Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  It wasn’t love or hate now, but admiration. Nicole wasn’t moving on. She was simply pushing one thing aside to focus on another.

  Inspired, Charlotte focused hard on the merits of the dish. “I like the lobster. And the crab. And I love the mussels. The shrimp feels…”

  “Overdone,” Nicole prompted.

  “But this was frozen, right?” She certainly didn’t want to imply that the shrimp had been miscooked, didn’t want to even hint at criticism when Nicole was in escapist mode. MS? Mind-boggling.

  Nicole chewed another mouthful. “Yes, frozen. Shrimping around here runs from December to April. They actually ended the season early this year because the catch was so big.” She singled out another tiny shrimp and chewed. “Definitely tough. And there’s already a crunch from the fennel, so I don’t need anything this firm. Maybe I should use cod instead of shrimp?”

  “That would work,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “But I do like this salad with it. And the bread.”

  The plan was to include menu suggestions with each recipe—what side would go with an entrée, what entrée would go with a side, what starter or sweet would complement each choice. Nickitotable.com was known for this. It was also known for presentation, which was why Nicole went to such pains to artfully lay out and photograph each meal. Of course, she didn’t consider either a pain. She loved doing it.

  Trying to follow her lead, Charlotte sat back now to look at the whole—a ramekin with a half-eaten pastry disc resting on what remained of a cream sauce chunky with seafood. Islanders didn’t dilute their seafood dishes with dozens of sides, hence the simplicity of salad and bread. But there was an element of Cecily Cole in the cream sauce. “The parsley adds just enough green.”

  “And the ramekins add a chestnut brown,” Nicole mused. “I got them at the island store a few years ago, and they weren’t expensive. By the way, I’m making a resource list to put at the end of the book. Not everyone has access to our ingredients, and it’s not like we can get fresh ones to them, but the island store ships ramekins, and since they’re locally made—”

  “By Oliver Weeks?” Charlotte cut in with an enthused grin. “Still? What a character. Big interview, there.”

  “The book has to focus on cooks.”

  “He makes implements for cooks.”

  “I don’t know if my editor will go for Oliver Weeks.”

  “Then I’ll interview him for me,” Charlotte vowed. “I can sell a profile of him in a snap. Still here? Wow. Still single?”

  “He’s dating Alicia Dean.”

  Charlotte was appalled. “Alicia Dean? Bo-ring.”

  “You’re only saying that because you thought Oliver was hot.”

  “He was hot.” Growing cautious, she asked, “What’s he like now?”

  “Wrinkled.”

  “Really? He’s not terribly old.”

  “Same age as Julian. Mid-forties.”

  Ten-plus years older than they were, which was one of the reasons Charlotte had never actively flirted with Oliver. Not that she’d flirted with Julian. Not that she’d ever thought Julian was hot. Not that she cared if Julian was wrinkled or gray now—other than as a bellwether of his health. To this day, she couldn’t give what had happened between them any explanation remotely related to physical attraction. Loneliness? Perhaps. She had just broken up with yet another guy she thought might be the one, so she could add heartbreak to the list of excuses. Add wine and exhaustion, and the outcome was doomed.

  “Alicia spent a couple of years on the mainland,” Nicole said, “so there’s a little more life to her now. She does PR for the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “The Chamber of Commerce,” Charlotte droned. “Now there’s an exciting organization, particularly since Quinnies hate tourists.”

  Nicole looked to be fighting a smile. “Day-trippers are okay. Dorey loves them.” She pointed at the potpie. “She’ll give me other Chowder House recipes, but I think this one’s worth including. Potpie is an island staple.”

  And potpies on Quinnipeague weren’t only for fish, Charlotte knew. She remembered ones that contained chicken, pork, and beef, though the latter was usually ground. “Shepherd’s pie,” she breathed in sudden euphoria. “Topped with mashed potato laced with horseradish descended from a plant in Cecily Cole’s garden. Think her son still grows it?”

  Nicole held up both hands and, in a very high voice, said, “Don’t go there, Charlotte. You know the trouble I already have in my life.”

