Summer Friends

by Holly Chamberlin

  “I hope you enjoyed your lunch.”

  Maggie looked around to see Delphine’s father, standing at her elbow. “Oh, I did, Mr. Crandall,” she said. “It was excellent. But I really should be going, let someone else have this seat. I’ll just get my check.”

  “No, no,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his gnarled hand, “no charge for an old friend of Delphine’s.”

  “Oh, but please, Mr. Crandall, I—”

  “Now, we’ll hear no more. You come by again anytime.”

  Charlie Crandall walked off to speak with a customer at one of the Formica-topped tables. Maggie felt bad. She didn’t believe that the Crandalls could afford to be giving away business. It wouldn’t do. She pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and gave it to the young waitress when she came by to clear the plates. It was a tip entirely out of proportion to Maggie’s bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich and glass of iced tea. She tried to catch Delphine’s eye, but Delphine was still down at the far end of the counter, busy cleaning away the remains of another customer’s lunch. At the door, Maggie turned, but Delphine was no longer in sight, probably back in the kitchen. With a shrug, Maggie headed out into the parking lot. Overall, she was glad she had come.

  21

  1981

  The first thing Maggie saw when she crawled out of bed that morning was a thick, neat stack of paper on the edge of her desk. It hadn’t been there the night before. She stumbled over to the desk and saw next to the neat, paper-clipped stack her messy pile of handwritten pages.

  “Hey.”

  She turned to see Delphine coming into their dorm room. Her hair was wet from a shower and she was wearing her fuzzy blue robe and a pair of men’s brown slippers. Maggie had pleaded with her to get a prettier pair, like, a pair for girls, but Delphine insisted these were the most comfortable slippers she’d ever had. And they had cost next to nothing.

  “You typed the whole thing for me?” Maggie asked, her voice still thick with sleep.

  “Yeah. It was no big deal.”

  Maggie pointed at the desk. “Delphine, this is a forty-page paper! It’s a huge deal! And you did this all after I went to bed last night?”

  “Yeah,” Delphine said with a shrug. “I’m fast.”

  “Wait a minute. If you were typing all night why didn’t I wake up?”

  “I took the typewriter into the hallway, down at the end by the bathrooms.”

  “You sat on the floor and typed a forty-page paper? For me?”

  “Well, didn’t you say you were going to have to turn it in late because you didn’t have time to type it, and that you’d have to take a penalty on the grade? I just figured I’d help out.”

  “You’re amazing,” Maggie said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Delphine hung her towel on its hook behind the door. “Forget it. Remember back when we were like eleven or twelve and I broke a window on the garage behind your house and you took the blame for me?”

  “I guess,” Maggie said. “Sort of. Maybe I’ll remember after coffee.”

  “Well, consider this payback.”

  “You really are the best friend a girl could ever have.”

  Delphine sighed ostentatiously. “I know. It’s a gift; what can I say?”

  “Seriously,” Maggie said, “now I owe you.”

  “Let’s not keep track. Everything evens out in the end with friends. I shouldn’t have called this payback.”

  “Well, thank you, again. I mean it.”

  Maggie reached out and the girls hugged.

  “Just promise me one thing,” Delphine said when they parted.

  “Anything,” Maggie said. “Pinky swear.”

  “Don’t be late for class!”

  22

  “Did you hear about the trouble Dave Junior got himself into last night?”

  “Dave Junior? No, what happened?”

  Maggie was in Ogunquit Sundries on Main Street Thursday morning, hoping to find cuticle cream, which for some reason she had forgotten to pack. She was peering down one of the narrow aisles when she overheard a bit of the conversation between two older women to her right.

  Maggie didn’t make it a habit to listen in on other people’s conversations, but this was different: This was about her friend’s family; it had to be. She turned and took a small step closer to the women, pretending to examine a box of Efferdent on the shelf in front of her.

  “Well, I don’t know if the police are involved,” the first woman was now whispering. “But I did hear that his parents are absolutely . . .”

  Her words were lost as the woman and her friend passed behind Maggie and moved toward the back of the store. She abandoned the search for cuticle cream and hurried outside. It was only nine o’clock, but already the sidewalks were filled with tourists. Maggie made her way to the corner and found a relatively quiet spot alongside the Bread & Roses Bakery. She called Delphine’s house. When no one answered, she left a brief voice mail and tried Delphine’s cell phone. Again, the call went to voice mail, and Maggie left another, similar message. “Hey, it’s me. We had talked about maybe getting together today. Call me on my cell. Bye.” She knew by now that Delphine would only ignore a text.

  By ten o’clock Delphine hadn’t returned Maggie’s call. Maggie left another message; and at noon, another. Finally, beginning to worry in earnest, she got into her car and drove out to the farm. She found Delphine in the office, just rising from her desk chair. She startled when she saw Maggie.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” Maggie said. “Did you get my messages earlier?”

  Delphine looked away, in the direction of the corkboard on the wall. “Yes. Sorry, I’ve been busy.”

  “You’re always busy,” Maggie said with a smile. “We had talked about maybe getting together today.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, but the day just got away from me.” She passed a hand through her hair, which was messy and unwashed. “It’ll have to be another time. I’ve got a lot to do.”

