Cassie settled back in her chair. "Of course. What can I do for you?"
"I'm afraid there's a problem about your grant."
In the end, she had to cancel her classes for Monday and spent all day Sunday driving up to Woods Hole. She stayed the night in a small motel at the edge of town, nearly empty at this time of year. Woods Hole was like a ghost town. Although there were townspeople about, it was nothing compared to the crowds of summer.
The meeting in the morning with Ella Connors and the director of the MBL was short and painful. They listened sympathetically to her presentation, but facts were facts. It was little consolation to know they were impressed with her research when it didn't change the outcome.
She still had the long drive ahead to get home but couldn't quite bring herself to leave yet. On impulse she walked down to the drawbridge in town. Leaning her arms against the rails, she looked out over the harbor as she had so many times before. The water reflected the grey of the sky. It looked different without the forest of masts that usually filled it in warmer weather. She shivered a little in the raw March wind but didn't move. It would be full of boats again this summer, but she wouldn't be there to see it. Tears pricked at her eyes and began to run down her face.
"Cassie?" An unexpected voice spoke her name almost disbelievingly.
She dabbed quickly at her cheeks before turning to face him. "Calder—this is a surprise." She couldn't even bring herself to care that he was seeing her in this state.
"For a minute I thought you were a figment of my imagination." He was torn between an odd pleasure in seeing her and concern over what could possibly cause Cassie Boulton to be crying in the middle of the street. "Is something wrong?"
"No, I just… the view is very different than it is in the summer." She looked over the water again, tears pooling in her eyes.
He frowned. "It's too cold to talk out here. Let's get a cup of coffee and warm up."
Calder was the last person she expected sympathy from. Her voice was shaky as she said, "Thank you, but I can't. I was just about to leave, and I need to be back in Philadelphia tonight."
"Are you driving?" At her nod, he said, "I don't know what the trouble is, but I really don't think you should be driving right now. Better to leave a half hour late than have an accident on the way." She hesitated, and he added, "Please. I'll worry."
"All right," she said, her voice subdued.
"Good." He put a hand on her back to steer her across the street and into the Dock of the Bay Café, where they had been introduced so long ago. Given the season, it was empty, and they had their pick of tables. Cassie stared out the window as the waitress came over to them.
Calder waved away the menu. "I'd like a cup of coffee, please. Cassie, what would you like? Coffee, tea?"
"Coffee, please." Her voice was flat.
"Do you have pie today?" asked Calder.
The waitress nodded. "Apple, blueberry, or peach."
"One slice of apple and one of blueberry, then," he said.
Cassie looked at him questioningly.
"The first time we came here, you said you liked the pies," he said, a little defensively. "And I like both of those, so you can have whichever you prefer."
"I never knew you had such mother hen instincts." She sounded a little more like herself. "But what if I said I wanted peach?"
He smiled. "Then I'd get that, too."
Their coffee arrived. "So, what are you doing here?" She wrapped her hands around the cup. Her fingers were pale from the cold.
He hesitated. "I was doing a little writing when I was here last summer, and I came back for a while to see if I could get re-inspired," he said self-deprecatingly. "And what about you? More research?"
She stared at the table. "No, there were some problems about my funding for the summer. I came to see if we could clear them up."
"And were you able to?"
She paused to add a generous amount of cream to her coffee. "No," she said. She hoped he wouldn't ask questions.
"What happened?"
"Politics. The National Science Foundation had its funding slashed by the president. He'd rather fund his little wars than basic research. So NSF had to cut their funding to MBL. I'm one of the most junior researchers there, so my project was axed." She took a sip of her coffee. Seeing the closed expression on his face, she realized how tactless she had been. The president wouldn't have been elected without the backing of the Westing family prestige and money. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that about the president."
He grimaced slightly. "Don't worry about it. I don't agree with my father on everything, and you're entitled to your opinions. Especially right now." He paused. "Are there other funding options?"
"It's too late for this year. I can apply for a new fellowship for next year, but I won't be as likely to get it if I'm not here this summer." She took a deep breath. "It'll be fine. I'll stay at Haverford for the summer and work on writing up the results I have, I suppose." She wanted to sound as if it didn't bother her, but her voice was quavering a little. "I'll just miss being here."
"You've been coming here for a long time, haven't you?"
"Since I was in college. It's been the big constant in my life. Some people have a home and family; I have Woods Hole and the MBL."
"You don't have a family to go home to?"
