The Summer Girls

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “Ah, there you are,” her mother said, walking into the kitchen.

  Georgiana James never merely entered a room; she arrived. There was a rustle of fabric and an aura of sparks of energy radiating around her. Not to mention her perfume, which was like the blare of trumpets entering the room before her. As the executive editor of a major publishing house, Georgiana was always rushing—to meet a deadline, to meet someone for lunch or dinner, or to another in a string of endless meetings. When Georgiana wasn’t rushing off somewhere she was ensconced behind closed doors reading. In any case, Harper had seen little of her mother growing up. Now, at twenty-eight years of age, she worked as her mother’s private assistant. Though they lived together, Harper knew that she needed to make an appointment with her mother for a chat.

  “I didn’t expect you to still be here,” Georgiana said, pecking her cheek.

  “I was just leaving,” Harper replied, catching the hint of censure in the tone. Georgiana’s pale blue tweed jacket and navy pencil skirt fitted her petite frame impeccably. Harper glanced down at her own sleek black pencil skirt and gray silk blouse, checking for any loose thread or missing button that her mother’s hawk eye would pick up. Then, in what she hoped was a nonchalant move, she casually reached for the invitation that she’d foolishly propped up against the glass vase of flowers.

  Too late.

  “What’s that?” Georgiana asked, swooping down to grasp it. “An invitation?”

  Harper’s stomach clenched and, not replying, she glanced up at her mother’s face. It was a beautiful face, in the way that a marble statue was beautiful. Her skin was as pale as alabaster, her cheekbones prominent, and her pale red hair was worn in a blunt cut that accentuated her pointed chin. There was never a strand out of place. Harper knew that at work they called her mother “the ice queen.” Rather than be offended, Harper thought the name fit. She watched her mother’s face as she read the invitation, saw her lips slowly tighten and her blue eyes turn frosty.

  Georgiana’s gaze snapped up from the card to lock with Harper’s. “When did you get this?”

  Harper was as petite as her mother and she had her pale complexion. But unlike her mother’s, Harper’s reserve was not cold but more akin to the stillness of prey.

  Harper cleared her throat. Her voice came out soft and shaky. “Today. It came in the morning mail.”

  Georgiana’s eyes flashed and she tapped the card against her palm with a snort of derision. “So the Southern belle is turning eighty.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  “Why not?” Georgiana asked with a light laugh. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “It isn’t nice.”

  “Defensive, are we?” Georgiana said with a teasing lilt.

  “Mamaw writes that she’s moving,” Harper said, changing the subject.

  “She’s not fooling anyone. She’s tossing out that comment like bait to draw you girls in for some furniture or silver or whatever she has in that claptrap beach house.” Georgiana sniffed. “As if you’d be interested in anything she might call an antique.”

  Harper frowned, annoyed by her mother’s snobbishness. Her family in England had antiques going back several hundred years. That didn’t diminish the lovely American antiques in Mamaw’s house, she thought. Not that Harper wanted anything. In truth, she was already inheriting more furniture and silver than she knew what to do with.

  “That’s not why she’s invited us,” Harper argued. “Mamaw wants us all to come together again at Sea Breeze, one last time. Me, Carson, Dora . . .” She lifted her slight shoulders. “We had some good times there. I think it might be nice.”

  Georgiana handed the invitation back to Harper. She held it between two red-tipped fingers as though it were foul. “Well, you can’t go, of course. Mum and a few guests are arriving from England the first of June. She’s expecting to see you in the Hamptons.”

  “Mamaw’s party is on the twenty-sixth of May and Granny James won’t arrive until the following week. It shouldn’t be a problem. I can go to the party and be in the Hamptons in plenty of time.” Harper hurried to add, “I mean, it is Mamaw’s eightieth birthday after all. And I haven’t seen her in years.”

  Harper saw her mother straighten her shoulders, her nostrils flaring as she tilted her chin, all signs Harper recognized as pique.

  “Well,” Georgiana said, “if you want to waste your time, go ahead. I’m sure I can’t stop you.”

