Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

17. Angela

17

ANGELA

When we step into Shaky Jane’s we’re greeted by the smell of fried fish and a hodgepodge of antique fishing gear strung from the ceiling and decorating each of the small booths. From wooden buoys strung on thick ropes, to old lobster pots, and what look to be hand carved model boats, Shaky Jane’s is pure old-timey Maine. There’s even a harpoon hanging over the bar.

I instantly fall in love with it.

I might not have been born in Maine, and I might not have fishermen for forefathers, but I can’t help but feel at home in this place. It reminds me of Harborview, which is the place that has always felt the most like home, no matter how long I tried to run from it, and from the man standing next to me. I avoided moving back to Harborview for years, missing my home, all because I was scared of him.

“It’s perfect,” he says at the same time as I say, “I love it.”

He turns to me and beams, and damn it, I feel myself beam back, smile scrunching my cheeks up to my eyes, my teeth surely showing.

And I’m too tired of fighting it. Fighting off how much he makes me smile. How good it feels between us. I’m only a woman after all, not a superhero. I’m only capable of so much. And I can’t resist smiley, twinkly eyed Carter.

A woman approaches us from the bar.

“You must be the hikers,” she says. Her voice is rough, like she smokes a pack a day, and she’s wearing a flannel shirt rolled up to her elbows. Her arms are tattooed and I glimpse an anchor and a whale. She’s not much older than us though, probably only thirty-five.

“And you must be Jane,” Carter says.

“Nope,” is all she says, without elaborating.

“Anyways,” I say after an awkward pause. “Can we sit? Are you serving?”

“Yep. Serving until 8:00 p.m.”

Well, I guess she’s not one for many words. Seems like my type of woman.

Carter and I follow her to a booth in the back. I notice that there’s only a few other tables with people at them, and they all turn to look at us as we pass. I guess newcomers are strange here before the summer season really starts. It’s sort of like that in Harborview, though much less intense since we’ve got a few thousand people to their sixty.

I glance at the menu and all I can do is salivate. And my stomach starts growling. Because holy shit, Shaky Jane’s has it all. Lobster rolls, clam rolls, fried clam strips, flounder, baked beans, fries, clam chowder, and a hundred other items. I guess when you’re the only joint in town, you have to serve it all. And with the season incoming, I’m willing to bet most of this is in stock.

I quickly decide on a clam roll with a side of fries and a Caesar salad with chicken. And a coke. And possibly a milkshake.

“What are you having?” I ask Carter.

“I’m trying to decide between ordering twelve lobster rolls and blowing all my savings, or just asking them to bring me one of everything.”

“Fuck,” I say. “I don’t have my wallet.” Carter’s comment has reminded me of the fact that I hiked Isle North with just my pink sneakers, sweatshirt, phone, chapstick, and water bottle. Not a credit card in sight.

“No worries. I have mine. Cash, too. Which I think might be necessary in a place like this.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“No you won’t, because I won’t take your money. Not for something as essential as food.”

My insides warm at that. Over the last few days, Carter has taken care of me at every turn, offering me his food, his coat, and crucially, the bed. And now is no different. Even if it’s just a routine kindness, from him it shocks me. It wouldn’t have back when we were friends, but it does now.

When we were in high school together, he always had this way of making me feel special. He’d listen to what I had to say in class intently, and he always chose me for his team in gym class. At parties he’d find me hanging out awkwardly in a corner, too shy to mingle, and he’d keep me company, drawing me out of my shell and making me laugh.

He’s always been so damn kind.

And now it makes me wary. Because what’s going to happen if I get used to it again? What happens when we’re back in Harborview, once he’s gotten me to forgive him? He said if he didn’t get me to forgive him by the time we were back home, he’d leave me alone. But I’m not sure I can handle that, not after getting to know his kindness all over again.

The preteen waitress who must work here after school bounds over to our table excitedly.

“You must be the hikers! We’re all so happy you made it to the town okay. There was talk of trying to hike in to get you, but Captain Jones said you were staying in the old birding cabin near the cliffs.” She gives us a huge smile as she says this, braces on full display.

“Um,” I say, slightly overwhelmed.

“That’s exactly right,” Carter says. “I’m Carter, and this is Angela.”

“I’m Minnie. Short for Minnow.”

“That’s a good name,” he says, in all seriousness. “It’s unique.”

“Thanks,” she says and blushes so hard her face is as red as the lobsters decorating the kids half of the laminated menus.

Minnie-short-for-Minnow is now staring at Carter like he just hung the moon.

Same, Minnie, same.

