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“Ahh, turning the tables on the philosopher. That’s quite skillful of you.” He gave my hand a tentative squeeze but felt it all the way to my toes. “If you’d like to stay for dessert, I have a cheeky little cake from the baker in town. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting?”
I bobbed my head. Katy would blow a gasket if she knew I was wolfing down something so decadent, but I did not care. All I wanted was to spend a few more hours with a fascinating man in this yellow shack with the blue shutters.
Chapter Eight
Thefollowingmorningmyrun felt a little less strenuous as if I were running on air instead of blacktop. Which was silly of course, but that was how my body felt after that meal last night.
Gibson and I had eaten far too much cake, drank too much wine, and spent too much time talking about the film industry. We also discussed if it was truly possible to be happy and sad at the same time. I’d never given such deep thoughts much merit but sitting there for hours talking and laughing, sometimes things even got a little heated, had been amazing. Just talking.
Okay, so there might have been some heavy flirting and that handhold, but that was it. When I left around midnight, full of rich foods and giddy on Greek wine, he bussed my cheeks as they do in Europe. Then I kissed his. Oregano snapped at me as I walked around her pot, but I was deft enough to avoid an ass pinch. Overall, it had been the single best date I’d ever been on and I prayed we’d do it again soon.
Feeling good despite a late night and far too many fattening foods, I returned to the inn to find my father waiting for me in the kitchen. Emelda was there, stirring oatmeal in a giant pot on the huge cookstove. A few servers were moving about sluggishly, the early hour rough on the young migrants that flocked to the Maine resort towns to work. They’d all probably been serving in another restaurant over the dinner shift. Seasonal workers fueled much of the local economy working as servers, farm workers, cleaning staff, and such. You know, the jobs that Americans refused to do for the meager wages the seasonal workers were paid. My father paid well, obviously, as Emelda was still here. She’d started here when I was an infant and while I’d not say that the chunky woman from Honduras had taken the place of my mother entirely, she certainly had been a kind aunt. Always there with cookies and a hug if I scraped a knee or missed dinner. She’d married an auto mechanic on the mainland and made the short trip over to Kesside daily for years and years.
“Seems the only one who sees you on a regular basis is Emelda,” Dad teased, but there was some bite to his words. Emelda tossed me a look over the pot of bubbling oats. Her dark brown eyes crinkled.
“I meant to stop by your rooms last night but I had a dinner date with someone that ran late,” I explained, slipping around Emelda to pluck a warm muffin from a baking pan that one of the young kitchen assistants had just taken out of the oven.
“Stop stealing and ask,” Emelda warned playfully. I kissed her cheek, then patted the net holding her long salt-and-pepper hair. The assistant giggled but got a dark look from Emelda and rushed to carry the muffins to the dining room.
“If I can have your ear for a moment,” Dad said with a wave to the dining area. The doors to the dining hall didn’t open to guests until 7 a.m. so we had about fifteen minutes. I smelled like sweat and man. Not exactly the best aroma for an early breakfast with my father, but since he seemed determined to bend my ear…
The dining room was a wide and open space with a rounded wall of glass that looked out over the sea. We stole some scrambled eggs and bacon from a large silver buffet server. The tables were nearly filled with breakfast foods. Off to the side was a light blue antique sideboard that held coffee and teapots with creamer and sugar packets.
Once we had our food and coffee, we made our way to the middle table by the windows. A smaller one for two. Dad nodded at the workers as they scurried around. Guests were milling around outside. Three women were doing yoga on the lawn, their white mats standing out against the lush green grass.
“The grounds look great,” I said to open up things.
“I have a new gardener. Max retired last year. This fellow, his name is Anton, has the greenest thumb I have ever seen. Your mother’s flowers are exploding like never before.” His gaze darted to a perennial bed that was thick with tall purple flowers, short yellow buds, and of course, Mom’s beloved roses. His dark eyes came back to me. “I stopped by your room last night, but you weren’t there.”
Kimmy meandered in, saw Dad and me talking, and then scooted back out of the dining room.
“I had a date,” I repeated as I watched the day clerk hustle out as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her backside. “Does she have a thing with me?” I asked, pointing my fork in her direction. Dad never turned to look at his employee, he just kept peppering his eggs. “Every time she sees me, she looks like she swallowed a puffer fish.”
“No, no, it’s not like that at all. Kimmy would like to get to know you better—I talk about you all the time—but she doesn’t want to step on the memories of your mother,” he said, his sight darting from his now black scrambled eggs to me.
I chewed my bacon in confusion. “How on earth could she step on the memories of Mom? Why would she even care? She’s just the day clerk and I—”
Dad swallowed some coffee, then gently shook his head. “She’s my girlfriend.”
Someone could have knocked me out of my chair with the feather duster poking out of the cleaning cart one of the staff was pushing past the dining room doors. Girlfriend. Wow. Granted I had been wrapped up in my own shit since arriving, but how did I not see…
“Oh okay,” I said after the cogs in my head started cogging again. “So that’s why she has permission to enter your room and wake you up.”
“Yes, that’s why. Are you upset?” He seemed quite worried.
“Upset? Why would I be upset? I’m thrilled that you have someone in your life, Dad. She seems…well, skittish is the word that comes to mind, but I’m sure she’s nice.”
“She is, Elias, very nice. And sunny. So different from Gretchen,” he confessed, but then snapped his mouth shut. “I didn’t mean to say that, Son. Your mother couldn’t help the darkness that took her away from us in the end.”
I nodded, unable to say much at the moment. Memories assailed me. Blurry now because it had been so long since she had died, but if I strained, I could still hear Mom humming as she worked on the flowers. That seemed to be the only place she was truly happy during those last few years.
Not wishing to let melancholy settle over me, I shook off those remembrances. “I’m happy for you and Kimmy. Maybe we can have dinner together soon so I can get to know her better. I take it she knows about things in my life?”
“Oh yeah, she knows it all. I hope that’s okay. I needed someone to talk to when the news broke,” he whispered as if the servers setting silverware on the tables didn’t know. Everyone knew about me and my predilections.
“Sure, that’s fine. Is she okay with queers?”
Dad smiled. “She has a lesbian niece, so yes, she is very open to the queers.”
