A Side of Sabotage Read online

  “I don’t know, maybe. As long as he didn’t have to spray it with sea mist and serve it on a deboned dolphin fin.”

  We laugh so hard at the thought of this that the rest of the café looks our way.

  “Anyway”—I pull myself together—“Dad wouldn’t charge twenty-five dollars for it. I heard a salad at Restaurant Hubert costs that much.”

  Before Ella can comment on the going rate for a kale salad back in New York City, Dad walks back in and Dominic calls out, “I’ve got a menu idea for you, Mr. Boyd.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Dad rolls his eyes. “Whatcha got this time?” Dad’s getting used to people around town recommending Maiden Rock versions of foodie dishes.

  Dominic slips a paper from his pocket and reads: “Gusty burgers sous vide.”

  This stops Dad in his tracks and causes him to give up a big belly laugh.

  “What’s sous vide?” Ella asks.

  Ben volunteers, “Dom and I have been studying up on this stuff. It’s where you vacuum seal the burger in a bag and cook it submerged in water at low heat—”

  “That’s a good one, guys,” says Dad. “But I don’t think I’ll be boiling my burgers in a bag. I’m sticking with the griddle.”

  The slick-haired man at the counter grunts. Although he has the house salad to occupy him, he’s obviously been listening to all of this. And he practically does a double take when Sisters Rosie and Ethel bustle through the main door and head for the counter. The sisters used to live at the Our Lady of the Tides Convent. Nowadays, and after a sketchy episode a while ago involving a convent fundraiser and the disappearance of Ms. Stillford, they’re running a cat rescue in an old lighthouse on Pidgin Beach, south of here. But they still come to Gusty’s every day for a meal or a piece of pie.

  The stranger turns and cuts the sisters a look like they’re annoying him. He pushes some lettuce around the plate with his fork, then spears a piece and looks at it like it’s a scientific specimen. Finally, he puts it in his mouth.

  I can tell Dad’s studying this guy as he chews. It doesn’t take long before the deliciousness of the salad registers on the stranger’s tongue. He takes a second bite, then a quick third. He pulls a piece of paper and pen out of his pocket and starts writing.

  “Will you be wantin’ anything else?” Clooney asks the man, having fielded the sisters’ pie order. “Blueberry pie? Whoopie pie? Cinnamon bun—”

  “What did you say was in this dressing?” he asks her with his pen poised.

  Clooney looks at the pen and paper in his hands and backs up against a stack of coffee cups, which clink against each other in response.

  Dad steps in. “So glad you like it. It’s a Gusty’s trade secret.”

  I immediately think, Good for you, Dad! He’s starting to feel a little protective of his recipes. Anyway, why does this stranger want to know? Our salad’s not exactly Hubert’s style.

  Dad sticks his hand out. “I’m Gusty. This is my place.”

  The guy opens his mouth and says something, but I miss it because Owen Loney leans over our table and asks me, “Who’s that?”

  “We think he’s from Restaurant Hubert,” I answer.

  “Fool place,” Owen responds.

  Sister Rosie’s a critic too. “I read in the paper about the beam of light. I don’t get it.”

  Owen Loney adds, “That’s an insult to a decent lobstah.” He grumbles as he watches the slick-haired man stride out of the café.

  “You know,” Ella says, “if you really want to give Gusty’s a face-lift, we could repaint the benches out front,” says Ella.

  “That’s a good one. I’ll do that,” Owen Loney says.

  “We could make some flyers with coupons for specials and put them in the mailboxes,” I say. “And put new ones out every week.”

  Ella adds, “We could do a Facebook page, Instagram, and a Twitter handle.”

  “And Snapchat,” Ben says, pulling out his phone. “It would be like ten seconds of me eating lobster fries.”

  Dad arrives at our table in time to hear our ideas. “Don’t worry, you guys. It’s just a healthy rivalry.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that,” I say.

  Ben offers, “We could fix up the dock behind the café, and boats could sail right across the pool.”

  Dad looks back toward the kitchen, in the direction of the tidal pool. “We’d only be sailable at high tide. We found that out years ago. Mucky mess at low tide.”

  “Let us do something, Dad,” I say. “Coupons?”

