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Present Day
It was the first day of April, a Friday. Brittany Keating gripped the handles of a stationary bike as the downtown YMCA instructor, the one with the amazing behind, demanded the class to keep striving and keep pedaling. “You’ve got to dig down deep! Push yourself harder than you’ve pushed yourself before! Don’t you want this? Prove it to me!” Brittany’s thighs screamed; sweat poured down her back and caked against her tank top. But when the clock struck six-thirty a.m. and the class was over, she erupted from the bike seat with a glistening, sweaty smile on her face. She’d done it.
“Nice work, Britt.” This was the instructor, who’d single-handedly sculpted Brittany from a size eight to a size five since Brittany’s decision to join spin class in January.
“Thanks. Now I’ll try not to destroy all that hard work this weekend. My family’s having a little get-together tonight... and my cousins really know how to pour the wine. On top of that, Valerie and I are headed to Upstate New York for an auction, and I’m sure we won’t be eating salads the whole time.”
The instructor chuckled good-naturedly and reminded Brittany, “We have to live between the work-outs. Otherwise, what’s all this working out for?”
Twenty minutes later, Brittany walked out into the chill of the early morning, drove back to the house where she and Valerie now lived together alone, and found her daughter in the midst of making them both a healthy, low-carb breakfast of eggs and avocados and vibrant, sliced tomatoes. Coffee bubbled and spat into the pot, newly purchased after Conner’s destruction the previous November. All of that seemed like somebody else’s life, now.
“How was spin class?” Valerie asked brightly.
“Invigorating, like always.” Brittany took a large sip from her water bottle. “You should really come with me sometime.”
“Get up at five-fifteen? I don’t think so,” Valerie joked.
Brittany and Valerie sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and eating their breakfast, talking about the weekend ahead, including the auction that began Saturday afternoon. After school, Valerie had a short meeting regarding various graduation activities, including the Senior Picnic, Senior Pool Party, and the Senior Prom. The following week was Valerie’s spring break, which meant that soon, she’d be in the home stretch of her schooling. Unlike most of her classmates, she still hadn’t decided on a university.
“It’s hard to believe it’s all about to happen.” Brittany breathed. “When your brother graduated two years ago, he wasn’t interested in all the celebration stuff. I barely got him to pick up his cap and gown.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Valerie assured her mother. “I know you want to celebrate just as much as me. Probably more.”
Brittany had recently purchased a second-hand vehicle for Valerie. A Chevy Cavalier made six years before. Brittany watched from the front window as Valerie slid into the front seat, started the engine, and eased out from the driveway. Each time she watched her leave, Brittany said a little internal prayer for Valerie’s safety.
Because really, if Brittany was honest with herself, she was waiting for something to go wrong. Since Conner had been led out of their home the previous November, she hadn’t caught a single glimpse of him. He’d arranged to have his things packed up and taken to wherever it was he chose to stay. On top of that, he’d communicated with a divorce lawyer who’d maintained contact with Brittany’s divorce lawyer, just as Brittany had asked. According to Thomas, Conner had quit his job and hadn’t contacted him whatsoever, which had made things rather awkward for Thomas, who still worked there. Still, Thomas was grateful for the job and said that bit-by-bit, it was as though his father had never worked there at all.
Conner had leaped out of their lives without question and seemed uninterested in making any contact, even with his children.
Since Ygritte’s decision to move to Florida, Brittany had slowly built up the building on South Main, filling bits of the gaps that Ygritte had left behind. She’d also maintained the coffee bar, including various sandwiches, snacks, and desserts. Despite her urgent search for more antiques from the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies, Brittany hadn’t yet capitalized on the other half of the building and regretted it, as the space still felt cavernous and unused. When she admitted this to one of her cousins or her daughter, they usually scoffed at her and said something like, “Come on. You’ve been through a lot this past winter. Take it easy on yourself— and wait till spring to make things happen.”
Brittany entered Bar Harbor Antiques that morning at nine to find that, already, Gabe, the barista who worked weekdays, was already set-up and ready-to-go, an espresso for her already in hand.
“Gabe. You’re always so early!” Brittany said as she accepted the drink.
