Newport Harbor House Read online

  As Daisy tired of her current game and raced up the beach toward another dog, Jen had no choice but to follow along. Daisy was stronger than she looked, and Jen held her big, floppy hat on tightly as they raced up the beach.

  Chapter Five

  Carrie tucked the bottle of wine under her arm and headed down the beach. She started on the boardwalk, and felt around the brim of her hat, making sure that no skin was left exposed. She peered up at the sun—it was early afternoon, but the hottest part of the day. No sense risking a sunburn.

  Even though Jen’s house was only a few down the row, Carrie gravitated toward the waves, preferring to walk on the sand whenever she could. And it was always best to take advantage of a slightly empty beach—it would soon be covered with people and getting to the rippling tide would be a bit of a challenge.

  She waved at people she knew as she walked. Having grown up not too much further down the beach, in her parents' massive house that overlooked both the beach and the harbor, she always saw familiar people on her walks. But she stopped short as a man close to her age approached, his head down as he studied the sand beneath his bare feet.

  As they came closer together and she realized who he was, she knew she’d have to say something. She hadn’t seen Joe Russo in years. Maybe even a decade or two. But his dark brown, wavy hair and his tall, thin line were unmistakable, even at a distance. She’d heard that he and his wife had divorced—the bridge club her mother had belonged to for almost fifty years made sure everyone heard. Something quite a while back, but she couldn’t quite remember. He and his wife had moved away from Newport years ago, after Jen’s husband Allen died, and she hadn’t seen him since. She also knew—just in general, not from the bridge club—that his father had passed about a year prior, so she wasn’t all that surprised to see him back. His father had run the biggest gondola company in Newport, and even the bridge club had been atwitter about who would run it. Or if they would sell.

  “Hi, Joe,” was all she could come up with. Carrie’s mother could talk to anyone, anywhere, and make them feel like they were the only person in the world. She, on the other hand, had never been very good at awkward conversations.

  Joe stopped and dug his toes a little deeper in the wet sand as he looked up, cocked his head and seemed to be trying to get his bearings.

  “Carrie. Carrie Westland,” she offered, hoping to jog his memory. Maybe his memory was as bad as Carrie’s seemed to be getting these days.

  He nodded, and a slow smile spread across his face. Carrie had always liked him, and was forever grateful that he and his wife had been so kind and helpful when Jen’s husband had had his tragic accident. It would have been much harder—which was difficult to even imagine—without them.

  He dropped the shells he’d been collecting in his pants pocket and quickly wiped the sand off before extending his hand.

  “Hello, Carrie. So very nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

  “It sure has. I can’t even remember when—I mean, it really has been a long time.” She wasn’t even sure if she should ask how he’d been, his dad dying and all. She knew her mother would be cringing at her lack of manners if she were there, so she was grateful her mother was far, far away. She really wanted to tell him he should be wearing a hat, but it probably wasn’t a good idea. “And it’s nice to see you, too. I’m sorry about your dad.”

  His eyebrows rose, and his brown eyes clouded for a moment. He nodded again and looked out over the waves, his hand shielding his eyes. “Thank you. I miss him.”

  “I’m sure. He was a great guy. Everybody in Newport misses him.” They stood silent for a moment, and Carrie wasn’t sure what to say. She was again painfully aware that she wasn’t skilled in dealing with awkward conversations as most doctors were, and she knew it. There wasn’t that much bad news to deliver in her dental practice, except when young teenagers found out they’d be wearing braces for months. So she just waited, grateful that he eventually changed the subject.

  “This beach sure is a sight for sore eyes.”

  Carrie looked out over the waves, and a few sailboats dotted the horizon

  “Mm, I bet it is. How long are you here for? You taken out your boat yet?”

  Carrie did remember that Joe and Allen had been a winning sailboat racing team when they were in school together, beating everyone else in the harbor. She’d lost to them once and given up the hobby—too much sun for her, anyway.

