Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  “The wrong direction,” Julian repeated ominously.

  * * *

  Charlotte spent the morning sorting through a ragtag collection of cups in leftover colors and designs, mismatched plates, napkins, picnic tablecloths, and plastic cutlery. Nicole had waved a dismissive hand at the pantry in which these were kept; she far preferred the real stuff to paper and plastic, and had suggested a wholesale cleaning. Charlotte figured she could help with this, at least.

  After filling two large bags, she drove them to the church. Though she kept her phone in her pocket, Nicole didn’t call.

  Having stowed her camera in the backseat, she continued on to the farm where Anna McDowell Cabot raised the chickens that produced eggs for so many island specialties. Anna was a rotund woman who waddled and clucked like her hens, but her clucking was informative. A lifelong Quinnie, she knew as much about the island as anyone. She talked for hours about the ways in which the island had changed, and, with Charlotte’s frequent rechanneling, how those changes had affected the food.

  Having been the beneficiary of herbal remedies for acid reflux, she considered Cecily Cole a saint. But when Charlotte mentioned Leo, she grew cautious. “He’s very private.”

  “A bad boy.”

  “Bad?” With a soft clucking, she considered. “Not so much bad, as misunderstood.”

  “By whom?”

  “Everyone for a while. He was an unhappy child. Now, he just keeps to himself.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “Oh”—a specious sigh—“a little of this, little of that,” which told her nothing.

  “He still grows Cecily’s herbs,” she tried.

  “Leo does not.” A wise smile here. “Those herbs grow themselves.”

  “Does he sell them?”

  “I never heard that.”

  “Does he give them to people who need them, like Cecily used to do?”

  “I guess.”

  “Does he trade them for food?”

  Anna frowned. “Why the questions?”

  Charlotte wasn’t about to suggest there were personal reasons, when there was reason enough on a professional vein. “Cecily’s been dead five years, but her herbs are going strong. We’re assembling a cookbook. How can I not ask about the herbs?”

  “You know what they say about curiosity and the cat,” the hen-keeper clucked.

  Charlotte certainly did. Curiosity killed it. Bob Lilly used to warn her about that, though he loved her questions and never once refused an answer. There was, of course, a rejoinder to the adage—and satisfaction brought it back—but Charlotte let it go. Having taken pictures as they talked and walked, she was more than satisfied with the interview. While others on the list could talk about specifics, Anna provided an overview that would be crucial for the book.

  Charlotte left the Cabot farm feeling a new enthusiasm. Wanting to share it with Nicole, she sent a quick text. When she didn’t hear back, she grew uneasy and tried calling, but Nicole didn’t pick up.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until late afternoon, when they returned to their hotel to pack, that Nicole was able to call Charlotte. Texting wouldn’t do it. She needed to hear a comforting voice. Julian was taking a shower—wanting to wash the patient from his body, he said. She stood in the farthest corner of the bedroom, hunched over the phone with her eyes on the bathroom door.

  “It’s me,” she said in a low rush. “I can’t talk long. If the shower goes off, I’m done. We’re heading to LaGuardia for a flight to Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” Charlotte asked in alarm. “What happened to Raleigh-Durham?”

  Thinking how glad she was to be able to share her frustration, Nicole murmured, “Postponed for a couple of days, and I’m not happy about Chicago, either. I mean, things were fine today. It wasn’t a heart attack, just a problem with the meds. His doctor wants to alter the dosage and give it more time, but my husband is impatient. We’re going to Chicago for a consult.”

  “Aren’t there other specialists in New York?”

  “Yes, but Julian knows who’s doing what where, and this one’s into different therapies.”

  “What kind of different therapies?” Charlotte asked with what sounded like rising alarm—but even that was calming for Nicole, who welcomed validation of her own worry.

  “This particular doctor is into stem cell transplants.” The words shimmied around in her belly. She pressed a steadying hand there. “Julian is willing to try something unproven, if there’s a chance it’ll work. This scares me to death, Charlotte, but he’s getting desperate.” The shower went off. Straightening, she spoke casually. “So Anna was good?”

