Page 28 of The Beachgoers
“I’ll have a coffee. Regular coffee,” Jason tells her when he sits across from Maris. “Straight up.”
“That’s it? No specialty coffee? An espresso, maybe?” Rita asks.
“No. Coffee’s good for dunking,” Jason explains, nodding to the cookie plate.
“Same here,” Maris says as she sets her denim clutch on the edge of the table. “Coffee for me, too. With cream.”
“Okay. Two hot coffees coming right up.” Rita gives a warm smile as she heads for the kitchen.
When Jason pulls in his chair, his knees brush Maris’. And the feeling couldn’t be better. This is just what he wanted. Time alone at a tiny table with only her—before the crowds descend on Elsa’s inn.
“I notice three cookies?” Maris asks, slightly turning the china plate on the center of the table. “Why three?”
“Well.” Jason pushes up the sleeves of his jacket. “You’d mentioned Elsa’s spread later on, and that you didn’t want us to ruin our appetites. So one cookie each. To dunk in our coffee. There’s anamaretti,” he says, pointing to the cherry-topped soft almond cookie. “And a…canali, there, filled with apricot preserves.” He points to a butter cookie dotted with slivers of green almond and chocolate sprinkles.
“Okay. That’s two. And the third cookie?” Maris asks.
“That one?” Jason eyes the vanilla cookie capped with a dollop of chocolate. Shifting on his bentwood chair then, he leans an elbow on the tiny table. “That one’s in case we can’t control ourselves. It’s called abaci.”
“Baci?”
Jason nods. “Italian for kisses.”
“Oh.” Maris turns the plate for a better look. “Are you hinting at something, Jason?” she asks with a wink. “Looking for a kiss tonight?”
“Hoping for one.”
Maris laughs, and opens her napkin on her lap, and glances out the window beside them. Finally, she looks at him again. And reaches across the table to adjust the faded bandana tucked in his jacket’s breast pocket. “Nice touch,” she says. “I like that.”
“Thanks. It’s Neil’s, actually. I’d kept them, after he died, and usually have one with me.” He looks down and pats the worn fabric folded there.
“It suits you,” Maris tells him, right as their coffees are delivered.
With the two speckled-cream mugs between them, Jason slides the cookie plate to Maris. After she chooses the apricot-filled butter cookie, he takes the cherry-toppedamaretti. Their talk is light as they dip, and lift the mugs to sip. As they nibble on the fresh cookies. As Maris declares around a sweet mouthful, “Oh my God, so good!” As Jason cuts thebacikiss cookie and gives her half. As Maris touches his hand while saying the inn he renovated will look beautiful tonight. As they swap cookie samples and cup their mugs.
“How’d your afternoon go?” Maris asks while dunking the last of her sprinkled cookie.
Jason sips his coffee. Setting the cup down, he thinks about the mystery he’d finally solved in that old photograph. Thinks how he can tell her the person behind the beach binoculars is Shane. That Neil apparently kept in touch with him all those years. They can wonder together why Neil made that trip to Maine. They can go off on a tangent stemming from Shane’s name being burned in a bonfire, to his recent presence back at Stony Point.
But Jason doesn’t say any of that.
Oh, he will. Someday. But sitting in a small Italian bakery this Friday afternoon, he doesn’t want his date to be about anyone but Maris. Just her and her alone. So instead of telling her about his photograph revelation, he just says that the day was good.
“I had lunch with Maddy out on Ted’s deck.”
Maris nods, and nibbles, and tells him about her day. How she ended up on the beach on Back Bay to review her latest chapter inDriftline.
“What’s it about?” Jason asks.
“Let’s see,” she begins. “It’s the eye of the storm in this chapter, and one of the characters considers leaving the cottage—thinking maybe it’s safe. He’s got a decision to make, and doesn’t want to be swayed by everyone trapped there with him.”
“Does he get out in time?”
She shakes her head. “No. He’s cornered by somebody.”
“And things take a turn, I gather?”
“They will. That’s where I’m at in the story. So it helped to review and think on the beach, and get some sun at the same time.”
