by Sofie Ryan
“Thank you,” I said. “No, I haven’t.”
When the waiter got to the table I ordered the turkey chili. Once she was on her way back to the kitchen I grabbed the last two tortilla chips from the basket Jess and Liam had been sharing.
“Are you really okay?” Jess asked. I’d talked to her briefly on the phone before I’d left to pick up Rose and Mr. P. for the visit to Legacy Place.
“I am,” I said. “I feel a bit sad, but I don’t think there’s anything else Nick and I could have done. So let’s talk about something else. Tell me how your day was.”
“Better than the last couple of days,” she said. “I was beginning to think I’ve been hexed. Tuesday my sewing machine jammed and I had to pretty much promise Lee Leigh my firstborn to get her to fix it on short notice.”
Lee Leigh—her first and last names really were the same—could fix anything that had a motor and even some things that didn’t. She was somewhere between forty and sixty; town scuttlebutt wasn’t exactly clear on that. However, she worked when she felt like it and no amount of begging, wheedling or outright bribery would change her mind.
“Then I dropped a container of tiny, tiny crystals I was using on a wedding veil. I didn’t get them all up off the floor. They’re still crunching under our feet. It’s like walking on Rice Krispies. And then yesterday right after lunch this couple—or maybe they weren’t a couple, I don’t know—got into an argument out in front of the store. I don’t know what they were fighting about, but I was about to call the police when she suddenly shoved him, yelled something like, ‘Eat dirt and die!’ and stalked away. I hope she’s okay.”
“Eat dirt and die?” Liam said. He looked at me. “I’m pretty sure you said that to Nick a couple of times, but you were about eight.”
“Did you recognize them?” I asked
She shook her head. “No. But he was wearing a really great 1970s vintage tan-colored car coat with a wide black plush notched lapel collar. I had one of those coats. I got it in a thrift store in Bangor. And she had a pair of hand-painted high-tops. Ladybugs, I think.”
“Wait a minute. You could tell the design on someone’s shoes from inside your store?” Liam said. He looked skeptical.
Jess eyed him as though he’d just suggested Tom Brady couldn’t throw a touchdown pass.
I leaned forward into Liam’s line of sight. “Jess. Shoes,” I said, holding up both hands as though the connection was obvious because it should have been. “It’s her superpower, Liam. She probably knows what size those high-tops were.”
“Six, maybe six and a half,” Jess immediately said. “Whoever she was, she had tiny feet.”
The waiter came back then with a big bowl of chili and a wedge of corn bread, butter melting on the top. She set the food in front of me and smiled. “Could I get you anything else?” she asked.
“No, thank you, this is wonderful,” I said. My stomach growled, loudly, as if to emphasize my words.
“Actually, you could bring another order of tortilla chips and salsa, please,” Liam said. He made a circular motion over the table with his index finger. “And this is all my check,” he said.
The waiter nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled around a mouthful of corn bread.
“Yes, thank you,” Jess said. “Not that this lets you out of the whole sweeping thing.”
Liam smiled at her. “I wasn’t trying to get out of anything.”
I looked sideways at Jess and held up one hand. “Number one, what is the ‘sweeping thing’? And number two, for future reference my brother rubs his left eyebrow when he lies.”
“I do not,” Liam said hotly, but I noticed he immediately dropped his hand over the top of his beer glass.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You’ve been doing that since you were eight.” I turned back to Jess again. “The sweeping thing?”
“The boardwalk is a mess,” she said. “It’s mostly dust and bits of construction debris from the work site and it’s getting tracked all the way down to the end. First of all, it looks awful; and second, that mess gets tracked into my store and everyone else’s.”
“I thought the boardwalk was supposed to be swept twice a week during construction?” I dunked a chunk of corn bread in my chili.
“Three times a week, actually,” Jess said. “I complained, but I’ve been getting the runaround.”
“And I’m sorry about that,” Liam said. “I promise it will be swept tomorrow, even if I have to do it myself.”
Jess grinned and leaned sideways, bumping him with her shoulder. “Nice to know there are real-world perks to being your pretend girlfriend.”
The waiter returned then with the chips and salsa. “Thank you,” Jess said, scooping up what seemed to be a third of the bowl of salsa with one chip.
“Are you two still carrying on with that ruse?” I said.
Rose, Liz and Charlotte had spent the better part of a year trying to get Nick and I together. To them it seemed like the perfect happy ending. They’d tried just about everything short of wrapping me in a big red bow and depositing me on Nick’s doorstep, and they probably would have done that if they could have figured out how to get me to stand still long enough to tie the ribbon.
Nick and I had come to realize that there just wasn’t any romance between us. He’d been in my life as far back as I could remember and I had had a crush on him when we were teenagers, but that had flamed out long ago. I would have done anything for him: climbed the proverbial mountain, given him a kidney, punched anyone who hurt him in the throat, but as Jess had so eloquently put it, he didn’t melt the elastic in my underwear.
