by Mary Carter
Dessert was richer than the main course, something Bailey didn’t think was possible. Glasses of port were served alongside it.
“I’m going to tell him,” Allissa shouted. She sniffed her dessert, then pushed it away. Greg shook his head slightly, but Allissa was already leaning into Brad. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I was touched by an angel.”
“Touched?” Bailey said. “Like, fondled?”
“Bailey!” Brad said. It was a joke, but she and Greg were the only ones who laughed. Bailey openly, but Greg tried to hide his by coughing into one of the red linen napkins. Too much champagne had loosened Bailey’s tongue. She turned to Brad.
“What’s with all the reprimanding you’ve been doing tonight?” she said. “Am I embarrassing you?”
“Bails,” Brad said. “Please.” Bailey couldn’t believe it. He was embarrassed by her. In the few hours they’d been there, Allissa had shrieked, clapped, sniffed her food like a hound dog, said “preggers” and “pimp” at the top of her voice, and yet Brad was embarrassed by Bailey.
“I’m sorry, Allissa,” Bailey said. “Please continue.” Nothing like a little angel incest story, she added silently. Now, that one would have deserved a look. Thank God she held her tongue.
“I’m going out on the deck for a smoke,” Allissa said. “Would you care to join me? Hear my angel story?” She was looking at Brad, and Brad only. Bailey waited for him to tell Allissa that he couldn’t stand being around cigarette smoke.
“Of course,” Brad said. “I’d love to.” Bailey tried reversing the roles and giving Brad a look, but if he picked up on it, he didn’t show it. Allissa put her hands on Bailey’s shoulders.
“It’s a horrible habit,” she said. “You’re so lucky you’re not under constant pressure to be thin. God, I envy you.” Silence fell between Greg and Bailey the minute they were alone.
“I’ve heard the angel story a million times,” Greg said after a while. Bailey nodded.
“I didn’t mean to make fun of it,” she said.
“You were fine,” Greg said. “You certainly have a great sense of humor.”
“Thank you.” His gaze was so open and steady that she found herself looking at the view while he looked at her. She couldn’t even say for sure that he was coming on to her; perhaps having a boatload of money gave you the confidence to just sit and stare at someone like they were a painting or an odd piece of furniture, one you liked but that just didn’t quite fit in with the room.
“Tell me the angel story,” Bailey said.
Greg looked like he’d rather chew glass, but after a moment he gave her the CliffsNotes. “When she was ten years old she had a high fever. Woke up in the middle of the night and saw a young woman all in white sitting—or hovering, I guess—above her bed.”
“Huh,” Bailey said.
“I don’t think there was any touching involved,” he added with a wink. Bailey tried to control herself but ended up in another laughing fit that Greg seemed to thoroughly enjoy. He was more down to earth than she’d imagined him. Suddenly he leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he said. Bailey was aware of him, his scent, his gaze, his good looks. For some reason it made her ache for Brad. The old Brad. She wasn’t so sure about the one out on the deck tolerating cigarette smoke just so he could hear what turned out to be, in Bailey’s opinion, a very lame angel story.
“Sure,” she said.
“Clown Down was the worst book I’ve ever read.” Bailey exhaled. For a moment there she thought he had been about to say something a married man shouldn’t say. How could she have been so crazy? First of all, he’d only been married for a few months; second, he was married to a model. He winked at her as if he knew this.
“Much ado about nothing,” she agreed. “Much ado about nothing.” She forced herself to smile, and chat, and pretend she wasn’t counting the seconds before her husband came back inside. Maybe moving to the lighthouse wasn’t the worst idea. At least there she could keep him away from a model who not only looked like an angel, but believed in them as well, and Allissa’s handsome husband, who made her feel more wanted with a few looks this evening than her own husband had in months. When Allissa and Brad returned, Brad was grinning from ear to ear and Allissa was punching him on the arm.
“He slipped the waiter his credit card,” Allissa said to Greg.
“What?” Bailey said.
“Our treat,” Brad said.
“You shouldn’t have,” Greg said.
