“Oh!” said the woman. “Right. Vivienne. Of course. I remember her, such a pretty girl. You do look just like her, wow.” Her voice was deep and musical and seemed to travel all over the place in just that one sentence. She put her hand on Russell’s arm. Mary had never seen this woman before, but there was something so natural about the gesture that made Mary experience a flash of something. Envy? She supposed this was what people meant when they talked about chemistry.
Mary’s phone buzzed again, another text. HURRY UP IM LONLY. It was only six thirty. They were still open for another hour and a half and then there was cleanup to do. She wouldn’t get to Josh’s until almost eight thirty. He went to bed before ten to be up at four to haul, just like Russell, just like all the lobstermen. Josh wanted her to quit her job at The Cup, get something with hours that matched his better. “See if Val’s hiring,” he said. “Work the breakfast shift, it’ll be perfect.” Mary didn’t want to work the breakfast shift, didn’t want to get up at four, didn’t want to spend all of her time around a bunch of stinky lobstermen, didn’t want to give up Andi and Daphne and her own personal apron with a screen print of a coffee cup with steam coming off the top. So she had told Josh she’d asked and Val didn’t need anyone. (A red flag: that she needed to lie.)
“We have decaf,” said Mary now, in her best customer service voice. Andi, who was counting bags of beans, nodded her approval.
“Drinks,” said the woman firmly. “Beer, Russell? What kind? Do you mind if I have something else, I can’t drink beer anymore, it gives me such a bloated belly, let’s see, wine, or…ooooh, you have champagne? Do you close soon? Eight? Okay, good, I need to get back to my dad anyway, we’ll be quick, promise.” She smiled even more brightly and said, “I’ll pound my champagne.”
“Not necessary, Eliza. What would your dad say?” Russell laughed.
Eliza. Okay, now it was coming together. Eliza Sargent, Charlie Sargent’s daughter. Charlie Sargent had been taken in by the Coast Guard yesterday, Josh told her all about it the night before in that weirdly happy voice that he used when he talked about other people’s misfortunes. This was a red flag, though a small one. Mary was trying to ignore the small red flags, considering the situation.
Charlie Sargent came into The Cup sometimes in the early evening and bought a few of the lobster cookies. The cookies were shaped like lobsters, not made out of them. He always winked at Mary when he paid and said, “Don’t tell Val.” He must be okay enough, if Eliza Sargent was here at The Cup, standing close to Russell Perkins.
Mary hadn’t told anybody about her secret, not even Josh. She would tell him soon. Maybe not tonight, maybe tomorrow.
The ringing of a cell phone interrupted her thoughts and Charlie Sargent’s daughter reached into her bag and pulled out a phone. “Sorry,” she said in Russell’s direction, before she answered, saying, “Hi, honey. Sweetie—Evie? Evie, I can’t quite understand you…Evie, you have to stop crying if you want me to be able to understand you.”
There was such kindness and love in Eliza Sargent’s voice that Mary felt, ridiculously, tears rise to her eyes. She was so emotional lately, she cried over the stupidest things. Just the other day that blond woman with the ringlets getting kicked off The Bachelor, that got her going.
Eliza moved away from the counter, so Mary could no longer see her expression. After a couple of minutes she returned to Russell’s side, slipping the phone back into her bag. She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way that indicated she didn’t mean any harm by it and said to Russell, “My second call from a crying girl in just over twenty-four hours. Evie got to the end of Bridge to Terabithia. I don’t blame her, I felt the same way, when I read it.”
Russell said, “Never read it.” He winked at Mary again. Funny how winks could be creepy from some people and perfectly acceptable from others. Russell’s were acceptable, even enchanting.
“Did you order?” asked Eliza. “I’ll have a glass of Cabernet after all, not champagne. I know, it seems crazy, it’s summertime, we should all be drinking white or rosé. So sue me.” She shrugged like someone who didn’t expect to get sued at all.
A rich woman with a blue butter bag, a woman who moved through the world so easily—though she was technically a local, this was every summer person Mary Brown had been brought up to dislike. (“Thinks she walks on water,” Vivienne would say, even though, if Eliza Sargent showed up at the salon, she’d treat her like royalty, give her one of those hand massages while her color set, expect a twenty percent tip.)
But Mary didn’t dislike this woman, as much as she wanted to. In fact, it was the opposite. This, she realized, was exactly the kind of person, exactly the kind of mother, Mary Brown wanted to be.
4
BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Rob
Rob was gazing into the depths of the refrigerator. A midrange Viking. He’d wanted to get the professional version, which cost north of ten grand, but Eliza had put her foot down, hard. She said she’d be embarrassed to have a professional-grade refrigerator when she wasn’t a professional chef, when she wasn’t a professional anything. “You’re my professional favorite person,” said Rob, but she wouldn’t bend. She was embarrassed even to have the midrange, she would have been more than happy with a Frigidaire, but that time Rob had put his foot down.
“Are you cooking dinner?” Zoe asked suspiciously. She was so sneaky and quiet, like a cat. Rob turned. Zoe looked so tall. Had she grown since yesterday? Since this morning?
“Yes!” Rob said confidently. “I am going to make a frittata.”
Normally, if Eliza went out of town, she’d prep a couple of meals for them, but of course the thing with her dad had been sudden and there’d been no time. Besides, Rob could cook for his children! He wasn’t completely useless in the kitchen. He’d designed enough kitchens; he should be able to maneuver around one without too much trouble.
“Do you know how?”
“Zoe,” he said sternly. “Of course I know how to make a frittata.”
“You do?”
Not really.
“Yes,” said Rob. “Now, why don’t you go out in the garden and see if anything is growing yet.” Eliza planted a killer garden every year.
“Like what?”
“Tomatoes.”
Zoe looked at him. “I’m pretty sure it’s too early for tomatoes. Don’t those come in, like, August?”
“Go look anyway,” he said. “Just in case.”
While she was gone he nipped into the downstairs bathroom and quickly googled frittata recipes on his phone, committing the steps as much to memory as was possible. It seemed easy enough.
Zoe came in holding a bunch of freshly harvested rhubarb and held it out to him. “Um,” said Rob, “I’m not sure rhubarb would go in a frittata.”
Zoe shrugged and put the stalks on a counter. “That’s what was growing.”
“I thought you watched all of those cooking shows,” he said. “Didn’t you look for something that made sense, frittata-wise?”
“That’s Evie,” said Zoe.
“That’s me what?” asked Evie, entering from who-knows-where. She was wearing a pair of too-small shoes from the dress-up box and a dress that once upon a time had been Eliza’s. It came down to Evie’s ankles.
“It’s you who watches the cooking shows.”