  Delphine walked past Maggie and out into the dusty yard.

  “Wait,” Maggie called. “Delphine. In town, this morning, I overheard some people talking.”

  Delphine came to a stop and slowly turned around. Maggie noticed that she looked suddenly exhausted, deflated.

  “Talking about what?”

  “I didn’t hear it all,” Maggie admitted. “Something about Dave Junior being in trouble.”

  “People should mind their own business.” Delphine’s voice was flat.

  “By ‘people,’ do you mean me or those women I overheard in Ogunquit Sundries?”

  Delphine hesitated, and then sighed. She felt she had been caught or defeated. “You’ll find out about it anyway,” she said. “Better to hear it from me. Last night Dave Junior got into a fight with some kid on vacation here with some friends. A kid around Dave Junior’s age, seventeen. Too young to be drinking, but it seems that he had been. They were all hanging out in the parking lot at the beach. The kid started bad-mouthing one of Dave Junior’s friends, a girl he goes to school with. Dave Junior asked him to stop, but the kid wouldn’t. So Dave Junior hit him. The kid lost a tooth. His friends wanted him to call the police, but he refused. Just ran. Seems he’s been in trouble before and his parents, who I talked to this morning, don’t want to draw attention to the incident.”

  Maggie put her hand to her heart. “My God. Is everything okay now?”

  “Everything will be,” Delphine said firmly. “The parents want compensation. They want money for the tooth to be replaced. They don’t have dental insurance. If we don’t give it to them they’ll call in a lawyer. I talked to a dentist in town, got some information on how much this procedure might cost, and I negotiated a deal with the parents. It’s all taken care of. End of story.”

  “Delphine,” Maggie cried, “that is not the end of the story! The parents don’t want to call attention to the incident, but they’re ready to hire a lawyer to sue you? No, you have to call a lawyer of your
own. These people are trying to bully you. Who are they? What do you know about them? They could be con artists and—”

  “Look,” Delphine said, retreating a step. “We can’t really afford a lawyer right now. Things have been kind of . . . tight. And we absolutely don’t want bad publicity for our family. We’ll pay what these people want and everything will stay quiet. They’re not being unreasonable. Not really.”

  Maggie laughed in disbelief. “Not being unreasonable! Delphine, you’re being pressured into a deal that’s probably entirely unfair. If it were my daughter who—”

  “Well, it’s not your daughter,” Delphine almost shouted, “and it’s not your nephew. This is not your business, Maggie. You need to stay out of it.”

  “How can I stay out of it?” Maggie argued, undeterred by her friend’s vehemence. “What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t offer to help? Look, I could make a call. Gregory’s probably too busy right now, but I know several other lawyers in Boston who could probably give you a cut rate, maybe even take the case pro bono—”

  “I said, no. Thank you. Leave it alone, Maggie.”

  Delphine turned and once again began to walk off in the direction of the house.

  Maggie couldn’t help the words from spitting out of her mouth. “God, it is so frustrating dealing with you!”

  Delphine whipped around. “Frustrating?”

  “Yes, frustrating, because I don’t understand why you do the things you do. I can’t understand why you make the decisions you make. They seem so . . . They seem so self-defeating.”

  The look on Delphine’s face chilled Maggie. “Then don’t,” she said, “ ‘deal with’ me anymore. I didn’t ask you to come back to Ogunquit.”

  Maggie felt as if she had been slapped across the face. Delphine’s eyes were hidden now behind sunglasses. Her expression now was blank.

  “You’re right,” Maggie said finally, weakly. “You didn’t ask me to come back.”

  Delphine turned away again and this time Maggie let her go. It’s just like all those years ago, she thought, when Delphine walked away from our friendship. I’ve been rejected again. I’ve offered love and support and I’ve been turned away. When will I ever learn to give up? She thought it was Einstein who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

  When Delphine was out of sight Maggie got back into her car and, drained of energy and purpose, headed back to her hotel room.

  23

  It was about nine o’clock on Friday morning. Delphine had been at the farm since early morning, as usual. But around eight-thirty she realized that she wasn’t concentrating on her work. She was bothered by that conversation—well, that fight—she’d had with Maggie the day before. She left the office, got into her truck, and drove out to the beach. Maybe a brisk walk in the fresh air would help. She hoped that something would.

  She began to walk toward Wells, high up on the beach close to the dunes. A local man, Wade Wilder, was fishing down by the shoreline, as he had done every morning since his retirement. Wade, who didn’t like to eat fish, routinely threw back whatever he caught or gave it to a passerby. He was a nice man, but Delphine wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. She put her head down and hoped that he didn’t turn around and see her and think her rude for ignoring him. He was nice, but he was also a gossip. By afternoon everyone he had encountered would know that Delphine Crandall had snubbed Wade Wilder. The Crandalls had endured enough bad publicity in the past twenty-four hours.