  He pulled his gaze away from the boats and looked down at the sand. “No, not yet. I’m sure I’ll get around to it. You still live up the beach?”

  Carrie turned and looked toward her condo, pointing. “Yep, right there.” She actually lived pretty close to Joe’s mom, and assumed that was where he’d been staying. “How long you here for?” she asked again.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “Not sure. For the summer, at least. Kind of re-grouping.”

  Joe’s dog—a beautiful black lab—began to tug, and Joe gripped the leash tighter.

  Carrie smiled and nodded. She looked past Joe, over his shoulder, as a woman with a floppy hat tried to keep up with a very energetic puppy—a cute one who looked like a border collie. The woman kind of looked like Jen, but it couldn’t be. Jen didn’t have a puppy.

  The puppy crashed against the back of Joe, knocking him to his knees. He laughed as the puppy licked his face, her paws on his chest, covering him in flying sand.

  “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry,” the owner said, and Carrie laughed.

  “Hi,” Carrie said as she realized that it was, in fact, her dear friend Jen.

  Jen’s eyes met Carrie’s wide ones, and Carrie cocked her head down toward the man who was laughing while he tried to untangle the two dogs’ leashes. He wasn’t meeting with much success, and Jen leaned in to help him.

  She bent down, unclasping her puppy’s leash. She untangled the two dogs and put the leash back on, taking a few steps back and finally wrangling her puppy closer to her. The dog’s tongue lolled to one side and her tail beat the sand, but she sat at Jen’s feet.

  “That’s the first time I’ve gotten her to sit,” Jen said as she wiped her brow. She smiled at Carrie, who again tilted her head toward the man. He knocked some of the sand from his dog while petting her, and finally got to his feet.

  Jen looked at her questioningly, and Carrie had never wanted to be telepathic more than now to let Jen know who she’d just knocked over. She knew it would be a big surprise since they hadn’t seen each other for years. Jen finally followed Carrie’s gaze and began to apologize, and as Joe looked up at the same time, they stood stock still, staring at each other.

  Joe was frozen in place, and his feet wouldn’t move an inch. He knew he should hug Jen, say hello, catch up, but he just couldn’t. At least not more than a brief nod.

  When he’d run into Carrie, he should have expected that Jen would be nearby. It was summer, and they were best friends, after all. But when he looked up from Boris after his wrestling match with the border collie, the surprise at seeing her face was overwhelming. He should have been better prepared.

  He finally mustered a muted hello, and he found his voice well enough to thank her for the sympathies she’d given about Claudia’s departure—he supposed everybody knew by now, and he reassured both Jen and Carrie that it had been a mutual decision and as it was years ago, the pain had passed.

  But he hadn’t seen Jen for years, and seeing her now brought back the rush of his best friend Allen’s passing—Jen’s husband.

  After some small talk, and an invitation to dinner which he declined—he explained that he wasn’t quite up to peopling—he managed a smile, waved goodbye and turned up the beach toward his mother’s house.

  He walked past the small dunes in front, up the brick steps and sat on the stoop in front of the white, clapboard house that he’d grown up in. Boris sat by his feet and they both gazed out at the sailboats.

  Memories swirled around him, unbidden. His fathe
r had taught him to sail almost before he could swim, and his love for the wind and water ran deep. His father had taught Allen, too, and they’d become his best crew, even winning some races together. But that was a long time ago. Suddenly, he deeply felt the loss of his father again, and the long-ago loss of his best friend. All over again.

  When Carrie had asked if he’d been out on the boat and he’d said no, he didn’t want to go into much more detail. He’d been out a couple of times with his dad when he visited, but somehow it had felt wrong without Allen—they’d both felt it.

  It had been a tough few years and he’d come home to Newport to rest, help his mom go through his dad’s things, make a decision about the family business, and try to get rid of memories. He hadn’t anticipated—although he probably should have—that coming home wouldn’t get rid of memories. It would only bring them closer.

  Chapter Six

  Jen looked back over her shoulder several times as she, Carrie and Daisy headed south toward the Newport house. Daisy did, too, but for probably a different reason.

