An instant message popped up on the computer screen. It was one of the interns, who had just read my email.
Grants on flood control? Rumton has flooding problems? It read.
No, but it could, I fired back, typing furiously. I don’t care if it’s a foundation that promotes mass transportation by pogo sticks! I want to know of every single grant over $10K the town could feasibly apply for.
Carrying two bowls of something that resembled lumpy cream soup, Pop joined me at the table. Almost immediately, Flush and Bandit materialized to beg. Or in Bandit’s case, to steal.
I pushed the laptop aside to make room in front of me. “What’s this? It smells great.”
“Chicken and dumplings. Eat up.”
I took a closer look, frowning. “What’s a dumpling?” Sheila warned me that country people would eat anything: calf brains, pigs’ feet, rattlesnake meat. Anything that walked or crawled and could be caught and cooked, she’d said.
“Just boiled dough, made from flour. Give it a try.”
I took a tentative bite and chewed. It tasted as good as it smelled. My appetite revved up and I dug in. “It’s like chicken noodle soup, but way better!”
Pop sat down to eat. “How’d you ever grow up without eating chicken and dumplings?”
My mother didn’t cook, I explained. Growing up, we ate most meals at the nearby twenty-four hour diner.
“What about your father? He cook?”
“I never had a father.”
Another instant message popped onto the screen and I angled the laptop so I could read it. It was Sheila, telling me to go easy on the interns. One of them was questioning her decision to pursue a career in the seemingly glamorous world of advertising. I put down my spoon to reply. Tell her that someday she’ll be able to terrorize a few interns of her own.
“Do you have to work while you eat lunch, too?”
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’m being rude. I don’t usually eat at a table.”
He stopped grinding a peppermill to give me a dubious sideways look.
“I mean I have a dining room table,” I continued. “But since it’s just me, I usually eat at the kitchen counter, or on the sofa. Mostly, I eat out.”
“Huh,” he said, shooing Bandit off his lap. I shut the laptop and apologized again.
“It’s bad for your digestion to eat and work at the same time. You might ought to take a break and enjoy your dumplings.”
Keeping Bandit at bay with one hand and eating with the other, I did just that. When we finished lunch, Pop cleared the dishes while I offered to feed Flush. Feeding people wasn’t so easy, but feeding a dog, I could do. Pop’s recipe was easy – two cups of dry food with a splash of olive oil.
I found Flush’s bowls against a wall on the kitchen floor and dumped the kibbles in one of them. The dog shoved his snout in and munched away. While he ate, I rinsed out the other bowl to fill it with fresh water. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the cream-colored opaque glass had a pattern of intricate tiny flowers and a large, flowing dragon. A metal band capped the rim. About the size of a punchbowl, except with a wide foot on it, Flush’s water bowl would have looked very nice as a home accessory. The food bowl was similar, but smaller. Together, the two would have looked great on my sofa table.
“These sure are odd dog bowls,” I commented. “They look like something I’d use in my apartment for decoration.”
“Like them that much,” Pop said, “you can have them.”
They were really quite striking, in a minimalist sort of way and I almost wanted to take Pop up on the offer. His generosity was genuine and I knew that he’d gladly part with the bowls simply because I thought they were pretty. “Where did you get them?”
“Been ‘round ever since I can remember, so they were my grandpappy’s. Found them in a box when I was searching for the coffee percolator. Ne’er did find the percolator, but figured the bowls would work well for the dog. He can’t tip them o’er.”
I decided against packing them in my luggage, even though I really wanted the pair because they were so unique. “Thanks for the offer, but I couldn’t take Flush’s bowls.” Mismatched and chipped, Pop’s dishes were out of fashion and in need of replacement. But the dog ate out of decorator bowls. I smiled, thinking that both seemed equally content. Their pleasure was in the food they ate, not what they ate it from.
Pop finished cleaning the kitchen and talked me into taking the rest of the day off. Chalking it up to research, I agreed to accompany him to his favorite crabbing spot.
