by Melody Grace
I carefully twist the focus, bringing the view clearer. The sea foams, restless beyond the strip of brush-land and sand dividing the highway from the shore. I press my finger on the shutter and click, praying I make it through the summer without losing my mind.
“You’ll be coming here with your own kids soon,” Mom adds brightly. “A tradition. You know, I came here with your grandparents, every summer since I was—”
A loud bang sounds, drowning out her voice. The car swerves wildly, suddenly out of control. My chest slams against my seatbelt painfully, and my camera slips from my hands. I grab for it, desperate, as we careen across the wet highway.
“Mom!” I yell, terrified. I see a flash of red through the window—the truck behind us in our lane. It heads straight for us, then swerves past at the last second.
“It’s OK!” Mom’s knuckles are white, gripping the steering wheel as she wrestles to regain control. “Just hold on!”
I cling on to the sides of my seat, thrown to the side as the car keeps spinning. We’re weightless, drifting in the road. Then, at last, I feel the tires get traction again. The car slows, until, finally, we come to a stop along the side of the highway.
I gasp for breath, my heart pounding. The red truck we nearly hit has gone off the road further up the highway, front wheels buried up to the bumper in mud and sand.
My mom is still gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, her face chalk-white. “Are you OK?” I ask in a quiet voice. She doesn’t reply.
“Mom?” I ask again, reaching out to touch her arm. She flinches back.
“What? Oh, yes, honey, I’m fine.” She swallows. “The tire went out, I think. I don’t know what happened. A lucky miss.” Mom gives me a trembling smile, but I feel a tide of anger rise up.
“Lucky?” I exclaim, furious. “We shouldn’t even be here! None of us wanted to come this summer, and now we nearly just died. And for what?!”
Suddenly, it’s like a mack truck is crushing down on my chest. I can’t breathe, I can’t even think straight. I fumble at my seatbelt with shaking hands and then fling the car door open, stumbling out onto the road.
“Juliet?” she calls after me, but I don’t stop. I don’t care that it’s raining, wet and cold against my thin T-shirt and cutoff shorts, I just need to get out. I need to breathe.
I stride away from the car, gasping for air.
None of this was my idea. We haven’t been back to the beach house in years, not since I was a kid. We haven’t been much of a family in years either, but mom got it in her head that we had to spend one last summer there together—before I went off to college and Carina graduated—and we could all finally stop acting like we were anything more than distant strangers living under the same roof, trying like hell to pretend to the world that everything was OK.
Not that we don’t have practice. After all, pretending is what my family does best. Dad pretends he’s not a washed up academic with one failed book to his name and a taste for vodka martinis at four p.m. My sister pretends she cares about more than landing herself a rich lawyer husband with a country club membership and a six-figure bonus. My mom pretends she doesn’t regret throwing her life away on a charming British writer, or notice his late nights “advising” students at the office, and the disdain in his voice whenever he does remember to stumble home.
And me? I pretend it doesn’t hurt me to keep pretending. That it doesn’t eat away at me to see how much she still loves him, meek and cowering for the slightest bit of his attention. That I don’t get these awful panic attacks every time I think about leaving her behind when I head off to college this fall.
That’s why I agreed to this joke of a happy family vacation, to try to numb this sense I’m abandoning her. She wants one last summer to pretend? I’ll give it to her. But look where all that pretending has gotten us now: nearly winding up dead in a car wreck before her precious summer even begins.
“Hey!”
I hear a guy’s voice behind me, but I’m so desperate, I don’t slow down. My heart is pounding now, so fast I feel like it’s going to burst out of my chest. I know I just need to calm down and wait for the panic to pass, but when I’m caught up in the whirlwind, I can’t see straight long enough to try.
“Hey, wait up!” the voice comes, louder, and then there’s a heavy hand on my arm, pulling me around.
“What?” I gasp, violently yanking back. “What the fuck do you…” My protest dies on my lips as I stare up into the face of the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen.