So Rose and her cronies had given up on my love life and turned their meddling instincts instead to Liam’s romantic life. It had sounded like great fun to me, but Liam had done an end run around them and convinced Jess to go along with the pretense that the two of them were dating.
“Oh c’mon, Sarah,” Liam said. “You know what they’re like. They’ve decided I’m getting close to my ‘best before’ date.”
I laughed. “Okay, that had to have come from Liz.”
He nodded.
“All three of them are smart,” I said. “They’re going to figure out what you’re up to.”
“All I need is to get through the next month. After that I won’t be here full-time and Jess and I can ‘break up.’”
I looked at Jess. “I know why he’s doing this. I still don’t get why you are.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that he’s so cute when he begs.” She smiled at Liam and he smiled back.
People started to clap then and I looked over to see Vince Kennedy, carrying his guitar, headed for the small stage, followed by Sam and the rest of The Hairy Bananas. Sam caught my eye and smiled and I waved at him. Vince started playing the first few notes of Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” and the place got very quiet. It was probably my favorite of all the songs the band did, perfectly suited to Sam’s voice. I leaned against Jess and let the music wrap around me.
By the time the band’s first set was over my throat was dry and the back of my neck was damp with sweat.
“We’re gonna take a little break, but we’ll be back,” Sam said. He got to his feet and looked in my direction, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m just going to talk to Sam for a minute,” I said to Jess. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded. Liam was already two tables away, talking to Glenn McNamara. I raised a hand in hello to Glenn and then made my way over to Sam.
Sam Newman was tall and lean in jeans and a dark blue henley. His shaggy hair was a mix of blonde and white, more white these days, and he had a close-cropped beard.
I hugged him. “You sounded so good,” I said.
“I think the credit goes to the instrument, not the musician,” he sai
d, indicating the guitar leaning against the stool he’d just gotten up from. The guitar was a handmade Bourgeois Slope D steel string with a spruce top and mahogany sides, neck and back. The fingerboard and bridge were ebony. It was a beautiful instrument. Sam had bought it from me a little over a month ago and had been playing it pretty much steadily since them.
“You’re way too modest.”
Sam smiled. “And you’re biased.” He studied me for a moment. “I heard about last night,” he said, his smile fading.
“I think everyone has by now. You didn’t know Christopher Healy by any chance, did you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I didn’t. I knew Joe Roswell was suing him over a piece of land, but that’s all.”
“That piece of land out by Gibson’s Point; do you really think Joe—or anyone for that matter—could build some kind of inn or hotel there?”
“I don’t think anyone could build an outhouse on that piece of land,” Sam said. “At least not one that I’d want to set foot inside. The bay has been wearing away that stretch of shoreline since I was a boy.”
Vince Kennedy moved past us carrying a cup of coffee. “Hey, Sarah,” he said with a smile.
I smiled back at him. “Hi, Vince.”
“Liam’s not getting involved in that whole thing, is he?” Sam asked.
“Not as far as I know,” I said. “Why?”
“You know about this whole idea that the land can be anchored with some kind of fiber network?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Look,” he said. “I’ve had some tofu that’s been a little chewy, but I don’t see how you can make a substrate from what’s essentially fermented bean curd that will support a three-story building.”
Put that way, it did make the whole project seem a little unrealistic.
“Apparently Mr. Roswell does,” I said.
Sam shrugged. “Well, Robb Gorham is involved in this and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. His whole family can stretch the truth so thin you can see through it.”
I had chip crumbs on the front of my T-shirt. I brushed them off. “As far as I know, the only project Liam is involved in is this whole waterfront development. But I appreciate the warning.” I smiled at him. “I’ll let you get back to your adoring fans.”
“From your mouth to the big guy’s ear, kiddo,” he said.
I made my way back to the table, dropped onto my chair and pulled one leg up underneath me.
“My pretend boyfriend is flirting with another woman,” Jess said. She pointed across the room to where Liam was talking to Jane Evans. Whatever Liam was saying to her seemed to be good. Jane was smiling and nodding her head.
“I think your pretend romance is safe,” I said. “Gram and Liz roped both Jane and Liam into their project to save the sunflower window from the old library. That’s probably what they’re talking about.”
“Do you think they can raise enough money to keep the window from going to Singapore?” she asked.
“Gram and Liz,” I said holding up two fingers. “Neither one of them takes no for an answer very well.”
“They’re both pretty kick-ass,” Jess said. Something caught her attention then. She leaned forward, then smiled and nodded her head. “Six and a half, definitely.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “Six and a half what?” I felt like I was having a conversation with Rose.
“Those ladybug high-tops. They’re definitely a size six and a half.”
I stared at her. “Wait a second, is the ‘eat dirt and die’ woman here?”
Jess nodded. “Uh-huh. She’s on her way to the bar. Right over there.” She gestured to a spot left of Liam and Jane Evans. “See? Black pants, white shirt, dark hair, ladybug high-tops.”
I leaned forward, scanned the crowd and caught sight of the woman. Black pants, white shirt, dark hair, ladybug high-tops. “Wait a minute. That’s the woman?” I said. “You’re sure?”
