Sweet Salt Air (7 page)

So is it harder to dream about what you don’t have, than to live in fear of losing what you do?

She didn’t know the answer. But she heard self-pity. And she had thought
Julian
had that?

Remorseful, she refocused on her screen. No, Charlotte didn’t have a husband or kids. She didn’t have time for them, what with chasing stories all over the world. By comparison, Quinnipeague was tame. Nicole was lucky she had agreed to come. She wanted to make it a nice time in spite of MS.

Which raised the issue of breakfast. French toast? Frittata?

Definitely frittata.

Leaving the table again, she transferred a small packet from freezer to fridge. It was salmon, home-smoked on the island and more delicious than any she had ever found elsewhere. Smoked salmon wasn’t Cecily Cole’s doing, but the dried basil and thyme she took from the herb rack were. Taking a vacuum-sealed package of sun-dried tomatoes from the cupboard, she set it on the counter beside the herbs. Frittata, hot biscuits, and fruit salad. With mimosas. And coffee. That sounded right. Eaten out on the deck maybe?

No, not on the deck, unless the prevailing winds turned suddenly warm.

They would eat here in the kitchen, with whatever flowers the morning produced. Surely more lavender. A woman could never have enough lavender—or daylilies or astilbe, neither of which should bloom this early, but both of which had looked further along than the lavender, yesterday morning, so you never knew.

Returning to the computer, she finished her blog post. Finally, entering “It’s all about the setting” as the title, she signed it, dated it, and published it. She surfed for a while after that, checking her usual farm food Web sites for news, but there was little since she’d checked the day before. So, taking her copy of
Salt
from the counter, she settled in the Great Room with her tea and, in the wee hours, began to read.

Chapter Four

C
HARLOTTE AWOKE TO THE SOUND
of the surf, the smell of sweet biscuits, and a sense of peace. Some of that peace was from the lavender in her pillowcase, its scent a halo around her still, but she was convinced that what she felt went beyond that. Just as her coming here as a child had been crucial, so was this.

Redemption was part of it now. She could help make this cookbook special.

But there was more. This summer would be a turning point in her life. How else to explain the sense of rightness she felt?

True, it could be wishful thinking. She had felt rightness that February in Rio, when she was sent to do a piece on samba and ended up teaching girls in the slums how to write—and again that summer in Sweden with a guy she thought might be the one. Both trips had been great, but she had returned home alone, exactly the same.

Still, she knew that at this moment in time, she was supposed to be here.

Slipping from bed, she crossed to the window. The view from her room was of the rougher northeast stretch of beach that they had walked last night. As the morning fog shifted, the breakwater came and went. Likewise a fishing boat farther out. At least she thought it was a fishing boat, though it wasn’t visible long enough to let her know for sure. Staring harder, she caught a glimpse of sails. No fishing boat then. In the next instant, though, the sails, too, were gone.

A ghost ship
. That was an exciting thought. She could weave up a whole slew of imaginative stories around a ghost ship. Pressing her palm to the cool windowpane, she smiled. She was good at dreaming up stories, used to do it all the time. Imagination had been her escape when she was a child.

Here, reality was the escape. Choosing hot biscuits over a ghost ship, she layered a sweatshirt over her T-shirt and sleep shorts, pulled on a pair of wool socks, and followed the smell.

*   *   *

An hour later, she was stuffed. Frittata, hot biscuits, sliced kiwi and grapes, two mimosas, and endless coffee—Nicole kept plying her with more, refusing to let her move from her seat to either serve food or clean up. She was feeling pampered, but then, she always did when she came here. Nicole was mothering her the same way Angie used to. Back and forth between stove, sink, fridge, and coffeemaker—she didn’t stop moving.

Nor did she stop talking. She mentioned the blog she’d just posted and the preliminary book cover her editor had sent, but these were only en route to discussing Charlotte’s own work. She seemed to have read it all—humbling for Charlotte, who had spent the same years in ignorance of Nicole’s life and wanted to hear about that, but Nicole wouldn’t allow it.

Finally, when she was about to make one more trip to the sink, Charlotte caught her hand. “You’re making me dizzy, Nicki.
Sit
.”

Nicole was quickly apologetic. “I’m sorry. I love doing this.”

