Summer Friends (13 page)

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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: Summer Friends
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Maggie gestured toward her car. “Well, I should say good night. I know you like to get to bed early.”
Delphine shrugged. “I'm not sure that I like it so much, but I need it. Five o'clock comes early, as my father always says. Drive safe,” she added, already walking toward her truck. “It's probably too early for drunken tourists to be on the road, but you never know.”
“I will. You too.” Before sliding into the driver's seat, Maggie checked her watch. Only eight o'clock. She felt somehow bereft. She had so enjoyed being at the dinner table with the Crandall family. She wasn't ready to be alone for the rest of the evening. She considered the idea of going out someplace nice for a drink, maybe some place in walking distance of her hotel so that she didn't have to drive. Maybe she would go back to the Old Village Inn. It was a friendly place and the other night there had been that table of handsome, well-groomed men. One of them, the one she had flirted with at the bar, Dan, had winked at her on her way out. She couldn't remember the last time a man had winked at her or made any sort of appreciative gesture.
Maggie got behind the wheel and headed back into the heart of town. When she got to the hotel she parked and went up to her room.
No,
she decided the moment she closed the door behind her.
I'm not going anywhere.
She felt . . . restless, and to go out alone might potentially be stupid. She was upset to admit that she wasn't at all sure she could resist a temptation. As Mr. Crandall might have said, it was better to be safe than to be sorry.
She undressed, got into her nightgown, and crawled into bed. She wished she had brought a book to read. It was ridiculous that she hadn't. She picked up the remote and flipped through channels. The only show that seemed at all interesting was a documentary on the state of the continuing cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico after the massive BP oil spill in 2010. She watched for an hour, and when she finally turned out the light she had no idea of what she had just seen. She dreamed that night of her children.
19
The Burton brothers had been born in England but raised since the age of ten in New York City. Each had a master's degree in art history. Piers's specialty was seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European painting and Aubrey's was European ceramics. They owned the largest and finest antique gallery in Ogunquit and another, slightly larger gallery in Kennebunk. Both men, now in their forties, were gay and had been single at least since moving to Ogunquit nine years earlier. In a way, Delphine thought, the Burton brothers reminded her of the Simmons sisters, siblings devoted so intimately and happily to each other and to their work they might never break apart and marry.
“Thanks for suggesting we come here,” Maggie said, climbing down from Delphine's truck in the parking lot outside Burton's Antiques and Curiosities on Tuesday morning. “I love browsing through old things. You never know what treasures you'll find.”
She looked up at the massive white structure before them. Delphine explained that it had once been a dilapidated barn. The Burtons had rescued it, rebuilding and restoring and adding on until it was the impressive place it was today.
“I thought you might like it,” she went on, “even though you said your house is contemporary.”
“Oh, only the master suite. I paid a not so small fortune for each area of the house to have a different look and feel. I guess I have my mother's lust for decorating. That, or I have a fear of commitment.”
Delphine smiled and thought about her own method of “decorating.” Was someone giving it away for free? If it was a lamp, did it have a working switch and a clean shade? If it was a couch, was the stuffing still intact? If the answers to these questions were “yes,” the pieces found their way into Delphine's house. Along with, of course, pieces inherited from her family.
Delphine and Maggie entered the building. Neither Burton was in sight, though the women's entrance was surely known to them. Security cameras monitored both floors of the shop. Every summer, without fail, the brothers caught at least one potential shoplifter. Interestingly, it was always a woman, middle-aged and well dressed, the last person one would assume to be a thief. There was never a need to call the police. The woman's subsequent embarrassment—after a requisite initial denial—was, the Burtons believed, punishment enough. That and the horrified look on her husband's face, if he happened to be with her and not outside in the car, waiting and bored.
The brothers stocked an enormous amount of objects, but there was a sense of order not always found in antique shops. Maggie looked around and noticed an exceptionally fragile wooden rocking horse on a shelf above the front counter. Immediately to the left of the counter, there was a selection of fine bone china plates, cups, and saucers in a glass-fronted cabinet. To the right of the cabinet were two end tables inlaid with marble mosaics. A brass standing lamp with a tasseled rose-colored shade caught her interest. She wondered why until she remembered that her grandmother had had one just like it.
“Do you collect anything?” Maggie asked, pointing to a portable display case on the counter, containing twenty or thirty enameled thimbles.
