben had said he would come by, but Skye wondered if he actually would, given the latest weather reports. The hurricane had moved north overnight, its eye hovering off the mid-Atlantic coast. D.C. had been pounded by rain, but winds were barely tropical storm levels, and it looked like it would pass east of New York City.

  Unfortunately, it appeared it might then take an inland track, which had potential for catastrophe in New England. Skye was always skeptical of worst-case scenarios, but it appeared the storm would pack at least as much punch as a nor’easter, and everyone knew how much trouble those could cause.

  When she got back to Fourwinds, the sun seemed to be winning its fight against an earlier mist. Skye decided to go for a run. After she put the groceries away, she slipped on her sneakers and headed onto Haven Point Road in the direction of the beach club.

  The gravel crunched under her feet, and the damp pine air filled her lungs. She’d gotten out of the running habit over the previous year, and it took her a while to hit her stride, but by the time she reached the end of the beach and doubled back to run along the causeway, the endorphins kicked in.

  For the first time in a while, she felt like she could put her career anxiety into the background. She stopped at the top of the hill near the yacht club to stretch and take in the panoramic view. The fog had completely cleared by this point, and she could see all the way to the Portland Head Light.

  As her eyes scanned the bay, she noticed one of the club’s fleet of racing boats sailing away from the point with two people aboard, a man and a woman. Something about them drew her eye—the outline of the man, the breadth of his back and the way he moved. She picked her way through a clump of weeds to an old brass viewer that stood nearby. It was like the ones on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, except it didn’t require coins.

  The viewer was stiff and unwieldy, but she was able to train it in the direction of the boat and sharpen the focus. Even through the old, salt-covered lenses, she could see the sailors were Ben and Charlotte Spencer.

  So, she is here.

  Charlotte’s eyes were shaded by Ray-Bans, her hair held back by a Jackie O–style headband, the kind that looks fabulous on women with silky hair, but which Skye could never figure out how to wear without looking like a Chia Pet. She and Ben worked together in perfect rhythm, the fruits of their labor evident in gloriously full sails.

  Skye wasn’t sure how long she had stood riveted to the spot watching them, but the sound of a car coming up Haven Point Road broke the spell, and it suddenly hit her that if she could see Ben, he could see her, as could anyone who happened by.

  She let go of the viewer as if it were contaminated. As she ran back to the house, she was overwhelmed by a sense of narrow escape, like a sleepwalker who had awakened at the edge of a cliff.

  To her relief, Gran was still out. Skye sank into a kitchen chair and called Adriene at work. She expected to get her voicemail, but Adriene answered.

  “Hey! How are things at the Playground of the Waspocracy?”

  Skye launched in immediately, describing the scene she’d just witnessed.

  “So, she’s there. He’s there. You don’t know what that means.”

  “You should have seen them. They’re a total matched set. They looked like an ad for polo shirts or nautical rope bracelets.”

  “You can’t draw any conclusions. Either way, why does it bother you? Just yesterday you were saying he wasn’t your type.”

  “I don’t know.” Skye sighed, defeated.

  “Ben is the only guy who has this effect on you, Skye. You were weird about him in high school. Then you date all those tortured artists and barely bat an eye…”

  “Yeah, except…” Skye started, but Adriene was on a roll.

  “Then Mr. Normal McNormalFace shows up again, and from day one you’re standing over the relationship, ready to declare it dead and go rummaging through its pockets.”

  “First of all, you really must do something about your imagery. It’s getting extremely gruesome,” Skye snapped. “Second, you can hardly call it a relationship. We had a handful of dates.”

  “Because you pulled the plug!”

  Because my mother died, Skye thought, though she didn’t say it out loud. It would have been a cheap shot. She knew Adriene was onto something.

  When Adriene spoke again, her tone was gentler. “I think you need to figure out what you’re afraid of, Skye.”

  After they hung up, Skye sat thinking. It dawned on her that the worst moment standing on the hill above the yacht club had not been when she saw Ben and Charlotte through the viewer. It was when she realized they could see her.

  Being seen. That was always it, wasn’t it? She wanted to control what people saw—to decide when the cameras rolled, when the laugh track came on.

  She had tried to convince herself that her mother’s death put the differences between her and Ben in relief, that he wasn’t her “type,” but the truth was rather rudely staring her in the face now. She was afraid because she had lost control of what he saw.

  Adriene had been generalizing about her “tortured artists.” Not all the guys she had dated had been tortured or artists. But they had been messed up in one way or another, and Skye had been able to hide in their darkness. In Ben’s bright light, she felt exposed.

  Skye had never felt the kind of connection she had with Ben, never enjoyed such easy laughter, such great chemistry. She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, but she was wild about him. She had been for years.

