The Bridge Tender

by Marybeth Whalen

  Fourteen

  Emily found Amber at her usual spot behind the desk, Facebook open on the computer screen. The girl didn’t even bother to hide it, her expression curious as she recognized Emily. “Hi?” she asked more than greeted. Emily thought she saw a glimmer of worry cross the girl’s face. “Can I help you?” Amber sat up straighter, fumbled with the computer keyboard, and Facebook disappeared from the screen. Emily wondered if she was recognizing her from her recent stay or from the night before. Of course Amber had been so absorbed in her mystery man that she probably didn’t notice anyone else last night.

  Emily could feel her heart pounding as she cast about for the right thing to say. “Um, I was wondering if you’d had lunch yet?” The clock over Amber’s head said 12:00 exactly. Emily doubted she’d eaten, hoped she hadn’t. Amber’s look in response told her she thought she was crazy. She found herself rushing to explain.

  “I stayed here a few weeks ago and then I saw you last night at the ice-cream store. In Ocean Isle? It just made me think of you and, um, I got the idea to bring you lunch.” She felt dumber by the second for letting Marta talk her into this scheme. They blinked at each other for a minute, neither of them knowing what to say. Sometimes, she thought in the silence, it’s better just to pray for someone and not feel the need to do something. That is what she would tell Marta as soon as she got the chance.

  And then Amber said something miraculous. “I actually haven’t eaten.”

  Emily let out the breath she’d been holding and smiled. “Great! I made my mom’s chicken salad. My friend says it’s the meaning of life.” She gave a little laugh. “I hope you like chicken salad. Wait right here!” She held up a finger and darted out, leaving Amber to determine, she was certain, just why she’d agreed to have lunch with a crazy woman who just might be a stalker to boot.

  But she’d invited her in, and that was the first step. Out in the parking lot she looked up at the sky and gave a thumb’s up, feeling goofy and out of her comfort zone, yet strangely euphoric at the prospect of being able to reach out to this girl. She felt more alive than she had in a very long time. The last time she’d felt her heart race like this was riding a borrowed bike back to this very motel on a warm, dark spring night, having just given a verbal offer to an old woman who had a house to sell. She pulled the lunch items from the car, thinking of the only other time she’d felt her heart race with that zinging erratic feeling of real living: whenever Kyle was around. But that was a silly schoolgirl crush, so it didn’t count.

  She balanced the items in her arms, making it back into the office with everything in one trip. As she entered the room, she saw Amber fiddling with her cell phone, then quickly put it back into her purse, a forlorn look on her face. Emily plunked the food on the desk. “I brought you croissants and chicken salad and fruit.” She grinned, pulling the bright yellow bag of potato chips out last. “And potato chips!” she said conspiratorially. She saw the requisite fast-food cup on the desk near the computer keyboard. “I just thought you’d like something home cooked.”

  Amber reached for the food with a grateful look on her face. “That actually sounds perfect. I’m not sure what made you do this, but I’ll take it.” The two were back to awkward silence. In Emily’s imagination they’d sat down and had lunch together, a conversation naturally opening up as they ate. She’d never considered that Amber would take the lunch and dismiss her entirely, an obvious sign of wishful thinking trumping actual planning. “Thanks?” Amber said, the question in her voice indicating she had no idea why Emily was still standing there like an idiot.

  “Sure!” she responded with a brightness she didn’t feel. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

  “Yeah . . . sure.” Amber was already using a plastic knife to saw into a croissant. She barely looked up. The poor kid was hungrier than Emily realized. She started to walk away, to leave her to eat alone, her heart in her heels instead of her throat. She’d done what she was supposed to, so why did it feel so bad? She waved good-bye and slipped out the office door, all the elation she’d felt moments earlier evaporated.