Jess nodded, frowning at my questions. “I’m sure. Why?”
I slumped against the back of my chair. “Jess, that’s the bartender from last night.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“It’s a small place.” She shrugged. “You were at that reception last night and now you’re here.”
“I know,” I said. I watched the woman move behind the bar.
“What’s going on?” Jess asked. Her head was propped on her hand, elbow on the chair back.
“She knew him.”
“You mean the man who died.”
I nodded. “Yes. I saw them argue before she brought him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t the type of polite refusal you see when a bartender cuts someone off who’s had too much to drink. She was angry.”
“So why does it matter? Do you think there was something suspicious about the guy’s death?”
When I didn’t immediately answer her eyes widened. “That is what you think, isn’t it?”
I blew out a breath. “It’s what Rose thinks.”
“Is it what you think?”
I remembered how Nick had evaded my question about the cause of Christopher Healy’s death. “I’m not sure,” I hedged.
Vince Kennedy was passing close to our table. Jess caught his eye, smiled and beckoned him over. “Who’s the woman over there behind the bar?” she asked. “Dark hair, red lipstick.” She pointed with one finger. “Right there at the end.”
“That’s Cassie,” he said. “I don’t know her last name. Why do you want to know?”
“I saw some guy arguing with her out in front of my shop a couple of days ago. He seemed pretty mad. I just wanted to make sure she’s okay.”
“From what I hear, Cassie’s pretty good at taking care of herself. She was working demolition at the old hotel and hoping to get on with a crew to learn drywall and crack-filling on another of Joe Roswell’s projects, but it doesn’t look like that one’s going to get off the ground—at least not this year.”
“I haven’t seen her around here before,” I said.
Vince glanced over at the bar. “Sam just hired her for a few shifts.” One hand tapped against the side of his leg. Vince’s hands or feet were always moving. It was as if he was so full of music it just kept spilling out. “He knew her dad. You know he’s kind of a soft touch. Cassie has a little kid and a husband who was in a pretty bad car accident. Money’s kind of tight for them, especially since that chance to learn a trade fell through for her.”
He had to be talking about the project connected with the lawsuit.
“Thanks,” Jess said.
Vince smiled. “Hey, no problem. Most of the time the boardwalk is pretty safe, but there are a few people half a bubble off plumb hanging around sometimes.”
Jess laughed. “Tell me about it.”
Over on the small stage Sam had picked up his guitar.
“Showtime,” Vince said, heading over to join him.
Liam came back to his seat, swinging one leg over the back of his chair, just as Sam and Vince were starting to play. The second set was just as good as the first and I found myself wishing Nick were with us.
By the time Sam thanked everyone for coming and said good night I was pulling at the front of my T-shirt, trying to cool off. I dropped sideways onto my chair.
“Man, I’m going to miss this,” Liam said. He was still on his feet, still buzzing with energy.
“So don’t go,” I said. My foot couldn’t seem to stop keeping time to the last song.
Liam picked up his beer glass and when he saw it was empty put it back down again. “What do you mean, ‘Don’t go’?”
“Come live here.” I didn’t know why the idea hadn’t occurred to me before. “Buy a house. Rent an apartment. Move in with Nick. Move in with me.”
Jess gave him a sly
smile and raised one eyebrow. “Or move in with me.”
“Okay, obviously there was something in the salsa because you’ve both lost your minds.”
I rested my right forearm on the top of my head. It was warm in the pub. “I’m serious, Liam,” I said. “Hear me out.”
He held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. Make your case.”
“You’ve done some projects in passive solar design.”
He nodded.
“You got involved in the small-house movement and you used a lot of solar design ideas with that.”
“I did.”
“But your passion is old things, old buildings, saving parts of the past, reusing things the way you did with the windows and the trim when you renovated the sunporch for me.” I started tapping my fingers against the side of my head. “I’m the same way. Look how we grew up. We never lived in a new house. Remember how Mom and Dad would take us to a flea market and give us each five dollars to spend?” I couldn’t help smiling at the memories.
Liam grinned. “Remember the time we pooled our money and bought that wagon?”
“The Pepsi Flyer!” we both said at the same time.
Jess held up a hand. “Hang on a second,” she said. “The Pepsi Flyer? Don’t you mean the Radio Flyer?”
I shook my head. “No. It was the Pepsi Flyer. It was made from a wooden Pepsi crate, the kind they used to stack bottles in.”
“That was a good wagon,” Liam said. “I mean, at least until we hit the tree.”
“Is there a short version of this story?” Jess asked.
I thought for a minute. “Yes. Little wagon, little kids. Big hill. Big tree.”
She started to laugh. “You know the two of you were crazy hooligans, don’t you?”
Liam gave her his best wide-eyed look of innocence. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Jess got to her feet. She gave him a playful poke in the chest with one finger. “I’m starting to rethink this whole fake romance,” she said. “I think you’re too much of a wild man for me. I don’t want to get my heart broken.”
