Moon Shell Beach

by Nancy Thayer

  “Oh, Clare, we can’t talk now, we’re getting dressed up for play group.” In the background, Mikey was babbling.

  “Play group? How can he play? He’s eight months old!”

  “Mostly they just lie on blankets and look at each other, but Mikey loves seeing little people like himself. And there’s this one little girl, she’s a year old and can reach out to touch him, and he just squeals with ecstasy whenever he sees her. Anyway, I’ll call you later.” Penny clicked off.

  Clare forced herself to work, trying to calm herself with the familiar and engrossing motions of pouring and stirring, but she still felt rattled and uncomfortable with herself. She was glad to hear the door slam and Marlene tromping up the stairs.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Hey ho!” Marlene clattered in, bringing in a gust of fresh air and her own cheerful energy. “Hey, look at you! What’s up? Got a cold?”

  Clare ran her hands through her hair, scrubbing her scalp, trying to jolt her mind into the present. “Hi, Marlene. I’m fine. Just having a little brain stall.”

  Marlene hung her jacket on a hook. At the sink, she washed her hands. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”

  “More truffles, to start with.” Clare forced herself to focus. It helped that Marlene was around. Together they went into automatic work mode, working with the ganache they’d made from cream and chocolate.

  For a few hours, work required her complete concentration. By late afternoon, though, Clare felt wired and slightly anxious, as if she were infected with a fever. Several times she looked at Marlene, wanting to talk things over with her, but Marlene was a compulsive gossiper, and Clare didn’t want her private musings shared with the entire town.

  “Let’s stop for the day,” she told her employee. “You go on home. I’ll clean up.”

  “Sure?” Marlene asked.

  “Yeah. It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Great. Thanks! It’s so nice out, I can’t wait to get outside.”

  It was nice out? Clare realized she’d been so engrossed in her own thoughts she hadn’t even looked out the window. Now she did, and she saw how the day glowed. Pulling on her sweater, she hurried out into the sunny afternoon. She paused by the door to Lexi’s store.

  Moon Shell Beach. That shop was an entire dream world.

  Shoving her hands in her pants pockets, she ambled over the cobblestones toward the beach, trying to understand her emotions. She felt as if Lexi had stolen something from her. Had cared so little for their sacred fantasy that she was carelessly selling it to the world. Yet Clare had been the one, years ago, who had first grown up and away from their little beach.

  She arrived at the town pier, and stood on it a moment, looking around. A few sailboats drifted on the horizon and a fisherman motored steadily from the Sound toward the harbor. From Tris Chandler’s boatyard came the sound of voices and the revving of engines. Tris. She hoped he was all right. Somehow all right. Miracles did happen, men did wake up from amnesia, or from comas. It was possible that Tris had been injured when his boat sank and was now lying in a hospital, gradually healing. Clare whispered a prayer for Tris, and for Jewel.

  Jewel Chandler sat at the end of the pier, a small brave figure with her glowing red hair. Lexi sat next to her—they were playing cards. Jewel shouted triumphantly and Lexi laughed in response. It was so nice of Lexi to spend time with Jewel, Clare thought, and suddenly she was wistful. Why was Lexi doing this, spending time sitting on the end of a pier with a child, waiting for the impossible, for a man who was almost definitely lost to the sea to come sailing home? Was Lexi kinder than Clare? Or just most hopeful?

  She walked on, her thoughts churning. It had taken a certain kind of courage for Lexi to leave the island to marry Ed Hardin, and it had taken more courage for her to return to the island to start her business. It was like leaving the safety of shore and swimming into the ocean, hoping it wouldn’t take you under, hoping for that phenomenal lift and ride the waves gave, that breathtaking experience nothing else could provide. To throw yourself in wholeheartedly, surrendering to the waves, was always a bit of a risk.

  Somehow Lexi could do that in her life. Could Clare?

  Could she leave Jesse?

