A Million Miles from Boston Read online

  Visitors? Occasionally a friend of Dad’s came up. But there was so much to do, so many old friends already there. And I loved keeping our lives at the Point separate from our lives here. But then I had a thought: maybe Mei could come before she went to sleepaway camp. She’d love it!

  “I think Julia is okay, Lucy,” Jenny said. “I feel it in my bones.”

  I stroked Superior. Thinking about the PT turned my stomach into knots, just like middle school did.

  But in two days we’d leave for Maine. Two months was a long time. Anything could happen.

  jumped out of the car. Superior followed, barking, as I ran to the edge of the yard and looked at the bay, breathing in the cool sea air.

  Our cottage sat high above the water on the east side of the Point. I glanced down the wooden stairs that led to our dock, then out at Bucket Island, then to the open waters of the ocean. My heart pounded, and my smile stretched so wide that it hurt.

  We were only ninety miles from Boston, but I felt as if we were a million miles away.

  “Lucy, I need your help!” Dad yelled.

  “Well, Superior,” I sighed, “you heard him. He needs us.”

  We ran to Dad and Bucky, who were unloading the car. Mr. and Mrs. Steele, our next-door neighbors, stood in the gravel by Dad.

  “The Dorseys’ cottage was perfectly fine and these new owners have turned it into a …” Mr. Steele shook his cane at Dad. “Pierson Point will never be the same. It’s the beginning of the end!”

  I smiled. Mr. Steele liked to get all worked up about stuff. We’d been coming here every summer since I was born. Dad had been coming every summer since he was born, too. Things didn’t change much. That was one of the things we loved about it.

  Mr. Steele glanced down at me, his eyes softening. He and his wife had been here longer than any family on the Point. They had great stories about my grandparents and about Dad when he was little. But most important, they’d loved my mom. I hugged both of them.

  “Goodness, Lucy, you’ve grown,” Mrs. Steele said. “How was school?”

  “Okay.” I didn’t want to talk about school. “Have you sold your kayak?”

  During the off-season, everyone from the Point kept in touch through an email Listserv. I knew that Kiki Pollard had gotten into Bates College, the Grahams planned to build a new shed and the Steeles wanted to sell their three-year-old two-seat ocean kayak.

  “Still for sale,” Mrs. Steele said. “Hello, Superior. I see you’ve gotten grayer, like the rest of us. Your winter was good?”

  Superior sat still, her eyes focused on me. Mrs. Steele didn’t pet her. Everyone knew that when I was around, she paid attention only to me. That was her guide dog training.

  “Superior, you’re being rude. Answer Mrs. Steele.” I giggled and she barked, swishing her tail. Her coat was black and shiny, although her paws and her snout were speckled with white. Was she whiter than the previous summer?

  “Those new people put in a stone driveway,” Mr. Steele said to Dad. “Can you imagine? Here?”

  “Walter.” Mrs. Steele sighed. “That’s about enough.”

  The Dorsey Debacle—that was what Dad and I called the Dorseys’ cottage. Twenty years earlier a huge oak tree had fallen on it, and the Dorsey cousins had fought so much over what to do about it that it had just sat empty. Five years ago a stockbroker from New York bought it, tore it down and built a two-story house with a garage, huge porch and balcony. Then he ran out of money and the house sat empty, weeds growing everywhere. It sold again a couple of months ago.

  “Who bought it?” I asked.

  “Someone from down your way,” he said, scowling. “With a lot of money.”

  “We should be glad the place finally has someone to take care of it,” Dad said. “It was a shame, sitting there.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s a shame. People building mansions, changing everything!”

  I pinched my lips together, hiding my smile.

  “Enough.” Mrs. Steele winked at me. “Come see us and we’ll catch up.”

  I nodded and they walked back to their cottage.

  Dad stacked bags in the grass. “I’ve been coming here forty-five years, through lots of changes. Can’t imagine new Debacle owners will make a difference. No need to worry.”

  “I’m not worried.” I picked up a duffel bag, then a second and swung them over my shoulders. Dad frowned, but I said, “They’re not too heavy.”

