Summer Friends
By Holly Chamberlin
KENSINGTON BOOKS
Copyright © 2011
Elise Smith
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-3507-7
Chapter One
Where the past exists, the future may flourish.
—Peter Ackroyd
2011
Maggie Weldon Wilkes steered her Lexus IS C 10 convertible
around a slow-moving station wagon decorated with
three bikes and a canoe. The Lexus had been a present to herself
for a very successful bonus season. Retractable hardtop,
cruise control, even a backup camera—this particular car
was more of an indulgence than a necessity.
She reached for her iPhone on the seat beside her. She
knew it was dangerous to text while driving—everybody
knew that, especially after Oprah had made a deservedly big
deal out of it—but Maggie did it anyway, occasionally. It
gave her a bit of a thrill to do something possibly illegal and
definitely reckless, though she could barely admit that to herself.
Besides, it wasn't like she reached for her phone on a
busy New York City street. Like right now, mid-morning on
a Friday, there were only a few cars within sight and what
was the harm in typing out a brief, abbreviated note to her
husband? Nothing. Not much. Except that in spite of wearing
bifocal contact lenses she couldn't quite see what she was
doing.
"In ME," she managed, the intelligence of habit overcoming
the limitations of vision. "How r u?" She put her phone
back on the passenger seat and realized that she hadn't actually
heard Gregory's voice in days. They had tweeted and
texted and e-mailed but not actually spoken, not even on
voice mail. This, however, was par for the course with the
Wilkeses and not to be taken as a sign of marital distress or
discord. Maggie reassured herself on this point with some
frequency. She and Gregory were a highly successful career
couple whose jobs took them out of each other's sight, not
out of each other's minds. Maybe they weren't as close as
they once had been, but ... It was what it was.
So, she was on her way to spend a few weeks in Ogunquit,
that "beautiful place by the sea." She had been so happy
there, mostly, of course, because of Delphine Crandall, but
also because of the sheer beauty of the area. Maggie still remembered
the slightly punky smell of the wildflowers that
grew in profusion along the road to the Lilac House, the
place her parents had rented for all those years. She could
hear in her mind the absurdly loud chirping of the teeny
peepers in the pond in the woods behind the Crandalls'
house. She remembered the softness of the summer evening
air. She remembered how she and Delphine and sometimes
their siblings would go down to the beach at a superhigh
tide, when the water would come all the way up to the parking
lot. She remembered being both frightened and excited by
the cold Atlantic rushing around her feet. She remembered
the swing set behind the Lilac House and the new kittens at
Delphine's family's farm. She remembered the joy.
Now, after almost three hours on the road Maggie was finally
getting close to her destination. So much had changed
since she had last driven this far north. Traffic was definitely
worse than it once had been, especially now along Route 1 in
Wells. There were just way too many people, period. She didn't
recognize half of the restaurants along the road, though she
was pleased to see that the rickety old clam shack that Delphine's
family had taken them to once a summer was still
open. There was a whole new crop of summer cottage developments
sprawled on either side of the road. Some of the cottages
were unbelievably tiny; it was hard to imagine even a
family of three being comfortable in them. Then again, kids
could be comfortable anywhere, especially with the beach
within sight. Still, Maggie could not imagine herself tolerating
such tight quarters, not now, not as a forty-eight-year-old.
She had become used to a degree of luxury. A high
degree of luxury, in all honesty. Her hair color was professionally
maintained at an award-winning salon on Newbury
Street. She had a manicure and pedicure once every two
weeks. Around her left wrist she wore a Rolex, another gift
to herself after a particularly good year at the office. Around
her neck, on a white gold chain, she wore a two-carat diamond
set in platinum. That was from Gregory, an anniversary
gift she thought, or maybe a birthday gift. She couldn't
really remember. He had given her so many expensive presents.
He was very good about that sort of thing. For their
wedding, though he could barely afford them at the time, he
had given her diamond stud earrings.
Thinking about those earrings, Maggie realized that the
last time she had seen Delphine had been at the wedding, and
that was over twenty years ago. Maggie had invited her with
a guest, but she had come alone, and had only accepted the
invitation after ascertaining that Robert Evans, her former fiancé,
wouldn't be there. He had been invited, also with a
guest, but would be on an assignment in Thailand. It would
have been ridiculous to turn down a major journalistic gig
for the sake of a friend's wedding. Besides, Robert and Maggie
had really only been friends because of Delphine. Once
Delphine had gone back home to Ogunquit after breaking up
with Robert, Maggie's friendship with him had steadily
waned. She hadn't heard from him in over fifteen years,
though she could see his face, hear his name, and read his
words all over the media. You'd have to be living in a cave
not to be aware of Robert Evans.
