Celeste clicked open the email account for Queen Anne’s Revenge, continuously amazed at how many antiques hunters reached out to her.
It was late afternoon and the back office was sticky with heat. The old ceiling fan whirred with valiant effort. When they’d first moved into the house, there hadn’t been air-conditioning or even so much as a table fan. The four-bedroom Queen Anne cottage, built in the early 1900s by Jack’s great-grandfather Silverio, had been in a state of disrepair when Jack inherited it in 1998. When he brought her to look at it three years into their relationship and with the invitation to move in together and make it their home, she immediately envisioned using the first floor as an antiques shop. Jack, to his eternal credit, supported her dream. No, more than supported—he helped make it happen. Was still making it happen.
“Celeste, are you in here?”
The office door opened to reveal their one employee, Alvita Thompson, who went by the nickname Alvie. Alvie arrived in town three summers ago from Boston’s Hyde Park. Like so many young people, she was searching for a place to live a life without judgment. Her parents, Haitian immigrants who made their career and their community in the local church, struggled to accept that she was gay.
“Hey, Alvie. Do you know where those brass candlesticks went? I’m going through this inventory and it says they haven’t sold but . . .”
Alvie pulled out a metal folding chair tucked behind a pile of boxes and sat across from her. She was a pretty young woman, with an oval face defined by a cleft chin and long eyelashes. She’d bleached the ends of her dark curls blond and wore her hair in two low bunches. Her sunny demeanor added to her attractiveness, but today the look on her face was serious.
“Is everything okay?” Celeste said.
“I have to give notice.”
“Wait—you’re quitting?” It was the first week of June. This was their busiest time of year, and the three months that made their entire balance sheet work had just begun. Even if she was able to find someone else to hire—an impossible task since the stores and restaurants had already soaked up all the job-seekers like a sponge—they wouldn’t be Alvie. She’d spent so much time with Celeste and Jack, even living in one of their guest rooms for most of last summer, that she knew and loved the shop in a deep way that was irreplaceable.
“Maud needs me at the restaurant.”
Celeste sighed. She should have seen this day coming. Alvie and Maud met at Jack’s cousin’s Fourth of July party last summer. Alvie was instantly smitten with the much older woman and agonized for days after that Maud didn’t take her seriously.
“Don’t get involved,” Jack warned. But Celeste, after checking that Maud’s and Alvie’s charts were aligned, couldn’t resist talking Alvie up to Maud and nudging them together, even saying to Maud, “You know, there was an even bigger age gap between you and Sylvie.”
Maud moved to P’town in the late 1970s along with her girlfriend, Sylvia Shuttle of Sandwich, Massachusetts. They both started as dishwashers at the Flagship, a restaurant made famous by their former co-worker Anthony Bourdain’s bestseller Kitchen Confidential, where the restaurant was dubbed “the Dreadnaught.” In fact, it was Maud’s short-lived breakup with Sylvia—and Sylvia’s subsequent quitting of her job—that brought Anthony Bourdain in as a replacement and launched one of the most storied culinary careers in recent memory.
Celeste wouldn’t be so bold as to claim credit for Maud and Alvie’s romance (by Labor Day weekend, they were inseparable), but facts were facts. Making this current situation all the more irksome. Maud could have at least given her some warning.
“I really wish you’d given me more notice,” Celeste said.
Alvie nodded in remorse. “I wasn’t planning on this. But Maud asked me to move in with her—she wants us to really share our lives together. And that includes the restaurant and the work. I mean, you and Jack are a huge inspiration for me in that way. I promise I’ll stay until you find a replacement.”
Celeste smiled at her, feeling bad for only thinking of herself. “I’m glad you two are happy. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.”
Alvie thanked her for understanding and scampered back out to the sales floor. Celeste sighed, reaching for her phone to send off a text to Jack when her computer pinged with an incoming email. Another customer inquiry could wait. But a quick glance told her this one wasn’t from a customer. It was from her niece, Gemma Maybrook.
Alvie and the store were immediately forgotten.