Page 41 of Stony Point Summer
Yes, every inch of Shane is sweating on this muggy September evening. He really feels it, too, at his perspiring hairline; in the damp tee sticking to his back. Even at day’s end, the heat hasn’t let up. So as Celia unloads the take-out ice-cream cups from Scoop Shop, Shane opens more windows.
And flaps the fabric of that sleeveless tee over his clammy chest.
And swipes his dripping forehead.
And plugs in a dusty old box fan to blow warm air through the kitchen.
“I can’t believe you brought your ice-cream punch card, all the way from Maine,” Celia says while putting their ice-cream cups in the freezer.
Shane picks up the hole-punched card off the countertop. “I sure did.” He tucks the card in his wallet. “Getting closer to my free ice cream. Six more to go.”
Together, then, they unpack the groceries—mostly staples to tide him over the long weekend here. Celia lifts out a loaf of bread, and little salt-and-pepper shakers. Uncertain with the layout of the cottage kitchen, she looks for some shelf space in the tall aqua-painted cupboard. It’s filled with a mishmash of dishes and bowls, cups and mugs.
“That cabinet’s pretty crammed.” Shane motions to the open shelves beside the sink. “You can put things over there.”
She nods and lines the shelves with the few essentials they’d bought. Coffee and tea. Jam and muffins. Ketchup. Mustard. Mayonnaise. Meanwhile, Shane fills the fridge with the cold things: cheese and cold cuts; cream and orange juice; a few yogurt containers; butter; a six-pack of beer.
What also happens is this: They keep crisscrossing paths. Celia reaches here; Shane opens a cabinet door there. She turns to find a fruit strainer; he backs up with half a watermelon in hand. She stretches for a bowl for the rinsed strawberries; he pulls two rib-eye steaks from the bag right beside her.
But that’s not all. They perspire, too. As the box fan whirs, the back of Shane’s tee still clings to his skin. Celia uses a wet paper towel to dab her forehead, her cheek. In the warm, close kitchen, they also brush against each other; step back; bump; waver; sidestep; quickly smile.
Until Celia gives up on the groceries and opens one of Shane’s packed cartons set on a kitchen chair. Lifting out folded bath towels, she turns this way, then that, before heading to the bathroom—obviously escaping the physical obstacle course of the kitchen.
“I’ll get these put away,” she calls from the hallway.
As though she’s maybe uncomfortable now. As though the close quarters are maybetooclose, Shane thinks as he again lifts the fabric of his damp tee and gives his belly a fanning.
He does something else, too. He notices that Celia doesn’t return. Instead, he hears more cartons being opened where he’d left them in the living room.
Well, of course. This is all sudden—for both of them—this unexpectedly being together. He’s well aware that ever since she found him at her cottage door earlier, they’ve been side by side. So maybe she needs to process all this togetherness. Maybe she needs some space, which Shane gives her now. He puts the empty grocery bags in the utility closet and heads to his bedroom to finish unpacking. Certain pieces of his clothing really should be hung out before they wrinkle. After unzipping the duffel on his bed, he picks up a sweatshirt and grabs a hanger from the closet, all while hearing wads of newspaper rustle in the living room.
Then? Silence.
Until there it is, Celia’s distant voice carrying from the other room. “You brought your sailboat?” she asks.
Tugging his zip sweatshirt onto the hanger, Shane yells out, “I did,” then walks to where she’s unpacking his boxes. Celia’s back is to him as she stands at an end table in the living room. He watches her there in her denim cutoffs and lacy black tank top. She’s drawing a hand over that toy boat—unaware that he’s standing in the doorway. “If I see Kyle tomorrow,” Shane says a moment later, “I might get him to stop by. We’ll reminisce,” he adds, dropping that sweatshirt on the gray rattan sofa and walking up behind Celia. He puts his arms around her waist and looks over her shoulder at the boat. “Maybe even set it floating again. You know, on that little private beach out back.”
Celia turns her face to him and kisses his cheek, then brushes his scruffy jaw with her fingers. “I’m sure he’d love that,” she says before propping the toy boat on the end table. Pausing there, she raises a hand to her thin chain necklace, idly touching it before fiddling with the boat’s canvas sails, the red hull, the string still tied to it. Stepping back, she kind of steps right into Shane standing close, who quickly sidesteps out of her way.
So Celia scoots past and returns to that open box she’d been emptying. When she does, Shane picks up the hanger and sweatshirt from the couch and looks around, too. The living room is shadowy, and still warm—even with the windows pushed open. Thin checked curtains frame those windows. Blue and green glass fishing floats hanging from ropes in the corner glimmer in the lamplight. The white-painted walls are dim in the dusky light.
At the same time, Celia seems intent on getting that one box emptied and moves around more of the balled-up newspaper in it. “I see you brought your harmonica, too?” she asks, lifting the silver instrument.
Shane nods. “Never know when life might need a little jam session.”
She smiles, that’s it, just smiles. And shifts her gaze as though unsure where to put the harmonica.
“You can leave it on the mantel,” Shane says as he turns toward the bedroom again, hung sweatshirt in hand. “I just have a few more things to put away,” he calls back.
Which is true. And he could have his vest and a button-down shirt put on hangers in thirty seconds flat. But he moves slowly now, giving Celia some necessary time alone in the living room.
Okay, and hell, giving himself a thinking-minute, too. Because, shit, he’s really happy to see Celia again. But after the busyness of having their grinder dinner at her cottage earlier, and filling her Mason jars with marsh grasses, and an easy grocery store run, this new quiet is awkward. Uncomfortable, even.
Shane gets the feeling Celia’s about to bail. So he shuts his closet door and walks back to the living room. When he gets to the doorway, Celia looks kind of lost, actually. Like she suddenly doesn’t know what to do with this empty time between them. So she’s folding the now-unpacked cartons closed, and stacking the boxes in a corner. And drawing her fingers across her jaw while glancing at him, too. Then at a slim watch on her wrist.
But Shane does nothing. He just leans himself against the doorjamb and toys with his braided leather cuff.
“Well. Busy day tomorrow,” Celia says as she grabs her woven leather satchel from the painted trunk in front of the sofa. She gives him a sort-of smile, too. “Getting ready for the inn’s ribbon-cutting, and it’s after eight now. So I think I’ll head back,” she tells him, lifting her bag to her shoulder. “Rain check on the ice cream?”
