Free Clammed Up by Barbara Ross Page A

relationship that crowded everyone else out. Livvie and I always had my mother’s complete attention and support. And though she could seem standoffish with others, within the family she was warm and loving, the stable support that balanced my father’s work-hard, play-hard personality. My dad was the builder; my mother the quiet foundation on which all was built. Even five years after his death, she still seemed lost.
    We cleaned the few dishes like the practiced team we were. My mother went off to the little sitting room off her bedroom to watch television and I returned to my office.
    As I entered the room, my eye fell on the Times dropped off by Quentin Tupper for reasons I didn’t understand.
    I pulled out the Sunday Styles section, my favorite part of the paper. “The single woman’s sports pages,” Carrie Bradshaw had called it. I opened it, ready to savor the Vows and Modern Love columns. I noticed the corner of one of the pages was dog-eared. Turning to the page, I saw a photo of Michaela and Tony, their perfect eyebrows aimed directly at the camera. The article beneath the photo said:

    M ICHAELA C ARPENTER , T ONY P OITRAS
    Michaela Joan Carpenter and Anthony Robert Poitras were married Saturday on Morrow Island in Busman’s Harbor, Maine.
     
    Ms. Carpenter, 30, is an assistant buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue. She graduated from SUNY Binghamton. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Carpenter and the late Giles Carpenter.
     
    Mr. Poitras, 35, is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. He is a partner in the firm of Poitras and Wilson. He is the son of Flora and Edward Poitras of Bath, Maine, and Fort Myers, Florida.

    Reading the wedding notice submitted to the paper weeks before made me sad. Sad about Michaela and Tony’s ruined wedding day. Sad that whenever someone typed Morrow Island and wedding into a search engine, they’d get dozens of news articles about the murder before they’d get to this happy announcement.
    I wondered about Quentin Tupper, the stranger who’d gone out of his way to leave me the newspaper. Had he turned down the corner on the page so I wouldn’t miss the wedding announcement? There was no other explanation. It seemed a little mean. Why would someone I’d never met before want to taunt me?

Chapter 15
    By the next morning, as I walked to the town dock, I was feeling pretty good about the world. A full night’s sleep will do that for you. Yes, a horrendous thing had happened on Morrow Island, but the police had let us open the clambake. Reservations were strong and the weather was perfect. It was Opening Day.
    Just before I arrived at our ticket booth, my cell phone rang. I grabbed it from the pocket of my sweatshirt and stared at the display. Damn. It was Robert Forman Ditzy, our banker. Ugh. I’d been hoping to avoid him. I hit the TALK button. “Hello.”
    “Julia. Bob Ditzy.”
    “Hi Bob. How are you?”
    “Actually, I’m calling to see how you are. I heard you had a tragedy there at the clambake.”
    I rushed to reassure him. “Yes. But the police have cleared us to open and we’re full for both lunch and dinner.”
    “Good. Good. Because I don’t think I need to remind you, Julia, it’s going to take every cent you can earn to dig out of the hole you’re in. As you know, the business plan you gave us when we renegotiated your loan the last time allowed for only five closed days during the season. Every day you’re shut down makes it that much harder. At some point we approach mathematical impossibility that you’ll be current on your loan by the end of the summer.”
    A warm flush rose from the base of my neck. Nobody knew those figures better than I did. What was he talking about, anyway? It was only the second day of the season and Tony and Michaela’s wedding reception had never been included in the figures I’d given the bank.
    “We’ve been closed exactly one day. You can’t blame us for what happened.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could