A Shore Thing (9 page)

I stared into the morning fog. Did this have anything to do with the building permits Ruth had mentioned? My finger hovered over the keypad, but I stalled. If the camp were really overbooked as Luz said, then I was going to be inundated with decisions about who to put where. I snapped shut the phone and spoke into the air. “First thing Sunday evening, June.”

The drive to camp lasted less than ten minutes. This was only the second week of the spring season. Staffers new and old trickled on-site to prep for this season’s new camp theme: “Standing on the Rock.” I’d seen some of the sketches but had not had enough time to see an entire run-through.

The doors to the Adventure Room had been propped open, so instead of racing by as usual, I wandered in. Because other groups used the camp during the week, program staffers had to replace banners and other props before the start of each weekend.

Squid stood in the center of the organized chaos. His arms were crossed but his stance relaxed as he observed the staffers. My usual lift at seeing him had dulled considerably. Before I was able to turn away, he offered me a wave.

My smile felt weak, unimpressive. Continuing through the auditorium-sized space I halted at the massive banners hanging high on each side of the stage, their letters large and capped. One read SAND and the other ROCK.

Carp, who hugged a ladder beneath the first banner, called out to me. “Hey, Grandma Callie!” She smiled as if truly happy to see me, but she would change her mind if she knew how much I longed to knock over her ladder.

Squid jogged over to me. “Gotta minute?”

I hesitated. “Sure.”

“I’m holding a midweek meeting for all senior staff. We have some kinks to work out.” His eyebrows had a funny way of twitching up and down when he felt intense about something. “You in?”

“Well, it depends.” I crossed a set of files in front of my chest, not unlike a high school student with her books. “I just agreed to head an important cause in town, and we’ll be meeting a couple of times this week. When did you want to have your meeting?”

He tilted his head to one side. “What cause? Something to do with animals? Or the environment?”

“In a roundabout way, I’d guess you could say that.” I lowered my voice. “I’d rather not say too much about it just yet. But between us there’s been talk about a development going in on the Kitteridge property, and I’m working with a group of citizens to keep that from happening.”

He scratched his beard, gaping at me. “First I heard of it.”

His lack of reaction unnerved me. “Like I said, there still are plenty of unresolved issues. Suffice to say that SOS—that stands for Save our Shores—is very much in the planning stages.”

He dropped his hand and gave a shrug. “Well if it’s God’s will, you’ll know it.”

We’re in a Christian camp, so why did his response cause me to do a double take? I glanced toward the front as staffers ran a thick strip of masking tape down the center of the stage. My eyes found Squid again. “So you wanted to meet with me midweek?”

He blinked.

“I-I meant . . . you wanted to hold a staff meeting after this weekend. Right?”

He blinked hard, then nodded. “Oh right. Yeah. So can you be here Wednesday evening around six? Tidal Wave’ll be bringing pizzas.”

“Fine. Sure.” From the doorway Luz waved me over with urgent, hard strokes of her hand. I inhaled for strength. “Have to go.” I jogged away. Facing him wasn’t nearly as tough as I thought it might be, considering my ego still smarted from his proclamation of last week that I was old and tired. So maybe that’s an exaggeration? By the way it affected me, he might as well have said as much.

“It’s hopeless.” Luz’s glasses slid down her shiny nose. She perspired when things didn’t go as expected.

“Nothing’s hopeless.” I held out my hand for her clipboard. “May I see?”

She smirked and handed it over. “Good luck. Looks like we’re going to have to make kids camp out in the Adventure Room or something.”

I studied the list of cabin assignments. “What about the e-mail I sent?”

Luz puffed out a sigh laced with stale coffee. She pointed at line seven. “You forgot about them.”

She was right. Somehow I’d missed the church from Bakersfield. My mind hummed, searching for an answer. I ran my finger down the list. “And you’ve checked with each of these church groups to make sure all their campers are coming?”

She nodded.

“Well, then. We’ve got our work cut out for us today.”

GAGE

“I’M GLAD YOU CALLED.” Gage leaned against the seat back of his creaky office chair. He figured the elusive developer who had hired him would be getting wind of the project’s opposition soon. It wasn’t, however, his job to deliver the bad news.

The gruff voice on the line was all business. “What’s the status?”

Status? As in how powerful did he think that band of mostly elderly committee members could be, save Callie and that angry one? Come to think of it, there were two angry women in that bunch.

Gage decided to stick to discussing the project itself. “Still waiting on the survey, but I’ve been on the property several times and have developed further vision for it than represented in the schematic design we discussed. Once I receive that survey, I’ll be ready to lay it out.”

“What’s the ETA of that?”

Gage tapped the fat tip of his pencil on a blank sheet of tracing paper. “They tell me they’ll have it available by Friday.”

“No mistakes on this.” His client’s voice was low and despite his urgent words, nearly monotone. “As soon as escrow closes, we’ll want a complete set of plans into the planning commission ASAP. I’ll keep you abreast of timing. In the meantime, make sure there are plenty of green elements in the design. We don’t want no trouble with this community—lots of fringe in that area of the state.”

He winced. Sustainable architecture was what he did. “Don’t worry, Redmond. While waiting for the survey, I’ve been perfecting the placement of the buildings to maximize the best light and the naturally occurring breezes. Sitting your property well is my top priority.”

“Just make sure to make it green. Stick some bamboo on the floors and solar panels outside, stuff like that, and that ought to make the rubberneckers happy.”

Gage bristled at the assumptions. The idea of making something sustainable should be foundational whenever possible, instead of designing something and then asking afterward, “How can I make this green?” The ideal was to understand what it meant to create something sustainable, and from there allow the design to naturally occur.

