“What about grabbing a bite at the Blue Anchor?” she asked Beth. “My treat.”
“Here.” Beth held out her arm, and Lindsey looked at her in confusion. “Go ahead. Give it a twist.”
Lindsey laughed and looped her arm through Beth’s and dragged her down the sidewalk to the crosswalk. There was no traffic, and they hurried across the narrow two-lane road to the small town park. The benches facing the bay were empty, and so were the picnic tables. Obviously, the promise of more rain from the steely gray clouds overhead was keeping most people indoors. A lone seagull perched on the back of a bench and looked at them inquiringly.
They had no food to give him. Realizing it was not his lucky day, he took off with a flap of wings and a disgruntled cry.
They followed the stone path that led through the park to the large pier beyond. Tour boats were docked there as well as several fishing boats.
The Blue Anchor, Mary’s café, had once been a fish market that sat on the concrete slab that abutted the pier. Thirty years ago, it had been turned into a bar, frequented mainly by fishermen. Ten years ago, Mary and her husband had bought it from the owners and turned it into a café.
As it was the only restaurant in Briar Creek, it did very well for itself. Of course, it helped that Mary really did make the best clam chowder in the county if not the state.
The breeze pushed them through the door into the dimly lit restaurant. The windows, which were hinged to be propped open in the mild summer months, were closed against the chilly October air. The tables were vintage Formica on chrome, cream colored with flecks of gold. The seats were padded red vinyl. Laminated menus were used as place mats, and seating was catch-as-catch-can.
Beth scanned the crowded room, looking for an empty table while waving to a few people that she knew. Finally, she spied a table in the back corner that was being vacated, and she pulled Lindsey in that direction.
“What are you going to have?” Beth asked as soon as they sat down.
“Lobster roll,” Lindsey said. She shrugged out of her jacket and placed her purse on the floor. “Mary’s lobster roll always drips with butter, and she uses those split-top rolls that she toasts on the side. Okay, I think I’m drooling.”
Beth laughed. “Don’t forget the coleslaw with those diced green olives in it. It’s the best.”
“And a glass of wine,” Lindsey said. “We’ve earned it.”
“Indeed,” Beth agreed.
Their waitress wore a pale-blue, long-sleeved polo shirt, with the Blue Anchor insignia embroidered on the left, over khaki pants. She had her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She looked to be about college age.
“Hi, Miss Stanley,” she said.
Beth tipped her head and studied the girl. “Oh my, is that you, Eva?”
The young woman nodded.
“But you’re all grown up,” Beth said. “Lindsey, this is Eva Hernandez. She was one of my first teen volunteers at the library ten years ago. Eva, this is Lindsey Norris, the new library director.”
“Hi, Eva.” Lindsey held out her hand, and the young woman gave it a firm shake.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Eva said. “You’re much younger than Mr. Tupper, like, by a century.”
“I don’t think that’s been a selling point with Ms. Cole,” Lindsey said.
“No kidding?” Eva asked, her tone light and teasing. “With her being so hip and all? Shocking!”
Both Lindsey and Beth laughed.
“So, are you still in school?” Beth asked.
“I’m graduating next May,” Eva said. “But there’s been so much going on, it’s really hard to concentrate.”
“Like what?” Beth asked.
Eva gave them a small, close-lipped smile and waved her left hand in front of them and said, “Oh, this and that.”
A person would have to be stone-blind not to see the rock sparkling on the ring finger of her left hand—or be a man, Lindsey thought sourly.
“Oh!” Beth let out a squeal and jumped out of her seat to examine the ring more closely. “Princess cut and in a platinum band. It’s gorgeous.”
“Very nice,” Lindsey agreed in a much more subdued manner. She thought it spoke well of her that she didn’t advise the girl to run while she had the chance.
“Have you set a date?” Beth asked.
“Next June,” Eva said. “Right after graduation. We’ve only been together for a year, but when you know, you know.”
“Eva! You have an order for pickup,” a passing waitress said.
“Oh, right,” she said. “What can I get you two?”
Beth placed their order, and Eva dashed off, promising to bring their wine as soon as possible.
