“Things aren’t as dire as last month, thanks to you,” he said. “My mother and I are taking turns dropping in on Katy. And we all really appreciate what you’re doing for Gigi. I hope she’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all. Gigi’s fun to have around.”
Simon looked up, smiling again. “She is, right? That girl floors me.”
“Me, too. Have you heard her sing?”
He nodded. “She’s been singing since she could talk. And now she tells me she’s in a band with your sons?”
“That’s right. They’re calling themselves ‘the Misfit Toys.’”
To her surprise, Simon didn’t laugh at the name, but said, “Good for her. Gigi must get her talent from your side of the family. None of us can carry a tune.”
“We can’t, either. I mean, other than my dad. He loved to sing.” Ava had to swallow around the hard lump in her throat. “Dad used to play his music—rock and roll, mostly—whenever our mother wasn’t around. He taught us his favorite songs. Gigi must have learned them the same way.”
“That’s a nice legacy.”
“Yes.” Ava nervously lifted the bat off the wheel and carried it over to the other bats of mugs she’d made that morning and stored on open metal shelves. She switched on a portable fan to dry them faster.
“Did you make all these?” Simon came over to stand beside her.
“Everything but those.” She pointed to Gigi’s shelf, filled with about two dozen hand-built jars of all shapes and sizes. “Those are Gigi’s. She wants to try the potter’s wheel. I’ll probably teach her how to use it this week.”
“No wonder she loves hanging out here.” Simon walked around the shelves, examining the pieces in more detail. “How long did it take to make all these mugs?”
“About three hours.”
“My God. You’re like a little factory.”
“It’s not hard. Throwing pots is like dancing or playing the piano. Once you learn a shape, it’s locked in your muscle memory. Your body just goes through the steps. No matter how perfectly you make something on the wheel, though, the kiln can be unpredictable. Which reminds me: I’d better check mine.”
She crossed the studio to the separate room housing the gas kiln. She had finished the kiln room in a double layer of fire-resistant Sheetrock. For most of her bisque firings, she actually used a pair of electric kilns that she could set and forget, she explained to Simon, “but I get better results with glazes using this gas-fired kiln.”
“Fascinating,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the kiln. He was looking at her.
Ava was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of her clay-damp jeans and skimpy tank top as she checked the temperature cones through the kiln window. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“It’s Saturday,” Simon reminded her. “I was in Newburyport visiting Katy. Anyway, I have my own company and make my own hours.”
“What kind of company?”
“We develop and support software for different manufacturing companies.”
She was surprised. Simon looked nothing like any engineer or computer scientist she’d ever known; she would have guessed he was in finance or marketing. Or maybe one of those adventurers with his own TV show. “Do you live near here?”
“I have a condo on one of the wharves near Faneuil Hall, overlooking Boston Harbor. I paid through the nose for a waterfront view. But I wanted a place convenient to work. My office is near South Station.”
Ava nodded, wondering whether he was married. She glanced at his left hand. No ring. “Sounds like a nice place.”
He shrugged. “I’m still not sure I did the right thing. I wanted a place on the water so I could own a sailboat. But having a boat is like a second job. I hardly have time to care for it, much less sail it. The other problem is that the condo has one wall that’s all windows, and there’s this spiral staircase leading up to my bedroom. Sometimes I get vertigo coming downstairs, like I could plunge through the windows and plummet right into the water. I’ve only been there a year, but I’m already thinking I’ll have to sell.”
Ava was having trouble keeping up with this outpouring of information. The men in her life—Mark and Jack, admittedly a small sample size—tended to talk in single syllables. Why was Simon telling her all this? “I’m sure you’ll do the right thing. Maybe you could find someone to share your boat and half of the expenses.”
“Not a bad idea,” he said, and pointed to the shelves of finished pottery. “These are beautiful.”
“Thanks. Those are some of the pieces I’m taking up to a gallery in Portsmouth next week.”
Simon picked up a lamp glazed in a midnight blue and a pitcher finished in her signature Shino glaze, a warm reddish brown. The texture on the pitcher was rough; she’d scratched the finished pot with a comb and dripped white glaze over the brown rim.
“I like both of these a lot,” Simon said. “Could I buy them from you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “They hardly go together.”
He laughed. “Well, I don’t have much in my place other than a few sticks of furniture, so it doesn’t really matter. They don’t even have to live in the same room.” He glanced down at the objects in his hands. “How do you decide what to make?”
“I think I go more by instinct than any rational decision-making.”
“Yet you must make choices with every piece about size, texture, and glaze. Do you do that ahead of time, or as you go?”
Ava considered this. “I don’t know. When I first created that pitcher, I was thinking about the fields in Prince Edward Island, Canada, where my mom’s family is from, and how the wind used to mix the snow and dirt in swirls, like little red and white tornadoes. I think most of the pottery I make is a way of trying to re-create landscapes. We all carry our inner landscapes, don’t you think? Our memories can’t help but inform the objects we create.”
“For some of us, that information might fit on postcards.”
She smiled. “Postcards can be great art. Anyway, you can have that lamp and the pitcher. You don’t need to pay me.”
