Chapter 13
The courtyard was full of people. Bryan had brought a tray of blackened shrimp from the Sandpiper, and Emily had made her lopsided cornbread that everyone pretended was intentional.
Melissa carried a bowl of coleslaw she’d picked up from Bayview General’s small food aisle because Sally had insisted she not come empty-handed, and then insisted even harder that she not try to make anything herself.
“Sally said that?” Cassidy laughed from her chair near the fire pit. “She told me the same thing last month.”
“She told everyone the same thing.” Bryan set the tray on the long table Clint had built from salvaged dock planks. “Sally believes in playing to strengths. She probably thinks—how do I put this politely—that cooking is not exactly a strength for either of you.” He chuckled.
“Pretty judgy from the man who runs a restaurant.” Cassidy rolled her eyes.
“Sally’s not wrong.” Melissa set the bowl down and pulled a chair into the circle instead of drifting to the edge of the courtyard the way she usually did. The chair scraped against the stone path, and she sat.
That was it. She just sat.
The Friday gatherings had been happening since before Melissa moved into Captain’s Watch. Winnie started them years ago.
Emily and Grant took the bench near the gazebo, Grant’s arm stretched along the backrest behind Emily’s shoulders. Cassidy sat with her legs crossed and a glass of white wine she’d brought from Heron Cottage, already mid-argument with Bryan about festival signage.
Winnie presided by circling through the crowd, welcoming, and smiling. Insisting people take more food.
Melissa had attended dozens of these evenings.
She knew the rhythms. Bryan would tell a fishing story that Cassidy would fact-check until he got flustered.
Emily would ask quiet questions that made people say more than they intended.
Winnie would listen to everything and steer nothing, unless steering was needed.
And, until tonight, Melissa would hover. Camera in hand or camera in bag, it didn’t matter. She’d position herself at the periphery, close enough to hear, far enough to leave without anyone noticing.
Tonight the camera was in the cottage. She’d left it on the kitchen counter next to her keys, a deliberate act that had taken her three trips back inside to confirm. The last time she’d walked back in, she’d actually put her hand on the strap before pulling it away. But she’d come out empty-handed.
“Melissa.” Emily leaned forward from the bench. “How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”
“I’ve been shooting.” The words came out before she could change them into something vaguer. “Around town. For the website project Cassidy set up.”
“She’s being modest.” Cassidy pointed her wine glass in Melissa’s direction. “She’s building an entire photo library for the town site. Main Street, the waterfront, the shops. And she started a portrait series that’s excellent.”
Melissa felt the familiar tug to deflect. It’s nothing. Just testing some ideas. Still figuring it out. The phrases lined up in her head, comfortable and ready.
She let them pass.
“It feels good,” she said instead. “The portrait work especially. I photographed Winnie last week. And Jan, Sally, Bryan in the kitchen.” She glanced at Bryan. “You kept forgetting I was there, which is exactly what I needed.”
Grant leaned forward. “What kind of portraits? Studio work?”
“No. In their spaces. Natural light, no posing. I just sit with people until they stop performing for the camera.” She paused. Talking about her process felt strange, like explaining how she breathed. “The good shots happen after they forget I’m there. Or after they decide they don’t care.”
“Winnie never performs for anything,” Emily said.
“No, she doesn’t.” Melissa looked across the courtyard at Winnie, who was watching the conversation with her tea held in both hands and an expression that gave away nothing. “That’s why her session was the easiest. And the best.”
The shrimp went around. The cornbread went around. Melissa ate and talked, and noticed with a small shock that she was doing both at the same time. Usually she picked one. Her hands kept reaching for a camera that wasn’t there, and each time they found only her own knee or the arm of the chair.
Bryan refilled drinks and circled back to the table. “So listen, Cassidy’s building a new website for the Sandpiper. About time, since the current one still has my dad’s hours on it and he retired years ago.”
“I’d barely call what they have a website.” Cassidy shook her head.
“The point is, we need photos. Menu shots, the kitchen, the deck at sunset, the whole thing.” He looked at Melissa. “You interested?”
The question sat there simply. A job. Someone asking her to do work she was qualified to do. Two months ago it would have sent her spiraling through every reason she shouldn’t point a camera at anything that mattered. Tonight it sat there, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can do that.”
“She’ll make your shrimp look like art,” Cassidy said.
“My shrimp already look like art.”
“Your shrimp look like shrimp, Bryan.”
“That’s what I said.” Bryan shrugged. “And Sally’s been talking about a website for Bayview General for months.” Bryan waved to Sally. “Hey, Sally, come over for a sec.”
Sally came over to join them.
“Melissa is going to take photos for the Sandpiper website,” Cassidy explained.
Sally’s eyes lit up. “Oh, could you do the same for Bayview?”
“I could if you wanted. The store, the displays.”
“And the honey jar wall. Can’t forget that,” Grant added.
“Seventeen varieties,” Emily said. “Right, Sally?”
“Keep selling out of some of them. I think I’m down to fourteen right now.”
“Still impressive. I’ll be sure to include them.”
