Summer Rental

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Julia stood up abruptly. “Come on, we better get back to Dorie. I don’t want to have to be giving her oatmeal baths like we did that summer at Myrtle Beach.”

  Ellis grimaced. “What were we thinking, slathering ourselves with that nasty baby oil and iodine mess? It’s a wonder we don’t all have skin cancer. ”

  “We weren’t thinking. We were drinking,” Julia reminded her. They strolled back across the street and over the dune to the beach below.

  “Listen,” Julia said suddenly. “What do you think is really going on with Dorie?”

  “Dorie? Nothing. Why? What do you think is going on?”

  “It hasn’t struck you that we’ve been here over three days now and she hasn’t once called Stephen?”

  “Nooo,” Ellis said. “I guess she hasn’t. But maybe she’s just letting him alone so he can concentrate on his thesis.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Julia said. “He hasn’t called her, either. I know, because her room’s right next to mine.”

  “Maybe they had a fight. Maybe she’s pissed he decided he was too busy to come. I don’t know, Julia. But I don’t think it’s any of our business, whatever it is.”

  “This isn’t Dorie,” Julia said stubbornly. “Something really bad has happened to her. Listen, at the movie the other day? She cried all the way through it.”

  Ellis’s brow wrinkled. “It was a comedy! Nobody cries at a Ben Stiller movie.”

  “She got up twice to go to the bathroom,” Julia said. “Didn’t want us to see her bawling her eyes out. Something is going on with them, Ellis. I can sense it.”

  “Then do me a favor, Julia,” Ellis whirled and grabbed Julia’s wrist to make her point. “Leave her alone. I mean it. If she wants to tell us, she will. If she and Stephen are going through a rough time, the best thing we can do for her is just be here for her. You hear me?”

  “Of course,” Julia said. “You act like I’m some kind of bully or something. I’ve known Dorie as long as you have. I love her as much as you do. I want her to be happy, that’s all.”

  They were almost back at the beach. Something had been bothering Ellis. “Listen, Julia,” she said, slowing down so her friend would have to also. “Since we’re on the subject of happiness … What’s going on with you and Booker?”

  Julia stopped walking and made an elaborate gesture of adjusting the oversized silk scarf she’d casually knotted around her waist. “Nothing,” she said. “Same old, same old.”

  “You lie like a rug,” Ellis said. “Now come on, out with it. You’re not breaking up, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Julia said. “It’s gotten complicated. And you know how I hate complications. Really, I don’t know why he wants to mess with a good thing. But that’s Booker. He never has been able to leave well enough alone.”

  “What’s he done now?” Ellis asked.

  “Oh Gawwd,” Julia said. “What hasn’t he done? Well, for starters, he’s gone and taken a real job.”

  “In England?”

  “No, and that’s the problem,” Julia said, frowning. “He’s head of the photo department at some magazine publishing company you never heard of in Washington. I mean, can you imagine? Booker, in a coat and tie? Actually punching a clock? It boggles the mind.”

  “In DC?” Ellis said, her voice only an octave below a squeal. “But, Julia, that’s great. DC’s only a hop and a jump from Philly! You know, if I manage to find another job and stay in Philly. But whatever, right? I mean, you’ll be back in the States, that’s all we care about.”

  “I wouldn’t start buying Amtrak stock just yet,” Julia said. She was walking, no, almost running now.

  “What?” Ellis was out of breath from trying to catch up. “Hey, slow down. Julia!”

  “Who says I want to move back to the States?” Julia turned and snapped. “Who says I want to give up my career for Booker? Who says I have to get married and start pumping out a baby a year like my poor mother? She basically lived in those fugly maternity clothes for seven years, all before she was twenty-five, and I never remember a time when she did anything for herself, her whole life. I’m only thirty-five, for God’s sake! I like my life just the way it is. All right?”

  Ellis blinked. What would be wrong with having a life like that, like the one Julia’s mother had—with babies and a loving husband, and yes, spit-up and drool and even stretch marks? Julia said she couldn’t remember her mother having any time alone—Ellis had practically lived at the Capellis’ during her teenage years, and she couldn’t ever remember seeing Catherine Capelli when she wasn’t singing or laughing or telling a joke—surrounded by her noisy, adoring family.