“The dishes can wait. I want to talk.”

“We are talking.”

“Not about what I want.” She softened the words by jiggling her friend’s hand. “I want to know about your life.”

Nicole looked cornered. “My life? My life is great.”

“So’s mine. End of discussion.” She stared in challenge.

Nicole stared back, then laughed. “You haven’t changed. Same blunt Charlotte.” When Charlotte continued to stare, she finally settled back into her chair. “What do you want to know?”

“Start with Kaylin and John,” Charlotte said. “Are you guys close?”

Nicole’s smile held affection. “Very. Julian and I share custody with Monica … well, shared, past tense, because they’re both over eighteen now. Come fall, Kaylin will be a senior at Penn and John a sophomore at Haverford, but right up through high school, they were at our house all the time.”

“House or condo?”

“Condo,” she acknowledged. “We kept thinking we’d buy a house, but Kaylin loved playing Eloise in a high-rise, and Johnny loved running up and down the halls—and it was only ten minutes from Monica, who did have a house with a yard, and like I said, there were summers up here. Mom and Dad loved it. And the kids adored them. They’ve taken Dad’s death hard.”

Charlotte believed it. Bob was one of the warmest people on earth. Right from the start, he had considered Julian’s children his grandchildren. But those two were supposed to have been a prelude to more. There had been lots of talk about that during the wedding summer.

So—yes,
same blunt Charlotte
—she asked, “Why haven’t you had more kids?”

“Because we already had two to raise.”

“You always talked about having your own.”

“There’s no rush. I know”—a dismissive wave—“I’m thirty-four, but that doesn’t make any difference. All that talk about the biological clock? Sometimes I think it’s a crock of you-know-what. Women today are having kids in their forties.
Lots
of women are. I know three doing it right now.”

Her response was a bit too emphatic for Charlotte. “Is there a problem?”

“Like fertility? No. We’ll have kids. We’re just taking our time.”

“If Kaylin and John are both in college, and Julian is forty-six, what are you waiting for?”

“Charlotte. You’re as bad as my mother!”

But Charlotte wasn’t being put off. She needed to know that Nicole’s marriage was okay. “He didn’t change his mind about having more, did he?”

“Oh no,” Nicole insisted. “He wants them as much as I do.” She glanced at the window and brightened. “Sun’s breaking through. Let’s take coffee out to the patio.” Before Charlotte could respond, she was heading for the mudroom. She returned carrying two parkas, and though her step remained light, her eyes had misted. “Mom’s and Dad’s. I was thinking I’d give them to the church. They’ll know who can use them. You take Mom’s.” It was red. She held it out.

“I’m taller than you. Give me Bob’s—”

But Nicole’s arm was firmly around the larger blue one. “I need his,” she said in a single fast breath.

Charlotte took the red one. Helping with the coffee, she carried mugs while Nicole grabbed biscotti. Minutes later, they were outside. The patio was a patchwork of granite slabs that had been quarried in Maine and set in an arcing pattern to mirror the shore. Two heavy wood chairs stood to the right of the beach steps, facing the sea. Closer to the house and more protected were the table on which they had so often eaten back then—glass on top, iron below—newly cleaned and surrounded by chairs.

Off to the side were a trio of lounges. They pulled two of these closer to the house, under a pergola whose vines would be overrun with peachy roses within the month.

Cupping her coffee for its warmth, Charlotte tucked her legs under her jacket and angled toward Nicole. “Are you happy?”

Nicole’s eyes were bright over her mug. “Happy?”

“With Julian. With your marriage.”

“Of course.”

“Is he good to you?”

“He’s an angel. Why do you ask?”

Charlotte wanted to believe that Julian loved her, that there was no pattern of infidelity, and that nothing about that one awful night lingered. “Just curious. You always had energy, but it feels nervous now.”

“I’ve told you—lots on my mind … Dad, the house, the book.”

“As long as it’s not Julian. I want to know you’re happy.”

Nicole jumped up and, all but lost in Bob’s parka, crossed the patio. “I
would
be happy if the gardener had done his job, but look at the mess here.” She knelt at the creeping cypress that bordered the stone and began plucking brown tips from the lowest fronds. “They think we won’t see these, but it isn’t only about looks, it’s about the health of the plant. If you want new growth, the old stuff has to go.”