  “MS isn’t trouble. It’s worry.”

  But those hands covered her ears now. “I don’t want to hear. We have to talk about the book.” She left the table to grab a folder from the counter and, as she returned, pulled out two sheets of paper. Pushing the first to Charlotte, she said, “These are chapter headings, beginning with BRUNCH and ending with SWEETS. My editor thought there should be chapters for STARTERS and SALADS. I did add STARTERS, since they can be a whole meal if the portions are large, but salads are part of the menu plans, so they’ll show up in different chapters. Besides, ten chapters feels right. See? I’ve already included POTPIE.”

  Charlotte also saw CHOWDER, FISH, FOWL, and FILETS, plus SIDES AND SNACKS. What she saw as she read, though, was Nicole in the kitchen, living and breathing food for the blog and the book. Charlotte wasn’t much of a cook, but when she was home, she ate. When she was bored or tense, she ate. And there was Nicole—at home, certainly bored at times, definitely tense—wallowing in food but thin as ever. Nervous energy had to be nearly as good as gastric bypass.

  “People of interest,” Nicole said, putting the second sheet on top. “My editor doesn’t know Quinnipeague, so I made this list myself. All of them are major players here.”

  Charlotte looked over the names, suddenly struck by how irrelevant these people were—how irrelevant the whole project was—compared to issues like illness and infidelity. And friendship. Friendship was definitely on the line here.

  Misreading her expression, Nicole spoke in a rush. “You don’t have to do these exact ones if you don’t want. I just kind of went through the chapter headings and listed some of the people I’d want to ask for recipes, and then picked people from that list whom I thought were interesting, but if they don’t interest you, they won’t interest my readers, so that’s a good litmus test. I mean, these are just suggestions.”

  “It’s your book,” Charlotte said, feeling like the worst kind of friend.

  “But you’re the writer.”

  “It’s your book,” she repeated, testier now. If Nicole had been more demanding of Julian, he would never have followed Charlotte to the beach. End of story. “You’re the one who knows your audience, and you’re the one who signed a contract. I don’t know what your publisher wants. And I haven’t been here in ten years, so I’m not the one to make executive decisions. Tell me who to interview, and I’ll do the interview.”

  Nicole had recoiled.

  Only then realizing how sharp her tone had been—and how old and one-sided her anger—she was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I’m probably tired.”

  “It’s everything I told you this morning,” Nicole wailed.

  “No. It’s cumulative. The last few months…” She let it go at the suggestion. Of course it was what Nicole had told her that morning. “But I really do want you to direct me in this, Nicki. You know what you’re doing.”

  Nicole didn’t look entirely convinced, but at least she didn’t argue the point. Rather, as they finished eating, she went through her list, gaining confidence as she explained why she had chosen each islander on it.

  Charlotte managed to express enthusiasm, though she had no idea how Nicole could so completely immerse herself in this. But then, Julian’s MS wasn’t news to her. She was used to smiling when things were dark. Charlotte had always thought of herself as the tougher of them. Not so just then.

  They finished dinner and cleaned up, and still Charlotte was thinking about MS. She felt she had a lot of knowledge now w
ith nowhere to go. What she wanted was to hear more about the different treatments Julian had tried. Four years wasn’t a long enough time to run out of options. Some of the blog postings she read were from patients who had gone from one protocol to another over the course of twenty years.

  But Nicole didn’t raise the subject; she simply lit the fire as dusk fell, grabbed Salt, and curled up on the sofa. Since she was further ahead than Charlotte, she refused to discuss the book lest she spoil it, and the more Charlotte asked, the firmer Nicole’s headshake.

  Charlotte picked up her own copy, but not even Salt could keep her mind from going places she didn’t want to be. For every three pages read, she had to reread two. Setting the book aside, she went to her room and returned with her knitting—though why she had brought it along, she didn’t know. The women on Inishmaan had started her on what they claimed was the easiest of their sweaters, and she’d actually finished the back since then. Was it easy? No. Thinking that a smaller piece might be more manageable, she had started a sleeve. Did she know what she was doing? No. She studied the pattern, knit half a row, unknit the stitches, and tried again.