  Jesse had a sweetness about him that he would carry throughout his life. She did love him. But over the past few years that love had changed. Jesse had become a challenge for her, a contest. When he slept with someone else, she was betrayed. When he returned, she was triumphant. How sad, really. She didn’t want to live that way for the rest of her life.

  But she was almost thirty. She had invested so much time, emotion, and patience in sexy Jesse Gray, and they were both getting older. It was time to settle down and have children. Any baby of Jesse’s would be the cutest infant on the planet! All right, she was getting nesty like all her friends this age, but she was so close to marrying Jesse, so close to having his baby, could she really give that up?

  She didn’t want to hurt Jesse. But in her heart, she suspected that if she left him, he might not be destroyed. After his dramatic proposal of marriage almost two years ago, he had not suggested a wedding date, and he practically broke out in a rash when she mentioned children. Jesse was like a child himself, depending on her to keep him on the straight and narrow. He was like a caged beast, and she was his trainer, and if he purred under her gentle touch, still in his deepest nature, didn’t he yearn to range free? What would be the best for Jesse?

  And now, Adam. When she was with Jesse, she was always just a little anxious, trying to guess in advance what would make him happy, what would keep him with her. But with Adam, she felt so completely at home.

  Could that be because she’d had her first girlish crush on Adam? Was she simply revisiting old emotions?

  No. No, the way her body came alive when she looked at Adam, when she heard his voice, the way her breath caught in her throat when his hand touched hers—that was no childish memory. That was fiercely in the present, and completely transfixing.

  Clare gazed out at the harbor shimmering beneath the sun. She felt the same fierce physical tug on her body when she was with Adam that she thought the oceans felt from the moon. But there was more. Adam was the sensual pull of the tides, but he was also the safety of the waiting shore.

  In comparison, Jesse was a heron, a sleek free spirit, too wild to rest on the land, too restless to stay in one place.

  Perhaps Adam was not in love with her. But perhaps he was, and perhaps she could set Jesse free, and free herself as well.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jesse folded his napkin, leaned back in his chair, and patted his stomach. “Baby, you grill a mean steak.” Stretching out his lanky form, he lifted his legs, rested his feet on a chair, and yawned.

  Clare smiled. It had been such an odd couple of hours, eating dinner with this man, knowing that when the last bite was taken, she was going to say what she now said: “Thanks, Jesse. I’m glad you liked it. I have something to tell you, and I wanted you to be…comfortable while we talk.”

  “Oh, man.” Jesse looked wary. “Now what?”

  Her hands were shaking. When she returned from the beach, she wanted to do it right away—it was almost as if she’d already done it, and she wanted to move on, but she owed Jesse the dignity of a serious conversation. Her father was happily ensconced in front of a long PBS show. The door into the living room was shut. Ralphie lay next to Clare’s chair.

  She removed her engagement ring and set it on the kitchen table. “Jesse, I’m breaking off our engagement.”

  Jesse stared at her as if she’d just put the toaster on her head. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m breaking off with you, Jesse. For good. I don’t want to marry you, and I don’t want to be engaged to you, and I hope we’ll be friends, but—”

  Jesse’s feet thudded to the floor as he straightened. “Clare! What are you even talking about? I haven’t fooled around since we got engaged!” His tone was indignant.

  Softly, Clare
said, “Oh, honey, this isn’t about you fooling around. This is about me, and how I feel about you. How I feel about us. Jesse, I love you—”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “—but I’ve realized I’ve come to love you as if you were, oh, my brother, or a friend.”

  “A friend who can make you scream in bed.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But I want more than that for a marriage, Jesse. I want a nice, solid, boring marriage with a couple of kids and no dramas. And you want, well, for one thing, you want to travel.”

  “Oh. Right. I get it. You’ve been talking to Lexi.” Jesse balled up his paper napkin and threw it on the table. “Lexi’s got you all stirred up.”

  “Jesse, this has nothing in any way to do with Lexi. You told me yourself you didn’t want a dog because it would tie you down, keep you from traveling.”

  “Oh, hell, Clare, a man can have his dreams, can’t he?”

