Driftwood Point (21 page)

“If they did, she'd feed them and they'd go away so happy they'd forget why they were there in the first place.”

“Captain Walt's might not be quite as good, but they're good. And they have live music on Saturday nights, so I thought you might like that,” he said.

“I do.”

“They used to have music on Friday nights only—jazz groups, mostly. Then Walt realized that he was losing a lot of Saturday business to a new place out on the highway that had a live band, so he started bringing in local musicians. Some of them have been pretty good.” He lowered his voice and leaned a little closer. “Some of them have been dreadful.”

Lis laughed. “You know what Forrest Gump always said.”

“You never know what you're going to get,” Alec said solemnly.

“Wise words from a wise man.”

“Your glass is empty. Another?”

“No, thanks. I'm good.” Lis watched as several people made their way to the door. “Looks like the exodus has begun.”

“Good. That means we can leave anytime we want.”

“I should check on Ruby, and remind Owen that he's going to have to drive her home.”

It took several minutes for Lis to make her way from one room to the other, since many of the attendees stopped as they were leaving to tell her they admired her work and the reporter from the Baltimore paper caught up with her at the door for a quick interview. She had intended on tapping Owen on the back, but she noted he was already on his way toward Ruby, and the blonde was nowhere to be seen. By the time she reached the side room, Ruby was already on her feet and saying her good-byes to her audience. Lis smiled. Even at her age, Ruby was still the center of attention.

She caught Owen's eye.

“I can take it from here,” he told her.

“I know. Thanks for being here.”

“Even though I barely saw you all night,” he reminded her.

“Doesn't matter. I knew you were here. You know that I love you both.” She handed him her car keys.

“I do. Have a good time. Do I have to tell you to behave?”

She poked him in the side. “Don't play the big brother card now. We're both too old, and it's a little late.”

“I'll never be too old, and it will never be too late.”

She rolled her eyes. “I'll see you at home.”

“Nice crowd came out to see you, Lisbeth.” Ruby approached on Ford Sinclair's arm. “Lots of folks
told me how pretty your pictures are. I said to them, I hope you're not surprised.”

“Thanks, Gigi.” Lis kissed her cheek. “I'll see you when I get home.”

Lis joined Alec near the door, where he was talking to Carly.

“Congratulations. That was some homecoming. St. Dennis welcomed you back with open arms.” Carly was beaming.

“It was great,” Lis said. “I can't thank you enough for arranging this.”

“My pleasure. Let's make it a point to get together sometime while you're still in town.”

“Will do.” Lis looked up at Alec. “Ready?”

“When you are.”

“Bye, Carly, and thanks again.”

Alec held the door for her, and Lis walked outside into the evening air. The day had been hot but not humid, and a cool front was expected to move through that night. It was almost but not quite dark, the streetlights just coming on to light the way.

“So what was the best part of the night?” he said.

“I'll have to think about that. Some of it was surreal. People I didn't think I knew acted like they knew me.”

“I think people—especially people from our class—felt they did know you back then.” He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Not as well as they might have liked, but everyone remembered you.”

His fingers grazed her elbow when they got to the car, and he opened the passenger door for her.

“There are people I wish I'd known better,” she
admitted, “but I was really discouraged from making friends in town.”

“I don't think anyone was aware of that.” He slid behind the wheel and started the car.

“Well, it wasn't something that I walked around talking about. ‘My dad is prejudiced and thinks everyone from St. Dennis is a crook.' Talk about how to win friends.”

“How'd Owen deal with that?”

“Owen couldn't have cared less what our father thought. He always did his own thing. Besides, by the time he was fourteen, he was bigger and stronger. I don't remember Dad ever messing with him.”

“Have you and your brother always been close?”

“Yes and no. He was a few years older and he was out of high school by the time I got there. Then he went off to college and after he graduated, he joined the navy. These past few years, it's been hard for us to keep in touch. He's been traveling a lot since he and Cindy got divorced. This will be the most time we've spent together in a long time.”

“He came to see me yesterday at the boatyard.” Alec stopped at the Stop sign, waited while a few cars passed, then made a left onto Charles Street.

“He mentioned he might do that.”

“Yeah, he said he just wanted to see the
Annie G
. I thought he was going to give me a hard time about it—like someone else who shall remain nameless did—but he didn't.”

“Both Owen and that someone else who remains nameless are both grateful that you've been so good to Gigi.” Lis smiled and looked out the window. “I
believe that she who remains nameless already told you that.”

“She did. I just didn't expect to hear it from her brother.”

Alec turned right at the light and drove slowly down Kelly's Point Road, past the municipal parking lot to the smaller lot at the end reserved for Captain Walt's customers. The lot was full, and he had to backtrack and park farther up the road.

“Looks like a packed house tonight.” He and Lis got out of the Jeep and walked along the side of the road to the boardwalk that ran along the bay at the marina.

The door at Captain Walt's opened and a crowd spilled out, and for a moment, the music from the band followed them. Then the door closed, and it was quiet again, the water lapping against the sides of the boats that were docked at the pier the predominant sound. Alec and Lis followed two other couples into the restaurant and were greeted by the smiling hostess.

“Alec, I have you down for nine o'clock. You're a little late,” she told them.

“Sorry, Rexanne. We were at the gallery opening.”

“Lucky for you, so was everyone else.” The woman raised a finger to beckon a waiter. “We're really busy right now, so I'm just going to have Craig show you to your table.”

“I requested a table near the windows looking out onto the bay,” Alec told the young man who led them through the restaurant toward the back wall. “I hope one's still available.”

“How's this?” The waiter stopped at a cozy table for two with a great view.

