At Wave's End: A Novel Read online

  “Right. Hilarious. Connie Sterling duped again. No, thanks.” She tossed the magazine into Faith’s lap, then opened the car door.

  “Mom, wait! Where are you going?” Faith scrambled to catch up with Connie, who strode resolutely toward the inn. Meanwhile, the woman who had waved at them from the sidewalk had disappeared.

  Grimly, Faith stood beside her mother, surveying the property. Up close, the wall of trees hid more than The Mermaid’s Purse; it also camouflaged the inn’s sorry state of disrepair. The shingles on the two-story clapboard building had faded to sea foam, its claret shutters sorely in need of stripping. On either side, overgrown oaks scraped the bed-and-breakfast, begging to be trimmed. And with no front yard to speak of, the inn’s nominal front porch, crowded with only two wicker rockers, all but butted up against the busy county road.

  Silently, mother and daughter crossed the narrow strip of lawn and climbed rickety steps to the porch, whose floorboards protested under their weight. At the front door, Faith took off her sunglasses and squinted at a wrought-iron mailbox. From its curled and rusted newspaper rack hung a rough, black, pillow-shaped object with hornlike hooks protruding from its corners.

  Faith’s mother caressed one of the appendages. “Wow. Here it is. A mermaid’s purse. This place is named for it.”

  “How do you know that?” Overhead, the porch-light globe housed a summer’s worth of beetle carcasses.

  “I looked it up for my essay. Thought it might increase my chances of winning.”

  “Guess it paid off.”

  “No need to be sarcastic.” Connie pressed the buzzer, jumping at its shrillness.

  “Hello-o-o-o!”

  Faith and her mother turned to find the woman from the sidewalk grinning at them from the inn lawn. “I’d all but given up on you.” She took the porch steps two at a time, a feat for someone Faith judged to be somewhere between seventy and eighty years old.

  “I’m Maeve. Maeve Calhoun,” she said, extending her hand. “Proud proprietor. For a bit longer, that is. But of course that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Studying their faces, Maeve tapped her lips with her index finger for a few seconds before pointing at Connie. “It’s you. You’re my winner.”

  Connie smiled broadly. “Why, yes I am. How did you know?”

  “My gut. You look as spunky as your letter.”

  Way to lay it on. Faith held out her hand. “I’m Faith, Connie’s daughter.”

  “Lovely to meet you.” Maeve linked her arm in Connie’s. “Are you ready for the grand tour of your new bed-and-breakfast, Connie Sterling?”

  Beaming, Faith’s mother nodded as Maeve reached for the front door.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Calhoun,” Faith said. “My mother and I have a couple of questions before we start. There are a few things that don’t make sense.”

  “Now, Faith,” Connie chided, “there’s no harm in letting Maeve show us around the place. After all, we did drive all the way down here.”

  “For some fantasy in a magazine.”

  Maeve patted Connie’s arm. “Oh, dear. You must be referring to those photos. I may have been a little younger in those days, but my goodness, young people do it all the time with computer dating, don’t they? Put their best face forward?”

  Privately, Faith agreed, having encountered frequent credibility gaps herself in that milieu.

  “I’ll admit it,” continued Maeve. “I’m a bit vain.”

  “Vanity is one thing,” Faith said. “But misrepresenting the condition of this place, leading people to believe the inn sat on the water—”

  “I never said that. The beach photos simply demonstrated the beauty of the area.” Maeve patted the porch railing. “And it’s true this old girl has aged a bit, but it’s nothing a little tender loving care won’t take care of.”

  “Yes, but there’s a price tag attached to that TLC,” said Faith. “Let’s be honest here, Ms. Calhoun. You should have clarified a few things in your contest.”

  Frowning, Connie detached herself from Maeve. “Excuse us a moment,” she said, pulling Faith to the far end of the porch. “My God,” she whispered when they were out of Maeve’s earshot. “Will you stop berating that poor woman?”

  “I can’t help it.” Faith glared over her mother’s shoulder at Maeve. “She took advantage of you.”

  “That’s a bit harsh. Nobody forced me to write that essay. And since we’re here, let’s at least take the tour. Maybe she’ll give us a free night.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Just promise me you won’t say a word. We’ll talk after.”