“That sounds good. Stop by the store and we’ll talk out the details, and Cassidy, you’re still going to work on the website?”
“I sure will.”
“Okay, with my marketing life settled, I’m going to go over and chat with Winnie.” She crossed over and the two friends bent their heads close, deep in discussion within moments.
“So you’ve got the town site, the Sandpiper, and Sally’s store.” Cassidy was counting on her fingers. “Plus the portrait series. Plus festival documentation starting next month. You’re going to need a calendar.”
“I have a calendar.”
“You have a phone with a calendar app you’ve never opened. I’ve seen your planning system. It’s a sticky note on your laptop.”
That was accurate. Melissa didn’t argue.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said, and meant it, which was its own small surprise.
For months, she’d had nothing on her schedule except dawn lighthouse shots and silence.
Now she had commitments. People expecting her to show up with a camera and do something worthwhile.
It was different, but she was beginning to like it.
The conversation shifted. Emily talked about a new painting she was working on for Grant’s gallery.
Bryan and Cassidy debated whether the festival needed a second night of live music or whether one was enough to keep the volunteers from mutiny.
Winnie came over and told a short story about her father fixing the lighthouse lamp during a storm with nothing but a wrench and stubbornness, and everyone went quiet for the thirty seconds it took her to finish, the way they always did when Winnie spoke about Robert Lockhart.
Melissa listened. But not from the outside. She was in the circle, cross-legged in her chair. The listening felt different from this position. It felt almost like belonging. But she didn’t really belong here. Or anywhere. She hadn’t in a very long time. She just had a job here, that was all.
The evening cooled. Not much. Evenings in southwest Florida didn’t really cool this time of year.
The humidity just eased off enough to make the breeze from the Gulf noticeable.
One by one, people drifted. Emily and Grant said goodnight and walked toward Starfish Cottage with their shoulders touching.
Bryan stacked plates while Cassidy supervised from her chair, which was their version of teamwork.
Winnie and Sally headed to the keeper’s quarters carrying the last remnants of the gathering.
Melissa stayed.
She wasn’t sure why. The fire pit had burned down to embers, and the tiki torches Clint had lit earlier threw uneven light across the flagstones.
She sat in the growing quiet and felt the unfamiliar sensation of not wanting to leave a gathering.
Usually she calculated her exit three conversations in advance. Tonight she’d forgotten to do that.
Somewhere in the keeper’s quarters, a light went on and then off again. Winnie checking the locks, probably. The woman had a routine for everything.
Clint came out of the shadows near the gazebo.
She hadn’t realized he was still there, though she should have.
He’d been at dinner, quiet as always, eating steadily and contributing nothing to the conversation beyond a nod when Bryan asked him about a dock repair.
He’d stayed through the whole evening without saying more than a dozen words, which was remarkable for Clint only because he usually left early only to return to help clean up the area.
He sat down in the chair Bryan had vacated, a comfortable distance away.
For a minute neither of them spoke. The embers ticked and settled. Somewhere past the courtyard wall, the Gulf pushed against the shore.
“You’re different lately,” he finally said.
She looked at him. His face was half in torchlight, half in shadow, and his expression was hard to read. But his voice wasn’t hard. It was careful.
She raised an eyebrow. “Different how?”
He seemed to consider this, the way he considered most things. Slowly and without a rush. “You’re actually here.” He paused. “Not just observing.”
She’d expected something about her photography. About the portrait series, or the new work, or the way she’d laughed at Bryan’s shrimp joke. Something she could respond to with a quip or a redirect.
But he hadn’t said anything about her work. He’d said something about her. About the fact that she’d been sitting in a chair in a circle of people and had stayed there, present and accounted for, without a camera between her and the world.
She opened her mouth to say something deflecting. I’ve always been here. What are you talking about. Don’t get philosophical on me, Lockhart.
Nothing came out.
Because he was right. And he’d said it without judgment.
She just nodded.
It wasn’t much. A small tilt of her head, an acknowledgment that sat between them in the ember-light without needing to be explained or expanded. Clint didn’t push. He didn’t ask what changed or why, or whether she was okay. He just let the nod be enough.
That was the thing about Clint. He didn’t need the whole story. Most people would have followed up. That’s great, Melissa. I’m glad you’re coming out of your shell. We were worried about you. All those kind, suffocating words that made her want to crawl back behind the lens and stay there.
Clint offered none of that. He offered an observation, and then silence.
They sat for another few minutes while the courtyard lights clicked off on their timer, plunging everything into the softer darkness of moon and distant porch lights. The lighthouse beam swept overhead in its steady arc.
Clint finally pushed out of his chair. “Got to put out the last of the fire.” He poured some sand on the embers and turned back to her. “Good night, Melissa.”
“Good night.”
He walked toward Driftwood Cottage with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders loose in a way she rarely saw from him. She watched him go, then stood and walked back toward Captain’s Watch. The stone path was familiar under her feet, worn smooth by months of the same walk at the same hour.
Inside, she glanced at the camera still sitting on the counter where she’d left it. She didn’t pick it up.
She turned off the kitchen light and went to bed.