Maggie adjusted the air-conditioning a bit and thought of
the pale blue velvet box carefully tucked between layers of
clothing in her suitcase. Inside the box was an aquamarine
pendant on a gold chain. Aquamarine was Delphine's birthstone;
her birthday was March 23. The necklace should have
been hers. And it would have been if Maggie had asked Delphine
to be her maid of honor. But she hadn't. The necklace
had been in that pale blue velvet box, in the back of Maggie's
lingerie drawer, for close to twenty-four years.
She was crossing into Ogunquit now and traffic was still at
a crawl. Every other minute it came to a complete stop for
pedestrians crossing the road, many of whom ignored the official
crosswalks and dashed out at random. Maggie frowned.
She did not care for traffic jams or for pedestrians who didn't
follow the rules. Well, she supposed nobody did. As she
waited for a family, which included a baby in a stroller and
three small children, to organize themselves across the road,
her mind wandered.
Delphine Crandall. There had been long periods of Maggie's
life in which she hadn't thought about Delphine at all.
Like when business school had overwhelmed her, and when
she was starting her career, and then when the children had
come along. There had been other long periods when she
thought of Delphine occasionally, randomly, and without
much emotion. Like when her daughters did or said something
that reminded her of her own childhood self, or when
Robert Evans's face popped up on the TV screen. Once in a
very great while Delphine would make an appearance in a
dream, and mostly those dreams were somehow disturbing,
though Maggie could never remember them clearly when she
woke. Some details lingered—something about being forced
to leave boxes of books behind, an eviction, someone crying,
dirty floors. None of it made any sense.
But in the past two years or so, Maggie had found herself
thinking more and more often of her old friend. Specific
memories were coming back to her with a vividness that was
startling. The time when they were about ten when they had
stumbled on a teenage couple kissing behind a shack in
Perkins Cove and had run away giggling and shrieking. The
time when they were about sixteen and had snuck out one
night to go to the only dance club in town, even though their
parents had forbidden them. The time in college when Delphine
had woken in the middle of the night with a raging
fever and Maggie had bundled her into a cab and then to the
emergency room. The time when Maggie had thought she
was pregnant. She had been too frightened and ashamed to
buy an at-home pregnancy kit, so Delphine had bought it for
her, and had sat holding her hand while they waited for the
result.
And the feelings, too, they were coming back, rather,
memories of how it had felt to be so comfortable with someone,
so loved and appreciated. She had begun to think of
Delphine Crandall with a longing that seemed more than
mere nostalgia. It was a longing that finally became too real
to ignore.
So back in April, Maggie had made a decision to find her.
She had no idea if Delphine was online or if she had married
and changed her name, so she sent an old-fashioned, handwritten
letter to Delphine in care of her parents. In it Maggie
mentioned her job, Gregory's job, her daughters' being in
college. She suggested that she come to Ogunquit to visit.
August would be a good time for her. She had several weeks
of vacation saved up. She would stay in a hotel so as not to
burden anyone. She needed a low-key, quiet break from her
busy life. She said nothing about the memories or the
dreams.
She had waited a month, hoping for a reply, and when no
reply came she took the more direct measure of making a
telephone call. There was a Delphine Crandall listed in
Ogunquit. It was her Delphine Crandall.
She called one night, about eight o'clock, and was surprised
to hear a voice groggy with sleep. She asked Delphine
if she had gotten her letter. Yes, Delphine had. But she had
been terribly busy and hadn't had time to reply. She said she
was sorry. Maggie hadn't entirely believed her.
"So," Maggie had said, suddenly nervous, "what do you
think about my coming to visit this summer?"
There had been a long beat of silence, one Maggie couldn't
attribute to anything other than Delphine's reluctance. Just
when Maggie, feeling both embarrassed and annoyed, was
about to retract the suggestion of a visit, Delphine had
blurted something like, "Yeah. Okay." The moment of retreat
had been lost. A reunion was going to happen.
Traffic was crawling again, which was better than sitting
still. Maggie felt a tiny flutter of anxiety, which seemed to be
growing the closer she came to her destination. There was no
doubt about it. Delphine had sounded less than thrilled
about this visit. Maybe she had just caught her at a bad time.
And then again, Delphine had never been a particularly effusive
person. Or had she? Maggie frowned. Memory was a
tricky thing, made up of truth, fiction, desire, and a whole lot
of dubious detail. She wondered if the Delphine Crandall she
would find today would have anything in common with the
Delphine Crandall of her memory. The thought was troubling.
And it was nonsense to think that someone's character
and personality could change so drastically over time that she
would be unrecognizable. Nonsense.
