The Bridge Tender

by Marybeth Whalen

  Xandra stood behind the podium and gave the crowd the megawatt smile the world had come to love. Kyle might’ve bailed on Hollywood, but Xandra had stayed and made her mark long after the movie that began both their careers had become a cable channel mainstay. She’d been nominated for awards, gotten a star on the walk of fame, become a humanitarian with multiple charities she funded. Xandra, much as one might want to hate her, seemed to be lovely inside and out. Emily had never guessed that she and Kyle stayed in touch—not after he left her behind to take refuge in this small coastal haven. And yet as a look passed between them, it was clear that they had. There was obvious affection there, and Emily knew right then that her chances had slipped from zero to negative ten.

  “Unbelievable,” she heard Claire say. As Xandra began to speak, Claire excused herself from the meeting and awkwardly navigated through the tight maze of chairs and out the door. But no one watched her go. Everyone was too focused on what Xandra had to say. As she listened, Emily couldn’t help but wonder what had upset Claire enough to leave.

  “I was asked to come here by a dear friend who cares very much about this island,” Xandra said. Flashes went off as people began taking shots with cell phones and their own cameras, commemorating a celebrity sighting in Sunset Beach. Kyle, Emily knew, didn’t count as such to the citizens. As a hometown boy who’d long since blended back in, he didn’t hold the allure that this beautiful woman did. He certainly hadn’t achieved the same kind of fame she had, and Emily wondered if sometimes he wondered if he’d made the right call by coming back and giving up on the movie business.

  “I’m sure most of us can attest to the fact that, when someone we care about cares about something, we can be drawn into the cause—whatever it is—by their passion. When my friend Kyle called me this past week to ask if I could come and speak out on behalf of keeping the swing bridge, I told him sure.” She paused and flashed that smile that had made her famous, baring her perfect white teeth and razor-sharp cheekbones as she did. “Kyle loves that bridge and has spent the last several years quietly working as a bridge tender, choosing this quiet, anonymous life over one of fame and fortune. His work is truly a labor of love. To think of that love being all for nothing—that the bridge could be removed by the state and replaced by a large, impersonal bridge with no sense of history—is unacceptable. And so I have come here tonight to voice my support—both personal and financial—to saving the bridge.” Xandra turned to the state officials lined up along one side of the crowd and gave a succinct nod, as if that summed it all up and the decision was made. Emily had to hand it to her, she sure knew how to command a room.

  Xandra summoned Kyle, who ducked his head with good-ole-boy bashfulness and shuffled up to take his place behind the podium. Emily was probably imagining things but she could swear he had absorbed some of Xandra’s celebrity light. He was positively glowing as he stood under the lights, looking like a natural with the cameras trained on him. If the bridge did close, Emily thought, he could definitely head back to Hollywood. Maybe he had plans to do just that. Her heart sunk at the thought.

  “I hope that as this story hits the different news outlets, this issue will hit home with people beyond our little community. I hope that people who care about this state’s history will let their representatives know that we need to preserve this bridge. It might be sentimental, and I might be all heart. But if we stop thinking with our hearts, we’ve lost who we are, as a state and as human beings.”

  At that moment Kyle found Emily in the crowd, his eyes resting on her so briefly that she would spend the rest of the evening convincing herself it was just a coincidence and hadn’t meant a thing. No man was going to give her a second glance with the lovely and talented Xandra Noble standing by his side. Not to mention the fact that Xandra had flown cross-country to stand up for the bridge while Emily had left a comment against the bridge online like a coward, too fearful to admit to Kyle how she really felt about the bridge or anything else. In every way, Xandra was the clear winner. Emily needed to forget all about him and burn that particular bridge. The irony made her smile as the meeting broke up and people flocked to the front to shake the hand of Xandra Noble, asking her and Kyle to pose for pictures and sign their “Save the Bridge” flyers.

