Sweet Salt Air Read Online Free PDF

fiddleheads or clams, but she was up and down, wearing off what little she’d eaten.
    “You’ll find room,” came the voice from the kitchen, along with the open-and-shut of the refrigerator door. “I cannot have a guest here for take-in without adding something of myself to the meal.” She returned with snifters of small, wild strawberries. “These are the first of the season. I picked them this morning.”
    “On the roadside?” Charlotte asked, tickled by a dozen memories. Nicole had always known how to spot the best patches, like her eyes could see the tiny red glow beneath the leaves from fifty feet away. She had been known to yell Stop the car! at odd times to fill either a bag or her hands.
    “No. One of the families on the neck has wide open meadows loaded with fruit. They started a little pick-your-own business, with strawberries now and blueberries soon. They cultivate wildness, and they don’t use herbicides. I go there as often as I can.”
    “These are so small,” Charlotte marveled, though she knew they’d be packed with flavor. “It takes forever to pick a pint.”
    “It’s about the process,” Nicole said with a smile, seeming to relax just thinking about it.
    So did Charlotte. And yes, she could find room. Slipping a berry into her mouth, she savored it, before returning to the interrupted discussion. “Maybe you will.”
    “Will what?”
    “Blow away the competition. I read your blog, Nicki. You get hundreds of comments on every post—and on Facebook, how many friends?”
    “Seventy thousand.” This, said with quiet pride as she scooped up their chowder bowls and headed off again. “Cappuccino?”
    “No, thanks. You are amazing, Nicki.”
    “The machine does it, not me.”
    “I meant your blog.” She had taken a more traditional route herself, studying journalism at Yale, followed by a postgrad year at Columbia. It was all very safe—precisely why, needing to break the mold, she had signed on as a Web correspondent in Afghanistan, where danger was a constant. The deal was for six months. Back in the States, she poured herself into hands-on charity work while the nightmares receded. Writing was her therapy. Between pieces she did in Appalachia—or in communities struggling to rebuild after a hurricane or fire—and those from Afghanistan, she caught the eye of magazine editors, who signed on for the pieces she pitched.
    It was a career trajectory that had been taken by scads of journalists before her. But Nicole—quiet, introverted Nicole—was breaking new ground. “How’d you do it? How’d you get so big?” she called.
    There was silence from the kitchen, then a dry, “God works in wondrous ways.”
    “I want to know how it happened, ” Charlotte insisted. “Nicole, are you going to come in here and sit?”
    She reappeared with a small ceramic creamer from which she topped the fruit in each snifter with something that looked far thicker than cream. “Sabayon, made with Dad’s favorite Riesling,” her high voice announced. “I forgot how much wine he’d stored here.”
    “Oh, yumm.” Forget the strawberries; Charlotte tasted the sauce. “Yummm.” Of course, a mouthful of fruit with sauce would be even better.
    She was about to dig in, when Nicole said a sharp, “Wait!” Up again, she grabbed her camera, arranged the snifters just so, and took several shots, before setting aside the camera. They were on the sofa now, the fire crackling around another new log. She didn’t eat, simply sipped her cappuccino with her eyes on the hearth.
    Charlotte sensed a melancholy. “Thinking of Bob?” Eating sauce made with his favorite wine would do it.
    “And Jules.” Nicole was suddenly teary. “He gave me the cappuccino machine a couple of summers ago. We have one just like it at home. He used to make cappuccino every morning and bring it to me in bed.” Darting Charlotte an awkward glance, she added a quick, “He’s too busy now.”
    Charlotte felt a twinge of