Gabe, a twenty-four-year-old painter who’d moved to Bar Harbor for the scenery, blushed and said, “You know I’m a terrible sleeper. I got up this morning around four to work on a painting and then came in around eight to set up. I also hung up a few more of my paintings.” He gestured toward the wall, where his collection of angry seas and stoic lighthouses and glowing rocks hung. Brittany was grateful for the paintings, as she felt they added a worthy ambiance to the space.
“I love them, Gabe,” she breathed. “You’re so talented.”
“Tell that to the MFA program that just declined my application...” Gabe returned with a sigh.
“They’re idiots,” she shot. “Plain and simple.”
“At least I have this job,” Gabe said. “I’d be lost without it.”
“I wanted to ask you, Gabe.” Brittany began. “Would you mind being at the warehouse Sunday evening? Valerie and I will be purchasing a bunch of antiques Saturday, and I’m paying a mover to have them delivered so that we can stretch out our girls’ trip. Of course, I’ll pay you double your hourly wage since it’s so sudden and on the weekend to boot.”
Gabe blushed and stuttered in that nervous way of his, saying, “Gosh, of course. I’ll be on-call. Just let me know when to be at the warehouse.”
The warehouse was what they called the back building attached to this one, with a back exit that led into the alleyway. It was a high-ceilinged building, which Brittany had hardly used over the years, as she hadn’t had enough inventory to spill into the back. Now with the front building all her own and much more money than she’d ever had before, she needed to fill that space immediately.
With this expansion, she knew she also needed to hire more employees and boost her advertising revenue. How she’d operated before, when Conner had held her back, wasn’t how she planned to operate now. She wanted people to drive from states over to visit her store. She wanted to be on the “Best of Bar Harbor” lists. She wanted to be one of those “successful women” she read about in magazines— women like her cousins, the Harvey Sisters.
Brittany headed in back to answer emails, check inventory, and plan out the weekend’s trip to upstate New York. She also sent another email to her insurance provider to ask about expanding her insurance coverage. Her insurance coverage as of now was almost good enough given some sort of disaster— a fire or a flood or something like that. But once she got the new inventory in, her insurance coverage was akin to wearing a raincoat in a hurricane. It wasn’t even close to being good enough.
A few minutes later, her insurance provider messaged back to say that the insurance would be cleared in two weeks’ time. Brittany groaned inwardly but then shifted her sights toward optimism. So, she hadn’t gotten the insurance changed in time. In her twenty-five years of business ownership, hardly anything had gone wrong. She tried to think of the worst things and came up with a few— Ygritte burning herself on a drop baking sheet, Brittany breaking her toe on an old wardrobe, a younger Valerie falling off the top of a dresser (which she’d been told not to play on). That was basically it.
Back in the main part of the shop, Brittany assisted an older couple on their quest to redecorate the sitting room in the new home they’d purchased on the shoreline. They spoke of their recent retirement and their lifelong dream to live in Bar Harbor.
“I love these kinds of stories,” Brittany told them, wearing a brilliant smile. “All your lives, you’ve allowed yourselves to dream. And now, you’ve made that dream a reality.”
Ultimately, Brittany helped them pick out a gorgeous dark green couch from the sixties, an antique lamp, and a painting made by Gabe himself. The bill rang up to eight hundred and seventeen dollars, including tax. This was more than triple the cost of keeping the entire place open that day. Brittany’s heart swelled with gladness.
**
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Brittany and Valerie met outside the Keating House after their parallel “long days,” both grateful to be finished and ready for the weekend ahead. Even from the front porch of the Keating House, they listened to the wild hubbub within, the chaotic conversation from the Harvey Sisters, Luke, Luke’s new-found sister, Angie, along with her pregnant daughter, Hannah, who was around five months along.
“Are you ready for this?” Brittany asked Valerie.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Together, they burst through the front door to discover the gorgeous scene: champagne and wine bottles open, platters lined with sausages and stinky slabs of cheese, beautiful Spanish olives in bowls, and a beautiful dish of roasted stuffed peppers in the oven. The party was meant to celebrate breaking ground on the newly-planned Keating House, which was the house where Casey and her husband, Grant, planned to live, located closer to the forest line but still on the Keating property.
