“But no more roses?” Lily asked.
Rose laughed. “Nothing even remotely close to roses.”
Lily returned the neighbor’s shovel, picked up her beach bag, and waved goodbye to Rose.
“Lily,” Rose called. “That phone call earlier on the boat. It was something important, wasn’t it?”
Lily took a deep breath. “Yeah. Probably so.”
Rose nodded. “Whatever it is, don’t let it derail you.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
* * *
That evening, after dinner and a shower, Lily sat outside on her porch swing. With the ceiling fan on high, the heat was tolerable, especially now that the sun had set. She rocked a few minutes with her phone on the seat next to her before picking it up and resolutely calling Worth’s number.
“Lily,” he said, the single word an exhale.
“Hello.”
The distance between them was quiet for a long moment before he sighed. “I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you. I’d already told myself if you hadn’t called by eight o’clock I was going to call you again.”
“I beat you to it.”
“Yeah.”
Again, the silence.
“I signed the papers. I guess you’re wanting them back.”
“Yes.” His voice caught a little on the word. “But that’s not why I called.”
“Why’d you call then?” she asked gently.
He sighed again. “I don’t know, Lily. Because I have a mountain of things to say to you, but now that I have you on the phone, I can’t get any of it out.”
“Well, let’s start with this—where are you?”
He exhaled. “I’m here at the house.”
“In Atlanta?”
“No, in Foley. I’m packing up what’s left of our things.”
She tried to make sense of his words, but she couldn’t. “You’re at our old house? But I thought someone else was moving in.”
“That was the plan, from what I understand, but the person Harold hired to replace me had already found a house to buy. They didn’t need this place, so all our stuff has just been sitting here. Lily—where did you go?”
Lily chuckled. “I didn’t go far. I’m just down the road a bit.”
“You’re—what? I figured you would’ve gone back to Fox Hill.”
Lily shook her head. “There was no one for me to go back to there. Not in Atlanta either. So I . . . well, I found somewhere new. It’s called Safe Harbor Village.”
“I can’t believe I did this to you. I’ve made a mess of so much. I can’t even believe you’re talking to me. I figured if I actually got you on the phone, you’d just yell at me.”
“Yell? I’m not going to yell at you, Worth. You’re an adult—you can make your own decisions. We both can. Why don’t . . .” She paused, evaluating the words she was considering. “If we’re going to talk, we should do it in person. Why don’t you come here?”
Half an hour later he pulled up in front of her cottage. When he emerged from his car, she had to tamp down an urge to bolt, but whether it was a desire to run to him or away from him, she wasn’t sure.
She watched him as he made his way up her front walkway. He’d let his hair grow a little, and his cheeks and chin were covered in a several-days-old beard. The T-shirt and shorts he wore were so different from his usual starched and pressed look.
Or maybe this was the real Worth, and what she’d seen in the short year of their marriage had been a lie, an attempt to be someone he wasn’t.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever know.
He stepped up onto the porch and looked at her. She hesitated, then scooted over, making room on the swing for him. When he sat, he placed his hands carefully on his knees, a comfortable two feet of space between them.
“Hi,” he said without looking at her.
“Hi.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She kept her feet on the ground, rocking them gently back and forth. “Where have you been all summer? I haven’t talked to your mom in a while, but at least at the beginning it seemed like she had no idea.”
He blew a puff of air from his nose. “She didn’t. I didn’t tell her where I was going. I didn’t tell anyone.” He glanced sideways at her, then lowered his gaze. “I went to California.”
Lily closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye she saw the newspaper clipping with Mertha’s words written along the side of the photo. That’s our girl.
“It’s not what you think, though.” She cocked a skeptical eyebrow in his direction. “Lily, my head was such a mess when we first met. I’d spent years having little pieces chipped off me by my mother. By Delia and our breakup. By all the expectations people had for me that I failed and failed to measure up to. And yes, before you ask, I know how pitiful this sounds. But I can’t lie anymore. Not to you, not to myself.
“My mother had this idea of what her son would be like, the kind of life I’d live, the kind of man I’d be, and nothing less than her ideal image was enough. I don’t know where it came from—this need for everything to look perfect, to measure up. But it was there, and I was the one who was never perfect enough.”
Lily remained quiet as the words poured out of him.
“Even with Delia . . . My mom loved her. She treated her like a daughter-in-law even when we were in high school. It was almost embarrassing how much my mom fawned over her. But I loved Delia too. Like everyone else, I assumed we’d get married.
“When she broke up with me after college, I was crushed, but so was my mother. Not being good enough for Delia was just another way for me to fail. To fail her. I lived with that for a while, worked as hard as I could at the office, and tried to keep her off my back. By the time I met you, my mind was such a firestorm, I was in no place to try to make anyone else happy.
“But you were so sweet and quiet and steady. You were so opposite of everything else in my life. The opposite of my mother and the opposite of Delia. Maybe in some way I thought I’d be getting back at Mom by marrying someone she thought was so wrong for me. But you can’t build a marriage trying to get back at your mom, can you?”
