The sun glared off the waters of the Neuse and he slipped on a pair of sunglasses. Crossing the street, he surveyed the neighborhood. Even though the shops were open, the sidewalks were largely empty, and he found himself wondering how they were able to stay in business.
Eyeing his watch, he saw he still had half an hour until his appointment. Up ahead, he spied the coffee shop he’d passed earlier on his run, and though he didn’t want more coffee, he decided he could use a bottle of water. Feeling a breeze pick up as he set his sights on the coffee shop, he saw the door swing open. He watched as someone stepped out, and almost immediately he began to smile.
Amanda stood at the counter of the Bean, adding cream and sugar to a cup of Ethiopian coffee. The Bean, once a small home that overlooked the harbor, offered about twenty different kinds of coffee along with delicious pastries, and Amanda always enjoyed coming here when she visited Oriental. Along with Irvin’s, it was a place where locals congregated to catch up on whatever was happening in town. Behind her, she could hear the murmurs of conversation. Although the morning rush had long since passed, the café was more crowded than she’d expected. The twenty-something-year-old behind the counter hadn’t stopped moving since Amanda had walked in.
She desperately needed coffee. The exchange with her mom this morning had left her feeling listless. Earlier, while she’d been in the shower, she’d briefly considered returning to the kitchen to attempt a real conversation. By the time she’d toweled off, though, she’d changed her mind. While she had always hoped that her mother would evolve into the sympathetic, supportive mother she had often longed for, it was easier to imagine the shocked, disappointed expression her mom would flash when she heard Dawson’s name. After that, the tirade would commence, no doubt a repeat of the outraged, condescending lectures she had delivered when Amanda was a teenager. Her mother, after all, was a woman of old-fashioned values. Decisions were good or bad, choices were right or wrong, and certain lines were not to be crossed. There were nonnegotiable codes of conduct, especially regarding family. Amanda had always known the rules; she’d always known what her mom believed. Her mother stressed responsibility, she believed in consequences, and she had little tolerance for whining. Amanda knew that wasn’t always a bad thing; she’d adopted a bit of the same philosophy with her own kids, and she knew they were better for it.
The difference was that her mother had always seemed so sure about everything. She had always been confident about who she was and the choices she’d made, as though life were a song and all she had to do was march in rhythm to it, knowing that everything would work out as planned. Her mother, Amanda often thought, had no regrets at all.
But Amanda wasn’t like that. Nor could she ever forget how brutal her mother’s reaction to Bea’s illness and eventual death had been. She’d expressed her sympathy, of course, and stayed to take care of Jared and Lynn during many of their frequent visits to the Pediatric Cancer Center at Duke; she’d even cooked a meal or two for them in the weeks after the funeral. But Amanda could never quite grasp her mother’s stoic acceptance of the situation, nor could she stomach the lecture she’d delivered three months after Bea died, about how Amanda needed to “get back on her horse” and “stop feeling sorry” for herself. As if losing Bea were nothing more than a bad breakup with a boyfriend. She still felt a surge of anger every time she thought about it, and she sometimes wondered whether her mom was capable of any sort of compassion.
She exhaled, trying to remind herself that her mother’s world was different from hers. Her mom had never gone to college, her mom had never lived anywhere but Oriental, and maybe that had something to do with it. She accepted things because there was nothing else to compare them to. And her own family had been anything but loving, from what little her mother had shared about her own upbringing. But who knew? All she knew for sure was that confiding in her mom would lead to more trouble than it was worth, and right now, she wasn’t ready for that.
As she was putting the lid on her coffee, Amanda’s cell phone rang. Seeing that it was Lynn, she stepped out onto the small porch as she answered, and they spent the next few minutes chatting. Afterward, Amanda called Jared on his cell phone, waking him and listening to his drowsy mumbles. Before hanging up, he said he was looking forward to seeing her on Sunday. She wished she could call Annette as well but consoled herself with the knowledge that she was almost certainly having a great time at camp.
After some hesitation, she also called Frank at the office. She hadn’t had a chance earlier that morning, despite what she’d told her mom. As usual, she had to wait until he had a free minute between patients.
“Hey, there,” he greeted her when he came on the line. As they talked, she deduced that he didn’t remember calling the house last night. Nonetheless, he sounded glad to hear her voice. He asked about her mom, and Amanda told him that they were going to have dinner later; he told her that he had plans to go golfing on Sunday morning with his friend Roger and that they might watch the Braves game afterward at the country club. Experience told her that those activities would inevitably involve heavy drinking, but she tried to suppress her surge of anger, knowing that challenging him wouldn’t do any good. Frank asked about the funeral and what else she planned to do in town. Though Amanda answered the questions honestly—she didn’t know much yet—she could feel herself avoiding Dawson’s name. Frank didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but by the time they finished their conversation, Amanda felt a distinct and uncomfortable frisson of guilt. Alongside her anger, it was enough to leave her feeling unusually unsettled.
Dawson waited in the shade of a magnolia tree until Amanda slipped the phone back into her purse. He thought he saw something troubled in her expression, but as she straightened the strap on her shoulder she became unreadable again.
Like him, she was wearing jeans, and as he started toward her he noticed the way her turquoise blouse deepened the color of her eyes. Lost in thought, she started when she recognized him.
“Hey,” she said, breaking into a smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Dawson stepped onto the porch, watching as she ran a hand over her neat ponytail. “I wanted to grab some water before our meeting.”
“No coffee?” Amanda gestured behind her. “It’s the best in town.”
