The Summer Everything Changed

by Holly Chamberlin

  Isobel shook her head as if to clear away the uncomfortable memories. She got up from the bed, closed her door firmly behind her, and went downstairs. Gwen was just pulling up to the inn. Her visit was unannounced and very welcome.

  Isobel waited for her on the porch, under the huge hanging baskets of orange and yellow petunias. A variety of ornamental grasses were flourishing in the beds at the foot of the porch, along with a row of giant hosta plants that had fought the good fight against marauding deer. Quentin was to be thanked for that. He had spread some homemade concoction his family had used for generations around the plants, and whatever the magic ingredient, it had caused the deer to go off elsewhere to feast. The white wicker rocking chairs on the porch gleamed in the sun. Next to each one was a low table on which drinks and magazines and books or even feet might rest. At one end of the porch, a wooden love seat, painted white and amply cushioned, awaited tired guests.

  “My father cancelled our vacation,” Isobel said without preamble, perching on the railing. “Something came up at the office.”

  Gwen sank into one of the rocking chairs. “That’s too bad. You must be disappointed. And angry.”

  “Oh, I’m not angry,” Isobel lied, wondering why she was lying. Who was she trying to impress with a show of noble maturity? “Really. What’s the point of being angry?”

  “I’d be angry in your situation,” Gwen said. “I think it would be normal to be angry. Not to say you’re being abnormal . . .”

  “Thanks. Personally, I think I am an eminently sane teenager. Which is saying a lot.”

  The girls were silent for a time. Two massive blue jays were screeching at each other in an azalea bush, and an enormous local cat by the name of Ivan the Terrible was stretched out low to the ground, slowly and patiently but determinedly slinking his way toward the unsuspecting birds.

  “My dad is such a cliché!”

  Isobel’s sudden exclamation caused Gwen, absorbed in the antics of the fauna, to jump in her seat and the blue jays to fly off and Ivan the Terrible to turn his massive gray head toward the girls and glare.

  “I mean, midlife crisis much?” Isobel went on. “What did he do, read a how-to manual? Step One: Trade in the older wife for a younger model. And Mom heard that he upgraded his sports car again. I should have known something was up when he first bought the vintage Corvette. How boring! Next thing you know, he’s going to get hair plugs. Maybe he’s even wearing a man girdle!”

  “His behavior is a tad clichéd,” Gwen agreed calmly. “Look, I’m not trying to defend your father—he did cheat on your mother—but are you sure that’s all it was, a midlife crisis? Maybe he really wasn’t happy with your mom. Maybe they were incompatible deep down.”

  “Are you saying there’s something wrong with my mom?” Isobel’s voice squeaked in disbelief.

  “Of course not. Your mom is fantastic. It’s just that not everyone is meant to live happily ever after with a particular person. My dad Will was with someone for almost ten years before he met my dad Curtis. He totally thought he’d spend the rest of his life with that guy and then he was dumped. And then he met Curtis.”

  “And happily ever after?”

  Gwen shrugged. “So far.”

  “Well, I still think that my dad was a weenie for what he did to my mom, and to me. He duped us. He made fools of us.”

  “You are angry at him for canceling the trip. Admit it.”

  “I admit nothing,” Isobel proclaimed. “It’s no big deal. I mean, sure, I was looking forward to Newport, and he could have called me. Come on, an e-mail headed ‘sorry, kiddo’? ‘Maybe next year’?”

  “An e-mail? That was pretty lame.”

  “Well, maybe next year I won’t be available. We’ll see how he likes that!” Isobel shrugged and left the railing for the comfort of the rocker next to Gwen’s. “Okay, that sounded pretty childish,” she admitted. “But I do have a life and I can’t be expected to be at his beck and call, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, Vicky isn’t so bad. At least she’s smart. She was a trader on Wall Street at one point so she has brains. Not that I understand anything about high finance, but it might have been nice to spend some time with her. And her kids are cute enough. They were adorable at the wedding. Matching green velvet dresses with a crown of ivy in their hair. Well-behaved, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “At this point I wonder if they even remember me. I only met them at the wedding. Kallie and Karrie. I made a point of remembering who was who. L comes before R, Kallie comes before Karrie, meaning Kallie is older.”

