Page 4 of Light of Day
“Let’s be honest, no one’s going to miss this show,” Mindy was saying. “I won’t. I booked myself into a meditation retreat so I can detox. Luckily, my contract gives me a year. Sorry, I tried to get that for all of us, but you know management.”
“What am I going to do?” Heather said, more to herself than to Mindy. “I haven’t stopped working since I was thirteen. I’ve never not had a job.”
Did the podcast count? Not until it paid her bills, it didn’t.
“You’re smart, you work hard. You’ll be fine. Whatever you do, keep in touch. But not until after the first ten days of my retreat. Can you believe they make you give up your phone for that long?”
Heather doubted Mindy would last more than an hour. But that was not the most important thing on her suddenly scrambled to-do list. Job search…apartment…shit, what about health insurance? What about cleaning out her office?
Hovering in the doorway, she looked around at the space that had been hers for the past three years. It was like a beloved second home, with its precious view of a tiny slice of the Charles River. So much stuff had accumulated in that time—how? Why had she saved so many random magazines and indie newspapers and flyers? The hunt for story ideas was never-ending. She’d been grinding so hard, ever since she left Sea Smoke, and long before.
Now it was over, all except for the packing.
Feeling a sob take over, she glanced down at her phone. Nothing yet from Gabby.
And suddenly, the need to talk to her best friend shot to the top of her to-do list.
Sea Smoke Island,named for the winter fog that rose from the ocean’s surface on especially cold days, was one of the outer islands of Lightkeeper Bay. It had its own ferry line, separate from the other islands. That was partly because it was so large—really, it was two islands in one, with a built-up sandbar linking the eastern and western sections. At especially high tides, the gravel road on that sandbar flooded. The road was controversial because it had to be repaired after every winter season. Some islanders thought it was too expensive and not worth the trouble.
But the only person whose opinion really mattered on Sea Smoke Island was John Carmichael III, owner of the Lightkeeper Inn—the other reason for a dedicated ferry line. The sprawling Queen Anne-style resort dominated the eastern part of the island, where high cliffs offered spectacular panoramic views of both the inner Lightkeeper Bay islands and the open ocean. A number of old-money East Coast families had been spending their summers at the Lightkeeper Inn for generations.
People of that social class demanded a certain level of service. That was where the western end of the island came in. The chambermaids and the waitstaff and the kitchen staff lived mostly on the more affordable, hardscrabble fishing-community area of the island. They needed a road to reach the hotel, and so therefore, a road there would be.
Other staffers lived on the mainland, which was why the ferry line’s schedule was built around the needs of the Lightkeeper Inn. The first ferry left Harbortown at five-thirty in the morning for those working the seven-to-three shift.
Heather had grown up on the western end, of course. She’d only been to the hotel side a few times, not counting the long wait on the ferry while hotel guests got on and off. The only time she’d been inside the hotel itself was the summer after her first year in college. She’d planned to work as a waitress, bringing drinks to the guests on the second-floor balcony terrace. She’d lasted exactly one hour and thirty-two minutes, and wound up working as a deckhand for her cousin Dale instead.
As the ferry rounded Eagle Point, the last piece of land before the long ride across North Sound to Sea Smoke Island, the first gust of open ocean air touched her cheeks. She zipped her faux chinchilla jacket all the way to her chin and tucked her hands into her pockets. Even at the peak of summer, this part of the trip could chill you down—and it was late May now. The tourist season had barely started.
The sight of Sea Smoke Island, with its high cliffs to the east, and low-lying forests to the west, always made Heather’s heart lurch. How could a place that was so stunning hold such barbed memories? Although it was sometimes shrouded in fog—or sea smoke in the winter, when very cold air moved over warmer water—today a gentle east wind had cleared away the clouds. The sun made the water sparkle like mermaid glitter.
She nodded to Annie McGillicuddy, the only other passenger choosing the open upper deck on this brisk day. Several sturdy canvas tote bags sat next to her on the bench—her day of errands complete. Annie was her mother’s age, and they had history. Apparently they’d both liked Heather’s dad back when he was just a young fisherman with a motorcycle he used to ride around the island. Sally had won that competition, but since they’d never married and he’d disappeared a few years later, the prize was being a single mother.
Yet another “Messy McPhee,” as the islanders called them.
“Out to see your mother?” Annie called over the vibrating rumble of the ferry’s engine. “She could use the company.”
Heather’s stomach tightened. Was her mother drinking again? She’d been sober for four years now, but Heather was always braced for the crash anyway.
When in doubt, go for the classic Maine response. “A-yup.”
Then it occurred to her that Annie might be a good source of information. At one time, she’d been the island’s postmistress, and was still an excellent purveyor of gossip. Heather still hadn’t heard anything from Gabby and was getting seriously worried. She kept thinking about her friend’s “shady shit” comment. Maybe Annie knew what that meant.
“Anything I should catch up on before I see Mom? Controversies, emergencies, newcomers trying to shake things up, that sort of thing?”
“Everyone’s complaining about property taxes. Assessor came out and all of a sudden our taxes just about doubled. The O’Bannons say they gotta sell their place now, and it’ll go to some summer folk from Connecticut, most-like.” She made the word Connecticut sound like a curse word. “Us fishing folk can’t hardly survive out here anymore. It’s all tourists and AirBnB’s.”
Another new curse word, apparently.
“My mom was talking about turning our work shed into an AirBnB. If you can’t beat ’em, join them, right?”
Annie didn’t need to say what she thought of that idea; her expression said it all. Sally McPhee talked about a lot of things that were never going to happen.
“They bring trouble. The hotel is one thing, ’cause all those folks stay on that side of the island. They only come west if they want ice cream at Sea Scoops. They used to trek out to Shell Beach before it got put off limits.”
Shell Beach.
The bright red railing of the ferry boat, Annie on her bench with her tote bags, the white-capped waves all disappeared, and Heather was back in her dream, gazing down at the shell beach from the threshold of a moving house. Heather and her friends had played at that beach when she was little. She used to love plunging her hands into the shiny piles of shells left behind by oysters, mussels, snails, all broken into tiny bits by the pounding of the ocean. When a wave came through, you could hear a quiet hiss as the water drained through the shells. Heather used to pretend it was the ocean telling her a story. Sometimes she’d lie on her side, one ear to the beach, close her eyes and let her imagination try to interpret the wet, sibilant swishing sounds.