His eyes are the first thing I notice. They’re dark blue, mesmerizing, the color of skies after sunset. It’s always been my favorite time, that moment when the last light of day has faded away, and the first stars come out. Now I’m looking right up into them, endless midnight constellations. Ringed with thick, dark lashes, they burn into me, intense. Full of secrets, full of scars.
“Where are you going?” the guy demands, still gripping painfully onto my arm. “You can’t just walk away from this!”
I pull away, still dazed. He’s older than me, but not by much, his early twenties maybe: tall and broad-shouldered, skin tanned a deep bronze by the sun. His arms are taut beneath the black T-shirt he’s wearing, damp and clinging to his muscular torso. His body is slim but compact, almost radiating with tightly-coiled power in his black jeans and beat-up workman’s boots. Rain drips from his dark hair, curling too-long around his collar, and on his right bicep, I can see the dark ink of a tattoo snaking up beneath his shirt.
He takes my breath away.
The world shifts back into focus, and I find that I can breathe OK again. Just like that, my panic begins to ease.
“Are you listening?” he demands, face set and angry. Then the anger fades, replaced with concern. “Wait, are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”
He reaches for my face, fingers grazing against my forehead with surprising gentleness. I look into those deep blue eyes again and feel a shock ripple through me. Electric.
I lurch away, startled. “I’m fine,” I manage, my heart rate finally slowing. What the hell am I doing? I scold myself. Drooling over some guy on the side of the highway? Don’t I have more important things to worry about—like the fact I was this close to dying just a few minutes ago?
Now that he knows I’m not injured, the guy’s angry expression returns. “Then you’re lucky I don’t kill you myself right now,” he tells me, grim. “What the hell was that back there? Don’t you know you shouldn’t drive fast in a storm?”
I catch my breath, my frustrations all boiling over at once. “First of all, I wasn’t driving,” I yell back. “And second, it was an accident! Our tire blew, it happens. How is any of this my fault?” I challenge him, folding my arms.
His eyes follow the motion of my arms, and I’m suddenly painfully aware of my thin T-shirt, now wet through and clinging against my chest. I shiver, seeing a new hunger in his eyes as his gaze trails down my body, lingering on my bare legs. I feel my skin prickle, and my breath catch, not with discomfort, but something new, some kind of heightened awareness. I feel a heat pool, low in my stomach.
The guy drags his gaze back up to meet mine, and then he looks at me with what I swear is a smirk curling at the edges of his perfect mouth. “How are you the mad one right now?” he asks. “I’m the one with my truck totally fucked back there.”
I look past him. His truck is nose-deep in a sandbank, back wheels spinning. “Yeah, well we’ve got a flat tire and no spare.”
He smirks for real this time. “What kind of idiot doesn’t keep a spare? We’re miles out from anywhere.”
“Maybe the kind of person who drives in the city, where we have little things like cellphone signal and tow trucks!”
The smirk fades. “You’re summer people,” he says, like it’s a crime.
“Let me guess,” I shoot back. “You’re a townie with a chip on your shoulder. Well, maybe you should save the issues until we both get out of here.”
He ope
ns his mouth in surprise then stops. He looks around at the wet empty highway, and finally, it sinks in that I may have a point.
“Fine,” he says, grudgingly. “I’ll call for Norm to come get us.”
“I thought there wasn’t signal out here?” I frown, pulling out my phone from my pocket again, just to check.
“I’ve got a CB radio in the truck.” He heads back towards the red pickup. “Stay there!”
“Where else would I go?” I sigh, watching him walk away. I trace the back of his body with my eyes, absorbing the grace in his gait. Then he turns, catching me. I blush, hoping frantically that he can’t see my pink cheeks in the rain.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” he calls.
“You didn’t ask!” I yell back.
He grins and waits, until finally I surrender.
“Juliet,” I tell him, and wait for the snarky quip, but instead, he just cocks an eyebrow at me.
