Nantucket Blue

Nine





“EVERYONE EATS BREAKFAST in the garden, except when it rains,” Liz said as she expertly pulled silverware from the dishwasher and wiped it with a checkered dishrag. “Then we put them in the dining room.”

“Got it,” I said, and sipped my coffee, the first cup from the percolator I’d just been shown how to set up and get started (fill with water, twenty scoops in the filter, plug it in, flip the switch). I sipped some more, hoping I’d start to feel more alert soon. Liz pulled a stack of little bowls from the dishwasher and handed them to me. “There’s some jam in the fridge. Put it in these ramekins.”

“Okay, no problem,” I said, noting the new word ramekins, which sounded like a species of rambunctious munchkins, and took another gulp of coffee.

Gavin took a fresh batch of blueberry corn muffins out of the oven, and their scent made my cheeks pucker with desire and my stomach growl so loud that he and Liz laughed. Gavin gingerly plied a muffin from the tin, placed it on a saucer, and slid it down the counter with just enough force that it landed right in front of me. “You might want to let it cool,” he said. But I couldn’t wait. I tore off the crusty top, smeared it with butter, and stuffed it in my mouth. I hadn’t finished the last bite before I took another.

“Come on, piglet,” Liz said, “we have to wipe down the chairs in the garden.”

I ate another bite, grabbed a clean rag from the stack under the sink, and followed Liz outside. Eight wrought-iron tables with matching chairs sat nestled in dewy green grass, awaiting sweethearts. They were surrounded by hedges, roses, and bushes that looked like they had blue pom-poms on them. A gray rabbit hopped across the lawn and into a bush with pink berries, right next to the window I’d propped open with the Emily Dickinson book.

“You didn’t have any visitors last night, did you?” Liz asked as she wiped off the tables.

“No,” I said. Gavin emerged with some clippers from the back door and was headed down the brick path, past the gurgling fountain, to the rosebushes, no doubt to make an arrangement for the buffet table. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t scare her,” Gavin said as he passed, smelling faintly of patchouli oil.

“It’s only fair that I warn her about Mr. Whiskers,” she said.

“Do you have a cat here?” I asked.

“Better. A ghost,” Liz said. “An old sea captain with a great, bushy beard.” She stuck out her chin and gestured as to the bigness of the beard.

“I’ve worked here eight years and I’ve never seen him,” Gavin said as he inspected a rose for clipping. Huh. I thought Gavin owned this place.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said. I never have. It always seemed like there was too much in real life I was supposed to be afraid of: drunk drivers, rapists, unwanted pregnancy, HPV, undercooked chicken, toxic shock syndrome, and a bad reputation. I just couldn’t add the unseen and paranormal to my list. Besides, there was always someone with one eye open sliding the thing across the Ouija board, someone’s brother outside the tent making the footsteps or wagging the flashlight under his pimply chin.

“But he’s heard the ghost,” Liz said. “Heard the door latch opening and closing.”

“Could’ve been the wind,” Gavin said, moving on to the pom-pom flowers.

Liz looked up from the chair she was drying. “Opening a latch?”

“Liz, if you scare away Cricket like you did Rebecca, I won’t hire anyone else. You’ll be stuck doing this alone.”

“Twice the tips for me, then,” she muttered.

“Have you actually seen this ghost?” I asked Liz.

“No, but one of the guests saw him. Standing by the stairs in an old-fashioned mac, he was.”

“That’s a raincoat to you and me,” Gavin said.

“He looked in her direction,” Liz continued, “but it was more like he was looking through her, and then he turned around very slowly, and as he walked up the stairs she saw he was floating, for”—she slowed down her speech—“he had no feet.”

“Ew,” I said, a little creeped out. “But wait, was she high?”

“Good question,” Gavin said. “Yes, probably. Also, Liz didn’t hear this story directly. It was told to us by the woman’s friend, who was stoned out of her gourd at breakfast.”

Liz waved him away. “Anyway, I was in a gallery on Main Street, and they were doing a portrait show about old Nantucket.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, wiping the heart-shaped chair backs. “There was a picture of a bushy-bearded captain.”

“Don’t worry about the backs,” Liz said. “You just need to do the seats. Anyway, yes. And under it was a grim account of how he’d fallen overboard, his legs tangled in ropes. He thought he’d seen a mermaid and was calling out to her. I’ll spare you the details, but I will tell you this.” She folded her arms, pausing for dramatic effect. “Lost his feet at sea.”

I laughed aloud.

“Fine, don’t believe me,” she said, and inhaled sharply, her nose in the air. “But don’t come crying to me when you bump into a gimpy, transparent sea captain on your way to the loo.”

Gavin turned to Liz, a bouquet in his hand. “It’s almost seven, we have two couples trying to make the seven-thirty boat, and you still need to set up the creamers and the napkins. Could you try to focus?”

Liz plucked a rose from the bouquet and stuck it behind her ear, turned on her heel, and sashayed inside.

“Don’t listen to her,” Gavin said. “Nantucket is full of people who know someone who’s seen a ghost, but I have yet to meet anyone who actually has.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, checking to make sure the address Zack had written was still on my hand after handling the damp rag, and thought, At least not about ghosts.