Free Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore Page B

think I could step inside another Winloch cottage until I knew.
    I cleared my throat. “Do you mind if I ask—” I began, my voice coming out thin and shaky. “I just mean, if I need to buy a ticket home …”
    “You’re not thinking of leaving us?” Birch looked stricken.
    “Oh no,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to, just, if I need to.”
    “Why would she need to leave?” Tilde asked as though I wasn’t there.
    Birch waved his hand dismissively. “Nonsense.”
    Tilde handed Birch the platter, then turned to take in the view, lifting a pair of binoculars from a side table that sat beside the door. The porch was scattered with twiggy rattan furniture painted white, in stark contrast to the jewel-toned Adirondack chairs that were sprinkled across the lawn below. At the far end of the porch, I admired atwin-size cushioned swing upholstered in navy ticking, comfortably appointed with an abundance of peachy pillows. It looked like the perfect place to curl up with a book and drift into a sun-dappled nap. But no, I couldn’t love it until I knew.
    “So you were pleased, then,” I pressed. “We passed the inspection.”
    Birch’s eyes lingered over me for a long, odd moment. He frowned, dismissing my words, before turning back to the water. “How many do we have?” he asked. I followed his gaze out to Winslow Bay as Tilde counted aloud, noticing, for the first time, a tangle of masts, bobbing like a floating forest.
    “Do you know much about yachts?” he asked.
    I shook my head, thoughts racing. They hadn’t told me I had to leave. Which meant they were going to let me stay. I almost laughed aloud with relief but for the serious tone Birch used as he pointed out toward a moored boat with two masts. “That’s a yawl—the mizzenmast, which is the second mast, is behind the rudderpost. And that”—he moved his hand to the right—“is a ketch—the rudderpost is behind the mizzenmast. The rest are sloops—single masts.”
    “Twenty-six,” Tilde said crisply.
    “Give her a chance to look,” he said, and she handed me the heavy binoculars. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but I held the glasses to my eyes. The magnification moved so quickly across the suddenly close landscape that I felt dizzy. Finally I found the fleet of moored boats in the water right before us. In the golden light I could make out a family swimming beside one of the yachts. On the deck of another, a couple sipped martinis.
    “Canadians,” Birch said in a mocking tone.
    “They sail down just for the weekend?” I asked, impressed that so many people were living such luxurious lives.
    “Twenty-six is far too many,” Tilde said. “They’ll keep us up halfthe night.” Then a look of delight flitted across her face. “Perhaps one will get stuck on the reef.”
    “We don’t want that—then we’d have to help them.” Birch laughed, and, much to my surprise, Tilde joined him. I’d never seen her amused, and the sound was much lighter and looser than I would have imagined. Birch turned to me again, and Tilde’s laugh cut itself off, midair. He hardly seemed to notice, but I could feel her disdain.
    “I curse the crows when they wake me up,” he declared, “but I praise them when they wake the damn Canadians.” He held up the platter of muffins. “Shall we find a place to put these?” I was grateful for his graciousness, and to leave Tilde behind.
    Birch led me into the room just inside the screen porch, the finest I’d seen at Winloch; if this was the summer room, I wanted to know what the rest of the house looked like. Upon the honey-colored floor stood antique wooden sideboards and a large mahogany table. An exquisite burgundy Oriental rug tied the furniture together, ending before a large fireplace sporting a brass fender and matching andirons. Canapés were arranged in colorful formations upon hand-painted porcelain platters: crab cakes and mini-lobster rolls and demitasses of chilled pea