“Were you robbed?” Angie asked.
Hayes nodded.
“What did they take?”
“Everything,” he said.
“So… money, license, credit cards?”
Hayes nodded.
“I can’t believe this,” Angie said. “Have we not been through enough?” She gazed up at the ceiling, where she spied a gray watermark that sort of resembled an octopus. That would be the next thing: the roof would cave in. Hayes looked physically the way Angie felt emotionally. Joel Tersigni had mugged her; he had stolen her heart, her good faith, her confidence.
“Angie,” Hayes said. She could tell he was in pain. “It’s okay. I brought it on myself.”
“Brought it on yourself how?” Angie asked. “Nobody deserves to be robbed and beaten, Hayes.”
Hayes closed his eyes, and Angie felt sorry for yelling. Something was going on with him, but he didn’t want to tell her what it was. Could she blame him? She didn’t exactly feel like explaining how she had started an affair with a married man and had ended up a crash test dummy.
She eyed the prescription bottle. “Do you need a painkiller?”
He held up a hand. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
He nodded.
“What can I do?” she asked. “Anything to make you feel better?”
He rolled his head so that he was looking at her with his uncovered eye, which was shot through with red veins. He looked like Halloween on a bad acid trip. “You can make Dad’s chowder,” he said.
Angie had to admit: it was a relief to get out of the house, light a cigarette, and climb behind the wheel of Deacon’s old pickup, a 1964 Chevy C10, which smelled like cigarettes and Big Red cinnamon gum.
Angie tried not to think about sitting in the passenger seat of Joel’s Lexus. She tried not to think of his hands resting on the top of the steering wheel, or of the way he played “Colder Weather” every time he took her home. She backed out of the driveway and took off down the road.
She had gone through the drill with Deacon each summer—Sandole’s for seafood and Bartlett’s Farm for produce in the morning, and Sconset Market in the afternoon, their arrival timed for the exact moment when Sally, the baker, was pulling the first batch of baguettes from the oven. Last year, Deacon had discovered a new wine-and-cheese shop on Old South Wharf called Table No. 1, where he’d found both the Pagemaster, which were little buttons of goat-cheese goodness bathed in chocolate whiskey, and Pipe Dreams bouche, the ultimate goat cheese, so they added that stop to the lineup.
Sandole’s would be first, at 167 Hummock Pond Road. Angie hit the gas. She was going to enjoy this, she told herself, even though her heart had split in half like a shell or a nut, one half of it containing grief and the other half rejection. She thought about what JP had told her about his girlfriend—pregnant, then not pregnant, then leaving JP for his best friend, Tommy A. Things changed that way, often without warning. Six weeks earlier, Angie had been working as the fire chief at the restaurant, basically a content and busy person, although with a question mark about Joel’s greater role in her life and a persistent desire to find new ways to impress her father. Now, her life was something she needed to survive.
Angie turned on the truck’s radio. The Clash was singing “Train in Vain.” Angie was so overcome, she had to pull over. What were the chances that the first song she would hear while driving Deacon’s pickup would be that song?
The lines had been tattooed on Deacon’s biceps.
Did you stand by me? No, not at all.
Angie started to cry. Deacon had adored the Clash—this song was his favorite, “Lost in the Supermarket” his runner-up. And because Deacon had loved them, Angie had loved them. That was how it worked, Deacon once told her. First you love the music that your parents love—and then, later in life, you love the songs your kids love.
Angie closed her eyes and listened until the song was over. It must be a sign, she thought. Deacon was here with her. She looked over at the passenger seat—empty, but maybe not. She wiped at her eyes, checked the road behind her, and took off. She hoped she wasn’t the only person in the world ever to believe the car radio was trying to tell her something.
A bell jingled when Angie walked into the simple shack that was the fish market. A sign above the refrigerated cases read, Anyone who asks if the fish is fresh has to go to the end of the line. Angie gazed longingly at the thick, meaty swordfish steaks, the ruby-red tuna, the jumbo shrimp, the delicate cod fillets, the pile of cherrystone clams, the black, glossy shells of the mussels. There were cartons of smoked bluefish pâté and homemade guacamole; there were marinades, sauces, rubs, and compound butters.
The girl behind the counter smiled at Angie, revealing deep dimples. Angie remembered this girl, but she hoped the girl didn’t recognize her. Angie had always loved coming back to Nantucket summer after summer and being remembered by people just like this. Hey, you’re back! How was your winter? But, under the circumstances, such a conversation would be nearly unbearable. If Bill Sandole himself had come out to the front, there would have been hugs and tears and I’m sorry for your loss—all of which Angie wanted to avoid.
She was relieved when the girl simply asked, “What can I get you?”
“Everything,” Angie said.
She walked out of the fish market with three dozen cherrystones, two dozen mussels, a pound of pearly-white sea scallops that the dimpled girl assured her had been sitting on the ocean floor the day before, and four bottles of clam juice. And a container of smoked bluefish pâté, because Angie couldn’t resist.
Next, it was off to the market at Bartlett’s Ocean View Farm, set amidst patchwork fields of corn and a particularly winsome field of flowers—gladiolas, cosmos, snapdragons, sunflowers, lilies. Angie slowed the truck down and feasted her eyes on the colors. She wanted to lie down in between the rows and never get up.
Inside the market, Angie was greeted by tall, galvanized buckets filled with cut flowers and an old tractor bed that had been repurposed as a table and now supported tall stacks of homemade pies—peach, blueberry, fruit of the forest. There was a refrigerator case filled with fresh salads, fried chicken, and one-serving portions of chocolate mousse and tiramisu. Angie wandered over to the produce. There were heads of romaine, chicory, radicchio, endive, and trays of herbs—basil, dill, mint—that filled the air with their fragrance. Angie chose dill, chives, parsley, and three heads of tender butter lettuce. She selected a bulb of garlic and two sweet onions.
At the Board Room, night after night, Deacon and Angie had dutifully marched out to the dining room to greet VIPs and to congratulate the people who were celebrating—college graduations, fiftieth birthdays, twenty-fifth anniversaries, retirements, engagements, a new baby, a first grandchild, a promotion, a book deal, a bon voyage. But one night, Joel had come into the kitchen and said to Angie, “There’s a woman in the dining room with her daughter. The daughter said this is her mother’s first meal out since her husband of fifty-two years died. She was wondering if you and Deacon would come out and say hello.”
Deacon and Angie had met the woman, a well-heeled, silver-haired woman of about eighty who wore a raspberry-colored dress and a pearl brooch. Both Deacon and Angie had embraced her. A few tears were shed by the woman, Rosemary, and her daughter, Kendall, who explained that Martin, the husband and father, had died three months earlier of congestive heart failure, and for his wife, dark times had followed. But then, about a week earlier, Rosemary had woken up and decided that she was ready to eat a fine meal. She had wanted dinner at the Board Room. It marked her return to the world of the living, she said.
Deacon had kissed Rosemary’s cheek and said, “Welcome back.”
Angie remembered thinking how good it had felt to know she was cooking not only for people in their high moments but also for people who were trying to climb out of their low moments.
That was what Angie would do tonight.
Wikipedia: Belinda Rowe, Actress
Early Life: Belinda Marjorie Rowe was born on September 30, 1964, in Iowa City, Iowa, to parents Calvin and Anne Rowe. Calvin Rowe was a pilot for the United States Post Office, and Anne was a homemaker. Belinda attended Iowa City High School, where she was a cheerleader and held a part-time job at Pearson’s Drug Store on Linn Street.