  “That was smart of you,” Gwen commented.

  “Kids hate being called the wrong name. They understand the disrespect it implies.”

  “You’d make a good big sister.”

  Isobel huffed. “If I had the chance. But, whatever.”

  “Yeah. Their loss.”

  The girls were quiet for a time, during which Isobel was very stern with the resentful feelings that insisted on lingering in her heart. Or in her mind, wherever feelings really lingered. She did not like to feel bad or angry. She. Did. Not.

  Gwen broke the silence between them. “Did you ever really mourn the loss—relatively speaking—of your father?” she asked.

  Isobel laughed loudly and heartily. “Are you kidding me? I was an emotional wreck for weeks. Crying all the time, the whole thing. I wouldn’t even talk to him for, like, three months or so.”

  “Okay. But why did you stop crying and all that? I mean, were you really done with the grieving process or were you just bored with it?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Isobel asked. “Really!”

  Gwen raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Well, you know, patience isn’t your strong suit. It’s no surprise to anyone who knows you even a little that you like to keep moving, and fast.”

  Isobel silently admitted the truth of that assessment. Look at what she had been doing mentally just a few moments ago—chasing away unpleasant thoughts. But before she could frame an answer to Gwen’s uncomfortable questions, the sound of a motor and the appearance at the curve in the road of the car it belonged to intruded.

  “Who’s that?” Gwen said. “I don’t recognize the car . . .”

  “Oh my God,” Isobel whispered. “It’s Jeff Otten.”

  “How do you know Jeff Otten?” Gwen whispered back.

  “Never mind now,” she said, wondering if she should stand or stay seated or just go ahead and pass out.

  Jeff brought the car to a smooth stop in the drive and got out. “Hi,” he said, climbing the stairs to the porch and shifting his sunglasses to the top of his head.

  “Hi,” Isobel said. Still sitting, she gestured to Gwen. “This is my friend Gwen.”

  Jeff nodded briefly at her and looked back to Isobel. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by.”

  “Oh.”

  Jeff held out the bunch of loosely tied orange daylilies he had been holding down by his side. “And give you these. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  Isobel did stand now, and accepted the flowers. “Wow,” she said. “Thanks. They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

  Jeff smiled. “I’m glad you like them.” He pulled back the sleeve of his taupe-colored linen blazer and checked his watch. “Well, I’ve got to run. See you around.”

  Isobel just nodded. And she probably smiled back. She watched as Jeff got back into his car and drove off. If he had acknowledged Gwen in his parting, Isobel didn’t know. She was in a sort of daze. She sat back down in the rocking chair, bumping heavily into one of the arms as she did.

  “Ow,” she said.

  “So, spill,” Gwen directed when Jeff had reached the end of the drive, safely out of earshot. “Where did you two meet?”

  “In town,” Isobel said. “We literally bumped into each other. Wow. I can’t believe he brought me flowers. That was so nice of him.”

  “Hmm.”

  Isobel frowned at
her friend. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that they look an awful lot like the flowers from Mrs. Baker’s front yard. The woman down the road, the one with the antique carriage on the lawn?”

  Isobel laughed. “I know who she is. And daylilies are daylilies. How can you tell which garden they come from?”

  Gwen declined to answer the question. “You’re not seeing him or anything, are you?” she asked.

  Isobel shrugged. “No. Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “Just nothing. Probably exaggerations. I heard something once about his being a troublemaker.”

  Isobel laughed again. “That’s ridiculous. Jeff? He’s so nice. People are probably just jealous of him because he’s so cute and his parents have money or something. There are always people who can’t stand when other people are happy or lucky or good-looking.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Besides,” Isobel pointed out, “you were the one who warned me about how catty people in small towns can be. The rumor mill running twenty-four/seven and all.”

  “True. But . . .”

  “Anyway, this is only the second time I’ve laid eyes on him.”