  “Absolutely, and I want you to have your dreams, Jesse. I want you to travel. But I want to stay here, and get married, and have children. And that’s not your dream. It’s never been your dream.”

  Jesse frowned and rubbed his forehead hard. “Well, Clare…” He struggled to express himself. “I love you. We’ve been together our entire adult lives.”

  Clare nodded. “Yes, that’s true. If you don’t count the weeks—the months—when you’ve been screwing someone else.”

  “I’m over that now. You know I am. I thought you understood that. I don’t know what I have to do to convince you that I’m through playing around, Clare. I can’t erase the past. I can’t undo what I’ve done. I can’t—” Jesse squirmed, agitated.

  “Jesse, calm down. I’m not talking about the past. I’m not even talking about sex. I’m talking about what I want out of life. What I want for the rest of my life.”

  The starch in her voice made Jesse take a deep breath. He studied her face. “You’re saying I’m not what you want for the rest of your life.”

  He looked like a little boy now, a sweet, innocent, sensitive little boy who couldn’t understand why he couldn’t have a puppy.

  “Yes, Jesse. I’m saying that. You’re not what I want for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be married to you.”

  “You don’t want to have children with me.”

  She caught her breath. Of course Jesse knew her most vulnerable point. His child, that darling tender blue-eyed baby, floated just beyond her vision, a dream she had had for more years than she could remember. “Oh, Jesse.” This was the hardest thing to surrender, the image she’d cherished for so many years, of Jesse’s baby in her arms, and her eyes filled with tears.

  Jesse jumped up from his chair, came around the table, and knelt next to Clare, putting his arm around her back. Next to him, Ralphie sat up, alert and worried, watching Clare with her wide, anxious doggie eyes.

  “Clare.” Jesse almost shook Clare in his desperation. “Clare. Look. Let’s go in the bedroom and get you pregnant right now.”

  She gulped. “Jesse, sweetie, no.” It was like she was explaining basic mathematics to a two-year-old. “If we had wanted to have a baby or get married and have a life together, we would have done it before now, and we just haven’t.”

  “Because we’ve been saving money!”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And it’s a good thing we haven’t, it’s all right, because we love each other, we care for each other, but we’re not meant to be married to each other.”

  Jesse stood up and paced around the kitchen, stomping in frustration. “You just said we love each other!”

  “We do, Jesse. That doesn’t mean we want to be married to each other. Think about it now, come on. Think.”

  “You know what I think, Clare? I think you’ve gone crazy.”

  She blew her nose and shoved her hair away from her face and pushed back her chair and stood. She took hold of Jesse and held him at arm’s length. “Look at me, Jesse Gray. I am sober and I am sane. I love you like a dear dear friend. But I know I’m not the right woman for you to marry, and I know you’re not the right man for me.”

  Jesse studied her face. He was all there, concentrated on her. Tears welled in his blue eyes. “Well, hell, Clare, this is just awful. This is just, well, it’s confusing.”

  She stroked his face tenderly, knowing it was probably the last time she’d touch him this intimately. “I know, honey. But you can figure it out. We can figure it out. It’s going to be fine. Better than fine. When you wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll feel set free.”

  He shook his head, then dipped his jaw so that his mouth was touching the palm of her hand. He kissed her hand. She let him, for a moment, looking at his familiar face with bittersweet affection.

  Jesse said, “Want to go to bed?”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Jesse, you are hopeless!”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to go to bed?”

  She moved away from him, laughing. “I don’t want to go to bed.”

  He put his hands on his hips, glaring at her. “You’re sleeping with someone else.”

  “I swear, Jesse. I’m not.”

  “Well, hell.” He shocked her when he turned suddenly and slammed his fist into the wall. Coffee cups and spoons jangled all over the kitchen. “Just how do we go on from here, Clare?”

  She shrugged. “You go to your house, I’ll stay here. We sleep. Tomorrow you can come over when I’m gone and get your things. I’ll work. You’ll work. By tomorrow evening you’ll have fifteen women lined up to console you in bed.”

  “I don’t want fifteen other women. I want you, Clare.”

