The Summer I Dared: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re no good. Violence is all they know.”

  “There’s the Porsche,” Charlie said as a black car sped past.

  John ended his call. “Follow it, Charlie. We’re witnesses on this end. The INS has already boarded the big boat. They have the crew in custody. Now they want the driver of the smaller boat—or drivers, as the case is here.”

  Ian leaned forward. “They’re smuggling illegals in a lobster boat?”

  Noah confirmed the possibility. “Their boat’s a forty-five-footer. They could easily pack thirty or forty people in on one night. If they make a trip on each of three nights, all told they land over a hundred people and God knows how many kilos of smack.”

  “Smack,” Ian echoed. “Wow.”

  Noah asked John, “Do we think they were the ones who bombed Kimmie’s car?”

  “They know how,” John remarked. “They haven’t spent the last ten years in a church choir. My guess is we’ll find evidence of explosives when Charlie goes back to that house with a warrant. Right, Charlie?”

  Once they saw Haber and Welk park at the pier, board their boat and head to sea without running lights, and once that information had been duly reported to John’s INS contact, there was no point in hanging around West Rock. John guided his own boat in the other direction, and just in time. Exhaustion had suddenly hit Ian, who dozed off even during the brief ride to Big Sawyer, and Noah wasn’t in much better shape. They had been up for nearly twenty-two hours, much of that under severe stress.

  He still had one thing to do, though. When he arrived back at his parents’ house, he found that one thing to do sound asleep on the sofa. Her body was covered by the mint green and lilac afghan his mother had crocheted years before; her feet were covered by Lucas, who was now dry and fluffy and sound asleep as well.

  “She’s been cooking,” Ian whispered, sniffing the air. No garlic smell here. This smell was of warm chocolate, shortbread, coffee cake—made from flour, sugar, butter, chocolate bars, maybe cinnamon or vanilla extract, or aged remnants of them, which was likely all she had found in the house.

  “Go take a look,” Noah whispered.

  Momentarily revived, Ian left for the kitchen.

  Noah hunkered down beside the sofa and just looked at Julia. He guessed he could do that for hours any day, but all the more so now, sluggish as he was with exhaustion. He could watch her sleep. He could look at every one of her features, could trace every curve, but it wouldn’t be the physical that held him here. The beauty he saw went beyond that. She was peaceful. She was together, and reasonable, and compassionate. She was a giver, which was both a gift and a challenge. She was generous to a fault.

  And she was smiling.

  He smiled back. “Hi,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say.

  She mouthed the word in reply. A hand came from under the afghan and touched the stubble of his beard, then his mouth. She left her thumb on his lower lip. “Did you get them?”

  He nodded. “We got ’em good.”

  “No one hurt?”

  “No one hurt.”

  She let out a pleased sigh. “I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

  “Don’t be. You were exhausted. Driving all day, cooking all night.” He sobered enough to say, “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But I wanted to. I like cooking.”

  Ian appeared. His mouth was full, and his hands held more. He worked at chewing and swallowing, then said to Noah, “Wait’ll you see what’s in the kitchen.” To Julia, he said, “It’s all so good.”

  “All?” Noah asked. “You didn’t eat it all, did you?”

  “Nuh-uh. This is for you.” He passed a napkin filled with brownies, cookies, and chunks of some kind of cake. As soon as the hand-off was done, he went down the hall to his room.

  Noah sat back on his heels. Suddenly ravenous, he put a cookie in his mouth whole and grinned while he chewed. When he was done, he ate a brownie, then the cake. In no time the napkin was empty. He wiped his mouth, crumbled the napkin, and bobbed a little on his heels. When that felt good, he bobbed a little more. “I could be spoiled,” he finally said.

  “Everyone needs spoiling from time to time.”

  “Even you?”

  She nodded. “My mother made me coffee this morning. Sounds like nothing, but it was a treat. I felt pampered.”

  Noah’s smiled faded. “He never made you feel that way?”

  “No.”

  He took her hand. “I would.”

  “I know.”

  “But you want to take it slow.”

  “I have to. I’m at the bare beginnings of a legal process, and there’s a home to dismantle. I want to make things as easy as possible for Molly.”

  “But you came back here.” He clung to that thought.

  She squeezed his hand tight. “How could I not?”

  “Could you live here?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “I’ll tell you why not. Summer’s fun, but winters are bad.” Sandi had come back with him for Christmas one year, and had refused to do it ever again. “The island is bleak and cold and isolating then.”

  Julia smiled. “If you’re trying to scare me off, it won’t work. I can think of lots of things I can do when summer’s done.”

  “Like what?”

  “Go lobstering.”

  “I don’t do that in winter.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Go skiing.”

  “Not here,” she said sweetly.

  “No. In Vail, Aspen, wherever.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You can. But not lobstering.” He stood firm on that. “What else?”

  “I can take pictures of you lobstering.”

  “If you think that’ll get you in the door for the real thing, think again.”

  Her smile grew smug. “We’ll see. I can also work with Zoe’s rabbits. That’s so calming. And I’d like to learn how to weave. I used to knit and crochet, but I’ve never weaved. Zoe’s friends have looms. They’d teach me.”

