Sweet Salt Air (20 page)

“He’s talking about adult stem cells, then?”

“Actually not,” Nicole breathed defeatedly. “He wants to use umbilical cord cells.”

Charlotte was horrified.
“Now?”

“He’s tired of going from one drug to the next. He feels like he’s wasting time. Bottom line? He wants it all: stop the symptoms and reverse the disease. UCB cells may do both.”

“They don’t know that for sure.”

“Tell me about it,” Nicole breathed. “When I talk about the risk, he says it’s
his
life—only, it isn’t just him.” Ardent, she sat forward. “It’s my life, too, but I don’t think he gets that. He refuses to anticipate what the worst would mean to me. I might lose him. A transplant like this could leave him a vegetable.”

Charlotte let a beat pass before saying a soft, “Or cured.” She had a vested interest in what happened, and would much rather Julian not want to use UCB cells, but she had read enough about them to know the promise. She couldn’t lie to Nicole about this.

“Yes,” Nicole admitted, deflating again.

“How impatient is he?”

“Very. He’ll look around until he finds someone who’s willing to do it.”

Charlotte felt a sinking inside. If Julian went ahead, she had a moral obligation to tell him about the baby. A better match could save his life. But then Nicole would know the truth.

Charlotte could make Julian promise not to tell. He could simply say that the doctor had found a good match in a cord blood bank. But that would be lying, nearly as wrong as what they’d done in the first place. “Have you talked with him today?”

“No. We texted.
You okay?
I wrote.
Fine,
he wrote back. That’s it.
Fine.
He’s removing himself from me, too. Like, who’s left?”

Not me, Charlotte thought. She didn’t want any part of Julian Carlysle, other than to save him for her best friend, who wouldn’t be her best friend then, but was still for now. Desperate to preserve that, she reached for Nicole’s cold hand. “Okay. Here’s a plan. Text him often, but be brief, just a line or two to let him know you love him. Don’t
let
him remove himself. Keep at him with lots of little thinking-of-you notes.”

“And if he doesn’t answer?” Nicole asked in a woeful voice.

Charlotte remembered that voice. It was a throwback to her childhood Nicole, who shied from the limelight and was socially unsure. That Nicole was long gone, replaced by the one her parents had trained to be confident and adept. Everything she had accomplished in the last four years, all under an ominous cloud, was proof of that.

She had a right to occasionally regress. But the answer was obvious. Charlotte didn’t even have to say it, simply pointed at Nicole’s laptop, the stove, and her own printouts.

*   *   *

Nicole craved sweets. Her list included peach pie, rhubarb pie, and pumpkin pie, all of which would be on hand the following week for the Fourth of July cookout on the bluff, so she knew Quinnie cooks would have their recipe cards nearby. In addition to pies, she wanted recipes for blueberry cobbler, apple crisp, molasses Indian pudding, Isobel Skane’s chocolate almond candy, and, of course, Melissa Parker’s marble macadamia brownies.

Since the book was her baby and she was the cook, gathering and testing recipes was her job. Some would have to be resized, but she had experience with this. Others wouldn’t need testing at all, assuming she trusted the donor and had personally sampled the result. She needed signed releases for each recipe, which meant return visits once she either cooked or read through each for discrepancies, so she had double reason for starting today.

Immersing herself, she spent the morning in town. Oh yes, islanders talked, though mercifully now about themselves and their recipes, rather than about her—and she loved what they said. Realizing that she could add sidebars with tips from those not being profiled, she took careful notes, and though she returned to the house at midday with fewer cards than she’d hoped, one of them came with a quart of fresh blueberries, from which, following the donor’s recipe, she made a bubbling cobbler.

Topped with yogurt, that was lunch.

She spent the afternoon typing up notes, answering readers’ questions, and blogging about a new online source for organic cinnamon and nutmeg, either of which she could have used for testing the island recipe for Indian Pudding that afternoon. Both spices were produced from a tropical evergreen that, Cecily’s miracles notwithstanding, did not grow on Quinnipeague, but since Indian pudding was a prized dessert here, Nicole refused to leave it out. Typically, Quinnie Indian Pudding called for cider molasses made from island apples. The recipe she had been given listed bottled molasses, which she supposed made sense, given its wider availability, though the taste wasn’t quite the same. She made a mental note to ask Bev Simone about her supply of the real stuff.

