Barefoot in the Sand

by Holly Chamberlin

  Laura glanced to where Brent and Steve Baker stood by the table of new releases. Brent, seeing he had Laura’s attention, discreetly ran his forefinger across his throat. Laura hid a smile. Brent might complain about Mr. Baker and no doubt about other difficult customers, but Laura had the distinct feeling that he enjoyed his job immensely.

  “So,” Laura said to her mother, “put me to work.”

  Chapter 37

  After a dinner of cheeseburgers and salad—during which Arden discovered that she and Laura shared a preference for Swiss cheese on their burgers and mustard rather than ketchup—the women retired to the yard with cups of coffee. It was a beautiful evening, and Arden thought it would be almost sinful to miss an opportunity to enjoy the warm weather when a long, long winter was inevitable.

  “I’d like to talk more about my father, if you feel able,” Laura said when they were settled. “About what happened in August of 1984.”

  Arden nodded. “When I told Rob that I was pregnant, he immediately asked me to marry him. He was so excited. I said yes. It was crazy, of course, we were young and had no money of our own, but we were in love. I knew my parents would object, but I really believed my happiness would mean more to them than their ideas of social preeminence.”

  “You were wrong,” Laura said shortly.

  “I was. The night I told my parents was the worst night of my life. My mother got hysterical. My father was coldly furious. I was never to see ‘that boy’ again. I was basically put under house arrest. A few days later, Rob was reported missing by his family. I was in a state of shock. I wondered if I could have been wrong about Rob. I wondered if he really had abandoned me. I remember my father saying to me something like ‘That young man is a piece of trash. No doubt he’s left town for good.’”

  Laura frowned. “I’m so sorry. It must have been an awful time.”

  “I truly wanted to believe that Rob would never willingly leave me and our unborn child. But where was he? Could something terrible have happened to him? And then I thought, ‘My father can be ruthless in business, or so everyone says. Maybe he can also be ruthless in other parts of his life, too.’ And then I remembered something my father had said the night I told my parents that I was pregnant with Rob’s child, something like, ‘I’ll make that boy pay.’ Maybe it was an empty threat, just one of those things people say in the heat of the moment, but from that moment on it loomed large in my mind.”

  “So, there you were, barely eighteen years old, wondering if your own father had orchestrated the disappearance of the boy you loved, and all the while being held prisoner.”

  “Not literally. I wasn’t being kept under lock and key. I was held in place by the habits of obedience and fear. And I was depressed. Numb. Rob had opened the door into a warmer, brighter world. Now, with him gone, I sank back into the cold and gray world from which I’d only begun to emerge that summer. I found that I had no capacity to protest being sent off to a home for wealthy unwed pregnant girls. I had no capacity to protest the plan for my baby to be adopted.”

  “It’s a nightmare,” Laura murmured. “Like something you’d find in a classic Gothic novel.”

  Arden nodded. The same thought had occurred to her often enough. “This is the first time I’ve told anyone about my suspicions of my father.”

  “Thank you. Not that it’s so great to hear that your grandfather might have been responsible for the disappearance of your father, but I’m glad you trusted me enough to share your concerns.”

  And she did trust her daughter, Arden realized. Her own flesh and blood. “I loved Rob so much. If he hadn’t gotten involved with me, he wouldn’t be . . . He would still be here, alive, with his family.”

  “You don’t know for sure that he’s dead, or that if he is dead, it was your father’s fault. But either way, you’re not the one to blame. You were in love with Rob and he was in love with you. You each risked being together because you wanted to. You needed to.”

  “Yes,” Arden murmured; she went on almost as if talking to herself. “Even if Rob hadn’t disappeared that day, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I was forbidden to see him and that I would have been sent away to have my baby in secret. He would have lost access to his child.”

  Laura leaned forward and spoke urgently. “Stop thinking about what-ifs and alternative scenarios. That sort of thinking can drive you crazy fast.”

  “I know. But sometimes it’s hard not to wonder, especially when I’m alone with my thoughts at the end of the day.”