“Is George Mayes still doing your work?” Charlotte recalled him being a character, as likely to show up tipsy as not, but intent either way on talking the plants and shrubs through the toughest of times.

“George tries,” Nicole said as she searched for anything dead she might have missed, “but he’s in his eighties, so his son Liam does most of the work.” Stuffing what she’d pruned in her pocket, she returned to the lounge. “Liam isn’t as good, but they need the money, and it’s not like there are dozens of landscapers on Quinnipeague to choose from, and then there’s Rose.” Wife of George, mother of Liam, Cheryl, and Kate, with however many grands, even great-grands by now. “Her slaw is still the best.” She looked quickly around. “Where’s my coffee?” Spotting it near the cypress, she scrambled up again. When she returned, she said, “I’m not sure if it’s the celery seed or the dressing, but Rose is definitely on our list. Mayes Slaw is the perfect side.”

Charlotte burrowed deeper into her parka. The memory brought a smile. “The best. And she made it for the whole town. I always imagined she had the grandkids lined up in a row, slicing cabbage at the counter like Santa’s little elves.”

Nicole laughed. It was a welcome sound. “Granddaughters. The boys’d be doing the physical stuff. They’re a traditional family. Not all on Quinnipeague are. Wait’ll you meet some of the new ones. We’ve gotten more diverse.” Up again, she curved back toward the garden on the side of the house.

“What are you
doing
?” Charlotte called, perplexed by her constant up and down.

“Checking the flowers,” Nicole called back. “Mom’ll want to know if the sweet William is in bloom. That’s the pink one. The lisianthus is ready to pop. It’ll be a deeper purple than the lavender. Wait’ll I tell her about
that
.” She returned to the lounge. “By the way, I think it’s mustard seed in that slaw.”

“Is that an herb?”

“Mustard seed? No, it’s a spice.”

“What’s the difference?”

“An herb comes from the leaves of a plant, a spice from the seeds,” Nicole explained. “Some plants produce both, like cilantro and coriander. Salt is a mineral. We call it a spice, but it isn’t.”

“What’s pepper?”

“A spice. A peppercorn is the seed from a pepper plant.”

“Did Cecily Cole cultivate mustard plants?”

“Sure did.”

Charlotte grinned. “Q.E.D.”

Nicole laughed again. “That proves nothing. We don’t know for sure what herbs Rose uses in her slaw.”

“We’ll ask. What we really need to do,” Charlotte decided, “is to explore Cecily’s gardens—you know, take pictures and all. She’s the matriarch of island cooking.”

“Tell that to her son.”

“I will.”

“He has a gun. He shoots gulls for sport.”

Charlotte winced. “What does he have against gulls?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not looking to find out. Cecily’s plants are all over the island. We can get what we need from everyone else.”

“But her garden is the source,” Charlotte argued, as Nicole got up again. “Where are you going now?”

“I’m cold,” came her little-girl voice. “I want to get dressed.”

“Just grab a blanket from inside. It’s gorgeous out here.” She breathed in. “This air is amazing. Sweet.”

“Charlotte, it’s salt air, and there’s no sun.” She shot a hateful look at the clouds. “I honestly thought it was coming out, or I wouldn’t have suggested this. Sun is cheerful. That’s what I want. Actually,” she called over her shoulder as she headed toward the house, “I think we should drive into town. It’d be good to let everyone know we’re here.”

*   *   *

Nicole had trouble sitting still. Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling that she was running from something and that the something was
her
. There were times when Nicole wouldn’t look her in the eye, which meant maybe she did know about Julian and her, and was trying to move on.

Chastened, Charlotte got dressed. She offered to drive, but Nicole insisted on taking the old SUV that her parents kept at the house, giving her good reason for sadness. “Dad never worried about my driving here,” she reminisced. “There’s only one road, so you can’t get lost, and you can’t speed because it’s bumpy.”

“Do they ever repave?” Charlotte asked, jouncing now that she didn’t have a steering wheel to hold.

“Not often. It’s not a Quinnie priority. We’re the spoiled ones. I was thinking I’d give this car to Eleanor Bailey, kind of as a thank-you. She was always bringing over crab cakes—remember those little minis? She knew Dad loved them.”