“I’m Emerson,” he calls. Then he smiles, a flash of something true and reckless, so darkly beautiful I feel my heart stop all over again. This is what they write stories about, I realize, as if from far away. All those books and movies and poems I’ve read, this is what they all were preparing me for, the day when a strange man smiles at me, and makes me forget who I am.
His eyes meet mine, and I swear my blood sings, hot in my veins despite the cold, damp rain trickling down my back.
“Welcome to Beachwood Bay.”
Chapter Two
I push my memories of Emerson way down and keep on driving. Soon, the empty beach and scrubland start showing signs of life: small shingled cottages, hidden in the tall grasses and set back from the shore. A laundry line. A car rusting on blocks in somebody’s driveway. I cross the bridge over the wide, salt-marsh riverbanks, and turn off the highway, into town.
Even after all these years, not much has changed. I drive slowly down Main Street, feeling like I’ve stepped back in time. There’s the convenience store on the corner, where Grandpa would buy me bright red popsicles; Mrs. Olsen’s pancake hut, serving the biggest chocolate-chip short stack I’ve ever seen; Jimmy’s Tavern, out by the water, always attracting a rough crowd; and past that, the harbor, filled with the clashing mix of run-down fishing boats and shiny new cruisers.
Beachwood Bay was always a sleepy kind of resort town—too frayed around the edges to attract the big tourist bucks—but it hasn’t been entirely untouched by new development. As I drive on, I see there’s a slick new strip mall with a pizza place and a coffee shop, and a stretch of new beachfront condos lined up where an old bait and tackle shack used to stand.
At least I won’t go into caffeine withdrawal this weekend.
At the fork in the road, I turn off down Sandpiper Lane. The dusty road winds along the shore, lined with wild rosemary and myrtle trees, and in places I can glimpse the golden sands lying just beyond the brush. After a mile, I come to a green mailbox, rusty on the side of the road, and turn into the familiar driveway.
The house sits, baking and quiet in the afternoon sun. Craftsman-style, it has a wide front porch and blue shingles, now faded to a pale gray. The white trim is yellowed, and the roof tiles are crumbling, but the front lawn is neatly tended, with lush grass and roses twisting up around the windows.
I put the Camaro in park beside a shiny Lexus and slowly get out of the car.
My muscles are cramped from hours behind the wheel, so I stretch, looking up at the old house. Coming back, I feel a fresh rush of emotion, only this time it’s more than just the trigger of a sign on the side of the highway. This is a house, a home, full of hundreds of memories over the years—fighting, and laughter, and love, and pain. There’s the place where we would play in the sprinklers. There’s the tree I would climb to escape my parents’ fighting inside.
There’s the hidden spot Emerson would kiss me goodnight, his lips fierce and searching, hands slipping up under my camisole to tease and caress my bare skin…
I wish, for the first time, I had someone here with me. Not Daniel, but Lacey maybe. Someone to cut through all this old emotional bullshit, and spell it out for me. It’s just a house. It’s all in the past.
“Juliet?” A trim, red-headed woman comes around the side of the house. She’s wearing a pastel blue suit and a silk blouse, carrying a clipboard and file. She beams at me, perky and upbeat. “I’m Hallie, from Kingston Realty? How was your drive? Did you make it out of the city OK?”
I shake off the memories. Get it together, Juliet!
“Fine,” I nod, striding forward to meet her.
“It’s so great to meet you. Thanks so much for coming down.” She shakes my hand, and kisses me on both cheeks. Up close, I can see her hair is an unnatural shade of red, and her teeth are dazzling white veneers.
Definitely not a local.
“The management company has been keeping up with basic yard-work and maintenance,” she starts, leading me around to the side door we always used as a main entrance. “Obviously, there’s some cosmetic work for the new owners to take care of, but that shouldn’t be an issue.”
She pulls out the keys and unlocks the door, stepping into the kitchen. I follow, and freeze in the doorway. It’s been left untouched: same photos pinned to the fridge, same decorative plates lined up on the wall. It’s like stepping back in time, to four long years ago.
