Chapter 6
6
The yacht dropped the two of them off just before sunset in Oak Bluffs, on the northern tip of Martha’s Vineyard. It was quiet and empty. The last snow was mostly melted, leaving the rocky cliffs brown and bare around darkened houses. Rosie coughed in the wet air, hand automatically smoothing over the inhaler in her purse.
“I’m not sick. It’s just the humidity,” she explained apologetically.
Tom knew that already. Rosie, it’s me , he wanted to tell her.
He wouldn’t have thought it was possible on a boat that only had three decks, but she’d managed to avoid him for the entire trip. He’d spooked her badly, and he didn’t understand how. Had she not spent the last decade the same way he had, wondering how things had gone so wrong, wishing there were some way to make them right again?
But Rosie only mumbled a request that he stay with their bags before scurrying away down the block to the car rental shop.
Maybe he’d approached this from the wrong direction. There was no reason they had to start with some big relationship-defining discussion. If Rosie wanted to start on the scene where they held each other and cried, or even on the make-up sex, that might put her in a better mood than she seemed to be in now. Tom resolved to keep things lighter for a while. She was lovely today, in a floaty blouse over a knit skirt and tights, all of it hugging her curves. Rosie always looked nice to touch, but the cling of the fabric made his palms ache to press themselves against her.
She returned with a small four-door Honda sedan.
“We were supposed to have a pickup truck,” she said, half in annoyance and half in apology. “For the construction stuff. But I guess they move a lot of the rental cars off the island for winter.”
She fiddled with the radio, drawing mostly static and commercials as she hunted for music.
“Do you want to play Three Songs?” Tom asked, attempting his most appealing and least intimidating grin. It was her favorite car game.
Rose sawed her lower lip over her upper teeth, worried blue eyes darting his way before answering. “No, thank you. I think there’s an NPR station.”
NPR was in the middle of a long-form feature story about a scientist with scleroderma who had identified a new species of tube worm in her backyard. Somehow the story was also about grief and the history of Casimir Pulaski Day. Tom didn’t doubt its literary merit, but he thought Rosie would have really appreciated winning a few games of Three Songs more. He had a lot of sets saved up for her.
There was little conversation as they drove to the inn, half an hour up-island. The last time they were here, on their honeymoon, they’d both been too young to rent a car. They’d hitchhiked from Edgartown with a vacationing family of five, and Tom had to sit on top of the suitcases in the luggage compartment, the two of them giggling and holding hands across the seat backs.
Do you remember when we were in love, Rosie?
It was winter now, and everything looked different. Tom couldn’t recognize any landmarks until they arrived.
The Windward Inn was a sprawling, three-story, gray-shingled building on seven acres of land, built in classic New England cottage style. The white paint on the gutters and downspouts was peeling, and plywood covered several front windows. The entire effect was scabrous and injured, even setting aside the blue tarps on the roof.
As Rosie pulled up to the front of the circular drive, a flock of enormous brown birds scattered from where they’d been loitering near the unassuming entrance. There was a very dirty Prius parked at the other end of the drive, but it was empty, and the lights in the inn were off.
“Oh no,” Rosie said, surveying some loose paper and other trash swirling nearby. “I think they found the grocery bags.”
“What kind of birds are those?” Tom asked, eyes tracking the creatures to where they’d regrouped a dozen yards away to flap and hoot in a vaguely malevolent way.
“Wild turkeys,” she said, climbing out of the car and glaring at the birds. “I’ve seen them on the island before. Guess they’re hanging out here because nobody’s mowed since the storm.”
The inn was surrounded by tall, dead scrub grass. There was a little debris around the front drive, and one downed tree that Tom could see from his vantage point.
“And they’re cannibals too,” Rosie sighed, poking at what had been a paper-wrapped package of chicken thighs, torn open and mostly devoured by the birds. “Can you help me clean this up? There should be a bunch of garbage bags somewhere.”
“Of course,” Tom said, hopping out and wading through the scattered boxes and plastic bags. He popped open the trunk and began stashing the few things the turkeys hadn’t been able to rip up. Sacks of mandarin oranges. Some unbroken eggs. Frozen bags of hash browns and microwavable broccoli. All Rosie staples. A few surprises.
“I thought you were allergic to fish?” Tom said, finding a partially eaten salmon fillet.
“I am,” Rosie said after a minute. “But I—” She broke off.
“What?” Tom asked, spinning around to see her blushing.
“I happened to see a headline about the fitness routine for you and…Boyd. I figured maybe you weren’t eating Cheez-Its for as many meals a day anymore. So I got you some fish and veggies.”
Tom halted, chest swelling in a painful, enjoyable way. “You didn’t have to get my groceries. Especially stuff you can’t eat.”
“I figured the least I could do is feed you as long as you’re up here.”
