The Summer Everything Changed (18 page)

Isobel closed her laptop. She would have had something new and interesting to write about if she had gone with Gwen to that antiques mall in South Portland. But Jeff had invited himself along, and Isobel, knowing that she would have spent the entire time worrying that he was bored and dealing with Gwen's being annoyed that Jeff was there, had told Gwen she didn't feel well. So Gwen had gone on alone.

It was not an ideal situation, lying to a friend, and then flaking out on her readers by dredging up stuff she had already discarded as not blog-worthy (not uninteresting, but not super-exciting, either) and making it sound funtastic. (In fact, the brocade jacket had been moth-eaten and the chandelier decidedly dingy.) The whole enterprise felt dishonest. It was the first time Isobel had resorted to that sort of thing, and it didn't sit well with her. But she just hadn't seen any other way.

But it was okay, Isobel told herself resolutely. The important thing was that she would be spending the afternoon with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend who was crazy about her.

 

Just ahead of Jeff and Isobel on Main Street was a group of older people; there were three women and a man. The man and one of the women were walking with the aid of canes; the other two didn't appear to be that much more mobile than their friends. Each of the four wore those big dark wraparound sunglasses a lot of older people wore. (Personally, though Isobel thought they were kind of awful-looking, she also thought they made a lot of sense. Sometimes when she was in Portland, she had to squint down to slits and put her hand over the top of her sunglasses just to see enough to cross a street without getting run over by a car!) Though the day was very warm, almost ninety degrees, the man wore a Windbreaker and each of the women wore a cotton sweater. That made sense, Isobel thought. Old people were said to feel the cold pretty easily. And all of the local restaurants were seriously air-conditioned.

“If old people can't walk faster than a freakin' crawl, they should stay home,” Jeff declared.

Isobel was stunned. “Hey,” she said, “come on. Everyone gets old. If they're lucky.”

Jeff shook his head. “I know. I was only kidding. Jesus, you're a sensitive girl. Don't you have a sense of humor?”

Isobel felt her cheeks flush. “Oh. Sorry. I mean, yeah, I guess I am pretty sensitive.” People had been telling her that since she was little, after all. Still, she didn't see what was funny about people walking with the aid of a cane . . .

“You know,” Jeff said, putting his arm through hers, “I didn't tell you before because I didn't want to sound like I was trying to impress you or something, but back in Vermont I do a lot of volunteer work at a local nursing home. A lot of the residents are in their eighties and nineties, and even more of them can only get around in wheelchairs.”

“Oh,” Isobel said. She felt chastened. “You do?”

Jeff shrugged. “Yeah. It's no big deal. I do whatever is needed, help people get in and out of bed, read to them, play cards.” Jeff laughed. “There's this one old guy, I just know he must have been a professional poker player at one point. He swears it's only luck, but that guy beats the pants off me every time.”

Isobel imagined big, handsome Jeff sitting across a table from a little old man in a worn-out cardigan, youth and age personified. The image made her smile. “That's so nice of you,” she said.

“I do what I can. Hey, I'm glad you're wearing the bracelet. I hope you never take it off.”

Isobel smiled. “Not even when I shower?”

“Not even then. Not ever.”

Isobel held out her arm to better see the piece. The stones twinkled in the sun. She wondered again how much he had paid for it. The money didn't matter, of course. It was the thought that counted, the fact that the bracelet had served as an apology for his having gotten mad at her at that party and unjustly accusing her of coming on to another guy.

The memory brought with it a twinge of discomfort, not really anger but something like it. What? Isobel skillfully pushed the feeling away. Everybody made mistakes, and Jeff had apologized in a pretty major way.

Besides, it really was romantic, Jeff wanting her to wear the bracelet always, like you would wear a wedding ring, something you cherished and treasured and didn't take off until the day you died . . .

It was a bit odd, Isobel thought, that she hadn't shown her mother the bracelet. And that she still wasn't entirely sure why she hadn't. It wasn't like she was hiding the bracelet from her; she had worn it every day since Jeff had given it to her. In fact, she was kind of surprised that her mother hadn't already commented on it. Her mother was usually pretty observant. Then again, she had been so busy planning for the wedding; she could be forgiven for not noticing a new bauble.

Suddenly, Jeff put his hand on the back of her neck and gently turned her face up to his. “Those are real diamonds, you know,” he said. “Only the best for my girl.”

“Oh. Oh, I—” She felt tears come to her eyes. Before she could say more, Jeff released her and pulled his phone from his pocket. He scowled down at the screen.

“I have to get going,” he said.

Isobel's spirits sank as quickly as they had risen. “I thought we were going to get lunch.”

“Something came up.”

“At work?” Isobel asked.