  “I still can’t believe you kept everything about your past a secret until now. How could anyone keep such a tragic story to themselves and not go mad? I know I couldn’t.”

  “You never know what you’re capable of until you’re tested. That really is true, though not necessarily of much comfort.” Arden paused. “To be honest, my father wasn’t the only one I suspected of being involved with Rob’s disappearance. My family were friends with the Coldwells. We knew each other since we were kids. Ted himself told you that. I knew that Ted liked me in a way I didn’t like him, but he never said or did anything to make me feel afraid or uncomfortable. Not until that summer of ’84.”

  Laura frowned. “What happened then?”

  “I wasn’t there when it took place; Rob told me about it after. It seems he ran into Ted in town one afternoon not long after my eighteenth birthday. Rob told me he’d never spoken to Ted before that incident, that he hadn’t even known him by name. But Ted approached Rob, told him he was a friend of the Aldridge family, and that he’d known me since I was a baby. Nothing physical happened, just Ted being vaguely verbally threatening, but Rob got the message: ‘Don’t mess around with Victoria. If you hurt her, there will be consequences.’”

  “Sort of like what your father said about Rob,” Laura noted darkly.

  Arden nodded. “I was so upset when Rob told me this. I’d always trusted Ted, but after Rob’s disappearance I began to wonder if he’d been in league with my father, if together they had made Rob go away.”

  “And now? Do you still think Ted had something to do with my father’s disappearance?”

  “No,” Arden said firmly. “A long time ago I stopped suspecting that Ted had been involved. I remembered the fun times we’d had together when I was young. He was like a big brother to me, kind and protective. I believe Ted’s warning Rob not to hurt me was just what it appeared to be—a big brother flexing his muscles. Nothing more and nothing less.”

  Laura smiled. “I have to admit that for about half a second I wondered if Ted could be my father. I was all over the place with theories! Anyway, I liked him. Not that he was super–welcoming, but he rang true. I’ve always had good instincts about people. Except, of course, when it came to the man I married.”

  “I’m sorry. I know all too well that romantic attraction clouds judgment.”

  “Yes, but I suspect we’re stuck with romance.” Laura smiled. “The heart wants what it wants.”

  The women went inside soon after to find the cats munching from their bowls of dry food. Suddenly, Prospero left his bowl, went over to where Ophelia was eating her own snack, and with his head pushed her out of the way. Immediately, Ophelia whacked him hard enough to cause him to jump away from her bowl. The look on Prospero’s face was pitiful: What did I do to deserve that?’

  Arden hid a laugh. Cats didn’t enjoy being laughed at. “If you didn’t try to steal her food in the first place,” she told Prospero, “you wouldn’t have gotten smacked.”

  “Boys.” Laura shook her head. “Always causing trouble and then wondering how it happened.”

  Chapter 38

  “I splurged and got us lobsters. This is, after all, a celebration.”

  “You shouldn’t have!” Deborah cried. “But I’m awfully glad you did!”

  Gordon nodded. “Me, too!”

  Laura smiled. She had met Deborah and Gordon only moments earlier but already felt at ease with them. Her mother, it seemed, was skilled at choosi
ng friends, in spite of the largely lonely life she had been leading.

  “I got a great deal,” Arden explained, “because I bought them right off the boat from Tommy Harper this morning.”

  “Always buy direct from the farmers and fishermen when you can,” Gordon agreed. “It’s good for everyone.”

  It was almost seven when the four sat down to dinner around the table in the yard. Laura had spent a good part of the day exploring Eliot’s Corner on foot and was famished.

  It was too early in the season for local corn, so Arden had made a corn salad using frozen kernels. There was bread from Chez Claudine. There were individual pots of drawn butter for the lobster (Laura had never before seen drawn butter prepared; it seemed a bit of a culinary miracle), and two bottles of a Portuguese vinho verde.

  Deborah raised her glass. “To friends and family.”

  The toast was seconded, and all dug in to the meal.

  “Your mother is a very good cook,” Gordon said, passing the corn salad to Laura. “And she’s generous with her friends who can barely boil water. That would be me.”