Explaining the truth of sustainable design to his client, however, would only fall on deaf ears. Gage’s fingers tightened on the phone. “If this project gets off the ground, it will be compatible with the landscape and be an inspiration to the Otter Bay community.”

“
If? If
this project gets off the ground?” Same gravelly voice; higher pitch. “You doubt your paycheck?”

Gage sat up and planted both of his feet back on the floor. “That’s not what I meant.” His fingers raked through rumpled hair. “I apologize if—”

“You’ve heard something, then.” Redmond swore and spoke something unintelligible into the background. “If that guy thinks he’s gonna pull this one from under me, he’ll have more than a lawsuit to deal with. He’d better know that. Better yet, you tell ’im that if he tries to put any more doubts in your head. Got it?”

Gage’s eyes shut. He tried to picture what his caller was saying, and who he was saying it about. “I’m not sure I—”

“Are we done? I’ve got a plane to catch.”

Suz drifted in with a question in her eyes but stopped short at Gage’s expression. She clutched a thick file closer to her chest and made a quick retreat back to her desk.

Gage’s client’s question hung between them until he shrugged it away, ready to be off that phone. “I’ll be in touch.”

“You do that.” The line went dead.

Suz peeked through the doorway. “Tough customer?”

Gage stared at the bland wall outside his window, his voice sounding far away even to his ears. “And perplexing.” He forced the conversation out of his head and swung around to look at his little sister.

“Did you want to ask me something?”

She approached him, a note in her hand. “You had a call from a realtor. A Rick Knutson.”

Gage shook his head. “I’ve seen the guy’s picture on signs around town but don’t know him. Did he say what he wanted?”

“Just that he had some news on a property you were working on.” One of her eyebrows lifted as if a question mark held it up.

“What’s the look for?”

She relaxed her face in a hurry. “Nothing. He just reminded me of, you know, a used car salesman or something. He talked real fast and called me
honey.
Who does that?”

Gage laughed. “Hey, watch it. Our father sold used cars when he was in college.” He sat forward and held the note in both hands. “A real estate agent, huh?” Gage didn’t bother to ask which property the caller was referring to because, unfortunately, there was only one—hopefully, the one that would lead to more work than he could handle. He looked up. “Thanks, Suz. I’ll give him a call.”

Chapter Nine

“How did you let this happen?” Squid paced as Luz and I continued to pore over the cabin assignments spread across her desk.

I turned up both hands. “Somehow I missed a church. It happens.”

He paused and gave me a sideways glance. “It happens when your head’s not in the game.”

I frowned. “When have you known me to make a mistake like this?”

He took several more steps, then tossed up his hands. “Sorry, Callie. You’re right. Mistakes happen.”

Luz grimaced. “Just don’t let it happen again, right?”

We both turned to stare at her.

She waved us off. “Ah. You both seem distracted lately, like you’re here but your attention’s somewhere else.”

Squid and I exchanged glances. He tossed a strange little smile my direction and a sigh slid between his lips. “She’s right. It’s the second week of camp and something’s just not jelling with the program.” He stared at the fake wood paneling. “Can’t figure it out and it’s ticking me off.”

I rubbed my lips together, my eyebrows raised. “Wish I could help, but um, we’ve got this little problem over here.”

“What’s your solution?”

Luz jumped in. “Hope that someone’s bus breaks down?”

I cut her a look. “Nice. No. First off, I’ve never known a weekend where someone didn’t fail to show up. It’s a fact that people get sick. We don’t like it or wish it on anybody, but it happens all the time. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

The lines in Squid’s forehead deepened. I’d never seen him so stressed. “And if everyone shows up?”

My lips continued to run together as I considered my last resort. The boys would hate it. The newfound leader in me inhaled and let it out before announcing my decision. “The game room. We take bunks out of storage and move them in there. And, of course, move the foosball tables, etcetera, out.”

One corner of Squid’s mouth curled upward as he nodded, while a small smile lit Luz’s face.

I continued. “Thankfully the bathroom’s located just outside the cabin and it’s warming up a little, enough that campers won’t have to traipse outside in the early morning frost to use the facilities.”

Squid slapped the sides of his jeans. “Well, okay. You have a plan.”

“You doubted me?”

He bowed. “My apologies to the ever-resourceful Seabird.”

“Oh, brother.” Luz’s previously hopeful expression had degenerated into a scowl. She glanced out the dusty window. “Don’t look now but it looks like an early arrival.”

Squid pulled the curtain aside, and I caught a glimpse of a renovated school bus pulling up the gravel driveway. He turned to Luz. “I’ll help them unpack the bus while you get to your place at check-in.” Before heading out, Squid caught my eye.

I waved him on. “It’ll be fine. Go.”

Luz stacked the papers on her desk and slipped them into her file. “I’m right behind you, Squid.” She dropped her clipboard onto the file and scooped up the entire stack just as someone knocked on the door to the office.

“Callie?”

My breath caught. Her white hair had been swept into an elegant bun, but otherwise the elderly woman looked skinny and alarmingly frail. With her back bowed as it was, her taut shoulders pointed up like two upside down Vs. “Mrs. Kitteridge? Hello.” My questions for her collided with thoughts on camp. I needed to be where all the action was as the campers arrived. Why was June Kitteridge here? And why now?

June stepped through the door just as Luz slipped out, throwing a concerned, I-need-you expression as she did.

Mrs. Kitteridge kept her gaze fixed on me. “Please, call me June.”

I drew in a breath and pasted on a smile. “Sure. Have a seat.” Concern etched across her face, so to alleviate that I joined her by sitting in Luz’s chair. “I received your voice mail this morning. I had planned to call you first thing Sunday evening after camp.”

“I’m sorry to have bothered you. Shall I go?”

“No, no. Didn’t mean it that way. How can I help you, June?” Even at my age it felt odd calling Mrs. Kitteridge by her first name.