East Hope (13 page)

Besides that daunting task, every closet in the house needed to be cleaned out. Also, the handle on the downstairs toilet was broken. She hoped that Vern would be able to fix it. The day was starting to slip away, so she turned and walked back to the house, resolved to get to work. A man in the distance jogged along the road with a funny loping stride. He had shaggy light hair and wore a ragged gray T-shirt and dark blue sweatpants. She paused for a moment, but by the time he drew closer she'd climbed the back steps, picked up her plate, and gone inside.

Will drove to Hawley's Hardware on a gray afternoon. He'd come in earlier from his run and had tried to work on his manuscript. The adolescent boy in his novel, Jake, who longed to be on the basketball team in high school, had just been diagnosed with Scheuer-mann's disease, a spinal condition from too rapid growth. He had grown six inches in a year, and the front side of his spine was growing faster than the back, causing a curvature. The only remedy was a back brace. What good was all that newfound height when he had to wear the brace all day and was forbidden to play sports?

All of this had actually happened to Will when he was fourteen. The experience had been devastating to him at the time. Tending to shyness, not being part of the sports teams, and fearing ridicule from wearing a back brace, he had retreated to his world of books.

Will had been writing for several hours, but couldn't seem to get his bitter feelings of long ago into words: what it was like to fear becoming a monster, ridiculed and mocked by his peers. The computer monitor stared back at him. Why was it that with no classes to teach and plenty of time on his hands he found it impossible to write? He grabbed his car keys and a list from the kitchen counter.

Route 214 wound away from the water toward Route 1 and civilization beyond. Will had been in East Hope for three weeks, and the village was becoming more familiar. He passed Karen's Café, the East Hope post office, and the Congregational church, a beautifully proportioned white clapboard building. He stopped to get gas at the Quik Mart, where he bought the
Boston Globe
on Sundays as well as an occasional six-pack of beer. Then, driving around the next bend, he noticed that the Canberry Store had a new sign advertising “delicious cooking and wicked neat gifts.” They were getting ready for the influx of summer people. More out-of-state license plates were coming through town, and already several customers had come into the bookstore and browsed. He'd sold a half dozen mystery novels to a carload of women who were on a trip antiquing up the coast, or “Down East,” as he'd learned to say.

“Let me know if I can help you with anything.” The man behind the counter at Hawley's Hardware wore a brown apron. A freshly sharpened pencil was perched behind his fleshy ear.

Will raised the pot of geraniums that he'd picked out from the display on the store's front porch. “Mind if I set this down here?”

“Not at all.” The clerk, who appeared to be in his early sixties, wore a friendly expression, and looked like he was inclined to talk. Will knew the type. He could still recall the low din of male voices from his father's hardware store. The men who'd helped his father knew everything that went on in town and had the uncanny ability to picture how future events would unfold. He set the flowers down on the counter next to a display of key rings and pocket-size flashlights.

“You from away?” the clerk asked.

Will explained that he would be running Taunton's Used Books for the summer.

The clerk leaned on the counter. “A real shame about George. Can't talk, and Penny says he can't even read these days. Still, maybe he'll get better.”

“I certainly hope so,” Will said, picking up a basket. “I'll just look around,” he added, and started down the first aisle to pick out lightbulbs. He also needed a washer for the faucet in the kitchen sink.

This store was laid out very much like his dad's old store, with the plumbing supplies set out on the back wall. Will used to help at the store after school, most often doing boring jobs: filling endless tiny boxes with screws and nails, putting on price stickers, dusting the shelves. Because of his back he wasn't able to do heavier jobs, like unloading the bags of mulch in spring or the loads of salt for icy walks in winter. Rusty did that. Still, his dad was proud of him, telling his buddies how Will had made the honor roll once again, how he'd gotten scholarship money for the university.

Walking down these crowded aisles of merchandise brought it all back. There weren't many small hardware stores left. Dad had sold out to a True Value chain, and the place had gone out of business two years later, when one of the mega home stores opened out on the highway.

Will added bug repellent to his basket. The front door squeaked open and banged shut. A woman with red hair entered the store and exchanged greetings with the clerk at the cash register. She wore loose khaki trousers and a heavy blue sweater and had the careless appearance of someone unaware of her own good looks. She spoke to the clerk, and a short while later they walked toward plumbing, where he pulled down a package of Teflon tape.

“First, unscrew the showerhead.” He spoke slowly and patiently, as if convinced someone so feminine could barely grasp his directions. “Then wrap a piece of this—say, four or five inches long—tightly around the edge.”

“You mean the showerhead itself or the part that comes out of the wall?” She had a calm, thoughtful voice. She didn't sound like she was from around East Hope either. Like him, she must be from “away.”

In a few minutes Will joined her at the counter to pay.

“Oh, I forgot seeds,” she said, and turned to Will. “You go ahead.” In that brief glance he noticed that she had one blue eye and one green. It made him want to examine them again to check whether he'd seen correctly. “I'm looking for nasturtiums,” she explained.

“We've got them.” The clerk nodded, as if pleased he could oblige. “Seeds are in the other room, door on the left.”

She walked to the back. Will unloaded onto the counter the lightbulbs from his basket, along with the bug repellent, the washers, more garbage bags, a plastic shower curtain, and some cleaning products. He caught a glimpse of the red hair at the far end of the aisle and thought again of her eyes.

