Two women in floral Capris carrying capacious beach bags entered the store, laughing and gesturing and swooping down on the merchandise with cries of delight.
"Can we talk later, Clare?" Lexi asked.
"Sure," Clare agreed, and it was with relief that she turned her attention to her customers.
THIRTY-THREE.
Hey, babe."
"Hi, Jesse." Lexi clutched the phone between her neck and shoulder as she talked. She was wrapping a sarong for one customer while keeping a watchful eye on a pair of giggling teenage girls who were clearly using the shop to play dress-up. "How are you?"
"Tired. How are you?"
"I-" Her attention was pulled in several directions at once. She wanted to soak in the sensuality of Jesse"s voice, but the teens were slithering toward the front door. One had a silk scarf still draped around her neck.
"Hang on, Jesse!" Lexi dropped the phone. "Girls!"
They kept on walking. Clearly their wealth ent.i.tled them to the privilege of rudeness. The truth was, Lexi didn"t want to offend them because they looked as if they could easily spend a lot of money in this store.
In three long strides, Lexi had her hand on the scarf. "I think you forgot to take this off." Gently she lifted it away from the girl"s neck.
"Oh, merde!" The girls sn.i.g.g.e.red, pushed at each other, and tottered in their high-heeled sandals out into the sunshine.
Returning to the counter, Lexi picked up the phone. "Sorry, Jesse. Customers."
"How about dinner tonight?" Jesse asked.
"Oh, yes, that would be great!"
"I"ll be at your place about eight. And don"t worry, I"ll eat anything. See ya."
She stared at the phone, stunned. She"d a.s.sumed Jesse was offering to take her out to dinner.
Now, as whenever Lexi had a moment to catch her breath, she stepped out her back door into the fresh air. She scanned the horizon, admired the new yachts floating in the harbor, and let her eyes rest on Jewel Chandler, neatly settled with her back to one of the stanchions. She sat cross-legged, head bowed, and Lexi was certain Jewel was saying a prayer. She stared out toward the opening of the harbor or pulled something out of her backpack and bent over it, sporadically lifting her head to scan the horizon.
Lexi wondered where Tris was. She hoped he was alive somewhere, safe somewhere. Often she said a little prayer for him. She remembered how infatuated she"d been with him as a girl.
And now, was she only infatuated with Jesse? Was she in love with Jesse? Was he in love with her? Would they get married, have children, and live on the island happily ever after? That wasn"t a vision that came clear for her. It was so odd to be back on the island, with so many intimate connections with so many people. Only now was she really getting it, how warped her marriage to Ed had been. So empty. No pa.s.sion in all those years.
She closed her shop at five. She thought perhaps Clare might stop in, or phone, but she glimpsed Clare hurrying out to straddle her bike, and soon she had pedaled away. Lexi yawned, and stretched, and climbed to her crowded apartment on the second floor. More work here. More work constantly. Lexi unpacked the day"s deliveries with rapid movements. She set up her iron and prepared the new garments, and pinned on the price tags. Draping them over her arms, she carried them down to the shop, taking care not to tread on the delicate fabrics. Back up the stairs she went to prepare more merchandise, and when that was done, she broke down the cardboard boxes and carried them down, tucking them neatly into the small area hidden by a trellised rose-covered fence where her garbage cans and recyclables waited for the trash removal.
The work was engrossing. She had to inspect each garment for flaws, rips, and irregularities, and she was glad for this; it made it impossible for her to think about Jesse and Clare. In fact, when he knocked on the back door, it took her a moment to think who it could be.
"Hey, babe." He had showered, and his blond hair was darkened by water.
"Oh, Jesse!" She glanced at her watch. "I lost track of the time. Um...come in."
Jesse followed her up the stairs to her apartment. He wound his way through the chaos of boxes and supplies until he stood at the window looking over the harbor. "Nice view."
She studied Jesse, gauging her own responses to his presence. No doubt about it, the man was gorgeous. She could easily imagine the body beneath his jeans and blue b.u.t.ton-down shirt, and she appreciated that he"d worn a nice shirt for her.
Then he turned and looked at her, and the s.e.xual attraction shot through her.
