Chapter 10 Mason
Mason
I step out of the woods onto the stretch of dried grass and wind-matted weeds at the tip of a sharp curve in the road.
The guard rail along the road is still broken.
The makeshift section of metal fence that Jace and I put up is still there, bridging the gap. It’s been eleven months, and still, no one else has been out to fix it.
Everything on the cliff is the same as always, including the heavy sense of dread I carry with me all the way here through the woods.
The only thing out of place is the gray-haired woman sitting on her knees facing the water.
She looks out at the Salish Sea, back straight and hands resting on her thighs. Maybe she’s meditating.
Maybe she’s plotting my death.
I sigh and look up at the sky, willing myself the strength and the patience to deal with this. She hasn’t turned around, so I speak softly, trying not to scare the shit out of her. “June. It’s Mason.”
She doesn’t even flinch. “I’m aware that you’re standing there,” she says dryly. “You’re a large one, Mason Grant. For a moment I thought I was being stalked by a buffalo.”
Then she makes a show of moving some twigs and leaves around, like she’s just tidying up the landscape. She gets to her feet, and I notice the fresh flowers she’s left on the ground.
I study her as she avoids my eyes. “Are you . . . visiting their graves?”
She tsks irritably. “Of course I am. You’re not the only one who cared for them.”
I realize that, of course. Just never would’ve occurred to me that I’d run into her here. This isolated cliff is at the edge of a public park, but I rarely run into anyone here.
“And it’s not really a grave, is it,” she says brusquely as the wind off the ocean whips her hair around her face. “I just come by on my rounds sometimes.”
This woman and her rounds. She’s always walking the woods and the beaches and every path that meanders around Orchard Cove. There have been times when I’ve had to pull my truck over to talk to her on the side of a road when I see her out walking, because it’s the only way to pin her down.
And just like that, she brushes her hands off and starts walking briskly, back into the woods.
I consider letting her go and focusing on what I came here for.
The wildflowers dangle from my hand, petals fluttering in the ocean breeze.
My parents’ actual gravesite is in a graveyard over in Vancouver, in a plot with my mom’s family.
That was their wish. Maybe it was a concession they agreed to: life in Orchard Cove, for his family; eternal rest in Vancouver, for hers.
But this is the place where I come to visit them most often, and I do think of it as their grave.
A sort of final resting place. The place where their lives ended.
I lay my wildflowers next to the small bundle of pale-yellow peonies June left, and go after her. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days, June.”
“Have you?” she says flatly. “Why?”
Does she really not know why?
This is the thing about June—I never know when she’s being straight with me, or what her true intentions are. I don’t know if the gaping holes in our ability to communicate are a product of treachery, ignorance, or actual incompetence on her part.
June Spencer is not an incompetent person.
Not in business. But the rest of her life?
Who knows. I’ve never known a thing about this woman that someone else didn’t tell me, and so my understanding of her is a maddening patchwork of gossip, speculation, hearsay, possible outright lies, and guesswork.
“I’d like to talk to you about Pier Seven,” I tell her, because I have literally no idea if she knows this or not.
Maybe she missed or just plain deleted/destroyed every voicemail, email, and actual registered letter that my realtor and I sent her over the past few months, or the urgent texts I’ve sent over the last nine days, since I found out she leased out the building to Sierra.
“I was pretty disappointed that you leased the building to a stranger for Sunshine Fest rather than leasing it to me.”
“And what does your disappointment have to do with me?” she asks bluntly, like a woman who has no time to waste.
She reminds me of my grandpa that way; Tommy Grant has grown more impatient in the last decade or so, as if there’s an hourglass in his head constantly ticking down the sands of his time on earth.
“My family leased the space last summer during Sunshine Fest,” I remind her. “My parents were making plans to buy the building from you, before . . .” For some reason, I don’t finish the sentence. Maybe it’s the weight of it, always much heavier the closer I am to that damn cliff.
“Your parents, yes.” June stops in her tracks. I stop, and she fixes me with her pale-gray eyes. “Not you. I had a lot of respect for your parents. And yes, we talked a great deal about what could be. They had grand plans.”
“It was more than plans,” I press. “You had a verbal agreement.”
“According to whom?”