Meanwhile, Charlotte interviewed Susan Murray, who was on Quinnipeague through the Fourth and was a good example of a part-timer drawn here for food and fun. She was flattered to hand over her recipe for s’mores cookies, which Nicole baked, and which they sampled along with the Indian Pudding that night.

*   *   *

Waking up Thursday morning to another dreary day and the sense of being physically stuffed, they focused on
FISH
. While Charlotte interviewed the postmaster about the origin, techniques, and ingredients for his best-in-Maine lobster bakes, Nicole set off to gather recipes for glazed salmon, baked pesto haddock, and cod crusted with marjoram, a minted savory unique to Quinnipeague, and sage.

She baked the crusted cod for dinner using fresh herbs from the island store and cod filleted that morning at the pier. Other than adjusting the amount of savory to compensate for a lack of mintiness off-island, Nicole thought the recipe was perfect and blogged as much before going to bed.

She also told Julian that. Since arriving in North Carolina, he had begun calling her each night before he went to bed, which she took to mean that her short texts were working, and though he sounded tired, they talked about work, not MS. He was pleased with what he was accomplishing. So was she. The month apart would be productive at least.

*   *   *

Work was a distraction for Charlotte as well. Even when Friday morning brought sun, she wasn’t tempted to play. Totally aside from Leo, or from Julian and Nicole and umbilical cord stem cells, the amount of work to be done was daunting. The more she and Nicole talked, the larger the project loomed, and collecting raw material was only the start. Every profile had to be written, edited, and polished, with accompanying photos cropped and enhanced. Nicole would be the menu-planner, as Charlotte knew nothing about that, but since she was the professional writer, she would tie everything together. It was a lot to do in a brief period of time that might be made all the more brief if Nicole had to leave on a moment’s notice to be with Julian again.

Today being the start of a long weekend, they addressed
BRUNCH
. Holiday weekenders would start arriving by noon, but islanders generally rose with the sun, which made seven in the morning doable. At least, that was the plan the evening before, altered when Nicole slept late after working long into the night.

Still, they were on their way to town by eight. While Nicole drove off in search of recipes for fish hash, clam fritters, and salmon quiche, Charlotte settled in at the Chowder House with Dorey Jewett, who, well beyond the assortment of chowders she always brought to Bailey’s Brunch, would be as important a figure in the book as any.

They sat in the kitchen, though Dorey did little actual sitting. Looking her chef-self in T-shirt, shorts, and apron, if she wasn’t dicing veggies, she was clarifying butter or supervising a young boy who was shucking clams dug from the flats hours before. Even this early, the kitchen smelled of chowder bubbling in huge steel pots.

Much as Anna Cabot had done for the island in general, Dorey gave a history of restaurants on Quinnipeague, from the first fish stand at the pier, to a primitive burger hut on the bluff, to a short-lived diner on Main Street, to the current Grill and Café. Naturally, she spoke at greatest length about the evolution of the Chowder House, whose success she credited to her father, though the man had been dead for nearly twenty years. Everyone knew Dorey was the one who had brought the place into the twenty-first century, but her family loyalty was endearing. It was particularly evident when Charlotte asked about Cecily’s role in her cooking.

Pausing with her chop knife midair, Dorey was suddenly puffed up. “Jewetts have been cooking here since before Cecily was born. We did fine with our own herbs, thank you.” The knife came down with a
thwunk.

Charlotte modified the question. “Then, island cooking in general. You can’t deny that her herbs play a role.”

“No, I can’t deny it,” Dorey conceded, though the speed with which she proceeded to chop onions spoke of annoyance. “Some of your so-called cooks aren’t what I’d call cooks. Their heirloom recipes would be downright awful if it weren’t for those herbs.”

“You do use Cecily’s herbs, though?”

