7. Margot
SEVEN
Margot
T he next morning, I swatted at mosquitos and dodged a giant horsefly as I stepped off the screen porch. I avoided the puddles that had flooded the gravel parking spaces from last night’s storm. I was surprised the roof or the windows hadn’t leaked. The cottage had held through the violent storm.
There was a terrible pain in the upper muscles in my left shoulder. I needed to add ibuprofen to the shopping list. With every exhale I hoped the tightness in my chest and the pit in my stomach would ease up, but they didn’t. I carried a constant ache with me that started long before I ferried over to Marshoak Island.
There were two things I needed right now—coffee and breakfast. That was enough to motivate me to get out of the cottage and explore shopping options.
I spotted the same fisherman from yesterday. I recognized the tight bend in his hat. It was formed in the shape of a horseshoe. There was no way he could see in any direction but straight ahead. He was casting a line off the end of one of the piers. I thought I should warn him that the wood was rotted, and he could fall through like I did, but there was something unfriendly about him. Besides, he probably knew the marina better than I did.
I hopped in my car and drove toward the center of the island, the place the locals called “town.” There was one general store and one grocery store. If I needed anything else, I’d have to take the ferry, and I didn’t think I had that kind of time. The cottage was short on essentials, and I was desperate for caffeine.
I imagined what Ethan would think about waking up in a house without coffee. It was as if I could predict every word he would say. I played out the argument we would have in the car as I drove.
“No coffee? Is this even civilization?” He would be staring at his phone and not at me.
“It’s quaint,” I would have argued.
“Quaint or backward?”
Ethan, a lifelong New Yorker, believed living anywhere else was less cultured, less educated, and of course less sophisticated. He would have hated Marshoak Island. I was kidding myself, thinking he would have traveled with me when I inherited the Blue Heron. Ethan would have turned around when he realized the ferry was the only way on or off this place.
I didn’t need a pile of girlfriends telling me he was horrible for me. I knew it. I’d known it for a long time. But when my dad died, I held on to Ethan. Harder than I should have. I clung to him as if he supplied my oxygen. Letting go of him felt like letting go of grieving for my dad and I wasn’t ready for it, even if he was a terrible boyfriend from the start.
I pulled in front of the red brick building. There was one other car in the parking lot. Reel Time didn’t only have the island’s biggest fishing supply inventory but also would have most things on my list. What wasn’t here I would find across the street at the grocery store.
I grabbed one of the baskets stacked by the door and scrolled through the list on my phone. I felt eyes on me before I put the first item in my basket. I looked over my shoulder and smiled at the woman at the register.
“You visiting?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I answered. I don’t know why her question felt like such an invasion of privacy. I didn’t know how long I would be in Marshoak Island.
“Oh, where are you staying?”
I thought I had moved far enough into the next aisle and dropped in a roll of paper towels.
“The Blue Heron Marina.”
“You’re Walt’s niece? I thought I recognized you.”
It seemed I couldn’t keep shopping without talking to her. I stepped toward her. “Yes. Margot.” I reached over the conveyor belt to shake her hand.
“I’m real glad someone is going to run the Blue Heron now.” She grinned. “It needs TLC. Real TLC.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I protested. “I’m only here because I have to be. I’m a writer actually, not a—” I stopped. Was I a writer? I wanted to collect the items on the shopping list and get out of Reel Time. I felt like a fraud.
She frowned. “You don’t want the Blue Heron? The marina? You don’t want it? But Walt gave it to you.” I swore her face went pale.
“I didn’t say that.” My stomach churned. I was trapped in a moment where I felt the need to tell her everything that led me to this moment or drop everything in the basket and run out of the store and never come back.
“Most people on this island would want it. All that waterfront. All that water access. There’s nothing else like it anywhere around here. And if your uncle wanted you to have it, that’s saying something.” She nodded toward me. It felt more like a sermon from a pulpit than a piece of friendly advice.
“I think I’ll get the rest of my shopping done.” I darted into the fishing aisle and took a deep breath. I remembered what Dean had said yesterday—there was already a line forming of people who were interested in taking the Blue Heron off my hands. That should make the decision to sell it, easier, but there was something in the cashier’s tone that made me feel it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“ N o, no, no, no.” I threw the car in park and jumped out, racing to the dump truck blocking the boat ramp. I forgot about the bags of cold groceries in the hot car.
I couldn’t get the driver’s attention.
“Hey!” I screamed at him, waving my arms. I jumped up and down. The engine rumbled. “Hey! You! Stop!”
He was about to dump a ton of dirt and gravel into the only working ramp. If it was blocked, there was no way for me to move an entire ton of debris. Nothing I did worked, so I began pounding on his door.
He finally heard me and jerked open the door, throwing me back hard enough to land on my ass.
“Ouch.” The fall shook me.
“What are you doing?” He scowled at me.
I struggled to stand. The sting of being thrown, sinking into my backside. “Trying to get your attention. What are you doing?”
“I have a delivery.”
“I see that, but why would you dump all that dirt in the boat ramp?”
“It’s on the order.”
“What order?” I was cautious as I approached the truck. He climbed down to meet me.
“This one.” He handed a purchase order to me. “See?”
I read the hand-written instructions. “This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want the boat ramp blocked.”
He shrugged. “Where do you want this load if not by the ramp?”
“I don’t,” I countered. “I don’t need it. My uncle must have ordered this. Just cancel it and take it back.”
The man chuckled. “No. You need to pay for it. I had to pay for extra weight on the ferry. This wasn’t a free delivery.”