“Thank you. That’s very generous.”
To her surprise, Simon was blushing. The pink flush started below the open buttons of his shirt collar, where his skin was dusted with freckles. She had a sudden impulse to touch him at the base of his throat, to feel his pulse beating beneath her fingertips.
“Want to take a walk?” he asked. “I thought maybe I’d explore the beach a bit. I’ve never actually been on Beach Plum Island. It would be nice to have company.”
Ava hesitated. What if Simon could guess by her expression that she’d been thinking of touching him? Him, Katy’s brother? My God. That would drive Elaine completely around the bend. Katy and her mother probably wouldn’t like it one bit, either.
Well, Simon was asking her on a walk, not a date. No big deal. And a walk would certainly help loosen her back.
“Sure,” she said. “Let me just run inside and change.”
He waited in the kitchen while she dashed upstairs, stripped off her damp clothes, washed her face and hands, and rummaged through a basket of clean laundry. She dressed in a green T-shirt and a pair of Sam’s board shorts, then ran a comb through her hair. Her hair was as disobedient as ever. Well, never mind. Whatever she did with her hair, the wind would undo in seconds.
Downstairs, she found Simon seated on one of the rickety wooden kitchen chairs, his legs sprawled in a way that reminded her of Sam and Evan, of how her boys always stretched to occupy every inch of space in a room. “Great kitchen,” he said.
Ava followed his gaze around the room, taking in the yellow cupboards and cream walls, the broken bits of pottery she’d transformed into a colorful mosaic behind the stove, the African violets and geraniums growing in pots she’d made, and the pile of shoes by the door. The pile expanded day by day, making her sus
pect that some of the teenagers who were friends with Evan and Sam routinely forgot their shoes and walked home barefoot. Their mothers must be wondering where all those shoes were.
“I love this room, too,” she said. “I spend most of my time here when I’m not at the studio. A habit left over from when I worked for a caterer, I guess. That’s the first job I took when Mark and I split up, before I started teaching. I moved here with the boys and he kept our house in Newburyport. The oven was always on when I was catering, so the kitchen was the warmest room in the house. Money was tight back then.”
“Not now?”
Ava studied Simon’s long, serious face and remembered the granite counters and tony restaurant appliances in Katy’s kitchen, and what he’d told her about his condo on the wharf. She must look completely impoverished to the Talbot family. “No,” she said. “We’re doing fine now.”
“Good.”
Simon’s blue eyes were ringed in a darker blue, almost slate. He was studying her face so intently that Ava wondered whether there was glaze on her cheek. Probably. There usually was.
“It must be difficult,” he said, “being on your own with two boys.”
“I’m lucky. My boys are easy and I love my work.” Ava felt the heat rising in her neck and face. She didn’t need anyone’s pity. “What about you? Married? Kids?”
“Divorced. Almost ten years now.” He shifted, making the chair creak. “One son. Brook is seventeen and will start his last year of boarding school this fall in Connecticut. He’s spending the summer coaching hockey at a camp in Vermont.”
“Did you see him much before he went away to school?”
Simon looked confused. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Custody arrangements. I assume he lived with his mother.”
“Oh. No. He lived with me after his mother and I split up.”
Simon was frowning, probably offended by her assumption. She couldn’t blame him. Still, it was unusual for a judge to grant full custody to a father, especially if the father traveled like Simon did. His ex must have been unhinged. Either that or Simon had a great lawyer.
“You must miss him,” Ava said.
He nodded. “I wanted Brook to live with me through high school, but he really wanted to go away. Boarding school allowed him to stay in this country while I was working abroad. It was the right choice. It kills me that he’s applying to colleges in California, though.”
“I bet.” Ava couldn’t unleash her mind in that direction. She hated the thought of Evan and Sam leaving home, moving on in their lives without her.
They left their shoes on the patio. As they walked toward the refuge beach, Ava told him about the island’s history, explaining that the first settlers in the area were English, arriving by ship in 1635. The settlers had learned from Native Americans how to make preserves out of the small, sour beach plums that grew on the short gnarled trees populating the dunes. The sand was purple because of the crushed garnet stones, Ava added, and no bridge had connected Beach Plum Island to mainland Massachusetts until the 1880s.
“Before that, Beach Plum Island was a refuge for the ill, the brave, and the unlucky,” she said. “Smallpox and polio victims were sent here. Revolutionary War soldiers and shipwreck survivors landed here, too.”
“And you? Why are you here?”
She shrugged. “It was a cheap place to buy a house back when I got divorced.”
“And now you’re a saltwater woman, living on the beach.”
Ava smiled, embarrassed but pleased by the phrase “saltwater woman” and what it conjured for her: a woman who lived her life in rhythm with the sea, the shifting dunes, the whispering sea grasses.
Simon stopped to pick up a sand dollar. To her surprise, he tucked it into his pocket. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Ava looked up into Simon’s blue eyes, then had to lower her gaze. She was so attracted to him that it was easy to imagine that he could hear her heart pound above the surf. This is Katy’s brother, she reminded herself. Off-limits. “What is it?”
