Geoducks are for Lovers Read online

  At the word ‘treat’, Biscuit rolls over and sits up, brown eyes focused on Maggie. She breaks the cookie in half.

  “Interesting looking dog. What kind is he?” The stranger asks, standing. He looks like a typical summer visitor over for a day of cycling. He's clearly built up a sweat riding around the island. Maggie pegs him as a Web 2.0 kind of guy after eyeing his expensive looking gear. He easily could be one of her seasonal neighbors down at the beach.

  “He’s a rescue dog. I’m not really sure. Most people think English Setter, maybe Border Collie, mutt. Something black, white, and freckled.”

  Biscuit proffers his paw to the stranger.

  “Biscuit, no begging,” Maggie admonishes, but hands the second half of the treat to the cyclist.

  “Good boy.” Cyclist guy pats the dog on the head. “I’ll leave you to your day. Have a good one.”

  He grabs his helmet off an adjoining table and straps on his gear before giving them a wave and riding away.

  Biscuit stares at Maggie. Seeing she has no more cookies, he sighs and lies back down near her feet.

  “Flirt,” she chastises him before scratching his head, laughing at her companion.

  After taking her Macbook out of her bag, she sips her coffee as her blog opens, and ponders the many uses for huckleberry syrup—buckwheat pancakes, crepes, ice cream, cocktails, Pavlovas... her stomach grumbles. Maybe she should have grabbed a pastry from Erik. Writing about food on an empty stomach is torture.

  A half hour later she has the bones of her article finished as well as her coffee. Life as a food blogger means she can work from anywhere and at any time as long as she meets her deadlines. A few trips to Seattle a month to review restaurants, bakeries, and the latest foodie store suits her better than doing a daily commute and worrying about magazine layoffs. She checks her blog stats and reviews her advertising revenue. Freelance writing doesn’t pay what it used to, but she wouldn’t trade her current flexibility or beach cabin for a big byline.

  She thinks about her life today while gazing up at the cloudless sky. The battles of the last few years linger in her mind as she looks out at the water and Camano Island in the distance. Her view is the same one her mother saw every day from her bakery down the street. Everything can change in a short amount of time, yet life keeps moving forward.

  Biscuit stretches, yawns, and nudges her with his nose.

  Shaking off her melancholy, she gathers her things. “Right. Let’s go. We have stuff to do.”

  * * *

  Maggie stretches out her arms, her shoulders protesting from hours of working on her laptop. After sending her review of a Fremont cheese shop to her editor, she adds the final photos to her article on six ways to enjoy her grandmother’s huckleberry syrup before posting it to her blog.

  “Done,” she announces to the empty room, the quiet broken only by the music from her playlist.

  From her perch at the dining table, aka her downstairs office, she surveys the state of the house. With its vaulted ceiling and a double row of large windows, the open living area is airy with a view out over the deck and water beyond. The clean house feels inviting. The beds are made upstairs. The salmon for tomorrow’s dinner is in the fridge and couscous cools on the stove. Her excitement grows as she mentally checks off the last of her to-do list before Quinn’s arrival tomorrow. Remembering her overgrown flowerbeds, she decides she’ll pick flowers in the morning before catching the ferry.

  “Ready for company?” Biscuit tilts his head, but doesn’t answer. She didn’t think he would. She’s become used to these one-sided conversations between her and the dog.

  “It won’t be so quiet around here with a house full of people this weekend.” Silence answers her.

  Wandering around the living room, she grazes her hand over books in the bookcase in the corner. Many of her mother’s favorites still line the shelves. Classic romances and a few of her grandmother’s birding books are mixed together. Bronte and Austen meet the birds of the Western U.S. The lower two shelves hold some of her parents’, and maybe even grandparents’, record albums from the sixties, seventies and eighties.

  The cabin has been passed down through the women of her family, from grandmother to mother, and now to Maggie, not because of any formal declaration, but solely because the women have outlived the men. She recalls her grandmother survived her grandpa by five years; her mother outlived her father by nine.