  She was walking down the sidewalk, her eyes downcast, when she ran smack into someone else—the guy from last night. Amber had called him and invited him to eat lunch—the lunch she was supposed to be eating with Amber, her magic chicken salad that was supposed to cause Amber to spill her closely guarded secret. Suppressing an urge to accost the guy right then and there, she merely mumbled an “excuse me” and stepped around him, heading for her car. She licked her wounds on the short drive home and spent the rest of the day sulking under the sun out at the beach, barely reading her newest novel as her thoughts kept returning to what a strange place Sunset Beach was turning out to be.

  She was watching her tiny television that night when someone knocked on the door, so lightly she had to turn down the set to be certain that she’d heard right. Her heart thrilled for a moment, wondering if Kyle was back. Instead she opened the door to find Amber standing on the other side, her red hair pushed off her face with a white headband, her bright green eyes flashing under the porch light. “Amber, hi!” she greeted. She wasn’t disappointed it wasn’t Kyle in the slightest, she told herself. This was much better.

  Amber held up the cut-glass bowl she’d put the chicken salad in for lunch that day. The bowl was a relic Ada had left behind like many of the other things Emily was still finding around the house.

  Emily reached for the bowl, embarrassed that she’d been so flustered in the motel office that she hadn’t even mentioned getting it back. Antique cut-glass bowls aren’t usually considered disposable. Unless, of course, they weren’t yours to begin with, Emily thought but didn’t say. In the bowl was the embroidered napkin she’d tucked the muffins into, still bearing a chocolate smear. Emily eyed it and debated whether to call attention to the fact that she’d left the mysterious muffins, which Amber had obviously already deduced. Instead she said, “Thanks so much for bringing this by! Would you like to come in?” She opened the door wider, searching the street outside to see if perhaps he was waiting for her, but she saw no car.

  “I walked,” Amber explained, slinking past Emily with her shoulders slumped, not meeting her eyes. But she was in the room.

  Emily closed the door behind her. “Have a seat,” she offered, gesturing to Ada’s couch, holding Ada’s bowl. She looked down at it, still in her hand. “I’ll just go put this away.” She hurried into the kitchen, fearing for some reason that if she lost sight of Amber, she would disappear. Her pull toward this girl was unexplainable, and yet with her appearance on her doorstep, it also felt reciprocated. Emily felt a shade less ridiculous than she had earlier. She peeked her head around the corner to see Amber perched on the edge of the couch as though she was, indeed, about to bolt. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

  Amber thought about it a moment. “Just some water? I’m kind of thirsty from walking.”

  Emily nodded and ducked back into the kitchen to fetch two bottles. One thing she would never get used to was beach tap water. She put one in Amber’s outstretched hand. “How did you know I lived here?” she asked.

  Amber shrugged as though she hadn’t given it much thought. “Heard you bought Ada’s house. Everyone around here knew her.”

  Every time she forgot how small Sunset Beach was, someone reminded her. She had a feeling that the residents—few as they were—were all interconnected, and that she would spend much time navigating all the loops and whirls that were their connections. She almost said as much to Amber, but chose to simply nod instead.

  “I just wanted to say thank you for the lunch. I’m not really sure why you did that but it was nice.” Amber gave her a small smile. “And delicious.” When she smiled her green eyes crinkled at the edges. It occurred again to Emily that she had no idea how beautiful she was. Most likely his recognition of that was the opening that got Amber’s older man what he wanted. It wasn’t that her beauty wasn’t there, she wished she could say to the girl, it was
that it hadn’t been recognized. She bit back the words and made small talk instead. Maybe someday she could pour into the girl in a deeper way. But they were far from that yet.

  Amber looked around the room. “The place hasn’t changed much since Ada left. I kinda thought you’d update it.” Emily picked up the disappointed tone in her voice. She’d expected a transformation and might’ve just been curious enough to walk over, the bowl an excuse to peek inside.

