Page 6 of Stony Point Summer
“All right. I have another idea, then. How about a grinder? I know just the place …”
“Ourplace. You read my mind.” Shane pauses, taking a swallow of his lemonade. “A cold salami grinder, with a little oil, mayo. Just what the doctor ordered.”
“I’ll go. Pizza Palace is just a few minutes down Shore Road. You can stay here and unwind.”
“You sure?”
With a nod, Celia stands. “But first? First, come with me.”
* * *
Every which way Shane turns here, one thing or another surprises him.
This time? When Celia leads him around a far corner of Elsa’s inn, it’s the vegetable garden that does it. The garden is tucked on a patch of earth close to a stone garden shed. Shane’s eyes take in vegetables of all kinds: staked and aligned, row after row, seemingly out of control as they climb up trellises and over the white picket fence surrounding the garden. There are red tomatoes and yellow squash. Green zucchini and late-season red-leaf lettuce. The plants are tall and laden. And then there are the yellow-and-red marigolds, and sky-high sunflowers, reining it all in. Lazy bumblebees hover over the blossoms; the low afternoon sunlight shines golden.
“We’ll get fresh tomatoes and cucumbers for a salad,” Celia says over her shoulder. She has a basket looped on her arm as she swings open the picket-fence gate.
“Elsa won’t mind?”
“No! She calls this her Sea Garden.” Celia hands Shane clippers from her basket. “She believes everything grows sweeter in the salt air lifting off the Sound.”
“I’m sure Elsa whips up some pretty incredible dishes from her harvest.”
“She’s an amazing cook. I’m learning so much from her.” While walking the garden, Celia pulls a few random weeds and tosses them aside. “Plus we’re using her fresh veggies for the inn’s Sunday Dinner menus. You know, for some eggplant parmigiana. Green bean casseroles. Fresh tomato sauce.”
“Nice,” Shane says, lifting a red bell pepper. “A little farm-to-table, seaside.”
Together, they bend for a better look, move aside large leaves. They pick red tomatoes from the plants and cut cucumbers from the vines—plucking this tender one, clipping that ripe one.
Until finally, Shane tells Celia that he’ll make the salad while she goes for the grinders.
Once she leaves, her cottage is quiet. Dappled sunlight shines into the kitchen; a ceiling fan paddles around the summer air; the salty scent of the sea wafts in through open windows. Alone now, Shane carefully sets the table first. But he’s doing something else, too—he’s taking everything in. Because the truth of the matter is that Celia is still a mystery to him. Her ways, her history here at the beach, her interest in him—it makes him want to know her more.
So he lifts two stoneware dishes from an open shelf, then sets the plates on the kitchen table. In a painted cabinet, he finds clear drinking glasses and takes out two.
Throughout it all—while setting the table, while shredding lettuce and slicing tomatoes and peeling cukes—what he’s also doing is this: seeing every detail of Celia’s small cottage. Every touch she gave to her walls, her shelves. Every framed photo of familiar faces—some candids, some studio shots. Every careful thought she put into making this place her home, for herself and Aria both.
Shane studies every clue as to who Celia Gray truly is.
* * *
An hour later, only grinder-roll crumbs and bits of potato chips are left on their dinner plates; pieces of lettuce in their salad bowls; drops of soda in their tall glasses. Bunches of dried flowers hang from exposed ceiling beams above them. The slightest sea breeze moves through the open paned window beside them.
Shane props his elbows on the kitchen table and watches Celia sitting there in her lacy tank top and denim cutoffs. He’s listening to her voice as she scoops a chip through a drizzle of olive oil on her dish.
“I called my father from The Pizza Palace, while waiting for our order. He’d just put Aria in her stroller for a walk.”
“It’s a nice evening for it.”
“It is,” Celia says. “And his house is on such a pretty street. Lots of old farmhouses and bungalows. Rock walls edging the yards. And there’s a big barn at the end, with cornfields. It’s such a help having him live close by in Addison.”
“I’ll bet. Especially with so much going on these next few days.”
“Starting with breakfast with Elsa in the morning,” she says. “A final meeting before the inn’s open for business.”
“Are you ready for it all?” Shane asks.
Celia nods. “And very excited. We’ll have a full house this weekend, right through Labor Day. Every room is booked. Dinners planned. Guided beach walks scheduled. Rowboat rides through the marsh reserved—that’s a biggie.Everyguest wants one. And the weather should be perfect.”
