by Drea Stein
Once, when confronted by such an opportunity, she would have charged ahead with her barely formed plans, making calls, ordering things, creating a maelstrom of activity, in order to feel that she was moving forward, making things happen.
This time she had decided to go about things differently, more deliberately. There was no rush, she had realized. She was glad she had taken her time, moved slowly, deciding on what she really wanted to do. Opening a business was a big step, a commitment to a place and the people in it. When the going got tough, you had to dig in, not run away. The permanence of that scared her. Part of her had believed what she had told Olivier, that she was only in Queensbay temporarily, to handle Phil’s estate. Slowly, days had slipped into weeks, and weeks into months. She had gotten a job, then another one. She had cleaned, inventoried, and dreamed and was starting to make friends.
She had found a place for Adele and had begun the process of living with her mother again, which had gone surprisingly well. True, Maura was not a morning person, but as long as Colleen remembered that about her, her bark was worse than her bite. And she was great with Adele, doing puzzles, coloring for hours. All of the things her mother had never done with her. Colleen pushed that uncharitable thought away. The past was the past. No way but forward. She placed the box she had carried in carefully on a wooden sawhorse that held a flat sheet of plywood and served as a makeshift table for the crew. The radio was plugged in, but silent. The crew was off today, Jake had told her, to let the countertop dry. A day of drying, then the final painting. Two, three days more, max, he had promised her and then she could start to move her stuff in.
This information had come mostly via texts from Jake. She hadn’t seen him since their run-in at the Maritime Center. She had found the box of postcards he had asked for, and she had sorted through them last night. They were interesting, a true glimpse of history, but she still couldn’t quite imagine why he wanted them.
As if on cue, the bell over the door tinkled, and he was there. He stepped in, and she watched him as he did a slow, thorough inspection of the work. He was nodding in satisfaction and then his gaze zeroed in on her, and she felt a familiar fluttering that started in her stomach and settled in her chest. She had to admit that pretending that he didn’t have an effect on her was getting harder and harder.
“It looks good in here,” she said, though that statement couldn’t begin to cover the gift he’d given her.
He grinned, delight sparking in his eyes. “Good? It looks amazing.”
His tone was slightly self-congratulatory, and part of her wanted to say something to deflate it, to make him realize that he shouldn’t be so cocky, but she couldn’t, not when he clearly deserved the credit. He took a step toward her.
To deflect him, she said, “I have something for you.” She turned and picked up the shoe box and held it toward him.
“What is it?”
“The postcards.”
His eyes filled with interest as he came over, took the box from her and set it back down on the plywood. He started to rifle through everything.
“Is this what you were looking for?” she asked, trying not to sound anxious, but eager to have found what he needed.
He looked excited. He held up a postcard, one of the Queensbay Showhouse, from its glory days, and said, “Exactly what I was looking for.”
“I went through them, tried to organize them,” she said and shook her head. It had taken her a while to decide on which method to use, but locale seemed to be the most logical categorization, and she had become absorbed in them, swept away by seeing familiar places as they had been.
“I am sure Phil had them all in one big pile,” Jake said, laughing as he hands flipped through them.
“Worse than that,” she said. “I sorted them by location, then I tried to group them by people. There are plenty of the Osprey Arms. And the beach. Look at those swimsuits.”
She held up a black and white picture showing a serious-looking group of people staring at the camera wearing what could only be described as bathing costumes. Just about every part of their bodies, for both the men and the women, was covered in some sort of black fabric. The only nod to summer was the jaunty straw boater hats the men wore.
“They look hot,” he said.
She nodded. “They’d be shocked at the beaches today, wouldn’t they? Everyone with their shirts off.”
“Maybe in Europe,” he said. “Last I saw in Queensbay, it was tops on.”
“That’s not what I meant. And that’s all anyone ever thinks about European beaches. That we all go around topless.”
He was silent, looking at her with a speculative twinkle in his eye. She blushed.
“I did not,” she said firmly and sighed. “I guess I was too much the American to be able to do that.”
“Too bad,” he said. “Though, I’m happy that the whole world doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
She blushed again. It brought complicated memories of that night after the prom. To hide her embarrassment, she pointed to another postcard.
“Here’s some showing the shipyards and the boat builders. Hard to imagine the waterfront as anything but the t-shirt shops and the ice cream place.”
He nodded, but he was still flipping through the pictures of the Showhouse. Mostly exterior ones, though here and there were ones that showed the interior. He paused at those, looking at them carefully.
“Why are you so interested in this stuff anyway?” she asked.
“Seems a shame no one’s paying any attention to it,” he said, nodding to a postcard of the Showhouse, his tone noncommittal.
She wondered at it but decided not to push. They were both entitled to privacy.
He looked at her, his hands gathering up the postcards. They were big, capable hands, with a scrape across the knuckles on one hand and a bandage wrapped tightly around his thumb.
“Still having trouble hitting the nail?” she asked, her voice light.