  “I hope to someday. I have some plans. But for now I’m just getting acclimated. Learning my way around. Getting into a routine. Meeting people.” She smiled to indicate that Amber was one of those people. Amber barely returned her smile and looked down at the bottle of water, picking at a curled edge of the label. Emily pulled back, recognizing she’d gone too far. She could see the fences going up. And yet she wanted the girl to know she had someone in her corner. It felt urgent and she knew instinctively that this wasn’t the time for looking cool. With Amber’s green gaze directed at the water bottle instead of aimed at her, she bolstered her courage, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead with what she’d hoped to say at lunch. This was her second chance and she couldn’t miss it. If the girl ran away screaming and avoided her for the rest of time, so be it.

  “Amber,” she began. “I wanted you to know that I know.” She waited for a beat to see if Amber would respond but she didn’t look up, although Emily noticed her hand stilled, the loose corner of the label left flapping. “I’m not going to tell you how I found out—that’s not important—but I wanted you to know that your secret is safe with me, and also that I’m here if you ever need anything.”

  Amber jerked her head up. “What secret?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “I don’t have any secrets.” Though she was trying to sound tough, underneath Emily could hear her voice wavering, betraying her.

  “I think we both know that’s not true, and I think maybe that’s why you came here tonight. Because maybe you need to talk to someone and you don’t know who to go to.”

  Amber stood up, putting the water bottle on the coffee table a little too hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady,” she said. “I brought your stupid bowl back to you because you did something nice for me today. And now I see that you only did it because you’re trying to get me to say I have some secret when I totally do not.”

  Emily could feel her heart racing and wondered if her face gave her away. Struggling to maintain composure, she took a deep breath as she stood.

  She looked back at her guest, who had taken several steps toward the front door, her eyes on Emily as though Emily might pounce on her, hold her captive like some crazy woman and not let her go until she spilled her secrets. “Look, I’m sorry. I have a longtime habit of this kamikaze-style helping thing. I didn’t mean to creep you out,” she said. She chuckled. “My husband used to give me such a hard time about it.”

  The mention of a husband, Emily could see, got Amber’s attention. “You’re divorced?” she asked, taking another step closer to the door, her movements stealth-like and calculated.

  Emily pressed her lips into a thin line. “Widowed.” She held out her arms. “This house was his last gift to me.”

  Score. She watched as her words hit home. The girl took in her age, her appearance, her presence in this room, understanding perhaps at least a bit more than she did before. She thought she saw something akin to sympathy cross Amber’s face. Maybe this woman—this strange, meddling woman who bought Ada’s house—could understand what it meant to be lost and alone, her face said. Seizing the moment Emily crossed over to her purse and extracted a pen and some paper. She scribbled her name and phone number on the paper, walked over, and put it in Amber’s hand. “You don’t ever have to do anything with this, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t at least offer.” Their eyes met—green and blue, the colors of the Atlantic Ocean. “Just call me if you ever need anything. Okay?”

  Amber nodded, mute, the fight and bravado gone out of her. Gripping the paper, she slipped out Emily’s front door without a good-bye, nearly jogging across the yard and away from the situation. But Emily knew better than anyone she wasn’t going to outrun her problems. She said a prayer that the girl would call her and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet salt air before she exhaled. She missed her husband. She missed her best friend. She even sometimes missed her parents. And strangely, she missed Amber as she disappeared from view.

  Fifteen

  The next day she went with Claire and Noah and Sara to the beach, suckered into it by two sticky faces showing up at her door just after the sun came up, the air around them smelling of syrup. Their knocks on her front door jarred her from a fitful sleep on the couch.

  “Mommy said you can come with us to the beach if you want to,” Sara said brightly as Emily opened the door bleary-eyed, still trying to focus. For a moment she had thought it was Amber returning.

  “You want to, don’t you, Emily?” Noah piped up as Emily began to realize where she was, what was happening.

  “Mommy said to tell you she’s already made coffee,” Sara added.

  After mumbling to them to wait a moment, she pulled a sweatshirt on over the threadbare T-shirt and shorts she slept in most nights. “Your mommy’s a smart lady,” she said and followed the children next door.