  “He looked good,” Carrie said as she, too, looked back at Joe walking north toward his house. Boris was trotting alongside him slowly, and Joe took frequent glances toward the sailboats bobbing past the waves.

  “He did, but oh, those sad eyes. It was like a dagger when I gave my condolences about his dad.”

  Carrie paused for a second. “I remember the same look in your eyes when Allen died. It was a long time ago, but at the same time it feels like it was just last weekend. Things like that don’t fade very quickly,” Carrie said.

  Jen remembered that Carrie had always told her that she looked like that, too. For an entire year after.

  Jen shook off the memory. It was a long time ago, and things were very different now. “Too bad he didn’t want to come over. I do know how he feels, but getting back in the world is the only remedy. Company would be good for him, and I’m sure Daisy would agree about Boris. One thing I learned is that it helps to talk about things. Reminisce. Remember the good stuff.”

  Carrie looked back one more time as Joe sat on the stoop, Boris plopping down beside him.

  “Maybe he’s just not ready yet,” she said as they reached the Newport house.

  The gate of the white picket fence creaked again as Jen scooted Daisy inside and took off her leash. Jen brushed white paint chips from the gate on her now-dirty jeans and leaned back against it, looking up at the house.

  “Ah, home sweet home. You happy to be back for another season?” Carrie asked as she followed Jen’s gaze toward the house.

  Jen shielded her eyes from the sun and looked up at the roof of the loft, the highest story. “Thrilled. But it looks as if home sweet home needs a little TLC. Faith’ll have to tell you how hard it was to even get in here.”

  Carrie stomped sand off her feet before she climbed up the stairs. The wooden, weather-beaten door swung open, and she wrapped Faith in a big hug. It was her favorite time of year, and seeing her friends meant that summer had officially begun.

  “Great to see you,” Faith said. “I can’t believe we’re all together again.”

  Jen and Carrie followed Faith into the kitchen, where Carrie popped the bottle of wine into the freezer.

  “I didn’t know when you’d be back after I saw Daisy pull you up the beach, so I went ahead and made the artichoke dip.”

  Jen opened the oven and inhaled deeply. Artichoke dip was their inauguration tradition—tangy marinated artichoke hearts, parmesan cheese, cream cheese, onions—everything delicious. The creamy dip bubbled and had almost started to brown on the top, and in the sourdough bread bowl, it smelled divine. She couldn’t wait to have some.

  Dust plumed in the streaming sunlight as Jen took a stroll around the bottom floor of the house. Family pictures dotted the wood-paneled walls and her grandmother’s collection of teapots sat on the yellow Formica counters.

  Faith plopped a stack of design magazines on the counter and looked around.

  “It’s too bad they’ve never let you remodel this place. Or redecorate, even. We could do wonders here,” she said, holding up a magazine cover of a remodeled beach house up next to the orange and yellow flowered curtains that had to date back to the ‘70s. Maybe the ’60’s.

  “It really is awful, isn’t it? My mother always said, ‘Why bother when everything is always covered in sand?’ And when the kids were little, it was still that way. Now that they’re all grown up, maybe the others will agree to a little sprucing up here and there.”

  “Just in time for grandchildren to ruin it all,” Carrie chimed in. She checked the bottle of wine and nodded, indicating it was cool enough. “I kind of like it the way it is. Brings back lots of memories. It wouldn’t be the same without the orange and avocado chairs.”

  Jen laughed and fluffed an orange throw pillow with a tree embroidered on it in green yarn. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But we do need to attend to some of the deferred maintenance. We don’t want the whole thing to actually fall down,” she said, picking more white paint from the fence off of her jeans.

  Carrie dropped a handful of bread cubes onto a baking sheet that Faith had handed her.

  “Ah, I see you remember your job,” Jen said. Carrie could barely boil water on her own, but she’d learned over the years how to be a good sous-chef—cutting up things for Jen and Faith to add to their trial recipes.