  We moved up the walkway and pushed open the door. The porch was cool and smelled like mildew, but it was the best smell ever. My shoulders relaxed and warmth oozed into my arms. For two months it would be the four of us, doing what we did every summer. Dad would work on his book. Bucky would be with Henry Ramsey. And Superior and I would explore.

  I flinched as I dropped the bags—they were too heavy—and hurried into the living room. My grandparents owned the cottage, but they didn’t use it much anymore. Everything was as we had left it: Grandma’s framed needlepoints on the walls, Granddad’s clock on the mantel, the crocheted afghan on the couch. The torn wallpaper. The driftwood lamp. This room hadn’t changed since Dad was a boy.

  “It held up pretty well,” Dad said. “Let’s open it up.”

  Opening the cottage was a lot easier, and more fun, than closing it. Like most cottages on the Point, it was small, with a kitchen, living room, screened-in porch and half bathroom on the first floor. On the second there was a bigger bathroom, three tiny bedrooms and a large closet that Dad used as his writing room.

  Dad turned on the water and put the screens in the windows while Bucky and I filled the refrigerator and cabinets with food. In my room I unpacked my clothes, my bird book, a sketch pad and art supplies for the day camp I was starting for the younger kids on the Point. Clay, paint, brushes, pads of paper and glue.

  Dad said that Mom had always wanted to start a camp here. She’d called it a win-win for everyone: Moms got a break. Kids had fun.

  I loved little kids and the idea of running a camp. All winter I had looked on the Web for things to do. The more plans I made—digging for crabs, building papier-mâché masks, painting rocks—the more excited I became.

  I wanted the kids to have the best summer, one they’d never, ever forget.

  “Lucy, I need help.” Bucky’s room was on the other side of Dad’s, but the walls were so thin that I heard him.

  “I know,” I said to Superior, who stared at me from the rug. “I want to go outside, too.” I walked down the hall, the knotted wooden floors creaking underneath me. I knew Dad would say, Help him. He’s only seven.

  I unzipped a bag of neatly folded clothes, packed by Jenny, and Bucky and I put them away. Toys were in the next bag. “You unpack this.”

  We went back to my room and Bucky plopped down on my bed, studying the framed pictures of Mom I’d brought from home. One was taken in front of her high school, where she was laughing with two other girls. In another she was older, sitting on the rocks at the end of the Point. The last was of the four of us, before she’d gotten sick.

  “Which one do you think looks like her the most?” he asked.

  I was six when Mom died, Bucky only one. I liked to be certain about Mom when we talked so he wouldn’t be sad that he had no memories of her. “They all do.”

  “Who were these two girls?” He pointed to the picture. “Why are they laughing?”

  We’d been over this a million times and I always had the same answer. “They were best friends and it was the first day of high school and they were happy because they found out that they had every class together. They wouldn’t be alone.”

  “How do you know?” Bucky asked.

  Dad didn’t know who these girls were; we’d found the picture in a box after Mom had died. I didn’t know how I knew the story. I just did.

  “Bucky!” someone called from the lawn.

  He ran to the window. “Henry!” Then he was out the door.

  By the time Superior and I made it outside, Bucky and
Henry were wrestling on the grass in front of the Ramseys’, three cottages down. I’d promised Dad I’d make brownies for tonight’s barbecue. Superior and I only had a few minutes to explore.

  We ran. The east road followed our side of the Point, past the Steeles’ and common property, before turning and connecting to the west road. The complete semicircle was a half mile. Twenty-five cottages were scattered along the roads.

  At the common property I turned onto a path and walked through pine, birch and oak trees to the beach. Because of the rocks and grass, it wasn’t much of a beach. At the far end huge boulders piled on top of each other into the water. Off to the left stood an abandoned lighthouse. I spun around, arms high. Nothing had changed.

  I glanced up at the trees behind me. After the August storm the year before, Dad had borrowed the Ramseys’ new kayak to check out the damage. Many trees had fallen, leaving an eagles’ nest exposed. No one had ever seen an eagles’ nest on the Point.

  He’d come back excited. But when I had run down here, it had been high tide. The trees were too close to the water and I couldn’t see up through the leaves to the nest.

