Summer Rental

by Mary Kay Andrews

  A smallish kitchen opened off the dining area. It was clean, yes, but it had definitely seen better days. Here, the board walls were enameled white. The cupboards were painted white, with green glass knobs, and the counters were yellow linoleum with aluminum trim. Instead of upper cupboards there was a pair of shelf units with scalloped trim nailed to the wall on either side of a kitchen window that looked out onto the sand dunes. A small stack of chipped plates, two plastic cereal bowls, and some plastic convenience store go-cups were lined up along the shelves. In the middle of the room stood a large wooden table with a chipped turquoise enamel top. The floors were of cracked and faded yellow-and-white checkerboard linoleum tiles. There was a four-burner electric stove with curious push-button controls and a white refrigerator with rust spots around the corners of the doors.

  Ellis opened the refrigerator, which was empty except for a box of baking soda, and then she peeked inside the freezer, which held two miserly aluminum ice cube trays, but no automatic ice maker. She congratulated herself for picking up a five-pound bag of ice to keep the groceries she’d bought cold until check-in time. She noticed, to her chagrin, that there was no dishwasher. How had she missed this during all the hours she’d spent poring over the pictures and description of the house?

  Never mind, she told herself. It was only for a month, and after all, four women—not to mention Dorie’s husband, Stephen—were sharing this house. Everybody would pitch in and make do. It would be like Girl Scout camp, Ellis told herself. But with air-conditioning and indoor plumbing.

  Finally, August had come. The month they’d all been planning for was becoming a reality. Ellis could not wait for the fun to begin. As she left the kitchen, she did an impromptu skip-step.

  * * *

  Ty tipped the Corona bottle to his lips and sucked down the last drop of icy beer. He wandered around the corner of the porch to check on his new tenant’s whereabouts. Whoa! The silver Honda was pulled up directly in front of the house now, and as he watched, a woman in pink pants and a tight white T-shirt hurried towards the house, her arms full of grocery sacks. Her dark hair fanned out behind her in the breeze.

  No. It couldn’t be. Could it? “Ellis, dude,” he whispered. “You’re not gay. You’re a girl.”

  In fact, she was the girl. The one from this morning. He’d really only gotten a glimpse of her this morning, but now, as he leaned up against the side of his apartment, watching as she ferried endless suitcases, boxes, and bags into the house, her sandals flapping madly, he liked what he saw. Her figure was what his mother would have called “sturdy,” with a high, round butt that probably wouldn’t be considered fashionable, but which Ty found fascinating. She had her hair pulled back with some kind of a headband, and her oval face was bright pink in the blazing afternoon sun.

  Intriguing. But no, he told himself sternly. This Ellis person might have a cute butt, but she’d already proven herself a major pain in his ass, a distraction he totally didn’t need right now. His cell phone beeped. He picked it up and read the alert. Hodarthe, a pharmaceutical company out of Topeka, was announcing that the FDA had approved a promising new cholesterol-busting drug. Maybe it was time to dump some of his Pfizer stock. Or maybe it was too late. He needed to do some quick research.

  Ellis Sullivan was leaning into the trunk of the Honda, her head obscured from view. He allowed himself one last, lingering gaze, and turned to go back to work.

  * * *

  Ellis had just finished emptying the first bag of groceries when she happened to look down at the counter where she’d stacked the rolls of paper towels, toilet paper, and coffee. Ants! A small army of the tiny ones her grandmother called sugar ants made a thin black line leading from the window sill to the back of the sink. Gak! She grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and frantically wiped at the counters. She flung the under-sink cupboard door open, looking for bug spray, but all she found was a damp sponge and a plastic jug of drain cleaner.

  Ellis ran to the laundry room and then the linen closet, opening and closing doors, but there was no sign of bug spray. She shuddered. She’d hated bugs her whole life, and although she loved Savannah and the South, she never once missed its bugs after she moved to Philly. She fought the impulse to run out to the car and drive over to the first store to buy an arsenal of Raid, Black Flag, or whatever. They were only harmless little sugar ants, she told herself. But if they’d been roaches, she so would have been out of there.