  Eventually, she gave up and, sitting on the floor by the bookshelf, looked through picture albums. At one point, she got up to show Nicole a shot of the two of them, gawky and mismatched at thirteen, but Nicole held up a hand and shook her head no without taking her eyes from the page she was on.

  Putting the album away, Charlotte returned to the sofa. Salt was the story of a fisherman, his dog, and a woman who had burst onto the scene unexpectedly, but with whom he was falling in love. Each of the characters had a vulnerability that tugged at her heart. But even love seemed irrelevant to her right now. So she concentrated on the writing style, which was clean and succinct but musical, ebbing and flowing as the ocean would do.

  Thinking of the ocean made her crave air. Saving her place with the cover flap, she put the book aside and stood. “I need to move. Want to go for a walk?”

  There were tears in Nicole’s eyes when she looked up. “I can’t leave now. I’m at a really good place.” She swallowed. “And I want to call Julian. You go. I’ll leave the door open.”

  * * *

  Layering up with her humiliatingly perfect fisherman’s sweater and a scarf, Charlotte went out the kitchen door. But she didn’t head for the beach. She didn’t want to pass the painful stretch that would make her think of Julian. She didn’t want to think at all.

  So she made for the road, where she would be able to walk faster, and headed west, toward town. A minute later, she made a U-turn. Town was safe, and safe was okay. If she wanted distraction, though, risk was better.

  She walked at a clip back, past the Lilly mailbox and on, speeding up once her muscles warmed. Nervous energy? Oh yeah. She needed to get it all out—needed to exhaust herself if she hoped to sleep that night. And the fact of “that night” being only the second of her time here?

  Leave, a tiny part of her begged. Julian sick, Nicole needy, Charlotte feeling responsibility—this was the kind of tension from which she had always run. She could easily claim a problem that demanded she return to New York or, better yet, to the site of one of her stories. She could be on the first ferry out, whenever that was.

  But she kept walking. She couldn’t leave. Totally aside from the fact that Nicole was counting on her, it was a matter of self-respect. And besides, she’d been looking forward to this last summer on Quinnipeague. She did love this place.

  Not much to see now, though, she thought with a shiver as she gathered the mess of her hair and tucked it under her scarf. Darkness was dense this far from town. There were no cars here, no streetlights, no welcoming homes, and whatever glow had been cast from Nicole’s house was gone. Trees rose on either side, sharing the narrow land flanking the road with strips of field, and beyond was the rocky shore, lost now in the murk.

  But there was hope. As she walked, she saw proof of a moon behind clouds, etching their edges in silver and spraying more to the side. Those silver beams would hit the ocean in pale swaths, though she could only imagine it from here. But she did hear the surf rolling in, breaking on the rocks, rushing out.

  When the pavement at the sides of the road grew cracked, she moved to the center. This end had always been neglected, a reminder that Cecily didn’t invite islanders for tea. The fact that no repair work at all had been done said the son was the same.

  Turn back, a tiny part of her begged. Nicole was right; they could get plenty on Cecily without coming here. But to see the gardens again, this time with purpose? How to resist?

  She passed a string of birches with a ghostly sheen to their bark, but between the sound of the breeze in their leaves and, always, the surf, she was soothed. The gulls were down for the night, hence no screeching there, and if there were sounds of boats rocking at moorings, the harbor was too far away to hear.

  There was only the rhythmic slap of her sneakers on the cracked asphalt—and then another tapping. Not a woodpecker, given the hour. Likely a night creature searching for food, more frightened of her than she was of it. There were deer on Quinnipeague. And raccoons. And woodchucks, possums, and moles.

  The tapping came in bursts of three and four, with pauses between. At one point she stopped, thinking it might be a crick in her sneakers. When it quickly came again, though, she walked on. The closer she got to the Cole house, the louder it was.

