Chapter Twenty
Tug watched Rosemary trying to figure out how all that sand had ended up dumped on his doorstep.
“I swear, it seems more like a college frat joke than the remnants of a storm, doesn’t it?”
“Not that I ever went to college, but yeah, I see what you mean.”
“I didn’t go, either, but I saw Animal House, and I guess we just hear about that stuff. I’d put my money on someone dumping sand here before I’d believe it was a storm, if I wasn’t here to see it for myself.”
“I don’t have any enemies that I know of,” Tug said.
“I wouldn’t think you would.”
“And now I have this one-of-a-kind walkway.” He hooked his arm for her. “Shall we?”
“We shall!” She let him lead the way as they started climbing the newly formed dune entrance to his house.
“Maybe if I’m lucky,” Tug said, “this will end up as famous as Carhenge, and I can charge admission.”
“Carhenge?”
“In Nebraska. It’s like Stonehenge in England, except this guy made it out of junk cars.”
“I know of Stonehenge in England, but Carhenge ?” She flashed him the stink eye. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“No. It’s a real thing. I saw it on television one night. Some guy built a replica of Stonehenge out of junk cars. Spray-painted them all gray and stacked them. Went to the trouble to even space them out exactly like the real one.”
“And he charges people to see it?”
“No, but there’s a gift shop. So I suppose they make a little money off of it.”
She shook her head. “Nebraska, huh? And here I thought they were only known for Cornhuskers, and frankly, I don’t even know what a Cornhusker is. I mean, I know how to husk corn, but does that deserve a title?”
“It’s the college football team,” he said.
“Well, there you go. Cars stacked up like Stonehenge might actually be a sight worth seeing. I’m adding that to my traveling wish list.”
Tug laughed out loud.
She spun around. “I’m not kidding. You don’t have a traveling wish list?”
“I don’t have a traveling list. No bucket list either.”
“We’re going to start you one. Today.”
“We are, are we?”
She squeezed his biceps. “Yes.”
“I’d heard redheads could be feisty.”
“You haven’t even seen me in action yet,” she said with a lift of her brows.
With another hearty laugh, Tug stepped onto the hill of sand closest to the truck and extended his hand toward her. “It’s safe. This is solid sand. I tried to poke a stick down in it. It’s not going anywhere without help.” He stomped twice, his shoe barely making an indentation.
“Convinced me.” She grabbed his hand and hiked herself up. “Ah, here we go!”
“There used to be twelve steps to my front door. At my age, I’m thinking maybe I ask them to leave this. What do you think?”
“I’d say we’re about the same age, and I’m not old, so you aren’t either. But I’d also say they’d be doing you a favor. Five steps is easier than twelve, no matter how you dice it.”
“Was that a cooking joke?”
She tilted her head, then her eyes popped wide. “Oh, dice? Didn’t even realize it. Yeah, I guess it was.”
He shook his head with a playful smile. “Terrible joke, and you are not my age.”
She raised an eyebrow, teasing. “How old are you, then?”
“I turned eighty on my last birthday.”
“I’m not far behind,” she said.
“I’m gonna need to see some proof of that, young lady.”
“I’ve got a driver’s license. I can prove it.” She giggled like a schoolgirl as she stepped onto the hood of the truck behind Tug. “This seems so wrong.” She raised her arms overhead as if she’d just stuck the landing on a perfect ten gymnastics routine.
“Sort of fun, though,” he said. “We can’t hurt it any worse than it is.” He took her hand, and they made it to the steps together.
“I’m not a rule breaker usually,” she said.
“Me either. I think that’s what’s so liberating about it.” Tug opened his front door and held it for her to enter.
“Oh my. This is very nice.” Rosemary walked inside. “Very comfortable.”
“I like it. One of the best views in town, and the kitchen of my dreams.” He led her into the kitchen and turned on the lights.
“Wow. That is the prettiest butcher-block island I’ve ever seen in my life.” She ran her fingertips along the scarred dark wood. “I can only imagine how many meals have been prepared here. It’s old, right? Not new pretending to be old.”
“It’s the real deal. It’s made from reclaimed wood out of an old house that used to be on the point back in the early 1900s, and it has remained a butcher block ever since.”
“How did you ever get your hands on it? It’s gorgeous.”
“I designed this kitchen around it. A guy who owned a huge restaurant up the coast used to buy fish from me for years back when I was a commercial fisherman. I was young. He fell on hard times, and he still owed me money when he was forced to close his restaurant, and he said he couldn’t pay me.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, I’d worked hard to catch those fish. I wasn’t going to just let him say sorry and move on. I told him I’d take the island and call it even.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did, and he told me if I could move it, I could have it. You can believe I enlisted about every friend I had to help me get that thing.”
“Can’t blame you.”