  She made herself return to the kitchen. She soaked a paper towel with drain cleaner and dabbed it on the windowsill. That oughta put a hurt on the little bastards, she thought grimly. At least until she could get some proper bug spray. She put away the rest of the groceries, lining up the cans of Diet Coke, the white wine, skim milk, half-and-half, and bottled water in the fridge. She found an empty cupboard and decided it would be the liquor cabinet. Vodka, gin, rum, scotch, and oh yes, whiskey for Julia, who’d become a die-hard Jack Daniel’s fan at the tender age of fourteen, when she’d begun snitching it from her father’s liquor cabinet, refilling the bottle with water. She’d bought mixers too: tonic water, 7-Up, grapefruit juice, and cranberry juice for Dorie, who liked Cape Cods. Funny, she couldn’t remember what Willa liked to drink. Dorie’s sister Willa was two years older than the rest of them, which meant that she was the girls’ go-to source for liquor when they were teenagers, since her boyfriend Ricky was legal. Of course, Willa always charged them five bucks extra, which Ellis thought was pretty pissy of her. But then, that was Willa for you. Even way back then, she had an angle or an agenda—and it was all Willa, all the time.

  Finally, Ellis got the kitchen just the way she wanted it. There was a fugly amateur seascape hanging on the wall beside the stove. She took it down and put it on top of the fridge and replaced it with the whiteboard she’d bought at the office-supply store. She’d spent a happy forty-five minutes ruling off the Kaper chart, carefully listing the assigned chores, the days of the week, and everybody’s names with color-coded Sharpies. It was truly a work of art.

  She stood back and admired her handiwork. Now, she thought, it was time to head upstairs and get the bedrooms organized.

  But when she’d lugged her big wheeled suitcase upstairs and opened the first bedroom door, her heart sank.

  The room was painted white, with battleship-gray painted board floors. It was large and square, and two big windows gave a glorious view of the impossibly blue summer sky. But it was nearly empty. A lonely little double bed was shoved into a corner, covered with a limp and faded pink-and-blue floral quilted spread. A pair of wafer-thin pillows sat at the head of the bed, and there was an olive-drab army blanket folded at the foot of it. There was no nightstand, no lamps or mirror, no chairs or even a luggage rack. A rickety-looking three-drawer pine dresser was against the wall opposite the bed. There was a miniscule closet with no coat hangers, not even a wire one. A small window beside the dresser held a rusty air conditioner.

  “A window unit!” Ellis cried. The room was hot and stuffy. She walked out into the hallway and opened up the other two bedroom doors. They were furnished just as sparsely, and yes, each had a dinky little air conditioner stuck into a window.

  She switched on the air conditioners in each room. They were loud and they rattled the windows, but within a few minutes, she could feel the temperatures begin to drop and her own boiling blood pressure start to simmer down.

  Wait until she got hold of Mr. Culpepper! Nothing upstairs was as it had been described on the Ebbtide website. Her room should have had a queen-sized bed—not the crappy little double bed that was in there now. Julia’s room, which was painted baby blue, should have had a double bed, but it held only a narrow twin. And Willa’s room, the daffodil yellow one, held yet another double bed. Ellis winced, anticipating what Willa’s reaction would be to that. Willa had reluctantly agreed to pay an extra two hundred bucks if the girls would let her have the room with the king-sized bed, since that’s what she and her husband were used to sleeping in at home. Arthu
r wasn’t coming along, of course, but Willa had insisted she couldn’t possibly sleep in anything less than a king.

  Once she’d turned on all the air conditioners, Ellis trudged up the narrow staircase to the third floor. The stairs were steep, and the walls so close that she didn’t see how anybody could get a full-sized suitcase up them. She had to stop to catch her breath when at last she’d reached the third floor. It was even hotter up here, she discovered.

  She found herself on a small landing. Unlike the second floor, the walls up here were unpainted board. They smelled faintly piney. There were three doors. She opened the first and found the tiny bathroom, with its claw-foot tub and funny high-backed commode. She could only shake her head when she saw that the tub had no shower. Dorie wasn’t the type to complain, that was her sister Willa’s specialty, but even sweet Dorie wouldn’t be happy about not having a shower.

