Dragging the stick back toward camp, I look around to see if anyone’s noticed we’ve been missing.
“More firewood?” asks Nigel.
“I wish,” I say with a laugh.
Carly wastes no time telling the others that she and I are going to put on a performance and that she needs two male volunteers to hold each end of the stick.
Awkward smiles all around. Finally, Harrison and Dominic volunteer.
Carly pretends to be a candy store clerk. Even Lucy and Will have stopped talking to watch.
“Do you have any Sugar Babies?” I, the customer, ask.
Carly glances at the two guys at the ends of the pole and says, “Nope, no Sugar Babies.”
“How about some Red Hots?”
Again, Carly glances at each of the guys. “No. No Red Hots, either.”
A few of the waitresses and counselors giggle. It is a nervous laugh, but it makes me think this idea might not be so bad after all.
“How about Tootsies? SweeTarts?”
Carly shakes her head sadly.
“Whoppers?”
Carly gives each of the guys a long, contemplative glance, then an exaggerated frown.
The guys crack up.
“Well,” I say in an exasperated voice (I’m getting into my part now), “what do you have?”
Carly looks to her left and her right. She slows down and delivers the punch line: “Just two suckers on a stick.”
Real laughter from the others this time.
“Yeah, Dum-Dums,” shouts one of them.
Carly looks at me, her eyes saying one thing: Told you so.
Chapter 9
After our last first aid class the next day, Mariah suggests we all pile into her old Volvo wagon and head for the Gull’s Nest.
“It’s a gift shop,” Annie explains.
Carly says, “Let me grab my millions.”
The gift shop is all things nautical. “Look at this string of starfish lights, Nolie, and this seashell mobile.” Carly dances around the shop pointing out treasure after treasure.
I’m wondering whether I should buy a second beach towel with my birthday money when she suggests we decorate our room to look like a mermaid’s den.
“We can get Mariah to take us to a hardware store and buy sea green paint. Then we’d hang these lights and a couple of mobiles, and look, Nol, look at this coral rug!”
“You think Pete will let us paint the walls?” I ask.
“Why not? There’s nothing but graffiti on them now. We’ll paint the walls and the ceiling!”
I can barely lift my fork that night at dinner. I hope the paint will come off my fingers before our first night of waitressing.
Stella slides off her seat (where and when did Pete and Susanna eat?) and comes over to me. She touches her hand to my wrist and asks, “Will you play croquet with me?”
A wishbone pulled in two directions, I smile at Stella. I look up to see if others can be coerced into a game. No takers.
“I have an even better idea than croquet,” says Carly. “Stella, have you ever seen a mermaid’s den?”
I sigh gratefully.
That night not only does Stella get permission to come upstairs in the barn (which is normally off-limits to boys, children, and guests), but so do Nigel, Will, and the rest of the help. Kevin brings a blender and makes batches of “seaweed smoothies,” which taste a lot like blueberry banana. Will docks his iPod, and Jimmy Buffett tunes fill the room. Carly and Stella do a mermaid dance to “Margaritaville.” Then Stella lies down on my cot (twisting among the bodies seated there) and puts her head on my lap. I run my fingers through her hair, and when I stop briefly, she looks up at me and says, “More.”
Carly scoots onto the bed and puts her head in my lap too.
Nigel, with camera strung around his neck tonight, starts to take our picture. But then he slowly lowers the lens from his face.
“What?” asks Carly.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Suddenly, I feel like I’ve met you before.”
Chapter 10
From: Song
To: Nola
Subject: Landlocked
Hey, Nola—
Thanks for the periwinkle! It arrived in one piece. Send me more sea treasures—and letters. I like getting something in the mail. I like seeing your horrible handwriting. Besides, you sound like you’re actually talking to ME when you write letters.
The last chemo wasn’t that bad, which is good news and bad news. The good news is that I felt like doing things with Mom after. The bad news is that I never think it’s working when I don’t feel awful.