  Inhaling deeply, she breathes in the scent of ocean, old books, and decades of fires in the wood-stove– the history and constancy of this home make her smile. The cabin is winterized, thanks to her parents wanting a year-round retreat, but the wood-stove is her favorite way to heat the house on chilly nights. Icy storms and windy winter rains are still a few months away, she reminds herself.

  Randomly pulling out an album, she mutes her playlist, walks over to the credenza under the window, and turns on the stereo. Joni Mitchell’s voice croons from the speakers when she puts the needle down on the turntable and cranks up the volume.

  As Joni sings about dancing and taking chances, Maggie joins in on harmony—so many memories hidden in these albums. Happier times with her parents here in this room mix with the longing she rarely lets herself feel to have one more day with either of them.

  Her father called Whidbey his briar patch back when the long sunny summers were all about salmon fishing and telling tales about the latest catch after a round of golf at the club. Her mother spent summers growing giant dahlias and baking pies that would win best of show ribbons at the Island County Fair.

  Wondering if her mom listened to Joni when alone and nostalgic, Maggie runs her hands over the cool white marble surface of the kitchen island and hears her mother’s voice expounding about coldness of stone being good for working with butter doughs and crusts. The luxurious stone is incongruous with the simple modern kitchen, but the scratches and stains of years of use fit right in with the vintage style of the cabin.

  Her mother’s countless homemade pies lead to the opening of the bakery. Anne’s pride and joy became much more than a side project to keep Anne busy after the death of Maggie’s father. Anne went from running the bakery six days a week to being sick and dying over two short years.

  Joni makes her melancholy, so she takes Blue off the turntable. Maggie looks at the next record over on the shelf: Avalon by Roxy Music. She had the same album in high school and college. Turning it over, she searches for her initials. Small uppercase M’s are carefully written on the back. She doesn’t remember bringing the record to the cabin, but here it is.

  With the first notes of “More than This,” the ghosts scatter as other memories take over– 1988 and a road trip with a beautiful boy with shaggy, brown hair. Maggie hums and smiles at the image of her eighteen-year-old self on the road with new college friends. The first big adventure of her newly-found freedom was driving down to the coast to hear a band in concert and staying on a stranger’s floor. Some of those friends from that road trip will be arriving tomorrow. Biting the side of her thumb, she remembers the beautiful boy and wonders if he ever thinks of her when he hears this album.

  Her reflection greets her in the window when she looks out at the dark, summer night sky. If she squints, she can almost see her college self—hair is different, body is different, but something of her former self is still in there somewhere.

  “I’m a sentimental fool, Biscuit.” She glances over at the dog. “You could disagree with me just once, you know.” Biscuit gets up and walks over to the door out to the deck. It’s his way of saying ‘time for bed’.

  The night outside is inky. A few of the other houses down the beach are illuminated, but the water beyond is black. Sparse lights twinkle on the far shore. Stars, so seldom seen in the city, sparkle above. After three years, Maggie is still getting used to the quiet darkness. She shudders and wraps her sweater around her in the cool night air. No more sweltering, summer nights in the concrete jungle of New York. The
chill and quiet remind her of her solitude. Calling out to the dog, she gratefully returns to the warmth of her cozy living room.

  Three

  Finding her garden clippers in the garage, Maggie walks out to the neglected flowerbed the next morning. She deadheads some of the flowers and cuts others for vases in the guest rooms. The tangled mess of dahlias, cosmos and zinnias begins to look less like a jungle and more like a proper lady’s garden. Her mother and grandmother started the flower gardens on the lot, and guilt, rather than a green thumb, compels her to replant them every summer. On her list of things she loves about the cabin, weeding and tending to the beds are toward the bottom.

  Admitting to herself she likes the idea of free flowers as much as free crabs and fish, Maggie finishes the task, giving a small thanks to the island and its abundance. As a kid she didn’t appreciate the simplicity of being here, but years of living in the city have taught her the value of dirt under her nails and sand between her toes.

