Paul snorted into his glass. ‘You’re a hard woman, Hannah Ives.’
‘Well,’ I said, sipping my tea, ‘it’d be cheaper than a therapist.’
TWO
‘Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.’
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and Moral, ‘XXI: Of Delays,’ 1909-1914
Following a relentlessly healthy breakfast of yogurt, granola and whole wheat toast, washed down with mugs of robust French roast coffee, Paul and I climbed into his elderly Volvo and set off for Maryland’s eastern shore. Using the address Caitlyn had given me, I programmed the GPS, a Tom-Tom device that Paul had nicknamed ‘Stella’ because her voice reminded him of his high-school girlfriend. I tried not to be grumpy as I suction-cupped Stella to the windshield.
‘According to Stella, the trip will take two hours and thirteen minutes,’ I announced as Paul took the exit off Rowe Boulevard and merged with the heavy traffic on Route 50 heading for the Bay Bridge. ‘We should be able to pick up a bite of lunch in Elizabethtown before it’s time to meet Caitlyn, assuming they have restaurants in Elizabethtown, that is.’
‘Several,’ Paul said. ‘I Googled around this morning. There’s a bakery on High Street that sells designer coffee. Just across the street is a family-run café called the High Spot, kind of a local watering hole, I gather. Used to be a hardware store. There’s a pub called the Crusty Crab and a more upscale restaurant on the town wharf we could investigate today, too, if you like. It’s called the Boat House, as I recall.’ He hiked a thumb, indicating the back seat. ‘Printout’s in the canvas bag.’
‘Excellent,’ I said, after reaching for the bag and shuffling through the pages Paul had printed, checking out the sample menus. ‘The Boat House sounds perfect. According to this,’ I said, waving the printout, ‘they serve world-famous crab cakes.’
‘Boat House it is, then.’ After a moment, he said, ‘I visited the Barfield and Williams website, too, and printed out the complete specs for the cottage. It’s stapled at the back.’
But I’d already found the PDF describing the property and was reading through it. ‘I regret to inform you that the cottage has a name.’ I paused for effect. ‘Legal Ease. Must have belonged to an attorney.’
Paul groaned. ‘Ya think?’
I read on. ‘Waterfront, two acres, so far so good.’ I looked up. ‘Boat dock, it says. I wonder if there’s enough water for Connie and Dennis to tie up their sailboat?’
‘The Chiconnesick is pretty shallow, two to three feet at mean low water. I doubt it could accommodate Sea Song, even at high tide. Her draft is four and a half feet.’
‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed.
‘But if this all works out,’ Paul continued brightly, ‘we can certainly look into buying a small power boat for zipping around the Bay. And for fishing, too, of course.’ He caught my eye and winked before turning to concentrate on merging into the EasyPass-only toll lane at the entrance to the bridge.
‘Wish we could just toot over from Annapolis in a boat,’ I said about ten miles further on, thinking about the long drive still ahead of us.
‘Wouldn’t save all that much time, sweetheart,’ Paul pointed out as he eased to the right and took the exit where Routes 50 and 301 part ways at the Queenstown Outlet Mall. ‘And it’d be a long, wet ride, particularly in a chop.’
‘Or if it’s raining,’ I muttered. ‘Wishful thinking, I guess.’
While Paul drove south keeping an eye out for the county’s notorious speed traps and his cruise control set to fifty-five, I studied a map in the eastern shore guidebook I’d picked up at the Ivy Bookshop on Falls Road on a recent visit to Baltimore with my younger sister, Georgina, who lived nearby. In the section describing Tilghman County, I learned that Elizabethtown, its county seat, was named after Elizabeth of Bohemia, the ‘Winter Queen,’ the only daughter of James I of England to survive into adulthood. Her brothers, Henry and Charles, had Capes in Virginia named after them, so it seemed only fair. ‘Did you know that Chiconnesick means “land where the bluebirds sing?”’ I asked my husband. ‘Bodes well for birdwatching, if you’re into that sort of thing.’ I turned a few pages, read on. ‘The early settlers apparently bought the land from the Piscataway Indians in exchange for six Dutch blankets.’ Thinking about the asking price for Legal Ease, I sighed and added, ‘Those were the good old days.’
I closed the guidebook and tucked it into my tote bag.
A fender-bender on the Choptank River bridge just north of Cambridge delayed us long enough that I saw all hope evaporate of getting lunch at the Boat House in Elizabethtown before meeting with Caitlyn. As we waited, engine idling, at the head of a long line of vehicles for the tow truck to clear away the mess and haul it away to the body shop, I reached for the emergency power bars I’d packed in my handbag, unwrapped one and handed half of it to Paul, who polished it off in two bites.
On the outskirts of Salisbury, where Route 301 peels off to Ocean City and the beach towns along the Atlantic shore, we joined Route 13, the backbone that bisects the Delmarva peninsula – what the native Americans had called ‘Nassawadox,’ the land between the two waters – with bucolic towns and villages scattered along either side.
I’d almost forgotten about the GPS until shortly after passing the turnoff for Pocomoke City, when Stella came to life and said, In one mile, make a right turn.
We obeyed, winding along a two-lane state road for several miles until the fields of corn and soybeans gradually gave way to the houses of Elizabethtown, a prosperous-looking colonial town with a single traffic light. As we waited at the intersection of High and King for the light to turn green, I counted only one empty storefront along the block, a former pharmacy with Wm Chase & Sons spelled out in black and white tiles on the sidewalk out front. A sign posted in its display window read Blue Crab Art Galley - Coming Soon, so apparently the town had the vacancy situation well in hand.
Stella directed us through the traffic light, past another block of shops, left over a small wooden bridge and down a deeply shaded street lined on both sides with lovingly restored, high Victorian homes. At the edge of town, the cornfields resumed. After about five miles, Paul slowed when Stella confidently directed us down a dirt track – two ruts with grass growing tall along the hump in the middle. ‘Is she serious?’ he asked, applying his foot firmly to the brakes.
‘Caitlyn said it was out of the way,’ I reminded him.
‘This out of the way?’ Paul leaned forward, checked Stella’s display and frowned suspiciously. ‘I’m betting it’s further along.’
As Paul crept forward along the paved road, I peered through my window, scanning down the long rows of corn. Almost immediately I spotted Caitlyn’s lime-colored VW bug on the far side of the field. ‘There’s Caitlyn’s car, so I think we’re in the right place.’
‘Hold on to your teeth,’ Paul joked as he backed up, turned right and steered cautiously and bumpily down the road with tall grass whoosh-whooshing against the undercarriage.
Caitlyn’s VW was parked on a gravel drive next to the most charming cottage I’d ever seen outside the Cotswolds. If Jane Austen had greeted us at the front door, complete with dark ringlets and frilly cap, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, it was Caitlyn who awaited us, dressed in white jeans and a floral T-shirt, leaning against a white picket gate, her thumbs rapidly stabbing a text message into her cell phone. When she caught sight of our Volvo she smiled, made a final stab and tucked the phone back into her handbag. ‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked when we pulled up to the gate and stepped out of the car.