  “I don’t make more money by giving away food that everybody around here already loves. And don’t get me started on Facebooking, tweeting, and snapping.”

  Ben can’t help himself. “Snapchatting.”

  “Flower boxes?” I say, sounding a little desperate.

  “Clooney’s on that,” Dad says. “Look, you relax for a bit, have some fun, or better yet, go help your mom with welcome packets for the summer people. We’ll talk about the rest later.”

  “Please, Dad,” I say, getting more worked up about it. “This is really happening. That guy was from Restaurant Hubert, I know it. He was trying to steal your dressing recipe. At least get some kale or something.”

  3

  Now that we’ve put off cleaning Ms. Stillford’s carriage house until tomorrow and Dad won’t give us anything to do around the café, Ella, Ben, Dominic, and I have around five hours until Zoe arrives, so I guess we’re forced to go to the beach. Dad’s right. We should relax and have some fun.

  I’ve walked and run and played on this beach my whole life. I know every rock and crevice and crab on it. The big outcropping to the north shelters a channel that flows into the Maiden Rock Tidal Pool, where I learned to sail. The cliff above the towering white ex-convent building—now a spiritual center—is where “sailors were lured by sirens’ calls, and scorned maidens threw themselves to their death,” or so the Maiden Rock historical marker says.

  Dominic and Ben run full-out down the beach, kicking up sand, a blur against a fuzzy blue and white background.

  Ella’s in sharp focus next to me. The sun bounces off the plastic jewels of her flip-flops, turning the sea foam pink and yellow for a second. We walk in the surf until bites from the fifty-five degree water turn our skin red.

  I raise my voice over the soundtrack of crashing surf and cawing gulls. “Are you excited?”

  She smiles. “Sure. But I’m not exactly in the zone you’re in.”

  “Fine. It’s true. I’m in outer space.”

  “All I know about her is what you’ve told me.” She rolls her hands in an on and on motion. “You know, what you guys did when you were three and four and five and six and seven and eight—”

  “Okay, shut up. I get it.”

  “And let’s not forget all the photo albums with Halloween costumes, and when you each lost your first teeth, sailing lessons, beach bonfires, sleepovers—”

  “Stop!” I put my hands over my ears and run laughing toward the guys. “I know. I’m sorry!”

  Ella races after me and grabs me around the waist. “Just kidding. You know I’m going to love her.” She pulls back. “Wait. She has her front teeth now, right?”

  I try to push her into the ocean. She tries to pull me down. We wind up sitting on a big rock.

  “I haven’t been that obnoxious, have I?”

  She scoops some water and splashes it at me. “No. I’m messing with you. Mostly, you just go on about her after you’ve talked to her on the phone. And that’s only like every other month.”

  “That’s funny. Mostly, I’m telling her about you on those calls.”

  Dominic runs up to me and drapes a wet stinky seaweed necklace around my shoulders.

  “Eew!” I duck and push it on to Ella, who tosses it over to Ben. He takes it and flings it out to sea.

  “It’ll be back,” Dominic says as he climbs onto a rock next to me.

  Ben plops down on the beach below us. “I wonder what it was like in
Scotland.”

  Dominic replies, “Scottish.”

  “She was on a farm, right?” Ella asks, as if I haven’t told her about it a hundred times before.

  “A four-hundred-year-old sheep farm,” Ben answers.

  I explain again: “Her dad is a researcher. He studies sheep parasites.”

  “I suppose somebody has to,” Ella says.

  I search her tone for a hint of meanness but don’t hear it. She’s just being her New York quipster self.

  “The farm didn’t even have Internet or decent reception,” Ben says. “My uncle couldn’t call them, except on a landline.”

  “Zoe said that was superexpensive, too,” I say. “That’s why I could only talk to her every other month.”

  “For like two hours!” Dominic says.

  “Not that long!” I punch him.

  “Dumbo’s a talker,” Ben says.

  “Ben!” Ella looks shocked.

  “What?” Ben says. “Back in the day, that’s what we always called Zoe. She has big ears.”

  I look at Ella, and she’s got this horrified expression on her face. “I am not going to call her that.”