“How old is she?” Lindsey asked.
“Twenty-two,” Beth said.
“Awfully young to be getting married, isn’t she?”
They both smiled when Eva returned with their wine and watched as she hurried back to the kitchen.
“Well, like she said, when you know, you know,” Beth said.
“Really?” Lindsey asked. “Because sometimes you think you know and you even have the Harry Winston on your finger, but then you come home and find out someone’s been sleeping in your bed. And you really wish it was Mama Bear and not Goldilocks because then she might at least have ripped the head off of the rat bastard who’s been cheating on you . . . but I digress.”
Beth hid her smile by taking a sip of her wine. “I am really glad your breakup with John hasn’t made you bitter.”
“A little tart, perhaps, but not bitter,” Lindsey assured her.
“Have you talked to him at all?”
“Not since I gave him his ring back, packed up and left. It was all sort of cosmic since I’d just been let go and the position here opened up. Sometimes, I think it was the universe at work.”
“Milton would certainly say so,” Beth said. “I still can’t believe John asked you to marry him and then turned around and cheated with his graduate assistant. What a jerk! You can do so much better than him.”
“Bleah. I’m not interested,” Lindsey said. “Now, enough about me and my cheating ex-fiancé; how are you and Rick doing?”
“Good . . . really good,” Beth said. She ran her hand through her short black spikes, and Lindsey knew she was full of baloney. Beth always fussed with her hair when she was feeling edgy; besides, she was a horrible liar. She always broke eye contact.
“Good?” Lindsey repeated. “Good is having a slow leak in your tire instead of a blowout, a migraine instead of a stroke or a nibble on your fishing line instead of catching the big one . . .”
“All right, enough with the metaphors,” Beth cut her off. “I get it. Things are better than that. It’s just . . .”
“What?” Lindsey prompted her. She took a long sip of the dry white wine and felt it warm her insides.
“I just can’t help feeling a little jealous,” she said. “Eva is ten years younger than me, and she’s getting married. And Rick, well, when I mention marriage . . . no, I’m just being silly.”
Lindsey studied her friend. This was one of those moments when she felt it was her duty as a longtime friend to be completely honest. Too bad she was too much of a spineless blob to do it.
After all, it was one thing to trash someone’s boyfriend after they broke up; it was quite another to trash the person she was currently dating. The risk of alienating Beth and destroying the friendship was too great.
“Tell me again; how long have you been dating?” she asked. Maybe she could give Beth a nudge in the right direction without actually dissing Rick.
“Almost five years.”
“And you really want to marry him?”
“Yes . . . I think so . . . No, I mean yes.”
Lindsey reached across the table and put her hand on Beth’s arm. “Stop. You’re giving yourself whiplash.”
“I do,” Beth said with a laugh. “I do want to marry him. I’m pretty sure.”
“Then tell him,” Lindsey said. “Give him the old ‘it’s now or never’ speech.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He doesn’t like pushy women.”
“Asking where your relationship is going after almost five years is not being pushy,” Lindsey said. “It’s making an overdue inquiry.”
Just then Eva arrived with their lobster rolls, and all thought of relationships dissipated under the delightful deluge to the senses of melted butter and juicy lobster meat in a toasted bun.
They left the subject of their love lives behind and instead talked about things more conducive to good digestion, like what Beth’s programming plans were for the children’s area during the holidays and whether they could get the town’s computer support staff to let them maintain their own website instead of having to submit everything for approval and wait an eternity for the changes to be made.
They were just finishing a decadent dessert of crème brûlée, when the door to the café was blown open and in came Beth’s boyfriend, Rick Eckman. His lime-green rain gear was soaked, and he stood dripping a puddle in the entranceway as he scanned the small restaurant.
When he saw Beth, he stomped across the café to their table. Without so much as a hello, he turned to her and snapped, “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been calling and calling.”
“Oh, sorry,” Beth said. She glanced down at her purse with a frown. “I never heard it.”
Rick glared at Lindsey as if this was her fault and then turned back to Beth. “I thought
we
could have dinner together.”