  “Nobody’s saying you have to do any of that,” Ellis said quietly.

  “That’s what you think,” Julia said, her shoulders sagging. “Look, we’re at the beach. Can we not talk about this right now? I’m going for a swim.”

  Ellis stood on the tide line, the place where the burning sand met the wet sand. It was strewn with broken shells and dried seaweed. She stepped out of her sandals and dug her toes into the cool sand. Her hand closed around the cell phone in the pocket of her cover-up. She had résumés out at a couple different places. A former colleague had sent her a promising lead about a job at a start-up financial services company in Pittsburgh.

  Pittsburgh. She didn’t know a soul in Pittsburgh. Starting over in a new town? At a new company, a new job? Unbidden, she pictured herself, alone, in a new apartment, studying a stack of takeout menus, with an empty evening, an empty weekend, stretching out before her, in appalling, regrettable aloneness.

  Worry, Ellis thought, hell yes. Worry didn’t begin to cover what she was feeling right now.

  10

  It wasn’t until her stomach rumbled that Maryn realized how hungry she was. She pulled the car into the next strip shopping center she passed. The place was called The Picky Pelican. Stupid name for a restaurant. But she was really, really hungry.

  And she was desperate to talk to Adam. Her one friend. Funny, when you thought about it. Adam Kuykendall was the least likely candidate for a best friend that Maryn could think of. Short and stocky, with thinning blond hair, geeky glasses, and a scraggly soul patch on his chin, Adam and Maryn had bonded as soon as she’d started work at Prescott and Associates, a midsized family-owned insurance agency in Cherry Hill.

  The other women in the office wanted nothing to do with Maryn, giving her disapproving sideways glances, pointedly excluding her from their lunchtime cliques and after-work drink outings. Most were older, married, with kids, even grandkids. Adam was the only male nonagent in the whole office.

  So they were both outsiders. At first, Maryn had just assumed he was gay. But he was surprisingly good company, and he’d won her over her first week at work with his wickedly cutting comments about their bitchy female coworkers. Within a week of meeting, they’d established their rituals—lunch from the Italian deli around the corner, Friday night happy hour, Sunday movie matinees—chick flicks for her, slasher movies for him.

  And then Don came into her life eighteen months ago. And everything changed.

  She had to talk to Adam right away, warn him. Don knows. I’m gone. I’m afraid. Afraid he’ll come after me. Afraid he’ll come after you. Be careful. I’m gone.

  Adam would have to wait, though. She yawned, got out of the car, locked it, and looked around, automatically tensing at the sight of a black SUV and, quickly, rebuking herself. This SUV was an Explorer, not an Escalade. Don Shackleford did not know where she was. Yet.

  Inside the restaurant, all the tables were full. There was one seat vacant, at the counter, between a guy who looked like a construction worker and a young woman her age, with a sunburnt nose, who looked to have just walked in off the beach.

  The restaurant smelled like hamburgers and French fries. Maryn’s stomach growled again. She needed food, a bed, a new name, new identity, new life. But for now, a seat at the counter at The Picky Pelican would have to do.

  11
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br />   Dorie sat alone at the luncheonette counter. Even though it was nearly two, the place was still mobbed with a late lunch crowd. “Here ya go, hon,” the waitress said, as she carefully poured the chocolate shake from the stainless-steel shaker into the tall, frosted glass and then placed it on the fluted white-paper place mat. “Wait,” the waitress said. She turned to the back bar and returned with a can of whipped cream in one hand and a maraschino cherry in the other. “There now,” the waitress said, plopping the cherry atop the mound of whipped cream.

  “Thank you so much,” Dorie said, shooting the waitress a smile. “This looks awesome.”

  She plunged the straw into the shake and took a deep sip. The sensation of the ice-cold chocolate sent a chill down her sunburnt back, but that didn’t slow her down. When she’d woken up back at the beach, Ellis and Julia were gone, and she was starving. Again. She’d washed the sand off at the outside shower, slipped into her cover-up, and gone in search of something to eat. The little luncheonette was called The Picky Pelican. It sat in the middle of a strip shopping center only a few blocks from Ebbtide, and it reminded her of Clary’s Soda Fountain, back home.

