Page 80 of Summer Longing
Amelia sat up straighter, tapping her fingers on the cover of the book. “I was afraid it would come to this.”
“I don’t know if I should have mentioned it. Please don’t say anything to Elise unless she brings it up herself.”
“No, no. I won’t. But I am going to have a word with Fern.” She inhaled deeply, opened the book, and flipped through the pages. Was that Ruth’s cue to leave? She stood and Amelia looked up. “Have you started thinking about your Carnival costume?”
“What? Oh, no. I don’t even know if I’m—”
“Don’t wait until the last minute. It has a way of sneaking up every year. Suddenly, there isn’t a sequin to be had in the entire town. I’ve already started making a replica of this mask.” She opened to the middle of the book and pointed to a purple-and-green beaded mask outlined in gold ribbon and topped with extravagant matching feathers.
“That’s beautiful. But costumes aren’t really my thing.”
“Trust me,” Amelia said. “By the end of the summer, we all need a little escape.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Olivia owned many pairs of practical shoes—practical for getting around Manhattan.
What she did not own was anything even remotely suitable for jumping on and off a small boat and wading through mucky, seaweed-filled water to reach a sandbar in the middle of Cape Cod Bay.
She showed up at the dock wearing a T-shirt, a pair of Free People denim shorts, a Yankees baseball hat, a mini–Fjällräven Kånken backpack, and a pair of Tory Sport slip-ons.
Marco took one look at her feet and ordered her up to his house, where Lidia helped her find a pair of Jaci’s knee-high rubber wading boots.
“And get a sweatshirt too,” he’d told her. “It’s fifteen degrees cooler out on the water.”
She should have remembered that; Olivia was no stranger to the water. In fact, she enjoyed boating. A few summers ago, she’d dated a guy who owned a house in East Hampton and they’d spent weekends sailing on his fifty-foot catamaran. She had not expected Marco to take her out on a similar vessel, but she definitely had not anticipated the bare-bones Carolina Skiff, as he called it.
“See how there’s no big V like other boats,” he said. “This is made for shallow water. And when we reach the flats, you’ll see why.”
The skiff had a scuffed-up white deck and a narrow bench next to the controls that could seat one person. A few ropes were scattered at her feet; there were two egg crates and buckets off to one side and an oblong floatation device tethered to a rope. Marco’s knapsack rested next to her.
Over the rumble of the motor, he said, “Everything I grow is in cages. When I first started, I used racks but ended up switching.” He glanced over at her. “I just want you to have a sense of the operation. And, really, the remarkable thing is that the whole setup out here was sort of a mistake on the part of the Division of Marine Fisheries.”
She’d never heard him so animated. She didn’t fully grasp what he was talking about, but she felt a thrill that he wanted to share his work with her.
“What kind of mistake?” she asked, holding her hat on against the wind.
“Truro and Provincetown made a joint effort to take fifty acres of open water and turn it into an aquaculture-designated area—a place where people could raise shellfish in deep water. But it never occurred to the Division of Marine Fisheries that we float most of our gear on the top. They somehow thought we would be sinking everything and bringing it up, but we don’t—floating cages are a big part of the operation. I’ll show you that another time.”
Another time? She bit her lip to keep from smiling.
“It’s basically two pontoons and underneath is a cage that holds the oysters. At any rate, it turns out we are located in the North Atlantic Right Whale Critical Habitat. They do not want vertical lines in Cape Cod Bay, so from February to May, our gear has to be sunk to the bottom—and this goes for the lobstermen too. Most everyone gets this done by December because no one wants to be out there in February dumping cages.”
“This sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is. And frankly, when I took it on, I thought Jaci would be a part of it. So it’s frustrating.”
A stretch of sand came into view. “Is that it?” she asked, looking up at him.
“That’s it,” he said. “Two hours ago, that was underwater. And it will be underwater again later, so this is our window.”
They cruised steadily forward.
“Do you eat oysters?” he asked.
“Um, no, actually. I don’t.”
He smiled at her. “That’s okay. I’m not offended.”
