At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,53

see your face right about now."

He twisted away from her and squinted in her general direction. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"Laquita Adams," she said calmly. "Oldest of Rachel and Darnell's twelve kids."

"You mean the hippie family by the river?"

She sighed. She would have to move to Timbuktu in order to escape it. "We like to think of ourselves as homesteaders."

"Homesteaders," he repeated. "And I'm a social drinker."

She couldn't help it. She laughed. Not loudly, not enough to draw any more attention to herself, but she laughed. Maybe her instincts weren't wrong after all. There just might be something there worth saving.

Chapter Nine

Three days after Gramma Del's funeral Gracie and Noah drove down to Portland to apply for their marriage license. They brought their birth certificates and drivers' licenses with them then waited patiently on line while other happy couples went through the process ahead of them. When it was their turn they filled out the forms, paid the fee, then waited for the clerk to hand over their future.

"There's a forty-eight hour waiting period." The clerk took a second look at their application then put it aside. "Best of luck, folks."

"You can still change your mind," Noah said as they stepped out into the sunshine. "That's only a license, not a marriage certificate."

"I'll never change my mind about you," Gracie said, then kissed him right there on the top step to prove it.

Three office workers on break burst into applause. Noah grabbed Gracie's hand and they dashed down the steps in search of a lobster shack where they could have a cheap lunch. They needed every cent they could find to fund their plane fare to Paris.

The funny thing was that she believed in him. No matter how many times he screwed up, she went on believing. Even he couldn't manage that. Gracie would have to believe hard enough for both of them.

They ordered lunch at a lobster shack near the docks. "Almost as good as they make back home," Gracie said which made Noah laugh. She thought everything was better at Idle Point. Their haddock and chips were served on paper plates which they carried over to a wooden picnic table. Businessmen in suits wolfed down lobster rolls, leaning forward so they wouldn't spill mayonnaise on their fancy clothing. A trio of young women in shorts and halter tops eyed the men as they waited for their sandwiches. They were probably the same age as Noah and Gracie but they looked so much younger. Neither one of them had ever been young quite like that.

They ate quietly, both overcome by the significance of the piece of paper tucked away in Gracie's huge leather tote bag.

Gracie had walked through the last few days suspended somewhere between terror and elation. In the blink of an eye, her dreams of a happy family had vanished and she was forced to see her life for what it really was. Gramma was gone. Ben didn't give a damn if his daughter lived or died. He loved a bottle of booze more than he loved his own flesh and blood. Idle Point no longer seemed like home. School couldn't fill the empty jagged hole inside her heart.

Only Noah could do that.

She had loved him for so long. She couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been part of her life. He knew all of her secrets. He understood her dreams. He believed in her the way nobody but Gramma Del ever had. They wouldn't end up being one of those couples whose dreams withered and died in the face of day-to-day reality. They wouldn't let that happen. There was room enough in this world for both of their dreams. They were young and they had time to make them all come true. How could you go wrong if you followed your heart?

#

"You're not paying attention, Chase." Joe from Production said with a note of exasperation in his voice. "You type in the slug lines the way I showed you; the codes fill in automatically."

It was only the tenth time Joe had told Noah how to key in his story.

"Sorry," Noah said. "I've got it now."

"What the hell's with you anyway? Your body's here but your brain is sure as hell someplace else."

"One of those days," Noah mumbled, pretending great interest in the words on his screen. He was finding it tough to care about the 32 Annual Labor Day Weekend Festival hosted by the Kiwanis Club when in less than six hours he and