  So she’d found the seat at the counter, but when the waitress brought the menu, nothing really appealed to her. Except a chocolate milk shake.

  Dorie tried to take her time finishing the shake. She’d felt a little guilty, leaving without telling the girls where she was going, but then, hadn’t they gone off without her while she was sleeping on her lounge chair?

  She pulled a magazine out of her beach bag and flicked idly through the pages.

  “Ah-hem.” A woman in expensive-looking designer sunglasses cleared her throat.

  Dorie looked up from her magazine. “Hello,” she said.

  “Would you mind if I sat here?” The woman gestured at the empty stool beside Dorie’s. It was the only vacant one at the counter.

  “Not at all,” Dorie said.

  “Thanks.” The woman sat down and silently picked up a menu. She was attractive, maybe a little younger than Dorie, and with her tailored black slacks, black sling-back stiletto heels, and clingy silk leopard-print blouse, she looked distinctly out of place amongst the T-shirts-and-shorts-wearing beach crowd in the restaurant. Dorie went back to her magazine, forcing herself to take tiny sips of her milk shake. What she really wanted was a second shake. But this one cost nearly four bucks, and she’d have to leave a buck tip, and that was five bucks that she hadn’t budgeted on spending. Five bucks she really shouldn’t spend.

  She looked down at her cell phone, and for the tenth time that day, tried to force herself to call her sister. Willa had plenty of money. Arthur was rich, and Willa hadn’t worked a day since she’d married. It was rotten of her to cancel at the last minute, and even rottener not to offer to pay her share anyway. Back when she’d invited herself to come along with the others, she’d even hinted to Dorie that she’d be happy to pay for both their shares. Of course, she’d never mentioned the offer again.

  She shouldn’t have come, Dorie thought glumly. When Willa had canceled, she should have stayed home too. She had no business spending all this money for a month at the beach. Especially now.

  The waitress came over, and the woman next to her ordered a club sandwich and an iced tea. Dorie’s stomach growled. Suddenly she felt she would kill for a club sandwich. Even though she’d had a grilled-cheese sandwich for lunch back at the house, not to mention a mound of potato chips.

  Dorie turned back to her magazine and tried to concentrate on an article offering “Ten Tips to Save Money Now.” The article was a joke, advising readers to cut corners by giving up their Starbucks and doing their own nails. Dorie didn’t go to Starbucks. And she hadn’t had a professional manicure in years.

  A few moments later, the waitress was back with the woman’s food. “Can I get you anything else?” she heard the waitress ask.

  “Um, well,” the blond woman said, her voice low. “I’m looking for a motel room around here. Nothing fancy. It doesn’t have to be on the beach or anything. Just something clean and cheap, maybe with a little kitchenette. Would you have any suggestions?”

  “Cheap?” the waitress laughed. “Honey, this is high season at Nags Head. I guess that would depend on what you call cheap. My cousin and her kids stayed at a little place over on the inlet. Joint didn’t even have a pool. And they had to give close to two hundred bucks a night.”

  “Oh.” The blonde’s voice sounded tired, defeated even.

  “You might want to drive on down the road, check someplace like Elizabeth City. I think they got a Motel 6 over there.”

  “Thanks,” the blonde said. The waitress drifted away.

  “Excuse me.”

  Dorie looked up from her magazine.

  “Could you pass the pepper, please?” Maryn pointed at the pepper shaker directly in front of Dorie.

  “Here you go,” Dorie said, sliding the shaker over.

  Maryn deconstructed her club sandwich, carefully removing each layer of bread, and with a knife, scraping off the excess mayonnaise before sprinkling the thin slices of bloodred tomato with an avalanche of pepper.

  She caught Dorie watching her with interest. “I wish, just once, they’d ask before slathering mayo all over everything,” she said.

  “I know,” Dorie agreed. “I’m the same way with mustard. A little goes a long way, if you ask me. But that sure is a pretty tomato.”

