“Joe came by to get signatures for the Stop the Helipad petition,” Elena said.
“Joe, stay for brunch,” Penny ordered. “I have a frittata in the oven and we have the most delicious cherries. Ruthie, sit, keep Joe company while we get the food.”
“I should be going,” Joe said. “I didn’t mean to barge in.”
“Oh, stay,” Elena said.
“I’ll help Penny,” Ruthie said. She almost ran after Penny into the kitchen.
Penny got out a tray and utensils. She slid the frittata onto a platter. She placed the napkins next to the forks.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Ruthie asked.
“I’m talking to you, I’m just gathering words,” Penny said. She turned around and slapped a knife on the tray. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What?”
Penny made a downward swipe with a spatula, as if she were cutting Ruthie in two. “Enough, okay? I don’t know what you’re punishing yourself for, but stop it.”
“Punishing myself?”
“You spent two seasons in New York in which you did nothing but eat takeout and wait for Jem to get home from school.”
“I was working!”
“You connected with no one. You saw no theater. You did not go to one concert. You got the same takeout from the same Chinese restaurant every Friday night, and that might be the worst thing of all. There are restaurants in New York, you know. There are neighborhoods. You’re turning into your mother.”
Ruthie felt the breath knocked out of her. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re afraid to make left turns, you know what? You only go around in a circle.”
“I make left turns! I got here, didn’t I!”
“It’s a metaphor, you idiot! And what’s all this bullshit about you can’t stay in Orient? Do you think you’ll crumble if you see Adeline and Mike? Do you think when you pass the Belfry you’ll burst into tears? Guess what? Sometimes you have it good for a while, and then it goes. Poof. It’s called life.”
“I know that!”
“And what about Joe?” Penny waved her spatula at the window. “Look at that terrific man. He pines for you.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Because I have eyes. He came here to see you, and you ran away.”
“He’s here collecting signatures.”
“He already got our signatures, he’s been here stalling until you got here. Because all winter and spring the weight of him not asking about you was just as comical as him asking. Wake the fuck up, dude. It’s criminal watching you fuck up again.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Forgive yourself, for fuck’s sake!” Penny pointed the spatula at her. “Nothing’s going to crash down on your head, okay? Nobody is going to fly away. I mean, sure, those things could happen, but stop expecting them to. You have to abide, dude, and the fact that you don’t get that reference doesn’t make me love you any less. Now go out the door and be a person. Joe made that call to the Whitney, he talked you up, you might start by thanking him.”
“Joe got me the job?”
“No, asshole, you got yourself the job. He made a call. I would have done it if I could have, you needed help. Now take this and go outside, because that man is on one cheek right now. He’ll leave if you’re not nice to him.”
She shoved Ruthie out the door with a bowl of cherries in her hands. She stopped, her head whirling. She felt as if she’d just been diced into ribbons by a spatula.
“Sit,” Elena said.
Ruthie sat.
“Elena, I need your help!” Penny yodeled from the kitchen. “I can’t find the good napkins!”
“She’s a chef, and she acts like she’s never seen a kitchen,” Elena said, and went inside.
Silence. Then, “So,” Joe said.
“Thank you for making the call to the Whitney, to whoever,” Ruthie said.
“It was an easy call.”
“Well, thank you. And thank you for…what you did. About the painting.”
“I did it for you.”
“For me?”
“I thought you knew. That day we stood outside the house. I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t. You said, sometimes the right thing happens.”
“I gave you a significant look.”
“That was significant?”
“I was trying to be cryptic!”
“You were trying to tell me not to talk about it. This way you had deniability.”
Joe let out an exasperated breath. “No, I was trying to protect you without your having to confess. I talked Adeline into taking the picture because it was the right thing to happen, the only thing that made sense for everybody. Whatever made you do it, it’s clear you regretted it before it went too far, so…”
“Did it make sense for everybody?”
“The painting was never bought, technically, so there’s no record of a payment. It’s been cataloged and sits in a rack. One more Peter Clay in the world, who cares. Lucas is out in LA, getting kicked off one reality show after another. Somebody torments him by posting his picture with the hashtag #chickenshit.”
Ruthie laughed. “Really?” Doe, she thought.
“One day the real money will come in and it will be enough to really get him in trouble. That’s his problem. Adeline is married to someone she considers the love of her life. And if you have a broken heart, I’m sorry. You…well, I don’t know how you are, because you never called, but here you are.”
“Here I am,” Ruthie said. Here she was. In a moment he would go. She read his reluctance and confusion. She knew him that well, because she no longer knew him as Joseph Bloom, who was too good for her, too old for her, too rich for her. He was Joe. She had known his whispers and his kiss. She had known his touch and his heart, and she had treated him badly. It was time to turn left and face him. Even though it would split open her heart.