  “Desperate to do something radical?” came the voice at the other end, but before she could answer, Julian opened the bathroom door. Toweling off, he came into the bedroom, eyes questioning.

  “Just letting Charlotte know I won’t be back tonight,” she explained.

  Charlotte exhaled audibly. “Okay. Well, you got my text. Anna’s a great resource.”

  “Did she give you her recipe for layered eggs?” Nicole asked lightly. “By the way, I don’t know why she calls it layered eggs, since it’s really about ham, zucchini, and mushroom, but she uses incredible herbs. Did she list those for you?”

  “She did.”

  “Good. I’ll do a test batch once I’m back.” She relished the thought, and it had nothing to do with food. Immersing herself in even this tiny bit of work was a respite. “Did you and Melissa Parker agree on a time to talk?” she asked. Melissa provided baked goods for the Chowder House, the Island Grill, and the Quinnie Café. Not only was she a must profile, but Nicole had given Charlotte a dream list of Melissa’s recipes for inclusion as well.

  “Tomorrow,” Charlotte said. “So you’re flying out tonight?”

  “We are.” She reverted to alibi. “It’s been tough on the family. I’ll do some cooking and bring over a few meals.”

  “How long will you stay in Chicago?”

  Now that he was off the offending drug and he knew he would live, Julian wouldn’t stay more than a day. He wanted to get to Duke before anyone suspected something amiss. Besides, the consultation was strictly informational. He had even offered to go alone, but in that case, Nicole knew she would get an abridgement of the discussion and would forever worry about what she had missed.

  She had a stake in this; she wanted to hear exactly what was said. “I’ll fly up Wednesday,” she told Charlotte. “Can you make it without me until then?”

  Chapter Nine

  CHARLOTTE HELD THE PHONE TO her belly for a long time after the call ended. Nicole wasn’t the only one who was scared. When it came to experimental treatments for MS, stem cell transplants held great promise. But there were stem cells—and then there were umbilical cord stem cells. Umbilical cord cells came from the blood that remained in a baby’s umbilical cord after it was cut, blood that was drained and whisked to a blood bank where it was frozen and stored for future need. The ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem cells didn’t apply here. This was blood. There was no egg, no fertilization. A baby couldn’t grow from it. But increasingly, in research labs and hospitals worldwide, stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood were being found to have properties for healing and regrowth in humans with different diseases.

  Such were the facts. Nicole surely knew them.

  But Charlotte knew something Nicole did not. She knew something Julian did not. If she had to tell what she knew, the damage might be catastrophic.

  Dreading that, she sat on the beach for a while. The ocean air was warm, blowing her hair, skimming her skin. She watched a gull swoop into the shallows for a catch, then a pair of sandpipers flipping stones in search of crabs. The sea was eternal, she told herself. Life went on. Traumas came and went.

  It was small solace.

  Needing a dose of comfort, she drove to the Chowder House for a lobster roll and fries, drove home again, and returned to the beach, where she proceeded to devou
r every last crumb in the bag.

  Did she feel better? No. If anything, she felt worse now, like a terrible fat friend.

  She needed to walk, and not to Leo’s. She needed to really walk. Heading for town, she moved as quickly as her stomach allowed, going faster as the clams settled, finally turning and running home. She wasn’t a runner. She had always wanted to be, but her knees disagreed. No doubt, they would be screaming by morning.

  The Jacuzzi in Angie and Bob’s bedroom would help. Nicole would have insisted, as would Angie, which was why she couldn’t do it. She was a traitor of the worst kind—betraying Nicole, betraying Angie and Bob, even betraying Julian.

  She was a bad person. If Leo Cole was, too, they deserved each other, or so her thinking went as she scrunched her mutinous hair into a wad and set off for the island’s tail. She was so absorbed in her own guilt that she didn’t hear anything—not the roll of the surf, the hoot of an owl, or the slap of her own feet—until she reached the Cole curve and the sound of hammering registered.

