Ferry to Cooperation Island Read online

  Praise for Ferry to Cooperation Island

  “Wash ashore on this island and find a community of characters whose lives are as interwoven, interdependent, and thus as complicated as its long history. Babies are born, beloved friends take their leave, and lovers change partners, as each arrival and departure of the ferry brings new twists. Cronin has built a world that you won’t want to sail away from!”

  —Juliette Fay, best-selling author of five novels including The Tumbling Turner Sisters

  “Olympic racing sailor Carol Newman Cronin takes us on a voyage of discovery built around the human interaction with an island at the entrance of Narragansett Bay off the coast of Rhode Island. Every sentence draws the reader into the curious lives of each character with a descriptive style that puts you in the middle of the narrative. Carol has a gift for story-telling that makes you just keep turning every page to learn what is going to happen next. A word of caution— once you start reading you won’t stop until the book ends.”

  —Gary Jobson, President of the National Sailing Hall of Fame

  “Lifetime sailor Carol Newman Cronin combines well-drawn characters, their family legacies, and the history of the island itself in a vivid story about the struggle of preservation versus development, grace against greed. Anyone who visits a New England island should have a copy of this in hand for summer reading. Wherever you look— the ferry landing, the coffee shop, the general store—you’ll recognize the characters.”

  —Doug Logan, author of BoatSense

  “Ferry to Cooperation Island is an entertaining portrait of island life where a quirky population of year-round inhabitants and their green ferry captain must navigate much more than a passage to the mainland. Readers will root for love between arch-rivals while a distinctive cast of salty, New-Englanders cling to their beloved island’s natural beauty. This novel takes on an age-old balancing act, pitting traditionalists against developers espousing ‘economic progress.’ Written with fast-paced, vernacular wit, Ferry to Cooperation Island is the perfect antidote for a land-locked point-of-view.”

  —Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, author of Eden and The Nine

  “With Ferry to Cooperation Island, Carol Newman Cronin creates an entirely believable and entirely engaging community off the coast of Rhode Island, peopled with characters who are at once authentic and intriguing. She draws the reader into a world of small town wrangling for land, wealth, status, friendship, and love, and those conflicts are made all the more captivating by the authentic and recognizable folks who populate the story. Ferry to Cooperation Island is a terrific read, at once funny, poignant, intriguing and captivating. As with her earlier works, Cronin’s understanding of and love for the people, the land, the sea, and the communities of her part of the world shines through.”

  —James L. Nelson, author of the Isaac Biddlecomb Series and The Only Life that Mattered

  “Cronin, an accomplished sailor as well as successful novelist, has deftly woven another absorbing story that combines the perfect amount of intrigue, adventure and romance into a can’t-put-down novel. At any time of year, Ferry to Cooperation Island is a perfect and highly recommended escape.”

  —Roberta Gately, author of Footprints in the Dust, Lipstick in Afghanistan, and The Bracelet

  “You can practically smell the salt air, feel the weight of the fog, taste the bitterness of pride and longing. Carol Newman Cronin brings Brenton Island to life in the way that only a fellow boater can, loving the flaws and peculiarities that make every character well worth knowing in a waterfront town.”

  —Kim Kavin, award-winning writer and editor for Yachting Magazine

  “A fast-tacking mystery with Carol Newman Cronin’s deep knowledge of the tides, tensions, and talent in Rhode Island’s beautiful and complex bays.”

  —Kaci Cronkhite, author of Finding PAX

  FERRY TO

  COOPERATION ISLAND

  Also by Carol Newman Cronin

  Oliver’s Surprise

  Cape Cod Surprise

  Game of Sails

  Copyright © 2020 Carol Newman Cronin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2020

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-864-4 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-865-1 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920770

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  “Island”

  Written by David Allen Loggins/Jimmy Buffett

  ©Coral Reefer Music (BMI)

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION

  Island Words and Music by Jimmy Buffett and David Loggins Copyright (c) 1981 UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORP. [and co-publisher] All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  To Mom and Dad

  Who sailed me to many islands, while always

  encouraging me to dream up my own.

  The original version of this map was created by Nations Online and is used here with permission from Klaus Kästle. The imaginary Brenton Island and its ferry route were added by the author.

  Island

  by Jimmy Buffett

  Island, I see you in the distance

  I feel that your existence

  Is not unlike my own

  Island, they say no man is like you

  They say you stand alone

  Sometimes I feel that way too

  It’s the need for love

  Heart and soul accompaniment

  Seems to make me different from you

  Well I’ve tried to book passage, but you had no ports

  And I tried to sail in but your wind and waters

  Tore my sails and broke-a-my oars

  Island, I see you in the moonlight

  Silhouettes of ships in the night

  Just make me want that much more

  Island, I see you in all my dreams

  Maybe someday I’ll have the means

  To reach your distant shores

  When the need for love

  Heart and soul accompaniment

  No longer makes me different from you. . .