Suddenly he rose from the swing and took several steps away. He stuck his hands in his pockets, his back to her, and exhaled hard.
“Did you know she got me my job down here? At Pender Properties. Here I was thinking I was finally leaving the family business, making a fresh start in a new company. Making my own way.” His shoulders drooped. “I had no idea she’d called Harold and gotten him to offer me a job. I guess—well, she probably thought I couldn’t do it on my own. And maybe she was right. I did screw it all up.”
Lily waited a moment before asking, “What happened in California?”
He shook his head. “I had this crazy idea that because I’d failed miserably at being a decent husband to you, that must mean Delia and I really were supposed to be together after all. See? Crazy. So I went out there to see her. To see if there was any chance. Thankfully, she put me in my place quickly.”
“She did?”
“Oh yes. She told me she didn’t love me anymore, that she hadn’t for years, and that I didn’t really love her either.”
He finally turned around and faced Lily. “She was right. Going to California didn’t have anything to do with any remaining feelings for Delia. It was just my way of . . . breathing for a minute, I guess. Which turned into a summer.”
“Were you out there the whole time?”
“No.” He sat back down next to her, his frame less taut. “I just sort of . . . drove. I went up to Washington, then out to Montana for a while. Down to Colorado. Texas. I’ve only been back a few days. I stopped in Atlanta, then figured I needed to clean up my mess here. Not that you’re the mess. I just . . . It was time for me to face everything I left behind.”
“Speaking of . . .” Lily rose and walked inside and up to her bedroom. She took the papers and the ring from the drawer next to her bed and brought them back outside to Worth. Sh
e set them on the swing between them.
He sighed and picked up the ring, turning it side to side to catch the glow from the porch light before putting it down again. He stretched his legs out in front of him.
Lily tipped her head back. “You know what? I think we both used each other.”
He lifted his gaze and searched hers. “How’s that?”
She shrugged. “We were Band-Aids to fix each other’s wounds, but we couldn’t fix each other. It’s too much to expect another person to be able to do that.”
He nodded slowly. “I left you those papers as a way to let you off the hook. To keep you from having to spend the rest of your life with someone so . . . unstable.”
“Maybe you’re not unstable anymore, Worth. Maybe now’s the time for you to figure out what you want. Who cares what your mom wants?” She lifted the corner of her mouth into a smile, and he smiled back.
Just then a voice called to her from the street. “Hello there, Lily.” She turned to face the street. She could barely make out the shape of a woman walking past her cottage.
“Shirley? Is that you?”
“It is. Just getting in my nighttime stroll. I prefer to get my exercise when it’s not hot as blue blazes. Oh, excuse me, dear. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“Oh yes you did,” Lily said under her breath. She turned her head slightly so only Worth could hear her. “This woman doesn’t exercise. She probably saw your car in front of my house and wanted to get the scoop.”
He laughed quietly.
At the street Shirley was fanning herself with her hand. “Well, if you’re sure everything’s okay, I’ll get on back home. I’ll see you tomorrow, though, right? Eleven thirty for a cut and blow-dry.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lily called with a wave. “I’ll see you then.”
They watched until Shirley disappeared around the bend in the road, and then Worth picked up the ring and papers and stood. He stared at the ring a moment before dropping it into his pocket. “I’ve taken up too much of your night. I need to be getting back. But, Lily . . . I’m really glad to see you again. To know we’re not ending everything as ugly as I left it. And I’m happy to see you looking so . . . well, happy, I guess. This place seems to fit you.”
Behind him, the Lily’s Place sign on the front door fluttered in the breeze from the fan. She inhaled. “I think it does. I don’t know what comes next, but for now I think this is where I need to be.”
He stood awkwardly in front of her, as if unsure how to wrap things up. She crossed her arms in front of her. “Take care, Worth.”
He nodded. “You too.”
Then he was gone, driving away from her cottage and down the road. In a minute he’d be passing through the gates of the village, turning back toward the rest of civilization, away from this place of water and salt and second chances. Lily took one last deep breath, then turned off the porch light and stepped inside.
Twenty-Seven
Lily’s phone rang just as her last appointment of the day headed out the door. She checked the screen and smiled at the name she saw there. When she answered, it was so noisy, she could barely hear him.
“Sorry,” Rawlins said. “Hang on a sec.” After another moment Lily heard a door close and the noise, while not gone, dulled a bit. “I’m sorry. It’s been a crazy day.”
“Good crazy or bad crazy?” Lily stood the broom up in the corner of the salon and sat, relishing the ease of pressure off her feet.
“A little of both. I called for two reasons. One, I wanted to say hi.”
Lily smiled into the phone. “Hi.”
“Second, do you have plans tonight?”
“I don’t.”
“Mind if I swing by for a bit?”
“Not at all.”
“It may be late. I have to drive to Pensacola this afternoon to see a guy about some nets. It may be dinnertime or a little later.”
“I’ll be here.”
And she was there, until seven forty-five when someone knocked on her door. She opened it to see Coach and Rose standing on her porch.