  “Did Jen tell you that none of the family has booked time this summer?” Faith asked Carrie as she poured their glasses of the crisp Pinot Grigio they’d brought.

  Carrie raised her eyebrows as she turned to Jen. “No, she didn’t. But it’s not exactly like we had time for that. We ran into Joe.”

  Faith had been leaning toward the artichoke dip and stopped in mid-reach. She turned to Jen, her eyebrows arched. “Oh? How was that? We haven’t seen him in—forever.”

  “I think I forgot to tell you that he and Claudia aren’t together anymore. And his dad died. So we pretty much just said we were sorry for him, invited him over tonight, but he said no. And then we came back.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Faith said, sitting slowly on one of the plastic orange bar stools. “I wish he would come. I’d love to see him. It’s been a long time.”

  “Maybe he’ll change his mind,” Carrie said as the three of them loaded up a tray with the artichoke dip, a wine cooler with a fresh bottle in it and the bread to dip into the warm, creamy parmesan concoction.

  Faith swung open the door to the main deck and the friends dusted off three orange cushions for the deck chairs, reached for their wine and toasted each other.

  Jen lifted her glass toward the beach. “I hope so. But meantime, let’s get this summer started.”

  Chapter Seven

  The lasagna had been fantastic, as usual, just like Joe remembered. His mother had been in the kitchen all day, and he hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her it was probably her best ever.

  Joe could feel his mother’s eyes on him as they sat on the porch and watched the stars. He tried to ignore the nudge, but he figured that after fifty-odd years of her doing it, she wasn’t going to change now.

  “What’s on your mind, Ma?” he finally asked, knowing she wanted to say something. When he’d come back from the beach, he’d told her he’d run into Jen and Carrie, and that they’d asked him over.

  She, of course, had encouraged him to go, but he just hadn’t felt like it. He imagined she had something to say about that, although they’d be winding down by now, he thought.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. Which was what she always said—at first. This was also a game they’d played for a very long time, and although he’d been gone for quite a while, he still knew how to play. Some things never changed, and he was glad of it.

  “Come on, I’m sure there’s something on your mind. I can tell.”

  She set down her crossword puzzle and leaned forward in her rocking chair, looking down the beach.

  “I can hear them laughing from her
e. Maybe you should go down after all. You can’t just sit here and mope, you know.”

  There it was. He knew his mother had been worried about him since he’d come home. He’d thought twice about telling her that he’d run into Jen and Carrie, expecting her to do exactly what she was doing. Encouraging him to get out. His mother was the one who’d just lost her husband—he should be worrying about her instead.

  “I don’t know. I’m happy here with you and Boris. Very peaceful,” he said, leaning back in his beach chair as he sipped the last of his beer.

  His mother let out a laugh. “Unless you want to give me a seven-letter word that means ‘comparison’ and help me finish this darned crossword puzzle, I’m not going to be much fun. You need to hang around with young people your own age. Not old folks like me. You need to get out.”

  He hadn’t wanted to “get out” much before now, but he followed her gaze down the beach and he, too, could hear the girls laughing. He smiled at the sound—they’d all been such very good friends once upon a time.

  But it had been a very long time, and the last time he saw them all, they were helping Jen adapt to her new life. He and Claudia had helped as much as they could, and once Jen seemed to be settled, they’d sort of gone their separate ways.

  Then when he’d been offered the job in Chicago, they all promised to visit. But contact became more and more sparse, and eventually, he realized it had been years since he’d seen any of them.

  Even when he visited his mother, there never seemed to be time to go out. Maybe he felt a little guilty about that—well, he did feel guilty about that. He should have checked in, asked how the boys were doing. Helped if he could. But he couldn’t change any of that now.

  But it had been a pleasant shock to see them today, even though he’d been stunned almost speechless. Jen probably thought he was upset about Claudia and while he had been when they’d first divorced, it had been a few years now and he felt like he was thawing out. He probably should go and apologize, actually, so she didn’t think he was crying in his beer.