Authors: Holly Chamberlin
Summer Friends (3 page)
3
Delphine hurried home from the farm that evening, fed Melchior, who seemed happy to see her and then annoyed that she was rushing around and not paying attention to him, changed into clean clothes, and drove out again to the restaurant. She'd had difficulty choosing the place where she would meet her old friend. Or was Maggie really a former friend? More like a virtual stranger now.
Delphine wanted to keep this reunion of sorts away from the prying eyes of her small town; sometimes caring got mixed up with curiosity for its own sake. Of course, it wasn't as if Maggie was likely to be an embarrassment. Quite the opposite. Maggie had done very well for herself (Delphine had checked out her Facebook page and knew) and, to some eyes, was likely to make Delphine look fairly shabby. Anywhere they went there might be people who would remember Maggie and her parents. After all, the Weldon family had rented in Ogunquit for seven or eight years. True, Maggie hadn't been seen in town for a very long time, but someone with a good memory was bound to recognize her. Tall, blond, beautifulâMaggie Weldon had always stood out.
In the end Delphine had decided on the Cape Neddick Lobster Pond on Shore Road. She got to the restaurant first and was seated at a table off by itself a bit, a deuce near one of the many large windows that afforded an unobstructed view of the marsh, now at mid-tide. She was wearing a T-shirt, chinos, and on her feet serviceable sandals from L.L. Bean. The only jewelry she routinely wore was a watchâif that could be considered jewelryâan old, reliable Timex, and, on special occasions, a pair of small gold hoop earrings Jackie had given her for her fortieth birthday. Tonight, it seemed, was a special occasion.
After a few minutes, Delphine noticed a tall, slim, blond woman walk up to the hostess station. Maggie. Suddenly, she felt exposed and vulnerable. She had a mad desire to duck under the table. The hostess pointed in Delphine's direction. Maggie waved and with confident strides walked toward her.
Delphine felt herself begin to sweat. She couldn't remember when she had felt so awkward. Yes, she could. It was when she had first met Harry's children, both now in their early twenties. It was only a few months after she and Harry had started to date. There the awkwardness had been all around, and in an odd way the obvious fact that everyoneâHarry, Delphine, Bob, and Maryâfelt uncomfortable had eased tensions pretty quickly. That had been a bit of a miracle.
Delphine half rose from her chair and at the same time Maggie half bent to give Delphine a hug. The hug became a bump and they separated awkwardly, quickly.
“It's so good to see you,” Maggie said as she took the seat across from Delphine.
“Yes,” Delphine said, her voice sounding odd in her ears. “You too.”
She was a bit disconcerted to see that Maggie was dressed so nicely, in a lime green linen dress and sling-back heels. That was nothing new for Maggie, she had always dressed well, but for the first time in the history of their relationship Delphine felt dowdy in comparison. A short-sleeved T-shirt tucked into belted chinos might be comfortable, but in no way was it an “outfit.” She suddenly remembered that she had first heard that termâ“outfit”âfrom Maggie's glamorous mother. It certainly wasn't a term her own mother, who owned one “church dress” and one pair of “good” shoes, had ever used.
“How was the drive?” she asked Maggie now. It was a requisite question to ask of a vacationer. And it filled what was becoming a long silence.
“Okay,” Maggie said. “Not as bad as it could have been. Though I was surprised by how slowly the traffic moved through Wells. Route One was absolutely mobbed.”
“A lot has changed. The summer population now gets to about twenty thousand, and that's in Ogunquit alone.”
“Well,” Maggie said, smiling brightly, “all those people mean money to the local economy.”
Delphine was about to point out that all those people also meant littered sidewalks and noise pollution, but wisely didn't. The last thing she wanted was an argument. Things were uncomfortable enough. At least, for her. Maggie seemed to be at ease. That was nothing new, either. She had always been the more socially adept, easing the way for Delphine with her creative introductions, her ability to start pleasant conversations, and her skill at getting out of unpleasant ones.
