Good Harbor

Ginny’s frown dissolved as she pointed to a photograph taped to the counter. “The best.”

Kathleen introduced Joyce and mentioned the house on Forest Street.

“Mary Loquasto’s house,” Ginny said, nodding. “You the writer?”

Joyce blushed and nodded.

“It’s a nice house,” Ginny added, almost daring Joyce to disagree.

“We’re very lucky,” Joyce said.

“There are no secrets in a small town, you know,” Kathleen whispered. She bought a loaf of scali bread; Joyce ordered three dozen cookies for Nina’s soccer team. Dean Martin followed them out into the street. “Sometimes they play opera,” Kathleen said, pointing up at the speakers under the awning. They stood for a moment and listened to the end of “Return to Me.”

“Are you in a rush?” Kathleen asked. “The pastry shop over there has wonderful cappuccino.”

As they walked into the café across the street, the woman behind the counter said, “Hi, Mrs. Levine.”

“Hi, Philomena,” said Kathleen. “Is Serena over her cold?”

“She’ll be back in school next week,” said Philomena, who lowered her voice and added, “And I hear you’re going to be okay, right?”

Kathleen brushed off Philomena’s question and the quizzical look on Joyce’s face. “I’m fine. Can we have two of the world’s best cappuccinos?”

As she steamed the milk, Philomena got started on other people’s business. “So, is that Mrs. Fry who teaches second grade pregnant, or not?” She set down a couple of biscotti with the coffees. “On the house.”

Philomena was about to pull over a chair to join them when the phone rang. Kathleen and Joyce exchanged relieved glances. They stirred their coffees with exaggerated care, each wondering where to begin.

Maybe I’m too old, thought Kathleen. She tried to remember how she and Jeanette had started to be friends. It had taken them two years to talk about anything more important than the weather. And now Jeanette was out of her life. Kathleen knew why she hadn’t called: too many friends and family members had been diagnosed with cancer in the past few years, and Jeanette was terrified. Still, Kathleen would never be able to forgive her. For a moment, she considered sticking to the weather. But then Joyce smiled, revealing two perfectly matched dimples Kathleen hadn’t noticed the other night at temple.

“What brought you to Gloucester in the first place?” Kathleen asked.

“Actually, Nina found it,” Joyce said. “She was a colicky baby . . . what a horrible three months that was. She would only sleep in the car, and even then we had to be doing at least fifty. Frank and I drove up and down 128, taking turns napping. So one night, late, maybe three in the morning, Frank pulled over alongside Good Harbor beach. There was no moon, and the stars were just staggering. I could see the Milky Way like it was an address, you know? Like a real pathway through the sky. Eventually, all of us fell asleep, and when we woke up, the sunrise closed the sale.

“After that, we came up for vacations. We rented cottages all over the place: Annisquam, Lanesville, Rocky Neck. We were in an apartment near Bass Rocks for three years until the place went condo. By then, I swore if we ever had the money, we’d buy a place up here.”

Kathleen nodded, her eyes fixed on Joyce’s expressive face. She must be forty, Kathleen thought. I can see the little lines around her eyes. Gray eyes, very striking with the black hair.

“Of course we couldn’t afford what we wanted,” Joyce went on, “which is a water view. Our place is about three blocks up from Smith’s Cove, near the theater. Oh, right,” she said, remembering Ginny’s comment. “I guess everyone knows that.”

“It’s not bad, to be known by your neighbors.”

“I’ll have to get used to it. Belmont is totally anonymous by comparison.”

Kathleen nodded, encouraging Joyce to go on with her story.

“I love it up here. But when I try to explain what made me pick Gloucester, I end up sounding like a Hallmark card. How can you describe the sky and the light up here without getting all gooey?”

“It’s hard to describe love of a place,” Kathleen said. “I can’t do it, and I’ve been here nearly thirty-five years. I remember reading a poem that said the harbor here is big enough to hold the sky. Something like that. It was Charles Olsen. He used to live in Gloucester, you know. And there was also a line about how Gloucester was still a place to go fishing from. I should find that again.”

“I’d like to read it,” said Joyce. “Did you know Olsen?”

“Oh, no. I heard him speak at a town meeting once. Strange guy. A shame he died so young.”

There was a pause, and then it was Joyce’s turn to ask a question. “Do your sons live nearby?”

Kathleen told her about Hal, her oldest, twenty-nine and living in San Francisco, a computer programmer; and Jack, twenty-three, a chef in New York, with a Broadway actress for a girlfriend.

Kathleen asked about Nina. “She is totally into soccer,” Joyce said. “And most of the time she wishes I would vanish from the face of the earth.”