“According to my parents. And it’s one I would hope you’d consider honoring, given the circumstances.”
“The circumstance, while tragic, is that your parents died,” she says. “Rest their souls. I would think such an experience might teach you not to waste time on what could be and focus on what is.”
“That building belongs with my family,” I press.
“We have the means to get it back up and running. Investing in that building means investing in the town. Now that your family, other than Lee, is long gone from Orchard Cove, you can’t possibly have the means to do that.
” She frowns, but you don’t pussyfoot around with someone like June.
“And if you’d ever had any interest in restoring the restaurant, you would’ve done it by now. ”
“That’s a presumptuous position to take for someone who really doesn’t know me.”
“Come on, June. I’ve grown up with you. You’re the grouchy, stubborn, impossibly difficult lady on the other side of the fence.
” Her frown deepens. “Or so I’ve been told.
But we don’t have to be enemies forever.
If we do this deal, maybe it’s a long-overdue first step in our families learning to work together instead of always butting heads. ”
She snorts. “Were you always this tragically naive?”
It’s as close to a compliment as I’m sure I’ll ever get from her. There’s almost a hint of fondness in her tone.
“Probably. I’ve been told I’m optimistic to a fault.”
One person told me that, actually. Long ago. When I was so rampantly optimistic I didn’t see the end that was coming until I was standing in it, alone, dressed in a suit and learning a hard life lesson.
June shakes her head at me and looks away, into the forest, like she’s considering my words. Optimism stirs in some dusty corner of my soul where I abandoned it, almost convincing me that I’m getting somewhere with her.
Then she nails me with her gray eyes and says, “How is Thomas?”
It’s like she’s launched a grenade into what could’ve been a perfectly reasonable chat.
She always calls my grandpa Thomas, which no one else does. I’m pretty sure it’s intentional, meant to remind me that the two of them have a history. A history that I’m not a part of and don’t understand.
“The same as always,” I tell her neutrally, same as every time she asks, which is every time I speak with her, which is rarely.
“And that being the case,” she responds, “I have no interest in doing business of any sort with that man.”
“You were willing to do business with my parents,” I point out.
“And I still would be, if they were here.”
“I’ll buy Pier Seven myself,” I tell her.
“For my family.” I’ve never made this offer to her before.
But I’ve been thinking it over. I know I can make it work.
It would mean selling off the bar, but it would be worth it to get into the larger space, the landmark waterfront building that really should belong to my family. We built it, after all.
“You don’t have a family,” she retorts.
“One day I will,” my optimism says. But the rest of me adds, “Layne will. And this will be part of their legacy. Tommy wouldn’t have to be a part of it.”
“No.” She turns on her heel and starts up the path again.
“That’s it?” I say to her back. “No?”
“As of right now, the answer is no. You haven’t even made me an offer.”
“I’ll put in an offer,” I call after her. “I was going to, after the festival. No more taking for granted that it’s mine.” I know that’s probably what irks her. That I assumed it would be.
Or maybe, at the end of the day, this is all about money. She just needs to see my offer.
“You can,” she calls back. “But you may not be the only one who makes one.”
“What?” I hurry to catch up to her and fall into stride. “June. You can’t be serious. You’re not considering selling to Sierra Daniels.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s not local. She sells smoothies. It makes no sense. No one’s going to buy smoothies in Orchard Cove in the middle of winter. And the space is far too large for that.”
“So maybe she’ll expand her business model. Add other items to her menu.”
I’ve never seen June Spencer amused, but I think I’m looking at it right now.
“That would be a very bad idea for Orchard Cove,” I say.
I really don’t know if it would be a bad idea. I just can’t have it.
“Why?” she demands. “You only want a restaurant in that space and think it would be good for the town if you run it?”
“I know this town and already run the only restaurant here. Who better than me?”
“I guess we’ll see.” She glances at me sidelong. “She’s already asked to extend her one-month lease.”
I stop dead.
“So, I guess you’ve got yourself some healthy competition,” she says, and disappears around a bend in the path.
“So, what’s going on with Pier Seven?” Evan asks me. “Thought you were supposed to be in there this month.”
“Yeah. Turns out that’s not the case,” I say neutrally.