Dockside (9 page)

G
reg pulled into the ball field parking lot just as Little League practice was winding down. From a distance, it was an idyllic scene, the surrounding forestland rising up into the hills, the golden light of late afternoon slanting over the green diamond, dotted with laughing, chattering kids shouting to each other as they gathered their things. Greg wondered if anything could be as good as it looked, or if that was just wishful thinking. Then he picked out Max, sitting by himself on the bench in the dugout. Great, he thought. His kid was benched again.

There was no torture quite so searing as seeing your kid in emotional pain. It was torture because it made Greg feel helpless. This wasn’t the kind of hurt you could fix with an ice pack or a Band-Aid. This injury was invisible, particularly when it came to Max, who tended to keep things hidden.

Greg sat in the truck for a minute, dissuading himself from interfering. Popping off at the mouth to the coach would do Max no good at all. The kid needed to learn to fight his own battles, and for all Greg knew, Max was sitting out by choice. Or worse, he was sitting out because once again, the kid had blown his temper. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Through no fault of his own, Max had been at the tail end of all the drama surrounding the divorce, the move from the city, Sophie’s job in Europe, Daisy’s pregnancy. Max was swept along in the maelstrom, adapting to school and a new town with an easygoing aplomb that masked emotions he refused to discuss with Greg, Sophie or his therapist. Every once in a while, he blew his stack, giving Greg a glimpse of the rage the boy couldn’t quite keep in. Greg had the idea that putting Max on a team might give him an outlet. Max had always been physical, a good athlete, obsessed with hockey in the winter and baseball in the summer. He’d been a star on his team in the city. Here in Avalon, he had a chance to shine.

Or not, Greg thought, waiting in the truck while the team gathered for the post-practice meeting with Coach Broadbent.

Greg’s phone rang—
please be her
—and he snatched it up, eagerly checking the caller ID. But no. It was his lawyer, and Greg let it go to voice mail. He frowned, ticked off that Nina still hadn’t called him. He hoped like hell she would say yes to his proposal, but he wasn’t going to beg her. In the meantime, he stayed busy, mindful of his commitment to integrate work and family.

Neither was going well.

Six of the guest rooms were still under construction and would need refurnishing in the style of the period. The caretaker’s house, where he lived with his kids, was still a jumble of moving boxes and unmatched furniture. The boathouse and dock both needed work, too. On the upside, he’d assembled what was beginning to resemble a staff. An information technology consultant had set up a hospitality system that Daisy immediately mastered, even personalizing the software with her photography. The Web site was up and running, and it was with a sense of surreal amazement that they watched the inquiries and reservations flow into the inbox. However, having a staff, a slick site and system wouldn’t mean a thing until the general manager was in place to orchestrate everything.

Nina Romano wasn’t the only game in town, he told himself. Or out of town, for that matter. The business consultant Greg had hired offered to send experienced candidates for his consideration. But Nina was the only one he wanted. She was the perfect fit. When it came to running an intimate luxury hotel, it was all about getting the right people. Nina was exactly right. He had a feeling about her. She had an air of confidence and a depth of experience no one else could match. The trouble was, she wanted to work there on her terms, and Greg had beaten her to it. Now it was up to him to persuade her that they could both benefit and so far, he’d done a lousy job of it.

Coach Broadbent finished his meeting with the players and Greg got out of the truck. “Max!” he yelled and waved at his son.

Max sprang into action, shouldering his duffel bag and water bottle and sprinting toward the parking lot.

“Hey, buddy. How was practice?”

“Fine,” said Max.

“Okay, I asked for that. Let me rephrase. Tell me everything you did at practice.”

Max put his things in the back of the truck. “Just the usual stuff.”

Greg noticed that his practice uniform—gray knickers, navy shirt and white cap—were just as clean as they’d been when Max put them on. The kid hadn’t even broken a sweat. “You were on the bench when I drove up.”

“Was I?”

“You want me to have a word with Coach?”

“Da-ad.” Max stretched the word into two syllables. “I can handle Coach, okay?”