“I know, it’s pretty cluttered,” Hallie sighs, misinterpreting my silence. “All of this will need to go, before we can put it on the market.”
She leads on, into the main hall. The stairs curve upwards, and the living room and dining room branch off on either side. Sunlight falls on the scuffed wooden floors. A clutter of old sandals and shoes line up beneath the coatrack, a tarnished old mirror propped above the bureau. I half expect my mom to come strolling in, carrying an armful of groceries from the market, and unload to make dinner.
A sudden choke of tears stings in my throat. I have to clench my fists at my side and dig my nails into my palms to keep it back.
Hallie looks around, and makes a tsking noise of disapproval under her breath. “To be honest, I told your father he’d be better off waiting. The market’s rebounding, but prices are still pretty low. With all the new development in town, it would be worth holding off the sale until next year, see how much more you could get.”
“You’d have to talk to him about that,” I answer shortly. “It’s not my choice to sell.”
It wasn’t my choice to interrupt my study schedule and come down here just weeks before finals to pack the place up either, but Dad wasn’t about to wait around for something as unimportant as my college education.
“Oh.” Hallie blinks in surprise. “Well, OK. When was the last time you were back here?” Her voice is bright, trying to make small talk. I know I should just let the question slide, but I can’t dance around it anymore.
“Four years ago,” I reply slowly. “Not since my mom died. Here, in this house.”
Hallie’s eyes widen in horror. “Oh my Lord! I’m so sorry! Nobody told me—”
“It’s fine.” I cut her off, already feeling guilty for putting her on the spot like that.
“What was it…?” Hallie asks, curious. Everyone asks, I’ve found by now. Even when it’s rude or personal, they still can’t help it. Everyone has to know the reason.
“Cancer,” I tell her. It’s half the truth, at least.
She nods. “I’m so sorry. I keep telling all my friends, go get that mammogram checked!”
I look around at the faded upholstery and the roses twining around the window. My voice softens. “We got to spend the summer together, at least. She always loved it here.”
That much is true. It’s why I fought so hard against Dad’s plan to sell. Mom’s grandparents built it themselves, way back in the twenties, when they had to barter for the wood and nails. It was passed down from generation to generation: prime ocean-front land they kept even when times were tough and they were struggling to put food on the table. Mom loved the
history, that sense of connecting to our past. She always talked about us keeping it for our own families, way down the line.
But Dad has other plans. He dug the family deep in debt while she was still alive, and once she was gone, it only got worse. I don’t know where it goes—frittered away on fancy dinners with his snobby, old money friends, play-acting at being a sophisticated man about town when really, he’s just a washed up drunk. He already sold our house in the city; now, the beach house is in his sights.
Carina can’t understand my protests—the will says dad will only get half the proceeds of a sale, the rest split between me and my sister. She’s engaged for the third time, trying her best to keep up with her designer-brand-loving friends, despite the fact she hasn’t worked a real job since college. Who wants a run-down house in the middle of nowhere? She argued. I could use my share to buy a place with Daniel, or get a vacation condo somewhere cooler, like Miami.
Now, I sadly look around at the peeling print wallpaper, and the back porch I used to read on for hours. Cool was never the point.
“So!” Hallie claps her hands together brightly, moving on from all the talk about death and cancer and other non-realty concerns. “Your father said to just throw everything out.” She hands me the keys and looks around brightly. “You know, you don’t have to do all this yourself. I can just call some guys in to pack it up and cart it away, save you the hassle. There’s a big Goodwill depot a few towns over.”
“No!” I protest loudly, then quickly cover my outburst. “I mean, there might be some things worth saving. Old family mementos. I’d rather look through myself.”
“Absolutely!” Hallie coughs, awkward. “Well, you just call if you need anything. And give my love to your father,” she adds, with a little giggle. “He was telling me about his book. When is it coming out?”