“I don’t think he thought I’d take it, but I did. It took a pickup truck full of my friends with a flatbed trailer behind it to move this thing out of there. Cost me a case of beer. I think I got the best end of the deal. Before I built this house, it sat in the garage, waiting for its time to shine.”
“I could chop for hours here.” She snuggled up close to it, pretending to chop and put things in a bowl. “It’s exactly the right height. Let me know if you need a sous-chef while I’m in town.”
“I could do that.”
A squawk came from outside.
Rosemary clapped her hands in delight. “You already brought her home? Where is she?”
“I had her in the truck when I saw you earlier.” He escorted Rosemary out to the deck. “She loves being outdoors. She stayed out on the screened patio area in the diner all summer long.”
“That’s so neat,” Rosemary said.
“There’s The Wife,” Tug said.
“I’m here! Honey, I’m home,” The Wife called out like she was known to do when addressed.
“Say hello to my new friend,” he said.
“Hello,” The Wife squawked.
“Hi.” Rosemary took a moment to admire the view. “Tug, you weren’t exaggerating about this view. The Wife is very well kept.”
“She is.” But The Wife was going to be affected by the diner closing. “She’s going to miss our customers. She loves attention.”
“I’m sure you’re already missing your customers too.” Rosemary waved her fingers in The Wife’s direction. “How are you? I’m Rosemary.”
The Wife stepped from side to side on the perch and made a couple of clicking sounds.
“Today’s been sort of rough. I’m glad I spotted you. With nothing to keep me busy, the reality is setting in. It’s good to have some company to get my mind off of it. I miss the customers, the place—the business was my life. I don’t quite know what to do with myself.”
“There’s got to be so much to figure out. Insurance. Timing. Makes me dizzy just thinking about it.”
“That, and when I turned on the television to watch the midday news, they had aerial shots of the pier and what’s left of the diner all over it. That was hard to see.”
“They didn’t have to ask you to air that?”
“No. They were just showing all the destruction. I guess that’s public domain.”
“Wouldn’t hurt for them to maybe talk a little about the other ninety percent of the area that was spared to sort of even out the perspective. Everyone wants to wallow in the bad news.”
“I don’t particularly.”
“No. Of course not. I mean, it happened to you. You have to process it. It’s personal. When the news focuses on only the bad stuff, people sitting at home only take that in. There isn’t the balance of good and bad. That’s problematic.”
He grinned. “I like the way you think.”
“I don’t want to come across bossy, but—”
“You’re going to anyway?”
“Well, yes, I guess I am. I was just going to suggest maybe not watching the news for a few days—you know, until things settle down or something new takes the spotlight.”
“That’s actually good advice. I’ll tell you, it looks bad at ground level, but from above it’s disastrous.”
“Like a sucker punch?”
“By an enormous guy.”
“Sorry. I hopped on my soapbox. I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I love the setup you have for The Wife out here. Was the one at the diner similar?”
“Pretty much. This one is twelve feet long and four feet wide. The same guy built them both for me. At the diner, the cage is… was square rather than rectangle. The first cage I built for her myself was out of wood. That was a mistake. Turns out she’s quite the whittler.”
“Oh yeah. That’s funny. Her beak looks strong.”
“It is.”
“What’s the story about you getting this million-dollar view? Are you a secret billionaire? Rich inventor with tons of patents? Or something even more spectacular like the real chef behind those famous frozen waffles?”
“Nothing so glamourous. I got lucky.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the railing. “This part of the beach wasn’t much when I bought the property. Everybody teased me about buying it, but I had a dream. There wasn’t even a road down this far back then. I had an old International Scout four-wheel drive, rugged as all get-out and eaten up with cancer. Its fenders had more holes than a sponge from always being on the beach, but for a long time you couldn’t get back here without a pretty rugged four-wheel drive.”
“Really? It’s so grown up now and with really ritzy stuff.”
“It is. It was just me and the wild ponies back then. In fact, I lived in what is now the garage for almost ten years. One room. It was all I could afford to build. My best friend, Jarvis, and I built it one paycheck at a time. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.”
“Back then we had motivation to make our dreams come true.”
“Right? Yeah, I knew someday I’d build this house. I had sketches and notes that I kept for years as I saved up. I lived lean for a long time to make it a reality.”
“You had a good eye to snag this property. It’s a beautiful area, and the neighboring houses are sort of amazing. That house is big enough to be a hotel.” She pointed to the next house up the beach from him, which was about a quarter mile away.
“Nope. It’s privately owned, and the extended family comes for two weeks every summer. The rest of the time it’s rented out to wedding parties and fancy guests.” He lowered his voice. “If I were a name-dropper, I could really impress you by the celebrities who have stayed there.”
“But of course you wouldn’t.”
“Of course not.” He pushed up his sleeves and shrugged. “However, I broke out a bottle of wine that one of those fancy visitors gave me. I have an entire case of the stuff, and I’m not much of a drinker. It would be nice to have someone to share it with. Do you care for a glass?”
