Chapter 9
Julian sleeps on the sofa. I want that on record, because at three in the morning I lie awake in my own bed, with only a floor between me and a man I have finally kissed.
I think about the fact that Julian Volkov is on my sofa with a blanket that stops at his shins and his boots lined up by the door.
I offered him the bed. He declined. I offered to take the sofa. He looked at me with an expression that suggested I had proposed removing a load-bearing wall.
“I don’t sleep much,” he said, which I’ve noticed is how Julian answers a question by not answering it.
So I lay in my bed and he lay on my sofa, and we did not do anything other than kiss, which we did a great deal of, right up until the point where continuing would have meant a decision neither of us was ready to make out loud.
Then he pulled back, pressed his mouth to my forehead, and told me to go to bed before he stopped being a gentleman.
I have never wanted a man to stop being a gentleman so badly in my life.
At some point after three I sleep. At six twelve I wake up because something is banging outside. My first thought is shutter. My second is Julian. My third is Julian’s mouth, which is not useful to anybody.
By morning the storm has downgraded to a grey, dripping, sullen thing that can’t decide if it’s finished.
I come downstairs in yesterday’s sweater to find the blanket folded into a precise rectangle, the fire rebuilt and lit, and Julian standing at my kitchen window with last night’s cocoa mug in his hand.
“Good morning,” he says, and I stop in the doorway.
“You’re very cheerful for someone who claims not to sleep.”
“I did not claim not to sleep.”
“You said you don’t sleep much.”
“Those are different statements.”
“Of course they are.”
I find the percolator Gran used during outages, fill it from the water I drew before the pump died, and put it over the gas flame. When I turn around, Julian is still holding the mug.
“You know you can put that down.”
“I know.”
“How long have you been holding it?”
He looks at the mug as if he’d forgotten it was there.
“It gives my hands something to do.”
Something in my chest aches. Last night I told him that sometimes putting food in front of someone has almost nothing to do with whether they’re hungry. Apparently sometimes holding a mug has nothing to do with drinking from it either.
I cross the kitchen, take it gently out of his hands, and put it in the sink. Then I kiss him. I don’t plan it. I just do it. Up on my toes, my mouth against his.
He goes still for half a second. Then his hand settles at my waist and he kisses me back, slow and cool and thorough enough that I briefly forget coffee exists. When I pull away, he’s looking at me differently.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Yes,” Julian says, and I grin.
Outside, something bangs again and reality returns.
“Come on,” I say. “The whole town’s going to be a disaster. Let’s go be useful.”
The harbor looks like a giant child has thrown a tantrum in it.
There are roof shingles in the gutters. A rowboat upside down in the middle of Water Street.
Somebody’s lobster traps stacked in a heap against the war memorial.
The sky hangs low and wet, and the whole town smells like salt and diesel and turned earth.
Four men are standing under the bait shed at seven in the morning, looking up at a dory on the roof.
“That’s Buddy Vachon’s dory.”
“That is not Buddy Vachon’s dory.”
“It’s got the transom.”
“Everyone’s got a transom, Ray. Buddy’s been in Florida since October. How’d his boat get on a roof?”
“Same way a grey one would,” Ray says, having stopped listening.
No one has suggested getting it down. That will come later. First there has to be a discussion.
This is how Black Harbor handles a disaster. We assemble, we assess, and we form a committee on the sidewalk.
Mabel is directing traffic around the downed tree on Point Road with an authority the actual state of Maine has never granted her.
Eunice has set up a folding table outside the church with a thermos the size of a fire extinguisher.
Theo is down at the town dock, up to his knees in cold water, swearing at a section of planking that has partly torn loose and is now trying to leave.
“Volkov,” Theo calls as soon as he sees us. “You any good with a hammer?”
“I’ve held one.”
“That a yes?”
“It’s a yes.”
And that’s it. Julian rolls up his sleeves, and I stand on the pier with a box of supplies pretending I am not staring at his forearms. He wades into the freezing water beside Theo like he does this every Tuesday.
I keep expecting Julian to be above things. He’s rich and elegant and lives in a house with actual oil paintings. I keep expecting a version of him that stands at the edge of a mess with his hands clean and offers to write a check. But that version doesn’t exist.
He’s in the water with Theo for an hour, holding a beam steady while Theo drives lag bolts, then swapping so Theo can hold the beam and Julian can drive the bolts.
He does it faster than Theo. I notice this while I’m helping Eunice, but I file it under the growing list of things I notice and don’t ask about.
When they’re done, the dock is more solid than it was before the storm.
