Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [70]
“I was just commenting to Olympia that she seems abnormally distracted this summer,” her father says.
Haskell searches her face. “On such a lovely perch,” he says, “I should be more than mildly distracted myself.”
As good manners require, Haskell turns his attention to the telescope. “But what do you have here, Biddeford?”
“It arrived today,” her father says with some pride.
“Handsome instrument,” Haskell says. “May I take a look?”
He bends and peers out at the view, adjusting the focus to his own eyesight.
“This has excellent resolution, Biddeford,” he says. He swings the telescope farther down the beach and adjusts a knob. “May I show you something? Come and see, Olympia.”
She walks to where Haskell stands, and peers into the glass. She is aware of him hovering over and behind her and feels his leg press slightly against her own. It is some moments before she can focus properly, but when she does, she can make out the wooden skeleton of a beach cottage. It is perched atop a hillock of dunes and is surrounded with sand and cut grass. It will be, she sees, a large house with its own deep porches. A wide gable has been framed and already holds in its center a massive round window with many small panes. She wonders whose room that window will one day belong to. To Martha’s? To Haskell and his wife’s?
Olympia looks up and moves to one side. Her father takes her place and studies the house. “Beautifully designed, Haskell,” he exclaims. “Truly. And the builders are making quite a progress. They still anticipate finishing by the first of August?”
“I am told they will be a week late,” Haskell says. He twirls the boater in his hands. “Why do you not come with me now to see the house, Biddeford? If you can spare the time, I have several questions I could use some advice on.”
Clearly flattered and pleased, Olympia’s father, in the next instant, looks crestfallen. “Damn,” he says with evident disappointment. “I should have loved to have visited the site with you, John, but I have promised myself to my dentist. Damn. If only I could reach him . . .”
“If we had a telephone, Father . . . ,” Olympia says, unable to resist a smile.
Her father clears his throat. “My daughter is of the opinion that we should install a telephone at Fortune’s Rocks, but I have tried to explain to her that one comes away on holiday precisely to ignore such instruments.” He shakes his head. “No, I cannot go with you,” he adds.
“Another time then,” Haskell says politely.
“But Olympia would love to go,” her father says suddenly to Haskell, as if she were not even present on the porch. “In fact, it would be an excellent diversion for her,” he adds. “She has not been herself of late and could do with an outing.”
Haskell catches Olympia’s eye. “I would be honored to show her the site,” he says. “If you think she would not become too bored.”
“I doubt I should become bored,” Olympia says quietly.
“Then that is settled,” her father says wistfully. “And I hope you have also come to tell me, John, that you and Catherine will attend the gala we are having. Did I write you that it is in honor of Olympia’s sixteenth birthday?”
The reminder of Olympia’s age in both Haskell’s and her father’s presence sends, for a moment, a slight tremor into the air that Olympia thinks even her father must notice, for he looks first at Haskell and then at her.
“An important milestone, surely,” Haskell says. “Of course, I must ask Catherine first before I can commit us to the event.”
“Hale will be here,” her father announces proudly.
“Hale,” Haskell says, looking at Olympia as if he cannot remember why he knows the name. “Hale,” he repeats. “Yes, of course.” There is a pause. “Olympia, shall we go?”
• • •
He helps her up into the bottle green carriage.
“I could not stay away,” he says. He climbs up beside her. “I inhaled your letter. If I could, I would have you write me every day.”
“I shall write to you every day then,” Olympia says. “But you must promise to destroy the letters.”
“I am not sure I will be able to do that.”
“Then I will not write them,