  “They would,” he said, loving the image of Julia creating. She had an artistic eye. Her photographs told him that. “What else?”

  “Whatever comes up,” she said, growing serious. “I don’t want to be programmed. I understand that the past had to be. I went to school, I got married, I raised a child, I kept Monte’s house.”

  “You were his doormat.”

  “At times. But it’s like the accident held up a hand and signaled a time-out. Now I need to breathe. I need to regroup. I need to leave myself open to things that have meaning for me. Personal meaning. Does that sound totally selfish?”

  He was as serious as she now, because it was his future, too. “Not selfish. What you want is important. You need to be happy, Julia. You need to be satisfied and fulfilled. I would never want to stand in your way.”

  She was suddenly incredulous. “Stand in my way? But you’re part of what I want.”

  “I am?”

  “Oh, yes. I choose to be here. Like you did.” Using forefinger and thumb, she squeezed his chin. “The other night, while I was waiting to speak to Monte, I had a cup of tea. Know what the tag said?”

  He shook his head.

  “It said, ‘Real intelligence is like a river; the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.’ You don’t make noise, but you’re deep. I’ve had the other.” Slowly, meaningfully, she shook her head.

  Noah’s heart swelled. She hadn’t said those three words, but did he really need to hear them? What she had said was what he needed to hear.

  “If it weren’t for the boy,” he said, “I’d climb up there with you.”

  She actually blushed. After what they had shared the Thursday night before, that blush came as a surprise. But it was honest and sweet, one more thing for him to love.

  Epilogue

  Julia gave herself a year. She figured she wouldn’t need half of that time to realize that she loved
Noah, but she was gun-shy. She had loved Monte, too. Older and wiser now, she understood that defining herself in terms of one man or another wasn’t enough. Nor was defining herself in terms of her parents or her daughter. She needed an identity of her own and the confidence that would bring. Giving herself a year to develop those seemed like a plan.

  July was a month to coast. Everything was new, from the freedom of being with Noah, to the pleasure of watching him with Ian, watching her mother with her father, and watching Janet with Zoe. Even the sun felt new. It returned following the storm and stayed, bringing days that were warm, occasionally hot, but relieved by breezy nights.

  Julia and her camera became inseparable; it was her entrée to parts of Big Sawyer that she mightn’t have otherwise dared explore. She meandered around the marina where boats were being repaired, around Foss Fish and Lobster while the day’s catch was tallied, around the dock when lobstermen were doing the myriad little chores of their trade.

  Noah still refused to let her haul traps, but once the Leila Sue’s fuel tank was drained and refilled, the radio rewired, and he was satisfied that he had taken every possible backup safety measure, Julia was welcomed aboard. She spent many days photographing Ian and him at work. Other days, she spent time with Molly, who was truly unbalanced now that the divorce was real, and who needed coddling. And then there was Kim. With all of Artie’s cohorts in custody, she was no longer in physical danger, but she was determined to reshape her life in the aftermath of what had happened. She wanted to go to New York, and Julia knew New York. Together, they hatched a plan that began with Julia’s friend Charlotte hiring Kim to work in her boutique, and went on to include helping her find a small, rent-controlled apartment, sign up for courses at City College, and take the first steps toward contacting her dad.

  August was a month of legal doings, most notably a formal separation agreement and exploratory settlement talks. Monte’s lawyer fought to maximize his client’s holdings, and Julia understood that. It was part of the game. But she was prepared to play hardball. When Monte dared suggest that she had imagined his alleged affairs, she produced the shoe she had taken from the condo that night, at which point his infidelity became a given. He did argue about almost everything else, though, starting with the contents of the condo and ending with investments he had made over the years, and that kept the phone lines humming between Big Sawyer and New York.

  Julia wanted few of the material goods she had accumulated in the course of her marriage, nor did she want a large alimony check each month. She wanted a settlement that would give her a nest egg, assets enough to enable her to live with total independence. Part of that meant having money to spend on Molly, though she didn’t fear for the girl’s bank account. For all his other faults, Monte was desperate to have his daughter in his life. Once the legal proceedings began and he accepted that his marriage was ending, he bent over backward to reach out to Molly.

  Noah did reach Ian. The boy agreed to look at colleges before the start of school, but only if Noah came along. He apparently had it fixed in his mind that his father was more attuned to his personal feelings than his mother. Whether it was true or not, Noah was pleased to be involved.

  September was the prime lobstering month, the time when lobsters were fully grown in their shells, which meant that each lobster caught weighed more than it had back at the time of the molt. With Ian in school again, Noah considered hiring another sternman. In the end, he chose to work alone, though he was rarely truly alone. Julia went along often, both to keep him company and to take pictures. The local paper was regularly printing her photos now, often on the front page, so she had excuse enough. While she was there, she pitched in to help with whatever Noah allowed. The more she handled well, the more he let her do the next time. He absolutely refused to call her his sternman, but she didn’t need the title. Nor did she need an income, and they did fight over that. Staying at the hill house, she paid no rent, and her daily maintenance needs were few. Yes, Monte was stalling about producing financial records. But the separation agreement covered her needs.