Theo claps a soaked hand on Julian’s soaked shoulder and says something I can’t hear, and Julian actually laughs.
A real laugh, short and surprised, like it got out before he could stop it. My stomach does something inconvenient.
I look towards Water Street, towards the church, and towards the houses climbing the hill. No power. No coffee. Refrigerators slowly warming all over town. And suddenly I know exactly what I need to do.
“I’m opening the Salt & Sage.”
Theo nods as though this was inevitable.
“For breakfast?”
“For everybody.”
“Yeah,” he says. “That tracks.”
I turn to Julian. “I have to go.”
“So do I.”
Something in me gives a ridiculous little dip.
Of course he has to go. The man has been stranded at my house since yesterday. He needs dry clothes. His own house probably has storm damage. He has an entire life that does not revolve around whatever Penelope Harrington has decided to do next.
Then he says, “I’ll meet you there.”
The dip reverses itself so quickly I nearly get emotional whiplash.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
His eyes hold mine. “I’ll meet you there, Penny.”
Theo looks between us.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I leave before he can mention the bet.
The waterfront has its power back by the time I get the Salt & Sage open. I start cooking, briskly, for two hundred people who have not asked me to.
By nine thirty there’s a line out the loading door. A hundred and forty egg sandwiches, four gallons of coffee, and a vat of chowder that began life as a wedding order. The wedding is postponed because the groom’s parents currently have a spruce tree in their bedroom. The chowder is not.
Lucy is back from Bangor and has been drafted, along with her camera, which she keeps abandoning on the counter and then going back for.
“You’ve got a whole crew.”
“I’ve got a lot of eggs.”
“Pen. You’ve got a crew.”
She’s right. Eleven people are in my kitchen and I asked none of them. Harriet Coyne is wrapping sandwiches at a speed that frightens me. Wyatt Goodwin, who is seven, has been given the job of Handing Things To People and is taking it seriously enough to be alarming.
“Wyatt, sweetheart. You don’t have to run.”
“I do have to run,” Wyatt says, and runs.
Julian arrives at ten. For approximately four seconds I become no use whatsoever to anybody. He’s changed into dark jeans, boots, and a canvas jacket over a charcoal sweater. Ordinary clothes.
I didn’t know he owned ordinary clothes.
The jeans fit the way his coats fit, and this is somehow worse, because a coat is a costume and I know how to look at a costume. This is only a man who got dressed. A man I kissed last night. Repeatedly.
My stomach does the inconvenient thing again. I set the tray I’m holding down half off the counter. Lucy catches it.
“Nothing,” she says. “I’m saying nothing. I want credit for it, in writing.”
“Shut up,” I hiss just as Julian reaches us.
I’ve seen him look at me across crowded rooms for weeks. I’ve seen his face warm when he finds me. But that warmth is different after last night, and I have the horrible suspicion I’m blushing.
“Miss Harrington.”
“Mr. Volkov.”
Lucy rolls her eyes. I’ll kill her later.
“What do you need?” Julian asks.
“Are you asking me or the town?”
“I assumed there was no difference.”
I stare at him, and Lucy makes a tiny choking noise.
“Fine,” I say. “You can stay.”
“I had hoped.”
“Can you wrap sandwiches?”
“I believe so.”
“That is not confidence.”
“I have never wrapped an egg sandwich.”
I hand him one.
“Today is full of firsts.”
His eyes meet mine. Oh. That was not what I meant. Or possibly it was. The corner of his mouth moves, and Lucy walks away without a word.
Coward.
I put Julian beside Harriet. This lasts six minutes.
“He’s too slow,” Harriet says.
Julian looks down at the sandwich in his hands. The paper is folded into perfect symmetrical corners. The seam is tucked. The whole thing looks ready to be presented to a minor European monarch.
“It’s an egg sandwich,” I tell him. “Not a diplomatic treaty.”
“I am attempting to do it properly.”
“Properly is inside the paper.”
Harriet snatches it out of his hands.
“Watch.”
She wraps one in approximately two seconds. Julian watches with the concentration of a man receiving battlefield instruction. By the third sandwich, he’s got it.
“Better,” Harriet says.
“Thank you.”
“Now go find something heavy.”
He looks at me, and I sigh. “Don’t encourage her.”
“What do you need?”
There’s that question again.
“Mrs. Abernathy needs six breakfasts. No shellfish anywhere in the bag because her mother’s still with her.”
Julian reaches for the correct carrier, and I stop.
“You remembered.”
“You told me.”
“Yesterday.”
“Yes.”
Like that explains everything. Maybe with Julian it does.