  Ellis tugged at the door on the facing wall. It was swollen from the heat and humidity, but she finally managed to yank it open, only to discover an unfinished attic space. The high-ceilinged room was stifling and full of dusty cardboard boxes, trunks, and dust-covered bits of furniture. Maybe, Ellis thought idly, between sneezes, she could find some spare end tables and chairs to make their bedrooms more habitable. Later.

  She opened the third door to find the bedroom. Tucked up under the eaves of the house, it had a low, sloping ceiling, but a dormer window opposite the bed ran the length of the room, and Ellis could see an amazing view of the ocean below. The waves were rolling in, and children darted in and out of the water. She yanked the window open and a breeze wafted in, carrying the smell of saltwater with it. There was another window, high in the wall above the bed, and if she stood on her tiptoes, she could see out to the street.

  The room was just as sparsely furnished as the others, the bed was a double, with a sad, thin mattress. There was no overhead fan as in the downstairs bedrooms, but there was a pair of nightstands, each with a twee little white milk-glass lamp. Instead of a closet, a white, mirrored chifforobe stood in a corner of the room. And the air-conditioning unit was stuck into a hole that had been cut in the wall right beside the bed, which meant that whoever slept on that side would have it blasting in her ear all night long. The sad thing was, this was the best bedroom in the house. Ellis was glad Dorie and Stephen would have it. Not particularly glad about the Stephen part. After all, they’d agreed, way back in April, at Julia’s mama’s funeral, that this would be strictly a chick trip.

  But Dorie and Stephen had been married only a year. Since they both taught school, August was the last month they’d have for vacation. Nobody, not even Julia, had the heart to say no to Dorie. Anyway, Stephen really was very nice. He liked to cook, and he was quiet, and he’d probably spend most of his time at the beach reading, Dorie had promised. So they’d relented and agreed, just this once, that Stephen could be one of the girls.

  At least, Ellis thought, Stephen wouldn’t be in their hair downstairs. They wouldn’t have to worry about running into him in their underwear, or keep having to put the toilet seat down on the second floor.

  But she was definitely still going to give Mr. Culpepper an earful! It was probably too late to get out of the house now, since he had half the month’s rent, but she was already calculating how much of a discount she was going to ask for, considering the crappy beds, the window air-conditioning units, and—oh yes, the ants.

  There it was again, the nagging, insistent itch she could not scratch. Money. Would she have enough? What would happen when this month was over? And how long would it be before her money ran out?

  6

  Ellis heard the crunch of gravel outside. Then a series of short, loud blasts from a car horn. She stood on tiptoes and looked out the window over the bed. A dark red minivan had pulled into the driveway, and a familiar blonde was leaning halfway out the passenger window, hollering at the top of her lungs.

  “Whoo-hoo! We’re here!”

  Ellis flew down the two flights of stairs, out the front door and off the porch, launching herself in the direction of the van.

  “Oh my God!” Ellis cried, falling into Julia’s outstretched arms. “You’re here. August is here. I can’t believe we’re all finally here.”

  She held Julia at arm’s length and looked at her critically. “And you’re so much blonder. I love it, but when did you decide to go platinum?”

  Before Julia could answer, Dorie had gotten out of the minivan, and then the three of them were hugging and shrieking and babbling and jumping up and down so hard that it sounded like a sorority chapter meeting.

  “Excuse me,” Dorie said, finally pulling away. “I can’t wait to see the house and catch up. But y’all have got to excuse me. I had an iced tea an hour ago, and my eyeballs are positively floating.”

  “Go on,” Ellis said, laughing. “You never could hold your water. Julia and I will start unloading.”

  She walked to the back of the minivan and groped around for the catch on the tailgate. “Where are the others?” she asked Julia. “Are Willa and Stephen driving up separately? Dorie didn’t mention that when I talked to her the day before yesterday.”

  Julia raised one elegant eyebrow. “There’s quite a lot Dorie hasn’t mentioned. To either of us. They aren’t coming, sweetie.”

  “At all?” Ellis said, bewildered. “What happened?”

  “The bitch bailed on us! Dorie said Willa just rang her up last night, right before she was to pick her up, and announced that she couldn’t go.”

