Page 81 of Summer Longing
“I’m sure yours are great, though.”
He laughed. “It’s a matter of personal taste. Oysters take on the flavor of where they’re grown. Provincetown Harbor is very clean and the water is salty, so my Long Pointers have a briny terroir.”
“Don’t all oysters come from salty water? I’d imagine they’re all briny.”
“There are subtleties. For example, Wellfleet oysters are grown in a more brackish environment and they have mudflats, so I’d consider their flavor profile more musky.”
They drew closer to the sand and Marco cut the motor. “Okay, you need to get on the bow there and jump.”
“Jump?”
“Yeah, and jump long, not just down. The farther out you get, the more shallow the water.”
Olivia climbed onto the wide, flat surface at the front of the skiff. She felt self-conscious, certain she would not get very far with her leap. But with no choice, she took a deep breath and bent deeply at the knee, a motion that harked back to long-jump practice in high-school gym class.
She landed in water that was sufficiently shallow. It didn’t rise above her boots. She looked behind her and Marco gave her the thumbs-up, and her chest swelled with an absurd sense of accomplishment. While he climbed off the boat and dragged it to shore, she opened her bag to grab her phone to take a photo of the distant Long Point Lighthouse from her unique vantage point. She tried to post it to Instagram but found she had no internet connection.
Marco carried the egg crates, buckets, and his knapsack. She trudged alongside him in water so thick with green seaweed it was like walking through pea soup. She cringed at the thought of how she’d have managed out there in her slip-ons.
“Welcome to the oyster farm,” Marco said.
The farm was half a dozen rows of square wire cages just a few inches deep in the middle of the sandbar. They were exposed to the air, but the residual seaweed clinging to the tops made it clear they had recently been submerged.
Marco set the two egg crates in front of the cages, sat on one of them, and motioned for her to do the same. He handed her a pair of thick, textured gloves and she pulled them on as he unhooked the top of the cages. Opened, the cages revealed hundreds of oysters of various shapes and sizes. She’d never seen anything like it.
“So we’re looking for oysters that are three inches in diameter. Measure them with this.” He handed her a round metal ring. “If it’s not three inches, toss it back in the cage. If it’s large enough, put it in this bucket.”
“Okay,” she said. Sounded simple enough. But then she looked around at all the cages. Going through every single one by hand, oyster by oyster, would take hours. No wonder he wanted Jaci’s help.
“But also, if it’s too thin, toss it back. We want the oyster to have some depth. Think of how it would look on a plate.” He pushed the oysters in his cage to one side, and Olivia did the same with her own. A small crab scuttled across the bottom and she gasped.
“All right,” Marco said. “Let’s get to work.”
When Fern walked in the door sometime during the early-afternoon lull, Elise felt a rush of relief. They had not texted or spoken once all day, and Elise couldn’t stand the silence for another minute.
“Hey,” Fern said, joining her behind the counter to check the register receipts. “I thought Cynthia was coming in today.”
“She’s on her lunch break.”
Fern did not embrace her or offer any conciliatory gesture. Her expression was stony, and for Elise, being in the presence of her overt, simmering anger was almost worse than missing her.
Clearly, this was not the best time to bring up the news that Cynthia’s father was an adoption attorney.
Fern poured herself a cup of iced green tea and adjusted the volume of the music just a notch quieter. “I see you enlisted Jaci to babysit.”
“She offered,” Elise said. “She likes taking care of Mira.”
“Yeah, well, I was at the Barroses’ when Marco got the news and he didn’t handle it very well.”
“That’s between Jaci and her brother,” Elise said, rinsing the metal shakers in the sink. “It’s not my fault she has no interest in the family business. You heard her the night of Rachel’s party.”
Fern turned to her. “What kind of attitude is that? Lidia and Manny are our friends. If we’re doing something to contribute to tension in their family, we should minimize it.”
Elise slammed one of the shakers on the counter. “All you do is find fault with me!”
Fern made no move to deny it. They locked eyes, and neither blinked until the front door opened and Amelia walked in.
If Amelia noticed the tension in the room, she didn’t acknowledge it. Her smile was warm and her tone breezy when she asked for an iced tea. “Whatever your tea of the day is.”
