Page 4

Cam was so distracted with worry that she had lost track while testing a recipe that morning and used a tablespoon for the kosher salt instead of a teaspoon. That kind of thing never happened to Cam Parker. Which meant it was high time for the phone call. She put on the kettle and ground fresh coffee beans for the French press. A conversation with Marcus Bloodsworth—the barber to everyone in Silver Cove, except those brave enough to sneak off to the Supercuts at the strip mall the next town over—always took a long time.

“Marcus Bloodsworth speeeaahking.” Marcus had a serious Southern accent and a way of drawing out his words as if he was in no rush to go anywhere, so why wouldn’t he give every vowel its moment in the sun? He and Birdie had been best friends for years, and since they had both lost their spouses, Cam had sometimes wondered if they would… date? Was that what people of that age did? She had asked Birdie about it once while they were doing dishes after dinner, and her grandmother laughed like Cam had told an excellent dirty joke, which was her favorite kind. “I have about as many romantic feelings for this dishrag as I do for Marcus Bloodsworth,” she had said. Cam supposed no one could replace Eddie in Birdie’s heart.

“Hi, Marcus. It’s Cam Parker,” she said.

“Camiiiillia Parker,” he said, as if he was hearing the name for the first time. “Why, I have not had the pleasure of seeing you, my dear young lady, in well over a year. It has been entirely too long since you graced us with your presence.”

“I-I’ve been busy, with work…” Cam trailed off. Her excuse sounded lame, and she knew it. It had been far too long since she had visited. She’d been putting it off. She loved seeing Birdie, of course, but a visit to Silver Cove could feel like a cross between a CIA interrogation and the Macy’s parade. Everyone wanted to know everything about her, and there was always some festival or town party either happening or upcoming, whose decorations were the subject of a hot debate. Cam appreciated the irony of the fact that things were quieter in New York where she lived among a couple million people. But Marcus was right. And now Cam was feeling worse about her prolonged absence.

“I suppose I do not need to inquiiire about the nature of your call,” Marcus said. He had a formal way of speaking that used to make Cam and Avery giggle and mock-curtsy behind his back. Marcus wore bow ties and suits to work at the barbershop—seersucker or linen in the summer, serge in the fall, tweed in the winter.

Before he could launch into a soliloquy, Cam interrupted. “Marcus, is she okay? When was the last time you saw her?”

“Your grandmother,” he said, his words coming agonizingly slowly to Cam’s eager ears, “is as hale and hearty as she was as a young woman of sixty. I saw her with my own eyes this very morning, when I had the privilege of enjoying a most commendable cup of coffee and a stack of silver dollar pancakes in her delightful company at our mutually preferred dining establishment.”

Cam exhaled in relief and then nearly laughed out loud. Only Marcus could make breakfast at Martina’s Cafe sound like a feast at the Ritz. But the important thing was that Birdie was all right.

“What’s happening with her, do you know? She’s been avoiding my calls for days, and that’s not like her at all. I know she’s busy, but she’s never been like this. I hate asking you, but you know how stubborn she can be.”

“It is true your grandmother is as obstinate as my aunt Trudie’s old nag—God rest both their souls,” Marcus began, and Cam steeled herself for a lengthy digression about the various branches of Marcus’s family tree and their assorted equine companions. But she was pleasantly surprised when her grandmother’s best friend got right to the point.

“The truth is, dear girl, although your grandmother would be loath to admit this to you, it seems she has gotten into what folks might call a pickle.”

A pickle was right, Cam thought later as she took Parsley for his pre-dinner walk. On any other day, she would have appreciated the chill, the first real one of the year, which seemed to float on the breeze with the coming scent of winter. But today the charm of it was lost on her. Both she and Parsley knew their route so well that she could cruise along on autopilot, ducking the low-hanging awning of the corner bodega and skirting the grate that could snag a shoe.

Wait, no, she thought. “Pickle” was wrong. Pickles were delicious. Dill, kosher, sweet—each had their uses. Not to mention the array of other pickled vegetables, jewel-toned in their jars of brine. Kimchi, for example, was one of Cam’s favorite snacks. No, what Birdie was dealing with was something else entirely.

