Moon Shell Beach

by Nancy Thayer

  At first, it was a golden summer. She lived at home, and since her parents were so self-absorbed, they hardly noticed when Jesse slept over. The days were hot, humid, and bright with light, and Clare loved wearing the pretty little sundresses she wore to work. She loved the sun on her skin, the breeze in her hair. Most nights she and Jesse went to one of the parties on the beaches undiscovered by the tourists. They would drink beer or wine, catch up on the day’s gossip, perhaps walk hand in hand along the water’s edge, and sometimes, on the hottest nights, swim in their clothes, coming out of the water with the cloth slicked against their bodies. “I’ve got goose bumps,” Clare would tell Jesse, and Jesse would wrap his arms around her and hold her against him all up and down, warming her, grinning down at her as she became aware, through the material, of his erection.

  Lexi was never at the townie parties because she was working at a posh restaurant, and in a way, Clare was glad. In spite of Lexi’s kindness and support their freshman year, it was awkward when the three of them were around one another. Lexi had a way of standing back from Jesse, as if he were riddled with some contagious disease, and Jesse, who threw his arm around all his friends, male or female, got clumsy around Lexi. The most he would give Lexi was a curt nod. The truth was, Clare was secretly relieved to see so little of Lexi.

  FOUR

  Lexi had always loved summers, especially the beginning, when the sky was full of light and the season stretched ahead like the sea, glittering with promise.

  After one year of college, Lexi was flying high. She’d just finished her first year at UMass/Amherst, her grades were stellar, and she’d found her vocation—she wanted to major in art. Painting, sculpting, graphic arts, photography, design—she wanted to study everything. Still, she was nineteen, and it was summer—she wanted to have fun. She planned to work in her parents’ store, catch the beach when she had time off, and party every night.

  But just a few days into June, Lexi realized with a terrible plummet of her heart that Laney’s Dry Goods Emporium was failing, losing business to the chic boutiques that had crowded into the small town. Days would pass with only a handful of people drifting into her parents’ store, and then all they wanted was a pair of cotton socks or a sun hat. Adam was off in Boston, in veterinary college at Tufts, which was taking all his money and a lot of their parents’ savings. One night, Lexi overheard her parents talking in strained whispers, trying to figure out how they could pay their mortgage and still help Adam with his tuition.

  The next day, as she worked in the store, dusting shelves and straightening merchandise that no one ever looked at, she studied her parents’ faces. Fred and Myrna both looked tired, and Fred’s shoulders slumped—although he straightened if a customer entered. Myrna’s hair was growing white.

  That night, Lexi opened her bedroom door and strained to hear her parents’ conversation.

  “We’ll have to close the store at the end of the summer.” Her father’s voice was grim.

  Her mother began to cry. “The business your grandfather started…”

  Her father’s voice got defensive, and choked with emotion, “Well, tell me, Myrna, what else can we do? Already, we’ve got to tell Adam he has to deal with his tuition himself.”

  After a few moments, her mother heaved a great sigh. “At least when Adam gets out of vet school he’ll make enough money to support himself. I can’t imagine how Lexi can support herself with an art degree.”

  Perhaps that was the moment Lexi grew up. Certainly it was the moment she understood that she was responsible for her life. Her parents had all they could handle. But what could she do? She was frightened. She longed to talk it over with Clare, but Clare was all about Jesse these days—she scarcely had time to talk to Lexi on the phone. Anyway, Lexi wasn’t sure she should talk about her family’s finances even with Clare. To the island community, money was as popular and crucial a subject as the weather. Zillionaire summer people who lived in sprawling trophy houses for one month a year drove housing costs out of reach of the normal family. Town newspapers headlined articles every week about the jump in real estate prices. But Clare didn’t have to worry. Clare’s father taught at the high school and Clare’s mother was an artist, and the financial pressure of their lives was immeasurably softened for them because Clare’s father had inherited their house from his mother. They had no mortgage. That gave them a freedom most people could only imagine.