  Harper pushed away her plate, her stomach clenching at the warning implicit in the statement: If you go I will not be pleased. Harper looked down at the navy-trimmed invitation and rubbed her thumb against the thick vellum, feeling its softness. She thought again of the summers at Sea Breeze, of Mamaw’s amused, tolerant smile at the antics of the Summer Girls.

  Harper looked back at her mother and smiled cheerily. “All right then. I rather think I will go.”

  Four weeks later Carson’s battered Volvo wagon limped over the Ben Sawyer Bridge toward Sullivan’s Island like an old horse heading to the barn. Carson turned off the music and the earth fell into a hush. The sky over the wetlands was a panorama of burnt sienna, tarnished gold, and moody shades of blue. The few wispy clouds would not mar the great fireball’s descent into the watery horizon.

  She crossed the bridge and her wheels were on Sullivan’s Island. She was almost there. The reality of her decision made her fingers tap along the wheel in agitation. She was about to show up on Mamaw’s doorstep to stay for the entire summer. She sure hoped Mamaw had been sincere in that offer.

  In short order Carson had given up her apartment, packed everything she could in her Volvo, and put the rest into storage. Staying with Mamaw provided Carson with a sanctuary while she hunted for a job and saved a few dollars. It had been an exhausting three-day journey from the West Coast to the East Coast, but she’d arrived at last, bleary-eyed and stiff-shouldered. Yet once she left the mainland, the scented island breezes gave her a second wind.

  The road came to an intersection at Middle Street. Carson smiled at the sight of people sitting outdoors at restaurants, laughing and drinking as their dogs slept under the tables. It was early May. In a few weeks the summer season would begin and the restaurants would be overflowing with tourists.

  Carson rolled down the window and let the ocean breeze waft in, balmy and sweet smelling. She was getting close now. She turned off Middle Street onto a narrow road heading away from the ocean to the back of the island. She passed Stella Maris Catholic Church, its proud steeple piercing a periwinkle sky.

  The wheels crunched to a stop on the gravel and Carson’s hand clenched around the can of Red Bull she’d been nursing.

  “Sea Breeze,” she murmured.

  The historic house sat amid live oaks, palmettos, and scrub trees overlooking the beginning of where Cove Inlet separated Charleston Harbor from the Intracoastal Waterway. At first peek, Sea Breeze seemed a modest wood-framed house with a sweeping porch and a long flight of graceful stairs. Mamaw had had the original house raised onto pilings to protect it from tidal surges during storms. It was at that same time that Mamaw had added to the house, restored the guest cottage, and repaired the garage. This hodgepodge collection of wood-frame buildings might not have had the showy grandeur of the newer houses on Sullivan’s, Carson thought, but none of those houses could compare with Sea Breeze’s subtle, authentic charm.

  Carson turned off the lights, closed her bleary eyes, and breathed out in relief. She’d made it. She’d journeyed twenty-five hundred miles and could still feel the rolling of them in her body. Sitting in the quiet car, she opened her eyes and stared out the windshield at Sea Breeze.

  “Home,” she breathed, tasting the word on her lips. Such a strong word, laden with meaning and emotion, she thought, feeling suddenly unsure. Did birth alone give her the right to make that claim on this place? She was only a granddaughter, and not a very attentive one at that. Though, unlike the other girls, for her, Mamaw was more than a grandmother. She
was the only mother Carson had ever known. Carson had been only four years old when her mother died and her father left her to stay with Mamaw while he went off to lick his wounds and find himself again. He came back for her four years later to move to California, but Carson had returned every summer after that until she was seventeen. Her love for Mamaw had always been like that porch light, the one true shining light in her heart when the world proved dark and scary.

  Now, seeing Sea Breeze’s golden glow in the darkening sky, she felt ashamed. She didn’t deserve a warm welcome. She’d visited a handful of times in the past eighteen years—two funerals, a wedding, and a couple of holidays. She’d made too many excuses. Her cheeks flamed as she realized how selfish it was of her to assume that Mamaw would always be here, waiting for her. She swallowed hard, facing the truth that she likely wouldn’t even have come now except that she was broke and had nowhere else to go.

  Her breath hitched as the front door opened and a woman stepped out onto the porch. She stood in the golden light, straight-backed and regal. In the glow, her wispy white hair created a halo around her head.

