At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(25)
Don's parents owned a fishing boat and Don went out with his father every morning during summer vacation. He told Noah he could go with them. All he had to do was be down at the docks by four a.m. Noah liked him, mainly because Don didn't seem to care that Noah was Simon's son. He liked Noah despite that fact. Don didn't sweat the small stuff like whose father did what for a living. He worked hard and played hard and figured everyone else did the same. "We go over to Hidden Island just about every night," he had told Noah as they walked toward their cars after the bowling alley closed. "Bring a six-pack with you and you're in."
Noah grinned as he considered the idea. It would piss off his father big time. His son and heir chugging beer with the locals on Hidden Island, the most notorious makeout spot between here and Kittery. The only thing that would piss him off more than that would be if Noah found himself a minimum wage job right there in town. A job that wasn't at the Gazette.
No doubt about it. That would be a first-class ticket out of there.
He could pump gas for Eb at the Stop & Pump or maybe bag groceries for the summer people at the new Food Basket at the corner of Main and Dock Streets. He could caddy for the old farts at the club or, even better, shovel dog shit like Gracie. That appealed to him. Not the dog shit part, but he liked Doctor Jim and being around Gracie didn't sound half-bad.
Besides, give it two weeks and he'd be on his way to Colorado.
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Gracie jumped at the sound of Doctor Jim's voice.
"What is with you, young lady?" he asked as she bent down to retrieve the syringe she'd dropped. "You're more nervous than Jasper Dawson's hound the day he was fixed."
"Just clumsy, I guess." She disposed of the syringe in the special receptacle then reached for a new one. The Siamese on the table in front of her meowed nervously. "I'm sorry, Lady," she said, bending down and kissing the cat on top of its head. "You should be glad Doctor Jim's giving you the injection."
"If I didn't know better," said Doctor Jim as he took the new syringe from her, "I'd think you had a boy on your mind."
She laughed but it didn't sound quite as convincing as she might have hoped. "Who has time?" she countered. "You run me ragged around here."
Gracie whispered soothingly to the protesting cat while Doctor Jim quickly administered the shot.
"The Chases' boy has certainly grown up, hasn't he?"
Gracie gathered up Lady in her arms and feigned temporary deafness.
"I hear all the girls in town are buzzing now that he's back."
"I'm glad they have time to buzz," Gracie snapped. "I have more important things on my mind." She quickly turned away so he wouldn't see that she was blushing the color of the Idle Point Volunteer Fire Department's one and only engine. "I'm going to put Lady back in her cage."
She hurried toward the back of the building where the boarding kennels were located. If Doctor Jim knew that Noah Chase had called her at work a little while ago and asked her to meet him for lunch she'd never hear the end of it. He'd probably think it was a date or something stupid like that and blow it all out of proportion. It wasn't a date, she told herself. Dates called you a few days in advance. They came to your house and picked you and up and met your family. They didn't call you at 10:22 on a Wednesday morning and say, "Why don't we grab a lobstah roll at Andy's and sit out on the rocks?" The sound of Maine was still there in his voice and it made her smile.
"I don't care if it's a date or not," she told Lady as she made the animal comfortable then locked the cage securely. She was going to have lunch with Noah. That was all that was important.
She was on her feet and heading for the door at the stroke of noon. "Lock up for me, Martin," she asked the lab technician. "I have an errand to run."
Her hands shook as she applied eye shadow and mascara in the car. She ran a brush through her hair, wishing she were blond and blue-eyed and beautiful. Why hadn't she worn something more appealing than her favorite pair of threadbare jeans and a green tank top. Her sneakers looked terrible, worn and stained. She kicked them off. She didn't have much going for her, but she did have nice feet. She fumbled around in the glove compartment and pulled out a bottle of hot pink nail polish. Maybe she could dazzle him with her pedicure. She wondered if there was time to race home and change then decided against it. No matter what she did she wasn't about to transform herself into the type of girl who could attract someone like Noah. It just wasn't going to happen.