“That’s what I thought.” Greg studied his son. Sandy-haired and freckle-faced, he had the kind of smile that covered a myriad of issues.

“But handle it,” he said. “There’s no need for you to waste a whole practice on the bench.”

“I wasn’t—” Max cut himself off and got in the truck. “Can we go now? I’m starving.”

Classic avoidance, Greg observed. This was what Max did—turned away from trouble, keeping things bottled up. Later in the summer, Max was going to Holland, accompanied by Sophie’s parents, the Lindstroms. Later, Max and his mother would return to Avalon in time for the wedding. Max didn’t like the plan. He didn’t like the idea that he had to travel thirty-five hundred miles to be with his mother, but he had no choice. And that, Greg suspected, was the reason for his bottled-up feelings.

“Hey, Max—”

“I’m done, okay? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Which is why we should probably talk about it.”

“
Dad.
Starving here.”

Greg decided to let it go for now. When sitting on a bench, a boy could conjure up a lot of things in his mind, but sometimes it was better just to back off. “Now that,” he said, “I can do something about.”

“What, you figured out how to cook?”

“Smart-ass. I can cook.” Greg was trying. At first, only grilling felt right. He’d figured out a way to grill every meal, not even balking at things like peaches, which he served over ice cream. As time went on, he progressed to boxed meals that came with clear instructions. “I’m not doing the cooking tonight, though.”

“Are we going out with Brooke?” A look that was both comical and disturbing animated Max’s face. The kid had a thing for Brooke Harlow, that was for sure.

“No, we’re not going out with Brooke. We’re going up to Camp Kioga.”

“Yes.”
The word hissed from him like air from a balloon.

“I figured you’d like that.” Greg relaxed during the ten-mile drive through the Catskills wilderness. The camp was on the opposite end of the lake, far from town. Greg’s niece Olivia’s massive project of transforming the property from a defunct summer camp into an all-inclusive family resort that would be open year-round had been going on for nearly a year, but they were yet another year away from completion. Still, Olivia’s dedication to it was inspiring, and the way she’d embraced the project had played no small part in Greg’s decision to take over the Inn at Willow Lake. Building something tangible, making it work—that was the way to launch a new life and watch it grow.

Although the camp was under construction, its bunkhouses, cabins and main pavilion were still habitable. Two more of Greg’s grown nieces had arrived to help with the wedding preparations, and the barbecue was in their honor. Greg’s parents and his older brother Philip were there as well. When he and Max arrived, everyone was gathered on the deck of the pavilion, laughing and talking while music drifted from the outdoor speakers. Daisy was there already, having driven herself earlier. The sight of her, seated at a table so her pregnancy wasn’t visible, laughing and drinking lemonade with her older cousins, caused Greg to feel a clutch of regret.

Knock it off, he told himself. Not being okay with her pregnancy was simply not an option. He’d had months to get used to the idea, and he needed to put these twinges behind him.

Max took the stairs two at a time, in a hurry to see everyone. Carrying a bottle of wine and a six-pack—his contribution to the barbecue—Greg watched everyone surround Max, enfolding him in a cocoon of relatives. In the Bellamy family, Max was the youngest son of the youngest son. He would be the last of his generation to come of age. His aunts, uncles and cousins seemed to cherish his youth, wanting to keep him young for as long as possible. Greg had no trouble with this. He already had one kid who had grown up too fast. Max’s favorite member of the Bellamy family was Olivia’s dog, a little mutt called Barkis. Within minutes, the two of them were on the floor, playing tug-of-war with an old stuffed toy.

The gathering included Olivia and Connor, the bride and groom-to-be, and an assortment of cousins and friends. Olivia was just ten years younger than Greg, but he hadn’t spared much attention for his niece when she was growing up; he’d been too busy for that. He vaguely remembered some awkward years for Olivia—braces, frizzy hair, glasses, a weight problem. At some point she’d morphed into this lovely woman, filled with confidence and glowing with happiness.

