Free Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky Page A

God rest his soul, knew how to throw a bash. And such a handsome couple, you and the doctor. When’ll he be back?”
    “I’m not sure,” Nicole said without blinking. “His schedule’s tight. He’s hoping maybe August.”
    “Hoping isn’t good enough,” Bev scolded.
    Nicole’s smile didn’t budge. “It’s the best he can do.”
    “He is one busy guy,” Charlotte told Bev, who seemed mollified by that and, hearing a distant jangle, returned to the store. But she wasn’t done. Since she viewed Nicole and Charlotte as celebrities— writing a book, on us! —she sent in one islander after the other to say hello.
    So there were lots of questions in the Café, too, again aimed mostly at Charlotte, whom they hadn’t seen in so long. Seeming happy to be left out, Nicole busied herself going back and forth in turn for scones, cappuccino, spoons for the cappuccino, knives to spread jam on the scones, and napkins.
    Then came Beth Malcolm, the one who had worried Charlotte so many years before. She taught at the island school, which had just finished for the year, hence her being at the Café midday, midweek, and what she carried as she joined them was Salt .
    “I must be the last person on Quinnipeague to read this,” she remarked when Nicole and Charlotte exchanged a glance. “Have you read it?”
    “Reading, present tense,” Charlotte said.
    “And you like it?”
    “We do.”
    “Isn’t it amazing?” she asked, then, seeming startled, abruptly turned to Nicole. “I saw Julian on TV. It was so awesome. I didn’t recognize him at first. He was wearing a suit and looking so serious, but good serious, like you just knew he knew what he was talking about, and then there he was wearing shorts and a shirt here last week. The electrician—you know, the one who just did the wiring at your place—his wife had a baby in April and for a while before that they thought there was a problem with his heart, so everyone was talking about Julian and the miracles he does with preemies.”
    “Fetuses.”
    “We love it when he’s here. When’s he coming back?”
    Nicole rolled her eyes toward Charlotte in a way that might have passed for indulgent if Charlotte hadn’t known her so well. Here, it was pleading.
    “Everyone’s asking that,” Charlotte told Beth, “and he’s hoping for later in the summer, but he’s swamped with work—”
    “And besides,” Nicole added in a high voice, “if he came back, he’d be on vacation. He wouldn’t want people staring at him. He’d want privacy.”
    “Which,” Charlotte quickly put in, because that high voice held an edge, “is the island specialty. How many kids are in the island school now?”
    Distracted, Beth talked about that, then about her own two kids and her husband, whom she had met in college and brought back. He was a sculptor, creating masterpieces out of metal and struggling to be recognized, though after confessing the last, Beth said a contrite, “I promised him a sticky bun. Gotta go. Hey, we have a book group. You guys want to come?”
    “Are you discussing Salt ?” Charlotte asked with interest.
    “Oh no, we all read that out of curiosity. But we’re doing Caleb’s Crossing . It’s also about an island.”
    Charlotte had read it. “Maybe we will,” she said and waved as Beth left. She would have asked if Nicole had read that one, too, if Nicole hadn’t been looking in alarm at her scone.”What?”
    “Currants,” Nicole cried. “In these scones. Not grown here.”
    Charlotte was unsettled by what almost sounded like panic. Currants were no cause for that. Besides, the Nicole she had known was easy-going. Either she had changed, or something else was up, and it wasn’t Bob. If she were thinking of Bob, she would be sad, not panicked.
    They finished eating with little talk. Bev sent in another shopper, but the woman was innocuous and brief. As soon as she was gone, they slipped out themselves.
    That was when they bumped into the publisher