  Back inside, flowers are bunched and in their new homes on bedside tables, in the bathroom, and even in a slim blue glass bottle on the ledge above the kitchen sink. Their bright colors make her happy.

  * * *

  After changing into a navy cotton shirt dress and green sandals, Maggie puts Biscuit into his crate. “I know you want to come with me to lick Quinn upon arrival, but Bessie only has two seats, and not enough room for both you and Quinn. Try not to pine.”

  Biscuit whines like he understands he is missing out, then curls up with a sigh. Maggie swears he’s pouting, so she gives in and hands him another cookie.

  “Spoiled dog.”

  Maggie grabs the keys to Bessie along with two faded Mariners caps from the hooks by the front door, finds her purse, and heads to the garage. Taking off the tarp, she reveals her prized possession—a 1972 MG Midget convertible. Like the cabin, Bessie has been handed down from mother to daughter. The convertible is the perfect summer car. She isn’t in pristine condition, but Steve the mechanic loves the MG as much as Maggie does, and keeps it in top shape. All the locals recognize her hunter green finish and white racing stripes.

  Anne hated Maggie nicknaming her car Bessie. She laughs and rolls her eyes at her mother’s name for the car, Queen Elizabeth the Second, or QE II. Unfortunately, Bessie’s customized license plate still bears the more pretentious QE II name. As much as she dislikes the vanity plate, she can’t bring herself to get rid of it.

  The convertible can only be driven in good weather because the top leaks and the heating is temperamental at best. Given its tiny size, the car rarely leaves the island to face the big highways over in ‘town,’ a term the islanders call everything on the other side of the water.

  Picking up Quinn for a weekend of old friends and ghost stories from the past officially counts as a special occasion deserving of Bessie.

  Baseball cap on her head to tame her hair and protect her nose from the sun, she starts up the car and backs out of the garage. The drive down to the ferry takes about fifteen minutes, and given it’s mid-morning during the week, there shouldn’t be a long wait.

  Maggie smiles when she counts only a dozen or so cars on the dock as she heads down the hill from Clinton. Looking across the water toward Mukilteo, she calculates the ferry is a few minutes from docking. Perfect timing.

  No articles to be done, a good run in the woods, and now an afternoon with one of her best friends—this is turning out to be a great day. Maggie grins as she pulls into the ferry lot.

  When she pays, the woman in the ticket booth hands her the fall ferry schedule. Once the summer craziness fades with the passing of Labor Day, the ferries drops a few runs as the island quiets down for the long, gray winter.

  “Is it bad I look forward to the fall schedule and not having to work my life around ferry waits?” Maggie asks.

  “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be an islander. I think we all cheer the coming of fall and getting our island back.”

  Maggie beams at being called an islander. To be accepted here as a local isn’t an easy transition—she’ll take the compliment.

  “Lane three. Have a good day.” She waves Maggie through to the waiting area on the dock.

  Bert loads the cars on to the ferry as she pulls forward. He’s an old friend of her mom’s and she can’t remember a time when she didn’t know Bert. He gives her the prime spot in the middle at the front of the ferry—first to be loaded off the boat. Maggie takes this as a good omen.

  “I see you’re taking Bessie to town,” Bert says as she gets out of the car to head up top. “What's the special occasion?”

  “College friends coming up for the weekend. We’re having a pre-reunion reunion before the actual one in September. Figured nostalgic times called for nostalgic transportation.”

  “Reunion? How long has it been?”

  “Twenty years.”

  “Sweet lord. Twenty years? That's hard to believe. If you’re that old, well, I must be ancient.”

  Maggie looks at Bert. His lined and weathered face makes her think of the expression ‘salty dog’, but she resists the urge to point out the facts.

  “I can tell you’re thinking about telling me I'm old. Just you wait. Time flies even more on the back side of the slope. Is that a gray hair?” He reaches out toward her strawberry blonde hair. Thanks to her colorist, she doesn’t have any gray hairs.

  “Don't remind me. Some days I feel like I'm still twenty-two.”

  “Me too,” he says, then smiles, showing gaps in his teeth. “You kids have fun. I'll be looking for you in the paper next week.”