After loading his Chevy truck with lawn chairs, coolers of ice, drinks, crabbing supplies, and a very eager Flush, we bounced over dirt roads for three or four miles before ending up on something that looked more like a hiking path than a road. The bumpy trail reminded me that I had to pee, and it suddenly struck me that we were miles from anyplace with a toilet. A mixture of pines, oaks, and wild brush enveloped the truck, scraping the sides, and being so isolated with an old man I barely knew was a strange feeling. On the other hand, something about Pop was comforting and familiar, as though I’d known him forever. The Atlanta version of Jaxie would have had alarm bells sounding in her head. But the Rumton version of Jaxie was much more relaxed, and my immediate concern was where I was going to empty my bladder.
We slowed. Recognizing the spot, Flush jumped from the truck before it came to a complete stop. Nose to the ground, tongue hanging out, and tail wagging like crazy, he bounded off to explore the path in front of Pop’s truck. Suddenly the woods cleared and the view was so incredible, I forgot about my complaining bladder. We parked at the edge of an expansive, flat marsh, interwoven with winding channels of perfectly calm water that mirrored their surroundings. Patches of tall wispy grass stretched toward a cloudless blue sky and a cluster of white birds with long beaks and even longer legs stood in a clearing.
Climbing from the truck, I could see a sliver of ocean beyond the marsh, perhaps a mile away. Like shimmering pale glass, it stretched along the horizon as far as I could see in either direction, and it was difficult to tell where the water ended and the sky began.
As I took in the magnificent view, Pop unloaded the truck. “Cold beer, m’dear?”
I accepted a can and we both took a swig as we settled into the chairs he’d put out. “Pop, this is awesome. What an amazing view.”
“Aye.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place before? When I went exploring, I ended up where the main road stopped. In a swamp, or wetlands, or whatever you call them. There was nothing there except swarming mosquitos. I had no idea Rumton butted up to something like this! It’s incredible.”
The corners of his mouth flickered upward in a brief smile. “A small town oft’ holds secrets and surprises. There is more to Rumton than you might think.”
“That’s for sure.” I breathed in the briny scent and tried to commit the tranquil scene to memory. I wished that I’d brought my phone. There’d be no signal, but at least could’ve taken some photos. My Samsung smartphone took incredible pics, especially outdoors. “This is a total surprise to me. I mean, people would pay good money for this view. But you can’t get a boat anywhere through here?”
He shook his head. “The channels are too narrow and too shallow, even at high tide. At low tide, they’re naught but puddles o’er a layer of silt.”
“There’s no way to get from here to the ocean?” I pointed to the shimmering strip on the horizon. “It’s like, right there!”
“Aye.” Pop pulled something yellowish and slimy from a cooler. “I reckon you could pull on a pair of hip waders and make the hike at low tide. Be pretty tough going, though. You’d sink with every step. Have to keep an eye out for gators and snakes, too.”
I almost dashed for the truck. “Alligators and snakes?”
“Got to live somewhere, just like us. Though this is more brackish water and they prefer the fresher water. For the most part.” He tied a piece of string around the slimy bait, tossed it i
nto the shallow water in front of us, and did the same with a second piece before handing me the string attached to it.
“What is that you’re putting in the water?”
“Chicken necks.”
My stomach rolled and I forgot about alligators and snakes. “Oh, gross!”
He shrugged. “Crabs don’t think so.”
Panting, Flush returned and plopped down between our chairs while Pop taught me how to catch a crab. He explained how commercial fisherman anchored crab pots and marked them with brightly colored buoys. But we only needed enough crabs to throw on the stove for dinner and the string method worked just fine for that. All we had to do was wait for the crabs to come tug on the bait and then scoop them out of the water with the long-handled net. Easy enough.
We held our strings and drank our beers while I questioned Pop about growing up in Rumton. “What was it like?”
