Read Forget Me Not Online

Authors: Coleen Paratore

Forget Me Not (5 page)

CHAPTER 9
Beach Rights

Mine, and yours;

Mine, not yours.

Earth endures;

Stars abide—

Shine down in the old sea.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we get home, hot and sweaty from biking, Mom suggests we go to the beach. I’m about to decline, when I see the look on her face. She seems so happy and relaxed. This family time stuff is important to her, and anyway, I’m sure Tina will be at the beach, stalking lifeguards, and I need to talk with her.

Mom and I head upstairs to change. Sam says he’ll pack sandwiches.

When we get to the beach, we pause at the top of the stairs. Out on the Spit, there’s a red light swirling on the harbormaster’s boat and a large group of people all huddled together.

“Let’s see what’s going on,” Mom says.

At the bottom of the stairs, I spot Tina and Ruby. They are standing at the base of a lifeguard chair, staring up at a greased Greek god of a guy. Ruby says something and the god leans down to answer. Tina smiles, nodding her head, then writes something on a clipboard like she’s taking notes. I wonder what that’s all about.

Mom and Sam and I walk out on the Spit.

As we approach the crowd, we hear shouting. I notice someone has ripped down the ropes and stakes from the piping plover and tern nesting area.

“Look at that,” Sam says.

There is black paint smeared over the new Audubon Society warning sign.

“Who’s gonna make me?” a big-bellied man with a very red face is shouting.

“It’s just for a few weeks, maybe a month,” says a young, college-age-looking woman wearing a brown uniform shirt with the official Audubon seal on the pocket.

“This is
our
beach,” a lady shouts. It’s Ruby Sivler’s mother, perched on the hull of their yacht, all tanned in a shiny pink bikini. “We already have people sneaking onto this beach who don’t belong here, taking up space. Sometimes we can’t even find a place to sit.”

“That’s right!” someone shouts.

“But what about the birds?” a boy says.

“I don’t give a flying—”

“But these aren’t just any old birds,” the Audubon lady says. “The least and common terns and the piping plovers are on the endangered species list.”

An adult plover is hovering in the air by the shoreline, screeching. It circles around and soars in toward us, swiping close to Mrs. Sivler’s bright red hair.

“Get away, get away,” Mrs. Sivler screams, flapping her arms hysterically. “These birds are dangerous! They don’t belong here!”

“They won’t attack you,” the Audubon worker explains. “It’s just a mother trying to scare you away from her chicks, that’s all.”

“We have a right to enjoy our beach,” Mrs. Sivler says, picking up her fluffy white poodle, Pookie, and hugging him to her chest. People…and their pets…come before
birds.

“That’s right,” a man with a sunburned face shouts, “people count more than plovers.”

I wonder if he’s the one who put the flyer on our Bramble Board? Or, wait, what if it was Mrs. Sivler?

“We all have a right to this beach,” a college kid says, putting his arm around his girlfriend.

“Excuse me,” Ruby Sivler’s father says, standing up on his boat, cocking his captain’s hat to the side, and
speaking with great authority, “but that’s not true. Only those property owners between Sea Bluff and Windy Road, and Shore Drive and Oak Path have actual, legally deeded rights to this beach.”

“That’s right!” a lady shouts. “I had to tell some boy to leave the other day. He was building a fire, all set to cook a fish, and his dog was running loose. I told him this was private property.”

“Good for you,” Mr. Sivler says. “We need to protect our investment from trespassers. It’s high time we institute an identification system so we know who belongs here and who doesn’t.”

“Hear, hear,” some man shouts. A few people clap.

I spot Mariel in the crowd. She steps forward, hands on her hips. “With all due respect, sir, if anybody owns this beach, it’s the Wampanoag Indians you stole it from. They were here before the Pilgrims landed. Centuries before any of you.”

Yay, Mariel. You tell him.
I start to walk toward her and then stop and turn at the sound of barking.

There’s a huge, golden-brown shaggy dog sniffing around dangerously close to one of the silver cages the Audubon workers put over the eggs and newly hatched chicks.

“Get that dog on a leash!” someone shouts.

The dog nudges the cage as if he’s trying to flip it over.

The guy with the red face claps. “That’s right! Show those birds who’s top dog around here.”

“Is that your dog, sir?” Sam asks the man in a calm voice.

“Not mine,” the guy says.

The dog runs over to where Sam and Mom and I are standing. It shakes its coat and water sprays on my legs. Then the dog hunches down and poops right in front of us.

“That’s disgusting,” Mom says, looking around at the faces. “Who owns this dog? Dogs aren’t allowed on this beach without a leash. It’s against the law.”

The dog looks at me. Our eyes lock for a second. It doesn’t have a collar. Then, I know this sounds silly, but I swear the dog smiles at me, a big goofy clownish smile like that carnival booth at the Barnstable Fair where you throw three balls into the clown’s mouth to win a stuffed animal prize.