  A spark of hope had been ignited the night before. Seeing him sailing with Charlotte had almost extinguished it.

  Almost.

  * * *

  While the twentysomethings would be at the clambake that night, Gran would attend a potluck for the older set at the Lawrences’. Skye had promised to bake a tomato pie she could take with her.

  That af
ternoon, as she was arranging slices of cheese in the bottom of a pie crust, Ben knocked on the kitchen door and poked his head inside.

  “Hey, Ben. Come on in.” She fixed a pleasant look on her face. Ben seemed his usual cheerful self, his expression unblemished by guilt or worry. He came in and wrapped her in a hug.

  “So good to see you,” he said. He pulled back, looked at her closely, and brushed a stray hair from her face. It was a quick gesture, almost brotherly, but still intimate enough that she felt a grain of confidence.

  “Good to see you, too,” she said. She smiled and nodded at the piece of cheese in her hand. He took the hint, moved to the table, turned one of the chairs, and sat on it backward.

  “So, what are you making?”

  “Tomato pie.”

  He rose halfway to peer at her half-assembled creation.

  “You’re not supposed to see it.” She shielded the glass baking dish with her hands. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. Sacrosanct!”

  “Is it made with ramen noodles?”

  “No. No ramen noodles.”

  “Microwave popcorn?”

  “No, not that either.” She began to laugh.

  “Bratwurst?”

  “No. Tomato pie has no ramen noodles, microwave popcorn, or bratwurst in it,” she said.

  “Then don’t worry. I couldn’t make it if I wanted to.”

  “I don’t know how you haven’t shriveled up and died from starvation.”

  “People feed me. Or I scrounge,” he joked. Ben was hopeless in the kitchen. Skye had once noticed a squash racquet on Ben’s counter. He confessed he had used it to drain tortellini.

  Skye knew she had no grounds to ask, but her desire to know where things stood with him and Charlotte weighed on her.

  “Such a perfect Maine day, isn’t it? You’d never know a storm was coming. What have you been up to?”

  In the pause that followed, she could almost hear the engine of his mind at work.

  “Nothing much,” he said finally. “What about you?”

  Like a ball on a roulette wheel, Skye’s emotions cycled through confusion, disappointment, and humiliation, before finally landing on anger.

  “Grocery shopping for this,” she said, nodding toward the pie plate. “I went to the store in Phippsburg. Guess who I ran into?”

  “Who?”

  “Ryan Donnelly,” she said brightly, as if she did not remember Ben’s reaction when she’d brought his name up before.

  “Really,” Ben said, his tone flat.

  “Yeah. He mentioned the clambake on the beach tonight.” She continued to feign oblivion.

  “Skye, how well do you know Ryan Donnelly?”

  “I’ve known Ryan for a while. He works on Capitol Hill,” she replied. She turned to get Parmesan cheese out of the refrigerator. “I know the Donnellys aren’t up to snuff on Haven Point, but I don’t get why you have such a hang-up about him.”

  Ben paused. His usually sunny countenance was overtaken by a stormy expression.

  “So that’s what you think? That I don’t like Ryan Donnelly because he’s not ‘up to snuff’? Quite an indictment of me, Skye. Thanks for clarifying.”

  “Well, why don’t you like him then?” she asked, finally daring to meet his gaze.

  “Forget it. I’ll catch you later, Skye.” He sounded more sad than mad. He rose, flipped his chair back to the table, and left without another word.

  Skye gripped the edge of the counter and closed her eyes.

  Skye Demarest, you are an idiot, she thought. She sighed and pushed herself off the counter. After she put the pie in the oven, she went to her room and sat on the window seat.

  Ryan had said Ben had been a jackass to him. Maybe he had, maybe he hadn’t. Skye did not know Ryan that well, and while Ben was indisputably a Haven Point kid, she had to admit she had never seen him treat anyone poorly. Ryan might be a blind spot, but people are allowed the occasional blind spot.

  Of course, the whole spat with Ben had been a proxy battle for her own fears and resentments. He had no way to know she had seen him sailing with Charlotte, or how vulnerable it made her feel. She had been on the fence about the clambake that evening, but she realized she needed to go and apologize. Perhaps she would even tell him the truth.

  She wished she could get a handle on her mood. When she wasn’t in a weird stupor, she was angry. Even this old room had annoyed her yesterday. Why on earth would she be irritated by Gran’s desire to make her feel welcome?

  She rose, pulled one of the old children’s books from the shelf, and brought it back to the window seat—A Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey. It was about two sisters on a family vacation on an island in Maine. The denouement is a surprise hurricane that rips through in the evening. No wonder it had caught her eye.