  He would be applying tar paper to the roof he had exposed the night before. She knew that even before she saw him at it. Moving steadily along makeshift scaffolding, he unrolled the paper left to right, and hammered nails at regular intervals to secure it.

  She watched for a while unobserved. For a bad guy, he had nice legs. He also had a tight butt, though his shorts were loose enough so that the shape came and went.

  “Can you hammer?” he finally called down.

  Not unobserved at all. “Can I hammer,” she murmured in wry affirmation.

  He gestured toward the second ladder. When she reached the top, he picked up a new roll of tar paper, anchored it, handed her a hammer and a tin of nails, and let her at it.

  Tar paper came in different weights. This one was of the heavier variety, which made sense given the climate. Until she had unrolled and secured a healthy swatch, it was awkward, but she refused to complain.

  “Utility knife?” she asked when she reached the edge of the roof.

  He walked it to her. Warm from his tool belt, it did the trick. She went back in the other direction, cutting again when she reached the paper he had laid. He touched her arm once to move her aside so that he could better work the edges together, but she was soon on her own again. When they finished one row, they climbed higher and started the next, then the next. In time, they reached the cupola, which was harder, closer. Their arms touched more than once, legs touched more than once, none of it unpleasant.

  The air was still. He was right about the wind being down at night. Or maybe it was just this particular night, capping another long summer day. Even with her hair off her neck, it was heavy and hot. Not that she was alone. The floodlight picked up streaks of sweat on Leo’s face and neck. He paused often to swipe at it with his arm.

  “That’s it,” he finally said, taking a long look at what they’d done before collecting his things and backing down the ladder. As soon as Charlotte was on the ground, he lowered the ladders and carried them away. He returned with two bottled waters, handed her one, and drank the contents of the other in an unbroken series of gulps.

  Charlotte was feeling better, like she had accomplished something, had earned her keep in an odd regard. She looked up at the roof. Still lit by the flood, it was dark and even. “That’s good-quality tar paper,” she said.

  “What’s the point of making the effort, if you don’t do it right?”

  She smiled. “I just read that in a book. The guy is building a boat and wants to use the best materials, which are taking forever to arrive, but he’s adamant about waiting.”

  Leo was staring at her.

  Puzzled, she stared back. “What?”

  “You read that crap?”

  “What crap?”

  “Salt.”

  She was amused. “What do you know about Salt?”

  “It’s all people are talking about.”

  “You read?”

  He frowned. “Sometimes.”

  “But not Salt. Because it’s crap. For the record,” Charlotte remarked, feeling proprietary of the book, “I don’t think it’s crap. I think it’s well written and tells a great story.”

  Leo stared for another minute, then said, “So does Moby-Dick. Lots of copies of that in the prison library.”

  “So they let you read there. That’s not so bad.”

  He turned up his lip. “I also learned how to pick locks and hot-wire cars.”

  “I’ll watch my Jeep. They used to say you stole money from the church box.”

  “They never caught me at it,” he countered, not quite answering the question.

  She shot a puzzled look at the house. “So how do you pay for repairs?”

  “Embezzlement.”

  Charlotte didn’t believe it for a minute. “Did you ever force a girl to have sex?”

  “I never had to. They were willing.”

  “Did you ever make one pregnant?”

  “I’m not that dumb,” he muttered and, seeming to have had enough talk, walked back to the house to turn off the floodlight. Then, in long strides, he headed off through the herbs. As he walked, he pulled his shirt over his head.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted as the moon glanced off his bare back.

  “Swimming. Go home.” He turned into the night woods and dissolved.

  Charlotte wasn’t about to go home. She wanted to see where Leo swam. If her calculations were correct, that path would lead to a stretch where the shoreline was rocky and forbidding. She and Nicole had never walked that far down the beach. Like broken pavement on the road, the message was KEEP OUT.

  Now, though, she could approach it from a different direction. If Leo had cut through the woods, so could she.

