Maureen laughed. “You’ve got Pam down pat, Jai.”
The tension between them dissipated as they read the latest batch of reunion mail to hit Jaime’s mailbox.
Jaime breathed a sigh of relief. Usually their close-knit community made her feel safe but lately... Lately all she felt was annoyed. Annoyed that, because the attack had happened ten years before and she was now planning her class’s ten-year reunion, everyone seemed to think she needed extra care. Her mom kept calling at odd hours... Maureen had come up with every reason possible to cancel the reunion... Anna had sent home leftovers from the diner at least twice each week... Even Tom, her boss at Gulliver Wines, had suggested she bring in a couple of interns to help with summertime events.
Her father and a few of his cronies came in for lunch, laughing with Anna as they ordered club sandwiches and thick-cut fries. The men started talking, about township business or maybe last night’s baseball game, Jaime couldn’t be certain. Anna kept the tables bused and the coffee cups filled. Jaime knew every single person inside the restaurant. This was just the way she liked it. Quiet. Normal.
Tourists were a necessary part of island life, even though the crush of them made her skin itch. A solo stranger sitting across the room? No big deal. She glanced at the stranger who had pushed his empty plate to the edge of the table. A welcome distraction, really. But a mass of humanity exiting one of the ferries? She shivered. Of course without the tourists the three main islands—Kelly’s, South Bass and Gulliver’s—wouldn’t survive.
From her vantage point, she could see the Marblehead Lighthouse across the bay and, if she craned her neck, just make out the top of Perry’s Monument. In late May, the trees were budding and colorful flowers splashed along the Lake Erie shore. In another week or so Cedar Point, a huge amusement park, would be open and the ferries would increase their trips to the islands.
“Mine is worse.” Maureen cleared her throat, dragging Jaime’s attention back to the table, and then speaking in a deep baritone. “‘I left Gulliver to play football, and I did.’” She shook her head and then spoke in her normal voice. “Jason never did learn how to string more than a few words together, did he?”
Jaime focused on her friend. “He lost a little too much oxygen to those half nelson’s in wrestling meets. He’s done well for himself, though. I hear next fall he’ll be the main anchor for one of those college football shows on cable.”
Maureen’s jaw dropped. “Jason the Jerk you defend when he was a bully all through school but Pam the Perfect you throw to the wolves?”
“Jason wasn’t so much a bully as a kid who didn’t know his own strength. He didn’t, and probably still doesn’t, have a mean-hearted bone is his whole body.”
Jaime checked off the last two names on the list for the reunion. Nearly all the invitations had been accepted. Not bad considering she and Maureen had only taken over Project Reunion and had sent out the invitations two weeks before. One name without a checkmark stood out. Emmett Deal. Who’d disappeared on prom night, never to be heard from again.
Except in her dreams. Well, usually only when she stayed up too late watching cable and saw him on one of those home renovations shows. On those nights his muscular, tanned form seemed to sink straight into her brain like a weighted hook sank to the bottom of Lake Erie. Her stomach would do that flip-flopping thing it kept doing when she looked at the broad shoulders of the stranger in the corner. So she was a sucker for a pair of broad shoulders, was that so bad?
She was definitely not obsessed with how he looked, shirtless and buff, with a tool belt around his lean hips. Nope, she hardly ever pictured that at all, and she definitely had not done a little comparison shopping between the hunk on cable TV and the hairy guys Luther had brought with him to the island.
“Anna mentioned the diner would host the meet and greet on Friday night, if we wanted.” Jaime closed the folder and slid it into her satchel.
“Love that idea, and we could stagger the times so the place isn’t overrun all at once. Everyone wants to eat here when they come back home, anyway.”
Maureen checked her watch and slid out of the booth. “I’ve got that volunteer thing at the elementary this afternoon. God, I can’t wait for summer break. Want to hash out the party details tomorrow over breakfast? The kiddo will be knee-deep in kindergarten fun by eight-thirty, so I could be here by eight-forty-five.” Maureen emptied the pitcher into a travel cup while they made plans and then hustled out the door. Jaime signaled Anna for a refill and watched out the window as the first ferry pulled into the dock.
She looked around. If the school reno went well, there would be few quiet mornings like this at the diner. Still, it would be good for the locals if more tourists hit their shore instead of the other islands.
“Now that Thomas has canceled the contract, we should cancel the reno, gut it and tear it down.” Mason Brown’s voice was quiet in the restaurant, but she had no trouble overhearing. Not that her father ever minded people overhearing him, especially when he was talking about something controversial. “The roof’s falling in. Someone is going to be seriously hurt.”
What was he talking about? She’d talked to Luther not an hour before. Cold, clammy dread shivered up Jaime’s spine as she twisted around in her seat.
Mason wore his usual uniform of navy pants and light blue, short-sleeved dress shirt with the Gulliver’s Island Police Department logo over the breast. “Department” was a bit of a stretch, she knew. Other than Mason there were two full-time employees and one was the island dispatcher. It was all the small community needed, except during the summer months.
He continued. “That old school has got to go, there’s no ifs, ands, or buts.”
Jaime’s jaw dropped. When the Gulliver family had bought the island two hundred years before, they’d planted their vineyard and built the school, which was what had grown the tiny village of Gulliver Township. The school’s brass bell hadn’t rung in decades, but the place was still important to the island.
It was important to her, and not just as a distraction over the whole ten-year nonsense.
Jaime wiped her mouth and pushed up and out of her booth to step closer to their table. Her father spoke to Tom Gulliver, her boss at the winery, and a few other township trustees.
“Excuse me,” she said. “The construction crew is making good progress. I don’t think we need to call it quits so soon.” The lie tasted bad in her mouth.
“The crew isn’t coming back. Luther made it official when he stopped by the township office a half hour ago.” Mason sighed. His patronizing tone set the hairs on the back of Jaime’s neck on edge.
“What do you mean they aren’t coming back? I was with Luther not more than an hour ago. He left, but only for the weekend.” Jaime couldn’t wrap her head around what her father was saying. This was bad. Really, really bad.
“The renovation wasn’t thought out clearly enough.”
“Answer my question. How do you know the crew is walking out of the job?”
Mason sucked in a slow breath and Jaime fisted her hands at her sides. “I mean he stopped by the township office with the unsigned contract and said he was through being monitored by a party planner and walked out.”
Party planner? Monitored? She’d been doing her job. Mason continued before Jaime could defend herself. “And, Jaime, sweetheart, I’m not sure you have all the facts about Gulliver School.”
“I know it’s a historic landmark. I know it educated several generations of Gulliver residents and mainland kids.” She straightened her shoulders. “I know during World War II the Red Cross used it as a meeting place of sorts for the women left behind.” Just because something didn’t work the way some thought it should didn’t