  And if she did talk with Clare, what help could Clare provide? Sympathy, of course, but lots of islanders were aware of the fading fortunes of the Laneys, and their sympathy was almost like pity, and being pitied was a very hard thing to bear.

  She decided that there was one way she could help her parents.

  So one evening, at home, as they were eating their Crock-Pot dinner, Lexi casually announced, “I don’t think I’ll go back to college this year.”

  “Oh, honey!” Lexi’s mother leaned over the kitchen table toward her. “Sweetie, you’ve got to stay in college.”

  But the look of relief that passed over Fred Laney’s face told Lexi all she needed to know. Her determination doubled. “It’s no big deal. I can always go back. Lots of kids I know take a year off. I’ll stay here and work and pile up some money.”

  Her father’s voice was somber. “You won’t pile up money working at the store.”

  “That’s all right, Dad.” At that moment she simply wanted to erase the worry from his face. “I want to take a job waitressing. I can make a ton that way.”

  “Well.” After a moment, her father nodded. “That’s a good idea, Lexi.”

  “A very good idea,” her mother echoed.

  Lexi was proud of herself, and deeply sad. She felt as if her future had been floating above her like a brilliantly colored hot-air balloon, tethered to the ground, waiting to lift her away…and she had just cut the line and could only watch helplessly as her hopes drifted up and out of sight while she remained stranded on the earth.

  Later that evening, Lexi shut the door to her bedroom and hid away, phoning Clare.

  But Clare wasn’t home.

  Clare was with Jesse.

  Lexi couldn’t blame Clare for being infatuated with Jesse. It wasn’t just his blond hair, blue eyes, and easy smile, it was his entire Jesse-ness that made him irresistible. Still, when Clare and Jesse had hooked up in their senior year of high school, Lexi had quietly assumed they wouldn’t last. Jesse never stayed with anyone for more than a few weeks. So she had listened patiently while Clare sang Jesse’s praises and confided that they were making love—she’d said “making love,” not “having sex,” and confessed that she was madly in love with him. Lexi thought Clare was deluded, and would be hurt when Jesse dumped her for someone else, but she humored Clare and vowed to herself she would be there for Clare when things fell apart.

  But that didn’t happen. As their senior year wore on, Jesse stuck with Clare, and stopped sleeping around. They became a real couple, the couple in the school. Lexi found herself relegated to the background. Clare never had time to be with Lexi; she was always with Jesse. Clare stopped confiding in Lexi; she didn’t want to betray Jesse’s confidences, although she did tell Lexi that Jesse secretly wanted to be a folk singer, but everyone knew that, he was getting a band together. Lexi felt rejected by Clare, even betrayed, which made her feel inferior to Clare, and, in truth, wasn’t she inferior? Popular Jesse had plucked Clare out of the crowd. No one had chosen Lexi. Oh, she had dates, and plenty of guys tried to get in her pants, but no one was in love with her.

  While Clare and Lexi were at UMass together, Jesse stayed on the island, working as a carpenter. Clare had more time for Lexi, and their friendship had grown strong again. Then, what Lexi had half feared, half hoped would happen came about. Clare got news that Jesse was sleeping around. She came to Lexi with her tears and anger and grief, and Lexi felt a mixture of sorrow and relief. She told Clare what she truly believed—that Jesse wasn’t right for her, that he wasn’t good enough for her, tha
t she would find real love, true love, with someone else.

  And now Clare and Lexi were home from college. Jesse had snapped his fingers, and Clare had gone to him as quickly as if he were a hypnotist and she his subject. Clare got a job working for a gourmet shop, and what free time Clare had, she spent with Jesse.

  This summer Lexi was determined not to be so lame. After all, this past year she’d gained enough confidence to have her first love affair, with a hunky UMass quarterback, and she’d been the one to break up with him. So she was experienced, less dependent on Clare. She had other friends on the island, after all. She stopped phoning Clare and sought them out, and when she wasn’t working, or collapsing after work, she met friends at the beach or at a bar for a drink.