  I try to roll Ben over into the sand. “You are so stupid, Ben Denby,” I tell him, even if I’m cracking up a little.

  We’ve completely slipped into our old ways, like when he and Zoe and I used to goof around, call each other names, build forts in the sand, and play pranks on the summer kids. It’s total eight-year-old behavior, but we can’t stop ourselves. As predicted, the seaweed rope washes back ashore, so I grab it and try to tie Ben’s feet.

  “Big Foot.” I point at him.

  “Swampy.” He points at me.

  “I get the Big Foot,” Ella says, looking at Ben’s giant running shoes. “But Swampy?”

  “Aw, Swampy, that’s cute.” Dominic crinkle-smiles, and his dimples show.

  “The first year we took sailing lessons, Quinnie swamped the boat three times,” Ben says.

  Of course, this causes me to grab Ben around the neck and start in on a noogie while he tackles me around the back of my knees.

  I fall to the sand, panting and laughing. Ben tries to tame his hair, which is now sticking up in every direction. Something about it reminds me of that old ache of a crush I used to have on Ben—that is, until two years ago, when Ella moved here and he went bonkers for her, and a year later, when Dominic moved here and I fell in heartthrob with him.

  Life used to be so simple when it was just Ben and Zoe and me. In my twelve-year-old mind, I was going to grow up and marry him. But now I’m not thinking about marrying anybody. I’m just thinking about how important Dominic and his geeky, hat-wearing, sci-fi loving playfulness have become to me. And he has soft cheeks too, even though whiskers are starting to grow there every which way. And I love the shape of his shoulders. And he’s smart. And kind. And funny . . . but I’m not going to think about that right now.

  My phone buzzes with a text, and I jump.

  “Oh, no.”

  “What?” asks Dominic.

  “Mom says the Buttermans are hung up in customs. They won’t be here until late.”

  “How late?” Ben asks.

  “Late late.”

  Dominic stands up and stretches. “Well, Swampy, want me to walk you home?”

  I stare at him like, I can’t believe you said that, and his face turns pink. I’m about to say, “Shut up, Hat Boy,” but it doesn’t sound clever enough.

  Ben says to Dominic, “Want to help me clean the sailboat?”

  Dominic turns to me and says, “The offer still stands.”

  “Go, go,” I say. “You guys better have the cleanest sailboat in Maine by tomorrow morning.”

  “Come on, Swampy, I’ll walk you home,” says Ella.

  “Not you too!” I say. “Keep this up, and we’ll find nicknames for you both.”

  “Hey, look!” Ella points out to sea.

  I stop and focus on the horizon. It’s Owen Loney’s fishing trawler.

  “Isn’t that the Blythe Spirit?” Ella asks. “I thought he sold it.”

  “I think it’s still for sale at a marina in Rook River,” I tell her.

  We stand there and watch the boat motor along the coast. It comes closer to the breakwater and slows. Owen Loney, wearing his signature cap, gives us a single wave.

  “What’s he doing?” Ella asks.

  “I think he’s having a hard time parting with it,” I say.

  Ella frowns. I look at her standing in the sand with her Garnet Shimmer Red nail polish and bejeweled flip-flops. “I think we should call you Glamazon.”

  “I can work with that, but I’m not going to let you get stuck with Swampy. We’ll have to find you a new nickname.”

  “And one for Dominic.”

  “And I have no idea what Zoe will be like, but there is no way I’m calling her Dumbo.”

  “But Ben can stay Big Foot,” I say.

  “With those bear paws? For sure.”

  4

  I wake up to a brilliant yellow-white sun popping up over the Atlantic and blasting through my bedroom window. In that split second between being asleep and awake, I forget that Zoe might be only a few houses away. It all rushes back to me in one deep breath, and I bolt out of bed. The clock says five seventeen as I run down the hall to the bathroom and brush my teeth. From behind Mom and Dad’s bedroom door, I hear Mom’s voice.

  “Quinnie. Don’t go to see the Buttermans before nine.”

  I sneak back toward my room.

  “Quinnie? Tell me you heard that. Not before nine.”

  Grrr. “Fine,” I say, then throw on jeans and my pi shirt.

