“Wait. Really?”
“I mean, not only me,” he says. “My college roommate and I were a couple of dipshits who thought it would be cool to brew our own beer so we wouldn’t have to pay for it. Matt was already majoring in marketing, so I went from undecided to fermentation science major. Long story short: we landed on a few ‘thirty under thirty’ lists, our little operation blew up, and we sold the brand to a global brewing conglomerate about five years ago.”
“That’s incredible, but … why would you sell a brand that’s so ridiculously popular?”
Mason fidgets with his glass, swirling the beer up the sides. “We’d already been approached to sell when my daughter, Piper, was born with a heart defect. She was going to need surgeries and hospital stays, and I didn’t want Jess to carry that weight alone, so I cashed out and Matt stayed on. Piper had three operations in the first two years of her life, and her prognosis was great until she had an allergic reaction to one of her medications. She died a couple of weeks before her fourth birthday. The anniversary of her death was … recent.”
“Oh God, Mason. I’m so sorry.”
He scrubs a hand across his face and closes his eyes for a beat, then two.
“Working on the hotel together was supposed to help Jess and me reconnect, but it made things worse, and she finally had enough,” he says. “Not many people on the island know this, and the only reason I’m telling you is because it concerns you as my employee. If you were less observant, I wouldn’t have said anything. I’m sure Maisie is a great kid. She seems great. But I guess I’m not in a place where I want to be around children yet.”
“Do you want us to leave?” I ask, pressure tightening in my chest as I wait for his answer. It’s not an oncoming panic attack, but I’m anxious about what he will say.
“It’s not that drastic.” He swirls what’s left of his beer and shrugs. “I’m just not where I thought I would be by now.”
“Okay. Here’s what I propose,” I say. “I’ll find a day-care situation for Maisie as soon as possible. She shouldn’t be on the property when there’s construction happening anyway. When she’s home with me—or on my days off—we’ll stay out of your way. And we’ll make our own supply runs to the mainland going forward.”
The line of tension relaxes between his brows. “Let me know when you’re going. I’ll pay for the ferry.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m not going to make you pay your own way off-island when I’m the one asking you to be here,” Mason says. “Consider it an employment benefit.”
“Fair enough. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Piper. And Jess.”
“Thank you,” he says. “Let’s file this conversation as closed and build a hotel, okay?”
“Deal.” I tilt my glass and we clink rims. I take another sip as he downs the rest of his beer.
“You’re right,” I say. “Fine is not great.”
CHAPTER 7
Voorpret
Dutch
“the unique sensation of the pleasure of anticipation”
It’s a warm Friday in late April when I take the golf cart to the general store to splurge on a candy bar. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t make a special trip downtown for a single item, but I’ve spent the past few weeks building a website and assembling ideas for my cabin design proposals, so today I decided to knock off work early and treat myself.
Working for Mason is nothing like handing out extra pillows or arranging wake-up calls, but I love flexing different mental muscles. And I love sneaking out to watch the progress on the cabins. It’s slow going because the weather is unpredictable, and I have private doubts that we’re going to make the Fourth of July opening deadline, but the project is exciting. And oddly calming. I haven’t had a full-blown panic attack since the night I left Aquamarine.
I drive past Maisie’s school, an old-fashioned redbrick building next door with only seven students currently enrolled. Maisie is one of two preschoolers, and she shares a teacher with a kindergarten class of one.
On my way into the store, I pause at the notice board beside the steps. There’s a printed sheet listing the worship times for the churches on the island, along with a flyer for a beginner’s yoga class and another for the “Hooked on Books” monthly book club. I snap photos of the flyers with my phone, as well as the church list. I don’t remember the last time I went to church, but it’s good information to have … just in case.
Inside, I grab a Snickers and a can of Diet Coke and head to the cash register, where a young woman with hot-pink hair is ringing up a pile of snacks for a guy wearing shorts too early in the season. He’s got a beanie pulled low over his ears.
“… you could join us if you want,” I catch him saying, but the cashier scrunches her nose unapologetically and says, “Yeah, no. I’m good.”
Ahead of me in line is a white woman around my age. She’s wearing navy yoga leggings with a trio of white stripes running down the sides like track pants, a long-sleeved beige crop top, and a pair of flat red shoes with toe pockets. Her dark brown curls are held away from her face by a wide red tie-dyed band. Visitors have started trickling in on the weekends, but her outfit seems a little too hard-core yoga to be tourist-wear. She glances at me. I smile, and she smiles back.
“Are you the new manager at the brew hotel by any chance?” she says.
“I am. I’m Rachel.”
“Hi. I’m Avery. I’m the yoga instructor at the wellness center. I’ve been meaning to come up and invite you to join our book club.”
“I read the flyer out on the notice board right before I came in.”
“The name is kind of cheesy, but it was started in the eighties and a lot of our members are sixty-plus,” she says. “It’s a fun group, though, and we read pretty diversely. It hasn’t always been that way, but the past couple of years we’ve been committed to reading books written by women and writers of color. Often both. And no genre is off-limits.”
“Reading is one of my favorite things. I haven’t done much since I got here because I’ve been pretty busy,” I say. “But I’d like to make time for that.”
“Cool,” Avery says, handing me her phone. She’s wearing a silver band engraved with coordinates on her left ring finger. “We meet the third Thursday of the month and if you give me your contact info, I’ll text you the details. Even if you can’t finish the book in time, we’d still love to have you come meet everyone.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be there.”
I program my name and number into her phone as Beanie Guy moves on and Avery pays for her Kind bar and a bottle of water. As I hand her phone back, Avery says, “Rachel, this is Tori.” She gestures toward the cashier. “She’s in book club too.”
We exchange greetings and Avery waits for me to pay for my candy bar and soda. The cash register line cleared, Tori walks with us as far as the front door. “See you at book club.”
“Looking forward to it,” I say.