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

I’ve got some photos on my iPhone that were taken last year when we were thinking about putting the house on the market.”
    Delphine tried to imagine the sort of luxurious home Maggie and her family might live in. Would there be walk-in closets and an in-ground heated pool? Would there be central air-conditioning and a Jacuzzi in the master bathroom? “Okay,” she said. “So, I’ll see you then.”
    Delphine gave Maggie directions to her house and again watched as she drove off in her sleek, pristine car. She wondered what Maggie would do with herself for the rest of the day and felt momentarily guilty that she hadn’t offered an invitation for dinner, that she hadn’t even suggested some local activities that Maggie might enjoy. There was a new exhibit at the Barn Gallery, and another at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. Neither place would threaten the whiteness of her jeans. She could take a drive out to the Nubble Lighthouse or go shopping up in Portland. Neither one of those activities would cause too much damage to heeled sandals.
    She turned and went back to her desk. She had her own life to live and her own responsibilities to bear, and those responsibilities, copious though they were, did not include being Maggie Weldon Wilkes’s social director.

8
    It was almost nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. Delphine had been up since five and had already been out to the farm. Then she had stopped in to her parents’ house for a second cup of coffee and to see how her father, who had a light cold, was feeling. Better, was the answer, though Patrice had convinced him to stay home that morning and let her handle the diner on her own. Then Delphine had driven to her brother’s house to drop off a jigsaw puzzle—it was a picture of kittens in a basket—she had bought for Kitty at a yard sale. She had made it back home in time to welcome her closest friend in Ogunquit, Jemima Larkin, who would be coming by soon. Not that Jemima needed a formal welcome. Besides, even if Delphine wasn’t yet home, Jemima had a key.
    Delphine looked around her living room and sighed. She wished she hadn’t invited Maggie to come by the house. Not that she was in the least ashamed of it; not at all, she was proud of her home. Still, in all the years she had lived there, no one other than family and a few select locals, neighbors such as Jemima and, of course, Harry, had ever been there. Delphine had come to feel protective of her privacy. There was a very satisfying feeling of safety and quiet and seclusion that she cherished when she was home alone with Melchior.
    The house itself had been in the Crandall family since it was built around 1925. The first floor was comprised of a living room and a kitchen, off of which was a pantry that Delphine kept well stocked with dry goods and jars of her mother’s sauerkraut, pickles, and blueberry preserves.
    A staircase against the right-hand wall of the living room led to the second floor, where off a short, narrow hallway there were two rooms and a bathroom. The larger room, the one in the back, was Delphine’s bedroom. The bed had an iron frame and foot- and headboard. On the bed was a quilt her mother had made for her one Christmas. Under the window sat an old oak desk, on which sat her laptop, a chipped clay mug containing pens and pencils, and a spiral-bound notebook. The pine dresser, both tall and wide, had belonged to her grandmother. On it were a framed photograph of Kitty and one of her parents on their wedding day. For many years there had also been a picture of Delphine on her graduation from Bartley College, but eventually that had migrated to a drawer. There were no framed pictures of Harry. On the wide pine board floor were two braided rugs that had been around since Delphine’s childhood. She had a vague notion that her grandmother, her mother’s mother, had made them, but she would have to check with Patrice to