“Not really,” Delphine said. “I mean, I do have an awful lot of books, but I buy them without much of a plan. I don't set out to find a particular edition of a particular book. I don't think I could afford to. I just browse and see what I find.”
“Interesting. I mean, I acquire all sorts of things, too, but I don't actually collect anything. My mother did. I remember that when I was about eight she was mad for these lovely little delicate ceramic horses. And then, suddenly, she lost all interest in them. I was horrified when she sold the entire collection to a stranger, someone who saw her ad in the local paper. I felt so sad for the little horses. I know, it's strange to feel sad for an inanimate object, but I did.”
Delphine thought of Kitty and her intense feelings for her stuffed animals. Each one had a name and a history and was a treasured friend. “You were a child,” she said to Maggie. “Maybe you believed they were somehow alive.”
“I guess. The world was a whole lot more magical when we were kids, wasn't it. A whole lot more emotional, too, somehow. Sometimes that was painful. Like when the little horses went away to live with a stranger.”
“Greetings!” From the back of the first floor two men were emerging. Delphine introduced them to Maggie.
Piers, the younger brother, was about five feet nine inches tall and on the chunky side. He wore it well, though, Maggie noted. His clothing—a dove grey silk suit—fit perfectly. His hair was thick and wavy and brown, brushed back off his forehead in a way that made him look a bit mischievous or rakish.
Aubrey, the older brother by three years, was a bit taller than Piers and quite slim. His appearance was neat, clean, and thoroughly dapper. He wore a white shirt with French cuffs and, over it, a brocaded vest. His polished leather slipons, Maggie saw, had to be Italian. His hair, a silvery grey, was worn just like his brother's hair. Together, they made an arresting pair. Maggie assumed—correctly—that they didn't do their clothes shopping locally.
Maggie asked where the paintings were displayed and both Burton brothers escorted them to the second floor. She was immediately drawn to a large painting sitting on a tall easel. It was a landscape in oil, showing a luminous clearing in a sylvan forest. The frame was made of carved and gilded oak. The artist had signed the lower right-hand corner. The date on the back of the canvas, written in an antique hand, was 1859. Piers informed her that the artist, who was English, had been a minor but relatively popular painter in his day. The canvas had been professionally restored and was in fine shape. The frame was original to the piece.
“It's absolutely gorgeous,” she said. “I just have to have it. It will look perfect over the fireplace in the den. I've been meaning to change out the art in that room anyway. You get tired of looking at the same pieces all the time, don't you?”
Delphine shrugged. Her selection of art, if it could be called a selection and not a random mass, consisted of one small watercolor of Perkins Cove, done by a local minor artist; an embroidered sampler done by a long-gone great-grandmother; a framed poster of a Marsden Hartley painting owned by the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and bought at an end of the season sale; another framed poster, from a Winslow Homer show that had been at the Portland Museum of Art—that one hung over her bed—and several of Kitty's drawings, including the latest noodle picture, held to the fridge with magnets. Even if she wanted to “switch out” some pieces, she had no other pieces with which to replace them. For Delphine, fine art was going to have to remain in what big, glossy, expensive books she could find in the library.
“Unless the piece is a favorite,” Piers was saying. “Then, of course, one never tires of its presence.”
“Could you have it sent to my home?” Maggie asked. “My housekeeper can accept delivery. I don't want to risk it laying around a hotel room.”
“Of course,” Aubrey said.
Piers asked Maggie where she was staying while in town. When she told him, he turned to Delphine.
“Isn't that where you worked a few years back?”
“You worked at Gorges Grant?” Maggie asked.
Delphine attempted a smile. There was nothing to be ashamed of—nothing—but she would have preferred to keep this bit of personal information from Maggie. “Yes,” she said. “I worked there as a chambermaid for a few months. Money was tight. We were having an awful summer. There were big rains for weeks on end. We lost a lot of our harvest. Even the chickens weren't laying properly.”
“Fortunately,” Aubrey said, “many of the merchants did quite well. Visitors were booked into town, and with the beaches a literal washout they had little choice but to shop and to eat.”
“Which, unfortunately, didn't do anything to help Crandall Farm or any other local farm,” Delphine added.
Aubrey frowned in sympathy.
