“Really? She has a charity?”
“Not her charity. We contribute to seven that support breast cancer research. Elsie holds fundraising events for them. Ash and I attend if we’re not on the trail somewhere.”
She looks up at me with an expression I can’t quite interpret. Is she impressed, grateful, or something else?
“What?” I ask.
“Thank you.”
Not the response I expected, but I get it. “We’ve been fortunate, so we like to do what we can.”
“Mr. Dwyer, table for two,” the hostess calls out.
The small table in the corner of the dimlylit dining area looks like it was made out of driftwood. The rest of the décor is fascinating. Dozens of vintage fish traps covered in the old-style nets made of cotton line hang on the walls. Ash and I have designed several types of fish traps, so I’m always interested in how others are made. A few here are new to me.
Maddie and I enjoy an appetizer of pasta and moon snail—thin slices of meaty rolls floating in a pool of garlic butter. I google what a moon snail is and hold my phone so she can see.
“Seriously? It’s huge!”
The sea snail has a gray shell that’s about five inches in diameter and a meaty foot that’s twice as big. “Just goes to show that anything tastes good with enough butter and garlic.”
The food doesn’t disappoint. She ordered Greencastle chowder. I got the skate in brown butter, and we ordered a third dish just to try it—langoustine bisque, which is a thick, creamy soup with Dublin Bay prawns and a mix of vegetables.
“I thought for sure I would get salmon,” she says while taking a few pics of the dishes. “This is so much more interesting.”
“Ash and I love salmon. We usually try to stock up whenever we’re in Alaska.”
She uses her fork to skewer a prawn in the bisque and pops it in her mouth. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaims, covering her mouth with her hand. “It’s so good!”
I try a prawn, and she’s not exaggerating. “That is good.”
Next, she digs into her Greencastle chowder with her spoon. “This is good too.”
The way she says it, though, I can tell she’s not a fan. “Not what you expected?”
“No, it’s okay. I like salmon better. I used to take my boyfriend salmon fishing all the time, which kind of sucks now.”
“Why? Wait, you took your boyfriend? He didn’t know how to fish?”
“Of course he knew how. In Sweetbriar, kids learn how to fish before they can say their ABCs. I just happened to be dating the one guy who would rather work on his Star Wars models. He always smelled like glue, and not in a fun way.”
That makes me laugh. “Ash and I tried sniffing glue once when we were in junior high. Worst headache ever. So why did going salmon fishing with your boyfriend suck?”
“Because I got addicted to fresh salmon, and now one fish costs as much as a tank of gas. I don’t know how it happened, but it sucks.”
“I take it you don’t fish anymore.”
“Never have time. So, what happened with the babysitter?”
“Ah, that.” I lean back in my chair. “Like I said, Ash was only eleven, but he was one horny kid, let me tell you. Anyway, he wanted to see the babysitter topless so bad, he offered to pay her his entire savings, which was about fifty dollars. I wasn’t there, but boy did I hear about it. The girl said for fifty dollars, she’d strip completely naked in the backyard for him. You can imagine how my brother reacted to that. Ash thought he hit the jackpot.”
Maddie leans closer. “You’re kidding? She really did it?”
“Not exactly. She took Ash outside and told him he had to strip first. He didn’t realize that was part of the deal, butbeing eleven, and still horny mind you, he took everything off. From what I understand she was standing there holding her hands out, so Ash handed over all of his clothes. Then she turned around, walked back into the house, and locked the door. I guess that’s when she yelled through the window that the front door was unlocked. Later, Ash said there were a lot of neighborhood kids playing outside that day, including one girl in particular, Crystal McDaniel. He said it took a while to muster up enough courage, but he finally made it into the house. But within minutes, Crystal told her mom what she had just seen. As you can imagine, Crystal’s mom was furious and she called our mom.”
“Oh my gosh! What did your mom do?”
“Not much. The babysitter told our mother that Ash would have to explain why he was outside butt-ass naked. Ash thought about it and didn’t know where to begin. How was he supposed to tell her he paid the babysitter fifty bucks to take her top off and somehow he was the one who ended up naked?”