  “You swear?”

  “Moon and stars.”

  “Perfect. Very reassuring.” Sighing, Faith walked back to the innkeeper, who now sat in a rocking chair. “You seem like a lovely person, Maeve. But all I see so far is one gigantic money pit. Money my mother doesn’t have. And we haven’t even gone inside yet.” Faith yelled the last few words to make herself heard over a quartet of Harleys roaring by at that moment.

  “You’re a wonderful daughter to be so concerned.” Maeve got out of her rocker. “I promise you: once you’ve seen The Mermaid’s Purse inside and out, you’ll fall in love with her, just as I did.” She clasped her hands to her heart. “And afterward, if you truly feel the place isn’t for you, well, then, I guess I’ll have to move on to the runner-up. Whose essay didn’t hold a candle to yours, Connie, I have to tell you.”

  Connie nudged Faith. “Did you hear that?”

  Faith rolled her eyes.

  “No pressure, I promise.” Maeve smiled sweetly. “Shall we go?”

  No pressure, my foot. This woman knows exactly what she’s doing. Feeling something soft at her ankle, Faith looked down at an overfed pewter Persian winding itself around her leg, fixing her with a copper stare.

  “See, even Pixie wants you to stay,” Maeve laughed. “She’s our little mascot. Been with me since I took the reins of this place twenty-five years ago.”

  Faith crouched to stroke the cat, which snarled in response.

  “Don’t feel bad. Pixie just has to get to know you.” Maeve knelt and scooped up the cat. Meowing in protest, Pixie leaped from her owner’s arms and skittered down the steps, where she disappeared beneath the porch.

  “She’ll grow on you,” Maeve continued. “Just like this inn will. Now, right this way, please.”

  About to follow Maeve inside, Faith was startled by a male voice booming from behind.

  “Excuse me. May I have a moment, ladies?”

  Faith turned and found herself staring down the barrel of a camera lens.

  “Say cheese, please! We’ve got to capture this historic moment for posterity!”

  Before Faith or Connie could protest, the man’s camera exploded in a succession of blinding flashes.

  10

  “Why, Bruce Neery. You nearly gave us a heart attack. Please don’t run that one of me in my apron.” Maeve untied her smock and laid it on a rocker. “Bruce owns the Beacon, our local paper,” she explained. “When he got wind of our winner’s visit today, he wanted to take a few pictures.”

  “Doing a photo essay on Wave’s End’s newest business owner,” explained the burly journalist with thinning, slicked-back gray hair. He pulled a smaller lens from a pocket of his khaki vest and swapped it out with the longer lens.

  “It’s a little premature for that,” Faith protested, even as her mother preened alongside her. Connie could never resist a camera.

  “Of course it isn’t. I want to capture your first impressions. So who’s the lucky winner?” After putting on a pair of glasses, he produced a notebook from a back pocket.

  “That would be me.” Ignoring Faith’s elbow in her side, Connie spelled her last name as he scribbled. “That’s right. Sterling. And this is my daughter, Faith. She’s a chef in New York.”

  “Is that right? Hope you’re not planning to mess with Maeve’s scones,” he chuckled. “They’re perfection.”

  “Wouldn�
��t think of it,” said Faith. “Anyway, I won’t be here.”

  “Oh, you will. You won’t be able to resist Wave’s End.” He flipped his notebook closed. “Done for now. I’ll stop back later for the rest of the story.”

  “Sorry about that,” Maeve said once Bruce had gone. “It’s a small town. News travels fast.”

  As fast as Maeve could alert the newspaper to their arrival, Faith thought, following her into the front hall’s half darkness. There was something off about the reporter’s appearance, Faith thought, wrinkling her nose—as off as the inn’s mildewed air that even Maeve’s strategically placed room fresheners failed to mask.

  “This salon is our common area. Guests love to sit in here and read after the beach,” Maeve said, leading them into a long, dark living room. Heavy velour sofas faced a stone hearth, and sickly philodendrons hung from macramé hangers. A thick armoire housed a dated television set, and a pile of well-worn women’s magazines sat on a coffee table. Faith glanced at the top one, the previous year’s Christmas issue. When she pointed this out to her mother behind Maeve’s back, Connie only frowned and shook her head.