Jeff glanced up and down the block as if looking for someone or something to appear. “Yeah, sure. Can you get home on your own?”

“Oh. You can't take me home first?”

Jeff looked back at her. “This is important, Isobel,” he said. His tone was a bit patronizing, a bit stern. Isobel felt as if she were being gently scolded for failing to understand the gravity of whatever it was that was happening. Then again, he was older and he was working for his father, someone everyone knew was a big businessman . . . And he had bought her a gold and diamond bracelet . . . That wasn't something a boy got his girl. That was something a man got his woman.

“Um, sure,” she said. “Sorry. I guess I could call someone. It's no problem.”

“Thanks, Izzy. You're the best. I'll call you later.”

Jeff dashed off in the direction of his car. She had hoped for another kiss, but his business was obviously pressing. Since she had started dating Jeff, Isobel had done some research about the Ottens and their empire. She hadn't seen anything on the company's website about connections in Dubai—maybe that was top-secret corporate information!—but what she had seen was pretty impressive. In fact, with Jeff working for his father's company she was surprised he had any time at all to spend with her.
Well,
she thought,
he must really like me!

Isobel didn't need to call someone for a ride. As luck would have it, Flynn Moore was in town and spotted her on the corner before she had a chance to decide whom to call.

“My friend had an emergency at work,” she told him, climbing in to his immaculately clean pickup truck. “I told him I'd be fine getting home on my own.”

“Then it's a good thing I happened by,” Flynn said with a smile.

As they drove, Isobel snuck surreptitious looks at Flynn. His hair was thick and silvery, what you could call a “mane” of hair, swept back off his forehead. His eyes were very bright blue, like the blue of a Paraíba tourmaline. (Isobel had seen pictures of the stone, though none in person. The blue was so intense it was almost disturbing, in the way extreme beauty could be disturbing.) There were deep wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled, which was often. She thought they added to Flynn's physical charm.

Isobel's mother had told her that Flynn was sixty. Though he looked to be in great shape, he walked with a bit of a limp. Its cause was a mystery to Isobel. Maybe he had arthritis. Maybe he needed or had had a hip replacement. Maybe he had been in a skiing accident a long time ago . . .

Isobel wondered if Flynn had children or nieces and nephews or even grandchildren. Gosh, she didn't even know if Flynn had ever been married! It was odd how things worked in a small town. On the one hand, everyone knew everyone else's business, or seemed to know. On the other hand, some lives managed to remain mysteriously private. She suddenly wondered if she would ever possess the key to the mystery of Flynn Moore.

Flynn dropped her off at the inn with greetings to her mother. Once inside, Isobel grabbed something to eat (one of Bella's scones left over from breakfast, and a carton of red raspberry yogurt, did the trick) and then ran up to her room, where she flopped down on the unmade bed. She had a lot to think about.

The knowledge that Jeff worked with the elderly made her appreciate his attentions even more than she already did. Once she got her license she could volunteer somewhere, too, a nursing home or maybe she could work at a shelter for battered women. Her mother would be especially proud of her for choosing that avenue.

Isobel turned onto her side. She wanted to be wise. She knew that wisdom was something, a quality, maybe a gift or even a talent, that was supposed to come only with age. But she hoped she would be wise, at least a little bit, before her hair was gray and her back stooped. What was the point of achieving wisdom if, by the time you achieved it, you were too old to actually put it into practice?

And what was the point of having wisdom if you were too old to command anyone's attention so that you could share it? Because did young people ever listen to old people? Not people her mother's age, but really old people. Young people should, of course, listen to those older, but Isobel was pretty sure, at least from what she had witnessed, that they didn't.

Isobel sighed. She wished she had known her grandparents. She had brought that photo of her grandmother in the wild paisley dress up to her room and put it in a frame on the dresser. Maybe her grandmother had harbored a secret desire to be other than she was, which, according to Louise, was a timid and retiring woman. The dress certainly seemed to be a clue, unless, like Louise guessed, it was a purchase made under pressure from a friend. Hmm. A friend who sensed that Nancy Jones had an inner spirit aching to be set free? It was too bad that Isobel would never know.

Suddenly, Isobel knew what she would buy with the gift certificate Catherine had given her for her birthday—a copy of Ari Seth Cohen's book,
Advanced Style
. It was chock-full of photographs of stylish women in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and for all Isobel knew, even their nineties. That was one of the good things about being interested in style. It was a passion that could last throughout a lifetime.

Isobel glanced at the old-fashioned windup alarm clock on her desk. It was already three thirty. She hoped that everything was okay with Jeff. He had looked pretty concerned or distracted when that call had come in and he'd had to hurry off. She guessed he must feel an awful lot of pressure working for a father who was so high-powered and influential. She had never felt pressure from either of her parents to succeed in any particular way. But maybe that had more to do with her than with her parents' being cool. Isobel liked to think of herself as someone who didn't easily succumb to the standards of other people, even people she loved or admired. She liked to think of herself as someone who consciously chose to march to the beat of her own drum.

