Everyone
Goodbyes are always hard. August had slipped past them, like a New England breeze coming in off the coast. There were author visits and book signings. There were story hours and children’s tea parties. Paint and Sip had become a weekly event. The knitting group almost took over. There were children sticky with sunscreen, fresh off the beach, and young mothers with weary smiles. There were grandparents with younger generations in tow, who’d been coming to Chatham for decades and wanted to see the old inn/store/gallery that had now become a bookshop. The café hummed with activity. Willet Smith’s grilled tomato and cheese paninis were now a menu staple. Finally,finally, Brad had sold Willet a book. Of course, it was about gardening.
With the last ribbons of summer unspooling, it was time for Brad to return to Boston for graduate school. He’d packed his things, all still at Leah’s house, and would be driving up the Mass Pike early the following morning. Ethan had come back to help him. Eudora, who had taken years to make a new friend, nowstruggled with how to say farewell to two. She’d been walking around the store weepy-eyed with Alfred all day.
By evening, Leah turned theOpensign toClosed. It was time for the party. Everyone got to work. A cake was procured from the café and set atop a glass stand on the front table, usually reserved for beach reads, and now cleared for the guests. There were trays of lemon cookies and tiny strawberry cheesecakes. Plates of skewered shrimp and diminutive puffs of crab. Platters of roasted eggplant and tomato and squash, all from Willet’s garden. Crackers and fruit and cheese.
Lucy, who they never ever saw dress up, emerged from the back in a breezy pastel blue slip dress.
“What?” she said when Brad did a double take.
“Nothing. You look grown up.”
“What he means,” Leah corrected, “is that you look very pretty.”
Lucy, because she knew how much Brad liked children, had suggested a final teddy bear tea party send-off for adults. It was too perfect for even Brad to eschew. At the appropriate hour, guests arrived in their summer best. Leah poured champagne into teacups. Eudora and Willet and the knitters all came. Brad, the guest of honor, disappeared into the back to change. He returned, strolling through the shop in a navy seersucker suit. When the knitters laid eyes on him there was an uproarious round of applause, so he did an encore spin of the room.
For the very first time that summer, Lucy’s family visited the store. Ella had been recently released from the rehab hospital. She was slight and fair, a less vivid portrait of her sister,reminding Eudora of a delicate fledgling. Looking at the sisters standing together, she had never seen anything so beautiful.
A handful of neighbors turned patrons turned friends joined the festivities. The owner of the Candy Manor who’d made their specialty Sandy Page saltwater taffies arrived. The baker who provided their goods. Two coiffed women of a certain age who’d started a book club called the Coastal Grandmothers. Jep Parsons was the last one in the door, and this time he did not lurk about like an intruder. Eudora couldn’t help but notice he stood right beside the Harts.
Leah, who’d been dreading the event all week, stuck to the periphery of the party. To her relief, everyone seemed to be having a grand time, talking and laughing, passing plates and clinking cups. At one point, someone put on music and Brad and Ethan danced. Others joined. Someone broke a teacup. Cake was served and more champagne poured. The night wore on and when the schoolhouse lights dimmed, along with the sky outside, the party did not stop.
At some point the front door opened. The bell jangled overhead, but the partygoers were too deep in their celebrations to hear. No one paid attention to the late guest, moving through the crowd. Nor the platter of baked pastries she added to the table. Brad was speaking with a guest when Leah saw the woman approach and tap him gingerly on the shoulder.
Maria had come. When Brad turned and saw his grandmother’s face, Leah could not see what his expression looked like, because her own eyes swelled with tears. What she did see was the hug he gave his grandmother, and the way the olderwoman held on tight to her grandson. It was a fresh chapter that both were finally ready to turn the page to.
Leah was pretty sure no one noticed her slip out the front door, and it was just as she wanted. The people inside, her people, she realized, deserved to have the fun. How far they’d all come that summer, from strangers to staff to friends. The Sandy Page had sprung from dubious beginnings, a flimsyFor Rentsign in a window, a foolish notion during an uncertain time in a young woman’s life. And yet, in some small way, it had saved them all.
Inside the party went on, beneath the watchful eyes of the Harding sisters’ portrait. Once again, Leah was on the outside looking in the window, just as she had on that first summer night she stopped here. As she watched her friends celebrate, she felt someone come up from behind.
“Leah?”
When she turned, Luke Nickerson stood in front of her.
“I thought you were in the Vineyard,” she said, trying to hide her surprise.
“I was. I came back early.”
Leah studied his face, the strong lines she’d grown so used to that summer. The blue eyes, reflected in the light streaming from the window.
“Did you and Holly have fun?”
Luke shook his head. “No.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” She wasn’t sorry, but it would be rude not to say so.
“No,” he said, still shaking his head. “I mean Holly wasn’t with me.”
“What?” Leah faltered. “But I thought…”
“I was on a fishing trip. I needed to get away for a few days, to clear my head.”
The rush of her relief almost caused Leah to sway in its wake. “A fishing trip.”
Luke glanced past her, through the window. “Looks like a good party.”
“Brad’s leaving tomorrow.”
