Flying Solo(42)

“You can come back anytime,” he said, not looking toward her, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

When they got up to Ginger’s door, Nick went to knock, but it flew open before he could make contact. She wasn’t anywhere near as small or as frail as Laurie realized she’d been imagining. She was dressed like an ad for a lush senior living facility, in white pants and a navy blue top. And as had been the case every time Laurie had ever seen her, her hair was perfectly curled and brightly colored. It was often some shade of red—sometimes more auburn, sometimes more pink—but right now, it was a robin’s-egg blue.

“Well, come here and put your arms around me, Laurie Sassalyn,” she said. Ginger’s arms were thin, but her embrace was emphatic, and Laurie could smell vanilla and lavender that lingered faintly around her hair and her shoulders. “You look just beautiful, my love,” Ginger said to her as they pulled apart.

“You do, too. I’m so happy to see you,” Laurie said as she and Nick followed Ginger inside.

“Now, darlings,” Ginger said, “I’m afraid my babies are on a playdate with their besties, but I’m sure they’ll be sorry they missed you.”

“The…dogs?” Nick said. “The dogs are on a playdate.”

“Of course the dogs,” she said. “They play down the street with Mr. Waltham’s pugs. Otherwise they get lonely. Chrissy especially.”

“Oh, tell Laurie what the dogs’ names are. She hasn’t met them.” Nick looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to love it.”

“They’re named Jack, Janet, and Chrissy,” Ginger said. “Like on Three’s Company. But Jack isn’t gay.”

“Jack wasn’t gay on the show,” Nick said.

“I know that.” Ginger scowled. “But they said he was.”

“I love the fact that you introduce your dogs by telling people, ‘My dog’s name is Jack, but he’s not gay.’?”

“Oh, go ahead,” Ginger said, “come by to drink a lady’s coffee and tease her about her heterosexual dog.”

When Laurie was a teenager, she had loved coming with Nick to visit Ginger. There were people who would visit the house and expect that it would be rehabbed in some basic-cable way that would conceal its origins, so that you wouldn’t know it had ever been a lighthouse except perhaps for a tasteful oar mounted on the wall. This was not that kind of home.

The entrance opened into a round living room surrounded by a winding staircase that, if you climbed it, led you through a series of round spaces: a bedroom, then the dining room, then a library with enormous windows that looked out at the water. (That was the first library in which Nick and Laurie had awkwardly made out while the sun was going down.) In the boxy section beside the tower—the part that looked like a regular little house—were Ginger’s bright yellow kitchen, her primary bedroom suite, a powder room, and a small sitting room that unofficially belonged to the dogs.

As long as Laurie could remember, she’d never been able to find so much as a dust particle on a surface where Ginger was in charge. Having spent so much time in Dot’s cluttered house with half-empty boxes and stacks of photos, Laurie could have been self-conscious in this bright oasis. But Ginger gestured at a cream-colored couch—Cream! In a house of dogs!—and Laurie and Nick sat together, much as they would have when they were seventeen. On the coffee table, there was already a glass carafe of orange juice and an opened bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. “I’m not telling you what to do,” Ginger said over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen, “but I’ll be right back, the glasses are right there, and you can follow your bliss.”

“Follow your bliss,” Nick whispered as he poured orange juice into a tall glass and topped it with a glug of champagne, then did the same for her. “What are you making in there, Gran?” he called out.

“We’re having some fruit, and some very delicious pastries and coffee,” she answered, “because I couldn’t get the good eggs this week. They mob that farmers market, I tell you. I get there fifteen minutes early and the tourists from the cottages clean out the eggs before I get to the front of the line. I don’t know what they’re even making. Who eats that many eggs on vacation?” She appeared with a tray that held a plate of croissants and muffins, plus a pot of coffee and two white mugs with photos on them of small children grinning to show off mouthfuls of teeth that sported a few gaps. “Now, do you know who these beauties are, Nick?” she asked as she set down the tray.

“Oh boy,” he said, picking up one of the mugs. “These are the children of…one of my cousins.”

She clicked her tongue. “One of your cousins. Shame on you. These are Betsy’s boys. That’s Clayton with the bat on his shoulder, and that’s Calvin with the cat in his lap.”

Laurie poured herself coffee in the Calvin mug. “Betsy is John’s daughter, right?”

“Show-off,” Nick muttered as he filled the other one.

“That’s right,” Ginger said. “John’s got Betsy, she’s a nurse, and Brian, he’s a dog trainer, and Tracy, she works at a coffee shop in Bangor. I supported her at the Pride parade, you know.” Ginger got up and went to the mantel, where she took down a small framed photo. In it, Ginger had a full rainbow of colors in her hair, and she was wearing a shirt that said BI BI LOVE, and Tracy, a brunette with a short bob, was grinning and kissing her cheek.