A helicopter buzzed overhead, heading out toward the point. Penny emerged from the house with a platter. She flapped a dish towel at the helicopter, as if it were a wasp. “Fuck you, fuckers!” she yelled at the sky.
“Daniel Mantis is putting a lot of influence behind the helipad,” Joe said. “Limited service, he’s saying. He’s gaining some support. After all, we’re fighting an antiquated train service and an expressway that’s a parking lot. There are a few big-money people who want it to happen. The village will stop it, though.”
“Yes, we’ll stop it,” Elena said, slicing into the frittata. “For now. Something else will come along. Everything passes, everything changes. Even Orient. The sea is going to get us one day. We’ll be an island. Maybe we’ll float away, all of us lesbians and lefties and arty folks. What can you do.”
“Make ourselves fast,” Joe said. “We belong to the mainland. They need us.”
The breeze had nudged the clouds away from the sun. Ruthie lifted her face to feel it. The noise in the sky faded. She realized that her hands were fists, tightly curled, and she opened them so that her sticky palms were cooled by the wind. Today the breeze was gentle. It wouldn’t knock anything down or carry anything away.
“What shall we do with this beautiful day?” Elena asked.
“I’ll be opening oysters,” Joe said. He looked at his watch. “Actually, I should go.”
“Maybe we’ll come by later,” Penny said. She shot a furious look at Ruthie.
“For a glass of gorgeous wine,” Ruthie said.
She smiled at Joe. A second ticked by, then another, before he smiled back.
The classic love story ends with a wedding, but it begins with a look across a distance that seems unbridgeable. Ruthie’s story wasn’t a love story, though, so this wasn’t a beginning, or an end. It could be too late, no m
atter what Penny thought. No matter what she herself thought, or Joe thought, or how deeply they would fall. Whatever was going to happen could fall apart or melt away. It could be frost on a windowpane, dew on the grass. But stop, look, how beautiful is that.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO NEIL WATSON
Acknowledgments
DEEPEST THANKS ARE owed to the inhabitants of Orient, who were, to a person, somewhat dismayed to hear I was setting a novel in their singular and bewitching village. I did not include your suggestions of mosquito plagues and tick-borne diseases as plot points, and I apologize for that. I am certain that anyone who stumbles on your hamlet will be met with the same generous welcome and good cheer that I received. Thank you to all who answered my questions and opened your doors to me, especially Jeanne Markel and Chris Wedge.
Orient is a real place, but the village portrayed in this book is part imagination. They do not celebrate Sneak Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day, and the Belfry Museum resides only in my imagination, as do its board members. Instead, Orient is blessed with the excellent Oysterponds Historical Society Museum, which bears no resemblance to the Belfry whatsoever, and you will spend a delightful morning there if you visit it. A special thank-you to the stupendously talented baker and owner of the Orient Country Store, Miriam Foster, for the afternoon iced teas and perhaps the only factual element in the novel, the greatest salted oatmeal cookie in the world.
I’ve been an observer of museum culture in a spousal role for many years. It has been a marvelous place for a writer to perch. I thank every friend, acquaintance, and dinner partner who leaned over and told me a bit of gossip. Ninety-nine percent of the board members I’ve known or heard about have been exemplary examples of commitment and principle. This makes for great museums, but dull novels.
Heartfelt thanks and a deep bow to friends and fellow writers who read the manuscript at various stages and gave me excellent editorial advice and a kick in the pants: Deborah Heiligman, Rebecca Stead, Susan Scofield, and Donna Tauscher.
My agent, the brilliant Molly Friedrich, was instrumental in shaping this book by telling me what was wrong with it and ordering me to finish it. There are not enough pink peonies in the world to thank her for her fearlessness, acuity, and humor. Thank you to the shining star that is Lucy Carson and the team at The Friedrich Agency. You deserve more cookies than my husband can bake.
I could not ask for a better dream team than what I have at Random House Books. Gina Centrello, Susan Kamil, Andy Ward, and Maria Braeckel, you make my heart sing. Every writer wants an editor with a mind like a scalpel and a heart like a bear. Andrea Walker is that editor.
I owe my dearest ones, Neil Watson and Cleo Watson, the deepest thanks of all, for making my house such a joyful one.
ALSO BY JUDY BLUNDELL
What I Saw and How I Lied
Strings Attached
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judy Blundell is a New York Times bestselling writer for children. Her novel What I Saw and How I Lied won the 2008 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. She lives on Long Island with her husband and daughter.
judyblundellbooks.com
Facebook.com/judyblundellbooks
Instagram: @judyblundellbooks
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Judy Blundell, The High Season
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