  “Just like that?”

  Julia shrugged, and the strap of her orange tank top slid off one sun-browned shoulder. “Willa told Dorie something had come up with one of the kids. Isn’t that just like her? She horns in on our trip, and because we don’t want to hurt Dorie’s feelings, we agree that she can come, plan around her, go to the expense of renting the bigger house with the extra bedroom, then she just up and cancels. You want to know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think she ever really intended to come,” Julia said. “She was just up to her same old games again, pushing Dorie’s buttons, testing to see if Dorie would cave in and invite her. Willa’s never had any real friends of her own. Why would she? The woman’s a raving bitch.”

  “But what about Stephen?” Ellis pressed. “Is he coming later? I know Dorie said he’s been working really hard all summer, trying to get his master’s thesis finished before school starts up again.”

  Julia grabbed a battered leather suitcase from the back of the van and set it on the driveway. “Stephen’s quite another puzzle. When she picked me up at the airport this morning, all Dorie would tell me was basically the same thing: ‘Stephen’s working so hard on his thesis, he has to meet with his advisor, he needs absolute quiet, he’s heartbroken that he can’t come after all.’ Blah, blah, blah.”

  “You don’t believe her? Why would she make up something like that? Dorie wouldn’t lie. Not to us.”

  They heard the slap of the screen door and Julia glanced back at the house. “Shh. She’s coming. I’m not saying she’s lying exactly. But she’s not telling us the whole story. This is not our Dorie. Not at all.”

  “Did Julia tell you the bad news?” Dorie asked, approaching the van. “I know you guys must hate me. Stephen feels awful about not coming. He was so looking forward to the beach. But he’s just frantic with worry about his thesis. And Willa…” Her voice trailed off. “Annabeth, her youngest, was supposed to be at sailing camp this week. But she gets these terrible headaches. And she’s only six. They got her glasses, but…”

  “Willa is Willa,” Julia said dryly. “You don’t have to apologize for her, Dorie. She’s been like this her whole life.”

  Dorie’s cheeks flushed bright red. “I know she can be a pill sometimes, you guys.”

  Ellis gave her a quick hug. “We all have our moments. We understand. Anyway, I’m just really bummed for you, having to spend the month without Stephen. We’re all going to miss him.
”

  Julia, standing directly behind Dorie, crossed her eyes and grimaced. The last statement was an outright lie, and they both knew it. They’d had a spirited e-mail exchange as soon as Dorie had brought up the possibility of having Stephen join them at the beach.

  “No way!” Julia had written. “This is our time together. Remember? No effin’ boys. Anyway, if Booker finds out, the next thing you know, he’ll want to come. And then it’ll be couples. And that’s not what this month is about.”

  Booker and Julia had lived together for years, first in New York, and then, for the past six years, in London. Booker was a photographer, and Julia was a model. Ellis didn’t quite understand their relationship. Sometimes, the way Julia talked about Booker, you had to wonder what had kept them together all this time.

  Ellis hadn’t liked to conspire against Dorie behind her back, but for once, she was in total agreement with Julia. She liked Stephen, although they’d only met twice before Dorie’s wedding a year ago. He was attractive and thoughtful and obviously wild for Dorie. As for Dorie, she was long overdue for a good man. But just this once, couldn’t they leave men out of it? Especially since Ellis was so obviously without a man—and had been for more years than she cared to admit.

  That had never been the case with Dorie. With her strawberry blond hair, freckles, and kittenish green eyes, not to mention her voluptuous curves, Dorie was the man magnet of the group. She had been since third grade, when every single boy at Blessed Sacrament School wanted to be her valentine. Nobody could remember a time when Dorie had been without a boyfriend. And it wasn’t like she even tried. She was just Dorie.

  Once, when she was a freshman at the University of Georgia, she’d started dating a doctor. An honest-to-God physician. A gynecologist, if you could believe it. Howard had been gaga for Dorie. He’d given her a pair of two-carat diamond stud earrings—which she didn’t dare show her mother—taken her on a spring break trip to Vegas, let her drive his Mercedes all the way to Savannah and back just so she could hang out with her girlfriends for Saint Patrick’s Day.