"Wine?" she offered. "I don"t have any beer."
"Wine would be good." He collapsed on a chair.
Lexi poured the wine and brought the gla.s.s to him. She sank into a chair across from him. "Jesse, I told Clare that...we"re seeing each other."
"Oh, yeah?" His voice was light, but he dropped his eyes.
"She wasn"t mad, or upset, but I think she feels a little funny about it all."
"So do I," Jesse said honestly.
They sipped their wine at the exact same moment, then laughed at how self-conscious they were.
"It"s all right." Lexi reached a comforting hand across to hold his hand. Touching him made her entire body go warm. She felt a blush rise from her chest up her neck, into her cheeks. "We don"t have to be serious, Jesse. We don"t have to talk about love or the future."
"How "bout we don"t talk at all." Jesse set his gla.s.s on the table and rose. He pulled her up next to him. They stood kissing slowly, and she touched Jesse"s handsome face and he ran his hands down her back and slid them into her waistband and down her b.u.t.tocks, his bare palms against her bare flesh. They moved to her bed, stripped off their clothes, and lay together, making love slowly, in an almost thoughtful, melancholy way, pausing to gaze at each other, looking at each other steadily, as if trying to prove to themselves that they knew who they were with, that this was personal, and not just a matter of l.u.s.t.
Afterward, they lay watching the light slowly drain from the sky. Jesse"s stomach growled. "I"ve got to eat something."
They lay side by side, flat on their backs. Lexi stirred slightly. "My cupboards are really bare." She lifted herself on one elbow. "We could go out."
He was quiet for a while. "No. No, I don"t think we should show up in public just yet. You know what this town is like. I feel sort of like I owe it to Clare, and to you and me, to wait a while before we show up anywhere as a couple."
"You"re right." Lexi rose and walked naked through the apartment to the refrigerator. "I"ve got some old brie and crackers..."
"I think I"ll go home, Lex. My mom"s always got some kind of ca.s.serole in the fridge for me to heat up."
"That"s fine," Lexi said, but she sort of wished he"d thought of Lexi, of her hunger and her needs right now.
Jesse dressed and came to hold Lexi against him for a moment. "I"ll call you tomorrow. I don"t know when, I"m working about eighteen hours a day."
"Don"t worry, Jesse," Lexi told him, then grinned at her own words. As if Jesse would ever worry about her!
THIRTY-FOUR.
Summer deepened. The days were hot and humid, the nights cooler, the air drifting with evening mist. Lexi was always in a rush, too busy to eat, too wired to sleep, too preoccupied to think about love. She remembered now that it was just completely impossible to have much of a personal life if you owned a shop on Nantucket in the summer.
All the stores stayed open until ten, so people could wander in after a movie or dinner to toy with a scarf or a bracelet. They swept in on a tide of lightheartedness, dropped money like seash.e.l.ls, and swept away, on to another store.
Two or three times a week, her mother called to invite her to dinner, and Lexi went, glad to get a nice big home-cooked meal. She hoped she"d see Adam, or even Adam and Clare, but he was never there, and when she tried to maneuver her parents into discussing her brother"s love life, they always managed to avoid the topic, maneuvering her in turn into a discussion of town politics or local news.
Lexi managed to get about five hours of sleep each night. The rest of the time she was running, up and down the stairs to unpack the new goods UPS brought from New York and off to the bank with her money bag to make deposits. At ten, after she closed the shop, she spent an hour cleaning, rearranging, polishing her display cases and windows. She"d asked Oksana to give her more hours, so the other woman worked every day from one until nine, and took Sundays off. Lexi didn"t take any day off.
She was glad to have Oksana working for her. The exotic Russian moved smoothly, swiftly, catching garments from customers before they hit the floor, easing them back onto their hangers. She had special sensors for shoplifters, too, and Lexi always knew something was up when Oksana glided over to the front door. When she spoke, she sounded like a leather-clad dominatrix, low and sultry, so it was a surprise to hear her sweet, angelic singing voice. During rainy periods when the shop was empty, she would sing, winging the exotic folk melodies through the air.