  “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”

  —Andy Warhol

  MAY

  James

  JAMES WASN’T ACTUALLY reading the newspaper—he was hiding behind it. Hiding from the crowd surrounding him, on the outside deck of the Brenton Bean. Hiding from the blinding glare of May sun on glassy harbor. Hiding, most of all, from what lay in between: that empty ferry dock.

  If only the flimsy paper could block out sound as well. Tucked into the most protected corner of the coffee shop’s open deck, chair backed up against shingled exterior, he was still well within earshot o
f the stranded commuters who’d washed up at tables along the outside railing. Their worrying pecked at his hangover like a seagull feeding frenzy: without the ferry, how would they ever get ashore to their jobs? They were all so desperate to get off this island. And for the first time in sixteen years, James was too.

  He should’ve delivered them to the dock in Newport just over two hours ago. Right now he should be motoring back to Brenton, spray flying and diesels rumbling, already tasting his daily bagel-and-coffee reward. But yesterday he’d been fired. So instead of clutching a wooden wheel, he was crushing limp newsprint.

  The rumors were partly true; he had been caught with one tiny bag of marijuana, bought to ease a friend’s pain. But he hadn’t attacked his boss; he’d made a feeble attempt to reclaim the baggie. Reach, grab, hold up his hands as soon as Lloyd started screaming. Nothing that merited calling the cops—the guy just had a screw loose.

  So there’d be no ferry this morning, a complete upheaval of Brenton’s usual Wednesday routine. Even non-commuting locals had drifted down here in search of news—and then lingered to enjoy the first warm day of the year, filling every open seat. Which led, of course, to speculating with their neighbors: What really happened between James and his boss yesterday afternoon? Could the ferry even run without Captain James? Did I hear James was dealing drugs? Each time he heard his name, the scar on his left temple throbbed.

  Though that could be last night’s beers.

  To his left was the door to inside, and just beyond it was the least popular table out here—occupied by a pair of stranded tourists. The wife proposed a bet on the ferry’s exact arrival time, loser to buy the first round of martinis once they made it safely ashore. Birdwatchers, probably. The husband swiveled his head around to ask the regulars, “When’s it supposed to get here again?”

  Over at the big table, the animated weather discussion went quiet. Five pairs of eyes dropped down to stare into white china mugs. Only Mayor Frank—who just couldn’t leave anyone’s question unanswered, even when he was wrong—replied: “Eleven-ten.” Adding with less certainty, after a glance at his watch, “Might be a little late today.”

  The storm door opened, whacking into the birdwatchers’ table. “Oops, sorry!” Patty said, smiling. “Busy as Fourth of July out here.”

  James lifted his newspaper back into guard position, but those light blue Crocs stopped beside him anyway. The waitress carried a steaming glass coffee pot just above that huge apron-covered belly. Twins, maybe?

  Mugs were already waving over at the big table, but Patty focused on James. “Still have to eat, ya know.” She topped off his coffee and set her pot down next to his plate. “Or did you finally realize peanut butter just doesn’t go with pumpernickel?”

  “Bagel’s hard as a rock.”

  “That’s ‘cause it’s yesterday’s—Barb didn’t make her delivery this morning.” Those brown eyes bored into him. “I heard you two had words last night.”

  More than words. His fortieth birthday meal, dumped into the bakery’s trash bin. An overreaction, even for Barb.

  Patty rubbed a ringless hand against the left side of that baby-bulge. “Billy got ‘stuck’ in Newport last night.” Her fingers made air-quotes. “He was way too happy about—”

  “Patty!”

  She swiveled toward the big table just long enough to shake her head at Mayor Frank. When she turned back to James, a frown had wrinkled up her forehead and she opened and closed her mouth twice, before finally managing, “No hat today? And those eyebrows! One of these days, a laughing gull’s gonna fly in there, build a nest.” Her own brows had been carefully plucked. “How about a quick trim, once this crowd gets tired of waiting for their ferry? Betcha don’t have any other plans today. . . just sayin’.”

  James snapped the newspaper up between them, mixing burnt coffee aroma with his own unwashed sweatshirt and the ebb-tide odor of drying-out seaweed.

  Patty picked up her glass pot. “Yesterday’s Journal, too—not that you care.”

  Of course. . . today’s newspapers wouldn’t arrive unless the ferry did.

  Sighing, James let the paper drop and raised his left hand to pat down the hair standing off his forehead. It just stood right back up again.

  The harbor was a windless mirror, from empty dock out to rocky breakwater. Beyond the entrance, eddies of ebb tide swirled out toward Bird Island, the uninhabited rock that kept this harbor so well protected. Out there, on the water, he knew what to do—because boats were so easy to handle: Goose the throttles forward to cruising speed. Adjust for set and drift. Listen for the port engine’s ping, telling him it needed oil again. What he couldn’t navigate was people. . . and all this damned uncertainty.