That was a little deflating, but Tom tried not to lose the thread of gratitude. “I could have gotten the groceries though. I just did an Equity production. I’m not totally broke. And I can cook too.”
“I thought you liked my cooking,” Rosie said mostly to herself, her voice faint as she brushed through more garbage in search of salvageable food.
“I did. I mean I do—” While Tom was still filling trash sacks, he heard the front door of the inn open, emitting a barrel-chested man in chinos and sneakers from the dark foyer.
Tom hadn’t expected anyone, but Rosie apparently had—she bounded over and threw her arms around the man’s neck with a broad smile. Tom swallowed a surge of irrational jealousy— Kill? —before he recognized those pointy Kelly eyebrows on the other man’s face. Then Tom was only slightly guarded, because Rosie’s family had never been his biggest fans, and that situation was unlikely to have improved since their divorce. Florida Man murdered by irate in-laws.
“Do you remember my cousin Seth?” Rosie asked excitedly.
“Oh, yeah,” Tom said, belatedly sticking his hand out. “Hey, Seth.” He remembered that Rosie had fifty bazillion cousins and uncles, who all looked alike and were generally uninterested in talking about anything but sportsball.
“Um. You remember Tom. From when we got married. But—maybe you don’t need to mention to anyone that Tom is out here helping me with this?” Rosie asked her cousin, who squinted without curiosity at him. “Things are a little complicated.”
Ow. Complicated. His heart.
“Sure, no problem,” Seth said, confused.
“Seth works for the property management company that does all the day-to-day operations for the inn,” Rosie confided to Tom, although no property management was in evidence at the moment. “They’ve been off-site since the storm, but as soon as we get the repairs done, they’ll open it up for the summer.”
Seth scratched his neck and shifted his feet. “Maybe. It’s in bad shape, Rosie. We can’t get back in until you’ve got a certificate of occupancy, and it’s real run-down—I just took a peek inside and I see, like, months of work. I heard from my dad you’re thinking of selling? That might be smart.”
“Selling? I’m not selling.” That set Rosie completely off. As Tom collected the remainder of the groceries, she held forth on the extreme wrongness of Uncle Ken’s suggestion, all her plans for the inn, the binders and Pinterest idea boards she’d already created, and why the inn would be better than ever by the summer season. Rosie was magnificent when she was passionate about something, all flashing eyes and speaking hands.
“Uh,” said Seth. “I guess you’ll just let me know if you need anything, then? And you’ll tell me when I need to get the inspection scheduled with the county?”
Tom thought this was a bit of a non sequitur—the many things the inn needed were obvious. And the other man was already edging back toward his car.
“Aren’t you staying?” Tom asked. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. Rosie looked surprised too.
“Oh, no, I’ve been here for a little bit,” the other man said evasively. “I just wanted to get an idea of how long it might be before we could start up again.”
“Okay, well, when are you coming back?” Tom asked.
Seth smiled in a conciliatory way. “You see, we’re not actually insured or bonded for any kind of repair work. We only do routine maintenance. We can’t do any construction or painting or anything like that. It would be illegal.”
Rosie seemed to accept this explanation, but Tom frowned at him. Tom was not licensed or bonded or even into that kind of thing. “What about in, like, your free time?” he asked.
“I wish I could, but, you know. We just had a baby,” Seth said, not even considering it. “My wife would kill me if I took on some kind of construction project.”
“I know,” Rosie said softly. “How’s the baby? It’s Harper, right?”
“Amazing,” said Seth. “So busy. Thanks for the play gym, by the way.” He lifted his phone so they could see his lock screen, which depicted a chubby toddler of at least one year of age. He looked between Tom and Rosie. “I’ve got to get home, but if you guys need a break, just give me a call. Come have a drink down-island or something.”
They waved him off, and he got back into his car, speeding away quickly down the drive with a half-hearted wave. There were no other car sounds once he was gone—just the distant gobble of the turkeys and the faraway noise of the ocean. Tom felt an immediate sense of foreboding when he looked back at the darkened inn.
“It was nice to see him, wasn’t it?” Rosie said wistfully.
“Uh-huh,” said Tom, who didn’t want to disagree with her, especially since he’d half expected the first of Rosie’s male relatives he encountered since their divorce to take him out behind the woodshed a bit. Though he was also not sure there had been anything nice about the guy showing up only to not lift a single finger.
Rosie sent him a hurt look at this lack of enthusiasm.
“Babe,” he said, defending himself. “We don’t have to get started tonight. You wanna call him back? I’m all for going out and getting a drink instead. Instead of any of it.”
On firmer ground now, Rosie sniffed and firmed her mouth in an expression he used to kiss off her face if it was directed at him. She turned on the flashlight feature in her phone and marched up the front steps. She pulled the sanitation notices off the front door and stuffed them into her purse.
“No,” she said haughtily. “They’ll come when it’s all cleaned up. Which we should do now while you’re still here to help.”