  I’m downstairs in the kitchen by five thirty, making toast. When Dad comes in, I jump.

  “Morning, Quinnie,” he says.

  “Morning, Dad.”

  He drops a pod in the coffee machine and presses extra-large. Of course he would be up by now. He has to start the cinnamon buns at the café.

  “You heard your mother, right?”

  I can barely taste my toast, because food is the last thing on my mind. “Nine o’clock is like the middle of the day.”

  “No need for hyperbole, Quinnie. They got in very late. They’ll have jet lag. Let them be for a bit.”

  I sink into a chair at the kitchen table. The maturity that’s been forming so nicely inside me is threatening to give way.

  Dad sits down and peers at me over his coffee cup. “Why don’t you come to the café with me and hang out until it’s a decent hour to go see Zoe?”

  I consider this. Gusty’s has the benefit of closer proximity to the Buttermans’ temporary residence. I’m pretty sure that once I’m there, Dad’ll give in and let me go earlier. He’s a softie that way.

  “Come on.” He pats my arm. “Get your shoes, and let’s go.”

  The drive up Mile Stretch Road is eerily quiet, except for the twenty-four-hour soundscape of breaking waves. When we reach the parking lot, old Buster the seagull and his flock rise up in excitement. The opening of Gusty’s means the beginning of a day of leftover french fries being tossed to the neighborhood scavengers.

  “Hang on, boys and girls. It’ll be a few hours,” Dad tells them. He unlocks the front door and flips on the lights. “See, Quinnie, you’re not the only one waiting for something this morning.” I look at the house across the street. All the windows are dark.

  Dad starts passing through the kitchen, and I hear the great suction sound of the refrigerator door opening. Next comes the sound of Dad placing a large saucepan on the stove, and bloof—lighting the gas flame.

  By the time all the chairs are down and tucked under their tables, I can smell the sweet, spicy, buttery goodness that Dad is spreading over rolled-out sheets of creamy white dough. Next, he starts dumping ingredients for blueberry muffin batter into the mixer.

  It’s now six thirty. I check the house across the street for signs of life. Still dark. A pickup drives up to the café, and its engine goes qu
iet. Owen Loney gets out, adjusts his cap, and shuffles inside. The café doesn’t actually open until seven, but Owen’s allowed in any time he wants. He still dresses as if he’s just come in from a lobster-trap run. Poor guy.

  “Mornin’, Quinnie,” he says. “You’re up early. I wonder why!”

  Just as I’m bemoaning that everyone in town knows my business, Clooney Wickham comes in to start her day.

  “Whoa, Quinnie! You watchin’ for Zoe to wake up over there?”

  There is nothing to do but pitch in and help Clooney fill the sugar bowls and salt and pepper shakers and fold the napkins. She has to supervise my napkin folding. Her special contribution to a more competitive Gusty’s is a new paper-napkin design.

  By seven thirty, the buns are coming out of the oven, the espresso maker is steaming out shots, Ms. Stillford has joined Owen Loney, and Sisters Rosie and Ethel have arrived at their favorite table.

  “Sit with us, Quinnie,” Sister Rosie says as she licks frosting from a bun. “I can’t believe how early we have to get here these days to grab a cinnamon bun. They just fly right out the door.”

  Sister Ethel sips a double espresso and looks to the ceiling like she’s experiencing Heaven. “That’s a fact. Gusty’s has never been so busy.”

  I don’t know what they’re talking about—I count only seven people in the café, including me, Dad, and Clooney. Then I realize it’s a sort of pep talk, or one of those things you hope will come true if you say it enough times.

  By eight, my leg’s jiggling against the leg of the chair, annoying everyone. It’s still quiet across the street, although three more people have entered the café. A text pings on my phone.

  Ella: Where are you?

  Me: Gusty’s.

  Ella: I’ll be right there.

  By eight thirty, she arrives and orders a coffee to go. I interrupt Dad as he’s taking blueberry pies out of the oven. “Can I leave now? The whole town is awake.”

  He nods. If you didn’t know my dad, you would think he was just nodding to keep me from distracting him while he handles four-hundred-degree lumps of bubbling sugar, but he doesn’t miss a thing. That nod was accompanied by a wink.