  She also quit working at her parents’ store and got a job cleaning houses during the day. At night, she waitressed at a posh restaurant, La Maison. She stopped buying celebrity magazines and nail polish, and slowly her small bank account began to grow. She was determined to be optimistic.

  But in her new jobs she recognized, more than ever before, that the distance between her life and the lives of the really rich was immense—an almost unbridgeable chasm.

  The houses she cleaned were stunning, with paintings and sculptures that took her breath away. Each room was a work of art all by itself, the colors so perfectly coordinated, even the island landscape was framed by windows to appear as another masterpiece money could buy. She didn’t mind cleaning the houses—they were so flawlessly decorated, it was like playing house.

  She thought she’d enjoy working at the posh French restaurant, too, but the other waitstaff and the chef at La Maison were a chummy, tight little club who spoke French with one another and snubbed Lexi. And the customers were from another galaxy. Some were older couples, the women with coiffed hair and a Queen Elizabeth kind of style, but lots of diners were in their twenties or early thirties, and these women, just a bit older than Lexi, took her breath away with their expensive clothing and casual elegance. She envied their looks, their laughter—she envied the way they smelled. But most of all, she envied them their experiences.

  As she attended to their every need, offering them menus, pouring more water or wine, setting plates before them, brushing crumbs away, she couldn’t help but hear them talk about their trips to Paris, or the opening of the Impressionist show at the Met, or their little jaunt over to Tuscany. They weren’t all empty-headed bimbos, either, although Lexi wished they were. Some of the most dazzling women were archaeologists, or lawyers, or art historians. Art historian! Lexi thought. It seemed the most splendid thing she’d ever heard of.

  The men who squired these glittering women were handsome, too, some of them, and all of them accustomed to being in command. Lexi was aware of the way the men’s eyes slid over her, taking in her long legs and sleek figure, and occasionally a guy winked at her or smiled as he met her eyes, and Lexi’s hopes would waken. But the men always returned their gaze to the women they were with, and Lexi knew—it was an old, old story on this island—that the most she could ever be to one of these men was, at best, a summer’s dalliance; at worst, an easy lay.

  She resigned herself. At least she made great tips. Yet every evening after serving people with good educations and wealthy backgrounds, she went home to a house that was becoming shabby with neglect, and she would hear her parents in the kitchen, going over the books, trying to cope with the failure of the store that had supported them all their lives.

  She didn’t want to become bitter like some of her high school friends, who made up nasty names for the women whose homes they cleaned, whose parties they catered, whose children they tended. Once or twice she managed to wrench Clare away from Jesse, and that helped. Clare wasn’t bitter. Clare was so in love with Jesse, she didn’t want any life but her own.

  But Clare also loved the island more than Lexi did, or loved it in a different way; that was becoming more and more clear to Lexi. Clare wanted to live on Nantucket after college, but Lexi wanted to travel, she wanted to see the Louvre and the Coliseum, she wanted to hear symphonies and attend theater. At least she wanted the chance to see other places and live a little before settling down to spend her life serving the wealthy.

  One Saturday night early in June, when they weren’t full, Lexi was surprised to see Lauren, the hostess, whip away from the front door and meet in a buzz with the other waiters and the owner/chef.

  “What’s going on?” Lexi asked Peter, a waiter who would at least speak to her in English.

  “It’s Ed Hardin,” Peter said. “Lauren doesn’t want to seat him.”

  “Ed Hardin?” Lexi peered around the corner at the group of men standing by the door. “Wow.”

  That summer the Nantucket community hated Ed Hardin. A real estate mogul, he was cunning, ruthless, and powerful. During the winter, Hardin had bought up luxuriant, unspoiled acreage between the moors and the ocean and developed it into a mini-suburb of enormous, expensive trophy mansions that drove the wildlife out of their shelter and towered arrogantly above the landscape, blocking the views of longtime residents, providing nothing good for the island and lots of money for Ed Hardin.