  “I know that’s what you think, Jesse. But give yourself some time. This is the right choice for both of us. At least, I’m sure it’s the right choice for me.”

  Ralphie trailed nervously after her as she ushered Jesse to the door. Clare thought she would be exhausted, but she was weirdly charged up. Now that she had broken off with Jesse, she felt impatient. She wanted him gone.

  “I’m phoning you tomorrow, Clare, to see if you’ve changed your mind,” Jesse said.

  “I’m not changing my mind, Jesse.” She almost had to shove him out the door.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The phone rang just as Lexi came out of the shower. She considered not answering. It was late, and she was exhausted. Still…she picked up the phone.

  “Hey, Lexi, can I come over? I’ve got news.” Clare’s voice was warm, friendly, even exuberant.

  Lexi was confused. “Well, I don’t know what to say, Clare…”

  “Oh, Lexi, I’m so sorry about freaking out this morning, it was unforgivable of me, although I hope you’ll forgive me, of course. Listen, I love the name of your shop. That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  Warily, Lexi asked, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Oh, Lexi, please just let me come over!”

  “All right. Come over. I’ll put some coffee on.”

  “No. I’ll bring champagne.”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Ha! Not even close.” Clare’s laugh was musical.

  “You and Jesse eloped.” Lexi found herself smiling in response to Clare’s enthusiasm, and this conversation reminded her of childhood phone calls when they had so much to say they couldn’t seem to hang up in order to meet somewhere.

  “Colder and colder. No more guesses. I’m on my way!”

  Lexi pulled on a long-sleeved white T-shirt and a pair of plaid men’s boxer shorts. She spent a few moments trying to straighten her immensely chaotic living/office/warehouse space and finally settled on removing a box of padded hangers from one of the two armchairs by the window. Outside, darkness had fallen, and stars shone down like lighthouses in an unimaginably vast ocean. She couldn’t imagine what Clare had to say but the happiness in her voice was contagious.

  She saw Clare’s Sweet Hart’s van slam to a halt on the cobblestones and hurried down her back stairs to reach the door just
as Clare knocked.

  Lexi held the door wide. “Come in.”

  Clare didn’t waste a glance on the store, but raced up the stairs to Lexi’s living quarters. She wore khaki shorts and a chocolate-spotted white shirt and carried a bottle of champagne with her. “Glasses?” she asked.

  Lexi gestured around the room. “Juice glasses will have to do. I haven’t gotten around to unpacking things like crystal.”

  “Perfect. Fine.” Clare popped the cork, then hurried to hold the bottle over the sink as the bubbly liquid fizzed over the neck.

  Lexi gawked. If she hadn’t seen Clare in her extravagant states before, she’d worry about her now in this manic mood. She held out two glasses and waited.

  Clare poured the champagne. She held up her glass in a toast. “I’ve broken off with Jesse.”

  Lexi nearly fell over. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I did. And Lexi…I feel so happy! So free!”

  Lexi bit the inside of her lip. “What caused this breakup?”

  “I don’t know, Lexi. All sorts of things, I guess. Adam, certainly—and I swear on my life, if you mention this to Adam, I’ll truly never speak to you again—whatever happens between Adam and me is hands off to you, Lexi, okay?”

  Lexi leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Of course. I won’t say a thing to him.”

  “Okay, first, I guess, is Adam. I am just experiencing the most wonderful sensations, emotions—such clarity, such pleasure—when I’m with him. And maybe nothing will happen between the two of us, or maybe something will, but it made me realize how muddy and tired things had gotten between me and Jesse. How my whole spirit seemed to ache from holding on so tight, keeping Jesse on some kind of leash, and that was just so wrong for Jesse and wrong for me.” Clare couldn’t stand still; she gestured and turned and walked away and came back to face Lexi. “And you coming back. I don’t know, it could be that seeing you back here, knowing you got divorced and you’re happy and optimistic and starting over and oh, I don’t know, just throwing yourself onto Fate…well, I can do that, too! I want to do that.”