The dog turns and runs up over the dune and is gone.

We stop at Bobby Byrne’s restaurant in Mashpee Commons for dinner. I like how they have quotes from famous writers on the walls here. I order a cup of clam chowder—we call it “chowda”—and the Shakespeare chicken sandwich.
Yumm.

Next, I do some undercover sleuthing at Ghelfi’s candy store. They’ve added on and remodeled. They’re even serving ice cream now. I get the vanilla frozen yogurt with Heath bar chunks, my favorite.

I take a long time making my saltwater taffy selections, making mental notes on all their new flavors. No way can Nana compete with their variety. We’ll need to think of a different angle.

Back home, I run up to my room and close the door. I take out my cell phone and call JFK. All I get is his voice, with rap music in the background. “Hey, this is Joe; I’m not around, so leave me a message.”
Beep.

“Hi, Joseph. It’s Willa. Listen, I’m sorry again about yesterday. Call me, okay?”

I check, but he’s not online, either. I leave a message there, too.

Aunt Ruthie’s wedding.
Even though my heart’s not in it, I get out her letter and my planning notebook.
She said she wants something simple and outdoors. I think Sam’s backyard Labyrinth will be perfect. The daisies and dahlias and brown-eyed Susans are in full bloom, and if we do it at six, we’ll still have plenty of light. Ruthie’s note says her friend Michael is a minister and will officiate the ceremony. Note: Ask Sam what kind of music Ruthie likes.

Now for the menu. I head down to the kitchen and browse through the cookbooks. I pull three vegetarian titles from the shelf and start looking for recipes. Let’s see, first course. Gazpacho would be a good choice…or, maybe a chilled blueberry soup? Salad…fresh garden greens and chèvre cheese. And, Sam’s famous Bramblebriar bruschetta, with fresh tomatoes and basil. The main course is harder. Everything I think of has meat or fish. Tofu turkey? No. Maybe a pasta of some sort? Here’s a good one: angel-hair pasta with fresh grilled red and yellow peppers, asparagus, and mozzarella.
Mmmm, yum.

The dessert is a piece of cake, literally. Rosie will be whipping up the signature Bramblebriar Inn wedding cake with the lucky charms in the center well. When Rosie bakes her famous cake, she leaves a hollow
space—a “wishing well,” I call it—in the top tier of the cake, so that I can add twelve little silver charms. A book, a rose, an angel, a butterfly, an anchor, a rainbow…The cake was Rosie’s idea, the charms were mine. It’s our new old-fashioned wedding custom. Each tiny charm is wrapped in a piece of plastic with a satin ribbon attached. I put the charms in the well, and we drape the ribbons up and out over the tiers of the cake like a waterfall. At the reception, twelve pennies are randomly placed under dinner plates around the room. Those twelve people get to pull a good luck charm from the cake. So far, guests seem to love this new tradition at Bramblebriar. I like listening to people assign meanings to the charms they pull.

“Oh, it’s a butterfly! I bet that means…”

Back upstairs, I turn on my night-light, open up my bag of candy and
True Believer.
I am loving this book.

Hours later, I’m finished. I’m sad because I want to read on and on. There’s this one scene in which the main character, LaVaughn, has gone through a really hard time. She’s been holding something inside that
she’s been afraid to tell her mother, but finally she does and her mother rises to the occasion:

             

Maybe it was hours she held me there, maybe only minutes.

             
And then she fed me supper in bed,

             
her good beef and mushrooms;

             
she pulled up a chair to my desk and we ate there in my room

             
with the weeping willow tree hanging over.

I close the book and put it on my Willa’s Pix shelf.

The battle on the beach over the birds comes into my mind. I open up my journal to write.

Who owns a beach? Who owns the ocean? Who owns any part of the earth? Do people have any more right to any of it than plants or animals do? Just because we’re bigger, does that make us better? Dinosaurs were bigger and look what happened to them.

I think about the funny, shaggy dog who smiled at me…

I yawn, close my journal, and shut off the light.

I’ll figure it all out tomorrow.

CHAPTER 10
Everyone’s Writing Books

Meek young men grow up in libraries, Believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, Forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday morning I’m on breakfast duty with Mom and Makita. Rosie tells me what the specials are, and I write the choices on the chalkboards in the dining room and out on the sunporch:

* Cranberry-nut pancakes with Vermont maple syrup

* Cheddar cheese, apple, and sausage omelet with cinnamon-swirl toast

* Blueberry yogurt with honey-nut granola and berries

* * * Muffin du jour: Cherry-chocolate * * *


Cherry-chocolate muffins?
I better taste test these first,” I say, pouring myself a cup of tea from the white china pot with the blue-and-green flowers, a gift from Nana last Christmas. Nana insists the only civilized way to drink tea is from a teapot, none of that dunking a bag in a mug of microwaved hot water stuff.