Jesse was working hard, too. These were the days when he could work eighteen hours for time and overtime, exhausted, but happy to be making serious additions to his savings account. He phoned Lexi every day, and sometimes she was able to talk, and sometimes she had to say "Sorry. Busy. Later," and close her phone, knowing Jesse understood exactly.
On stormy days, Jesse would come into the shop, his blond hair plastered to his handsome face, his body shrouded by a yellow rain poncho. The rain gave Lexi and Jesse their most relaxed times together. Few customers would leave the coziness of a restaurant or home to explore the shops. As the rain pattered against the windows and the wind whipped the harbor waters into dancing triangles, Oksana and Lexi and Jesse relaxed a bit to compare notes on their days. Much of the talk was about the complications of simply driving on the island with its narrow roads and avenues built for simple Quaker carts and now congested with Hummers and the world"s most expensive SUVs. People shouted at each other at intersections. The parking lots of the grocery stores never had empty s.p.a.ces, forcing customers to drive around and around and around, until they were ready to ram into another car out of sheer frustration. Aisles at grocery stores weren"t wide enough for all the carts. Clumps of tourists planted themselves on the sidewalks, forcing others to walk in the street. Horns honked. The summer days were long and hot and the tempers grew short.
Perhaps once a week Jesse spent the night with Lexi in her apartment above the shop. They made love, or had s.e.x, Lexi wasn"t sure which, and she didn"t want to try to figure it out, not now. She"d learned by growing up on the island never to make an important decision in July or August. No one was sane then. Anyway, it was easy, being in the now with Jesse. It was soothing. No pressure. No future. Just today.
On the other side of the wall, she knew that Sweet Hart"s was busy, too. If Lexi ran into Clare on the street, they flashed friendly smiles, perhaps exchanged a few chatty words-"Business good?" "Fabulous." "I know! Me too!" But Lexi sensed that Clare had raised a kind of wall around her. She clearly didn"t want to discuss Jesse, didn"t want to know about Lexi and Jesse, and for the time that was fine with Lexi. She didn"t exactly know what the h.e.l.l she and Jesse were doing.
Still, Lexi couldn"t help but be aware of the moment every morning when Clare wheeled up on her bike and opened the store. Customers with sand crusted on their ankles and sunburned noses drifted from Lexi"s shop into Clare"s and back again, and occasionally Marlene would rush into Moon Sh.e.l.l Beach, breathlessly begging for change for the till. Chubby Marlene and willowy Oksana gradually became friendly as they took breaks during a lull to drink an iced coffee while dangling their feet over the seawall. Soon Marlene was asking Oksana and Lexi if they wanted a sandwich because she was off to Provisions to buy lunch, and by the end of July, Marlene was bringing chocolates over every day for Lexi and Oksana. "To keep up your strength," Marlene told them.
Lexi never saw her brother come down the wharf and wander into Sweet Hart"s. She wasn"t surprised. The MSPCA was in another part of town, and with all the pets of the summer residents, Adam was just as insanely busy as everyone else.
As often as possible, if the shop was quiet, Lexi would leave it in Oksana"s capable hands and stroll out to the town pier to visit Jewel. The girl still came every day to sit at the end, facing the opening of the harbor. She brought her lunch box, and she carried books in her backpack, and crayons and paper. She was such an odd, solitary child, and she always managed to bring their conversation around to her father. Lexi could mention penguins or Harry Potter and Jewel would find a way to mention her father. She didn"t mind. She liked hearing about Tristram. She liked telling Jewel that she"d known him when he was just a teenager. Jewel often asked her to talk about him, and when Lexi reminded her she"d already told her, Jewel would say, "But I want to hear it again." It was becoming a ritual, a magic rite, a charm. Lexi pitied her a bit, but she also admired her, and thought that if they"d been the same age, they"d be close friends.
THIRTY-FIVE.
Good grief," Marlene whispered. "It"s the Barbie Dolls. They"ve never set foot in Sweet Hart"s in all the years you"ve owned it. You ought to change lovers more often."
Clare grinned. "Oh, stop it," she told Marlene. I hope I never change lovers for the rest of my life, she thought silently.
"Hi, Clare!"
"Hieeee, Clareee."
Spring Macmillan and Amber Young, onetime high school beauties and teenage snots, giggled their way into the store.