  It was low tide now. If I walked out far enough, I might have a better angle. I kicked off my flip-flops and stepped in. Icy water circled my ankles as Superior sat in the sand, watching.

  Dad said that I’d liked to swim with Mom, but I rarely swam now. The water was too cold and you never knew what was underneath, hiding in the seaweed.

  Superior wagged her tail. “Oh, you’re fine now, but you don’t like the water, either, you know.” When the water was rough, she ran up and down the beach, barking at the waves. She was worse in the boat, hanging off the side, snapping at the wake. I glanced at my watch. The nest would have to wait. Time to go.

  Back at the cottage I found the brownie mix and pulled out Grandma’s old yellow mixing bowl. But I couldn’t find the oil. I climbed the stairs, then stood in the doorway of Dad’s writing room. He sat at his desk, staring at his computer.

  “Ah, you caught me.” He grinned. “I couldn’t resist getting started again.”

  Dad was writing a book about Pierson Point. I had read a couple of chapter drafts. It was a lot easier to read than the other books he’d published, textbooks for his history classes back in Boston. It was way more interesting, too.

  For example, in 1750 smugglers had supposedly buried stolen goods somewhere on the Point. In 1782 the Point had had more bald eagles’ nests than any other place in Maine.

  My favorite story was from Thaddeus Pierson’s journal. He had lived on the Point in the early 1900s and his was the only personal account Dad had. Thaddeus had been a big outdoorsman. One day as he walked home, carrying a bucket of fish, a pack of wolves surprised him. He kept tossing the fish to the hungry wolves and just made it home.

  I loved this story because I could see what the Point had been like back then.

  But Dad said it might not be true; that was the problem with history. You weren’t there, so you had to rely on other accounts, which were often unreliable.

  “Think you’ll finally be able to finish this summer?” I asked.

  “I hope so.” He raised his eyebrows. “Julia had an interesting idea.”

  “You let her read it?” What did she know? She’d never been here.

  “No, but I was telling her about it.”

  “She’s not a writer.”

  “True, but sometimes it’s good to talk to someone who has a fresh perspective. They help you see things you didn’t know are there.”

  He took off his glasses, chewed on the stem and turned his chair toward me. Dad had never been much of a talker. Until lately. Until the PT.

  “I can’t find the oil,” I said.

  “Goose.” That was Dad’s nickname for me.

  “The barbecue starts soon!” I ran down the stairs and dug a bottle of walnut oil out of the cabinet. Wasn’t that practically the same thing as vegetable oil? Jenny would know, but she was twelve hundred miles away. I could ask Mrs. Steele but she’d want to talk and I was saving that for later.

  I didn’t want Dad to think I couldn’t do this. I poured in the oil, mixed the batter and put the pan in the oven.

  Then I cleaned up. Our kitchen was small, with two windows, one held open with a yardstick. The wooden floor sloped down slightly, so the table wobbled unless you put a dish towel under one of the legs. The knob on the cabinet door was broken and you had to open it by putting your fingers into the grooves of the frame.

  But I was home.

  he brownies looked great—thick, rich and oozing chocolate. I cut them into squares and put them on a paper plate. But when I pulled off a corner and put it in my mouth, it tasted awful. Rancid, as Jenny would say. I spit it into the sink.

  Was it the walnut oil? I took the plate to the garbage.

  “Ready?” Dad came into the kitchen. “Oh, can I taste?”

  “They aren’t—”

  Just as he reached for a brownie, his phone rang. He looked at the number and smiled. “Hi!”

  The PT’s face flashed into my mind—that enormous mouth and those white teeth.

  He turned away, then laughed. “I’ll call you later. Me too.” When he reached for a brownie, still smiling, I yanked the plate away.

  “We won’t have enough for tonight.” What was I doing? Nobody could eat these.

  Dad shrugged, then hummed, something he didn’t usually do. Neither of us carried our cell phones around up here, either. Now he fastened his onto his belt.

  “Can’t Superior come, just this once?” I asked.

  “You know the rules. Superior and food don’t mix.”