Her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Oh, I have a family; the question is whether I want to go home to them. You'd probably call them poor white trash, except they're from the South Side of Chicago. I'm the first one in the family to graduate from high school. My mother isn't really sure what a PhD is, or that marine biology has anything to do with the ocean, or why I'd waste time and money going to college when I could have found some nice boy and been married with two children before I was twenty. Needless to say, we don't have a great deal to talk about. I don't go home often."
"It's a little difficult to picture you in a setting like that."
She was surprised as well; she had expected a more negative reaction from him. What had inspired her to tell him? Even Erin didn't know that much. She supposed Calder was a safe enough choice to confide in. They had few acquaintances in common, and one of the few things about him she was certain of was that nobody would ever accuse him of talking too much. She glanced down for a moment and then looked up at him mischievously. "They've probably never even heard of your family."
"They may be fortunate in that."
She was unsure if he was serious or not until he smiled at her, and then she couldn't help laughing. "Perhaps so."
The waitress came over with their pies. "Who gets which?" she asked brightly. Calder glanced at Cassie.
"I'll have the apple," said Cassie with rueful amusement.
The waitress set the pies in front of them but lingered at the table as if expecting something else. After a moment, she said, "Excuse me, but we were talking back in the kitchen. Are you Calder Westing?"
"Guilty as charged," he responded with a polite smile.
"Oh, wow!" she said. "I heard you were here last summer, but I didn't know you were back. Can I have your autograph?"
Cassie expected Calder to go into his abrupt, monosyllabic mode, but instead he agreed pleasantly. "What's your name?"
The girl blushed. "Jessica."
He scribbled on the piece of paper she handed him. Cassie could read the words: "To Jessica, with best wishes from Calder Westing." The waitress thanked him profusely and hurried back to the kitchen with her prize.
Calder glanced at Cassie , then looked away. "Sorry." He seemed to be speaking to the view out the window. "I find that kind of thing pretty embarrassing. It's not as if I've done anything to deserve it, except for being my father's son."
Cassie sipped her coffee, puzzled by the difference from the man who had a tantrum the previous summer over being recognized in the same restaurant. "You were very nice to her."
He looked back at her. "That's Scott's doing. He finally managed to convince me that it
's better to give in gracefully than to fight it, even if I hate it."
Cassie tried not to think of her embarrassing loss of temper the last time Scott's name had come up between them. "You made her very happy. Surely that's worth something."
"That's what Scott keeps saying," he said. Cassie noticed his cheeks were flushed. "How are things at Haverford?"
"Busy. My three-year review comes up in May, so I'm working on my file for that, on top of the usual work."
"Is this review important?"
"Oh, yes. It's when they decide whether to renew my contract or let me go, and they'll give me the first feedback on how I'm doing on the road to tenure. It's anxiety provoking, to say the least."
"I can't imagine you'd have any troubles."
"I hope not, but you never know." She took a last bite of her pie. "But now I really do need to be going." She wasn't looking forward to the hours in the car with no company but her own.
"Where are you parked?"
"Over in the MBL lot, not far. Right by my old lab." She smiled sadly.
"Let me settle up here, and I'll walk you back."
"You don't have to do that," objected Cassie automatically, reaching for her bag. "You must have been on your way somewhere."
"No place important." He leveled a stare at her as she opened her wallet. "You're not going to embarrass me in front of my legions of fans, are you?"
She looked at him for a moment and smiled impishly. "All right, but only for the sake of your fans." She watched as he dropped several bills on the table, probably twice what they owed. She hoped his fans appreciated it.
There was a moment of awkwardness when they arrived at her car, as if neither was sure how they should part. Finally Calder said, "Thanks for putting up with me delaying you. Can I ask you to send me an email when you get home, just so I know you got there safely?" He fished a card out of his pocket and gave it to her.
"What, no autograph?" she teased.
With an amused look, he took the card back from her and wrote a few words on the back and then tucked it in her shirt pocket. "Have a good trip," he said.
"Thanks. And thanks for the tea and sympathy."
"Any time." He watched her get into her car. She turned once to wave as she drove off.
Cassie took the back roads to Route 28. Watching the familiar scenery go by, she was once again saddened by the prospect of not returning this summer. If she thought about it too long, she would start to cry again, so she deliberately diverted her mind to consideration of Calder Westing. It was surprising enough they had managed to have a completely civil conversation, but the change in his manner when he talked to the waitress was remarkable.
Thinking of it reminded her of the card he had given her. She hadn't wanted to admit that she still had his card from the previous summer as a sort of memento. She had meant several times to throw it away, but something stopped her each time, so it continued to reside in her wallet. Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she pulled the new card out of her pocket and glanced down to see what he had written on the back.