They were both married now, and they"d kept their looks, one brunette, the other blond, with a baby doll prettiness they accentuated with pastels and with clothes really too young for their ages.
"Hi, Spring. Hi, Amber." Clare nodded a silent message to Marlene to carry on rearranging a display case Clare had been working on. She was the exhibit these two had come to see.
"I can"t believe we"ve never been in your store before, it"s so darling!" Spring cooed.
"I"ve been meaning to come in," Amber simpered, "but I"m always on a diet. Got to keep my girlish figure."
"You both look nineteen," Clare dutifully responded.
"So do you!" Amber cried. "I don"t think I"ve ever seen you looking so good, Clare."
"Thanks." Clare couldn"t help smiling. She knew it was true. Happiness was making her glow.
"I think I"ll have some of those chocolate truffles." Spring pointed, then shrieked. "Oooh! I didn"t realize they were so expensive! Well, just give me one."
"Would you like it in a box?" Clare asked.
Spring glanced at Clare to see if she was being snide. "No. No, I"ll just eat it here." She paid for the candy, then nibbled on it as she looked around the shop.
"I"ll take some of the chocolate blueberries," Amber decided. As Clare exchanged the pretty polka-dot bag for Amber"s money, Amber said, casually, "So, rumor has it that you and Jesse have broken off."
"Rumor"s right," Clare admitted with a smile.
The two women swarmed up to Clare. Spring asked, "And you"re dating Adam Laney?"
"I am."
"Ooh, he"s really buff," Amber said. "Lucky you." She tilted her head, trying to look innocent. "But what about Jesse?"
Clare knew what they wanted. They were like persistent rats who would nibble nibble nibble at her until she broke open and spilled the news. "I think Jesse"s dating Lexi. You know her new shop is just next door. You should check it out. Moon Sh.e.l.l Beach. It"s fabulous."
That threw them off kilter. She could see the cogs turning: Would Clare recommend Lexi"s shop if Lexi had stolen Jesse from her? Were Clare and Lexi still friends? Who had left whom, Jesse for Lexi or Clare for Adam? Spring and Amber were practically drooling, and it wasn"t over the chocolates. She really couldn"t blame them. Well, she was so happy these days she seemed to look at everything with a forgiving eye.
"So, you, um, you see a lot of Lexi?" Spring couldn"t quite get up the nerve to ask if Clare was mad at Lexi for being with Jesse, if Jesse in fact was with Lexi.
"Hard not to," Clare responded ambiguously, "when our shops are right next door. Really, you should see the clothing she"s got in there. It"s from heaven."
"Oh, okay..." Spring and Amber fluttered their fingers at Clare and left.
Clare could hear them entering Moon Sh.e.l.l Beach. The exact words were m.u.f.fled, muted by the wall between, but their inane giggles came through. Oksana"s sultry tones floated through in reply. Clare wondered vaguely where Lexi was.
Sometimes during a lull in business, Clare went outside to gaze at the water and catch her breath, and she would hear Lexi and Oksana talking, Lexi"s familiar voice murmuring, Oksana answering in her low tones, and then laughter would ride out into the air like music. Clare would feel jealous, and curious. What were they laughing about? She was fond of Marlene, who was a great worker, but who never had the sense of style or the sense of humor Lexi had.
Occasionally, on a rainy day, she caught sight of Jesse ambling down the wharf. He"d duck into Moon Sh.e.l.l Beach, and Oksana would cry, "Don"t drip on the merchandise!" in her s.e.xy dominatrix voice, and soon Clare would hear all three of them laughing together.
The weird thing was that she didn"t miss Jesse as much as she missed Lexi, yet together, they made her feel left out. When she was with Adam, she never thought of Jesse, but alone, or in her shop, she wondered whether her renewed friendship with Lexi could survive if Lexi and Jesse got serious. How would she feel if Lexi purred about Jesse"s lovemaking? How would she feel if Lexi got engaged to Jesse!? What if Jesse married Lexi? But did she want Jesse to break Lexi"s heart?
Bonnie Frost strode into Sweet Hart"s, little Frankie bobbing along in a back carrier.