“We should look at the menu,” Delphine blurted.
“Okay.” Maggie picked up her menu and glanced around the large, simply decorated dining room. “This place is so . . . unpretentious,” she said finally. “Unassuming. I like the atmosphere.”
Delphine wondered if Maggie really did like the “atmosphere” or if she was just being polite. Hadn't Maggie always been polite? Delphine thought that she had. So had her parents. Unfailingly polite, well dressed, and socially skilled.
“Well, it's quiet, generally,” she said in reply. “At this hour at least, once the families from the camp across the road have had their dinner. And the food is good. Nothing fancy, but good. Actually, we supply some of their tomatoes. Crandall Farm, I mean. And some lettuces.” Delphine lifted the dimestore reading glasses that hung on a cord around her neck and put them on her nose. “You're not wearing glasses,” she noted.
“I'm wearing bifocal contacts these days,” Maggie explained. “When I'm not wearing bifocal glasses. Glasses are so outrageously expensive, but I have such a weak spot for funky frames. Maybe it's because of those early years of having to wear ugly glasses. And then the eighties! What a nightmare! Frames that practically hung down to your chin. Ugh.”
Delphine couldn't help but smile. Robert Evans, she remembered, had had perfect vision back when she had known him. He used to tease Maggie, albeit good-naturedly, about her thick lenses and ponderous frames. Delphine had seen him on television not too long ago and he had been wearing a pair of unobtrusive metal frames. Other than the glasses she thought he had looked almost entirely unchanged. She wondered what he would think if he saw her now, a forty-nine-year-old woman who looked decidedly different from the way she had looked when she was twenty-one. She pushed the thought away.
Maggie looked up from her menu. “You know,” she said, “on the drive up here I realized we haven't seen each other since my wedding.”
“Has it been that long?” Delphine said. She knew exactly how long it had been, but she didn't know what else to say. This was a startlingly new situation for her, sitting across the table from someone who had once meant so much to her. The only other person she had loved and lostâif “lost” was the right word, given the fact that in each case she had been the one to walk awayâwas Robert. And there had never been a chance of their meeting again. She had seen to that.
“Twenty-four years exactly, this fall. It's hard to believe.”
“Yes,” Delphine said. It was, actually, kind of hard to believe so much time had gone by since Maggie's wedding. A wedding to which Delphine almost hadn't gone. She had waited to accept the invitation until Maggie assured her that Robert would be on an assignment somewhere in another part of the world. She forgot where. But she had always wondered why Maggie had invited him in the first place. Had she thought, maybe, that Robert and Delphine would reunite, lulled into reconciliation by the sentimentality of a big, traditional wedding? She supposed that she could have asked Maggieâshe could ask her right nowâwhy Robert had been invited. But Robert Evans was no longer relevant. The only reason he kept popping into her head these past few days was because of his association with Maggie. That had to be the reason.
A waiter came by, a local boy Delphine knew by sightâshe thought he was in her niece Lori's class at the high schoolâand they ordered food, a lobster salad and a glass of wine for Maggie and fish and chips and a beer for Delphine.
“Tell me about your family,” Maggie said, when the waiter had gone off. “I hope everyone is well. How's your brother?”
“Joey's good,” Delphine said. “He's got a small-appliance repair shop in South Berwick.” Maggie had had a brief crush on Delphine's brother one long-ago summer. He had been a big, handsome boy, then a robust young man, and now, in his early fifties, Delphine thought that he was still attractive in a slightly worn, grey-haired, burly kind of way. She wondered if Maggie would agree.
“Is he still married toâCybel, is it?”
“Oh, yes,” Delphine said. “Cybel works in a day-care center in Wells. Their son, Norman, is twenty-three now. He's married and lives in South Berwick. His wife is expecting a baby around Christmas. And I guess you wouldn't know about Kitty, Cybel and Joey's daughter.”
Maggie shook her head. “No.”
