Newport Harbor House

by Cindy Caldwell

  Her phone rang, and she picked it up, wrinkling her nose when she looked at the caller ID. No time like the present, she supposed.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” her mother said when she answered her phone. “How are you?”

  The sticky, sweet voice on the other end of the line told Carrie all she needed to know. Usually, her mother was quick and direct—unless she wanted something.

  “Hello, Mother.” Carrie plopped down on the couch, ready for it to take some time for her mother to get to the point since there was obviously something going on. “I’m fine. Waiting for Jen and Faith to get here. It’s the start of summer.”

  She literally heard her mother sniff before she commented. “So it is. For some of you, I suppose.”

  “Yes, it is, and I’m excited. What’s up?” Carrie always tried to keep it light—and fast. Whether she was successful or not.

  Her mother cleared her throat, then continued. “I suppose if those friends of yours are coming into town, you wouldn’t be available for dinner tomorrow night. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Ah, there it was.

  “No, I’ll be busy this weekend, for sure. Likely every weekend this summer. Jen and Faith get to stay the whole summer. It’s going to be great.”

  “Hm, I’m sure it will be.”

  Carrie almost laughed at her mother’s sarcasm. No point calling her on it, though. She’d learned over the years that didn’t end well.

  “Yes, it will be.”

  After an awkward silence, her mother said, “Well, I have a favor to ask you.”

  Carrie stood and took in a breath. Her mother’s picks for her were horrific and the dates were excruciatingly endless.

  “Oh?” Carrie asked, her fingers crossed for good luck.

  “Yes, dear. As you know, I am chairman of the fundraising for the hospital board. The hospital you refuse to work at.”

  Carrie sat down hard. “Mother, you know I love my clinic. The hospital doesn’t have dentists, anyway.”

  “Oh, right. You decided to be a dentist, after all that training. You could have been anything, you know.”

  Carrie did, in fact, know that she could have chosen any specialty at all, but she’d thought long and hard about what she wanted to do, and dentistry had somehow caught her fancy. It had helped that the man she’d fallen in love with was also a dentist, and they’d opened a clinic together. But her mother knew all that and still liked to needle her.

  “Yes, I know. So what do you need from me? About the hospital?”

  Her mother cleared her throat again. “Now, don’t say no right away. Just think about it.”

  “Think about what?” Carrie paced in front of the mantel, glancing at a picture of her mother and herself from long ago. She noticed, not for the first time, that neither of them was smiling.

  “Maude will not be able to serve as my donations coordinator for the Labor Day benefit. I’d like you to do it.”

  Well, there it was. Maude and her mother had been cohorts for decades, and Carrie had fortunately been left mostly out of the loop, except for her expected attendance at said events. This was a disaster.

  “Oh, no. What’s happened to Maude?” Carrie asked, legitimately concerned for more reasons than one.

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need help and you are my daughter.”

  Maude was a dear friend of her mother’s—or so Carrie had thought—and she did hope that the older lady was all right as she wondered what had happened. She paused, trying to formulate her next question.

  Her mother didn’t wait long. “Carrie, I need you. I’ll check in with you later so that we can start planning.”

  Her mother clicked off and Carrie glanced out the glass doors toward the waves crashing against the beach. Not for the first time, she felt pulled by the tides—truly wanting to help her mother and wondering why it was always so difficult. A fundraiser was no small thing to put together, especially with a hospital this size, and she didn’t know a thing about fancy parties. She could barely get the right clothes together to even go, let alone plan.

  Her phone dinged with a text from Jen.

  * * *

  We’re almost in. Made great time. Come over.

  * * *

  Carrie’s mood lifted, and she took another glance at the picture on her mantel—right next to the one with Carrie and Bethany. Carrie and her stepdaughter both were smiling, and even though Carrie hadn’t seen Bethany a ton since Carrie had divorced Bethany’s father, she and Bethany had had many happy times together, which she couldn’t say about her own mother. She shook her head and decided to shelve the entire subject for later.

