Seashell Season by Holly Chamberlin

Author:Holly Chamberlin [Chamberlin, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 59

“Did you like that movie we watched last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Benedict Cumberbatch is such a good actor, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“And it’s horrifying to think that so few years ago gay people were considered sick.”

“I know.”

I restrained a sigh and focused on keeping the car on the road. Sometimes Gemma is so frustratingly uncommunicative. For example, when Gemma had come back from her solo trip into town the other day, I’d asked her how it went. She’d shrugged. “Fine. Why shouldn’t it have?” We both knew why it might not have been “fine,” but I didn’t pursue the matter; it only would have sounded as if I wanted an argument. And I’d had no idea she’d helped Mr. Pascoe with the lock on his front door. Mrs. Pascoe told me when I ran into her in the grocery store. “Bert said she was so nice,” she gushed. “Just a lovely young woman!” I suspected that one or the other of the Pascoes was exaggerating for my benefit, but that’s okay. Still, I wondered why Gemma hadn’t told me about the incident.

I didn’t get much out of her about the get-together at Cathy’s house, either, other than it was “okay” and the onion dip was good. And it seems Annie didn’t get much out of Cathy, either, at least, nothing she felt should be passed on to me. I don’t mean to say I’m spying on my daughter. It’s just that any little bit of information about her I can glean from other sources is welcome.

“We’re here,” I said unnecessarily as I pulled the car into a spot outside The Grey Gull. It’s a family-style restaurant overlooking the ocean at York Beach. “I hope we can get a table upstairs. The view’s better.”

We did get a table upstairs, and Gemma went off to the ladies’ room. While she was there our waitress came to the table to pour water and take a drink order. I asked her to come back when Gemma had returned.

Gemma rejoined me a few minutes later. “I drank, like, a gallon of seltzer before we left the house,” she explained, settling in the chair across from me. I’d let her have the seat with the better view of the water. “I think I’m getting addicted to it.”

Better than soda, I thought. My plan was working!

“The waitress came to take a drink order,” I told her. “I didn’t know what you wanted—though now I’m guessing seltzer?—so I told her to come back.”

Gemma laughed. “Dad would have just decided he knew what I wanted and ordered it.”

Gemma, too? My God, I thought. What other experiences do we have in common, and how can I find out what they might be without sounding as if I’m digging for dirt on Alan?

“Really?” I said casually.

“Yeah. He did it all the time, not that we went out a lot. But whenever we did, he’d order for me even if I was sitting right there with my mouth open to tell the waiter or the counter guy what I wanted.

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