Read Online Summer Friends by Holly Chamberlin - Free Book Online Page A

the Cape Neddick Country Club. I thought that maybe we could play some golf. I remember it being a gorgeous course. Well, I’ve only seen it from the road, but . . .”
    Delphine began to fold the wrinkled aluminum foil that had covered her sandwich. She would rinse the foil when she got home and use it again. After that, it would go into the recycling bin. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ve never played golf. I don’t really have any interest in the game. And I don’t really have the time.” Or the money, she thought, and I don’t want you paying for me. “Sorry. You could play alone. I’ve driven by the course and seen people playing alone.”
    Maggie smiled, but she doubted her smile looked anything other than lame. “Yes,” she said, “maybe I will.”
    They sat in silence for a few minutes, Delphine sipping a coffee, until Maggie just couldn’t stand it any longer. Did Delphine really have nothing to say to her?
    â€œYou know,” she said, “the farm always seemed kind of, I don’t know, like a giant outdoor playhouse. I mean, back when I was a kid. I don’t think I ever realized that people actually worked here. Whenever your father let us help out with something it was an adventure.”
    Delphine laughed. “Oh, it’s an adventure all right. Like when we don’t get enough rain and the crops dry up, or when we get too much rain and the fields flood, or the cultivating tractor breaks down and we can’t get a part for days.”
    â€œThen why do you still do it?” Maggie asked. “Why does your family keep farming? Aren’t most small farms a losing proposition these days?”
    Delphine felt challenged. “We do it because we’ve done it for years,” she said, careful to keep her tone even. “We farm because we love it.”
    â€œI don’t know. It just seems like it’s so much work for so little return.”
    â€œNot everything in life has to be about the return, or about the profit,” Delphine said forcefully. “Lots of times the journey is what’s important, not the payoff at the end of the road.”
    But if the journey doesn’t make you enough money to pay your mortgage, Maggie thought, then you’re out in the streets. She let the subject drop.
    â€œAre you going to eat the other half of your sandwich?” Delphine asked, getting up from her chair. Clearly, Maggie thought, lunchtime was over. She’d only been at the farm for about forty minutes.
    â€œOh, uh, no,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t eat that much for lunch.”
    Delphine shrugged, picked up the abandoned half sandwich, and tucked it back in the red cooler. “I’ll have it for dinner,” she said, “with the vegetable soup I made last night.”
    Maggie just nodded. So much for evening plans. She would ask the concierge at the hotel to recommend a well-reviewed restaurant where she would feel comfortable dining alone. A restaurant with a good wine list and clean chairs.
    â€œWhat are you doing tomorrow?” Maggie asked as they left the office and emerged into the noonday sun. “I know you’re working, of course. But I’m sure you must have a bit of free time.”
    Delphine fought back a sigh. This, she thought, is like being stalked. Though stalkers were probably a lot less polite. It couldn’t be healthy in the long run, but she supposed that “for old times’ sake” she could share a few more awkward lunches in the office or on a bench in Perkins Cove. Not that she put much stock in “old times.”
    â€œWhy don’t you come by the house around nine tomorrow morning,” she suggested reluctantly. “My neighbor Jemima is stopping by. We could have coffee.”
    Maggie smiled. “That would be great,” she said. “I’d love to see your house. Oh, and I could show you mine.