  The weekly police report in the local paper is a favorite of island residents, summer people, and tourists. Most of the reports feature sheep in the road or a stolen crab trap. The typical crimes reported are petty theft or car accidents. Darker, more sinister crimes tend to stay out of the paper or make the front page if a scandal is involved.

  “The last time I was in the police report was a long time ago. And there’s still no proof I left Bessie on the baseball diamond at Maxwelton.”

  “Sure, but we all know the truth.” Bert taps his nose as he walks toward the back of the boat.

  Upstairs on the passenger deck, she sits at a table by the window and watches the water as the ferry makes its quick crossing back to the real world. Maggie wouldn't trade living on Whidbey. This island and all its quirks is truly her home. When she first moved here full time, it surprised her how Connie at the bank was informed so quickly about her life, hours or days after things happened. Maggie suspects Connie, Sally, and Sandy at the grocery store, are part of an old fashioned telephone tree. News travels fast around here. By the time she gets back with Quinn, she bets those women will know all about her guests for the weekend. Sandy might even happen to stop by with a loaf of zucchini bread, claiming to be overrun with squash again.

  Four

  The little MG holds its own amongst the traffic and intimidating trucks on the I-5 through the heart of downtown Seattle.

  Arriving at SeaTac, Maggie spies Quinn in his aviators and ‘Legalize Gay Cupcakes’ T-shirt on the curb of Arrivals. It would be hard to miss his tall, lean form, and blond hair even if he wasn't wearing a pink and white shirt.

  He seems more excited to see Bessie than he does Maggie. She thinks he even kisses Bessie’s hood when she hops out to open the trunk. He’s always been obsessed with the MG.

  “Maggie!” He folds her up in a hug, which ends in a spin. “I've missed you, woman!”

  “I've missed you, Q. How was the flight?”

  Boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, jobs, and parents may all go, but her anchor remains Quinn. Living in the same city, they’d never let more than a week or two pass without seeing each other, but that’s changed since she left him behind in New York.

  “Good, better now that you've brought my one true love, Elizabeth the Second. Can I drive her?” Quinn looks at Maggie expectantly, though they both know she'll never let him drive B
essie.

  “You two can get reacquainted from the passenger seat.” Throwing his weekend bag in the trunk, they pile into the car, and she hands him the other baseball cap, which he refuses, brushing over his short hair to show he doesn’t need the hat.

  As they head back north to Mukilteo to catch the ferry home, Quinn reaches into the glove box to pick out a mix tape. Maggie has never updated Bessie’s sound system—it’s either a cassette tape or the radio. Her tapes from the 80s and 90s are a perfect soundtrack for the weekend ahead.

  Over the angst of Nirvana and the noise of the road, Quinn shouts, “When does everyone get here?”

  “You’re the first. Ben and Jo arrive tomorrow. They’re driving down from Vancouver after his meetings end. Selah said she’ll get in tomorrow tonight as well. She's coming with a date. Any idea who the mystery man might be?” She raises her voice to be heard over the wind.

  Silence greets her. Glancing over at him to make sure he heard her, she sees Quinn looking like he swallowed the cat who ate the canary.

  “Who is it? Oh, he’s not that horrible guy she was dating, is he? The one from the dating website who wrote her an email as Mr. Rochester? Please tell me it isn't him. Please?”

  “Nope. Guess again.” He seems delighted about Selah's mystery guest.

  “New lover?”

  “No, not a lover. Not so new.” Quinn smirks.

  It must be someone he knows. Maybe she knows Selah’s guest, too.

  “Someone I know?”

  “Yes, someone you know.” He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying more.

  “Will this person be at the Greener reunion?” She gets a sinking feeling.

  “Yep.”

  “No.” It can't be. The sinking feeling in her stomach begins to resemble the Titanic.

  “Yep.”

  “Could you please stop saying yep?” She gives him a sidelong look.

  “Yep.”

  She smacks Quinn on his shoulder and his oh-too-happy self. Brown eyes and shaggy hair flash in her mind.