“I need to know why you’re being so nice to my family.”
“What?” She was startled enough to look up at him again.
Simon’s expression was guarded now, his eyes narrowed and wary. “Why are you being so nice?” he repeated. “Katy obviously broke up your parents’ marriage. That must have been hell on you. We weren’t happy about it in our family, either. My mother was certain your father was after Katy’s money, and we all hated to see her marry a man she’d probably end up nursing on his deathbed, which is exactly what happened. But we love Katy, so we accepted her choice, unlike you and Elaine.”
His words felt like sand thrown at her skin, unexpected and stinging. Ava dug her fists into the pockets of her shorts. “Don’t you dare lump me in with Elaine! Sure, I was upset by the divorce and its effect on our family, but I got over it. I’ve always treated Katy with respect, and if she says anything different, she’s lying.”
“She hasn’t said an unkind word to me about you. Or about Elaine. Ever.” Simon lifted his hands, palms up, shrugging his powerful shoulders. “But how could you be over it? If I were you, I’d be livid!” His voice was getting louder. “Your parents were struggling through your mother’s depression, as I understand things, and then Katy, this blond riding instructor—still a girl, really, barely out of college—busts your family apart like a grenade! How can you not hate Katy? Or at least resent her? And Gigi, too?”
Ava was so taken aback by his outburst that tears pricked her eyes. “Because I’m not like that! And this all happened years ago! Why do you sound like you’re accusing me of something? What have I done?”
“I’m sorry.” Simon ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to get excited. It isn’t what you’ve done, Ava. It’s what you might do. I can’t stand to see my sister in any more pain than she’s already in. Frankly, I doubt she’d survive it. If you turned on her, or hurt Gigi in any way, that would be the end of Katy, and I love Katy and Gigi more than I love myself. I need to protect my family from whatever it is that you and Elaine might want from us.”
“I don’t want anything!” Ava shouted. “Everything I could have wanted is already gone! Can’t you see that? My parents got divorced and we lost our house. Now my mom and dad are both dead!” Tears were streaming down Ava’s face. She turned around and started running home, not caring if Simon followed or not.
He did, of course, and grabbed her arm. She struggled to break free, but his grip was too strong. “Look at me!” he commanded.
She wanted to slap him, to wrestle Simon into the sand and kick him in the head. But Ava didn’t have any choice. Simon wouldn’t let go.
She glared up at him, not caring that her face was stinging with tears. “Are you happy now? Was this your goal, to make me miserable, too? Just like Elaine, Katy, and Gigi? Is that what you wanted?”
“Oh, shit,” Simon said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She snorted. “Well, thank God. I’d hate to see what you’d do if you meant to make me cry.”
Simon made a noise low in his throat and pulled her close. Ava rested her head against his chest, smelling his scent mixed with the sea and realizing that, once again, she was going to dampen Simon’s shirt. “Oh, shit, is right,” she said. “What a mess.”
He stroked her hair. “I just had to find out if you’re for real,” he murmured. Then he tipped her chin up and looked into her eyes, frowning a little, as if he was desperately memorizing her face.
Ava tried to pull away again, but Simon still wouldn’t let go. Instead, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. She tasted mint and the sea and something else, too, something so foreign on his lips that it took her breath away: desire.
Or maybe that was the taste on her own lips as she kissed him back, hard, holding on to Simon as if,
at any moment, a rogue wave might carry them both out to sea.
CHAPTER FIVE
Elaine groaned and rolled over. Or tried to, anyway, but something heavy was holding her in place.
For a minute she panicked, remembering how Ava had pinned her against the car last night and the terror of not being able to breathe. She started choking and opened her eyes.
She wasn’t with Ava. She was in her own bed, her favorite pink sheets and beige comforter tucked high up under her chin. How had she gotten here? She didn’t even remember driving home.
Elaine blinked and tried to sit up, discovered she could not. Somebody was pounding spikes into her temples. Gingerly, she lifted the covers and let out a gasp, blinking hard to clear her clouded vision. She had on the same clothes she’d been wearing last night, and the thing strapping her down was a man’s hairy arm.
Jesus Christ! What was a man doing in her bed? She never, ever brought men home! That was her cardinal rule!
Well, she’d just have to get rid of him fast. Then she’d start her Saturday the way she always did, with her favorite seven a.m. Zumba class and a smoothie from the yogurt place on the corner. She needed to sweat.
There was just one problem: by craning her neck and squinting at her bedside clock, she could see that it was already well past ten o’clock.
Elaine shook her head hard, as if she could somehow shake off her headache like a hat, but no. That just made her vision go blurry again.
She dropped her head back onto the pillow and closed her eyes, too afraid to turn around and see who belonged to that hairy arm.
• • •
Gigi wasn’t supposed to go to Ava’s on Saturday. Ava only expected her to work five days a week, four hours a day, for which she paid her the minimum hourly wage. Gigi would have gladly worked a million hours a week for free. That’s how much she loved pottery.
Today, though, she was going to Ava’s not to work or practice with the band—something else she couldn’t believe was happening, it was so freaking cool—but because Evan had finally invited her to see his drawings.
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