“That'll be twenty-eight forty-two.” The clerk raised his eyebrows at Will as if he too appreciated a good-looking woman. Will imagined he expected some kind of comment, a remark acknowledging their mutual interest. He hurriedly reached for his billfold.

W
ill had a chance to study those unusual eyes a few days later. It was the first truly warm day, and by the calendar it was now officially summer. Everyone in the village was talking about the July Fourth weekend and the influx of tourists it would surely bring. There were tubs of hot red geraniums placed along the main street, and the ubiquitous red, white, and blue bunting hanging above the windows of the town hall billowed in the breeze. Young people had begun to linger outside Berger's Ice Cream late in the afternoons and into evening.

Will had opened the shop ahead of schedule. Eager for more book buyers, he hoped the good weather would hold. He sat at his desk upstairs, keeping an ear open for customers. He'd mopped the floor of the shop that morning, and he'd planted his own red geraniums in a clay pot that he'd found in the basement. They were arranged on the large granite step by the front door.

He was forcing himself to keep to a morning schedule for writing, allowing himself to stop only for customers, but the work was not going well. He kept thinking that Jake was not the right name for this character. It was too close to
jock
.

Would adding a sex scene now give the story the oomph it needed? Of course, there had been no sex scene for him in the tenth grade. He tried to picture Jake making out with one of the hot young debaters. The awful memory of Jennifer Whitely began to slow his already lagging momentum.

“Anyone here?” The female voice below sounded familiar. He shoved back his chair and went to the stairs. When he reached the bottom he saw a woman standing tentatively by the door. It was the woman he'd seen last week at the hardware store.

“Yes. Hello.” His words, tumbling out, surprised him, and he realized he hadn't spoken aloud all day.

“I wasn't sure if you were open,” she said.

“Sorry. Forgot to put the flag out.” He reached for the OPEN flag that stood neatly coiled behind the door. “You looking for anything in particular?”

She gazed around vaguely, as if trying to decide what she wanted. “No, I was out walking. They're painting my place. The fumes are terrible.” She drew her hand to her nose as if still bothered by the pungent smell.

“You live near here?” Will studied her face. The unusual eyes. The red hair.

“Across the bay. You can see the house from here.” She stepped over to the front window, raised her arm, and pointed. “It belonged to my husband's great-aunt. She died last year.” Her trousers and cardigan sweater looked like the same ones she'd worn when he saw her at the hardware store, except now the sweater was unbuttoned. She wore a pink T-shirt underneath. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but a fine haze of loose curls framed her face.

“The white house on the point?”

She nodded. Taller than Mary Beth but slight, this woman wasn't conventionally pretty, but rather old-fashioned looking, with a long, delicate nose. Her mouth was small, but full. In different clothes she could have been an Edith Wharton character, or maybe a gentle cousin in a Henry James novel.

“I run by there most mornings,” he explained. “You've got terrific views of the islands.” He was pleased that he knew her house.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You're the runner. I've seen you go by.” She smiled. Her freckled skin made her look girlish, younger than she probably was.

“Not many runners around here,” he said. He felt strangely embarrassed that he'd been observed.

“Not many people at all. They say after the Fourth it will get busy.”

“You're new to the area?” he asked.

“I got here at the beginning of the month.” She turned around, the light behind her. “I'm having work done on the house. I'm getting it ready to sell. What about you?”

“Well, I . . .” He hesitated, feeling foolish, still holding the flag. He wasn't sure what, if anything, of his story he wanted to tell: that he had lost his job, that he was feuding with his wife. “Excuse me a minute.” He stepped out to the stoop, snapped open the flag, and set it in the holder beside the door.

She hadn't moved when he went back in. She said, “I'm assuming you're ‘from away,' as they say around here.”

“Yeah. I'm here for the summer. I'm running the business for Mr. Taunton. He's the owner. He's recovering from a stroke.” Will touched the top of the counter. “It's taken a few weeks to clean it up.” He raked his hair back off his face.

“It smells like a bookstore should,” she said.

“I'll be getting more books throughout the season.” Will had soon figured out that to make any money he would have to add to the stock. He wanted to add a shelf of new fiction too. The funds for this would have to come out of his own pocket. “Do you like to read?” What a stupid question. Why else would she have come into a bookstore?

“I'm interested in old cookbooks.”

She didn't look like a cookbook sort. He would have thought her a buyer of gardening books (no nail polish, the old clothes), maybe poetry. He'd already had a few mystery readers. They always knew what they were looking for: the author who did the cat mysteries, the old-lady-detective genres, the series that took place in Venice. This woman seemed unhurried.

“I think I have some over here,” he said. She followed him to the nonfiction. He got down awkwardly on his knees. He'd remembered shelving a few cookbooks below the art books. There were perhaps a dozen. “Yes. Right here.” He pointed to the bottom shelf and straightened up. She squatted below him and studied the shelf.

“This looks interesting.” She took a mustard-colored hardback into her hands and flipped through the pages.

Will wanted to linger near her, but stepped away, thinking she would prefer browsing on her own. “Take your time, and feel free to look around.” He went back behind the counter near the door and tried to look as if he had something to do. From where he sat he could see the top of her bent head and the red hair. He remembered his idea to get a radio or small CD player to have in the store, something to fill the silence. He leafed through last Sunday's
Boston Globe
.

“I'll take this one.” She handed him a book:
The Maine Farm Kitchen.