Part 4

Piper Ridge was a quaint town. It strove for quaintness. It worshipped at the altar of all that was old-fashioned and charming. Piper Ridge understood what needed to be done to achieve the coveted title of ‘quaint.’ You couldn’t just plant some expensive flowers around the center of town and hope for the best. If you wanted to be considered quaint, you had to work for it.

You needed certain things, if you wanted to be quaint. You needed a rich historical background, or the skills to fake one. You needed to place a prominent marker at every spot that George Washington took a nap during the Revolutionary War. You had to organize long and elaborate tours focusing on the markers, slowing down traffic and annoying the year-round residents to no end.

It was vital that you declare every old house in town a historical landmark. After that, you had to make sure the owners of the house kept the place up to snuff. The owners had to be on board with the Nostalgia Crusade.

Your town needed a main street, preferably named Main Street. You needed a beautiful old brick church, ideally over two hundred years of age. You needed an unusually large cemetery (or maybe that was just Piper Ridge) where residents could trace their ancestry from the time they stepped off the boat.

You needed a surplus of adorable shops selling precious knick-knacks and antiques – no chain stores, chain stores were anathema to the image being cultivated. Chains were the antithesis of quaint. No local would be caught dead in any of these charming curio shops, but tourists swarmed on them like maggots on old meat, and they were the ones who mattered. Locals drove one or two towns over if they needed anything mass-produced.

You needed a general store that still had a soda fountain, and a counter where people could eat. You needed a rabid Township Committee devoted to the town’s wholesome image. You needed a large, welcoming park with a unique cave system that closed promptly at sunset. You needed a small and dedicated police force that knew exactly how much to tell the public, and when to keep their mouths shut. You needed tenacity.

It wasn’t easy. It took guts, hard work, and sacrifice. Being quaint was a lifelong commitment. Which made it all the more frustrating that Piper Ridge didn’t quite succeed.

Oh, it was a picturesque town, no argument there. But there was a desperate air to the place, like a dying woman piling on makeup. And like the faithful friends and family of a dying woman in too much makeup, the residents of Piper Ridge never discussed the sickness of their town.

Piper Ridge aspired to be a rich, blue-blooded beach community, the hour-long drive to the shore notwithstanding. It survived on its wealthier residents, and a surprisingly large influx of summer tourists who appreciated the history and atmosphere of the town, and didn’t mind a trek to the beach on a summer day.

The town itself, as Tobias Masters so sourly noted, really was just one long street. The church stood at one end. To the left were the boutiques and specialty stores that the tourists found so endearing. To the right was the general store, a few restaurants and cafes, the bank, and the flower shop.

If you turned left at the church and traveled about half a mile, you reached Nick Trotts’ bar. If you turned right at the church, you faced the library. Turn right at the library, and you were on your way to the municipal building where the Township Committee held its meetings. Keep going, and you’d see the Piper Ridge Park. Keep going any further, and you hit the residential area. If you wanted to send your kids to school, they had to be bussed out. If you needed to go to the hospital, you were looking at a fifteen minute drive even with no traffic.

The border between Piper Ridge and neighboring towns wasn’t drawn in the sand, but every resident knew it. The town was a bubble, curled up snugly between two larger towns of less upstanding reputation. Piper Ridge studiously ignored them, and encouraged its tourists to do the same.

Because despite its reputation, its esteemed residents, and its truly unique cave system, Piper Ridge survived, but barely. While the population for the rest of the state surged, it never seemed to grow. It was a town in a coma, alive but unchanging. It was uninterested and unaffected by the state in which it existed, or the country beyond that. It was beneath a place like Piper Ridge. Piper Ridge turned inward, watching the summer fade and fall loom on the horizon. And the nights were getting longer.