Stranger things had happened, Greg thought, his gaze focusing on Rourke McKnight. Avalon’s chief of police, off duty at the moment, had been the ultimate confirmed bachelor—until last winter, when he was snowed in with Jenny Majesky, Nina’s best friend. People liked to joke that the chief of police had married her because she owned the Sky River Bakery and he was addicted to her unbelievable, ecstasy-inducing doughnuts, but Greg knew the story was a lot more complicated than that. Relationships always were, whether they succeeded or failed. Greg resolved to talk to Jenny later, try to see if she’d give him some insight as to what Nina was thinking.

During dinner, he let himself relax and, with a wave of gratitude, enjoyed the company of his family. Simply by being present, being who they were, they had helped him survive the breakup of his marriage. He watched the nieces and Daisy mapping out the wedding ceremony with the precision of battle commanders. Olivia, ever-organized, brought out actual diagrams, moving the desserts aside to spread them out on the table.

“So after Jenny—my matron of honor—all the girl cousins will come in order by age,” Olivia was saying. “Is that okay?”

“You’re the bride,” Jenny said. “You don’t need to ask.”

Daisy nodded. “I’ll be last—but not least.” She patted her belly. Her cousins responded with genuine affection. They seemed happy about the baby, which didn’t exactly allay his own panic, but it seemed to please Daisy.

“Julian Gastineaux is going to be the best man,” Olivia told Daisy. “He’s coming from California next week. I figured you’d want to know.”

Greg watched his daughter’s face bloom like a rose. Not a good sign. Connor Davis’s brother Julian was the same age as Daisy. She’d met him last summer, when both of them were working here at Camp Kioga. Julian was the kind of kid whose very name made girls blush. He was tall, good-looking, biracial and incredibly cocky. With dreadlocks, a pierced ear and at least one visible tattoo, the kid was a wild card for sure. He’d worked at Camp Kioga the summer before, and since they were the same age, they hung out a lot. Greg remembered him as an adrenaline junkie, obsessed with heights and dangerous speeds.

Now, however, Greg was forced to admit that Julian was not the ultimate risk-taker. Daisy was. Last summer, she’d been a high-school girl, flirting with a boy from California. A year later, she was about to become a mother. Yet judging by her blooming face, he figured she wasn’t quite ready to leave romance behind. Greg reminded himself to quit worrying. These days, Daisy had bigger concerns than flirting with the brother of the groom.

As the conversation shifted to the guest list, Greg noticed Jenny edge away. She went to stand at the railing of the deck, looking out across the lake. She hadn’t grown up like those girls, a product of private schools and privilege. It didn’t seem to bother her, but he suspected all the talk of people she didn’t know bored her.

Which gave him the perfect opportunity to pick her brain about Nina Romano. He grabbed a chilled bottle of Chardonnay and went to refill her glass.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “Nice night.”

Greg surveyed the gathering and for a moment he flashed on the old days, when the camp was in operation. He wondered if those times were really as good as he remembered, or if nostalgia gave everything a rosy tinge. “You doing all right?” he asked.

“I like getting to know Philip’s side of the family, different as they are from my own.”

“We feel the same way about you,” Greg assured her. “Not that you’re different, but that we like getting to know you.”

“Does that mean I should start calling you Uncle Greg?”

“Only if you want to make me feel like a geezer. Seriously, I’m glad you and my brother found each other last year. It’s been a good year for him, too. He’s like a different person. He used to be this buttoned-down, intense, even angsty guy. Now look at him.”

Philip seemed years younger, in shorts and a golf shirt, his longish hair windblown. A new sense of contentment showed in Philip’s face and the way he held himself, at ease in the world. He seemed to be smiling from the inside out. That was how happiness worked—from the inside out. That was why truly happy people shone, even when they weren’t actively smiling. He had two new women in his life—his daughter Jenny, whom he’d met for the first time last summer. And Laura Tuttle, who ran the bakery in town. They were old friends whose friendship was becoming something more. Standing at his side, Laura was a quiet but adoring presence. She and Philip were proof of something Greg hadn’t quite believed in—until now. Not only could you survive a divorce, sometimes second and even third chances were given. They were unexpected blessings you had to hold on to before you missed out.