  Noah paid her anyway. He tallied her hours and deposited money each week in the local account she had opened.

  October produced a phone call to Julia from a man who had seen her pictures in the paper, and who was writing a book on lobstering and wanted to illustrate it with more of the same.

  “A book? I can’t do a book,” she told Noah with a nervous laugh.

  “Why not?” he asked. “Photographs are the same whether they’re printed in the newspaper or in a book.”

  “But he has a publisher,” she argued. “He has an advance. This is more serious than working for the Island Gazette.”

  “That’s why you should do it,” Noah maintained. “Your pictures deserve more than local exposure, and they’re good, Julia. This man wouldn’t be asking you to do this if he didn’t like your work. Besides, you’ve already taken most of the ones he needs. A few more, and you’ll fulfill whatever agreement you sign with him. What’s the downside here?”

  After several days of grappling with her own insecurities, Julia agreed. Within two weeks, her name was on the book contract as the “photographs by” person. She used the initial money she received to buy a computer, software, and a printer sophisticated enough to produce ever better prints.

  Molly came up to visit during her fall break. She loved seeing Julia, Noah, and Zoe, but was nearly as excited to see her friends from the Grill. While there, she convinced Rick Greene to offer yogurt pancakes topped with kiwi at his Sunday brunch.

  Monte continued to waffle. He claimed that some of his major investments had soured. Julia’s lawyer put a forensic accountant on the case.

  Come November, the weather turned raw. The shortness of the days had already taken a toll on lobstering, and by the end of the month, Noah pulled his traps for the season. Haul traps, load up the boat, return to shore, unload traps, truck them to the trap shed for cleaning and storage—it was no easy task. Lacking the brawn needed for most of it, Julia kept the home fires burning, and Noah was right: She had photographs for the book done in no time, which gave her a sense of pride and accomplishment, not to mention more free time.

  The home fires, by the way, were largely at Noah’s house in town. Though she worked at the hill house, she had tired of sleeping alone— or perhaps not tired of it so much as found she wanted to sleep with Noah more.

  Falling into a comfortable routine, she rose each morning at dawn for breakfast with him. After he left, she read the newspaper online, answered emails, then headed out to help Zoe with the rabbits, to work on a loom with a friend, or simply to visit. Island people were interesting people, she found. They read. The shorter the days and the colder the air, the more they read. Fiction, nonfiction, sci-fi, mystery, biography— their tastes were as eclectic as the furniture in their homes. Give them a wood fire, a glass of mulled cider, and an easy chair, and they talked about those books for hours.

  Well, not only about those books. Gather a group of—especially— women, and the talk strayed to other topics. Julia might have kept at it forever, if she hadn’t wanted to be back at the house before Noah. He never asked for it, but the pleasure on his face when he opened the door and felt the warmth, smelled the food, and caught sight of her there was reason enough to return.

  December was for family. With the traps cleaned, examined for broken parts, and stacked in tall piles behind the shed, all needed pieces duly ordered, and the Leila Sue out of the water, Noah went to Washington. He visited the school where Ian studied and Sandi worked. He sat in the bleachers cheering the varsity basketball team, of which Ian was a member. He helped Ian with college applications.

  Julia spent this time in New York. The accountant had uncovered the heftiest of Monte’s hidden investments, which was reason enough for Monte to give up the fight. Julia chose to believe, though, that he was either feeling goodwill at the holiday season, or just growing up. Add to that the fact that she was more rooted elsewhe
re now, and seeing him wasn’t as painful as it had been at the start.

  The condo went on the market. Molly’s things would be moved to Monte’s new place, but Julia’s would not. She sorted through them all, deciding what to save and what to toss. It would have been a tedious task, had it not been for the wealth of distractions at hand. She saw friends. She saw Kim. She visited her old haunts and did her holiday shopping. And the treat at the very end? Ten days skiing in the Canadian Rockies with Noah, Ian, and Molly.

  In January, Janet turned sixty-five, so George threw her a party. It wasn’t a surprise—Janet would have never stood for that. She had loosened up since her time on Big Sawyer, but she still felt very strongly that there had to be plenty of hors d’oeuvres, because you didn’t call a party for seven o’clock with plans for dinner at nine and not feed people during the interim. And the food had to be good, she insisted, which was why the catering had to be done either by Fred of Elegance at Home, or by Susan of Mason-Dixon Eats. She let George pick which one.

  She also requested that Zoe come.

  Zoe was apprehensive. This was a family shindig, and she hadn’t been part of family for years. She feared she would be on display and would come up short.

  “How could Zoe possibly come up short?” Noah asked in disbelief. “She shines wherever she goes.”

  Julia cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Who was it who agonized over what clothes to wear visiting his son’s school? Who wanted to look totally urbane?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

  “You could never do that. I told you so at the time, and I say it now. Ian was so proud to have you there. I think he was actually disappointed that you looked so urbane. He would have preferred you wore an old T-shirt, so that his friends could see the tattoo.”

  Noah winced. “His mother hasn’t forgiven me for that.”

  “For your tattoo or Ian’s?”

  “Either one. But Ian earned it. After what he went through that day in the storm, how could I say no?”