Maggie looked back to the painting. She felt a spasm of guilt at spending so much money on something that wasn't strictly necessary to maintain life and limb. But as quickly as it had come, the guilt was gone, replaced by a feeling of annoyance, edged with a bit of defiance. It was her money. She had earned it; she had worked hard for it. Why shouldn't she spend it as she saw fit? If some people had to take on an extra job cleaning up after strangers, that was not her problem to solve. Still, she wished she hadn't learned about this bit of Delphine's life. She didn't like to be reminded of all about Delphine that was so foreign.
While Aubrey completed the paperwork for the purchase and delivery, Piers chatted with Delphine. He asked after her family and she told him about Kitty's worrisome lack of energy. What she didn't tell Piers was that only the night before Kitty had come down with a fairly high fever. According to Joey and Cybel it wasn't high enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room, but still, the news was upsetting.
“Does she eat enough?” Piers asked, a hand on Delphine's arm. “So often children don't eat properly, no matter what the parents attempt. Our dear mother used to make us the most delectable treats but no matter to Aubrey! He was such a fussy eater. Unlike me.” Here Piers transferred his hand from Delphine's arm to his own substantial belly.
Delphine smiled. “Well, it's true she's never been much of an eater. She gets so distracted she forgets she has to actually finish a meal. Cybel's taking her to the doctor soon. Maybe he'll give her some vitamins or supplements.”
The sale completed, the women took their leave of the Burtons and drove into the heart of town. “I could drop you off at your hotel,” Delphine said, “or you could come with me to the library.”
Even though,
Delphine added silently,
I know you don't care for libraries.
Maggie smiled. “Oh, I'll come to the library with you. Thanks.”
Delphine drove back into town and parked the truck a few yards from the Ogunquit Memorial Library. They were beginning the short walk to the building when someone behind them hailed Delphine. They stopped and were joined in a moment by a man Delphine introduced as Marc Pelletier, owner of Pelletier Farm.
“Glad I ran into you, Delphine,” he said. “Looks like I'm going to be shorthanded for a run to the market in Portland next Saturday. You think Jackie and Dave Junior could bring up some of my onions and such, sell them at their stand?”
“I don't see why not. I'll have Jackie give you a call, set things up.”
“Much appreciated. You interested in a couple of pork chops for a couple dozen of your eggs?”
Delphine laughed. “Always.”
While Delphine and Marc caught up on local news, Maggie thought about the exchange she had just witnessed. Delphine had mentioned barter the first night they met, at the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound. The notion of bartering had struck Maggie as quaint, like something out of an old novel. But now that she thought about it she realized that it could make good sense, if you could figure out how to value a thing, if you could figure out what price to put on it and how to ensure that there was a fair exchange. Of course, there would have to be a level of trust between those bartering, and really, what were the guidelines for trust in such a situation? Proximity? Just because someone lived down the road from you didn't necessarily mean he was trustworthy. Of course, she thought, people could be shamed into keeping a promise, shamed into being trustworthy and honest. If you knew you were going to run into your neighbor on a regular basis, chances were you wouldn't want to cheat him because of the embarrassment that would follow if your deceit was found out. In the end, Maggie thought, a straightforward exchange of cash for goods seemed an awful lot easier.
Maggie refocused to hear Marc Pelletier saying good-bye and loping off. She followed Delphine into the beautiful stone building set on a perfectly groomed lawn. Delphine introduced Maggie to the librarian, Nancy Brown, and then went off into the stacks in search of a book, a first novel by a Maine writer. She had read about it in one of the local papers and was hoping it would be in. A moment after she had gone, a tall, generously proportioned woman with a mane of silvery hair came into the library carrying a brown paper bag.
Nancy smiled as the woman joined them at the checkout desk. “Glenda,” Nancy said, “this is Delphine Crandall's old friend, Maggie Weldon. Her family used to rent the Lilac House, oh, many years ago.”
Glenda shook Maggie's hand and smiled. “Hi. I'm Nancy's partner. Weldon, did you say? That sounds familiar. But my memory isn't what it used to be.” Glenda turned back to Nancy and handed her the brown paper bag. “How does ham and Swiss cheese sound? With a big fat peach for dessert.”
“Yummy.” Nancy smiled. “Glenda brings me my lunch,” she told Maggie. “It makes a pleasant break in the day for each of us.”
“How nice,” Maggie said, even as she smiled to herself at the thought of Gregory's coming to her office with a homemade sandwich in a brown paper bag. She would think he had lost his mind or had been replaced by an alien from a much nicer planet.

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