An unexpected ray of sunshine penetrated the room, illuminating Isobel's bracelet. She held out her arm and admired it once again. She felt warm and happy and drowsy. Before long, she had drifted off to sleep.

Mother and daughter were in the kitchen the following morning. The breakfast room had been cleared and the tables reset for the next day. Bella had gone home, and the housekeeping staff was hard at work in the guest rooms, hallways, parlor, and library.

Louise was ironing napkins; it was one of those domestic chores she had always found unaccountably soothing. Isobel sat at the table flipping through a fashion magazine, her empty cereal bowl still beside her. Louise could see a few splashes of pink-tinted milk and grimaced. She wished she could get Isobel, usually pretty health-conscious, to give up eating Franken Berry cereal, but the girl refused. Honestly, it didn't seem to be doing her any harm, though what havoc they would find at her next dentist appointment was anyone's guess.

Sunlight streamed through the windows. It was going to be a scorcher, Louise noted. If she was lucky, she might be able to snatch some time that afternoon to escape to the beach and cool her feet in the Atlantic.

Suddenly, she noticed a sparkle flashing from Isobel's left wrist as she turned a page of the magazine.

“Where did you get that bracelet?” she asked, carefully placing the iron in its stand.

Isobel looked up from her magazine and laughed. “Oh, I wondered when you'd notice! I've been wearing it for days. Jeff gave it to me.”

“Jeez, this wedding has me totally distracted. What was the occasion?”

“No occasion. He just gave it to me.”

Louise felt a twinge of discomfort. “It looks pretty expensive, especially for a no-occasion gift,” she said.

Isobel shrugged. “His family has a lot of money. And Jeff works for his dad so he probably has cash of his own. Anyway, you know I don't care about how much things cost.”

No,
Louise thought,
but he might.
Maybe that was an unfair leap to make, assuming Jeff would want payment of some sort for the gift . . . She had no reason to think ill of Jeff Otten and every reason to think well of the family in which he had been raised. And there was no way the bracelet was anything but silver and crystals. It couldn't have cost so terribly much, even with the price of silver still being pretty high and crystals enjoying another moment of popularity. Still . . .

“Still,” she said, “it seems a bit odd that he would give you such a big gift so soon after you two started dating.” Andrew, she thought, hadn't given her an important (his term for expensive) gift until they had been dating a year.

Isobel grinned. “Are you saying I'm not worth it?”

“Of course that's not what I'm saying. You're worth the heavens and all beneath them.”

“Ha!”

“Just promise me you'll let me know if he gives you another extravagant gift, okay?”

Isobel shrugged again. “Sure, whatever.”

Louise was not thrilled about that answer—it sounded vaguely insincere—but she had no choice but to believe in and trust her daughter's words. Right?

Isobel left the kitchen soon, after being reminded to put her bowl in the dishwasher. Louise went back to her ironing.

Later in the day, Louise sat at the kitchen table with a cup of iced coffee. It had been a busy day of troubleshooting at the inn (Mr. and Mrs. Daley reported a clogged toilet and later, a clogged sink) and putting out fires relating to the wedding from hell (the bride, Morocco or Jamaica, had blown up at her fiancé and called off the wedding; an hour later, everything was back on, leaving both Flora Michaels and Louise recovering from minor heart attacks). She never did have the time to escape to the beach.

Now that she had a spare moment to think about something other than the problems of strangers, Louise's mind turned again to the bracelet Jeff had given Isobel. Really, it was odd that Isobel hadn't shown her the bracelet right away. Isobel was usually so impatient, exuberant, and open.

Louise wondered. Maybe Isobel was indeed uncomfortable about Jeff's gift, but reluctant to admit it. Odd. She remembered now how Isobel hadn't told her about the first time she had met Jeff . . . Was this new pattern of behavior something about which she should be concerned? Well, Louise thought, probably not. It was a good thing that Isobel was embracing independence. And the easiest way to alienate a young person was to breathe down her neck with questions.

Louise's phone announced the virtual presence of Flora Michaels. She sighed. It was the fourteenth text of the day, and it wasn't any friendlier than the first thirteen. The two women had been working together for weeks now and they were no more friendly than they had been during that first fateful phone conversation. With any other person Louise would have tried for some personal connection, but Flora Michaels, by every word and every gesture, discouraged—no, forbid!—friendship or, at the very least, amiable relations. So be it.

Still, Louise had a sudden desire to force-feed Flora Michaels a box of Franken Berry. It was probably the only thing sugary enough to sweeten her up.