  A Time of Wonder was her mother’s favorite children’s book. She had always admired its lyricism and simple illustrations. But as Skye reread it with fresh eyes, she also saw that it was a love poem to Maine.

  Skye looked out at Gunnison Island, lying long and green in the sunshine, as if in defiance of the forecast. Her mother had loved storms. She’d even harbored a slight survivalist streak, though it ran crosswise of her disorganization. So many flashlights, so few batteries, Adriene used to joke.

  One September day when Skye was twelve or thirteen, D.C. caught the tail end of an unusual tropical storm. Skye had gone to the teachers’ parking lot after school and found her mother had beaten her to the car for once. It was raining pitchforks, and Skye ran to the door, closing her umbrella at the last second so she could stay as dry as possible. Her mom was dripping wet, of course. She had given up on umbrellas years before. On the rare occasion she remembered to bring one, she invariably left it behind.

  “You won’t believe what this car can do,” her mom said. She had a big smile on her face, and her eyes were dancing.

  “What?” Skye asked, surprised at her mother’s enthusiasm. She had never taken an interest in cars, just drove whatever used model Pop found for her. (All heavy and slow, a hedge against her distracted driving.)

  “Watch this.” Her mom popped in a cassette. As Don McLean’s voice filled the car, she turned on the windshield wipers then looked at Skye, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to catch on.

  It took Skye a minute, but then she started to laugh. The wipers moved in perfect rhythm to “American Pie.”

  “This is my favorite car ever,” her mom said as she pulled out of the lot.

  The image brought a brief smile, but Skye pushed the memory from her mind. Certain recollections of her mother seemed to come with their own relentless gravitational force. If she did not resist, she felt certain they would pull her into some fathomless trench.

  Skye had spent years lying to the world about her life. She was not about to start lying to herself. Gran, Billy, and the other mourners had tried to rewrite her mom’s history with their varnished elegies. Skye knew the real story, though: a roller coaster of hope and despair that ended with flashing lights, neighbors’ worried faces, and her mother in a bathtub.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Skye put on eye makeup, white jeans, and a green silk V-neck shirt she knew was becoming. The day had started blue and sparkling, but it was humid now, so she abandoned the idea of doing anything with her hair and settled for a loose bun. She tied a lightweight sweater around her shoulders and headed out the door.

  The clambake was in front of the Van Sant compound, near the end of the beach. It was an old-school affair: clams, onions, corn, and potatoes wrapped in cheesecloth and cooked over firewood in a rock-filled pit.

  By the time she arrived, Skip Van Sant was already plucking items from the pit and piling them on aluminum trays. A few people were filling plates from platters on long tables, but most were still milling about. Skye grabbed a beer from the cooler and looked around, trying to make out individual faces in the gathering darkness.

  As she made her way around the periphery of the clam pit
, she spotted Charlotte’s familiar silhouette. Skye couldn’t help but feel inordinately pleased that Ben was not by her side.

  Something in the volume and quality of conversation suggested people had been drinking for a while. That, along with anticipation of the storm, gave the party an agitated, buzzy excitement. As she headed toward the bonfire, ten or fifteen feet beyond the clam pit, she picked up snatches of conversation.

  During Hurricane Bob, the tide dragged the anchors, and sailboats crashed into each other.… Harbor staff said there wouldn’t be any heroics.… We pulled our boats today and took them to Gull Harbor.… It’s small, but deep, with good holding ground.…

  She caught glimpses of faces, hands wrapped around bottles of beer, or red Solo cups filled with wine or gin and tonics. They were all as they had always seemed to her: preppy, confident, boozy. The girls wore white jeans and bright sweaters; the guys, expensive windbreakers and Nantucket reds or khaki Bermuda shorts. She spoke with a few people as she circulated. Everyone was pleasant enough, too certain of their place to snub her, but no one noticed if she left a conversation and melted into the darkness.

  When she made a full tour of the party without seeing Ben, she felt deflated. From the chatter she picked up, most Haven Pointers down on the beach were clearing out. If Ben hadn’t already left, he surely would the next day.

  Just as she was debating whether to text him, she noticed that conversation around the bonfire had quieted. Something close to the water’s edge had caught people’s attention. She peered into the darkness.

  It took a moment to hear the angry voices and make out the shapes of two figures squared off, a foot or two apart. They leaned into each other, postures taut and menacing.

  It didn’t take long to discern the familiar shape of Ben’s back. Even through the dark and distance she could see the tension in his shoulders. He raised his arm and pointed toward the other man’s chest, an aggressive gesture unlike anything she had seen in all the time she had known him.

  It wasn’t until the other face was caught by the glow of the fire that she was able to make it out. It was Ryan, of course. Some part of her had already known. She strained to listen but could not make out individual words, just the sharp staccato beat of an angry confrontation.