She opens her mouth to say more, but just then, my stomach lets out a table-rattling rumble of hunger.

Carter tips his head back and laughs, the sound erupting from him. “Well that’s one way to say you’re ready to order, Angel.”

Minnie’s eyes dart between us, and I know that she’s picked up on the nickname he’s given me, and the fact that it made me blush and fidget uncomfortably. Teenage girls are well versed in reading signs and signals.

“We’ve basically only eaten protein bars for two days,” I explain to Minnie.

“And blueberry muffins,” Carter offers. “But we’d really like…” He pauses, stares at the menu, and that rattles off items in rapid succession, including two lobster rolls, fries, and chowder, and a few other things.

I give Minnie my order, and ask for our food to come out in waves as soon as it’s ready. I’m starting to feel lightheaded, either from lack of food or from hanging out with Carter, but either way, I need to eat.

“Staring down the kitchen won’t make them cook it faster,” Carter says, following my gaze, which is pointed at the swinging double doors in the back that we’ve seen food come out of.

“You never know, it just might. Though this place seems like it runs on its own rules.” I jerk my head vaguely to the hostess stand.

“Oh Not Jane? What do you mean? She was a treat.”

“I’m sure she’s the reason people keep coming back.”

“Honestly there’s something freeing about bad customer service,” Carter says.

“Yeah, I mean they probably won’t care when we get our food and immediately start shoveling it into our mouths. I plan on tipping the plate of fries directly down my throat.”

“And they definitely won’t even blink when I manage to eat sixty bucks worth of lobster in five minutes.”

“I’m going to dump my milkshake over my fries like sauce.”

“And I’m going to slurp my chowder with a straw.”

That one makes me burst out laughing. “Gross.”

“But it made you laugh, Ange, so mission accomplished.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why is that the mission? Why are you being so…so… nice ?”

All of the possible answers to that question run through my head, and somehow the worst one is this: that he feels so badly about what he did and how he treated me all those years ago, that he thinks he needs to make up for it. That making me laugh, that the kiss, is all about pitying me.

If Carter were to think of me like that, to think that I was still hung up on him after all these years, I couldn’t handle it. I’d collapse from shame.

But instead, he just says, “Because I like making you laugh. You have a nice smile and an even prettier laugh, and I’ve seen both too rarely over the last year since you moved back.”

“That would be the job,” I mutter.

“Was the job why you moved back? After all those years?”

My gut clenches at this. I don’t want to explain myself and I don’t want him to dig into why I stayed away for so long.

“No,” I say. “Not really. I got tired of only seeing my moms on holidays and in the summer.”

“But you were in New York. Why come back to Harborview?”

“I like New York, but I actually love Harborview. And I spent the first eleven years of my life in New York, and then the years of college and my masters degree, and working after. I had my fill. Especially of sharing an apartment with three other girls and having to go to a laundromat.”

These things aren’t even lies, just carefully veiled versions of the truth.

I did get tired of New York City. But that happened way earlier than I’m admitting to, though. I wanted to come back to Harborview as soon as I finished my master’s degree. But I didn’t want to see him. I could barely handle it in the summer, running into him at the beach or at O’Malley’s or the bookstore. Sure, Carter was often away at school, but the University of Maine is close to Harborview. So close that he can come home for an evening or a weekend whenever he wants to.

Plus, everything in Harborview just reminded me of him, for a while anyways. Until I decided it was time I reclaimed it. Made something new for myself there.

“You were crazy for ever leaving Maine in the first place,” he says with a shrug.

Carter is a true Mainer. I get the sense that he’ll never leave.

“I’m not even really from Maine, though. I was born in the city.”

“Doesn’t matter. You love it here.”

I blush at that for some reason, but am spared coming up with something witty to say, because just then, Minnie arrives with the first of our food.

Carter’s two lobster rolls, my clam roll, and a huge basket of fries.

“Minnie,” Carter says, staring intently at his lobster roll, clearly salivating, “you’re my hero.”

I glance at Minnie, and she looks like she’s about to fall over.

“Thank you so much,” I tell her.

And then we dig in.

The noise I make as I bite into my clam roll is damn near sexual, but I can’t help myself. Carter catches my eyes as he bites into his lobster roll, and in a show of solidarity, lets out a groan of his own.

I try to keep the smile off my face, but mouth full of food, and ketchup caught in the corner of my lips, I sit there and grin like an idiot at him. He grins right back.

For a moment, it feels like it used to between us: bright and warm, like the feeling between us is something magical and pure, something only the two of us together can produce.