“I had some at breakfast.”
“Did you go to Irvin’s? Tuck used to swear by the place.”
“No. I just ate at the place where I’m staying. Breakfast comes with the room and all, and Alice had everything ready.”
“Alice?”
“Just some swimsuit supermodel who happens to own the place. No reason for you to be jealous.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure. How was your morning?”
“Good. Went for a nice run and had a chance to take in the changes around here.”
“And?”
“It’s like stepping into a time warp. I feel like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future.”
“It’s one of Oriental’s charms. When you’re here, it’s easy to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist and that all your problems will simply float away.”
“You sound like a commercial for the Chamber of Commerce.”
“That’s one of my charms.”
“Among many others, I’m sure.”
As he said it, she was struck again by the intensity of his gaze. She wasn’t used to being scrutinized this way—on the contrary, she often felt virtually invisible as she went through the well-worn circuit of her daily routines. Before she could dwell on her self-consciousness, he nodded at the door. “I’m going to get that bottle of water, if that’s okay.”
He went inside, and from her vantage point Amanda noted the way the pretty twenty-something cashier tried not to stare at him as he walked toward the refrigerator case. When Dawson neared the back of the store, the clerk checked her appearance in the mirror behind the counter, then greeted him with a friendly smile at the register. Amanda turned away quickly, before he caught her watching.
A minute later, Dawson emerged, still trying to end his exchange with the clerk. Amanda forced herself to keep a straight face, and by unspoken agreement they moved off the porch, eventually wandering toward a spot with a better view of the marina.
“The girl at the counter was flirting with you,” she observed.
“She’s just friendly.”
“She made it pretty obvious.”
He shrugged as he unscrewed the cap of his bottle. “I didn’t really notice.”
“How could you not notice?”
“I was thinking about something else.”
By the way he said it, she knew there was more, and she waited. He squinted out at the line of boats bobbing in the marina.
“I saw Abee this morning,” he finally said. “When I was out for my run.”
Amanda stiffened at the sound of his name. “Are you sure it was him?”
“He’s my cousin, remember?”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Amanda tensed. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took a sip of water, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. “I guess it means I stay out of sight as much as possible. Other than that, I guess I’ll play things as they come.”
“Maybe they won’t do anything.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “So far, so good, right?” He screwed the cap back on the bottle, changing the subject. “What do you think Mr. Tanner’s going to tell us? He was pretty mysterious when we talked on the phone. He wouldn’t tell me anything about the funeral.”
“He didn’t say much to me, either. My mom and I were talking about the very same thing this morning.”
“Yeah? How’s your mom doing?”
“She was a bit upset that she missed her bridge game last night. But to make up for it, she was nice enough to coerce me into having dinner at a friend’s house tonight.”
He smiled. “So… that means you’re free until dinner?”
“Why? What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Let’s find out what Mr. Tanner has to say first. Which reminds me that we should probably get going. His office is just down the block.”
After Amanda secured the lid on her coffee, they started down the sidewalk, moving from one patch of shade to the next.
“Do you remember when you asked if you could buy me an ice cream?” she asked. “That first time?”
“I remember wondering why you said yes.”
She ignored his comment. “You took me to the drugstore, the one with the old-fashioned fountain and the long counter, and we both had hot fudge sundaes. They made the ice cream there, and it’s still the best I’ve ever had. I can’t believe they ended up tearing the place down.”
“When was that, by the way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe six or seven years ago? One day, on one of my visits, I noticed it was just gone. Kind of made me sad. I used to take my kids there when they were little, and they always had a good time.”
He tried to picture her children sitting next to her at the old drugstore but couldn’t quite conjure up their faces. Did they resemble her, he wondered, or take after their father? Did they have her fire, her generous heart?
“Do you think your kids would have liked growing up here?” he asked.
“When were little, they would have. It’s a beautiful town, with a lot of places to play and explore. But once they got older, they probably would have found it confining.”
“Like you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like me. I couldn’t wait to leave. I don’t know if you recall, but I applied to NYU and Boston College, just so I could experience a real city.”
“How could I forget? They all sounded so far away,” Dawson said.
“Yes, well… my dad went to Duke, I grew up hearing about Duke, I watched Duke basketball on television. I guess it was pretty much etched in stone that if I got in, that’s where I’d go. And it ended up being the right choice, because the school was great and I made a lot of friends and I grew up while I was there. Besides, I don’t know that I would have liked living in New York or Boston. I’m still a small-town girl at heart. I like to hear the crickets when I go to sleep.”
“You’d enjoy Louisiana then. It’s the bug capital of the world.”
She smiled before taking a sip of her coffee. “Do you remember when we drove down to the coast when Hurricane Diana was coming? How I kept begging you to take me, and how you kept trying to talk me out of it?”
“I thought you were crazy.”
“But you took me anyway. Because I wanted you to. We could barely get out of your car, the winds were so strong, and the ocean was just… wild. It was whitecaps all the way to the horizon, and you just stood there holding me, trying to convince me to get back in the car.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Are there storms like that when you’re on the oil rig?”
“Less often than you’d think. If we’re in the projected path, we usually get evacuated.”
“Usually?”
He shrugged. “Meteorologists get it wrong sometimes. I’ve been on the fringe of some hurricanes and it’s unnerving. You’re really at the mercy of the weather, and you just have to hunker down while the rig sways, knowing that no one’s coming to the rescue if it goes over. I’ve seen some guys completely lose it.”
“I think I’d be like one of those guys who lost it.”