  Superior had only one fault. She begged for food, all the time. I scratched her under the chin and whispered, “We’ll be back soon. Promise.”

  I followed Dad, the brownies in my hands. If I told him how awful they were, he’d want to know why I hadn’t told him in the first place. Which I couldn’t answer; it had happened so quickly.

  We turned on the path next to the Grants’ cottage and without looking at each other we took off running. Dad used to beat me easily, but the past summer I’d finally won. Now I turned at the oak tree and poured on the speed. I was first into the big field, the plate of brownies steady in my hands.

  “Whew!” Dad bent over, breathing deeply. “I’m out of shape!”

  We laughed and started across the field. Far off to the left were two old tennis courts, weeds sprouting through cracks along the baselines. A wooden play structure stood nearby. It was so old that it gave everyone splinters, but no one wanted to take it down.

  We walked up to the Big House, a one-story meeting house with a wraparound porch. The families had built it in 1922 and it hadn’t changed much. The floors creaked, the gutters leaked and it smelled like burned wood and mildew. We loved it. Mrs. Steele called it the heart of the Point, and I agreed.

  I stopped in front of the steps. “These brownies aren’t any good.”

  “Everything you make is great!” Dad smiled and disappeared into the Big House.

  People were everywhere, walking through the field, crowding the porch. “How was your winter?” “How did your cottage hold up?” Hugs, kisses, slaps on backs.

  I knew everyone, the Sullivans, the Tolls, the Averys, the Grants, the Pollards.

  “We were so glad to get your email about camp,” said Mrs. Dennis, holding her three-year-old, Stevie. “Lauren’s excited! Stevie’s too young, so maybe you could sit for us sometime?”

  “Sure.” I grinned at Stevie, who frowned and turned his face into his mom’s neck.

  “Lucy!” Mr. Ramsey was behind me. “Good to see you! Did you hear we’ve got new neighbors in the Dorsey house? From your neck of the woods.”

  I nodded. Lots of people from Boston vacationed or owned homes here. Someone grabbed Mr. Ramsey and said hello, so I slipped behind the crowd into the main room. Tables were stuffed with plates of food.

  “Lucy!” Mrs. Ramsey hugged me. “Brownie
s! Your mom would’ve been proud! She always made the best ones. But I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

  “Yeah. But these are no good.”

  “So modest! Take them to the dessert table.” She turned to talk to someone else.

  No way.

  In the kitchen, a new girl opened and shut drawers. She was maybe sixteen, with long blond hair streaked pink. She watched as I dumped the brownies into the trash. “Decided not to poison anyone?”

  I laughed. “Exactly.”

  She had eyes so dark they were almost black and impossible to read. She smiled. “Are there any flashlights in this godforsaken place? My dad sent me in here for one.”

  I yanked on a drawer. It stuck, then screeched as I pulled harder. I reached in for a flashlight.

  She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve asked three people and no one could help me.”

  “I know where everything is.” I turned on the flashlight and nothing happened. I banged it on the counter and the light came on. “Sometimes you have to do that.”

  She took the flashlight. “You’re like me. I always know what’s going on.”

  “Well, not always,” I said. But I stood taller. She wore a tank top, blue like the ocean, and jeans. Beaded earrings hung from her pierced ears. I touched my ears, which were still sore. Soon I’d wear earrings just like hers.

  “Thanks, catch you later.” She waved and disappeared into the main room.

  You’re like me. I smiled. No one had ever said that to me.

  The main room was packed. Dad sat with the Steeles in the corner. Stevie cried as Mrs. Dennis pulled him out from under the dessert table. Kiki Pollard and the other older girls, Tonya and Danielle Winston, walked in.

  I watched Kiki as she said hello to everyone. She was by far the nicest of the older girls. Before she drove into town, she would always ask neighbors if they needed anything. Two summers earlier she’d read every day to Mrs. Graham’s mother, who had been ninety-two and recovering from eye surgery.

  Right now she was bent over old Mr. Grant, talking, her hand on his shoulder.

  Up here kids were either a lot older or a lot younger than me, so I was always alone with Superior—which I liked, because Superior was my best friend and so much fun.