Mary loved waiting on customers. She loved the way the café made her feel: competent and valuable, in a way that nobody and nothing else made her feel.
“You wouldn’t last a minute in New York City,” Daphne always told Mary. “You’re way too trusting and sweet. And I mean that as a compliment.” The way she said it, though? Somehow Mary didn’t take it as a compliment. She’d never been to New York City.
In the summer the café was open until eight; they served dinner salads and “small plates,” mostly to summer people just off their sailboats, and they had just gotten a beer and wine license, which, to hear Andi tell it, had been like pulling fucking teeth. Sometimes Andi didn’t have the nicest language.
“Small plates?” said Vivienne scornfully when she’d come in at the beginning of the summer to get a look at the place. When Vivienne was growing up in Little Harbor the lot where the café was now had been a dying gas station. “Smaller than what?”
Vivienne refused to call Daphne and Andi’s place a café, she insisted on saying coffee shop, even though it was right there on the sign, same font but smaller letters as the name of the place. The Cup, it said, a café for all.
“A coffee shop for some,” Vivienne called it, because she said that only the summer people went there. (True.) And then she laughed in that way she had, that made her sound older than she was. Smoker’s laugh. Another mistake. “Don’t ever start, Mary, once you get in the habit it’s impossible to stop.” If she ever saw Mary with a cigarette, she said, she would smack her from here to next week. That was just an expression, of course.
The Cup served two different kinds of white wine, two kinds of red, one champagne (“Technically,” said Andi, “it’s not champagne, it’s not from France, so it’s sparkling wine, but call it what you want”), and a light beer and a dark beer, both from the Atlantic Brewing Company in Bar Harbor. Local. The summer people loved local beer. They loved local everything, local marmalade and chutney from Nellie’s in Blue Hill, fair trade organic coffee beans from Wicked Joe in Topsham, lobsters pulled from traps right in Little Harbor and sold straight off the boat at the co-op. They liked local until the summer ended and the days got shorter and the wind got colder and they high-tailed it back to Boston or New York or Philadelphia or their winter ski condos in Colorado or Park City, Utah.
One of the customers coming in now was Russell Perkins. Mary wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Russell Perkins in The Cup—he went to Val’s. Obviously. The Cup wasn’t open early enough for the lobstermen. (“Not our target market,” said Andi, shrugging.) But here he was, dressed in regular clothes, not fishing gear. Mary squinted at him and tried to be offended by his presence. Was he walking in like he owned the place, sort of?
This question was out of an attempted loyalty to Josh, who despised Russell Perkins. Russell was one of those guys who always dropped his traps in the right place, always sensed the movement of the lobsters before they knew where they were going themselves, always caught more than everyone else. Well, more than Josh, anyway, who had bad luck dropping his traps. “Not that I’m keeping track,” said Josh. Though of course he was. Mary got nervous when Josh had a bad day out on the water. He was like a little boy on the edge of a big tantrum, his face screwed up with confusion and pain. Sometimes it felt like a full-time job, making him feel better. Sometimes it felt impossible: it felt like the kind of job she didn’t want to spend her life doing.
But despite her efforts, Mary found Russell sort of charming. Okay, very charming, extremely charming. Look at him now, smiling at her, in a way that wouldn’t let her not smile back. He was so handsome. For an older man. (“Never date an older man,” was Vivienne’s advice. Another mistake. They were only after one thing.) Too late for that: Josh was twenty-four.
Russell was with a woman Mary didn’t recognize. A summer person? The woman was wearing white shorts and a silky-looking tank top that said I have money. She had super-long legs, lots of freckles, and masses of dark curly hair that Mary (who was, after all, her mother’s daughter) could tell was tamed by an experienced hairstylist and probably some very expensive product. Her bag was baby-blue leather; it looked soft as butter and had a little gold tag with a word Mary couldn’t read. She was stunning, actually. What was Russell Perkins doing coming into The Cup with a stunning summer person?
“Hey, Mary,” said Russell, and Mary said, “Hey, Russell.”
The summer person looked up at the menu and squinted in a way that made little lines pop out at the corners of her eyes. Now that the woman was closer Mary could read the word on her bag: Givenchy. “I can’t believe it,” she said to Russell. She was standing close to him; their arms were touching. “You can get a cappuccino in Little Harbor! Knock me over with a feather. Val told me, but I didn’t believe her. She’s freaking out, though she won’t admit it.” The woman reached into her blue butter bag and pulled out a long brown wallet with a bright gold zipper. “My treat, get whatever you want. Are we doing coffee or beers?” She smiled at Mary in a friendly way, and then said, “You look so familiar to me. Why is that?”
“That’s Vivienne’s girl, Mary,” said Russell. “Looks just exactly like her mama.” He winked at Mary and Mary tried even harder to dislike him but she couldn’t help it: she smiled. To the woman Russell said, “Better make it drinks, I’m up at four tomorrow, no coffee for me.”
“Vivienne?” The woman closed her eyes and put one finger on her chin like she was drawing a memory out of it.
“Vivienne Brown, a year behind us.” Russell rocked back on his heels and stretched his hands in front of him and cracked his knuckles.