  “Um-hmm,” the blonde said, restacking her sandwich. “We don’t get tomatoes this nice until really late in the season back home. But there’s nothing like a Jersey tomato.”

  Dorie laughed. “You haven’t tasted one out of my daddy’s garden. He grows these huge ones, he calls ’em Mortgage Lifters, I could eat ’em ’til I’m sick.”

  “Are you from around here?” the blonde asked.

  “Nope,” Dorie said. “I’m from Savannah, Georgia. How ’bout you?”

  “Jersey,” Maryn said, deliberately vague. She took a delicate bite of her sandwich and dabbed with her napkin at a bit of mayo on her lip.

  “My friends and I are here for the whole month,” Dorie volunteered.

  “Oh?” the blonde put the sandwich down. “At a motel? Isn’t that pretty expensive?”

  “We’ve got a house,” Dorie said proudly. “Right on the beach. There are three of us, and we share expenses, so it works out to be way cheaper than a motel. Of course,” she added ruefully, “it’s more expensive than we’d planned, because my sister canceled on us at the last minute.”

  “A house,” Maryn said thoughtfully. “How do you go about finding something like that?”

  Dorie laughed. “Ellis, one of my girlfriends? She’s a planning freak. She put this whole trip together. I think she found it on VRBO. Or maybe Craigslist.”

  “VRBO?”

  “Vacation Rentals by Owner. It’s like an international website for rental houses all over the world.”

  “Never heard of that before,” Maryn admitted. “Maybe I should check it out. I’m looking for a place to stay around here for a couple weeks.”

  “Good luck on that. I think things get booked up around here pretty early. Ellis booked our house months ago. Of course, that’s when we were planning to have five people instead of only three.”

  “This was sort of a last-minute decision,” Maryn said, shrugging. “Guess I’ll maybe look for a place in Elizabeth City. Although the idea of a Motel 6, that’s kinda grim. I was hoping to find something on the beach.”

  Maryn returned her attention to her sandwich.

  And Dorie had an idea. Her bedroom—the one she and Stephen were to have shared on the top floor, was lonely. She’d felt isolated with Ellis and Julia on the second floor, so she’d moved down to the room that would have been Willa’s.

  She eyed the blonde warily. She was expensively dressed, well groomed. Was it crazy, this idea taking root? She’d been obsessed with money worries since arriving at Nags Head. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t such a cra
zy idea.

  Dorie cleared her throat. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”

  The blonde turned and raised her sunglasses. Her eyes were a clear cornflower blue. “Yes?”

  “Look,” Dorie said, blushing a little. “I had an idea. You’re looking for a place to stay at the beach, and as it happens, we’ve got an extra bedroom and bath.…”

  “Oh,” the blonde said. “Well, I don’t know.…”

  “It’s pretty private,” Dorie went on. “You’d have the top floor of the house. My husband and I were going to stay there, but he couldn’t come at the last minute, and then my sister canceled too, so we’ve got all this extra space.”

  The blonde stared at her, as though she were inspecting a head of cabbage at the supermarket. Dorie felt herself blushing again. What the hell was she doing? Inviting a total stranger to move in with them? The girls would think she’d gone nuts.

  “I could use the kitchen?” the blonde asked.

  “Uh, yeah. I mean, of course,” Dorie stuttered. “You can have access to the whole house. We’re pretty casual, it’s just the three of us. I’m a schoolteacher, and my friend Julia is a model. And Ellis works at a bank. Or, actually, she used to work at a bank.”

  “How much?” Maryn asked.

  Now it was Dorie’s turn to stare back. The blonde’s clothes looked expensive. And her jewelry looked even more expensive. She wore a huge diamond solitaire on her right ring finger and a diamond tennis bracelet on her left wrist. The handbag she balanced on her lap was white ostrich skin, the size of a small dog. The zipper pull bore a Prada nameplate. And the gold letters on the sleek tortoiseshell sunglasses perched on her head spelled out DIOR. Dorie was no expert, but the pocketbook and the sunglasses looked like the real thing to her.

  She did the math in her head, adding an extra five hundred-dollar cushion, and named the price.

  “Hmm,” the blonde said. “I wasn’t thinking anywhere near that much.”