  Carson’s eyes filled as she stepped from the car.

  Mamaw lifted her arm in a wave.

  Carson felt the tug of connection as she dragged her suitcase in the gravel toward the porch. As she drew near, Mamaw’s blue eyes shone bright and welcoming. Carson let go of her baggage and ran up the stairs into Mamaw’s open arms. She pressed her cheek against Mamaw’s, was enveloped in her scent, and all at once she was four years old again, motherless and afraid, her arms tight around Mamaw’s waist.

  “Well now,” Mamaw said against her cheek. “You’re home at last. What took you so long?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Marietta Muir hated birthdays. In a few days she was turning eighty years old. She shuddered.

  She stood on the rooftop porch of her beach house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, which was serene this morning and caressing the shoreline like an old friend. How many summers had she spent in the embrace of that body of water? she wondered. Never enough.

  Marietta’s fingers tapped the porch railing. There was no point in fussing about her birthday now. After all, she herself had made the party arrangements and invited her granddaughters to Sullivan’s Island. But what choice did she have but to make her eightieth birthday an event? How many times over the years had she invited her granddaughters to her island house, and how many times had they replied with excuses? Marietta thought of the letters she’d received, each written in a script as different in personality and style from the others as the girls themselves, yet each filled with the same excuses. Oh, Mamaw! I’m so sorry! I’d love to come, but . . . The exclamation marks at the ends of the excuses made the apologies feel all the more insincere. How else could she wrangle three recalcitrant young women from all over the country to travel to South Carolina to visit?

  When they were young they loved coming to Sea Breeze. Once adolescence was over, however, they all became too engrossed in their grown-up lives. Dora got married and became, quite frankly, overwhelmed with all the demands of her son and husband. Carson’s ambition had her flying all over the world with her camera. And Harper . . . Who knew? She had slipped away into her mother’s camp, ignoring letters, sending perfunctory thank-you notes for gifts received, never calling. The simple truth was that since the girls had become women, they rarely visited their grandmother.

  Marietta’s fingertips tapped along the porch railing. Well, at least they were all coming this time, even if it was perhaps her subtle promise of loot that had lured them in. The little pirates . . . It was well known that the founding father of the celebrated line of sea captains in the family’s long and illustrious history was, in fact, a pirate. It was never talked about in polite society, but it was quietly understood that the family’s subsequent wealth sprang from the seed of that buccaneer’s bounty.

  Her thinning lips pursed in worry. What she had not mentioned in her letter was that she would also be unearthing family secrets, especially about their father. In her long life she’d learned that those dark and musty facts always had a way of leaching out and fouling lives. Best to air them out, while she still had time.

  Time—that was at the crux of her invitation. She’d invited her granddaughters to her birthday party. She hoped they would agree to spend the entire summer. They simply had to, she thought with a twinge of anxiety. She clasped her hands together. Please God, let them agree to stay for one final season.

  Marietta looked at her hands, which were graced with a large, mine-cut diamond. Ah, the ravages of time, she thought. Back in the day, her hands had been smooth and graceful, not withered as they were now. It pained her to see the wrinkled skin, the dark spots, the way her once-long fingers curled around the railing like an old crone’s claw. Old age could be so humbling.

  But she didn’t feel old—certainly not as old as eighty. That was much older than she’d ever dreamed of being. Older than her mother or father had ever been, and many of her friends. Or her beloved husband, Edward, who had passed a decade earlier. And even her darling son, Parker. She’d thought she’d die herself when he did. A parent should never have to survive the death of a child. But she had survived, for quite a long time. And in her mind, she was not old Marietta or young Marietta. She was simply Marietta.

  The aches and pains were real enough, though, as were her fading eyesight and her inability to remember names. Marietta took in one last sweeping view. From high on the roof deck of her house, Sea Breeze, Marietta could see beyond the front row of island houses and the thick expanse of maritime shrubs far out to the golden beach. When she’d first come to Sea Breeze as a young bride, there were no houses between hers and the ocean. Now another two rows of houses crammed the narrow space before the beach. But from the roof deck she still could look over the obstructing rooftops to see the same view of shimmering ocean. The azure water mirrored a cloudless sky and white-tipped waves rolled ashore at an unhurried pace, tossing sand as ancient and teeming with mystery as time itself.

