Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (8 page)

“This morning looks good on you.”

She turned to Silas, who’d come up to the counter. There was a blush in her voice when she replied. “Good morning. How’s Houdini?”

“No worse for wear, but patrolling the egresses for any sign of his arch nemesis. I’m going to have to bar the windows.”

Sofia had to laugh.

“I only have a minute,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a newspaper wrapped package and setting it on the counter, “but I thought this guy might be a friend for your mermaid.”

She unfolded the newspaper to reveal a goofy clay statue of a lobster wearing swim trunks and carrying a pail and shovel. She was laughing when she thanked Silas. “He’ll look great over on my desk.”

Silas leaned over the counter and peered at the military surplus desk that served as operations center for Buck’s Landing. The purple glass mermaid already sat admiring her sandblast-textured tail under the desk lamp. “I see she’s already made herself at home.”

Sofia got up to settle in her new crustacean friend. She couldn’t think when Silas got close like that, not with the memory of what had nearly happened between them thick around her like fog. “He’ll be good company for her.”

“Maybe she’ll like it so much, she’ll decide to stay.”

Sofia raised an eyebrow. “Maybe she wants to see the world.”

“You know what I want?” Silas didn’t move, but she felt the floor shift under her at his intimate tone. Her thoughts scattered.

“Do I want to know?” Even to her ears, it was a lame reply.

“Yeah. You do.” His expression scorched what remained of her scattered thoughts. “Besides that, I’d like to have dinner together. Is there a night you can slip away?”

Sofia glanced at the color-blocked wall calendar over her desk. “Amy’s got the Thursday evening shift and both kids are coming in.”

“Thursday, then,” Silas said. “You want me to make reservations?”

The idea sprang, fully formed, into her head. “No. I’ll cook. My place at eight.”

If Silas was surprised, he was smart enough not to show it.

~~~

Amy’s Thursday shift started at three, and Sofia was bound for Exeter by a quarter after. She dialed Judy’s number on a whim.

“What’s up?” Judy sounded drowsy.

“Oh no, I woke you!” Sofia said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, really, I’d much rather talk to you.”

Sofia soaked in Judy’s affection. “I’m going over to Exeter to the farmer’s market. What’s your afternoon look like?”

“The boys are coming home from camp with my mom, and the baby’s napping.” She paused, when she spoke again, the sleep was gone from her voice. “Are you inviting me?”

Sofia laughed, which Judy correctly interpreted as a yes.

“Give me two minutes.”

She disconnected the call, but when Sofia checked Judy’s text at the next red light, she got her answer. Mom staying. I’ll be waiting.

And waiting she was, in shorts, sneakers, and a tank-top, with a huge market basket looped over her arm, leaning against a gray VW at the end of the driveway. Sofia realized with a start that the license plate was the same one that had been on the old Volvo Judy had driven in high school. She never had a chance to ask after Judy’s parents. Judy hopped into the Beamer before Sofia had time to put it in neutral.

“You weren’t kidding!”

“About waiting?” Judy snorted. “Hell no. I never joke about being freed from the yoke of my maternal duties.”

They drove for a few minutes in relative quiet, enjoying the radio and the cloudless day.

It had been a long time, but Judy still knew her so well. “So, what’s the occasion?”

“I decided I wanted to cook. You remember how good my mom’s marinara was? She grew her tomatoes, though.” Sofia never took her eyes from the road. “I didn’t have time to grow tomatoes this summer, but if I’m going to buy them, I wanted to get as close to that as I could.”

Judy wasn’t buying her casual tone. “You just decided it was time to revive your mother’s marinara recipe? On a random Thursday in late July?”

“So what if I did?” Sofia replied with what she hoped was indifference.

“Bullshit.” Judy shifted in the passenger seat to face her. “Did you finally give in to that hunky neighbor of yours?”

“Give in?”

“You said you turned him down last time, and it’s been a while. I figure,” she clapped her hands together, “he’s the determined type.”

Sofia realized that Judy already knew. “And Dex told you he saw us the other night in the bar.”

Judy took a breath. “And Dex told me he saw you two the other night at the bar.” She frowned. “I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me.”

Sofia sighed. “I kind of suck at confiding. I’m out of practice.”

“Don’t you worry,” Judy said, squeezing her hand, “I’ll get you back into shape.”

The farmer’s market was packed with shoppers. Sofia was as tempted by Swasey Park’s view of the Squamscott River as she was by the local offerings. Sofia and Judy walked the row of tents, carts and vans, spilling over with produce at the height of the summer growing season. Though the tomatoes were just beginning to peak, she found the requisite poundage of firm, dimpled, scarlet fruit.

They filled Judy’s basket with the tomatoes, onions, basil, and fresh bread. Judy introduced her to a woman who made soaps, and a collective of local crafters who brought quilted, knit, and crocheted items to the market. To Sofia’s delight, there was even a handmade pasta vendor. She bought a pound of tagliatelle to go with the sauce.

Judy was a keen observer.

“You know, if it’s true what they say about men’s hearts and their stomachs, I’d say you were trying to seduce to the poor creature.”

Sofia treated them to fresh coffee and sugared donuts still warm in brown paper bags. They ate sitting on the hood of the BMW in the sunshine.

“I’m glad you called,” Judy said, licking sugar from her fingers.

“I’m glad I called, too.” Sofia rolled up the paper bag and lobbed it at a nearby trash can. It bounced in off the rim.

“And you’ll call me and tell me how it goes?”

“Are we sixteen?” Sofia arched a brow.

Judy giggled. “If that’s what it takes. That man is scrumptious.”

“You clearly need to get laid.”

Judy laughed out loud at Sofia’s tart reply. “Christopher does okay in that department. Don’t fear for me. I just like to indulge in a little secondhand single-girl sex.” She got up to throw away her own trash. “You know, the kind that doesn’t require a bolted door or a babysitter.”

Underneath her friend’s grumbling, Sofia heard the deep satisfaction of someone who had exactly what she wanted. The realization was bittersweet. Maybe in a different lifetime, she could have been happy like that, too.

