“How you could forget about running into Guy Callow is really beyond me, Jane. He’s such a beautiful man. Don’t you have any feelings about men at all?”
“Not about Guy Callow,” I said.
“Well, that makes sense, I suppose. He was my boyfriend—and sisters, well, they just don’t do that to each other, do they?” I felt that somewhere in there was not exactly a threat but a warning. “I’m not interested in him anymore, of course. I’m not the type of woman to go mooning around after the same man forever. He made his bed, now he can just lie in it. Still, if he wants to be friends, that’s fine too. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me.”
If Miranda was telling the truth, I was glad, because it hardly seemed like she had made a lasting impression on Guy’s heart. And if she really had such a careless attitude toward love, perhaps she could bottle it and share it with me.
After everyone went to bed, I went out onto the widow’s walk. From there, you could watch the boats bob in the bay.
Guy Callow’s imminent arrival didn’t thrill me. If it hadn’t been for Max, maybe I would have found Guy more appealing, but I’d never know because my feelings for Max, no matter how hopeless, were too deeply anchored. Maybe after he married Lindsay, I’d be free. At the moment, though, when I compared Max with Guy, the former always left me wanting more, while the latter was always too much.
At four-thirty the next morning I crept out of the house. I had farther to go now that I was in Vineyard Haven and I had to drive to work. I rolled the car out of the driveway and started the engine when I got to the street. The noise of the engine was jarring in the still of the morning.
When I arrived at the bakery, Isabelle took me aside.
“Have a muffin,” she said.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. She paused, took a bite of blueberry muffin, and chewed. I waited. “I was thinking, though, now that your family is back, you might want to stop working here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I doubt they’d like it very much. I might not know them, but I know what they’re like.” She took a knife and smoothed a slab of butter onto her muffin, then took another bite.
“I don’t care what they think,” I said.
“You’ve always cared what they thought, even when you thought you didn’t.”
“Well, I don’t anymore.”
I felt that there was something more she wanted to say.
“Soon the kids will be coming back for the summer,” she said.
I nodded. Miranda and Teddy had come to the island early, before the season had officially started. Florida was getting too hot and it only made sense for them to move into the only house they had left. There was also the hint of a scandal involving Miranda and a Kennedy cousin, but I couldn’t even bear to think about that.
“Are you firing me?” I asked.
“Of course I’m not firing you. It’s just that the kids will be expecting the job. In the summer I usually hire a few kids so they’ll make money for college.”
I was embarrassed to think I’d almost taken a job reserved for a college kid who really needed the money.
“Okay, and I could use someone to work on the
“Can you pay them?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. I’d have to talk to the bankers, but I didn’t want her to think that I’d hire someone and not expect to pay them. While I was at it, I’d get a stipend for Tad.
“How about Jimmy?” she asked.
“It won’t be much money,” I said.
“That’s okay. He has odd jobs.” Her mother-mind was ticking away.
“Then Jimmy it is,” I said. I hoped he had some feeling for the written word. “You need me today?”
Isabelle looked at me and I realized that she had never needed me. She had made room for me and I was grateful.
“I’ll be going along, then.” I smiled. I wanted her to know how much I appreciated what she had done, but I didn’t know how to say thank you. “You want to have dinner Friday night?” I asked.
“Love to,” Isabelle said.
She turned and walked back into the kitchen. I bought some hot rolls and muffins, left the warmth of the bakery, and walked out into the chilly morning.
When I got home I set out the bread and muffins and made some coffee. Teddy and Dolores came downstairs together, both dressed in tennis whites.
“Jane, what are you doing here? I thought you had that job,” Teddy said.
“Not anymore.”
“Well, thank God for that. You took my advice. Good girl. Never known you to do it before, but it’s a welcome change.”
I poured the coffee.
“The tennis club probably isn’t open yet,” I said. It was too early in the season.
“We’ll find a public court,” Dolores said.
“Isn’t she resourceful,” Teddy said. It wasn’t a question so much as a compliment, the type he’d been throwing her way since they’d arrived.
“Dolores is very resourceful,” I said. I didn’t mean what Teddy meant by it. I glanced at Dolores, who smiled innocently back at me.
Teddy picked out a banana nut muffin and took a bite.
“These are wonderful,” he said after wiping the crumbs from his mouth with a linen napkin. “Who would ever think that the best muffins anywhere could be found on an island?”
He put the muffin down, half eaten, and went outside, as he did every morning, to pick up the newspaper from the front walk—or the shrubbery, depending on the aim of the paperboy. He came back to the kitchen, took a sip of coffee, and laid the local paper out on the table. He licked his forefinger before turning each page. His squint revealed that he probably needed reading glasses but was too vain to admit it.
“Look here,” he said. “The Buffingtons, Veronica and Glenda, are coming down this summer. It says that Veronica has taken that lone house overlooking Menemsha Pond, up-island.”
The Buffingtons hadn’t been back to the island since Michael Buffington had died.
“I wonder how I can get Veronica to forgive me. They always have the best parties. Since my first note of apology didn’t work, I’ll have to prostrate myself. I know it was very rude not to do anything when Michael died, but is she really going to punish me forever?”
Dolores turned her head with a sharp tweak and looked at Teddy. Who was this Veronica Buffington? Was she a rival?
“I’m going to write her another note,” Teddy said.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked. I had nothing against the Buffingtons. I liked them, but I hated to see Teddy humiliate himself just for an invitation.
“It can’t hurt. When Michael was alive, they had the best parties. All the really interesting people were there. We wouldn’t want to be left out this summer. Jane, you never did know the value of the right friends.”
Dolores looked up again. She might have realized that there was nothing especially “right” about her when it came to the scale on which my father measured friends. She might have managed to turn his head with flattery, but that was nothing compared with a Veronica Buffington.
“Why don’t you just call her?” Dolores asked. I think she thought that by offering a suggestion she could retain some control.
“No. I know what I’ll do. I’ll write her a downright obsequious note,” Teddy said. “Jane, where is that paper?”
We kept a stack of cream cards in a secretary behind the sofa in the living room. I went to get them and brought several back to the kitchen.