  She was about to do that when a rustling came from the bushes by the house. As the dog emerged, she held her breath. A black hulk in the moonlight, it looked first at her, then in the direction Leo had gone. She had no idea what its thought process was; she only knew that, after what seemed an inordinately long time, it set off after Leo. It walked slowly, plodding toward the woods. The word gingerly came to Charlotte’s mind. As she watched, she didn’t think the dog looked dangerous. She thought it looked old.

  It hadn’t gone after the doe or its fawn. It hadn’t lunged at her. She had never seen it do anything but lumber along. Old. She couldn’t rule it out.

  Not that she was taking any chances. She waited until it was gone, then silently followed. Something sweet hovered in the garden, but her focus was beyond. There was definitely a path. Forest brush snapped under her sneakers, but the surf grew progressively louder. Then it appeared, reflecting the moon like a light at the end of the tunnel. Large boulders, small rocks, and flat little stones flanked a patch of wet sand. Had the tide been in, that sand wouldn’t have been visible at all. Even now it was hard-packed. Leo’s clothes were there, alongside his boots, kicked off and askew.

  Hidden just inside the path, Charlotte searched the water. Moonlight bounced off the waves, which rolled gently in, but it was a minute before she was able to separate out a pair of arms. Pale white in the moonglow, they stroked steadily away from shore. A risky thing to do? She would think so. But he had to know what he was doing—had probably done this hundreds of other nights. He swam easily, rising and falling with the waves, seeming as comfortable in the water as he was on his roof.

  Mesmerized by the rhythm of those arms, the turn of his head when he breathed, an occasional kick that broke the surface behind him, she barely breathed herself until something wet touched her leg. Startled, she whirled around. It was the dog, looking up at her with baleful eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered shakily. “It’s okay. Good Bear. No harm.”

  Baleful? Or simply sad? In the rays of the moon that wove through the trees, she saw furrows on its brow, and patches of brown near its eyes and snout.

  Heart pounding, she extended a hand. The dog sniffed it for a minute. It didn’t growl, didn’t bare it
s teeth or back away—it actually seemed to want something more. She put her fingertips to its head, much as Leo had done that first night. Its fur was short and coarse on the flat stretch between its ears, but those ears looked silky. Curious, she touched them.

  The dog sat.

  Charlotte’s heart continued to pound, though no longer from fear. Now it was the pull of the moon, and before that the smell of temptation in the garden. She was hot. “I’m going for a swim,” she whispered to the dog. “Okay?”

  When Bear didn’t move, Charlotte looked at the sea again. Leo’s arms were distant, but they had reversed direction. He was heading in. If she planned to join him, it had to be now.

  “Stay,” she urged softly, and with only the quickest glance back to make sure the dog didn’t follow, she hurried to the beach. The moon was bright, turning the ocean into a play of contrast, midnight and silver, dark and light, good and bad. This was her life. She had no business being here. She was playing with fire.

  But that didn’t stop her from stripping down to her underwear and running into the surf. The water was cold, taking her breath for an instant, but she didn’t turn back. When she was thigh-high in it, she dove over an incoming swell and submerged in its wake. Surfacing a body length beyond, she gasped at the cold. Then, pausing only to locate Leo, she started to swim. Her body rose with each swell, working harder on the climb, but the effort warmed her. She stroked steadily until one ill-timed breath met the rolling surf. Just shy of swallowing a mouthful, she spit it out and, straightening, looked for Leo. She didn’t have to look far. He had stopped swimming and was watching her. Dark head, dark eyes, wet face white, he was as much a contrast as the rest of the world.

  Treading water, she remembered the warnings about Leo Cole. Just then, though, none seemed to matter. If Leo had done bad things, so had she. And danger? She had once dived off a cliff in Acapulco. It hadn’t been pretty, and she wasn’t about to repeat it, but she had survived and remembered the rush. Being in these waters with Leo couldn’t be worse.

  The surf brought him closer. She couldn’t tell whether he helped it with his hands, since they were submerged, as were hers. Her hair had come loose and trailed behind her. Only her head and shoulders broke the surface as she kicked to keep herself afloat.