The Bridge Tender

by Marybeth Whalen

  She had arranged to meet with Ada and Arthur to do one last walk-through of the house before she took possession at the closing. She found herself pausing to give Ada the space to say good-bye, her heart breaking a little each time the old woman’s voice quivered. Just before they left the house to head to the closing, she put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “I want you to know I’ll take good care of this house,” she said.

  There were tears in Ada’s eyes that she didn’t bother to hide. “I know you will. I prayed about who should have this house and I know you’re it.” She pointed at Emily with a commanding finger. “But I also know this is no place to be alone. This is a house for a family.” She gestured at the expanse of the great room/kitchen area behind them, filled with the old furniture she’d thrown in with the house simply because she didn’t know what else to do with it. “Lots of room for kids to play here, memories to be made. When our kids were little this place used to be full of wet bathing suits and shell collections, and this floor”—she gestured at the dark hardwood beneath their feet with a laugh—“used to always have sandy footprints tracked across it.”

  Together they walked out of the house, Ada linking her arm through Emily’s for both emotional and physical support. They were about to tackle the few steps from the front porch when Ada turned to take in the house one last time. She looked back at Emily, her eyes widening as if she had remembered something, but then seemed to think better of it.

  “Yes?” Emily asked, wondering what it was the woman was not saying.

  Ada waved her hand through the air, dispelling whatever thought she’d had. “Nothing, nothing. I’ll take care of it,” she said. As they made their way slowly down the stairs, she heard the old woman say under her breath, “If I can remember, that is.” But Emily didn’t press. She didn’t want any more advice from Ada, or anyone else for that matter, about what this next chapter of life was supposed to look like.

  Emily returned from her day of unpacking for one last night in her second stay at the motel, wanting a bed that was made, a television that was already set up and working. The first thing she’d done was to put the plaque with Jeremiah 29:11 in a prominent space in the house, to remind herself of that hope and future Ryan had said was coming for her, though it seemed out of reach at that moment. All she could see right now was work, work, and more work in her future. She was looking forward to Marta’s arrival the next day, both for her best friend’s moral support but also for her help with the physical labor of unpacking boxes. Her mom and dad had offered to come down, but Emily had asked them to wait until she was settled. The last thing she needed was her mother’s brand of help, which was synonymous, in Emily’s world, with critique.

  That afternoon standing in her new (old) house, she’d thought better of having them come anytime soon. There was still a lot of updating the house needed and she wondered if her parents would question her sanity at having picked this particular house. Indeed, at that moment she questioned her own sanity. Her emotional reaction to Ada’s story, the connection they felt as widows both trying to honor their husbands’ last requests, and the way the view of the backyard at sunset all seemed trivial months later in the light of day. She had a panicked thought: What if she’d made a mistake? She shrugged. It was buyer’s remorse, and everyone got it. Even she and Ryan had felt it when they’d bought their little starter home—not much but all they could afford at the time. She’d worried about the neighborhood being safe enough. He’d worried whether he could keep up with the responsibilities of home ownership like yard maintenance and household repairs. And it had all turned out okay then.

  Trying to block her erratic thoughts, she went to switch on the TV and veg out properly. But when she hit the remote, nothing happened. She began pressing random buttons, watching the blank screen to see if anything happened. But the screen remained black. There were moments when she missed Ryan more acutely than others, and this was one. She wanted him there to help her figure out why the remote wasn’t working. In their marriage he handled all the “technical difficulties,” as he called them, which basically meant he dealt with anything that ran on electrical current. She looked around the empty room, then, frustrated, called down to the front desk to ask what to do.

  The young girl answered, which didn’t surprise Emily. She’d yet to see the father. She wondered if he was even around and if the girl was covering for him somehow. Could a girl that young maintain a motel all on her own? More important, could she fix a broken remote? “Hi, this is Emily. Shaw. I’m in the studio room upstairs?”

  “Unh-hunh,” the girl replied dully.

  “My remote control isn’t working and I was wondering if you could fix it?”

  “I can bring you a new one,” the girl said.

  Emily thought about asking the girl to leave the office, felt bad for pulling her away from her desk. She was all alone, manning the phone. Then she thought of the last time she’d been there, how she’d seen the girl leaving another room. She obviously expected to have to visit rooms from time to time. “That would be great. I was hoping to watch something mindless, unwind a bit. I bought a house here and—”

  “I’ll be right up,” the girl said and hung up.

  She looked down at the dead phone in her hand and shook her head. Teenagers could be so rude. But usually she could find a way past the bravado and posturing and get to their heart. She liked to think that most of her students liked her at school. But none of them unnerved her like this girl, got her rambling in an attempt to create a conversation. She sounded like an idiot and she knew it. She’d have to play it cooler around her. Not act like she cared. And why did she care, anyway? Chances were she’d never see this girl again unless she made an effort. And yet there was something about the girl—the guy she’d seen flirting with her, the way she seemed alone all the time, the flat way she answered questions that told Emily the girl was quietly longing. But for what, Emily couldn’t say.