“We’re here to kidnap you,” Coach said.
Lily laughed. “I’m sorry?”
“Apparently Ida Gold had a hankering to see a young Robert Redford on the big screen, so Peter did his thing and somehow came up with a screen and a projector. Barefoot in the Park starts on the grass in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Thanks, but I have—”
“You’re not working this late, are you?” Coach peered around her into the cottage. “Do you have a visitor?”
“No. Not now, but—”
“Great. Let’s go then. A little fresh air will be good for you.”
Lily looked helplessly at Rose, who only shrugged. “You might as well come on. When he decides he wants something, he generally doesn’t give up until he gets it.”
“I . . . Okay. Let me just grab my phone.”
Lily perched on the back seat of Coach’s golf cart and typed out a quick text to Rawlins.
Slight change of plans. When you get here, come to the grass. It’s village movie night.
Rawlins’s reply came quickly.
See you in twenty.
When he arrived, Corie and Paul’s quirky attic neighbor had just climbed through their apartment window, sparking laughter from the villagers in attendance on the lawn. Lily was sitting on Coach’s extra beach towel, and she scooted over to make room for Rawlins.
When he sat, only a few inches separated them, and Lily inhaled, breathing in his scent of soap and musk. His hair was still damp, and it curled up a little in the back.
“Movie night, huh?” he said, looking around at the couple dozen people scattered around the grass on blankets and folding chairs.
“Coach and Rose picked me up. I had no choice. They were very persuasive.”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes.
“Everything go okay today?”
Behind them, someone shushed her. Rawlins lowered his voice to a whisper. “Yeah, it’s fine. We’re actually catching a lot right now. We’re in a good spot for the season, but . . .”
“But what?”
He shook his head. “It’s just hard for me to trust it. Who knows if it’ll stay like this or if it’ll dip back down again.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t worry as much before, but . . . I just need to know it’s going to be steady. Especially since Dad is still against the market.”
“He is?”
Rawlins nodded. “Yeah. He’s not budging.”
Lily bumped her shoulder gently against his. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at her and sighed. “Me too.” He looked down, then sat up straighter. “I’ve got to fill you in on something.”
A man behind them leaned forward and tapped Rawlins on the shoulder. “Can you two keep it down? This is a very important part of the movie.”
On the screen Jane Fonda was casually leaning against a doorframe wearing her husband’s button-down shirt and nothing else. Lily looked back at the man and rolled her eyes.
Rawlins stood and held a hand down to Lily. “Take a walk with me?”
She took his hand and stood, and they walked across the street to the boardwalk that lined the marina. It was a long moment before he started talking.
“Do you remember the friend I told you about, whose company does environmental work in the Gulf?”
“I think so. You made it sound like he was wanting you to join the company.”
“That’s right. He still does. They do a lot, but mostly they make sure something like the BP oil spill doesn’t happen again. Or if it does, they make sure plans are in place to mitigate it. He knows all about Willett, knows we know every inch of these waters.” He reached out and took her arm as they stepped around a pile of fishing poles and long, thin spears laid out in the middle of the boardwalk.
“Sorry about the mess,” a man called from the deck of a pontoon boat. “We’re loading up for
some flounder gigging. Interested?”
Rawlins shook his head no, and they continued walking. With the men behind them, he continued. “At first I told him I wasn’t interested, that I already have a job and it’s the family business. But he kept asking, kept making the deal more and more attractive. And now . . .” Rawlins sighed. “Well, I agreed to interview for the position.”
“That’s . . . good, right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He took a deep breath. “It’s a job I think I can do well. My marine science degree would be put to good use. It’d pay well too. And it’d be steady money, not dependent on what we pull out of the water.” He stopped walking. “It’s based in Louisiana.”
Lily swallowed. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They walked on, the lights from the docks casting wobbly glimmers on the water.
“The timing couldn’t be worse. I talked to Tara, and she’s agreed to give me primary custody of Hazel.”
Now it was Lily’s turn to stop walking. “Really?” She gave his hand a gentle tug. “That’s great. It’s just what you wanted.”
He nodded. “I didn’t think she’d agree to it, but she has this new boyfriend. I think she wants her own fresh start.”
“Have you talked to Hazel about it?”
“A little. I asked her if she thinks Pancake would be okay living with me instead of her mom. Pancake is this stuffed rabbit she leaves at Tara’s.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said Pancake’s always wanted to live at my house.” After a moment he sighed. “I just feel like I can’t ignore this opportunity. I shouldn’t ignore it. I’ve been trying to do what I can to shore up the business, but I’m just not getting anywhere. Then this job comes out of nowhere . . .”
“I agree. It seems like something you should pay attention to.”
He nodded. “If this had happened three or four months ago, I would have jumped on it, no problem. Well, except for the small fact that taking another job could spell the eventual end of Willett Fisheries. But . . .”
Lily looked up at him. His face was shadowed, with just his cheekbone and the curve of his jaw highlighted by a light at the end of a dock.
The Summer House Page 28