  “Okay, so I’m just going to say this once but, wow. It’s them. Together. Here,” Marta said. Emily started to say something in response but Marta held up her hand. “Nope, don’t wanna hear it. I’m done talking about it.” She patted Emily’s shoulder and cast a sympathetic look in the direction of Kyle and Xandra. “Sorry, hon. But that’s a hard act to follow.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Don’t I know it,” she agreed. “Let’s just get out of here.” She stood. “I want to go find Claire anyway. She sure got out of here in a hurry.”

  Marta and Phil stood. “Yeah, all this celebrity brilliance is hurting my eyes anyway,” she said, making a visor with her hands and pretending to shield her eyes. Emily laughed and they started to work their way through the crowd.

  “Why did Claire leave?” Marta asked.

  Emily shook her head. “She doesn’t care for Kyle. Actually, they both make no bones about their lack of love for one another, but I have no idea why. I guess it made Claire mad that he was using his celebrity status to garner support for the bridge.”

  “Yeah, but if it helps the bridge I’d think she wouldn’t care.”

  Emily nodded. “You would think. But I’m learning one thing about Sunset. Things don’t always make sense here.”

  Phil spoke for the first time since before the meeting began—an uncharacteristically quiet few minutes for him. “Sweetie, that’s not just Sunset. That’s the whole world.” They walked silently for the rest of the way toward their car, Emily pondering what Phil had said, begrudgingly admitting he was right. Things rarely did make sense in this world, and yet Emily was still compelled to look for the logic and the reason at every turn, around every corner. Maybe, she thought as they waited for their turn to cross the bridge, to grow up was to stop attempting to find sense and just start embracing the nonsense. Maybe maturity meant you stopped expecting life to fall into place. Maybe instead of her chicken salad being the key to life, it was that simple truth.

  Emily stood in the tiny corner dressing room at Victoria’s Ragpatch, studying herself in the full-length mirror as Marta waited outside. “Well?” her friend asked from behind the curtain that didn’t quite hide the dressing area from the rest of the store, but did a good enough job. Emily felt self-conscious changing in the small space, fearing exposure. She checked out the dress Marta had talked her into trying. It was a bit more daring than the clothes she usually chose for herself, but that was to be expected when Marta was in charge.

  “I want to buy you something in exchange for this amazing weekend we’ve had,” her friend had said that morning after breakfast. No matter how much she had argued that Marta and Phil didn’t need to pay her back, she kept insisting until Emily gave up and agreed to go shopping. Hardly the retail mecca that nearby Myrtle Beach was, the two had ended up at the upscale boutique near Ocean Isle, exclaiming over the unique beachwear hidden inside its unassuming exterior. “I am so coming here to shop for my honeymoon,” Marta said more than once.

  And now Emily studied herself in the mirror contemplating Marta’s choice. It wasn’t the way the dress looked. It was the way it looked on her. And it wasn’t that the dress looked bad. It looked nice, she supposed, flattering to her figure. Emily had worn the same size since high school, her weight fluctuating up or down a few pounds depending on what she was going through (there really was such a thing as fat and happy in her case) but never enough to do any real damage.

  Her mother used to warn her about what would happen when she had kids, speaking ominously about the havoc pregnancy wreaked on a woman’s body. But with Ryan gone, that didn’t seem likely so she supposed she had nothing to worry about there. And yet as she turned from side to side and debated the purchase, all she could
think of was how Xandra Noble would look in that dress. No matter how much she stared at her own reflection, she knew she could never measure up to that standard. The thought made her sad, even though Kyle was out of her life before Xandra showed up. Xandra’s appearance—the way she smiled at him and the way he looked at her—only confirmed it. They were beautiful people, a former couple, and they belonged together. A better person, Emily told herself, would wish them well and forget that one little jaunt to Southport had ever happened.

  But Emily found it hard to forget.

  “Are you ever coming out of there?” Marta sighed from behind the curtain. “How bad can it be?”

  Emily obliged and pushed the curtain open to give Marta a glimpse of herself in the dress. “Vavavavoom!” Marta said, her voice so loud in the small store that heads turned. She added in a low voice, “Hubba hubba.” Emily blushed and shook her head.