  Emily wandered around the room, her eyes straying to the black screen and the door, alternating between the two as the minutes went by. She walked over to the window and peered out, looking for the girl, but saw nothing but the parking lot and the pier beyond. Though it was the beginning of summer, the motel didn’t have that many guests, most people visiting Sunset preferring to rent a house and all that came with it. She smiled. A house. Her house. Hers.

  She sat down on the loveseat that came with the studio, taking the quiet moment to think of all she should do to set up the house. A list formed in her mind, one that got long quickly. She needed to buy new linens and get groceries—staples—and she wanted some new dishes for the kitchen, beach dishes, she’d come to think of them as. Happy dishes to eat fresh-caught shrimp from, forks to twirl pasta around the tines, glasses to fill with water, yellow rounds of sliced lemon floating on top. Her mother had offered to buy her something as a housewarming gift, perhaps she would ask for those things. And then she would pray about what faces would gather around her table to eat. Beyond the usual suspects, she hoped she’d find some new faces too, that Sunset Beach would offer her some new relationships with people who didn’t know her as Ryan’s widow first.

  She heard heavy footsteps lumbering up the stairs. She waited for the knock to tug open the swollen door, the girl’s green gaze meeting her own as she did.

  “Hi,” she said. She opened the door widely and gestured for her to come in. She watched the girl pass by, noting that she seemed a bit heavier than the last time she saw her. Too much sitting, not enough exercise, too much junk food. Emily remembered a large fast-food cup sitting on the motel desk, filled with soda. She would bet that there’d been fries and a burger with that soda. Maybe she’d start making healthy meals and invite the girl over. With no mother to tend to her, she was unsure whether the girl got many home-cooked meals.

  She retrieved the remote from the coffee table and handed it off. Amber pressed buttons just like Emily had done, also watching the TV to no avail. Finally she sighed
and put the remote down, crossing over to the TV set itself. She bent down and looked at the set, then crawled around behind it. After a moment she came back out, then walked over and pushed one button on the remote, the set blinking to life with too loud voices. Emily wondered why she’d even wanted it on once the canned laughter and grating voices of a sitcom filled the room. “What did you do?” she asked, impressed.

  “Plugged it in,” she said. Then she gave Emily a look that told her all she needed to know as to her opinion of Emily’s intellect.

  Amber gave a little wave and headed for the door, Emily casting about for something to say but reasoning it was best to let her get back to work. The girl was almost at the door when she stopped short and bent over at the waist, her hand covering her mouth. Emily rushed to Amber’s side, put her hand on her back. “You okay?” Her voice was barely a whisper in spite of the loud TV.

  The girl straightened up, her back stiff and proud as she did, her momentary weakness gone. She looked at Emily and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, then she hurried out of the room, leaving Emily alone with just the TV for company. She stared at the open doorway, wishing Amber had stayed, had told her what accounted for the depths of sadness she kept behind those startling green eyes of hers.

  She stepped outside into the breezeway, wanting to smell the salt air and wondering if it would’ve been better just to stay the night in her new house than to come back to this place. As she did she could hear a sound below. Someone retching into the bushes by the parking lot. She couldn’t see the face, but she knew who it was. She listened for the sounds to stop and then she heard footsteps walk away and the door to the office open and shut again. “Okay,” she said to the air. “I’ll help her.”

  She went back into the room, thinking of another sermon her father preached as often as he could, the gist of which was that we are all connected, we are all here to help each other, and the most random encounters are all part of a bigger plan.

  Nine

  When Emily checked out of the motel the next morning, she found Amber behind the desk, business as usual, no reference to what had happened. Even when Emily made a joke about being so dense about the TV, Amber only gave her a brief, polite smile in response. “You here alone again?” she tried.

  “Yep,” Amber said flatly.

  “Haven’t ever seen your dad around,” Emily ventured.

  Amber looked up at her, her green eyes as flat as her voice. “You won’t,” she said, then turned back to the computer. She didn’t even wave good-bye when Emily left.

  If she was supposed to help this girl she had a hard row to hoe, to borrow one of her mother’s phrases. She longed to cut through the pleasantries, look into those beautiful green eyes, grab the girl’s hands, and beg her to tell her what was going on. But that would scare the poor thing to death, not to mention be decidedly uncool. She would make up a plan to keep in contact with Amber, and somehow she would wear her down.

  When Marta arrived, she brought up Amber right away without even offering to take her on the “grand tour” of the house. Marta refused to offer her two cents until she did. So Emily did exactly what Ada had done that day in April when she’d gone on her tour, taking her through the main living area, then each of the four bedrooms—two on either side of the great room—before parading her out to the screen porch off the back of the house with the view of the yard and dock and water beyond. Emily had already carried two plastic chairs out to the dock and had even allowed herself a precious few moments to sit out there first thing this morning.

  Now Marta flopped down into one of the chairs and tilted her chin up to the sun. She waved Emily away. “You get back to work. I’m hanging here all day.”

  Emily grinned. “How did I know that’s what you were going to say?”

  Marta squinted up at her. “Because you know me so well. Surely you didn’t think I was going to come down here and work?”