  * * *

  Be right there, she texted in return, a smile back on her face.

  * * *

  She ran upstairs and opened her closet, hopping into plaid walking shorts and pulling on a neon orange t-shirt and visor. She opened the sliding glass door to her upstairs deck, breathing the sea air again. Up and down the beach people strolled as others roller-skated along the boardwalk.

  “Yep, summer has officially arrived,” she said out loud before she headed downstairs to grab the wine and hang out with her best friends. She glanced at the messages on the table, but didn’t even slow down on her way out the door. Dirk Crabtree—whoever he was—would have to wait, and Carrie didn’t care if he waited forever.

  Chapter Three

  Jen weaved between cars and wound her way toward the beach house, the street narrow due to all the cars parked on either side. To her mind, streets of Newport were crowded, even for this early in the season, although Carrie would probably say it was practically empty. Thank goodness Jen’s grandparents had built a garage during the original construction. There were lots of times that there was nowhere else to park.

  Faith hopped out and hoisted the old, wooden door so Jen could pull the car in. They gingerly opened the car doors, trying not to scratch the doors on the walls.

  Jen maneuvered carefully around the car so as not to knock anything off of the shelves that brimmed full with surfboards, beach umbrellas, chairs and boogie boards. Snorkels and fins filled a cupboard, along with plastic shovels and buckets that the kids had used endlessly over the years to build their sandcastles.

  “Guess we won’t be using a lot of this stuff this year, huh, with the kids not here?” Faith asked as they carefully wiggled between the car and the shelves. It was almost as if Faith had read her mind.

  Jen glanced wistfully at the shelves of kids’ toys. The prospect of spending time on her own with her friends was exciting, but she did look forward to the day when she might have grandchildren and start the cycle all over again. Little ones running around with sandy feet, learning to swim, sandcastles on the beach, frozen bananas at the Fun Zone. She might even go on the Ferris wheel just for fun. She missed it all.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll have grandkids and we can do it all over again,” Jen said.

  Faith paused and picked up an empty bucket with colorful seashells on the side, and Jen wondered if Faith’s daughter Maggy would have kids. She’d been pretty busy with her job in San Diego, and with no boyfriend in the picture, it at minimum seemed far off.

  Faith smiled, and tapped one of the surfboards. “I hope so. I remember it all so vividly. It’d be fun to have some babies running around, wouldn’t it?”

  Jen nodded. “Yes. But for now, maybe we’ll have our own sandcastle contest. And I think we should definitely get out the paddle boards, don’t you?”

  “Oh, right, I forgot about those. I haven’t been working out much. Haven’t even had time to go walking. It’ll probably kill me. I might be better off in a kayak,” Faith responded. “I’m sure I can use Carrie’s.”

  “Suit yourself. But I think we should try anyway. We can take them on the bay side where there are no waves.”

  The Newport house was uniquely situated so that it had pretty close access to the bay as well as being on the beach. There were only a few houses li
ke that, and Jen always been grateful that her grandparents had taken a prime spot before they decided to build.

  Faith leaned out of the garage door and looked up and down the street.

  “Look at that,” she said, pointing south.

  “What?” Jen asked as she followed her friend out the garage door, following the direction she was pointing in.

  She whistled, long and slow. “Wow. That wasn’t here last summer.”

  Her hand shielding her eyes from the sun, Jen stared at what had been one of the last empty lots on the street. No one could ever figure out why it hadn’t sold before now, but it had been a handy throughway from the beach to the bay side for most people.

  “Guess we won’t be going that way to the boardwalk anymore,” Faith said.

  The huge, modern house crept out onto the beach side and blocked their view south to the bay. It was mostly glass—and would have spectacular views—but that view would go both ways.

  “I can’t imagine living in a house like that. At night it’d be like a fishbowl. You can see just about everything.”