~~~

Sofia’s mother’s recipe box was still on the shelf over the three-quarter size refrigerator from the late ‘70s that still dominated the apartment kitchen. The cards inside were still floury, her mother’s touch preserved in the pale, dusty film. The tomatoes glistened in the colander in the sink. The big stockpot sat, washed and dried, on the range. She’d sharpened her mother’s favorite knives. All that remained was to cook.

She began to read the card marked “Nonna’s Marinara.” Her mother’s gentle, elegant script drew her back through the years. As a child, with every passing year, she’d been able to help with some new step in the process. The last summer before her mother died, she’d been allowed to dice the onions and supervise the blanching of the tomatoes. Now, as she worked, her body and her memory recreated the steps, filling in the secrets her mother had never written down on the cards.

Though a few tears seasoned it, Sofia was content when the sauce was simmering quietly a few hours later. She tidied up a little, and then put up another big pot for pasta. Salty like the sea, her mother had told her, pouring a long silver-white waterfall of salt into the cooking water.

She put the bread, wrapped in foil, into the oven and opened a bottle of Valpolicella she’d brought from Washington. All she needed now was music. She was halfway to her purse for her iPod when she remembered her mother bending to touch the needle to the scratchy vinyl LPs she’d loved so much. Leaving the wine to breathe on the counter, Sofia ventured into her parents’ room to look for them.

The boxes with the old records were in her father’s closet. Sofia was digging through the LPs when there was a knock on the door.

Silas stood on her landing in the hibiscus-print shorts she’d first seen him in, this time paired with a faded country club tournament tee shirt. He carried a bakery box and a sunflower under his arm.

“I could smell dinner from the sidewalk.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I might be the luckiest guy on the strip tonight.”

“You just might be,” she said. “But you have to earn your keep.”

He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close, whispering against her mouth. “I can do that.”

She felt the scarlet blush rise up her face. “No, not that. I opened a box of records in my parents’ room. Go pick out some music.”

He left her with his offerings and disappeared into the other room.

Sofia trimmed the sunflower’s stem and set it into one of the milk glass vases still decorating the bookshelf. The longer she stayed in the apartment, the more she saw that her father had made it his own, but carefully kept bits of his wife’s memory alive. Little touches, like her recipe box and her knickknacks, still adorned the shelves. Framed photographs were everywhere in a riot of faded snapshots from her early childhood and glossy 4”x6” prints from the years closer to her mother’s passing.

Silas came in bearing an armful of records.

“I can see what he loved about her,” he said. “I mean, your mother was a knockout, and she loved Dusty Springfield.”

Sofia grinned. “She had a killer marinara recipe, too.”

“Where’s the record player?” Silas cast around for evidence of stereo equipment.

“Right there.” Sofia pointed behind him to an antique console player that occupied one wall of the living room. Silas went a little pink around the ears.

“No Dusty?” Sofia asked when the Lovin’ Spoonful filled the room.

“She’s for later,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and resting his chin on her shoulder while she stirred the sauce. Sofia couldn’t help but shiver.

She turned in his embrace and laid her palms on his cheeks. “Now? Make yourself useful and set the table.”

~~~

I could get used to this, Silas thought, scooping up the last of Sofia’s sauce with a heel of bread. Her lashes brushed her cheeks when she tipped her wineglass to swallow the last of the bright, cranberry-colored wine. He got up to switch the record, finding an old Simon & Garfunkel album that reminded him of the wood-paneled rec room in his parents’ first house in New Jersey. His sister had loved all the old records their parents kept down there, playing everything from psychedelic rock to disco when he was too young to really care.

“We may have to save the lemon bars for another time,” he said, patting his stomach. “That was a great dinner.”

“Lemon bars?” Sofia’s lips curved up, and he resolved to bring her baked goods more often.

They cleared the table together. Sofia loaded the dishwasher as Silas gathered up the table settings. He untied the strings from the bakery box and the sugary tang of the lemon bars wafted out. Sofia was scrubbing out the sauce pot when Silas slipped out of the kitchen.

“I know what will go perfectly with those,” she called.

“Me too,” he replied, coming back in. He pulled her hands out of the soapy water and wrapped them in a dishtowel. “Dance with me.”

He led her to the console and dropped the needle. Dusty Springfield’s soulful croon soared out over horns and close backup harmonies. Silas drew Sofia close. He led her effortlessly, silently thanking the dance classes he’d taken for PE credit in college.

They turned and swayed, their bodies in tune for three aching minutes while Dusty begged her lover to “just be close at hand.” Silas could feel the blood move under her skin, smell her perfume and shampoo. Her soft cotton top shifted against his hand on the small of her back. When she laid her cheek against his chest, the warmth of her breath set his pulse jumping. The track ended, but, instead of releasing her, he ended the dance with a searching kiss.

Need rose up around them like fog, blinding them to all but each other. Her touch honey-slow, ghosting over his body, their breath mingling, the flavor of desire flooding his senses. All this while they undressed one another, drawing out the anticipation. Yearning for her rushed through him.

Silas wasn’t sure how they had gotten there when his calves bumped her mattress. Seeking more than the dance, he caught her up and rolled them both across the bed. Sofia laughed between kisses, but her laughter faded into a deep shudder when he slid her underwear off. Shucking his own, he joined her, wrapping her in his arms. "Remind me to give Houdini an extra catnip mouse for introducing us.”