  “Okay,” Gwen said.

  “We most certainly aren’t dating.”

  Gwen skillfully raised one groomed eyebrow. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  Isobel felt herself blush. “Well, would it be so terrible if he did ask me out and I said yes? Assuming, of course, my mother agreed.” And I bet she would, Isobel thought, remembering her mother’s almost glowing report of Jeff’s visit.

  “He’s nineteen, I think. Maybe twenty.”

  “So?” Isobel sat up as the thought finally occurred to her. “Wait a minute. Do you like him?”

  “God, no! I mean, he’s not my type at all!”

  “Whew. I mean, if you liked him I couldn’t go out with him. It wouldn’t seem right at all.”

  Gwen smiled. “You’re a pretty cool gal.”

  “You’re pretty cool yourself,” Isobel said honestly. “It’s a pact. No guy ever comes between us, okay?”

  “Okay. But can you imagine how many women throughout history have made that pact and broken it without blinking an eye? I bet the number is in the millions. Trillions, from the Neanderthals on out.”

  “Yeah. But it doesn’t have to be us. We don’t have to be a cliché of the backstabbing woman if we choose not to be.”

  “True. How many people really understand that they have the right, the ability, the privilege of making choices about their lives?” Gwen asked rhetorically. “Every single day, big choices and little choices. It’s like, so many people just walk around on automatic pilot . . . What a waste.”

  “Well, we know about choices,” Isobel stated firmly. “And we’re not going to grow up into zombie adults who do everything just like their neighbors do it and who dress exactly like the guy in the next cubicle and who—Gwen? Are you listening?”

  Gwen, whose head had swiveled in the direction of the side yard, abruptly turned back. “What? Oh yeah. Cubicles.”

  Isobel leaned forward to look off to Gwen’s left. Quentin was at the far end of the side yard, busy trimming a hedge. He was muscled but wiry, not far from skinny, and for the first time Isobel noted that he moved with a kind of masculine grace.

  Isobel sat back and laughed. “So that’s your type!”

  “It’s not because he’s good-looking,” Gwen said, defensively. “Well, it’s only partly because of that. He’s really smart and really nice. And his eyes are so brown. And when he smiles . . . Wow. It’s . . . just, wow.”

  “His hair is pretty great, too,” Isobel said. It was. It was a soft brown and loosely curled and made a kind of halo around his face. She doubted he ever had to comb it. Of course, Jeff’s hair was pretty great, too, even greater then Quentin’s.

  “So, what are you going to tell your mother about the flowers?”

  Isobel thought about that for a minute. Well, she hadn’t told her mom about meeting Jeff in town. So, how would she explain a “complete stranger” stopping by the inn with a gift of flowers? But maybe her mother wouldn’t consider Jeff a complete stranger. After all, she had met him. But would her mother believe that he had never met Isobel before today? Isobel’s right leg began to bounce as it often did when her mind was wrestling with something.

  “The truth, of course,” she said. But maybe she would just leave the flowers tucked away in the gardens out back, among their own stand of daylilies. If anyone noticed four flowers not rooted to the ground, they would more than likely attribute the destruction to the pesky groundhogs or the ravenous deer.

  “You know, daylilies are kind of an odd choice . . .”

  “Gwen!”

  Gwen grinned. “I’m just saying.”

  Chapter 13

  The Blueberry Bay Inn was fully booked for the Fourth of July holiday, which was a good thing, of course, but it also meant there was no holiday for its keeper. But that was all right. Louise had known the kind of life she was getting into when she bought the inn. Sort of. Knowledge gleaned from the reports of others was never the same thing as knowledge gleaned from your own gritty experience.

  So, while Isobel and half of the town was at Gwen’s family’s house for their annual blowout party, Louise was busy sticking a broom as far under the fridge as it would go without snapping. An olive had escaped from its container and she was damned if she was going to let it mutate into an alien life form in her kitchen.