  Next came the dining room, which echoed the salon’s dated décor. A half-dozen rattan tables for two or four were set with plastic lace tablecloths and bud vases of tired-looking silk daffodils. “Over there is where we put out our meals.” Beneath a bow window, a trestle table had been laid with a Bundt cake under a glass dome and a sweating decanter of ice tea.

  “Looks very inviting,” observed Connie.

  “We do our best to make our guests feel at home.” Crossing her arms, Maeve looked out the window. “Not like that fussy new hotel by the water. Imagine, expecting guests to dress for dinner at the beach!”

  “Hasn’t she ever heard of the Hamptons?” Faith whispered behind Maeve’s back, to which Connie twisted an imaginary key at the corner of her mouth.

  Ignoring her, Faith asked to see the kitchen.

  “Straight through there, my dear.”

  Faith walked through the swinging door Maeve held open for them, and for the first time since arriving at the inn, she perked up. Despite its outdated appliances and badly chinked porcelain farm sink, the sun-soaked, airy kitchen was a chef’s haven, with broad, spare counters uncluttered save for a stand-up mixer and ceramic canisters labeled Flour, Sugar, Coffee and Tea. Its creamy vanilla walls offered a reprieve from the inn’s ubiquitous floral wallpaper, and a weathered farm table occupied the heart of the room. “My work table.” Maeve slapped its worn top. “Don’t know how many scones I’ve rolled out here over the years. Must be a hundred thousand by now.”

  Faith ran her hand over the wood’s pocked history. “It’s beautiful.”

  “My mother’s. It came with her from Ireland. She left it for me, along with her scone recipe. Reminds me of her every day. You’re lucky you still have yours.”

  Before Faith could respond, Maeve held open the swinging door again.

  “Next stop is the upstairs.”

  Back in the front hall, the pair followed Maeve up a grand staircase whose faded floral carpet was threadbare in spots.

  At the top, Faith peered over the banister at the lower level, taking in the building’s Victorian details: decorative trim, broad bay windows, asymmetrical room shapes. For all its disrepair, the bones of the inn were lovely. Someone with the right vision and an unlimited budget could work magic. Unfortunately, that person wasn’t her mother.

  Moving on to the guest accommodations, Maeve opened a door into the room captioned “Shabby Chic” on the contest website. In reality, worn-out furniture overpowered this tiny chamber, which reeked of mothballs and offered barely enough space to walk around the tarnished brass bed, neatly made with a clean but faded spread.

  “Very nice,” Connie managed, following Maeve and Faith into the tiny fuchsia en suite bathroom, its stall shower so narrow an average man would have difficulty lifting his arms overhead.

  They’d find another suite like this one down the hall, Maeve said. (Faith raised an eyebrow at the word suite.) Additionally, there were two single and two double rooms that all shared a large bath with a tub—six rooms in total, Faith tallied. That was a lot of people sharing one bathroom.

  “No shower?” Connie asked a moment later when they gathered around the original cast-iron claw-foot tub.

  “Of course there is.” Leaning into the tub, Maeve produced a coiled rubber attachment connected to the faucet. “This does the job nicely. And being at the shore, guests prefer the outside shower. There’s nothing like rinsing off under a blue sky.” Maeve promised to show them that feature later in the tour.

  Faith had had enough. Leaving Maeve and Connie to debate the merits of baths versus showers, she wandered downstairs and back outside. Following a brick walkway that wrapped around the inn, she soon encountered the touted exterior shower. Its spring door hid a vinyl shower curtain hemmed with mold, and a plastic caddy containing a splintered bar of soap and half a bottle of shampoo whose label the sun had faded white.

  Unimpressed, Faith let the door fall shut, then jumped at the sound of hammering overhead. She headed to the backyard to investigate, where she found a ladder leaning against the inn and a man atop it, his back to her as he wrangled a large sheet of plywood.

  “Do you need a hand?” she called.