A smile spread across his face and a network of laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. “I couldn’t imagine any better place to be a boy. Me and my friends, we could get lost for an entire day exploring these woods, tracking down the location of a particularly loud frog or climbing an old oak tree. We each had our favorite tree with branches that were low enough to the ground so as you could hop right on.” He pointed to just such a tree, behind where we sat. “Like that beauty there. It’s more than three hundred years old, I’ll bet. Maybe closer to four hundred.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen a tree that old before, and twisted in my chair to admire it. Stately and proud, the tree had a trunk thick enough for kids to play chase around. Its strong arching limbs stretched gracefully in several directions, a few touching the ground before turning back toward the sun. I envisioned kids scampering up the tree, daring each other to climb higher.
“I also loved spending time with my grandpappy.” Pop let out a sigh that was heavy with memories. “Every day was an adventure, especially on his boat. Some of my best times were on the water, even if we were anchored and playing cards or backgammon.”
I wondered what my childhood would have been like had I grown up in a small town with a father or grandfather. A weird sensation settled in my stomach and I felt a peculiar sense of loss, as though I’d been cheated out of something that all kids are supposed to experience.
He caught my expression and asked about my childhood. After a few minutes of trying to figure out how to explain it, I told him the truth. That, while my adolescence wasn’t particularly bad, nothing fabulous stood out in my memory. “Things were pretty basic for me growing up, I guess. As normal as they could be with a single mom who struggled to pay the bills. That is, until she learned how to use men to better our lives.”
Pop studied me with a raised brow, seeking an explanation.
Unaccustomed to talking so openly about my life, I shrugged and plowed on. “She was a beautiful woman and decided that she could just as easily date rich men as poor men. That’s how we got to eat at nice restaurants and go on vacations when school was out. She did the best she could to make a good life for me. But I never went tromping in the woods, or fishing, or,”—I tugged on my string—”crabbing. I never had a father. If we went on a trip, it was Mom and her current boyfriend, and me tagging along.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad, seeing new places during your summers. What did you do during the rest of the year?”
“Mainly, just school stuff. Play with my friends at their houses or on the playground. Swim at the YMCA. Have the occasional sleepover. When I got old enough, I’d go see a movie or hang out at the mall with my friends.”
He chuckled. “Me, I’d rather be anywhere than stuck inside a shopping mall.”
I grinned. “Well, me – I drool at the thought of spending an entire Saturday afternoon scouring the mall for bargains. It just doesn’t get any better than a shoe sale at Scott Cepada’s or a fifty-percent-off rack at Macy’s.”
“Maybe, but there’s only so much stuff a person can use.”
He was right, but I didn’t concede the point entirely. “Okay, I’ll give you that. I probably needlessly buy things, just because they’re on sale. But every once in a while, you find a treasure that you just can’t live without, even if you don’t really need it!”
The green eye sparkled. “Aye. Like my boat.”
As we sat and enjoyed the afternoon, the complete absence of people and traffic startled me. Unfamiliar sounds caressed my ear canals – the rustle of tree leaves rubbing together behind us, the piercing cries of seagulls in front of us, and what may have been the distant sound of the rolling ocean. I brought up the subject of Pop’s wife and asked why they never had any kids.
“Suzie ne’er got pregnant, much as we both wished it. Just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Well, I think you would have made a wonderful father,” I said, when something tugged on my string. I jumped and dropped my beer. With a splash, the can rolled into the water and my line went slack.
Pop chuckled. “Scared by a little blue crab, are you?”
“Of course not! I just wasn’t ready, and now I’ve frightened it off.” My first time ever to catch a crab and I blew it.
“No worries. It’ll come back. When you feel the tug again, pull in your string real slow.” He gave me the long-handled net. “As soon as you see the crab, scoop it up. Got to be quick with the net, before it lets go of the chicken neck.”
I waited and watched, but my line remained slack. Pop handed me another beer. I watched the line some more. “I forgot to tell you that I put an ad in the Rumton Review to see if anyone has information on Rumton’s history. I put your number in there, for people to call me. I hope that’s okay.”