  Starved for fresh news, the chatter around him faded, revealing more normal island sounds; wavelets tumbling pebbles along the tide line. An osprey chirping overhead. The whack of storm door against square metal table. Yesterday, it all would’ve blended together into a comforting symphony. Today, not knowing when he’d leave the island again, each noise clanged like a jail cell door.

  “You tell him?” Mayor Frank was mostly hidden behind Patty’s bulk, but his raspy voice still carried.

  Patty glanced back at James, shaking her head. “Didn’t dare.” She poured the last of the coffee into the mayor’s waiting mug.

  Tell him what?

  To avoid any additional grooming tips as Patty carried her empty pot inside, James stared down through the black grate of tabletop until he heard the door click shut behind her. If only the dried paint on his jeans could be read like tea leaves.

  When he looked up again, he caught Mayor Frank frowning at him—until those thick glasses swiveled back out to check the harbor.

  “Ah! Thar she blows!”

  Beyond the breakwater’s jagged top edge, two white bumps motored steadily north. Radar dome and life raft canister, riding proud on top of the ferry’s wheelhouse. Their familiar shapes—and the slate blue superstructure—were surprisingly distinct against the dark backdrop of Bird Island. For Mayor Frank—and everyone else out here, except James—this was the view of a normal morning: his ferry, steaming proudly home.

  But today he watched, steaming, from the beach.

  The commuter chatter started up again, giddy with relief. First thing tomorrow morning, their ferry would be there to take them ashore. Which meant that today, they could all enjoy an unexpected day off.

  “Told you it would be here,” Mayor Frank said, to no one in particular. “Just like Lloyd promised.” Lloyd. James’s boss—ex-boss— must’ve dragged some drunk captain off a Newport barstool last night.

  But as soon as the white hull cleared the end of the breakwater, the bow wave diminished. Drunk or sober, the scab of a captain knew enough not to come into a strange harbor above idle.

  “It’s slowing down,” the birdwatcher wife said.

  “Gotta be at least five minutes away still,” her husband replied, smiling.

  Four and a half, James silently corrected, sliding back his sweatshirt cuff to check his watch. Already eight minutes late.

  “Guess I’m buying those martinis.” The wife was smiling too. “But I don’t care—we’re getting off this island at last!”

  Some damned stranger had started those quirky engines. Pressed his own thumb and forefinger into the two varnished dents on the wheel’s king spoke. Soon he would pivot into the dock and smile at his departing passengers—if there even were any, on a Wednesday morning in May.

  From the far end of the big table, Harbormaster Mack caught James’s eye and shrugged, as if apologizing for what he was about to say. Then he drained his mug, clunked it down, and stood up— waking Chester the dog, who’d been asleep under the table.

  “Ferry’s here!” Mack announced in his public servant’s voice, as Chester shook himself to standing. “Everything’s back to normal now.”

  Courtney

  BRENTON HARBOR’S CHANNEL was wide and obvious, Courtney saw with relief; dark st
icks to starboard, white mooring balls to port, deep water right up to that long pier in the far corner. Easy.

  Easy was good. Screw up this very first ferry run, and Captain James Malloy would be all over her like rats on a lifeboat.

  Studying the island chart early this morning, Courtney— sleep-deprived, with first-run jitters—had imagined a sea monster biting into the northeast corner of a horizontal kidney bean to form this harbor. Which would explain the jagged, unfriendly shoreline; from breakwater to pier, non-stop frickin’ rock. And every house a monochrome gray with white trim.

  Was one of those drab places the captain’s cottage? She’d been told it was right near the ferry landing—not that anything could be too far away, on an island only two miles long and a mile wide. Plenty of vertical, though, and at the top of the hill stood the hotel she’d heard about, all shiny glass and witch-hat dormers.

  Courtney shivered, mostly from the cold. What was she doing out here on this cold New England island, so far from the friendly sloping lawns and bright-colored houses of her Chesapeake home?

  She’d told her new boss she didn’t know squat about the Rhode Island coast, expecting him to ride along on the first run or two. Instead, Mr. Lloyd Wainwright had handed over a slip of paper with the ex-captain’s phone number, “for emergencies only.” Adding, without a pinch of irony, that the guy probably wouldn’t answer her call.

  “James Malloy thinks he owns this ferry,” Mr. Wainwright said. “Once you drive up to that dock, consider yourself dropped into enemy territory.” Then—without even asking if she had any questions—he’d skedaddled out the wheelhouse door so fast, he’d banged his bald head on the frame.

  So, eyes glued to the chartplotter, Courtney had felt her way out of Newport Harbor, down Narragansett Bay, across four miles of open water, and around the east end of a small island that stood between Brenton Harbor’s breakwater and open Atlantic. If the harbor had been formed by a sea monster’s bite, then Bird Island would be what the monster spat out.