The tea has been steeping for three minutes and is now a perfect reddish brown. I add a little milk—no sugar, just milk—that’s the way Nana and I take our tea. Gramp Tweed and I used to drink lemon tea together, no milk, when we did our Friday afternoon “book-talks” on the couch at Sweet Bramble Books. It’s funny how we have different customs with the different people in our lives. Sam drinks “Yogi” tea, gingerroot is his favorite. I like it, too. The bags have little messages on them like fortune cookie bits of wisdom. Sam puts the messages he likes best on the counter in the kitchen.
Hey, that gives me an idea for Nana…

I bite into the cherry-chocolate muffin, still warm from the oven, and quickly plop down on a chair before I faint from happiness. “Oh, my gosh, Rosie! These are
amazing.
” I lick the chocolate from my fingers. The taste reminds me of the chocolate-covered cherry cordials I used to love. Until they got me into trouble with my mother and ruined the most important wedding of
her career—well, that’s a whole other story. Now, saltwater taffy is my favorite candy. Cape Cod is famous for it.

“Really, Rosie,” I say. “These muffins are to die for.”

“Thank you, Willa,” Rosie says. She steals a glance at my mother, who is filling wicker baskets with muffins, covering each basket with a green linen napkin.

“Rosie,” I say. “You should write a cookbook. I meant what I said. I’m going to see my grandmother later. I could ask her if—”

“Willa,” my mother says loudly, cutting me off. “Please start around with the coffee.”

Out on the sunporch, I look out the window. There are several trucks parked in front of our old brick house, soon to be No Mutts About It. The front door is open and the shades are all up. There are workers inside painting. Two guys are on the roof fixing something. My eyes land on my mother’s old bedroom window where I thought I saw someone yesterday.

It’s the only window with the curtains drawn. Strange.

“More coffee?” I say, circulating the porch with pots of regular and decaf, cheerfully wishing our guests good morning and inquiring how their vacations are going.

The Red Hat ladies are gushing about the concert. “Garth’s a god,” Mrs. Madden says, fanning her face with an autographed picture. “Worth every penny.” The ladies are taking the ferry out to Martha’s Vineyard this morning and then going to a program at the Bramble Library tonight. Our town librarian, my friend Mrs. Saperstone, is doing her annual “Bramble Beach Reads” suggested list of good summer books. The Moscatellos are heading up to Provincetown for a whale watch. “Don’t forget to climb Pilgrim Monument,” I say. “The view from up top is beautiful. And be sure to stop at the National Seashore on the way home. It’s something you absolutely don’t want to miss.”

Sam is in the corner talking with new guests who checked in last night. He introduces me to Fred and Pauline Miller and their children, Kamen and Shay.

“Mr. Miller was just telling me about his new book,” Sam says.

“Cool,” I say. “What’s it about?”

“About reaching our fullest potential,” Mr. Miller says, “and helping other people reach theirs.”

“Sounds interesting,” I say. “What’s it called?”

Mr. Miller laughs. “My editor’s still deciding, but the working title is
Be Big.


Be Big
,” I say. “Nice. I’d like to read it.”

“Me, too,” Sam says. “Let us know when it’s out, Fred. We’ll definitely need a signed copy for the inn library and one for the Bramble Library, too.”

Sam and I carry trays out to the kitchen. He looks lost in thought.

“What about you, Dad? Aren’t you working on a book?”

He doesn’t respond.

I continue, “That first night you invited me and Mom here for dinner, when you two were first dating, you showed us your study. I remember your desk was covered with papers and there were manuscripts piled high on the floor. You said you were working on a book. But now you never talk about it anymore.”

Sam looks at me and then away. “It’s tough to break in to the book world, Willa. I’m not sure I have the talent. Maybe someday I’ll get back to it.”

“Of course you have the talent,” I say. “You should be writing. Why aren’t you?”

“There’s never enough time, Willa. Running the inn is a full-time job. I had no idea we’d become so popular so fast.”

Sam doesn’t look happy about our success.

“Wait,” I say, surprised. “Aren’t you
happy
doing this? Opening the inn was Mom’s idea, but I thought you enjoyed it, too. I know you miss teaching and if you want to be writing, you should have time for that, right? I would love to read some of your—”

“That’s enough, Willa.”

Sam’s voice is sharp. Wow. He never talks like that to me.

“I’m sorry, Willa,” he says. “It’s just…I don’t want to talk about it.” Then, he smiles that beautiful Sam smile, his blue eyes framed with crinkles of kindness.

I smile back at him and let it go.

Later, biking to Tina’s house, all I can think of is,
What is Sam’s book about?