  “Guess that’s the style now,” Jen said, knowing full well it was. Newport had changed a lot over the last couple of decades, with people buying the old, traditional cottages and either completely gutting them or tearing them down altogether. This one was new—and to her mind, not very pretty. They’d even cleared out the grove of cedar trees that had dotted the property.

  “I guess so, but it’s—I don’t know.”

  “I know what you mean.” Jen knew exactly what her friend meant. And the house had to be worth millions. It made Nana’s house look like a shack, and just the though of the houses down the road being worth that much made her a little queasy.

  She turned back toward her family house and noted that it was the last original left on their small street. It was quite large, by beach standards, with lots of bedrooms—though they were awfully small—and a very steep set of stairs to a small suite over the garage, which they called the studio.

  The house still had the original windows, wooden ones that stuck most of the time, and the wide, wooden porch had been re-stained more times than Jen could count. They hadn’t had lots of money to fix it up—and her brother didn’t seem to want to do anything differently now—but Jen had always spent her summers giving it as much TLC as she could.

  Her grandmother, Nana, had lived there the last couple of decades before she passed away, and it was part of the charm of coming—Nana’s muffins had no rival, and the sweet smell of them baking was part of the warm and fuzzy memories Jen had stashed away.

  Jen maneuvered through the crowded garage toward the door. It took more than one tug to open it, and Daisy raced through into the small, fenced courtyard, almost knocking both Jen and Faith over in her hurry to get to the small patch of grass.

  Faith followed Jen up the creaky steps, her arms full of grocery bags. She set them down on the porch as Jen fumbled with a ring of keys.

  Jen flipped the keys around several times, found the right one and slipped it into the lock. She turned it several times, holding the knob firm with one hand as she’d always done in the past.

  “It doesn’t seem to want to open,” she said finally, looking up at the porch awning, sun pouring through places it shouldn’t be.

  “Let me give it a try.” Faith jiggled the key in the lock. “Hm. It’s stuck, all right,” she said with a grimace. “You sure it’s the right key?”

  Jen nodded and walked to the other side of the deck. Seagulls called from the beach, and the warm breeze and smell of the sea spray begged her to sit. But they had to figure out how to get in the house first.

  “It must have rusted shut since anyone was here last. I’m sure somebody would have told me.”

  “Seems so. I’ll go check in the garage for some WD-40. That takes care of anything.”

  Faith came back with the familiar blue can and sprayed around the door handle. “Maybe that’ll do it.”

  Jen wiggled the key in the lock again and shook her head.

  “Nope. We need a Plan B.”

  “All right. Maybe a window’s open.”

  “Shouldn’t be, but I guess it’s our best bet.”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow from her resting spot on the small plot of grass in the courtyard as Faith and Jen circled the house, trying each window. The windows were quite old, but proved to be very sturdy, unfortunately.

  With one last side of the house to try, they exchanged glances. The gate to access the south side of the house had been long rusted shut—and it was on the lengthy list of fixes Jen had planned to get to this summer. But that was where the back door was, and it was their only hope.

  Jen looked up at the second story. “If we can’t get that last window open, we’re going to need a ladder.”

  “Right, but one of us is going to have to hop the gate to get over there.”

  “Right,” Jen said as they exchanged glances again. Neither one of them had been working out much beyond walking, and the six-foot fence had spikes at the top.

  Jen had pulled her shoulder the previous spring and had tried not to do too much heavy lifting while it healed, and Faith knew it.

  “Okay, I’m on it.”

  After a bit of a struggle, Faith got to the top of the gate and swung a leg over, trying to scoot over the top of the gate without getting tangled up on the spikes.

  “Thanks, Faith,” Jen said, trying to keep her laugh out of her voice.

  “Don’t thank me yet.” Faith looked down from the top of the fence, looking as if she was trying to get her courage to jump. “I still have to get to the bottom. And there’s no guarantee we can open this door, anyway.”