  She laughed ruefully. As ancient as herself.

  “Miz Marietta!”

  Oh bother, Marietta thought. Lucille was no doubt upset to discover she’d snuck up to the rooftop again. Marietta turned from the rooftop railing to look anxiously down the steep stairs. When she was young she would race like a gazelle up these same stairs each morning, breathless with anticipation to peer out at the condition of the sea. Backbone, she told herself as she gripped the stair railing tight. Marietta tentatively, slowly, began her way down the narrow stairwell. She was met halfway by Lucille. Her maid’s dark, round eyes flashed as she looked up at Marietta.

  “Lucille, you gave me a start!” Marietta exclaimed, tightening her grip on the railing.

  “I gave you a start? What do you mean, running up and down those stairs like a girl? You could fall! And with your bones, that’d be the end of it. I’m out of breath racing to get here once I figured out where you snuck off to.” She climbed a few steps closer and placed a firm grip on Marietta’s arm. “I can’t let you be on your own for one minute without you getting yourself into trouble.”

  “Nonsense,” Marietta scoffed, accepting Lucille’s support. “I’ve gone up and down those same stairs for longer than I can remember.”

  Lucille snorted. “And you remember a long, long time, too. You ain’t that young girl no more, Miz Marietta, no matter what you think. You promised me you’d let me know when you was heading up to that roof. I got to come with you, so’s you don’t fall.”

  “And what would you do if I did fall?” Marietta asked archly. “You’re as old as I am. We’d both fall into a heap of broken bones.”

  “Not as old . . .” Lucille mumbled as she reached the landing of the porch, then guided Marietta down the final steps.

  Marietta didn’t like being watched and tended like some child. She’d always prided herself on her independence. As she prided herself on having her own opinions and not being shy to offe
r them. When she reached floor level, she pulled back her shoulders and shook off Lucille’s hold, sniffing. “I know exactly how old you are. You’re sixty-nine and every bit the old coot I am.”

  Lucille chuckled and ruefully shook her head. “I am that,” she conceded, “but I’ll take every year I can, thank you very much.”

  Marietta gazed at Lucille standing across from her, arms resolutely locked across her breast. They stood almost eye to eye and took each other’s measure. Marietta was as long and sleek as an egret. Her cropped white hair feathered her head and when she stood silent and watching, as she did now, she appeared as regal as that elegant marsh bird.

  In contrast, Lucille was as compact and stout as a well-fed marsh hen. Her once-shimmering black hair was more white now, but her large dark eyes still gleamed with the stubbornness and guile of that gregarious bird. And Lord knew her cackle was as harsh. Though she was nearly seventy, Lucille’s skin was as smooth as polished ebony, and it had been Marietta’s secret mission for years to get Lucille to divulge what ointments kept her aging skin so supple. Lucille had been hired as Marietta’s maid some fifty years earlier and had faithfully tended the Muir home and family on East Bay in Charleston. When Marietta sold the great house and moved permanently to Sea Breeze, Lucille had come with her.

  Today Lucille was more a companion than a maid. Lucille knew every secret in Marietta’s life and stood as a fierce gatekeeper at her door. Marietta sometimes thought Lucille knew too much about her and her family. She felt vaguely uncomfortable that there was one person intimately involved in her life whom she couldn’t hoodwink. Only Lucille was allowed to make the wry comments that could shatter Marietta’s illusions or state the bald truth, no matter how harsh it was for Marietta to hear. Marietta trusted Lucille implicitly and her loyalty to Lucille was unquestioned. They were, in fact, devoted to one another.

  Marietta strode from the porch with purpose. The west wing was original to the old beach house. It was a warren of three rooms: one she and Edward had slept in, one had been Parker’s room, and the wide room with heart-pine paneling, bookshelves, and paintings of hunting dogs had been the den. Years later when Marietta had expanded the house and Parker’s three daughters came for summers, the girls laid claim to the west wing by virtue of squatter’s rights. In her mind she could still hear the giggling and squeals. The poor men were chased out of their lair, grumbling about hormones and the vanities of youth.