by Karen White
We wait while Trey changes, and then we lug coolers and chairs down to the beach, where I prepare to sit and watch the children, making sure they don’t go out too deep. I don’t trust the bright orange inflatable armbands to keep them safe. Even Jax II has a doggie life vest, at my request. Maybe in time I’ll be less protective of those in my care, but old habits die hard.
Trey stands in front of me, his hand extended. “It’s your turn,” he says, pulling me to a stand.
“For what?”
“To go swimming. You can’t own a beach house and not swim. That’s just wrong.”
“I don’t own all of it,” I say petulantly, a smile forcing its way to my lips.
Carol Sue and the children watch as Trey brings me to the reaching surf, and I resist the impulse to step back as it laps at my toes. We stand there for a while until Trey tugs on my hand again. “You ready?”
I look into his smiling eyes and nod; then he takes me a little farther until the water reaches just above my knees. It’s the color of iced tea, but I can see the sand and my toes on the silty bottom, the water warm on my legs.
“It’s shallow for a good bit, so we’ll just stay here for your first time, all right? But you need to get your hair wet for this to count.”
I look at him with a question and he moves closer.
“Give me your hands and lean back, and when you’re ready let me know and I’ll let go. All you need to do is hold your breath and close your eyes. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
We stand that way for a long while, the sun beating down on us, the happy shouts of the children and the dog’s barks sounding so far away. Realizing he’s not going to let go until I tell him, I nod and his fingers slip from mine and I fall backward.
After the initial splash, I’m surrounded by utter silence except for the sound of water rushing in my ears. I open my eyes, seeing a murky sun and the shadow of Trey, and I’m comforted. I feel a little as if I’m dying, my thoughts clear, past conversations replaying in my head. Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting. I remember Aimee saying that as we looked at the Katrina memorial, and I understand. Finally, I understand.
I push up to the surface, and suddenly I know what Monica meant, what the Katrina trees have been telling me: that our lives are spent searching for what makes us whole, for the things that make surviving worthwhile. I stand in the surf and see Monica’s house—my house now—and the old oak tree standing out front, its trunk and limbs scarred and gnarled, but its branches full of new leaves. We are like old friends, the tree and I: survivors of storms.
I fall back into the water, a laugh on my lips as I go under once more, the liquid arms holding me. Then Trey’s hands find mine, and he pulls me up, and I smell the salt air and see River Song and Beau and know that I am whole again.
Karen White is the award-winning author of thirteen previous books. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her Web site at www.karen-white.com.
CONVERSATION GUIDE
The Beach Trees
KAREN WHITE
A CONVERSATION WITH KAREN WHITE
Q. The Beach Trees touches upon real current events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. Was it difficult to balance the detailing of some of the devastation caused by these events with the fictional narrative you were creating? How much of the tragedy that happened to the fictional characters was based on real events, and how much of it did you create?
A. There are many parallels between the devastation of the Gulf Coast and protagonist Julie Holt’s life. It was necessary to delve into the realities of the despair faced by those who have lost so much. When we first meet Julie, her life is as wrecked and as desolate as the Biloxi beaches, wiped clean. She believes she has lost everything worth losing, as hurricane survivors often feel, yet as Julie meets the survivors of Katrina, she begins to learn that great loss isn’t necessarily the end.
All of the personal stories of the characters were borrowed from composites of survivors’ stories. I spent days poring over firsthand accounts of Hurricanes Camille and Katrina to give my fictional characters realistic reactions and emotions.
Q. How did you first hear about the Katrina trees art? Have you been able to see them in person?
A. For research, I subscribe to a newspaper archive service, which is very helpful when digging up facts about a particular setting. I read so many stories about these trees, and then was blown away by the photos I found in books and on the Internet. There’s a wonderful quote from the mayor of Biloxi, about how the trees were like making lemonade out of lemons. It was this outlook from many survivors that I tried to re-create in the book.
I haven’t seen the Katrina trees in person but plan on visiting soon.
