East Hope (27 page)

“What's wrong?” she asked.

Startled, he looked at her blankly, as if for a brief moment he didn't even recognize her. Then he shook his head and looked at his watch. “I've got to go in to work.”

“The office? Now?” She watched him stand and gather up the papers strewn across the desk. “It's late. Certainly it can wait until morning.”

“I have to go to California tomorrow.”

“But we're taking Rob to college this weekend. Will you be back by then?”

“I doubt it.” He put the papers and heavy folders into his briefcase. “I'll know more in a few days.”

“I was planning a special dinner for him.” Caroline sat in the upholstered chair next to the bookshelves. “I don't want to take him to school by myself and then come home to an empty house.” Caroline had felt a sinking sensation. Her only child was leaving. “It's going to be so hard to have him gone.”

At this, Harry had paused and stared at her. His expression had softened a little. He stopped gathering his things. “You know, life can be tough, Caro. Pretty damn tough.” He looked at his watch. “Don't wait up for me.” From the set of his jaw she had known there was nothing she could say. She never heard him come in that night.

Rob had returned from the beach two days later. Harry was still in California and didn't make it home in time to take him to school. She had been angry and resentful that Harry had let business interfere with Rob's departure.

When Harry had returned from California, Caroline had acted cool toward him. He had seemed tense, and when she finally had asked if everything was okay at work, he told her not to worry. September was busy. Some days they hardly saw each other. Those first weeks without Rob at home reminded her of the time after Grace died. Harry kept to himself and seemed to grow more remote. He put in longer and longer hours at the office. Caroline, sometimes angry, sometimes worried, said nothing. It was easier to maintain harmony than seek the truth.

A ray of sunshine shone across the now-empty polished desk. It must have been that night when Harry found out that the entire deal with Avistar was a sham, that there was no breakthrough drug, and that his chance for a huge win had instead become a devastating loss. Caroline turned away. She should have tried harder. She should have tried to get at the truth last summer.

She also should have told Rob about the baby before he left for school. What would he think if he knew she was carrying Pete's child? Could he ever forgive her? In her heart she knew that his learning about her pregnancy might drive him away from her. Once again she felt her belly, the truth hidden beneath her nightgown.

“Y
oo-hoo.” Penny Taunton stepped into the shop, her yellow hooded slicker dripping with rain. It was the last week in August, a Tuesday, the day Taunton's was usually closed. It had rained all night. Will stood up from behind the counter, where he was unpacking a box of books that he had brought back from a house sale the week before.

“Good to see you,” he said. “Nasty day out there.”

“Nothing but a bit of weatha',” Penny said in her crisp native vowels.

“Here, let me,” Will said, taking her wet jacket. He shook it over the mat and hung it on the coatrack behind the door. She wore shapeless blue jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweatshirt.

“Glad I caught you in. Thought you might be out book hunting again.”

“It can get addictive.” He grinned. He had been pleased with this recent purchase and decided to use his day off to add the titles to his computerized inventory and to get them on the shelves. August had proven to be a busy month. The current titles that he stocked were selling briskly.

“The place looks real good,” Penny said.

“Thanks. How's your dad?” he asked.

“That's why I came to see you.”

Will could see from her expression that she didn't have good news. “Not any better then?” he asked.

Penny's mouth pulled in and she seemed to blink back tears, but her voice was strong. “He understands he can't come back. If anything, he's weaker still.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“You've done a fine job here. Dad wants you to stay on. Hold the fort down till the end of October, if you can.”

“I'm not sure, Penny. My wife expects me in New York soon.” Did she? Will was beginning to have his doubts. Her supposed August visit still hadn't happened. They hadn't talked since he'd refused to go see her in California. Their time away from each other was taking on a permanent feel.

“You could make it real part-time. After Labor Day Dad kept the shop open only Thursday to Sunday. There'd be time for you to travel.”

“I'd like to help you,” he said, knowing that the time had come for him to make plans for the future. “Can I fix you a cup of coffee?” They had been standing by the door. He gestured to the pot he'd set up behind the counter. He offered it to his early morning customers. He had a few regulars stopping by. Besides serving free coffee, Will kept a stash of dog biscuits on hand and a water dish on the porch to welcome pets. On Fridays he set out wine and chips from four to six. Edna, from the library, called it Wine and Read, instead of Wine and Cheese. It proved to be a popular event.

“Coffee'd be nice.” Penny followed him behind the counter and sat in the chair next to his desk. Will filled cups for both of them and sat in what had always been her father's chair, a smooth, old-fashioned wooden one that spun from the base and slid easily across the floor on casters.

“Dad gave me the okay to sell the place. He wanted me to ask if you'd be interested.”

Will shook his head. “Penny, I—”

“Just think about it. We'd give you a good price. The building's not much, but the land's real nice.”

“It's a great place.” He looked over her shoulder out the rain-streaked window to the field below. It was beautiful property, and the land behind it along the shoreline could never be developed.

“You could fix up the building. Maybe add on, if you wanted more space.”

“Thanks, Penny.” His heart beat faster. “I will think about it.”

They chatted a few more minutes and shared local news. Penny reported on who was staying on for the winter, about the snowbirds who fled to Florida.

“Oh, almost forgot.” She had started to put her rain jacket on and paused. “Edna, down at the library, wanted to know if you'd be interested in volunteering in the tutoring program after school. We thought that since you used to teach English you might be willing to help out.”

