Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [173]
A woman came through the front door, and Ruby said, “Evangeline! How’s the cold?”
They were always chatty with the locals, and with Alice. Maggie liked listening in on their conversations and wished she could earn entry into their club, though they never gave her more than a courtesy hello and good-bye. To them, she was just another summer person.
“We had a group of tourists in here this morning from Worcester,” Ruby said to the woman. “They were taking one another’s pictures out in front of the store like this was Green Acres, and then they came inside and wanted a picture with us.”
“Oh my,” the woman said.
“They said they were going to the beach in York and then they wanted to go berry picking. Back in our day you got paid to pick berries and then a month later it was string beans, and then corn after that, until you were begging for mercy. Why, the thought of paying someone else for the pleasure of bending over all day in the hot sun—”
“I hear you!” the woman said.
“Bunch of Massholes, if you ask me,” Mort said, setting the heavy crate down.
Maggie laughed, putting a hand over her mouth.
Ruby shook her head, but she smiled, a look that said she loved this man, loved the life they had made together. They seemed utterly comfortable with one another, like they knew each other all the way through. Maggie wondered if she would ever feel that way about another person. She walked the half mile home to the cottage, wondering still.
When she arrived, Maggie found her mother and hugged her and invited her to lunch, despite the lecture she knew was coming. Because maybe Kathleen was as close as she was ever going to get.
Ann Marie
It rained like crazy through the final days of June, but on the first of July, the sun broke through to reveal the finest morning of summer so far. Ann Marie stepped outside the cottage door, and the air was warm, the sky pure blue. She took it all in, looking down to where the ocean met the sand. Alice’s lilies were thriving. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees overhead.
She hadn’t minded the lousy weather. She mostly needed to stay inside anyway and focus on cleaning the cottage. Kathleen had been staying there for all of four days, and the place was a disaster. Newspaper pages were strewn across every surface. Cigarette butts had been hidden in the bottom of the bathroom wastebasket, leaving behind hideous black smudges and a smoky odor that took nearly forty minutes of scrubbing with a mix of baking soda and water to cover up. Kathleen seemed incapable of putting a glass in the sink once she had used it. There were business cards for California school superintendents in a stack on the dresser (why?), as well as handwritten notes that Ann Marie couldn’t begin to understand: Remind them that orchid will bloom faster/richer colors/longer life span with tea … liquid seaweed = increased fungal activity … With the gin we will need to start looking for more workers AND TRASH! …
Ann Marie fastened all the pages together with a paper clip and shoved them into her sister-in-law’s purse. Then she set to undoing the rest of the damage Kathleen had done.
Now there were freshly washed sheets on the beds and vases of Free Spirit roses on the kitchen counter and on top of the piano, blooming in orange and peach and yellow sunbursts. The grill out on the deck had been scrubbed down. The fridge was stocked with champagne and blackberries and pastries and fresh steaks, and corn on the cob, and three different kinds of cheese for the cheese tray. She had removed a lamp painted with seashells from the dining table and hidden it up in the loft, replacing it with her dollhouse, which now held the spot of honor smack in the middle of the living room.
This was exactly how she wanted the place to look when the Brewers arrived later today, the perfect start to her official month in Cape Neddick. Except for the fact that Kathleen and Maggie still