There it was, coming up on the right. Maggie turned up
into the driveway of Gorges Grant and brought the car to a
stop outside the hotel's big front doors. She had chosen to
stay here because it offered not only a heated indoor pool
and Jacuzzi (both of which she would definitely use), and an
outdoor pool and sunning deck (she had brought plenty of
high-powered sunblock), but also a fitness center. She never
went anywhere without her workout gear. At forty-eight,
closing in on forty-nine, she was in the best shape of her life,
thanks to a healthy diet and a rigorous exercise regime. For
someone who worked as hard as she did—long, tension-filled
hours in an office and frequent travel, always a nightmare
what with security issues and unexplained delays—being in
good physical shape was essential. Which didn't mean she
didn't occasionally crave junk food and a nap, rather than an
apple and a half hour on the treadmill. Not that her fit and
healthy body seemed to attract Gregory's attention these
days. Then again, she hadn't exactly been seeking him out for
anything other than resetting the digital clock on the oven
after a blackout. It was what it was.
Maggie shook her head, turned off the ignition, and got
out of the car. It was time to forget, at least for a while, all
the troublesome stuff of daily life back in Massachusetts.
Stuff like a diminished sex drive and a husband you communicated
with mostly in cyberspace. Stuff like children who
seemed to forget you existed until they needed money for
iPhones and iPads and whatever electronic gadget was going
to replace them. It was time to revive an old friendship. At
least, it was time to try.
Chapter Two
Delphine Crandall was out of bed by five o'clock most
mornings, which wasn't so hard to do when you were asleep
by eight o'clock the night before. Farming was not a job for
night owls or late risers. This particular Friday morning she
had been awake since four, unable to keep thoughts of Maggie
Weldon Wilkes's imminent, and largely unwelcome, arrival
out of her head.
With a groan that was not strictly necessary, she got out of
bed and made her way to the kitchen for that blessed first cup
of coffee. She enjoyed mornings at home, a brief time of
peace and quiet before the demands of the day started clamoring.
Alone with Melchior, her three-year-old cat, she could
scratch and grumble and moan and not feel guilty about it.
This morning, Melchior was waiting for her at his empty
food bowl, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"Is it breakfast time?" she asked him unnecessarily. He answered
with a deep and affirmative,
Waah.
Delphine flipped on the coffee machine—she always set it
up the night before—and went about getting Melchior's
breakfast. Melchior's predecessor had also been a barn cat.
Felix had died at the ripe old age of twenty-one. To say that
Delphine missed Felix was an understatement. You couldn't
share a home with another living being for twenty-one years
and not feel bereft upon his death. For months after Felix
had passed she was unable to bear the thought of taking in
another cat, and then, suddenly, the thought of continuing to
live without another cat was intolerable. So she had gone out
to the barn, where one of the females, a small calico, had recently
given birth to a motley litter, and watched. On Delphine's
very first visit, one of the kittens in particular had
caught her eye. This one's father had clearly been a Maine
coon cat, and an extrabig one at that. Even at a few weeks
old, this kitten was larger than his siblings, even a sister who
seemed also to have a Maine coon, possibly the same one, as
a father.
From the very first the male kitten had disdained—that
was Delphine's dramatic take on it—life in the barn with his
numerous siblings and cousins and whenever she visited had
followed her around more like a dog than a cat, pawing at
her ankles and attempting to climb up her leg. Well, the
climbing was very catlike, and very painful. So when Melchior—she
had already given him this name, one fit for a
king—was about two months old she had taken him home,
hoping he would like his new, more sophisticated digs, and
within hours he had settled in as lord of the house. He barely
tolerated people other than Delphine and hated dogs, two
traits that probably had come from his mother or some other,
more distant relative, not his Maine coon father. When Delphine's
sister, Jackie, stopped by with her mixed-breed dog
named Bandit, Melchior made a great show of hissing, which
only made the good-natured Bandit wag his tail. Also unlike
other Maine coons, Melchior had little interest in play, preferring
to spend his time eating, sleeping, and watching his
surroundings with a careful, critical eye.
Delphine gave Melchior his wet food and refilled his bowls
of dry food and water. He dug in ferociously. He was a big
boy, pushing twenty pounds. His coat was long, wild, and a
riot of black, brown, and white. Long tufts of fur sprouted
from the tips of his ears. His ruff alone made him look like a
particularly imperious and important courtier or politician
from the court of Elizabeth I. Delphine sometimes thought
she should have named him Leicester, or Cecil, or Essex, instead.
The fact that Melchior hated to be brushed was a bit
of a problem. Delphine woke each morning with cat hair in
her eyes and cat hair glued to her lips. Every piece of furniture
was decorated with clumps of fur. She wouldn't be surprised
if, in spite of her vigilant daily cleaning rituals, she
herself coughed up a hairball one day.
Coffee mug in hand, Delphine went back upstairs to get
washed and dressed. Twenty minutes later, she said good-bye
to Melchior, who was now cleaning himself on the couch in
the living room. In response, he ostentatiously closed his eyes
on her. Delphine locked the front door behind her and
skipped down the steps of the porch. Most people she knew,
including her parents, didn't lock their doors, but Delphine
did. She wasn't really sure why. Maybe it was a habit left
over from the years she had spent in Boston.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summer Friends
by Holly Chamberlin
Copyright © 2011 by Elise Smith.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON BOOKS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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