He nodded. “Everybody knows everybody else’s number ‘round here, anyhow. What are you searching for?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. I suppose anything that might give me some clues on what Rumton used to be like. What people did for a living. How the town first got started.”
“That will help?” he said.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll learn something that will give me a fantastic idea.”
An almost imperceptible shudder moved across the slack string. I jumped to attention. “It’s back!”
“Pull it in easy. Get the net in position.”
Making sure not to lose the crab that munched on my bait, I pulled it to the surface and with a quick sweeping motion, snagged it. “Got it!”
Pop removed my crab from the net, explained how to hold it so I wouldn’t get pinched, and passed it to me. “Put it in the blue cooler there, Lass, and let’s see if we can net a few more.”
I’d barely gotten the cooler lid open when the crab went wild in my hand. I screamed and threw it towards the cooler, but missed. It scuttled sideways back into the water.
“It tried to pinch me!” I said in explanation. Flush sat up to bark at the disappearing crustacean. Pop laughed a deep, full-body belly laugh.
Determined to catch another one, I swung my chicken neck back into position. It flew off the end of the string.
“How about I cook us a few steaks on the grill tonight?” Pop half said and half laughed. “You can put together a salad, eh?”
I pretended to be offended. “Yes, I know how to make a salad.” Sort of.
“Tide’s headed out anyway. Can’t catch much during low tide. Blue crabs are swimmers.”
Still chuckling, Pop pulled out an ancient-looking camera and snapped a few pictures of me and Flush. Poking fun at myself, I posed with the empty net. Then it was my turn with the camera and I took a few shots of Pop relaxing, feet propped on the cooler. Before putting the camera away, I pointed the lens toward the marsh and captured a couple magnificent shots of the landscape.
We gave up on picture-taking and crabbing and, in no hurry to get anywhere, drank our beers and watched a dropping sun throw prisms of orange and pink across winding fingers of water.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but when I stood to put our empty cans back in the cooler, my bladd
er screamed and I remembered that I had to pee. Just thinking of the bumpy dirt road was painful.
“I don’t suppose there’s a store or someplace around here with a bathroom, is there?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t.
“Just go o’er there in the trees. Nobody ‘round here to see you.”
“In the trees?” The last time I’d gone in the woods was during my one and only time camping, as a girl. And then, it was inside a port-a-potty.
“What if…; something bites me or something?”
“Flush will go with you to keep the critters at bay. I’ll pack up.”
Squatting in the woods, peeing in the middle of nowhere with a dog as my lookout and shooing mosquitoes away from my exposed bottom, I wondered how things were going at the offices of Shine Advertising and PR.
Chapter 6
I awoke to something tugging on my earlobe. Reaching up, I felt fur, and interrupted a burglary in progress. The raccoon had attempted to steal an earring.
“Get away from me, you two-bit, four-legged thug!”
The night before, I’d uncharacteristically fallen asleep while reading a book on how small towns could reinvent themselves. I hadn’t finished the book, or washed my face and removed my jewelry. Bandit had managed to loosen one of my diamond stud earrings, enough to make the back come off. Cursing her, I found it tangled in my hair.
I typically never went to bed before midnight, and always awoke before six on workdays. But since I’d been in Rumton, I found myself falling asleep earlier and sleeping longer. And yesterday, I’d even taken a nap – an activity I’d thought was reserved for the geriatric crowd.
The aroma of brewing coffee urged me out of bed, and I realized Pop had a male visitor. Focusing on the sounds of their conversation, I decided the second voice was the same velvety one I’d heard on the phone a few days earlier. Not wanting Avery to see my puffy morning face that was smeared with yesterday’s makeup, I put myself below a cool shower to wake up.
Half an hour later, I made my way to the kitchen and almost gasped when the visitor looked at me. The man sitting at the table with Pop was jaw-dropping gorgeous.
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