  The Connolly kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off in it, but the full coffeepot shone like a beacon in the middle of the warfare. Wordlessly Claire handed her a mug and pointed at the Splenda and half-and-half. She went straight to it, thinking of the night before, picturing Amber’s near-sprint away from her house. She could almost hear Ryan’s critique. Taking the place by storm, are we?

  You got me into this mess, she argued in her head.

  Well, you’re doing an excellent job, she heard him retort, that little chuckle lurking behind his words. He always did get in the last word if he could. And with Noah and Sara clamoring for her attention she’d have to let him.

  She moved over to their couch and took a seat, tucking her legs under her as she took a long sip of the hot coffee, inhaling the steam as if it would get the caffeine into her bloodstream sooner. She hadn’t been up this early in a long time. Soon enough she was joined by Claire, who offered her a plate of pancakes dotted with strawberries and slathered with both maple and chocolate syrup, topped off with a squirt of whipped cream. Emily shook her head and pointed at her coffee. “Breakfast of champions,” she said.

  Claire shrugged and dug into the plate instead. Emily wondered how the woman looked like she did when she ate like she did. But as Claire jumped up to clean up Sara’s spill, then jumped up again to pull Noah off the countertop before he toppled off it, she knew her new friend was constantly in motion. In the end she only got in a few bites of the pancakes before she lost interest and put the rest of the food down the disposal.

  She turned to Emily, who was about to pour a second cup of coffee for herself, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Please, please, please come to the beach with us today. I can’t be responsible for my actions if I’m left alone with these two monkeys for another day.”

  Emily laughed as Claire pretended to shake her, her eyes wild. “I’m serious!” Claire continued. “I’m not sure I can have any more conversations about Legos and princesses or answer any more questions about how hermit crabs find new shells to live in without committing hari-kari. Rick comes in tonight and I just need a little help making it to the finish line.”

  Emily realized this was one thing she could do that would actually be helpful, that she couldn’t mess up. “Ha,” she wanted to say to Ryan, getting in the last word after all. She imagined him winking at her with that grin of his, aware that the ripple effects of his last gift would continue to keep spreading, reaching and affecting people in ways none of them realized yet. She couldn’t help but think this was what he intended all along.

  “Let me get my stuff together,” she said. “But first I’m going to need another cup of your coffee.”
>
  They spent a lovely day at the beach and Emily didn’t miss her novels at all. She quite enjoyed the break from her lonely routine, the company and clamor of a day with Claire and her children. Claire talked to her whenever the kids weren’t, which wasn’t often. Today she was the one answering questions about tides and tide pools, shells and sand dunes, a new source to probe for information for the curious monkeys, as Claire called them. Once she caught Claire making a face at her behind the kids’ backs as she fumbled for the answers to basic science questions that had been long forgotten after her own elementary school years. Perhaps if she’d been a science teacher she would’ve made a better companion. She didn’t suppose the kids wanted to discuss literary themes or character development.

  When Sara took Noah down to the water to wade at the edge, she collapsed on a towel with a dramatic exhale worthy of Marta. Claire eyed her with a grin. “Try doing it 24/7,” she said.

  “I don’t know how you do.”

  “I look forward to Friday afternoon all week long. Rick pulls his car into the driveway like a knight on a steed.”

  “I bet you give him the kids and run for the hills.”

  Claire tilted her head, pondering that. “I’m tempted, but if I did that I’d miss the little bit of family time we get. And I’d miss time with him. We don’t get much of that.”

  “You should let me babysit one night. That way you two could get some alone time.”

  Claire reached out and clutched her forearm, her strawberry-colored nails digging into Emily’s flesh. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.” The desperation in her eyes made Emily laugh out loud.

  “Sure I mean it. I’m right next door. People trust me with their kids back home—’course, they’re older kids—but how hard can it be? We’ll survive for a few hours.”

  Claire let go of her arm and flopped back down on her own towel, raising her hands in the air above her. “Glory hallelujah, a miracle has occurred! A bona fide date night.” She did a little shimmying dance, then rolled over and eyed Emily. “You’ll have to help me pick out something to wear!” she squealed.