“Pay for it? I don’t want it. Take it back.” I stood close enough to him I could see the sweat rolling down the side of his neck. I took a step backward. There wasn’t money to pay for anything.
“This is an order for crushed dirt. You’ve got crushed dirt. You have to pay for it. I can’t just haul it back. I’ll have to pay double to go on the ferry again.”
“That’s not my fault. No. I’m not going to accept this. My uncle ordered it. He’s dead and I don’t want it.” I blinked as the words came out of my mouth.
The dump truck driver looked surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
I nodded. “Yeah. He died, so can you just take this away? Please.” I decided to soften my tone in case that worked. “Maybe we can work something out for the ferry fee.” Although, I had no idea what that would be. I didn’t have extra money to spend.
He removed his hat. “I’m sorry. Real sorry.”
“Thank you.”
There was an awkward silence that followed. “I’ll see what I can do about this order. Give me a minute.”
I waited while he climbed into the driver’s seat and made a call. All I could think about was how much money I had spent today at the Reel Shop and how quickly I would burn through what was in my account. I didn’t have money for something that would shut down the operating part of the marina.
I was playing on his sympathies about Uncle Walt’s death, but I was desperate for him to drive away without leaving me a bill.
A few minutes later he poked his head out of the window. “I’ve got it taken care of.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes. We feel bad that Walt passed, and we didn’t know. I’m sorry, again, Miss.”
I stepped away from the huge tires and he drove out of the gravel lot. I finally let out the breath I was holding in. I didn’t know how to afford to survive in the marina and at the same time, I needed it to make money. What the hell was I going to do about either?
“Oh shit!” I had milk and eggs in the car. I turned to find Dean lugging bags from the backseat. When had he arrived?
“You don’t need to do that,” I argued against the gesture.
“Looks like you could use a hand.” He smiled, carrying them into the cottage. I cursed under my breath and trudged in after him.
“You really don’t have to help with my groceries.”
Dean had begun to unpack them on the counter. I had to stop him. It felt as important as stopping the driver of the dump truck.
“Stop!” My voice echoed in the kitchen.
He looked up. “I’m sorry?”
I sighed. “It’s been a long morning. Okay?” I leaned into the counter with my palms. I felt the ache in my backside. I limped to the freezer for ice.
“I saw how you handled that delivery.”
“And you didn’t come over to help?
He chuckled. “It didn’t seem like you needed rescuing, but I was ready to throw around a few cease-and-desist threats if it came to that.”
I couldn’t help the smile. “Oh, really?”
“I told you I would help, Margot. I meant it.”
“You mean help me sell the Blue Heron?” I stared at the empty ice trays. Damn it. I grabbed a bag of mixed vegetables and pressed them against my ass.
Dean’s eyebrows rose, watching me sink into the relief from the frozen vegetables.
“I landed on my ass, okay? Like I said, it has not been an easy morning.”
He put his hands up in protest. “No judgment here. But, no, you don’t have to sell the Blue Heron. You can keep it. Fight off dump truck drivers and drunk boaters all day, every day.”
“Is there a third option I don’t know about?”
“If I find it, I’ll let you know.”
I moved the frozen peas and carrots to my neck. It had to be ninety degrees in the kitchen without AC. Dean’s eyes seemed to follow my every move.
“Thanks. I haven’t made up my mind. Just in case that’s why you stopped by.”
“It’s not.” He was quick to answer. Maybe too quick.
“You didn’t want to drop another legal bomb on me?”
He laughed. “You’re funny, Margot.”
I wasn’t funny. I hadn’t been fun in a long time either. What I was was broken. Alone. Ruined. I questioned everything about Dean because he couldn’t see what was standing in front of him. A shipwreck as sunk as the shrimp boat in the creek.
“You’re really thinking about running the Blue Heron?” His eyebrows rose.
“I don’t know. I need to figure out how I’m going to pay for any of this. I almost had an entire load of dirt and gravel to deal with and I panicked,” I groaned. “I wonder what else was ordered I don’t know about.”
We looked up at the sound of a horn blaring outside. I ventured out, Dean following right behind me.
A man was backing his boat trailer down the ramp while his wife screamed at him to turn the wheel. Every time she yelled, he laid on the horn so he couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t help the giggle that came out.
Dean laughed too. “How long do you think they’ve been doing this?”
“Either twenty years or today is the first time.”
We watched the boat finally launch as he dragged the trailer up the incline, and parked in the empty lot.
“I think that’s your first customer, Margot.”
“What?”
He nudged me toward the man. “He has to pay to use the put-in.”
I shook my head. I had no idea what the rates were or how to collect money. I’d been at the Blue Heron less than twenty-four hours. While I stood paralyzed, the man approached me and put a five-dollar bill in my palm.
“I guess you’re the new owner?”
I nodded. “I am. Thank you.”
“Sorry about Walt. He was a good guy. Quiet, but a good guy.”
“Thank you. He was my uncle.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain our connection.
He walked toward his boat where his wife was waiting for him. I noticed how she checked their fishing poles. She asked if he had remembered to get more ice. He grumbled he had forgotten it. I looked around for an ice machine or a big cooler with bags of ice. The docks were mostly bare.
“I wonder how hard it would be to sell ice,” I mused.
Dean cocked his head. “So you are thinking about this.”
“No,” I snapped. “Just thought ice would sell here. They could use some.”
He didn’t try to hide the smile on his face.
I huffed, spun on my heels, and marched back to the cottage.