Delphine smiled. “She was a âsurprise child.' Kitty's eight years old. And needless to say, she's the apple of everyone's eye, especially her father's. And, well, of mine, too.”
“I would think so! And do you have children?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Maggie said. “So it must be extranice for you having a little girl around.”
Delphine didn't reply and Maggie wondered if she had said something she shouldn't have. She was rarely rude or inappropriate, but suddenly she felt that she might have been both.
The young waiter brought their food just then. When he had gone, they ate in silence for a few minutes. Delphine was hungry and happy not to talk. Maggie picked at her salad and wondered when Delphine would look up from her plate.
“How's Jackie?” she asked finally, tired of waiting. “I remember her as being so popular when we were growing up.”
“She still is popular,” Delphine answered, wiping her mouth with her napkin. “Everyone likes Jackie, even her own teenage children. And Jackie pretty much likes everyone, too. Even tourists.” It was true. Most locals toleratedâand sometimes welcomedâtourists for the business they brought. Jackie seemed to like most visitors as actual people. “She works the farm with me, though she's much more of the hands-on, in-the-fields person. And she's directly in charge of our summer workers.”
“Wow,” Maggie said, eyebrows rising. “But she went to college, didn't she? Somewhere in South Portland?”
Delphine bristled. What did Jackie's education have to do with her involvement with the family farm? Of course. No one with a formal education, even one from a two-year community college, was supposed to get her hands dirty with manual labor. It amazed her that so many people really didn't understand how much intelligence and learning it took to farm successfully. And then there was intuition, a feel for the work. That, too, was important. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “She went to college.” That would be the end of it.
“Is she still married?” Maggie asked.
“The Crandalls don't do divorce. Not that there's any reason for Jackie and Dave Senior to be divorced. He owns a small contracting business. Norman works for him, actually. And Dave Junior, he's seventeen, he'll probably join the business when he gets out of high school. Lori, she's fifteen, she works at the farm with me after school, on weekends, and during the summers. I'm training her to take over someday, but that will be a long time coming.”
“Wow,” Maggie said again. “The Crandalls are quite the . . . enterprise.”
“There's nothing new about that,” Delphine said, unable to tell if Maggie had meant something critical by her remark.
“I guess I just never realized how . . .”
“Realized how what?”
Maggie shrugged, smiled. “Nothing. So, tell me about your parents? I hope they're well.”
“My mother is good,” Delphine said. “She's still doing the baking for the diner, taking care of the house, helping out with her grandchildren. And my father is good, too. The diner is almost always packed, so he keeps pretty busy with that. Neither has much to do with the farm anymore, since Jackie and I pretty much run everything. But they chime in on any major decisions. We all do, Joey, Cybel, Dave Senior. Like you said, we're an enterprise, a team.”
“I have some fond memories of that diner,” Maggie said. “There was that one really nice waitress, I can't remember her name. She had an old-fashioned beehive hairdo. It was almost Day-Glo orange. I had a yo-yo that same color. She used to sneak us cookies.”
“Veronique,” Delphine said. “She's actually a distant cousin of my mother's. Well, she was a distant cousin. She died a while ago.”
“Oh, that's too bad. You know, I'd love to visit the diner while I'm in town. Maybe we could have lunch there one day.”
Delphine hesitated. She never ate at the diner as a customer. To do so now, after so many years of working behind the counter, would feel somehow inappropriate. She couldn't allow her father's employees to serve her, a sometime colleague. “We're very busy in the summer,” she said.
“But that's good, isn't it? I mean, busy means money coming in.”
“Yes. Well, what about your parents?” Delphine remembered Mr. and Mrs. Weldon as a glamorous couple, especially compared to her own parents. Mrs. Weldon always wore a skirt or a dress, never pants, and often wore heels, even when sneakers would have been more practical. Her husband always wore a jacket when they went out in the evenings, no matter the heat. They had been good to her, generous and supportive, especially when it had come time to apply for college. Walter and . . . It took Delphine a moment to remember. Dorothy.
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