Page 26 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“DOES IT LOOK LIKE YOUremember it?” Wyatt asked as we stood in the doorway of the fourth or fifth classroom we’d explored. They were all unlocked and all stripped of any sign of human presence. It’s quite common for schools to require teachers to move completely out of their classrooms at the end of every school year—take down their posters, empty their shelves, cabinets, desks, all of it—so the school can rearrange room assignments if enrollment needs require it. Every June, most teachers take their classroom completely apart and haul it home with them (unless they’re lucky enough to work at a school that provides storage), and every August, they have to haul it all back and set it all up, even if they have the same room.
As a teacher myself, I find a classroom in summer to be a uniquely lonely space.
“Pretty much,” I answered my son. “The teacher desk, file cabinets, bookcases, student desks—all the furniture, actually, is exactly the same. But when I was here, we had chalkboards and a cart with a TV and a VCR on it. The whiteboards I expected, everybody’s got those these days. The smartboards, though, I’msurprised about that. I wouldn’t think Bendixen could afford that—and it looks like they’re in all the classrooms.”
I was now extra curious to see if the ‘athletic center’ deserved that name. Bendixen must have gotten a juicy grant or two if they were putting current technology in their classrooms and building new athletic facilities.
“What do you think so far?” I asked.
“So far, it’s just a school. Is there an auditorium or a theater or something?”
Like I said, my kid was more likely to try out for a play than a team.
“There is. If it’s like I remember, I think you’ll like it. Come on.”
“THIS IS AWESOME!” WYATTcrowed, and then jogged down the center aisle of the auditorium-slash-theater. A benefit of an old building like this one is the classic style of that precise space: a slanted floor, old-fashioned upholstered theater seats, where the seat part folds up if there isn’t a butt in it, and a raised proscenium stage with dramatic gold velvet curtains. It all looked like I remembered, but I was pretty sure the fabrics had been replaced. The seats were the same color—maroon—but in better condition.
Wyatt went up the side steps onto the stage itself. “Mom! There are stage lights in the floor! Like old fashioned ones!”
“I know!” I called back, laughing.
Then I saw the backstage curtain flutter a bit, and I started forward, ready to protect my kid from whoever was back here. Yeah, I knew the Phantom of the Opera wasn’t likely to be back there, but ... well, it had been a rough year. I was primed for trouble.
But it was a girl, with a long, sandy ponytail. It took me a second from my position halfway down the aisle, but I recognized her as the server we’d seen at Catherine’s our first morning.
I hadn’t been back very long, and I hadn’t spoken to many people—that was apparently on the agenda of the town meeting coming up—but I’d been around long enough and talked to enough people, specifically Catherine and Jessie, to know that the girl on the stage behind Wyatt was Bailey Allman. Catherine’s ‘granddaughter.’
Scare quotes are necessary because Catherine had never married or had a child. What she had done, while I was away, was, briefly, become a foster parent. Bailey, at age five or so, had been her first placement, and she’d adopted her after about a year. They’d decided that the vast difference in their ages (Catherine’s in her seventies) made ‘Mom’ a strange designation, so Bailey calls her ‘Grams’ instead.
I’d had to cobble those facts together like a quilt from things Catherine had told me and things Jessie had told me, because Catherine had only said Bailey was her granddaughter, and I’d been too recently returned to feel like I could ask yet how that could be, and Jessie, who’d ultimately filled in most of the blanks, didn’t like to tell other people’s stories.
Anyway, I don’t think I’d told Wyatt about any of that.
“Can I help you?” Bailey asked as she came through the curtain. She had an aspect of someone who owned the place, but she wasn’t rude.
Wyatt whipped around, surprised, and stammered, “Oh ... uh, hi ... uh ... hi.”
“Do you need something?” Bailey asked again. “Tryouts for the fall play won’t start until after classes start.”
“Uh ...”
I grinned. He was acting like he liked her, or at least thought she was cute—and she was objectively cute—but Wyatt hadn’t yet expressed much romantic interest in anyone of any gender. Not to me, at least.
“Hi, Bailey,” I called, striding forward to provide my son some assistance. “I’m a friend of your grandma’s.”
She squinted at Wyatt and then, as I came up the side stairs, me. “Oh, yeah! From the Sea-Mist. Hi, Mrs. ...”
I never had Micah’s last name. That might seem strange, considering my feelings for my mother, but Braddock is the name I was born with, I knew myself as Braddock, so I kept it.Leowas how I separated myself from the woman who’d named me.
“Ms.Braddock—but I’d rather you just call me Leo.”
“Okay. Hi, Leo.” Looking at Wyatt, she added, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember ...”
“Wyatt,” he said—andhis voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Wyatt. Hi.”
“Hi. Are you thinking about trying out for the play? We’re doingDeath of a Salesmanthis fall.”
“Oh, cool! Yeah, I’ll probably try out. I just registered, so I’m checking things out, you know.”