  “Well, I’ve got a cold glass of wine for you when you meet with success.”

  Faith nodded. “Okay. I’ll hold you to it.” Faith turned around, her voice a whisper. “There’s somebody watching me from next door. I can see the curtain twitching.”

  Jen shook her head. “That’s just Mrs. Grover. A curtain-twitcher from way back. She’s harmless, although she does seem very interested in whatever we do over here.”

  Faith took another glance in the direction of Mrs. Grover. “Okay. I’m going in, then.”

  Jen stiffened as Faith took a deep breath and disappeared on the other side of the gate. She held her breath for a moment, relieved she heard a deep belly laugh rather than a screech.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Faith finally said when she caught her breath.

  “What?” Faith couldn’t see through the wooden gate.

  “Nothing. I’ll show you in a minute. I’m going to try the door.”

  Jen listened as the keys jingled.

  “Success!” Faith shouted, and Jen ran back around to the front of the house.

  Faith swung the door open wide, a smile plastered on her face and her jeans ripped all the way across the back.

  “Oh, my gosh.” Jen held her stomach as Faith spun around, the back pocket of her jeans ripped enough to show her pink-flowered underwear.

  “It got caught on the spike, but I was already on my downward trajectory,” Faith said, a giggle escaping as she pulled her t-shirt lower over her hips.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. But you got us in!”

  Faith nodded as Daisy came bounding through the front door and began to inspect her new location.

  “Yep. It was worth it, and I’d do it again. And I’m ready for my reward.”

  Jen laughed and brought in some of the grocery bags. “Coming right up.”

  Chapter Four

  Jen didn’t feel like she could take her eyes off the puppy, who was sniffing every nook and cranny of the beach house. It made her a little nervous, as she obviously didn’t know Daisy very well.

  She paused with the corkscrew in her hand. “I think I’m going to take Daisy for a quick walk and I bet she’ll take a nap after that,” Jen said. “Wanna come?”

  Faith stretched and glanced longingly at the beach. “I’d love to, but isn’t Ca
rrie going to be here any minute?”

  “We can head along the beach in her direction and catch her. Daisy really needs to get some energy out, anyway. Maybe we can get her to swim.”

  Faith laughed, but said, “Well, good luck with that. I think I’ll wait here and enjoy my reward. Wait for Carrie.” She picked up the corkscrew and smiled with a little wave in Jen’s direction.

  “Huh. Some back-up,” Jen said before she laughed and closed the door behind her.

  Jen tossed her shoes aside at the bottom of the stairs and gingerly opened the creaky gate that let out onto the sidewalk. They headed toward the sand, and Jen couldn’t deny that there was an extra spring in her step.

  Since there was no one else to tell, she told Daisy, “There’s nothing quite like the feeling of the sand in my toes. I bet you’ll like it, too.”

  Jen wiggled her own toes and Daisy sniffed at the sand, something new to her. The puppy stepped gingerly at first, and when her paws sunk a bit, she tested it again. Finally, she decided it was fun and pounced around, rolling in between the sea grass and sending a resting group of seagulls to flight.

  Daisy plunged into the waves, and Jen laughed at the puppy as she stopped dead short, then backed up with a bit of a whimper.

  “It’s okay, Daisy. It’s just the ocean,” Jen said, bending down and petting the dog with a reassuring nod. She couldn’t take the leash off—there was a beach up the road that was a dog beach, where they could run free, but this wasn’t it.

  Jen tiptoed into the cool water, coaxing Daisy along with her. In a matter of seconds, Daisy was running in circles, patting at the water and trying to catch the droplets in her mouth.

  Jen’s feet dug into the warm sand as Daisy played, pulling the end of the leash over her wrist.

  Jen had to struggle a bit to keep hold of the leash. “Wow, you’re a handful.” But she smiled at Daisy’s utter delight as she snapped at the waves, confused when they kept running away from her.