“I’m not much of a drinker, either, but that sounds really nice.”
They walked back inside, and he took a bottle down from the cabinet, along with two glasses, and started working the cork out. “I imagine it’s supposed to be good, but I’m not knowledgeable about wine at all. If we don’t like it, I won’t even feel bad if we pour it down the sink.” He laughed. “I’m fancy like that.”
He gave her a wink, and finally the cork pulled free of the bottle.
She held the glasses by their stems while he poured.
He raised one. “A toast to my new friend. Rosemary, you are the one good thing that blew in with Hurricane Edwina. I’m thankful you crossed my path.”
“Thank you. I’m grateful our paths crossed too.”
They both took a sip. “It’s not horrible,” Tug said.
“No. Probably not to the people who know.” She giggled. “Okay, so just how awful would it be for me to suggest we add some soda to this to make it more palatable?”
“I’ve got lemon-lime soda right here. I use it to make Amanda’s kids sherbet freezes. That’s why they love me so much.”
“I’m sure it’s the only reason.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to adding a scoop of lime sherbet to it either.”
Tug whipped open the freezer door and slid the tub of sherbet across the island as if he were in a saloon.
“Ha!” she squealed. “All righty, then. I was joking, but I really will try it.”
They started with a little splash of this and a scoop of that until they’d made quite a mess of it.
“This looks horrible,” Rosemary said. “The red and green sort of looks like—”
“As bad as it tastes.”
“Yes. And I had such high hopes.”
“I don’t think this is going to make it on a menu.”
“Honestly, I think we just wasted your nice bottle of wine, because neither one of us could appreciate it, but our concoction of the sherbet-wine freeze might be a winner.”
“I’m gonna let you believe that.” He poured his glass into the sink. “How about some sweet tea?”
“Please!” She laughed all the way to the sink, where she washed out both wine glasses and dried them while he poured them some sweet tea.
He took a long swig. “Oh yeah. This is better.”
She took a sip. “Oh gosh, so much better. You know, back in Hawaii, I used to make a sweet tea using pineapple juice as a sweetener.”
“That sounds pretty tasty. Never heard of it. We do Arnold Palmers around here, ya know—mix lemonade and sweet tea—but never heard of mixing it with pineapple.”
“I’ll make some for you. If you like pineapple, then I think you’d like it.” She smiled.
They nibbled on some sandwiches and veggies and dip that he’d put together for them. Nothing fancy, but that added to the fun.
“So, Tug, have you thought more about what’s next for you?”
Had Paul or Amanda been talking to her? But she was new in town. He was probably being paranoid. “You mean with the diner being gone?”
She nodded.
“I’ve thought about it. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and sometimes it’s all I don’t want to think about.”
“No one is going to judge you, no matter what you decide. Are you thinking about alternatives?”
“Trying to. I just don’t have any good ideas. I can’t sit around and do nothing. I enjoy being on the go. I love my customers, but I’m too old to rebuild. That’s more than I’m willing to take on.”
“You’ll figure out a solution. There’s always volunteer work. You could take up a new hobby. I don’t know. It’ll come to you. If you need to brainstorm, I’m around. Even if I’m gone, I’m a phone call away, and I got no horse in this race, so you will not get one moan, groan, or judgment on any of it.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind, and I may surprise you and take you up on that, but I’m not always that much of a talker.”
“I think you’re keeping your end of things just fine. I’ve loved our conversation tonight. It’s fun getting to know you, and I feel quite blessed that you shared your million-dollar view and one-of-a-kind stair system with me,” she teased.
“I don’t have the patent on that stair system yet.” He held his finger to his lips. “Top secret.”
She leaned in. “It’s safe with me.”
“I know it is.” His gaze traced the curve of her lips before meeting her eyes again. “I feel like we’ve known each other a long time. Is that strange?”
“I feel it too. It’s easy. This has been such a nice visit.”
“It really has. Thank you for coming over, and for being so understanding. It’s hard.”
“Oh? Yeah. I know.” She sighed. “I mean, it’s not the same at all, but it’s sort of the same. Your diner. My husband. No matter what the loss, it’s got to be processed.”
“I suppose.”
“I’m trying to figure things out in my life too,” Rosemary said. “It’s different when our life is upended at this age. When we’re in our forties, even our sixties, it’s like, whatever—we’ll just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps…again. But now we’re older, smarter, wiser about how fragile our lives are. I think it’s important we really consider what matters to us. And let that lead the way.”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“I have. For a couple of years now, and sadly, I don’t have even a single bit of it figured out.”
His gaze locked with hers, something unspoken passing between them.
“But I’m working on it.”
They sat quietly for a long moment.
“You ready to take me home?” She finally broke the silence. “I think this is a poignant spot to end the evening.”
“Certainly.” Although he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. He’d enjoyed having her here tonight more than he’d expected.