  “We can refuse service to anyone!” Lauren was hissing.

  “Get a grip,” Phil, the chef/owner, snapped. “If you want to be moralistic, go to divinity school. We’re here to make money, and Ed Hardin has more money than Midas, so shut up and smile.”

  Angrily, Lauren glared around at the waitstaff. “Lexi,” she said, “you’re getting him.”

  Ed Hardin was handsome for a man nearing forty. He was almost bald, but his eyebrows were black and bushy over a raptor’s piercing dark eyes. When he looked at Lexi, his gaze was like a judgment. Then he smiled at her.

  “Well, hello,” he said.

  Over the summer, he dined at La Maison at least once a week, sometimes with men, sometimes with lovely young women. He always flirted with Lexi, who beamed back appreciatively—he left fabulous tips. He requested Lexi’s table every time he came, and when he was with a man, he leaned back in his chair and asked Lexi about herself. It would have been rude not to respond, and she secretly enjoyed having the attention of this powerful man. She knew she looked good—finally she accepted how her long legs and slim torso, which had earned her the name of “Stork” in school, had become assets. She wore a white button-down shirt and a short black skirt to work. Her blond hair was almost white from the sun. She wore it simply tied back with a black ribbon, a long tail hanging down her back, swinging as she walked.

  One evening, he asked, “Do you work every night?”

  Cool, she thought, he wants to come here only when I can be his waitress. “Not Mondays and Tuesdays.”

  “Great. Let me take you out to dinner on Monday.”

  “Oh.” Lexi was so surprised, she almost dropped the bread basket. Flustered, she stuttered, “Oh…I, uh, I can’t. Sorry.” And she hurried away.

  That night, she casually told her parents that Ed Hardin had asked her out.

  Her father snorted. “I hope you said no!”

  Her mother patted her hand gently. “Lexi, he’s much too old for you, honey. A man like him, well, he would only take advantage of a small-town girl like you.”

  Lexi knew her mother only meant to be helpful, but her words cut deep. And by morning, she found something in her rebelling. Did her parents think she was stupid? That she’d be so grateful to be asked out by a wealthy man that she’d do anything he asked? And yet her mother was right. Her life and Ed Hardin’s were worlds apart.

  A week later, Ed dined at La Maison again. Again, Lexi was his waitress. When she placed the leather folder holding the tab on his table, he put his hand on it, near her hand. “Lexi, I’d really like to take you out to dinner. Any evening you’re free.”

  Lexi pulled back her hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You have Monday off?” He really did have a nice smile.

  She was aware of the eyes of the other staff and diners o
n her. She capitulated. “All right. Monday.” As they made arrangements, she knew she was flushing. She felt like a heroine accepting a challenge from a fascinating enemy.

  He took her to the Chanticleer, the best restaurant on the island, and the most expensive. He ordered fabulous wine and amazing food. He was sophisticated, imposing, witty, and well-traveled. But he also seemed genuinely interested in her. When he discovered that she loved art, he drew her out, asking her which painter she liked best, which style, what painting she’d buy if she could buy anything in the world. He asked whether she’d been to the Clark Museum in Williamstown. He asked if he could take her there sometime.

  When he drove her home, he said he wanted to come in. She grinned, finally having a little power of her own, and told him, “I live here with my parents.” She slipped out of his Mercedes before he could kiss her.

  In her room that night, she paced the floor, trying to work off the energy of her conflicting emotions. She was not sexually attracted to Ed Hardin. He was almost twenty years older than she, and even a little shorter, and portly. But she was attracted to who she became when she was with him. He hadn’t laughed at her opinions about art, even though she hardly knew enough to have an opinion. He’d made her seem interesting, even knowledgeable.

  She really needed to talk to Clare.

  Are you nuts?” Clare yelled.

  It was a hot July afternoon. They were sitting in an alley behind the gourmet shop. Lexi had convinced Clare to spend her precious few lunchtime minutes here so they could talk.