You would think she would
Dream of running or flying
She dreams of needles
Write back SOON.
xo
Song
I hit reply, but realize I don’t have time to respond to Song now, so I close out. I have to get to the dining hall for dinner. I wolf down Cheffie’s shepherd’s pie and take my place to greet the guests. It’s our third night of waitressing, and Lucy tells me I’ll have more than a few tables now, but I think I’m ready.
My first two tables: Mrs. Barnes, a woman in her seventies who has come here for generations, and the Winstons, a family of six, who will be my guests for the whole summer. On top of them, I’m assigned “transients”—a couple who made a reservation to eat here at the inn but have their own summer home nearby. Apparently, they come often and immediately identify me as new. “Seems we’re always training someone,” the man mutters. His wife gives me a “don’t mind him” smile. The pressure is on.
Next I’m assigned a family who arrived this afternoon: parents with a girl about Song’s age and her best friend. The girls are both wearing strapless dresses and adorable shoes. I have to say hello quickly—I’m moving from table to table trying to remember the sequence: drinks, rolls, pickle tray, order, appetizers, salad … what I have or haven’t done so far.
It’s harder than I expected. For some reason, Mrs. Barnes wants to gab tonight. I approach her table with her V8 juice, and she holds my arm. “Do you ever have difficulty sleeping, Nola? Last night I was awake from two o’clock on. There’s a great horned owl on the property, and usually, I enjoy their call, but last night …”
I like Mrs. Barnes. She seems rugged for a seventy-year-old, but tonight she’s making me nervous. I should tell her I have to keep moving, but it feels mean—like I’m dismissing her.
“Nola!” one of the youngest Winstons calls out from the family dining room. Yikes.
“Oh no,” says Mrs. Barnes. “I forgot to ask you for a tall glass, dear. You see, my doctor has prescribed two and a half cups of fruits and vegetables a day. Can you imagine?”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll get you a tall glass.”
“Nola,” whispers Lucy, passing by, “Mr. Winston wants another basket of rolls and has decided to have his steak rare instead of medium rare.”
I nod. “I’ll be right back with that V8, Mrs. Barnes.”
“Oh, and don’t let me forget to tell you about my dream….”
I run to the kitchen, dump the juice into a large glass, and top it off. Next I pull the Winston order off the clothesline above the chef’s table, cross out the MR and write in R.
“Hey!” Cheffie bellows. “If you’re going to make a change like that, you better tell me. How do you know I’ll look at the order again?”
“Next time I will,” I yell as I head back out to the porch dining room, placing the juice on Mrs. Barnes’s table from behind so no eye contact is made, and then hurry to the family dining room to pick up the Winstons’ bread basket.
“Nola,” says the man who is dining for the evening, “could we have our salads, please?”
I had totally forgotten them in the corner.
I can’t seem to get all the balls in the air. One timing mistake leads to another and then to another. I mistakenly pocket Mrs. Barnes’s dinner order; the shoe girls’ mashed potatoes are col
d. I’m taking the plates back to the kitchen when Pete pulls me over to say, “I stopped by the Winston table. They thought their waitress had vanished.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, and duck into the dishwashing area before bursting into tears.
Kevin stops spraying and comes around the dirty-dish counter.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I sputter.
I think he’s going to give me a hug, but he turns me around and steers me into the little pantry where box lunches are made. He seems calm despite the fact we’ve both gone AWOL. If Pete walks in, I’ll be fired on the spot.
“Here is your arsenal of secret weapons,” he says, opening a refrigerator. “This is mint from the garden—bring it to those who order tea.”
“V8 juice?”
“That will work too.” He continues, “This is maple butter—bring it to anyone who orders the baked apples for dessert.”
“Why don’t we always serve maple butter?”
“Shhh. This is gold. Got kids at your table?” He reaches up and pulls out a bag of miniature marshmallows. “Put these on their ice cream.”
“Won’t I get in trouble?”
“Not if you let guests know that these treats are for them and them only.”
He’s right. For the rest of the night I come bearing secret gifts, and all prior sins are forgotten.