He held up his hand and smiled. “Even after all these years, I still miss a few times. But you’ve got to keep swinging.”
She swallowed, suddenly wondering if they were talking about nails or something else. She needed to change the subject: “So, how much do I owe you? I have a check right here.” She reached for her bag.
He held up his hand. “No rush. The job’s not done. Never pay the contractor until the job is done, don’t you know that?”
“I trust you,” she said automatically.
He put out a hand to stop her, and she froze. His touch was firm, with an electric pulse beating between the two of them. She could not, should not be feeling this way. It wasn’t that she had sworn off men. Well maybe she had, but only until Adele was eighteen and safely away at college, which would make her a withered old spinster. And she was fine with that, really she was, because if she stayed away from men, she would stay away from mistakes. Right now, with her second chance taking shape, she couldn’t afford any mistakes.
“Then you’ll let me do this,” he said and leaned in.
She didn’t know if she would have let him her kiss her, only that she wanted, at that moment, for him to do it more than anything else. But good reason returned, just as the bell on the door tinkled, letting them know they were no longer alone.
She took a step back, looked up, and saw that Lydia and Ellie were standing there watching them, frozen. It took her a moment to pull herself together and right her tilting sense of equilibrium.
“Well now, Jake, Colleen, hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Ellie drawled.
Colleen took a deep breath, steadied herself. She had been saved by the bell, and she didn’t quite know what to think.
“Ladies,” Jake said, without a trace of embarrassment in his eyes, Colleen noted. She clasped her hands together, trying to find a place for them, trying to find a place for herself, unsure of just what to do.
“Nice work,” Lydia said, and Colleen was certain of the double meaning behind those words. She
shot a look at Lydia, who just smiled wickedly.
“Well, thanks for the postcards, Colleen. I need to get going. But here.” He stopped and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “You should give her a call,” he said, handing her the paper. “I’m doing some work for her, April, that is, she’s a big fan of yours and looking for a decorator. She has a signed copy of your book and gets the auto updates to your blog. At least that’s what she told me. She’s looking for a decorator to save her from herself, in my opinion.”
“Umm, okay,” Colleen said and took the scrap of paper. “I’m not really …”
“Huge favor for me,” Jake interrupted. “Kind of already told her I knew you blah, blah. Nice woman, doesn’t know what she wants but has the money to pay for it. You treat her right, she’ll sing your praises, and you’ll have more work than you can handle. At least that’s the idea.”
“Umm, okay,” Colleen said. She was speechless. What had just happened? One moment Jake had been trying to kiss her, of that she was almost sure, and the next he was talking about business and thanking her for digging up some old postcards.
Jake took his box and his smile and sauntered out of the shop, calling out one last thing as he did: “Boys will be back tomorrow to start painting.”
There was a pause as Ellie and Lydia eyed her with amusement and interest.
“Well darling, there’s enough heat in here to make an alligator happy,” Ellie said.
“Uh-huh. Are his muscles always so big and ripple-ly?” Lydia asked, teasing; her Southern accent grew more pronounced when she was around Ellie.
“I have no idea,” Colleen said. She needed to sit down, but there was no place. Her legs felt rubbery, as if she’d just run a mile.
“Oh, I think I get the idea,” Ellie said. “That boy has his sights set on you.”
Colleen shook her head. “I do not need anyone with their sights on me. I have too much going on.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ellie said. “I don’t think Jake does complicated.”
Colleen paused, then asked: “What do you mean?” The Jake she knew had been looking for something that was inevitably complicated. Their brief, robust emotions had been too much for Colleen. Just another one of the reasons why she’d left town in a hurry.
“Just that Jake never sticks with one person for long. Least that’s what I’ve heard. From the younger ladies of course. Not from personal experience.”
Colleen nodded. She was quite certain that if Ellie had been interested, Jake wouldn’t have stood a chance, no matter the difference in their ages.
“Love and leave ’em Owen. At least that’s what the other moms say around Happy Faces,” Lydia chimed him.
“What?”
“Well, it’s mostly Amy Anderson.”
“Amy?” Colleen said, her voice faint.
“She and Jake dated a few years ago, until Jake called it off. I guess Amy didn’t take it well, even though she found a husband nice and quick. Lisa seems to think she may still be carrying a torch for your man Jake.”
“Jake is not my man,” Colleen said, but she could tell from the look Ellie and Lydia passed between them that they weren’t buying it.
“Well, she certainly has it out for you. Apparently, Amy’s still mad at you for something that happened during high school too.”
Colleen sighed. Not one of her finer moments, but really, Amy had started it.
“I was the better cheerleader,” Colleen said. “Amy was a senior, so she was named the captain. Then it just happened she needed to keep her grades up. We happened to have the same history class. She forced me to give her my essay, which I did, but not the one I turned in.”
Lydia looked at her, prompting her for more.