Heather clapped with excitement, rushing toward them to kiss their cheeks.
“I’m so glad you made it!” she cried excitedly, guiding them deeper into the kitchen.
“I thought you said you were off for an auction this weekend?” Nicole asked happily.
“We don’t leave till tomorrow,” Valerie explained.
“And it’s not like we wanted to miss this celebration,” Brittany said as Luke passed her a glass of wine. She lifted it toward Casey and said, “Congratulations on breaking ground. I can’t believe this property has such life to it these days, especially after growing up here with only my daddy. This space felt so gloomy. So lonely.”
“We talk about that sometimes,” Nicole admitted, her voice only a murmur. “And worry that we’re encroaching on your space...”
“Nonsense,” Brittany told her, truly meaning it. “I love that the three of you came back to Bar Harbor, learned more about Adam, and took on responsibilities at the Keating Inn. I said it over and over, but I never wanted anything to do with it.”
“It’s changed quite a bit over the years,” Nicole pointed out. “Especially now that we have jazz nights with Angie.”
Angie blushed as she stroked a carrot through a big bowl of hummus. “Lots of musical talent around here. It hasn’t been so difficult, finding people to play with. And the tips in Bar Harbor are nothing to scoff at.”
Angie, too, was in the midst of a divorce from a husband who remained out west in Chicago. She’d discovered he was having an affair with another member of the jazz band they’d started years before. Brittany, Angie, and Nicole sometimes called themselves the “divorcée club,” speaking about the devastation about moving on from someone you’d once thought was your everything. By contrast, Casey had worked things out with her husband, and Heather’s husband had passed on. Strange what life did to you.
Brittany selected a small slab of spicy Camembert and slid it across a grain cracker as Casey told a story from the breaking ground event earlier that morning. Grant placed his arm easily around her as she spoke, and she occasionally lifted her eyes toward his, catching his gaze. Theirs was true love, a textured love, a love worth fighting for.
That moment, there was a knock at the door. Nicole sprung for it as Heather guffawed. “Who did you invite, Nicole?” But they soon had their answer. Evan Snow appeared with a bottle of wine in-hand and a strange smile across his lips. Brittany shivered at the sight of him. Nicole, who continued to pretend that the two of them were “only friends,” said that Evan just wanted to “stop by to say congratulations on the breaking of ground.”
Heather and Casey had spoken to Brittany about Nicole’s fledgling “non-relationship” with Evan Snow several times. Nicole was very sparse with her words about her feelings for him. And it was clear, too, that Evan Snow had been instrumental in providing the funds that allowed the Keating Inn and Acadia Eatery to continue to remain open, even after his brother, Elijah, had attempted to seize the property.
Even still, Brittany didn’t trust Evan Snow.
There was the fact that if you grew up a Bar Harbor “born and bred,” you had a strange relationship with the Snow family. They took all they could and refused to give back; they were manipulative and cruel and had little thought for the poorer people in town.
But beyond that, both Elijah and Evan Snow had been friendly with her husband, Conner.
She wasn’t entirely sure how that friendship had begun. Conner had been an outsider, working as a lobster fisherman. Probably, he’d sold lobster to one of the restaurants that the Snow Brothers owned, had a beer with them, and found common ground of manipulation and greed. He’d been so dashing, so whip-smart. It was a rare thing not to fall head-over-heels.
But now that Conner was gone and Nicole was apparently so chummy with Evan Snow, Brittany wasn’t sure where she stood with Evan. She hadn’t seen anything of Elijah, either. Heather suggested that Evan and Elijah were no longer speaking, but Brittany wasn’t so sure. Snow blood ran deep. She warned the Harvey Sisters to be hesitant.
“Let’s eat, shall we?” Nicole announced excitedly, her beautiful eyes flickering up toward Evan Snows.
“It looks like you’ve outdone yourself yet again, chef,” Luke teased as they sat around the beautiful antique table.
It was the very same table where Brittany’s father had met Conner all those years ago.
But times had changed.
“To the brand-new Keating House,” Heather announced, lifting her glass of wine toward Casey and then toward the window that faced the back of the property. “I’m so excited about the beautiful life we’re building here. I’m so excited about the future, with all of you by my side.”