As Marcus had informed her, a tree—one of the old cedars that shaded Birdie’s white-clapboard house from the hot summer sun and cast deep shade on the old porch swing—had toppled in a storm the week before. The funny thing about falling trees, Marcus had said, was that they were like a gambler in Vegas rolling the dice. An inch or two one way and they landed on soft grass. A fraction of an angle the other way, and boom, the entire front porch and wall of your beloved historic home gets smashed to splinters, leaving a gaping hole.

Birdie’s neighbor, a retired carpenter, had boarded it up with plywood and determined the rest of the house wasn’t in danger of imminent collapse. But it was a mess and would cost a pretty penny to fix. Birdie hadn’t given him the specifics, Marcus said.

Cam was thankful that Birdie hadn’t been in the house when it happened or been buried in the rubble, but she was upset Birdie hadn’t told her about it. She would be happy to help—she had a little rainy-day fund she had saved over the last few years once her income became steady. And she felt terribly for Birdie, who loved that house like it was a member of their family. Set up on a hill overlooking Silver Cove’s harbor, the colonial was built by a ship captain when Silver Cove was just a speck on the map. From that now-shattered porch, Birdie had loved to watch the boats come in and out—she had waved to the watermen in their dead-rise skiffs making the daily rounds with a load of crab pots and to the locals pulling in on pontoons. She even gave a nod to the bigger yachts that were sailing in from Annapolis more and more every year.

But more than the house’s architecture or its view, Cam knew Birdie loved it best for the memories it held. It was where she and Eddie had made their lives together and raised two daughters. Then later, it was where Birdie had sheltered Cam from the shock of losing her mother. It was the backdrop of countless celebrations—Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties, graduations, and even a few weddings. Cam knew her grandmother treasured every inch of the crooked old place. Every wall and every beam was an old friend.

It must be so hard for her to see the house so violated. Cam mentally recoiled at the thought of ugly sheets of plywood in place of the lead-paned windows flanking the heavy front door that looked out onto Main Street and the harbor below. At Christmastime, Birdie put a tree in each window, with twinkling lights in the boughs and a wreath of greenery on the door.

Cam was suddenly struck by an even more frightening thought. It was something Marcus had said—even a tree that looked strong and healthy could just fall right over. Cam had always thought of Birdie as eternal. Her grandmother still drove her old heap of a Volvo station wagon like a speed demon, never missed a meeting of any of her clubs, and even enjoyed a splash of brandy after dinner most nights. But she was getting older, Cam conceded. She couldn’t stay rooted in her life forever.

Later, Cam was finishing her final edits on this chapter of Meredith’s cookbook—she always thought of it as Meredith’s, even though everything from the introductory chapters to the recipes to the suggestions for what to serve with what were hers. She had been eyeing her phone, waiting for a call back from Birdie, checking every now and then to make sure her ringer was still on. So when a call from a Silver Cove area code popped up, Cam grabbed it.

“Hi, my name is Lisa, and I’m calling from Silver Cove Apartments” came a chirpy voice.

Ugh, Cam thought. Were even Silver Cove businesses getting into the telemarketing business? “Sorry, I’m not interested.” She was hanging up when she heard Lisa’s voice again.

“Is this Camillia Parker?”

“Y-yes,” Cam answered warily, wondering why Lisa would have her name and number.

“We’re calling in regards to Barbara Parker,” Lisa said. “You’re listed as a reference.”

Cam was confused. No one in Silver Cove ever called Birdie by her given name. And a reference? For what? Maybe her grandmother was looking for a part-time job. Cam thought about what Marcus had said about the repairs costing a “pretty penny.”

“Excuse me, I’m a little confused,” Cam said. “Why would my grandmother need a reference? Is she applying for a job?”

“No, she’s renting an apartment.”

Cam paused, again searching for a plausible explanation. Maybe Birdie’s house was in worse shape than Cam thought, and she needed a place to stay. But couldn’t she have just stayed at a friend’s house? Anyone in town would have offered her grandmother a guest room. But that was just like Birdie, never wanting to ask anyone for help, even though she would always be the first person to show up when anyone else needed a hand. “Oh, like a temporary thing,” Cam said.