Just the same, I can’t get Pete’s words out of my head. I wonder if he’s having serious doubts about me, and I realize at that moment that I really, really want to stay.
On my way up to my room later, I stop at the computer to respond to Song. I keep it short:
From: Nola
To: Song
Subject: Quick reply
Hey, Song,
Okay, I’ll write more letters. Just finished serving dinner. I totally suck as a waitress. It’s so much harder than I thought. If I don’t improve, I’ll be back listening to your alternative music before you know it. Hey, did Mom tell you that I met a girl on the bus, Carly Whitehouse, and now we’re roommates?!
Cinderella shoes
Sparkle on others tonight
I’m sweeping ashes
Love,
Me
I step over Carly, who is sitting in our doorway talking to Annie, who is sitting in her doorway, and pull out my running clothes.
“You’re going for a run now? Why? What’s wrong?” Carly asks.
“I just had the evening from hell, that’s what’s wrong.”
“But we’re going into Blue Hill. Will knows about a party at one of the summer homes.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m really not in the mood.”
“Oh, come on,” Carly says.
“I just couldn’t pull it all together tonight.”
“Is that why you’re spending the summer in Maine?”
“Excuse me?”
“To be the best waitress you can be?”
I have to laugh.
“Come on, Nolie, you came for the social life. Now get dressed.”
I obediently change into a jean skirt and flip-flops. Carly puts on a vintage lace dress with tie-up sandals, and we join the others, who are dividing themselves among Mariah’s and Nigel’s cars.
“Nola Granola and I will sit in the little seat in the back of the Volvo,” Carly announces.
“No making out back there,” Kevin shouts.
I shoot him a “don’t even think of going there” look, but Carly says, “Kevin, you ruin all the fun.”
Chapter 11
I’ve never crashed a party before (surprise, surprise) and can’t help feeling that I’m wearing a giant NOT INVITED sign. You’re only here for the summer, I tell myself. If we’re all kicked out of this house, no harm done—we still have one another.
I follow Carly’s lead and take a beer from a cooler, then follow her through a sea of bodies to the back deck.
“Hey!” someone calls through the screen door. It’s Dominic and, beside him, Harrison. My breath catches. What is it about this guy? He’s said only a dozen words to me, but there’s something about him that makes my insides want to come out and play. I say hello to Dominic and wait nervously for Harrison to acknowledge me, but he seems fully engaged in a conversation with a guy I don’t recognize.
“Hear you had a rough evening.” It’s Nigel behind me.
“How’d you hear?” I ask, flipping around.
“Lucy said.”
I quickly translate: Lucy told Will, Nigel, and Annie—all those who had driven over in Nigel’s car.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Lucy was sympathetic. Guests come to Rocky Cove because they need to feel special. The minute they begin to think they’re falling off the A-list, they put up some sort of stink. Last year Mrs. Winston complained that her waitress refused to remember how she liked her eggs prepared.”
“And?”
Nigel smiles. “She refused to remember how Mrs. Winston liked her eggs prepared.”
“So that’s why she’s not back.”
Nigel takes a sip of his soda and smiles again. “Nah. It’s not such a big deal. Trust me.”
“Come on, you,” Carly says, linking her arm with mine. “Dominic and Harrison are going to show us how to dig for mussels.” Carly drags me down to the mudflats behind the house.
As instructed, I squat, place my hand under a rock in a tidal pool, and tear off a handful of clinging black shells, connected by a vine of seaweed. I carefully separate them and drop them into a pot Dominic has brought from the kitchen.
Barefoot, and seemingly bored already with this gathering, Carly skips from one rock to another as if on a balance beam.
“So where do you go to school?” Harrison asks her. Both boys remain close by, ready to catch her if she falls.
“Winsor,” she replies, reaching out a hand to Dominic’s shoulder.
I drop another batch of mussels into the pot and look over at Carly. Is Winsor in Boston? It’s likely. I’ve heard of it before. Maybe Carly spends the school season in Boston and the summer with her father. Anyway, who cares? I’m just so happy she’s here now.