  Marta threw up her hands and the onlookers turned back to their shopping. “You have got to let me get you that dress. It looks amazing on you, and since it’s our last night here, we’re taking you out to dinner. And you’re totally wearing the dress. We’ll go to the restaurant where the meeting was last night. I heard people saying it’s a little more upscale and the food’s good. I mean, I love Calabash of course, but I’m not thinking that dress and fried seafood go together, ya know? Oh! Maybe we’ll get to sit out on that balcony that overlooks the intercoastal.” She sighed dreamily. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Since Marta and Phil got engaged, Emily had noticed, it didn’t take much to make Marta happy, her voice hovering constantly at that wistful level. Emily was working hard to rectify this Marta with her old friend, the snarky, jaded, “romance is dead” version of the same girl. The new Marta snapped the curtain shut between them and ordered her to change out of the dress so she could pay for it. Emily obeyed, looking once more in the mirror before changing back into her faded denim shorts and polo shirt.

  Marta was right. She did look pretty. Maybe not moviestar pretty but pretty. The dress showed off her tanned legs and accented her curves without being too clingy. And it was a pretty hot pink and vivid blue pattern that was bright and fun. She had some sandals at home that would match perfectly. She would go out tonight and make the best of the evening, forgetting about the newspaper headline Phil had showed her this morning, the Brunswick Beacon touting Xandra’s arrival in their little town and speculating about Kyle’s relationship with her. Before she’d turned away from the article, not wanting to see any more, she’d noticed the paper had used a photo of the two of them from years ago, paired with a photo of them from the night before. In both photos he had his arm around her impossibly small waist, their smiles wide and bright, a matched set. Maybe, Emily thought now as she handed off the dress to Marta, he would return to Hollywood with her. Maybe he was already gone.

  Twenty-Three

  Emily emerged from the house wearing her new dress and feeling good—really good—about things for the first time in quite a while, as long as she didn’t think about the babysitting fiasco, Amber’s exit, or Xandra’s entrance. She expected to find Marta and Phil waiting on the porch as they had said they would be, but instead saw them both in the yard next door, their heads bent toward Claire, their eyes darting over to Emily’s house, faces concerned as all their mouths seemed to move at once. When Marta’s eyes met Emily’s and darted quickly away, she knew something was amiss. And all that good feeling she’d mustered whooshed out of her like one of Noah’s beach balls with the valve opened. Always the actress, Marta plastered on a bright smile and waved her over. “We’ve been getting to know Claire,” she called out.

  When Emily reached them, Marta wrapped her arm around her shoulders and squeezed in a most un-Marta-like display. “She’s been filling us in on all things Sunset Beach. We just love it here,” she said. Marta’s happiness was over the top and unnatural, but Emily seemed to be the only one who noticed. Claire and Phil just stood by, their grins doing nothing to hide whatever it was they were up to.

  She glanced at all of them, wishing someone would fill her in on the real story. What had they been talking about so earnestly? She had a feeling it was her, or something to do with her. And yet she also didn’t want to know. “Well, I’m finally ready,” she said. “Are you guys?” They weren’t the only ones who could act like all was well. After all, Emily had had over a year’s worth of practice.

  “We are ready!” Marta sang back. “And don’t you just look amazing.” She turned to seek Claire and Phil’s agreement. “Doesn’t she just look amazing?”

  They both nodded vigorously, a couple of mute bobblehead dolls on Claire’s lawn. Emily idly wondered where the children and Rick were. Then she wondered again what they were talking about. Then she decided she didn’t really like her two worlds colliding—her at home world with her Sunset Beach world. The two were meant to run on parallel but separate tracks, like those lines in her geometry book in high school. Those lines never converged because they weren’t supposed to. She made a mental note to call her mother and let her know a visit wasn’t the best idea. Not with everything going wrong. Emily wasn’t so sure she wanted to stay any longer herself.