  The creaking of bones? Skeletons dancing? That was what island kids said, and back then, she and Nicole believed it, but that didn’t keep them away. Bob and Angie had forbidden their coming here, so it was definitely something to do. Granted, Charlotte was the instigator, but Nicole wouldn’t be left behind.

  Feeling chilled now, she pulled the cuffs of her sweater over her hands as the Cole curve approached. That curve was a marker of sorts, as good as a gate. Once past it, you saw the house, and once you saw the house, you feared Cecily. As special as her herbs were and as healing as her brews, she could be punitive. Or so said the lore.

  But what was lore, other than imaginative efforts to entertain? Cecily was dead, and Charlotte was curious. A look wouldn’t hurt.

  Slowing only a tad, she rounded the curve. The thud of her heart felt good. She was alive; she was having an adventure; she was breaking a rule, irreverent person that she was. The salt air held a tang here, though whether from the nearby pines or adrenaline, she didn’t know.

  Then, like a vision, Cecily’s house rose up at the distant end of the drive. It was the same two-story frame it had always been, square and plain, with a cupola on top that housed bats, or so the kids used to say. But there were no bats in sight now, no ghostly sounds, nothing even remotely scary. A floodlight was trained on the upper windows, spraying unflattering light on an aging diva. And the sound she heard? A hammer wielded by a man on a ladder. He was repairing a shutter, which would have been a totally normal activity had it not been for the hour.

  Wondering at that, she started down the long drive. The walking was easier here, the dirt more forgiving than broken pavement. An invitation after all? She fancied it was. The house looked sad. It needed a visitor, or so she reasoned as the trees gave way to gardens left and right where Cecily had grown her herbs. In the darkness, Charlotte couldn’t see what grew here now, whether the low plants were herbs or flowers or weeds. She could smell something, though the blend was so complex that her untrained nose couldn’t parse it. Unruly curls blew against her cheek; wanting a clear view, she held them back.

  Cecily’s garden. There was power here. She could feel it. But a man on a ladder in the nighttime? That was risky.

  Her sneakers made little sound on the dirt as she timed her pace to the pound of the hammer. When he paused to fiddle with what looked to be a hinge, she heard a rustle in the garden beside her, clearly foraging creatures alerted by her movement.

  Alerted in turn by that rustle, the man stopped pounding and looked back. He must have had night eyes; there was no light where she was. Without moving a
muscle, though, he watched her approach.

  Leo Cole. She was close enough to see that, astute enough to remember dark eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a square jaw. She remembered long straggly hair, though a watch cap hid whatever was there now. He wore a T-shirt and paint-spattered jeans. Tall and gangly then? Tall and solid now.

  But thin-mouthed in disdain. Then and now.

  “You’re trespassin’,” he said in a voice that was low and rough, its hint of Maine too small to soften it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, refusing to cower. She had met far more intimidating people in far less hospitable spots.

  His eyes made a slow slide from her to the window and back. “What does it look like?”

  “Repairing your house in the dark.” She tucked her cuffed hands under her arms. “Is that so you won’t see the broken windowpane over there, or do you just like being reckless?”

  He stared at her for another minute. Then, holstering the hammer in his jeans, he climbed down the ladder, lifted a shutter, and, somewhat awkwardly, given its bulk, climbed back up. The shutter was wide, clearly functional rather than decorative. Though he carried it one-handed, he stopped twice on the way up to shift his grip. At the top, he braced it against the ladder’s shelf while he adjusted his hands, then lined up hinges and pins.

  He had one hinge attached but was having trouble with the second. She knew what this was about. She had worked with storm shutters. They were tricky to do alone.

  Resting the shutter on the shelf again, he pulled the hammer from his waistband and adjusted the hinge with a few well-aimed blows. Then he tried the shutter again.

  Watching him struggle, Charlotte remembered more about Leo Cole from her early days here. Not too bright, they said. Troubled. Stubborn. She had never known him personally; she was only there summers, and he ran with a different crowd. Actually, she corrected silently, he didn’t run with a crowd. A lone wolf, he did damage all on his own, and it was serious stuff. The stories included stealing cars, forging checks, and deflowering sweet young things.