“We really shouldn’t,” Bailey agreed. When the credit card slip arrived, she was torn between wanting to watch Brad read the total and wanting to flee from the restaurant as if it were on fire. To his credit, only a wife could have seen the look of panic in his eyes when he glanced at the bill. His neck flamed red, and his eyes slowly met Bailey’s. She smiled. Could’ve bought another lighthouse, she wanted to say. The fact that she didn’t was proof that she was the best wife that had ever lived.
Chapter 10
“They call me Captain Jack. ’Course, that’s not my real name,” the ferry captain said. Twenty minutes on his small boat, and Bailey felt no closer to shore than when they started out. At first, she had been almost as excited as Brad to see the lighthouse. But the relentless rain was causing the small ferry to lurch up and down, and between that and Captain Jack talking nonstop, she was feeling queasy and trapped. Brad, however, was in high spirits. He threw his head back and laughed at Captain Jack’s-not-my-name. Bailey did not, even though the comment, and the ensuing wink, seemed to be directed at her.
“It suits you,” Brad said. “Doesn’t it, Bails?”
“Bails?” Captain Jack said.
“Bailey,” Bailey said.
“I think I’ll call you Bails,” Captain Jack said.
“Please don’t,” Bailey said. Brad stuck his arms out as if he could feel the wind blowing him back, even though they were inside the little ferry. Even the storm didn’t stop Captain Jack from telling bad jokes or pointing out the “sights,” none of which could be seen through the rain. And the less interested Bailey appeared, the more eager Captain Jack seemed to win her over. He was a tall man in his fifties, in good shape, with blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. Too bad he was such a talker, otherwise he fit the strong, silent type to a T. Maybe she should fix him up with Jesse.
Captain Jack held up his finger, readying them for yet another joke. Brad leaned in eagerly. Bailey looked around for a sick bag. “A man comes home to the wife. Honey, he says. The good news is—I’ve bought a lighthouse. The bad news is—I’ve bought a lighthouse.” Brad and Captain Jack laughed as if it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“Are we almost there?” Bailey said.
“Muhheakantuck,” Captain Jack said.
“Bless you,” Brad said. The two of them laughed again.
“That’s what the Algonquin Indians called the Hudson River,” Captain Jack said, once again looking at Bailey as he spoke. “‘The River That Cannot Make Up Its Mind.’ ” Bailey just looked at him and waited. Sure enough, he continued. “Its conflicting tide makes it flow both ways,” Captain Jack said. This time when he looked at Bailey, she could have sworn he was trying to insinuate something. Was he comparing her to the conflicted tide? Could he tell she’d yet to make up her mind about this whole lighthouse endeavor? Or were the waves and chatty ferry captain with the looks of a slightly aging cowboy putting her over the edge?
“What can you tell us about the lighthouse?” Bailey asked.
“She’s a beauty, all right,” Captain Jack said.
“See?” Brad said.
“What do you think of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast?” she asked. Brad shot her a look. Had she just stepped on some macho invisible line?
“Why, it’s a mighty fine idea,” Captain Jack said. “Wish I would have thought of it myself.”
“Right?” Brad said. “She already gets a lot of visitors, doesn’t she?”
/>
“She?” Bailey said. The men just looked at her. “It’s a lighthouse,” Bailey said. “If that doesn’t suggest using the male pronoun, I don’t know what does.” This time, when Captain Jack roared with laughter, Bailey had to smile a little herself. Then he clapped Brad on the back as if Brad had made the joke.
“I like her,” he said to Brad. “She’s a keeper.”
“And soon we’ll both be keepers,” Brad said. The laughter continued. Bailey, for once in her life, thought of her cell phone and wished she were a Twitterer. Oh, the things she would be Twittering this very moment, including signals of distress.
“Seriously,” Bailey said. “We’re getting close, right?”
“You don’t have your sea legs yet, do you?” Captain Jack said.
“You must get a lot of visitors if you offer this ferry service,” Brad said.
“Well,” Captain Jack said, “this isn’t my only job by any means, and it was always a dream of mine to have a boat. So when this baby went up for auction, I bought her.” He leaned into Bailey. “All right if I use the feminine pronoun this time? Boats have been traditionally dubbed a ‘she.’ ” He winked again, then turned back to Brad. “Holds no more than fifty people. ’Course, I’ve never had more than ten on her.”
