“Glad to hear that,” I said. Gloria was wicked pretty, with sleek, impossibly smooth dark hair and a body like a ’40s pinup girl. She was younger than I was—just a year out of her graduate degree, and I liked her already.
The clinic was fairly standard, though nicer than most I’d seen, thanks to the Ames money. There were six rooms for overnight care, six urgent care bays. Once in a while, there’d be a case bad enough to require the LifeFlight helicopter to land and take the patient to Portland.
“Mostly,” Gloria said, “it’s the basic stuff. Strep throat in the winter, bee stings in the summer, the occasional case of hypothermia when someone stays in the water too long. Once in a while, we get a fisherman who’s cut himself pretty bad. Nothing that compares to Boston City, I’m sure.”
“It sounds perfect.”
“Mind if I ask why you’re here?” she said.
The hit-by-the-bug story could wait. “My niece is spending the summer with my mom, and I don’t get to see them enough. Do you know my mother? Sharon Stuart?”
“Oh, sure, I’ve met her.”
“Yeah. So here I am. I took a leave from Boston City, but I’ll be going back in August.”
“Nice.” Gloria glanced at her watch. “You want to have lunch? It’s really quiet this time of year, and if anyone comes in, the receptionist will let us know. We can go to the Red Fox. It’s just around the corner.”
The receptionist hadn’t been in when I’d come in an hour earlier. It was Mrs. Behring, mother of Joey, who’d been in Luke Fletcher’s circle of friends.
“Hello, hello,” she said warmly. “I’m Ellen Behring, so nice to meet you! I heard a new doctor was interviewing today! What brings you to Scupper Island? Will you be staying here long?”
Another local who didn’t recognize me.
“Hi, Mrs. Behring. Nora Stuart. I went to school with Joey.”
Her face flickered. “Oh! So you did. I...I didn’t recognize you, Nora. You look so...different. Are you a doctor?”
“I am. I’m here for the summer,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. Confusion was written all over her face.
“We’re going to the Red Fox,” Gloria said. “Give us a shout if you need us, okay? Can we bring you something?”
“I brought my lunch from home,” she said, still puzzling over me. I was pretty used to it by now.
It was a beautiful day for May—the blackflies were kept at bay by a stiff wind off the water, and the sky was blue and pure. In two more weeks, the summer season would officially begin.
“How did you end up on Scupper, Gloria?” I asked.
“My family’s from Boston,” she said, “and we used to come to Maine for vacations once in a while. Kennebunkport, Camden, Bar Harbor. I always loved it here. And I had this romantic vision of me coming out and falling in love with a lobsterman—”
“Every woman’s dream,” I murmured.
“Exactly. Which hasn’t happened just yet by the way. But still. It’s really pretty, the people are nice, the money’s not bad. I’ve been here for about a year.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“I rent a house on Rock Ledge Street. A little two-family place, a peek at the water.”
The Red Fox was new (to me). We got a seat by the window, since there was hardly anyone else here.
“Welcome to the Red Fox,” said the server. “How are you—oh. You. I heard you were back.”
It was Amy Beckman, Queen of the Cheetos, once the nemesis to anyone bigger than a size 2, and, all through high school, Sullivan Fletcher’s girlfriend.
She looked almost exactly the same—bright blue eyes and sharp cheekbones, athletic build. She seemed to have dropped her addiction to tanning, since her skin was no longer orange. Age had given her some gravitas, too, and pretty had become beautiful.
Still a little scary, too. How many times had she made me cry? Mocked my clothes? Snickered as I walked past in the cafeteria with a salad, knowing I’d binge-eat cheese when I was home?
“Amy,” I said with all the enthusiasm of a dead squirrel on the side of the road. “How are you?”
“So you guys know each other, obviously,” Gloria said. “Amy’s in my book club. Hey, you should join, Nora! It’s more of a drinking club, but we’d love to have you.”
“Maybe I will.” I wouldn’t. “Thank you for the invitation.”
Amy was still staring at me. “What can I get you?”
As ever, the old instincts to choose my food based on potential judgment flared up. A salad? No, that would be too much of a throwback. A cheeseburger to prove I could handle calories now (if I did an hour of Pilates back home, which my scapula and knee didn’t want me to try just yet)?
“I’ll have the lobster salad over arugula,” Gloria said with a smile. “Seltzer water with lemon, please. Thanks, Amy.”
“Same for me,” I said.
“Great,” Amy said, snapping her leather-bound notebook shut. “Be right back.”
“I’m getting a vibe,” Gloria said. “Did you spread typhoid? Are you a serial killer? Sleep with everyone’s husband?”
“Have you been reading my diary?” I paused. Gloria seemed great, but...well, I’d known her for half an hour. “Sometimes I think it’s hard when a person leaves a close-knit place, you know?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she said. “My family, they’re Mexican, right? You would’ve thought I’d chewed off my baby nephew’s leg when I said I was leaving Newton. My mother cried, made a shrine in the living room, lit candles to the Virgin so I’d change my mind, my father didn’t talk to me for a month. You’d think I was going to Mars.”
“That’s kind of sweet, though. That they were so sad to see you go.” Unlike my own mother, who’d barely seemed to notice.
“Holy shit, is that you, Nora Stuart?”
Gloria and I turned. “Xiaowen?” I said, my mouth dropping. It had to be. She looked exactly the same.
“You gotta be kidding me!” she said. “How are you, bitch?” She came over, extended her arms for a hug, smiling from ear to ear.
“I’m good,” I said, standing up to hug her back. “It’s great to see you! Wow!”
“You look amazing. You’re not fat anymore. You’re fucking beautiful. Okay, not beautiful but, shit, you look great! Look at your hair! I would sell my soul for that shine. Store-bought or what? Spill, or I’ll cut you.”
“An hour with the hair iron,” I said. I gestured to Gloria. “Do you guys know each other?”
“No,” Gloria said. “Gloria Rodriguez. I’m a nurse at the clinic where Nora’s going to be working. Why don’t you join us?”
“Xiaowen Liu. Thanks, I would love to. I usually eat alone when I’m here, which gets pretty fucking boring. I’m on the island for work, but I don’t really know anyone here anymore.”
Xiaowen’s accent had faded a bit, and I sure didn’t remember her having such a colorful vocabulary, but it was so nice to see someone genuinely enthusiastic about my presence.
“So what brings you here, if you have no friends?” I asked with a smile.
“I’m a marine biologist,” she said. “I work out of the Darling Marine Center, but I live in Cape Elizabeth.”