Q. What made you decide to use the Gulf Coast as the setting for The Beach Trees?
A. I lived in New Orleans for four years during college (I graduated from Tulane University) and fell in love with the city, and my father is from Biloxi (Class of 1950 from Biloxi High School), so it wasn’t too far of a stretch for me to come up with the setting. In the spring of 2005, I’d actually started a book set in New Orleans and then Katrina hit—making me change the setting to Charleston. (That book became The House on Tradd Street.) Katrina was so monumental that I knew it needed to be front and center in a book, and “The House on Coliseum” (the original title) didn’t have room for it, so I waited until the right book came along.
Aimee’s story, however, is taken from a book I wrote a long time ago and never published. It was set in New Orleans in the 1980s (a familiar decade for me), so I had to rewrite almost all of it, and I’m so glad I found a book in which to tell her story.
Q. There are two different first-person narrators in The Beach Trees. Was it difficult for you to go back and forth between Julie and Aimee and their stories?
A. I’ve written books using this method a few times before and found I enjoyed it. It allows me to get inside the heads of the two protagonists, permitting me to see where their story lines intersect. I love the unexpected surprises they always have in store for me.
Julie and Aimee are so different, I never had trouble knowing whose head I was in. Plus, they’re from different generations, so their thoughts and experiences were completely separate which helped a lot.
Q. Between the two, did you have a favorite narrator and story line? Who was your favorite character in the entire novel?
A. It’s hard to choose between Aimee and Julie, but I’d have to say Julie, if only because she had such a long way to go from when we meet her until the end of the book. She learned a great deal about letting go, and I admire her strength and tenacity. But I don’t think she could have done any of it without Aimee as her mentor.
As far as my favorite character, I’d choose Carol Sue. She’s like the sister I never had—a great contemporary mentor and friend for Julie. Having not grown up with a sister, I find the need to create them for my protagonists in my fiction.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Why do you think Monica willed everything, including Beau and her beloved beach home, River Song, to Julie—especially since she still had family living? What were her intentions, and what was she trying to say? What are the repercussions for Julie?
2. How does Chelsea Holt’s disappearance shape Julie’s life? What emotions still haunt her, even after almost twenty years?
3. What significance does the portrait of Caroline Guidry with the alligator brooch hold to each member of her family? Are the sentiments diverse? What clues does it hold within it?
4. Do Aimee’s flashbacks fill us in with an objective history of the intertwined Guidry and Mercier families? What critical clues does Julie glean from them to advance her investigation?
5. How does the search into the past—and for loved ones, including Caroline, Monica, Chelsea, and Aimee’s mother—influence the trajectory of the characters’ lives, psychologies, and their relationships to one another? H
ow do secrets come to define and haunt the Guidrys?
6. What motivates Julie to dig through old case files and artifacts to connect the dots between the two families? Do you think she was foolish not to let sleeping dogs lie? Would you want to know the truth, especially if it were unsavory? Is this doggedness a beneficial trait, or are there costs for Julie? How does she end up untangling the mystery?
7. Why do you think the residents of the Gulf Coast continue to rebuild after numerous tragedies—most recently from Camille, Katrina, and the BP oil spill—on the same plots of land that remain highly vulnerable? What might tie them to this place? What is the significance in rebuilding?
8. How does Julie’s life mirror Aimee’s? Both assumed a form of guardianship—of Johnny and Beau—and both seek answers to the unexplained tragedies in their lives, but what sets them apart? What do they offer to each other?
9. Do you think Aimee and Wes did the right thing in loving each other from afar, keeping their feelings secret to spare Gary’s heart? What were the consequences?
10. What did you think happened to Caroline? And who did you think killed Aimee’s mother? Were you shocked by the revelations? What kept the secrets airtight for so long, and what is at stake with them no longer being held?
11. What were Ray Von’s and Xavier Williams’s roles in the scandalous events? Do you think Xavier did the right and necessary things? Do you think he was effective in shielding Aimee?
12. What do you think the next chapter at River Song holds for Julie, Trey, Beau, and the rest of the Guidry family?
New American Library Titles by Karen White
Falling Home
On Folly Beach
The Lost Hours
The Memory of Water
Pieces of the Heart
Learning to Breathe
The Color of Light
The Tradd Street Series
The House on Tradd Street
The Girl on Legare Street