  “I don’t know about being very good,” Arden demurred, “but I do enjoy cooking.”

  “And baking,” Deborah added. “Don’t get me started on her apple pie!”

  Laura smiled. “I don’t seem to have inherited the kitchen gene. Like Gordon, I can barely boil water. I mean it. Every time I’ve attempted to make pasta, it comes out too hard to properly chew or so soft the noodles disintegrate in the pot.”

  “You’ll need a few lessons from Arden then, before you—” Deborah broke off in obvious embarrassment.

  “That’s okay,” Laura said quickly. “At this moment, I have no idea how long I’ll be staying in Eliot’s Corner. I’m taking it one day at a time.” She looked to Arden. “I think we both are.”

  Arden nodded but said nothing. Laura thought she saw a flash of sadness cross her mother’s face. Maybe she had imagined it.

  “Where are you stationed at the moment?” Gordon asked.

  “For the past ten years or so I’ve lived in Chester, Connecticut. First, with my former husband until we separated last spring, and after that, in a charming little rental a friend found for me. The lease was up just before I left for Maine, so now my things are in storage in a colleague’s garage.”

  “Arden tells me you teach?” Gordon asked.

  “Yes. I had to take a second job as a private tutor to help pay off some of the debts Jared had accrued, but my main gig is teaching writing to freshmen at the local college.”

  “Is the divorce final?” Deborah asked.

  “Thankfully, yes.” Laura hesitated. “With my parents both dead, and Jared finally out of my life, I realized just how alone I was in the world and that it was time to locate the woman who had given birth to me.” Laura looked to Arden and smiled. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I undertook the search.”

  Arden reached for Laura’s hand. “Me, too.”

  “I can see your mother in the shape of your nose. And there’s something about the shape of your mouth. Can you see the resemblance, Laura?” Deborah asked.

  Laura nodded. “Yes. I saw it immediately.”

  “I see it now as well,” Arden admitted. “But I see a stronger resemblance to Laura’s father. Laura has her father’s coloring, and his smile, and his eyes.”

  Deborah turned to Laura. “Okay, tell me to shut up, but I have to ask. Now that you’ve succeeded in locating your mother, do you have any intention of trying to find out once and for all what happened to your father?”

  Laura nodded and told the others an abbreviated tale of her adventures in Port George. “I intend to go back and see what else I can find. An old family friend of my mother, Ted Coldwell, might be able to shed further light on events that took place in the summer of 1984. I’d like to meet with him again and see what he has to say. If he’s willing to talk, that is. I’m afraid I wasn’t honest with him when I presented myself as a scout with a podcast research team.”

  “Would anyone like anything more before I bring out dessert?” Arden asked.

  “Yes,” Deborah said promptly. “Another teensy-weensy helping of corn salad.”

  Gordon laughed. “You wouldn’t know teensy-weensy if it bit you on the nose!”

  Deborah looked up from the mound of corn salad she had just loaded onto her plate. “It’s all about perspective,” she said haughtily.

  “In that case,” Laura said, “I think I’ll have another teensy-weensy helping myself!”

  Chapter 39

  For dessert, Arden had made individual strawberry shortcakes with homemade biscuits and hand-whipped cream.

  “Heaven on earth,” Deborah sighed when Arden brought the dessert out to the table.

  “I’m with you there,” Laura said. “I have a mighty big sweet tooth.”

  Arden joined the others and dug into her dessert. She was glad that Laura had kept their agreement not to reveal Arden’s suspicions about Herbert Aldridge just yet. After all, it was just a suspicion; there was no need to blacken a person’s name when he might be innocent of wrongdoing.

  “I feel the need to be the voice of caution here,” Gordon said suddenly. “Digging into the past can be a dangerous undertaking. When you set out to find your birth mother, Laura, I’m sure you realized that things might not go well, but miraculously, they did. A miracle might not happen again.”

  Laura nodded. “I know. But this is something I have to do.”

  “I’m scared of what we might find,” Arden admitted. “Nothing at all, or, worse, evidence of a crime or a terrible accident. But Laura strongly feels it’s time to make an effort to find out what happened that Sunday afternoon in August of 1984, the last day Rob Smith was seen in Port George.”