“Oh, when we talked earlier, you said you were going to be working all night,” she said.
“Well, if you’d bothered to answer your phone, you would know I finished early and wanted to join you for dinner.”
“I’m sorry,” Beth said. She gave him an apologetic look. “Why don’t you sit and join us? We’ll chat while you eat.”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt any girl talk,” he said. He looked like a petulant child, and it was all Lindsey could do not to excuse herself and leave.
“There’s nothing to interrupt,” Lindsey assured him. “We’re done.”
He grudgingly took a seat. Shrugging out of his raincoat, he draped it on the back of his chair. His dark hair was in need of a trim, and his glasses had rain splatters on them. He wore beat-up sneakers, grubby jeans and a ratty gray sweatshirt. Living alone on one of the Thumb Islands in the bay, he obviously did not feel the need to maintain his appearance or basic personal hygiene.
He took off his glasses and dried them on the edge of his sweatshirt. Lindsey noticed that his fingers were long and thin, almost too feminine for a man living on an island by himself. She supposed a bestselling children’s picture-book author didn’t have to do much hard labor, but she would have thought maintaining his boat, the one that brought him to shore to see Beth, would have given him at least a hint of a sailor’s build. But no.
Eva stopped by their table and took Rick’s order. He was one of those “on the side” types. He wanted his salad with dressing on the side and a baked potato with butter on the side. When his meal arrived, he tucked into his steak, after sending it back once because it was too rare, and proceeded to chew with his mouth open, while Lindsey and Beth discussed some ideas for the crafternoon club.
Mary poked her head out of the kitchen, and when she saw them, she hurried over to their table.
“How is everything?” she asked.
Before Beth and Lindsey could assure her that it was excellent, Rick spoke through a mouthful of potatoes. “You’re too skimpy with the butter, and I had to send my steak back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mary said. Her voice was polite, but Lindsey was pretty sure she heard the sharp edge of a knife buried in it.
“You might want to comp my meal, since I was so inconvenienced,” he said. “After all, I am a local celebrity.”
Lindsey felt her mouth pop open. The sheer nerve of this guy bowled her over. Beth looked dismayed and embarrassed, but Mary just tipped her head and considered him with a small smile.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said.
“Good evening, everyone.”
They turned as one to see Carole Towles standing by their table. She was dressed in an elegant olive-green silk suit, with her strawberry-blonde hair in an updo. Diamonds flashed at her ears as well as her wrists, and Lindsey would have bet a week’s salary that Carole had better plans than all of them for the evening.
Still, Lindsey smiled. Carole was on the library board and always had such a positive outlook. As a former public librarian herself, Carole had become a mentor to Lindsey, and her knowledge had proven invaluable.
“I just wanted to thank you for making Mr. Bingley’s favorite chicken dish,” Carole said to Mary. “I’m going to the theater tonight, and I know this will cheer him up while I’m gone.”
“Anything for Mr. Bingley,” Mary said.
Mr. Bingley was Carole’s Chihuahua. She had rescued him as a puppy, and he was quite the favorite in town, as he had a disposition as sunny as his owner’s.
“Oh, you’re sweet,” Carole said. “Now, Beth, I wanted to let you know that I met a woman today at Tilly’s Salon who is spending the weekend at the Beachfront. We were both getting manicures.” Carole paused to study the polish on her fingernails. “I think I like the color she got on hers better.”
“And?” Lindsey encouraged her.
“Oh, yes.” Carole glanced back up. “She’s an editor with Caterpillar Press, so I told her about you and the book you’ve been working on. She was very eager to meet you once I mentioned that her boss is a dear friend of mine from my days at the American Library Association. Isn’t that fabulous?”
Mary and Lindsey turned to look at Beth, who stared at Carole with an expression that seemed to be equal parts terror and excitement.
“Oh no, look at the time,” Carole said with a quick glance at her watch. “I’ve got to run or I’ll be late. I told her, her name is Sydney Carlisle, that you’d meet her here for lunch at noon tomorrow. I hope that’s all right?”
Beth looked frozen, so Lindsey answered for her. “It’s perfect. She’ll be here and thank you so much.”