“I wrote one just for her. It had some passages that were copied verbatim from a well-known source. Just enough so she got in a little trouble; you know, detention and extra credit. Course she couldn’t rat me out otherwise she’d be in even worse trouble. I was already not going to be co-captain. At least not until she graduated, but I had to let her know I wouldn’t be pushed around.”
“Well played,” Ellie murmured, and Lydia nodded in agreement.
“Needless to say, we were never friends after that. But Jake and I were not together then, either.”
“Then?” Lydia asked, and Colleen realized her mistake.
“It was nothing,” Colleen said, hoping that her friends would drop it.
“No way,” Ellie said. “You don’t drop that on us and expect to us not to follow up.”
“It was nothing. It was a long time ago. We were just together a few weeks, really, right before I left for college.” Colleen tried to make her voice sound airy as if what she and Jake had had been just that, when in reality it had been intense. The night of the prom, then a few stolen moments afterward when they had talked about everything. The connection had been real, intense, and had seemed potentially life changing. Those feelings had made Colleen want to run away as far and as fast as she could.
“Doesn’t seem like he’s forgotten you, has he?” Ellie said.
“Amy does not like that one bit,” Lydia added, with a little shake of her head.
Colleen sighed and reminded herself that was all the more reason to stay away from Jake. She did not need any more enemies in her life. She had come back to Queensbay to start over, raise her daughter, and build a business that would support them both. She didn’t need to be pulled into any sort of drama.
Ellie took pity on her and changed the subject. “So what are you planning on selling here?”
Colleen turned gratefully to her friend and started in on the grand tour.
Chapter 18
Ellie and Lydia had left and Colleen was trying to focus and sort through her to-do list, but what Lydia had said about Amy was bothering her. It reminded Colleen of her long-ago self, which was an uncomfortable recollection. She hadn’t always been nice. She had, in fact, been a mean girl. Not that she ruled the school with a clique of acolytes, or maybe she had, but she’d definitely tried everything she could to make sure that people knew Colleen McShane was someone to be reckoned with. Sure, she might have been from the wrong side of the town, with a less-than-perfect family, but Colleen had wanted people to know she belonged.
She had schemed, manipulated, and done what she needed to stay on top. It had seemed so important then, and for a lot of her life after high school as she sought to make her way in the world. She had kept manipulating and scheming, from one job to the next, from one relationship to the next, chasing after some mythical brass ring.
Until she met Olivier, and she had met her match. When she first was with him, she had felt for once like she could relax, that he would take care of things. And, he had, until he got tired of her. She had realized, once again, that she needed to take care of herself. But she didn’t have to do it the way she had done it before, did she? Couldn’t she could still look out for herself and Adele and be nicer about it?
She had never really apologized to Darby, which was why she was now standing outside the Golden Pear Café, with a flyer about the sidewalk sale in her hand. She pushed open the door and let herself into the café. It was just about empty, with Darby starting to clean up and pack away things. She looked up at Colleen but said nothing.
“Hello, could I please have a cappuccino?” Colleen said.
Darby looked at her as if she’d grown another head.
“You know, just espresso, steamed milk. You make it with the machine back there,” Colleen kept her voice friendly.
“I know what a cappuccino is,” Darby said tartly.
Colleen squared her shoulders, told herself not to back down.
“May I have one? I did say please.”
“Fine.” Darby busied herself with the gleaming machine. Colleen put the flyer down. “I’m organizing a sidewalk sale, same weekend as the Harbor Cup Regatta. Figure it would be good for business. Osprey Arms said they’d run a special, so I am sure everyp
lace, including here, will be busy.”
Darby turned around, flicked her eye over the flyer. “I heard about it.”
She slid the white cup with the perfectly foamed milk toward Colleen.
Colleen picked up took a sip. “It’s delicious.”
“It’s a good idea,” Darby said.
“Thanks. I thought of it while I was working at Quent’s,” Colleen said. It was a deliberate provocation, and she waited.
Darby wiped her hands on her apron. For a moment it looked as if she would say nothing, then she finally threw up her hands.
“Look, I’m sorry about that. I overreacted. If it means anything, Sean told me I was being ridiculous, and you were one of his best employees.”
Colleen allowed herself the smallest of smiles. “He looked like someone had run over his dog after you left.”
“You heard?”
“Whole staff heard. I am pretty sure they know just what type of gal I am.”
“What … I mean, I never… I just …” Darby was at a loss for words.
“Someone seems to know a lot about me. Been keeping tabs on me?”
Darby shook her head. “Not exactly. But Amy Anderson still has it out for you.”
“She deserved it,” Colleen said, but stopped there.
“She did. I thought what you did was brilliant.”
“I am sorry that I ran off with your prom date. It was a bad move. I could have handled it better,” Colleen said as she put her money on the counter.
Darby paused, looked thoughtful, and said, “It’s a little anticlimactic, hearing those words after all this time. Somehow I thought this moment would be more momentous.”