  The job at hand wasn’t exactly mentally taxing, so as Louise poked, she thought about times past when the Bessire family would roll the Fourth of July celebrations right into Isobel’s birthday celebrations. On the Fourth itself there would be a visit to the town-sponsored fireworks after an afternoon barbeque at the Bessire house, to which the entire block was invited. On the fifth the Bessires would travel to Cape Cod for a lobster and clam chowder dinner. And on the sixth, Isobel’s birthday, the family spent the day in downtown Boston.

  While Louise and Isobel shopped, Andrew hung out at a sports bar; he was a rabid baseball fan. He joined his wife and daughter for cocktails at five (not at a sports bar) and then they went off for dinner at the Union Oyster House. That was Isobel’s unlikely choice. She loved the old wooden booths and the rickety stairs to the second floor. Plus, even as a small girl she had loved oysters Rockefeller. Go figure.

  “Aha!!” Louise cried. The olive, slightly smushed, had emerged. She picked it up with a paper towel and threw it into the trash.

  Next on her agenda, cancel the order for the tables and chairs Flora Michaels had requested and then rejected, and place a new order for a different set of tables and chairs. “Shouldn’t Flora Michaels be doing that sort of grunt work?” Catherine had questioned. Louise had shrugged. “Sometimes it’s just easier to go along than to try to fight her.”

  But there were some occasions when a good fight was in order.

  The happy couple, it seemed, would be staying in a luxury suite at a luxury resort in Kennebunk. Louise guessed there was a limit to their interest in old-fashioned charm, especially once the cameras ceased to roll. Blueberry Bay Inn was not the sort of place that offered Jacuzzis and in-room massages. So be it. But Flora Michaels had wanted to book James and Jim’s room for an “A-list surprise guest” who did enjoy roughing it at an old-fashioned inn. Louise had outright refused.

  “They are loyal guests and they’re paid up through the end of their stay,” Louise had said firmly. “There’s no way I’m kicking them out for anyone.”

  Flora Michaels had backed down, but only after Louise had agreed to find the “A-list surprise guest” a room at another inn or bed-and-breakfast, a near-impossible task as every room in town was usually booked months in advance of summer. (Where the hell were all the other guests staying at such relatively last-minute notice? A campground in Wells? It seemed the bride and groom didn’t know or care
. Neither did Flora Michaels.) After some finagling and promises she hoped she could fulfill, she managed to get the bigwig a room and called Flora Michaels with the good news.

  “Louise, dear,” Flora Michaels cooed, “how sweet of you to go to all that trouble! Unfortunately, our guest won’t be able to attend after all, something came up in Paris, so if you could just cancel that reservation, that would be awesome.”

  What could she say to that? When Paris called, you answered. And she never passed up an opportunity to do something awesome. Blushing with embarrassment, Louise had called the manager at Loon Isle and ate a heaping portion of humble pie. “You still owe me,” Gus pointed out. “Now I’ve got an empty room to fill. Again.”

  The new table and chair order placed online, Louise treated herself to another cup of coffee. She wondered what Catherine and Isobel and Flynn were doing at that very moment. Not only had she been forced to miss the party at the Ryan-Roberts house but also to miss (well, to postpone) Isobel’s birthday celebration. They had planned a day in Portland that was to include a massage at Nine Stones, a lovely spa on Commercial Street, lunch at the Portland Lobster Company, a visit to the museum, and, of course, shopping at all of their favorite stores.

  The night before, while she had been sitting with Catherine on her little deck, drinking wine, Louise had told her how bad she felt having to cancel on her daughter. Catherine had said what any good friend was supposed to say.

  “You’re not required to be a saint,” she had stated flatly. “End of story.”

  But there was more to confess. “I was a teeny bit relieved when Andrew called off their vacation,” Louise had told her. “Of course, it would be a positive thing if Isobel developed a decent relationship with Vicky, but I would probably like it better if they never met again. Am I crazy? I feel jealous of a relationship that doesn’t even exist but that probably should exist, at least for Isobel’s sake.”

  “Au contraire,” Catherine had replied, “I think you’re pretty gosh darn normal. What would be odd is if you were working to make Isobel and Vicky BFFs.”