  “If we both work hard, I think we’ll get the place set up in no time. Then we can go to the beach and sit out here as much as we want.” Her eyes flickered over to the bridge and back to Marta. She’d seen a sign on the town bulletin board when she took a walk announcing a meeting about the proposal for the new bridge and wondered if she should go. “How long are you staying anyway?” Emily asked. She’d envisioned Marta being a summer roommate, taking advantage of her friend’s unexpected inheritance by staying at the beach most of the summer. They were both off from teaching anyway.

  Marta didn’t answer, instead she abruptly stood up and began trudging to the house. “You’re such a slave driver!” she called out teasingly over her shoulder. “Work, work, work.”

  Emily followed, a premonition nagging at her as to why she’d avoided the question. But she didn’t want to know if Marta didn’t want to tell her. She knew she’d get around to answering the question eventually. “So getting back to my story about the girl at the motel,” she said, allowing the conversation to be the subject change they needed.

  She caught Marta up on her few encounters with the girl, adding up all the things she’d both witnessed and guessed at, creating a justifiable case for her immediate involvement, she thought. She waited for Marta to concur. What she couldn’t explain was why she was drawn to this particular girl. It wasn’t like she didn’t have her fill of teenagers at school.

  Marta and Emily worked side by side in silence, wiping down counters and shelves, before they added dishware and food items to them. Marta looked thoughtful but in no rush to render a verdict. Emily stole a few glances at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

  “I can see why you’d want to help this girl. And I agree it sounds like something’s going on with her. But I just hope you’re being safe—not looking for a cause just because you’re without one currently.” Marta put down the rag and spray bottle in her hands. “I think for a long time saving Ryan was your cause. And then for the past year just keeping your head above water was enough to think about. Now you’ve done this”—she gestured to the house—“really brave thing and maybe you’re kind of looking for a purpose in this new . . . chapter in your life.”

  She sighed, flustered. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess I mean just be careful. You don’t know anyone here. You don’t know anything about this girl’s father. Or . . . anything. I just don’t want you to get yourself in a mess here.”

  “Well, if I do, you’ll be here to bail me out,” Emily replied, giving Marta her best “it’s all right” smile.

  Marta closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “Well, that’s the other thing.” She met Emily’s eyes.

  “You’re not staying,” Emily said, the dull, flat tone of her voice sounding close to Amber’s from this morning.

  “I can’t, Em.” Marta’s face revealed how torn she was. She didn’t want to ditch Emily, but she didn’t want to leave a burgeoning relationship while it was still . . . burgeoning. Emily understood, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear.

  “He wants to take me to a baseball game. He wants to see that new summer blockbuster movie about aliens invading the White House. He wants to drive to a peach stand and come back and show me how to make his mother’s famous cobbler. He . . .” Marta stopped talking but the eager, happy look she’d gotten when she described the coming summer with Phil stayed on her face.

  Emily held her hand up. “I get it. I totally do. I’d do the exact same thing. It’s okay.” She thought of that first summer with Ryan with a pang. They’d had such a good time together, each experience as if they were the first people to ever have it. Falling in love was irreplaceable and she wouldn’t deny Marta the chance to savor every moment. But she hated the thought of being alone at sunset in the meantime.

  “I’ll still come down some. I can come during the week when Phil is working and stuff. You know you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

  Emily shrugged and put on her best brave face. The same one she’d used to convince her parents she didn’t need to mo
ve in with them after Ryan died. The same one she’d used the day she went back to work after the funeral. The same one she’d worn in front of Phil when he told her that Ryan had arranged for the house she now stood in. “I’ll have plenty to keep me busy here, I’m sure.”

  “You’ll see,” Marta agreed. “This summer will fly by.” She winked. “You’ll have your little project to keep you busy. Maybe you’ll change that poor girl’s life.”

  Emily pondered that for a moment. She didn’t feel qualified to change anyone’s life. But she couldn’t deny the pull she felt toward Amber, and the suspicion that there might be a reason for it.

  The next morning she awoke to the smell of something sweet and rich baking in the oven. Marta wasn’t one to cook much, but when she did, her delicacies made people sit up and take notice. She wondered if Marta had baked anything for Phil. That would probably seal the deal if it wasn’t sealed already. She smiled at the thought—taking joy in being able to feel nothing but happiness for her best friend.

  She entered the kitchen and watched silently as Marta bounced around, pulling a tray of muffins from the oven and resting them on the counter. She looked up to see Emily and grinned. “Thought I’d give you an excuse to talk to that girl.” She gestured to the muffins. “Chocolate chip,” she explained. “No teenager can resist them. Just ask my students. Even the most anorexic-inclined can’t say no.”

  Emily thought about Amber throwing up in the bushes and wondered, not liking the conclusion she came to.

  Marta waved her hand in Emily’s direction, dismissing her words. “You’re an adult. Any interest you take in her will scare her initially. You just have to get past that part.”

  Emily had to smile. This was not the first time Marta and she had tried to invest in people. Ryan used to call it their “meddling schemes.” He would say, “You two are like a steamroller and a jackhammer had a love child.”