“I'm not sure how much longer I'll be here.”

“It's not remedial,” she continued. “It's to help some of our young folks. There's some here who are really talented, but we don't have money in the budget for those advanced classes—you know, the AP and such.”

Will agreed to talk to Edna and said he'd try to keep the shop going as long as possible after Labor Day.

“I hope you'll consider taking it on. If you bought, you'd be doing us a favor.” She buttoned her slicker and looked once more around the bookstore. “I hear good things about you in the village.” She gave him an angular grin. “That's saying something. Tough crowd to please.”

“I like living here, Penny. I'm tempted by your offer.”

“Have a good think. I'll be talking to you again.”

Will walked with her to the door and out onto the granite step.

“Seems to have let up,” she said, leaving off the hood of her jacket. She reached out her hand. “Ahuh. Gonna be a nice day after all.”

The rain had stopped and bits of blue shot between the clouds. Will went inside. Slowly over the weeks, as he had spent more and more time working at Taunton's, he had almost come to think of the place as his. He hadn't needed to set up a computerized accounting system; he certainly didn't need to keep adding to the inventory, but he had enjoyed doing it. His innovations were successful. The sun now flooded through the front windows. Penny was right. It was going to be a beautiful day.

When he had finished flattening some cardboard boxes for recycling, he decided to go for a run, one of his favorite ways to think. He put on his running clothes and stepped outside. As he started to lock the door he heard the phone. Thinking it might be Penny again, he went back in, catching it on the final ring.

It was Mary Beth. “I've been missing you,” she said.

This took him by surprise. He assumed she was still angry at him for refusing to make the trip to California.

“I don't know what to say,” he said. “It's been so long.”

“Too long,” she said. “If it's okay, I'd like to come up this weekend.” It was as if their last heated exchange had been entirely forgotten.

“In time for our anniversary?”

“Is that all right?”

“Sure.” He cleared his throat, still wary. This change in tactic was a shock. She sounded different—not apologetic but kind. Maybe things had changed. What would she think of East Hope? Perhaps if she saw this place she would understand why he was drawn to it.

Mary Beth said she'd e-mail him her flight information, and he offered to pick her up in Bangor. She said she preferred to rent a car, and he agreed to send directions. She explained she couldn't talk longer and they both said good-bye.

Oddly, Mary Beth had sounded a little nervous, even shy with him. It had been almost three months since they'd been together. She had missed him. He couldn't quite believe that this was happening after all the nights alone. Yes, he had missed her too. He was sure of it.

He looked around the store. All was in order. With a little part-time help, he could run it from New York and check in periodically during the summers. His thoughts galloped ahead. It might be possible to renovate the building, add a few rooms, make it livable for two, maybe a family one day. It could be their escape from the city. Maybe it could work. For the first time all summer he allowed himself to dream, to look ahead at the possibilities. No matter what he decided about the store, he felt obligated to stay on until October and finish out the season for the Taunton family.

Will stepped outside again and started off on his old route through the village, around the bay, and up the hill in the direction of Caroline's house. There hadn't been lights on over there for quite some time.

Summer was drawing to an end in East Hope. While the official beginning of autumn was a few weeks away, all the predictable signs were there. Some of the maples had started to turn color, a few preliminary branches of reds and yellows. The orange daylilies that had adorned the roadsides all summer were disappearing.

A weedy purple flowering plant had emerged in the field behind the store. And the field itself had turned from green to gold. The air in East Hope now had a definite bite, as if to remind Will to pay attention, as if a notice had been posted informing him that the hard Maine winter lay just ahead.

What Will loved most these days was the change in the water. On sunny days the ocean was so deeply, richly, intensely blue it almost hurt his eyes. The clarity of the light delineated everything with sharp precision. Will had good vision, but it was as if he'd been given glasses that made everything more distinct, more vivid. Caroline's house, now within view at the crest of the hill, was a crisp white, like a freshly laundered shirt. He wondered where she had gone. He figured he would see a FOR SALE sign soon.

His mother used to talk about the change of light. “Look how you can see the houses more clearly on the point,” he remembered her saying one afternoon years before, as they looked out on Narragansett Bay. She had been removing the dead blooms in her flower garden and had stopped to stare out at the water in the distance. He had gone to ask her something, something long forgotten and unimportant. What was important to him now was knowing that she too had appreciated the light.

Will's parents had been honest, hardworking, loyal, like many of the people Will was beginning to know in East Hope. His mother and father had rarely been apart, even dying within months of each other. For his mother it had been cancer, for his father congestive heart failure. Each time, he had gone home and made arrangements for the funeral and taken charge of all the details. Rusty had been grateful for that. His father's old friends at the hardware store had told him that his dad would have been proud of the way he'd come home and helped out.

His parents would have liked East Hope. He could imagine them doing errands in the village, stopping in for coffee at Karen's Café the way he did, buying the paper there. Martha and Steve, the owners, treated Will like a friend. They talked about the crowds, the weather, and then the lack of crowds, the cooler weather. His parents would have fit in here. Like he did, he thought, pleased with this realization.

Will passed Caroline's house and looked across the water at Taunton's. The view was great. He stopped to catch his breath. His heart pounded in his chest. Mary Beth would be here on the weekend. She wanted to see him. New York might not be so bad, if he knew they had this place as a possible escape. Will resumed his run, following the road through the village.