  “The more time passes, the colder the trail goes,” Deborah pointed out. “And an awful lot of time has passed. But if this is something you guys are determined to do, I’ll help in whatever small way I can, even if it’s just to say prayers.”

  Arden smiled. “Prayers are hardly a small thing.”

  “Amen to that,” Gordon said.

  The evening wound down after coffee had been drunk and dessert demolished. When Deborah and Gordon left, with promises of getting together again before long, mother and daughter cleared the table, set pots to soaking, and began to put away the few leftovers.

  “Always save lobster bodies,” Arden instructed. “They’re perfect for making broth for risotto.”

  Laura sighed. “I could get fat living here.”

  The idea made Arden smile. There was such joy in feeding her child after all the years of separation!

  “I really like your friends,” Laura said. “They seem entirely themselves, if you know what I mean. No airs.”

  “They’re the first real friends I’ve ever had, with the exception of Rob and, of course, Margery. What about you? Do you have a best friend? Or a tribe, if that term is still being used.”

  “No tribe. But there is a woman named Sara. We met in grad school. We don’t need to live in one another’s pockets, but we’re very close.” Laura reached for the sponge and began to wipe the counter next to the sink. “Gordon likes you,” she said in an overly casual way. “It’s pretty obvious. How do you feel about him?”

  “I like him, too,” Arden replied promptly.

  “What about getting romantically involved with this man you like?”

  “I couldn’t . . .” Arden winced. The words had come of their own volition.

  “Why?” Laura turned to look directly at Arden.

  Arden shrugged. “No real reason. Just because.”

  Laura grinned. “You sound like a kid. What you mean is that you won’t get involved with Gordon.”

  In a delaying tactic, Arden reached for a plastic container and lid in which to store what was left of the corn salad. “The truth is,” she said finally, “that on some level I’ve always felt I don’t deserve to be happily in love after what happened to Rob
.”

  “I see,” Laura said gently. “I’m sorry. I should have guessed it was something like that.”

  Arden waved her hand dismissively. “Now isn’t the time to talk about such things. We’ve got to put the food away before Falstaff hauls himself onto the counter and digs in.”

  As if to prove the strong possibility of this happening, Falstaff crashed his considerable bulk into Arden’s calf. “Yes,” she said with a laugh, “I’m aware that you’re here.”

  Chapter 40

  Dusting was an oddly soothing task, Laura had discovered just that morning. It had the added benefit of allowing her a close look at the titles currently available at Arden Forest. There was a broad selection of fiction, contemporary and classic, from writers based in both Western and Eastern cultures, with a solid selection of African authors both renowned and just starting out. She hoped the readers of Eliot’s Corner appreciated the wealth that Arden Forest offered.

  Still, the health of the bookshop was only one topic on Laura’s mind as she worked. Brent was manning the front of the shop, so if she spoke quietly, there was little chance of his overhearing what she said.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about the Smiths,” Laura said quietly.

  “In what way?” Arden was wielding her own feather duster a few feet away.

  “Well, I’m torn. I believe they have a right to know about me. On the other hand, I’m afraid of what such a revelation might do to them, maybe cause too much pain.”

  “It’s a difficult situation. Why don’t we see what Ted advises? Assuming he agrees to help us.”

  “That sounds reasonable. He knows them better than either of us do, even if he’s not a personal friend of theirs.”

  Brent suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle. “Heads up,” he whispered dramatically. “Mrs. Shandy just came through the door. She’s a nosy one is our Mrs. Shandy. No bad intentions, just nosy.”

  Nosier than Lydia Austen? Laura wondered. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Mrs. Shandy was a large woman who wore her weight well. Her hair was a striking shade of silver, waved and styled in a way that reminded Laura of a 1940s screen matron. She wore a cotton skirt that came to well below her knees, and an old-fashioned twinset. She stood squarely in sturdy brown brogues. Around her neck was a strand of pearls Laura took to be genuine. They had that unmistakable luster.