“Perfect. Just the table I had in mind.”

The waiter held out Lis's chair while Alec seated himself, then handed them both menus. “We also have a shrimp special and tuna that came in this morning.”

“Yum.” Lis had relaxed as soon as she was seated. There was something about the ambience of this restaurant that made her feel like she was home.

They talked about the menu, and after they'd both ordered the tuna, Alec ordered wine for Lis and a beer for himself.

“I don't know if you like beer,” he told her, “but St. Dennis has a local brewery now, and the beer is not like anything I ever had anywhere else.”

“I do like it occasionally.”

“MadMac Brews. Clay Madison—who is married to my cousin Lucy—and Wade MacGregor started it about two or three years ago. Clay grows the hops organically at his farm, and they set up their brewery right there in an old barn on his property. It's quite the operation.”

The waiter appeared with their drinks.

“MacGregor.” Lis thought for a moment. “Steffie who owns the ice cream place, her last name is MacGregor.”

“Wade is her husband. He's also Dallas MacGregor's brother.”

Her mouth hung open for just a moment. “Dallas MacGregor, the movie star?”

Alec nodded. “She lives here, too. Married her
old sweetheart, who just happens to be Steffie's brother.”

“She lives in St. Dennis?”

“Girl, where have you been?” he teased. “She not only lives here, she bought some old warehouses on River Road and turned them into a studio. She has her own production company and they're right here. They're just starting work on their third film.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Don't you read
People
magazine?”

She shook her head no.

“Watch
Entertainment Tonight
?”

Another no.

“How do you keep up with the beautiful people? Don't you care how real celebrities live?”

“Apparently not.” Lis laughed.

“Me, either. The only reason I know about Dallas is because she lives here and our paths cross now and then.”

“She's one of the few Hollywood types I'd recognize, but only because her looks are so distinctive. I watched one of those award shows on TV about six months ago, and I swear, I didn't know who anyone was.”

“That's because you don't read culturally informative publications.”

“More likely because I grew up in a house where, culturally speaking, it was still the 1800s.”

“Ancient history,” he told her. “Time to move on.”

“For the most part, I have, but then something happens, some little thing like seeing Jody McGovern at the gallery. We were always in the same English
class, and I thought she was so smart and so funny, and I bet she was fun to be with. She was the one person I really wanted to be friends with back then. Tonight I had about three minutes to talk to her before I had to move the line, and I wish it had been more.”

“You can see Jody anytime you want. She's still around. She's the assistant librarian.”

“Maybe I'll stop in and say hi one day. But it doesn't make up for all the times I wished . . .” It was hard to put into words what she wished. “I missed a lot back then. When I got to college, it was hard for me to make friends because I never really had to. The kids I'd hung around with in school, I'd always known them. So I didn't have to
get
to know them, if you follow me. I didn't know how to make friends. I've always been awkward with new people.”

“If you felt awkward tonight, you hid it really well.”

“Really?”

Alec nodded. “You looked relaxed and charming and gracious.”

“Charming and gracious,” she mused. “I don't think I've ever been described in those terms before.”

“Maybe not to your face. You just don't see yourself the way others do.”

“That's nice of you. I appreciate it. I think I will stop at the library one day next week and see if Jody is there. Maybe it's not too late to be friends.”

“It's never too late, Lis.” He looked directly into her eyes. “It will never be too late.”

Something told her he wasn't talking just about friendship.

The waiter brought their dinners and Lis tucked away the conversation for later.

“Thanks for asking for a table near the bay. I never get tired of looking at the Chesapeake. I didn't realize how much I missed it until last week. I love watching the lights on the boats at night when everything else is so dark. It's like watching fairies dancing on the water.”

The fish was perfectly cooked and she said so, adding, “Fish never tastes as good to me as it does here. Crabs—hands down, the best come out of the bay. Rockfish—no comparison. Maybe that's why I eat so much of it when I'm here.”

“My uncle Cliff used to take me crabbing. He had an old green rowboat that we'd take out, mostly in the river. I loved those times with him. He was such a good man.” Alec finished his meal and placed the knife and fork on his plate. “He took me in when my folks died, and treated me like a son from that day on. Everything he did, he did for me. He taught me to fish and crab and where to find oysters when it seemed like they'd all been taken by the professionals. He never missed a parent-teacher meeting or a lacrosse game or a basketball game. There was always a cake on my birthday and a party with my cousins at the inn. Christmases were the best. He always made the holidays worth the wait.” He cleared his throat. “It's been sixteen years, and I miss him every day.”

“He sounds like a great guy.” Lis thought back to the conversation she and Ruby had had just a few days ago. “We don't stop loving people just because they're gone.”

“I had great parents. We were a really happy family. I'll never understand why things had to be the way they were.”

“If Ruby were here, she'd say something like,
‘Can't change what was.'
She tells me things like that all the time.”

Alec smiled. “I've heard that one, too. That, and,
‘It's all in his hands, and he keeps his plans to himself, no reason to let me know ahead 'a time
.' ”

“ ‘Times be changing. Keep up
.' ” She grinned.

“How 'bout,
‘You go on about your business, now, and let me go on about mine.
' ”

“And to whatever it was that she wants you to do, it's,
‘Do you good
.' ”

“She's the best. I don't mind saying that one of my best friends is a one-hundred-year-old woman.”

“Funny. Owen said something sort of like that last night. That he didn't mind living with his great-grandmother because she's . . . well, because she's Ruby.”

“Loved and respected by all who know her.” Alec realized that Lis, too, had finished eating. “Dessert?”

“Not another bite for me. But thanks.”