“We don’t need more than a few people a night to make the B-and-B work,” Brad said.
“How do you know?” Bailey said. “We haven’t actually sat down and looked at the numbers.” Brad shot her another look. She was definitely embarrassing him. She couldn’t help it. And they hadn’t figured out any of the numbers.
Suddenly, Captain Jack’s arm shot out and he pointed straight ahead. “There he is!” At first all Bailey saw was a sheet of rain. Then she heard Brad inhale. She leaned closer to the glass window. Brad moved up behind her and put one arm around her waist. Then he pointed. She followed his finger, and there it was, high in the air, a gently pulsing light.
Once onshore, Bailey and Brad stood, hands clasped, staring. It stood in the distance, alone except for the cypress wooden fence that surrounded it, sturdy and hauntingly beautiful. Set on this little island, shrouded in fog, Bailey imagined it looked exactly the same as it had when it was built in 1849. Resting on a massive circular stone base, like a tray being held aloft, the Italian white stone keeper’s house with attached rectangular tower rising sixty feet in the air infused Bailey with an unexpected sense of excitement. Her nightmare had not come true—it was not a tuna can rising out of a swamp. She was so not Sorry, Charlie.
Not that she was thrilled. That would be pushing it. But this was it, this was happening, and she was going to see everything in a positive light—no pun intended, she thought, glancing at the tower. Living near a river wouldn’t be so bad, right? And New York City wasn’t too far away, just two hours downriver by train. Downriver. She was already talking like a local. What was it the ferry captain said the Algonquin Indians called this river? Muhheakantuck.
Bailey glanced back at the small ferry idling at the dock. The only other access to the island was a three-mile walk through the woods where the land finally met up with a main road. Most of their future guests would be coming out by boat. So would their furniture. Bailey didn’t want to think about that. Nor did she want to think about the hassle of going out for a gallon of milk. The nearest store, Island Supplies, was also back in the main town.
A rowboat was her husband’s solution. A rowboat. And he swore up and down he’d be the one rowing back and forth for the milk. Bailey felt like a mother listening to her child beg for a puppy. And everyone knew who would eventually be taking care of the puppy, taking it to the vet, and picking up its poop. Why not buy a zippy little motorboat or even a couple of Jet Skis? Didn’t her husband know she wasn’t a rowboat kind of a woman? Was there any chance they could get FreshDirect to deliver?
The knots were back in her stomach. Maybe she wasn’t excited after all, maybe she was just sick. What had they gotten themselves into? They were standing on a boardwalk with nothing more than two suitcases and a half-baked dream. By which she meant his dream—her other half. Desolate, Bailey thought. It seems so desolate. Although it was kind of cool that they actually owned a boardwalk.
Maybe Bailey would become a nature lover. They were certainly surrounded by it. Tall spiky grass, the expanse of the Hudson River, a chorus of birds, and strange ploppings in the water next to them that Bailey could only pray were fish. They’d only just landed, and she already missed the car alarms of Manhattan.
Brad grabbed her hand and squeezed. They walked slowly down the boardwalk toward their new home, neither of them wanting to rush the moment. Bailey was taking it slow because she was afraid of what awaited them, Brad because he was savoring it.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” Brad said. “This is our lighthouse.” He was speeding up now, going too fast for Bailey to keep up without slightly running. But even his quick pace didn’t stop Brad from schooling Bailey about the light. Technically the light would still belong to the Coast Guard. Access to Optic, they called it. The light was automated, set in a pattern of four pulses of light followed by one second of dark. The light was originally commissioned by Congress to steer ships away from the nearby shallows of this portion of the Hudson River. The lens that was now mounted in the ceiling of the Crow’s Nest was the third light to have a home in this lighthouse. The current one was a solar-powered industrial-looking thing—nothing to feast your eyes on, except he heard the effects at night were quite incredible. The first light was a kerosene lamp lit by whale oil and mounted with reflective mirrors. The second was a gorgeous fourth-order Fresnel lens. Fresnel lenses came in six orders, the first being the largest, the sixth, the smallest. Unfortunately, nobody knew what had happened to that lens, which with its brass frame and hundreds of prisms made of green glass and shaped like a beehive was as beautiful to look at as a rare sculpture, and just as valuable. Brad said he’d try and find a picture of one someday to show her just how incredible that lens was.