Harrison reaches out and offers her a sip of his drink.
Carly looks over at me and smiles. “Look at how many mussels you’ve found, Nolie! You are queen of succulent shellfish!” She jumps off a rock, lifts the hem of her dress, and walks through the muck to where I’m digging. “So can we cook these now?”
“Right here on the beach,” Harrison suggests.
“Wouldn’t a gas range be easier?” asks Dominic.
“Sure,” Harrison says. “But who wants to squeeze into that crowded kitchen? And besides, we’d have to share these with everyone.”
“Good point!” Dominic says. “All we need is fresh water, some matches—there’s certainly enough wood around here—and some butter. Come on, Carly.”
They go up to the kitchen for supplies, leaving Harrison and me to round up kindling and firewood.
“How are the swimming lessons?” I ask, trying to regulate my breathing.
“They’re typically slow to start,” Harrison says, breaking some dead branches off a tree. “First we have to give swim tests and then work with the program counselors to come up with schedules. I don’t know why it has to be this way. It seems to me that the schedules could be planned before the campers arrive and we could just plug the kids in according to ability.”
“You’ve suggested it? I mean—sorry, you probably have.”
“Yeah, but you know how these places are with their long traditions. No one thinks to ask if the routines work. Everyone’s hell-bent on doing things the way they’ve always been done.”
Rocky Cove seems to operate the same way. For example, wouldn’t it be easier if the waitresses had designated sections in one of the dining rooms where their tables were clustered together? That way we wouldn’t have to spend so much time running from one room to the other, and guests could see exactly how hard their waitresses were working to please everyone.
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I share my thoughts as we begin to build a little teepee fire structure, adding Nigel’s insight. “Actually, they don’t want you to treat them all the same—they want to feel unique, special.”
“Like the summer,” he says.
I look up, not understanding.
“Don’t know how to explain this,” he says, “but people who come to Maine want a summer that’s … life-changing, transformational. I mean, if you go to Disney, you expect fun. And if you go to Vegas, you expect …” He fishes.
“Escape?” I offer.
“Right! I was going to say money, but it’s more. It’s escaping your own dull life for a while—usually by doing something incredibly foolish.”
He bounces up from where he’s squatting, combing his hair behind his ears, which for some reason makes my knees wobble. “But people who come to Maine want to … to live big,” he says. “To be awestruck, to—”
Fall in love, I think, and feel myself blush.
“Embrace it,” he says. “Make it theirs.”
Yeah. Like I said.
“Supplies on the way!” Carly holds one handle of a pot of splashing water. Dominic holds the other and, with his free hand, waves what must be butter and matches in the air. He’s grinning from ear to ear.
Harrison watches Carly as she glides toward us and then looks at me as if to say, See? She is the leap, the dive, the soar. She’s summer.
Chapter 12
Okay, I may be inexperienced, but I’ve made it my goal to remember how all my guests like their eggs prepared. Mrs. Barnes? Poached on toast. The shoe girls (whose names are Justine and Maggie) like sunny-side down (Cheffie’s specialty—he turns the stove off right after the flip). Mr. Winston likes scrambled, Mrs. Winston prefers soft-boiled with a runny yolk, and the four little ones never eat eggs. Never.
After the last of my guests leave, I quickly refill the salt and pepper shakers on my tables, make sure any stains are covered with fresh nappies, and race up to the barn. Just as the dining room procedures have not changed in the last one hundred years, neither has the waitresses’ routine. We wake and serve breakfast until nine. Then we change into bathing suits and go down to the ocean docks to read, listen to tunes, gossip, and sleep (always sleep). It isn’t the ocean beach I had imagined—in truth, the “beach” is a rocky shoreline leading to mudflats at low tide—but it is sea and sun. Around eleven thirty we head to the barn, throw on our uniforms, and serve lunch. After lunch it’s back into bikinis, but we follow the sun to the lake beach. Here we read, listen to tunes, gossip, and try to ignore the little kids who do everything to get the attention of their waitresses, until dinnertime.