“Hey, I’m not stupid. If you need fresh basil or thyme on this island, there’s only one source, and I’m not talking about her garden. I have Cole herbs in my own greenhouse. You won’t find better anywhere else. I wasn’t saying you could.” She scraped the onions into a bowl with the broad of her knife, then ran a wide forearm across her watering eyes. “I’m just saying the Jewett recipes are more than herbs.”

Charlotte was thinking that competitiveness was a side of Dorey she hadn’t seen, when she saw another. Out of the blue, the woman asked, “What’s Leo Cole to you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were with him Tuesday night on Hayden Perry’s boat.”

Charlotte should have known Dorey would keep tabs on the harbor even at night. But there was a perfectly good explanation for what Dorey had seen. “I asked him to take me to Rockland. Nicole is my friend. We were picking her up.”

Dorey studied her. Her tone softened, though her eyes remained serious. “Leo hasn’t had it easy in life. Cecily wasn’t the best mother. He’s finally at a good place. I’m worried you’ll mess it up.”

Charlotte laughed. “Me?”

“He was different coming in here that night. He likes you.”

“I like him, too.”

“Why?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, then closed it and considered what she understood about her feelings. Finally, puzzled, she said, “I have no idea.”

“You need to,” Dorey warned. “He isn’t one to play with.”

“Because he’s dangerous? That’s what everyone says, but I don’t feel it in him. Who
is
he?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is he a handyman? A carpenter? A
gardener
?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. We don’t talk much about personal things. It’s the silence that kind of works—for both of us, I guess.”

With a sigh, Dorey lightened up. “Well, I wouldn’t know about silence. My life is filled with noise. If I didn’t like it, I’d be doin’ somethin’ else besides running this zoo.” She reached for another onion. “Gotta get back to work. Any more questions?”

“Actually, yes. Was there ever a father in the picture?”

“I meant, questions about the restaurant. Anything about Leo, you have to ask Leo. I know you’ve been asking other people, but I’ll tell you one thing, Missy,” she added, prodding the air with the tip of her knife. “For whatever else he is, Leo’s a born and bred Quinnie, and we protect our own.”

Hands up, Charlotte backed off. “Got it.”

“That’s good. No one here wants him hurt.”

*   *   *

Charlotte did get it. She was summer; Leo was forever. He could be the worst of the worst, but Quinnipeague was his home. Islanders related to that. Black sheep or not, they would side with him.

Thinking how nice that was, she emerged from the Chowder House into the sun. It was ten thirty. Pickups filled the spaces outside the Café, suggesting that locals were taking advantage of the last hours of quiet before weekenders began to arrive. She looked through the lineup, but didn’t see Nicole’s SUV. Wondering if it was parked elsewhere, she looked down the street, then up. That was when she saw Leo. He was leaning against a dark blue pickup, parked nose-in at the head of a narrow driveway beside the library.

Her pulse skipped. With his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his booted feet crossed, he looked for all the world like he was just passing the time—except for his dark eyes, always his dark eyes. There was nothing nonchalant about those, and they were focused on her.

She started toward him, walking casually to avoid attention, though there was no one about. He had parked in a discreet spot. Their relationship—whatever it was—was secret.

She smiled, said a soft, “Hey,” when she was close. He didn’t answer, simply drew her in against the truck, and, with his hands flat on the window by her head, caught her mouth with his. It was the first time since Monday night, but as quickly as that she was back on the beach, naked in the moonlight, and turned on as that lean mouth moved hungrily over hers. Her arms were around his neck before it was done, holding on lest she fall, though his body would have prevented that. It held her against the truck, shielding her from the world. She was breathless when, after a final long kiss, he raised his head.

His eyes were wide and midnight blue. She couldn’t look away. “What was that for?” she whispered.

“Wanted to see if I was imagining,” he said in a low, rutted voice.

Imagining the fire. He didn’t have to finish for her to know. Nor did she have to ask if the fire was real. She could hear it in the roughness of his breathing, could feel it in the lower body that wasn’t lifting from hers so fast.

Those midnight blues roamed her face. “You haven’t been out to the house.”

“I’ve been with Nicole. She needs me around.”

“For her cookbook?”

“There’s also personal stuff. Plus, it’s been rainy. You couldn’t lay shingles in the rain, and now you have to wait at least a day for the plywood to dry.”