Bailey could imagine herself back in the 1800s when it was lit by whale oil. What it must have been like to carry heavy buckets of sloshing whale oil up to the tower. Oh, the marital arguments that little duty would have provoked. One of them would be curled in bed, trying to sleep in, the other poking their spouse in the back.
We’re out of whale oil.
It’s your turn to get it.
Where’s my harpoon?
I don’t know—where did you stick it last?
Bailey glanced behind them. Captain Not-Jack stood on the boardwalk, rain pouring down, unmoving.
“Please come in,” Bailey said.
“No ma’am,” he said. “But if you need anything, just pop into Island Supplies.” She followed his outstretched finger pointing off across the river. So not a rowboat kind of woman.
“Island Supplies,” she repeated. “Got it.” Brad was already waving good-bye with one hand while forging to the door with his feet. Bailey could have sworn Captain Jack was giving her a funny look, almost as if he wanted to warn her about something. Then again, how could she interpret such a thing through a sheet of rain? “You’ll come again,” she said. “When we’re settled?”
“No ma’am,” he said. “But I’ll be nearby if you need me.” And then he just disappeared, into the rain, off in a westernly direction.
“Hurry,” Brad yelled. For a moment Bailey was thrown back to Aunt Olivia’s home, watching her run in gym socks and sandals so Brad could show off his television reception skills. She started to run herself; it was a good idea, considering the rain.
No ma’am. He must have misunderstood her. He couldn’t have turned down an invitation to come inside at a later date. Was there a reason he wouldn’t come into the house, something they should know? Bailey didn’t have long to worry about it, Brad was already opening the door to their new home.
They stepped into a small entryway, most likely used as a mudroom. Here a second door beckoned, also closed. A gray mat and a
tall black umbrella propped in the corner were the only items in the space. The high ceiling ended in a small oval skylight. Brad was grinning from ear to ear, water dripping from his rain jacket. Bailey had to shut the main door. Brad hardly seemed to notice the rain coming in.
“This is incredible,” he said. Bailey grimaced. Although she was excited to finally see the place, she was a little irritated at his premature enthusiasm. Incredible? It was a mudroom. Who was acting the part of bogus real estate agent now? Everybody knew the lingo. Cozy meant tiny, and spectacular meant adequate, and sweeping view meant leaning out the window and swiveling your head from left to right. But a mudroom could hardly be incredible. “It’s a whole new world,” Brad said. He rubbed his hands together. Bailey wanted to grab the key out of his hand and poke his eyes out. Incredible or not, new world or not, Bailey was absolutely freezing.
“You should do the honors,” she said, gesturing to the door.
“I have the strongest feeling of déjà vu,” Brad said. “Do you feel it?”
“I can’t feel anything,” Bailey said. “Including my fingers and toes.”
“We need to savor this moment. This is an important moment.”
“Mental picture snapped,” Bailey said loudly, hoping volume would make up for lack of enthusiasm. “Open that door!” Brad glanced at her. She’d overdone it, sounded too game-showy. “Brr,” she said, in case he still didn’t get it. Brad put his arm around her as if to warm her up, but instead just mixed his wetness with hers. She was afraid to push him away. “Did you notice the captain wouldn’t come in?”
“Hmm?”
“Captain Not-Jack. It was almost as if he were afraid of this place.”
But Brad wasn’t listening. He was standing, hands at his sides, head tilted back, staring at the skylight. Bailey nudged him.
“Incredible!” he said.
“Brad,” she said. “I’m freezing.”
“Sorry.” He made a move for the door, inserted the key. He turned and looked at her. She pasted a smile on her face. God, she wanted to kill him. Her good mood was quickly going down the drain. He was ruining this for her, but if she let on, then she would ruin this for him. She couldn’t wait until she had her own copy of the key. “I wish we had a drum,” Brad said.