When I get to Tina’s, her mother tells me that Tina is at Ruby’s house. I try not to show how sad that makes me feel.

“Go ahead over, Willa,” Mrs. Belle says. “I know Tina would be sorry if she missed you.”

Ruby and Tina are coming out of the Sivlers’ front door when I arrive. Ruby has a camera and a
notebook. Tina is carrying that clipboard I saw her with on the beach. They’re laughing, all happy together.
BFF.

I turn green. Not on the outside, of course, but sick-green to my stomach inside. Whoever named jealousy that color was right on the money. I’m guessing Shakespeare, but I’ll have to look it up. Jealousy isn’t pink or purple, definitely not yellow. It’s green for sure. I think of Sam calling Ruthie a lean-green-mean-machine. Can’t wait to meet her. I sure hope she likes the plans I’ve made for her wedding.

“Willa!” Tina shouts. “Guess what? We’re making a book!”

“What kind of book?” It seems everyone’s writing a book but me.

“A beach book,” Ruby says in a superior voice. She adjusts something on her camera and then checks her nails.

“Well, more like a yearbook,” Tina explains, “with photos and profiles of all the cutest lifeguards on Cape Cod, and room for autographs.”

So that’s what they were doing yesterday.

“We started with the boys on Sandy Beach,” Ruby says. “That boy Desmond, from Dartmouth, is
delicious
, isn’t he, Teen?”

“So hot he’s on fire,” Tina says. “That boy ought to
come with a warning label.” They laugh like they’ve got a secret.

“Today we’re headed up to Chatham,” Ruby says.

“We’re checking out one beach a day,” Tina says.

I’m reading a book a day. Tina’s reviewing a beach a day. I feel the space between us widening.

“It’ll be hard doing so much research,” Tina says. “I mean, who wants to work in the summer?”

Ruby laughs. “Yes, it will be horribly hard work chatting up beautiful boys in bathing suits every day, but hey, that’s the price one pays for fame.”

They crack up. I back away.

Tina looks at me. “Come with us, Willa.” She doesn’t sound like she means it.

“No, thanks,” I answer. “I have to help my grandmother with something.”

“Testing out new taffies?” Tina says.

Ruby giggles.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Wait, that reminds me,” Ruby says. “Come on inside for a minute, Willa.”

The Sivlers’ kitchen is as spacious as a hotel lobby. On top of the long granite island in the center of the room there are water bottles of various sizes and colors, lined up in a row, with a stack of paper cups in front of each.

“We’re down to deciding between these two,” Ruby says, pointing to a tall cylindrical blue bottle and a smaller, pear-shaped pink bottle. “Do a taste test, will you, Willa?” Ruby says.

“What for?” I say.

“Mommy has to decide on what water to serve our clients at the spa.”

“Isn’t the spa for dogs?”

“Yes,” Ruby says, fixing a stray red hair in the large, gold-framed mirror. Her fluffy dog, Pookie, runs over. “Hi, baby.” Ruby picks up Pookie and kisses him on the lips. “All the top poochie spas have designer water. Mommies and daddies want the best for their babies, right, Pookie?” She rubs noses with the dog and kisses him again.

“This one is ten dollars a bottle,” Tina says, tapping the pink one. “And this one is twenty.” She holds up the pink bottle to show me. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“Twenty dollars?” I say. “For a bottle of water? I’m sorry, but I think that’s disgusting.”

Tina and Ruby look at me, shocked. Pookie whimpers. Ruby holds Pookie tighter to her chest and covers his delicate ears.

“Think of what you could do with twenty dollars,” I say. “You could probably feed a family for a
day,
human beings
, and you’re thinking of serving twenty-dollar-a-bottle water to dogs.
Dogs?


Ugh
,” Ruby says, looking at me with utter disgust.

“What’s wrong with you, Willa?” Tina says angrily.

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”

I bike to the water, heart pounding, head spinning. How could Tina be changing so quickly? Every day she seems more like a clone of Ruby. I need to take a walk.

There aren’t many people on the beach.
Good.
It’s cloudy, looks like rain. I toss off my sandals, head out to the Spit, breathing in and out, in and out, letting the wind wash it all away. When I reach the tip, I stand still for a second and close my eyes. When I open them, I see a dog swimming out of the ocean toward me. I look around me. No one else is here.

The dog reaches the shore, shakes off water. It’s the same dog I saw here with Mom and Sam yesterday. A big golden retriever…or, is it a Lab?…or, Irish setter? I don’t know, I’m not a dog person.

The dog runs toward me like it knows me. I’m scared. What if it bites?…Then the dog tackles me
on the sand and before I can catch my breath, this big fishy-smelling fur coat of a dog is licking my face, like he’s kissing me, like I’m his long-lost owner who, at last, thank goodness, he’s finally found.

Saltwater is dripping all over my face and all I can do is laugh.

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