  “No, thanks.” When he turned to answer, Faith took a step back, surprised to see Bruce Neery again, his mouth full of nails, and a leather tool belt over his photographer’s vest.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Taking some precautions in case the storm hits us.” He centered the wood over a back window and nailed it in place. “This should keep Nadine from blowing the windows out.”

  “Do you really think she’ll hit here?” Faith scanned the cloudless sky for signs of disturbance.

  “You know, I’m not usually an alarmist.” He descended the ladder to grab another sheet of plywood from the stack on the ground. “But they say this one’s going to be the big one. I keep telling Maeve she should prepare, even if it is still a few days out. And your mother, too, if she’s going to be here.”

  “Oh, no. She won’t be stay—”

  At that, the back porch screen door slapped open. “Don’t pay any attention to Bruce.” Maeve strode toward them, with Connie following. “Those forecasters got us all riled up last time with Irene. Made every last soul evacuate. And for nothing.”

  “Maybe around here, but it didn’t turn out to be nothing for all those New Englanders when their homes slid off a mountain.” Bruce ascended the ladder again, plywood balanced on his shoulder. “I counted, Maeve. We’ll need six more sheets for the front windows. I’ll stop by the lumberyard today, before they sell out. Is your credit card in the usual spot?”

  “All right, Bruce. Whatever you say. And yes, it is.” Her back turned, the innkeeper rolled her eyes.

  “You’ll thank me in a few days.” Bruce resumed his hammering on the second-story window.

  “Maybe you should listen to him,” Faith said.

  “Bruce is a good man, but a bit of a worrywart. The storm is days away. It’ll probably blow out to sea like always. But I’ll let him do his thing, as long as he promises to come back and take down every last one of those boards.”

  “May I ask why the newspaperman is working on your inn?” Connie asked.

  And why he knows where to find your credit card? Faith wanted to add, but didn’t.

  “You know how it is in a small town. We take care of one another. And he says the physical labor helps him think through his stories.”

  That part, at least, made sense to Faith. Inspiration in the form of new recipes and platings often struck during the most elemental of tasks, as she chopped and diced in her stainless alcove at Piquant.

  Maeve scraped at some peeling paint on a windowsill with her thumbnail. “I wish he came around more to putter. There’s always something needing doing around here.”

  That’s for sure,
Faith thought, taking another look at the roof. Maybe Bruce should consider replacing a few shingles while he was up there.

  “And to tell you the truth”—Maeve lowered her voice conspiratorially—“ever since his wife passed a few years ago, I think he likes to keep busy.”

  “Does he?” Tucking her hair behind her ears, Connie glanced coquettishly over her shoulder in Bruce’s direction, like a cat sizing up its prey.

  Please let’s not go down this road again. Faith threw her head back in despair. For as long as she could remember, Connie had chosen men the way she settled on sweepstakes: with reckless abandon, falling fast and hard. She encouraged almost any man who showed her the slightest interest, exposing her daughter to a string of questionable relationships that soured Faith on the idea of romance.

  Always, it fell to Faith to point out the obvious flaw, the gigantic, flapping red flag her mother failed to spot: the man’s spotty work schedule, his suspicious unavailability most weekends and holidays, a disturbing fondness for alcohol or horses or another troublesome habit.

  When each relationship went south, Connie would find herself out a paycheck or Faith’s tuition payment or, in one unsettling case, her car. Single again, she would fall into a sulky silence, as though blaming Faith for her serial attraction to the wrong men.

  Faith glanced at her watch. If she had any say about it, Bruce Neery would not become her mother’s next distraction. “It’s getting late, Mom. We should get on the road. Don’t forget I’ve got work tonight.” Assuming her mother would stay with her, Faith had planned to sleep on the couch.

  Maeve and Connie exchanged looks.

  “Maeve’s had the best idea, Faith,” Connie said. “She wants me to stay the week. Shadow her and learn the ropes.”

  Faith could appreciate an apprenticeship; she’d learned her way around a series of New York kitchens under that sort of tutelage before following Xander to Piquant. But what ropes could Connie navigate when there didn’t appear to be anyone staying at the inn?

  So far, their enthusiastic tour guide had glossed over the reality that The Mermaid’s Purse was in fact empty.