  “Well.” She gave them her best fake smile. “Let’s get going. I’m st—I’m hungry.” At school she always told her students not to say they were starving, because none of them truly knew what starving was, and yet those very words nearly escaped from her lips. She was so off her game.

  “Bye, you guys,” Claire called after them as they trailed off to the car. “Have a nice night. We’ll just be here shooting some fireworks.” She put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. It’s a secret.”

  Fireworks were illegal but easy enough to get away with, considering they were plentiful just over the South Carolina state line. And during the month of July, they could be heard all up and down the beach. Sometimes at night Emily would catch a few zooming above the water, their red, blue, green, and yellow bursts reflected there. It was pretty and no one minded a little law breaking if it was all in good fun.

  She waved good-bye to Claire and closed the car door to the rear passenger seat, studying Marta’s and Phil’s heads as they pulled away. Soon a child of theirs—maybe even children if all went as planned, and Emily bet that all would go as planned if Phil had anything to do with it—would occupy this spot. She wondered what life would hold for the two of them. Wondered if their marriage would be happy, their future blessed. It wasn’t that she wished them ill. It was just that sometimes she wished for someone who understood her pain, who could share in the loss she’d sustained in a way that was sympathetic and not just empathetic. People always thought they knew how she felt—and said as much. But she suspected that only those who had actually lost someone like she had—someone they loved more than life—could truly know the hole it created, could give voice to the way it felt when the wind blew through, as it still did.

  When they drove over the bridge, she didn’t turn to see if Kyle was there. She was forcing herself to stop that habit. She didn’t need to see what didn’t involve her any longer. She wished they would tear out this old bridge, and the bridge tender house with it. Without a bridge, there would be no bridge tender, and without a bridge tender, he would be free to leave. Maybe that was what everyone needed, permission to go. She leaned her head against the car window and wondered just where she would go if she had permission. She studied the water and thought that she was where she was supposed to go, and yet the place had offered none of the solace she had thought she’d find. It was starting to occur to her that there was simply no way out of grief, no bridge that could get her there.

  There was a line in front of the restaurant, a crowd of people milling around on the front porch waiting their turn for a table. Phil had, of course, thought ahead and made reservations so they were shown to their table almost immediately. Phil gave them a knowing smile as they followed the hostess to a lovely table upstairs, in the same room they’d used for the meetings, now se
t up once again for diners. “It’s not the balcony, but I guess we can’t have everything,” Phil said, pulling Marta’s chair out for her. When he reached out to do the same for Emily, she declined and grabbed her own chair. It made a horrible screeching noise when she tugged too hard on it, and other patrons glanced over with dramatic grimaces. She took a quick seat, chastised, and busied herself with arranging her cloth napkin in her lap, her mother’s instructions from childhood echoing in her mind as they always did when she was out to eat.

  Sit up straight.

  Put your napkin in your lap.

  Be aware of where each piece of silver goes, and what order in which to use them.

  No elbows on the table.

  Think of things to keep the conversation going.

  And please, above all, remember who you are.

  Embarrassment was a fate worse than death to her mother, who worked overtime to make sure her husband the pastor was always in good standing. Sometimes Emily looked at her mother and felt very sorry for her. Sometimes she wanted to shake her. This summer had been a good break from all of that and, beyond a phone call every few days to check on things, she dared say her parents had enjoyed the break from her, their grieving daughter. Emily knew she hadn’t made the most socially acceptable widow. She wondered if her parents would’ve been surprised to hear she’d gone out on a date. Of course her mother would’ve wanted a complete religious history on Kyle, preferably with a written testimony of his decision to follow Christ. She and Kyle had scarcely gotten that far. But he had thought to bless the food before they ate that night.

  Marta’s hand gripped her arm, knocking her out of her reverie just in time. “Don’t look now,” she said through gritted teeth. “But the movie stars are out on the balcony having what looks to be a private dinner.” She leaned over and elbowed Phil. “No wonder we didn’t get to go out there. No one did.”