To Cassie, with fond memories of my very favorite trip to the beach.
Calder Westing
She felt a rush of heat run through her, embarrassed to discover he was thinking about it when they were together. Her embarrassment was quickly replaced by other feelings, though, as her body remembered his and the pleasure he had given her. She had a sudden mad impulse to turn back to Woods Hole and find him. The very image of throwing herself at him was enough to make her laugh, and she managed to make herself put the card back in her pocket and focus on her driving. But she could feel its presence against her body, lying over her breast like the touch of his hand.
It was after midnight when she finally arrived back at her apartment. She went to the refrigerator for a cold drink and then remembered Calder's request. She booted up her computer, thinking carefully about what to say. She took out his card again to read off his email address.
To:
[email protected] From: C. Boulton
Subject: home safe
Dear Calder,
As you can see, I managed to arrive home without alarming an undue number of state troopers. Thanks again for the pie.
Cassie
The next day Cassie grimly began to revise her plans for the summer, going through her data from the last three years to see where there might be more room for analysis. She spoke to one of her colleagues about using space in the main lab during the summer months and began to investigate what it would cost to transport some specimens down from the Cape. She could do some of the simpler work at Haverford. It would be slower without access to the more advanced equipment at the MBL, but it would be progress of a sort.
By the end of the week, she had her preliminary plans made. She refused to look back at what could have been, a skill which had always served her well. Even Erin, who understood better than anyone else how much this loss would hurt her, refrained from offering sympathy; she recognized Cassie was ignoring her own pain.
To: C. Boulton
From: C. Westing
Subject: Re: home safe
Glad you managed to avoid causing too much trouble on your way home. I would feel sorry for any poor state trooper who tried to stop you!
Calder
Cassie smiled a little as she read the message and marked it to save.
Chapter 9
TWO WEEKS AFTER HER return to Haverford, Cassie received a voice mail from Ella Connors at the MBL. She was tempted to put off making the call until later, knowing it was likely the expected denial of her appeal, but forced herself to do it right away.
"Cassie!" came Ella's energetic voice when she identified herself. "I've got some good news for you."
"Good news?" she asked cautiously, afraid to raise her hopes.
"It looks like we're going to have funding for you after all. We've been shifting some money around, and we should be able to offer you an unrestricted onetime grant."
"Really?" Cassie could hardly believe her ears.
"Looks pretty definite at this point. Hopefully we'll be able to get paperwork off to you next week, but in the meantime, we're holding your lab space unless you tell us otherwise."
Cassie couldn't stop smiling. "No, please hold it. I'll be there, you can count on that."
To: C. Westing
From: C. Boulton
Subject: good news
Just wanted to let you know I had some good news from the MBL today. I don't know how they did it, but they've managed to find some funding for me this year, so it looks like I'll be wading through the muck in the marshes again this summer after all. Sorry to have cried on your shoulder over what turned out to be nothing, but you know me. I'll do almost anything for a good slice of apple pie.
To: Cassie Boulton
From: C. Westing
Subject: Re: good news
Glad to hear you'll be going back. Hope you'll eat plenty of squid for me. And you're welcome to cry on my shoulder any time. By the way, I really do like blueberry best.
Cassie felt a particular poignancy in her arrival at Woods Hole for the summer. Instead of rushing straight to the lab to get started, she spent her first day walking up and down Water Street, stopping in the bookstore, enjoying the scent of the beach roses in the town garden, and sitting at Stony Beach looking out over the water.
She had hired one of her students from Haverford to be her lab assistant, and he was as excited and starryeyed at having a taste of real science at the MBL as she had been her first summer. Chris was a tireless worker, leaving Cassie more time for analysis and writing up her paper, and he also had an entertaining, quick wit. Watching him, she remembered how much more there was to experience at the MBL than she had taken advantage of in the last few years. She began to take time to learn about other people's research and attend more of the lectures and seminars offered by the MBL.
She made a point of taking a walk each day, sometimes around Eel Pond, sometimes throug
h town, and sometimes along the edge of Buzzard's Bay. When she walked along the bay, she would see Penzance Point, once again forbidden territory, and wonder what had happened to Scott. Was he again spending the summer there, or had he made other plans? She was curious enough to go onto the Internet once to check if he had sold the house, but found nothing.
One benefit had come from her brief association with Calder Westing. Rob was spending the entire summer at the MBL, and to Cassie's surprise, the news didn't particularly trouble her. A year of being haunted by Calder had allowed her to put that pain behind her.