  This morning the sand looked as if it had been freshly groomed. The tide was pretty far out, exposing what seemed like miles of beach underwater at higher tides. Way, way out on the horizon Delphine could see a pleasure craft, maybe a for-daily-hire fishing boat. She had seen hawks and even eagles wheeling in the sky over the dunes, but this morning her only company was seagulls and three grey pigeons.

  She rarely spent time at the beach, certainly never lying in a chair and soaking up the sun. She envied vacationers who could enjoy a slow walk on the warm sand or an afternoon frolicking in the waves without feeling guilty about being away from work. Well, maybe some, or even most, people on vacation did feel guilty or worried about being away from their jobs, but at least they had a vacation in the first place.

  And there it was, the stirring of self-pity, an emotion she usually fought off with energy. The fact was that she was being absurd.

  Yes, she definitely had been too harsh with Maggie, rejecting her offer of help out of hand, acting so defensively. But the truth was that Maggie’s showing up after all these years had shaken her, had suddenly highlighted certain things about her life she had been content to leave in the shadows. It had made her remember things she had fought strenuously for over twenty years to forget. It made her question some of the choices she had made for her life. And she didn’t like it.

  A seagull screamed loudly overhead. Delphine startled. She had lived with the sound of seagulls all her life, and yet the harshness could still surprise her.

  And yes, she was still a bit angry with Maggie for having shown up at the diner. Though really, Maggie had done nothing wrong. She was the one who had reacted badly. And she thought she knew why. Not long ago she had read an article about something called Social Comparison Theory. That was when people who started out at the same place, with pretty much the same advantages, tended, years later, to compare their achievements with those of their former colleagues. In her own case, she thought it likely that in the eyes of the “world,” she had not measured up as a person with a college degree should have done. She wondered what Maggie saw when she looked at her. She wondered if Maggie judged her life as somehow unfulfilled, inadequate, wasted.

  It was like those wrinkles on her face and age spots on her hands. She had known they were there. She had accepted them with some semblance of unconcern. But since Maggie had shown up, those wrinkles and spots had taken on significance; they had found a voice. They had become nagging, obvious reminders of the fact that she was almost fifty and had little to show for it, at least by certain standards. No husband, no children, no grandchildren. She hadn’t traveled much, she didn’t own her home, her parents did, and she hadn’t even bought a new truck in ten years. That her life was the way it was due to choices she had freely made suddenly didn’t seem to matter.

  Delphine felt sweat trickle down her back and realized that she had practically been running. She slowed her pace, but her mind continued to race along a path she knew was dangerous.

  What if all, she asked herself, or even most, of the choices she thought she had made freely had actually been forced upon her? The choice to leave Robert, the choice to come home to Ogunquit, the choice to let her friendship with Maggie die a slow death, the choice to work for the family farm rather than go to work elsewhere or establish her own business. Even the choice to stay with Harry all these years—could that have been foisted upon her in some way? She wondered if she had been living a life someone else wanted her to live. She banished the thought as preposterous. Because if the answer to that question was in fact yes . . .

  The beach was beginning to fill with vacationers, parents lugging coolers and lounges, kids racing ahead trailing Boogie Boards, young, single people in barely there bikinis and low-slung trunks. She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost ten o’clock. She had been away from her chores for too long. Besides, Melchior would be waiting impatiently for his mid-morning snack. Delphine half ran back to the parking lot, where her big old reliable truck stood waiting amid a sea of SUVs and sports cars.

  24

  At the same time that Delphine was walking along the beach, Maggie was walking along the Marginal Way. She remembered fondly the times her father would take her there, special times when they could be alone together. After walking the entire length, they would stop at Harbor Candy Shop on Main Street. Her father had loved the hard round candies with the watermelon flavor. She had loved those green jelly candies in the shap
e of a leaf and with the flavor of spearmint. And those round caramels with the white icing in the middle. They’d never told her mother about the visits to the candy shop. Mrs. Weldon would not have approved.

  Maggie stepped a bit off the path and looked out over the water. She had gotten her first kiss on the Marginal Way, under the partial privacy of a crooked old pine tree. The boy, whose name she had long ago forgotten, had been a tourist, in town with his parents for a week. They had met at the ice-cream shop in the Cove. The kiss, like the boy’s name, was forgettable. Well, in retrospect it was, compared to other kisses she’d received later on, like Gregory’s first, impassioned kisses. Now, Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she and Gregory had really kissed, other than a quick peck on the lips or cheek, a brief greeting or a hasty good-bye.

  She began to walk again, slowly. The Marginal Way was a just-over-one-mile-long path along the coastline, stretching from Perkins Cove to Ogunquit Beach. Only pedestrians were allowed, no bikes or Rollerblades or skateboards. The path was very narrow in parts, so strollers and wheelchairs and even slow-moving groups of tourists on foot could cause frustration to those behind. But the view of the magnificent Atlantic, and of the grey, craggy cliffs, and of the frantically eddying pools below, and of the soaring, cawing seagulls overhead made up for minor annoyances like oblivious tourists. The trees and shrubs along the Marginal Way were fantastically distorted by years of wind and rain. The people who had homes along the Marginal Way were blessed with a magnificent view year-round, even if in summer months that view included a steady stream of people in sneakers and baseball caps.