The merchandise at Beachy Keen ran the gamut from practical to pathetic. The practical items you could easily buy almost anywhere else for half the price: low, webbed beach chairs, sun hats, dark glasses, flip-flops. CVS was less than a mile away, had a better selection of these items, and had started running sales the minute the temperature climbed above sixty. Then there was jewelry made out of lacquered shells and what was alleged to be “genuine beach glass” but was really broken bottles that had been processed for a few days in giant drums of sand and water in Ohio or some other landlocked state. When Mandy had asked why they didn’t just use the real thing, Elaine had snapped that since everyone was too PC to litter, there wasn’t enough of it on the beaches anymore. There were bottles and jars filled with different-colored sand that Elaine had labeled “beach art.” Incomprehensibly, these were among the best-selling items in the store. They were ugly, and although Elaine had put a sign on their shelf alleging they had been made by “sand artists,” Mandy had seen the boxes they’d come in, clearly indicating they’d been mass-produced in Bangladesh.
Mandy took her duster and wandered over to the most radioactive area in the store—the shelves for this summer’s “Signature Item.” Signature or not, the Beach Trees were definitely the most pointless items in the store. They were spindly trees made out of toxic synthetic material that had on the ends of the branches tiny beach chairs and umbrellas and sunglasses and fake seashells instead of leaves. When Elaine had hired Mandy, she’d shown them to her proudly and told her they were going to fly off the shelves. She’d gotten a good price on them by agreeing to a nonreturnable deal with the distributor. “I can’t tell you how excited I am about these,” Elaine had said in a moment of enthusiastic bonding before she realized how much she distrusted Mandy. Mandy saw now that she should have forced out a “me, too!”
So far, Mandy had sold about ten Beach Trees, and one person had come back to complain that the “leaves” had fallen off five minutes after she walked out the door.
Elaine’s office was directly across from the shelves with the Signature Item, probably so she could make sure no one stole them. As if that would be a problem. Mandy heard her voice through the closed door, talking in her manic way. From what she could make out, she was complaining with another storeowner about slow business. But when she heard “Airbnb” clearly and more than once, she stepped closer to the office.
“Exactly. And why else would so many cities be trying to legislate against it? Exactly. If they’re too cheap to pay for a hotel room, they’re not likely to shop downtown. How many people have signed?”
As Mandy was stepping back, the door to Elaine’s office opened, and Elaine stood there, holding the phone pressed against her chest. “Can I help you with something, Mandy?”
“I was dusting. The Beach Trees. Like you asked.”
Elaine wasn’t buying that, but it was partly true, and she had no way of proving it wasn’t.
“I’m guessing you didn’t make the quota today.”
“I tried,” Mandy said. This was true, humiliating as it was. Elaine had set a goal of selling fifteen Beach Trees a day. “I sold one and had serious interest from two other people. They said they’d come back tomorrow.”
Elaine was boring into her with her eyes. She was a pretty woman, another reason Mandy couldn’t understand her moodiness.
“Why don’t you take off now,” she said. “I was planning to close early anyway. The town is dead. And, Mandy, if you’re not going to wear something beachy, can you at least wear something less depressing than those overalls?”
These were the longest days of the year, and despite Elaine’s comments about the lack of tourists in town, the streets were jammed with people. It was true that at this time of afternoon people tended to forage for crap they could eat, not crap to clutter up their houses. Mandy looked up and down the main street as she almost always did now, wondering if Craig Crespo would drive by. He was one of those people who appeared out of nowhere, as he had a couple of days ago, pulling up beside her, leaning out and saying, “Did you get fired yet? Ready to work for me?” and then driving off before she had a chance to respond.
Tonight, no sign of him. She had a feeling Elaine wouldn’t keep her through the summer, assuming the store didn’t fold before August. It was just like her to blame Airbnb for slow business when it was obviously the crazy merchandise and inflated prices. Mandy thought that a lot of Elaine’s stress and discontent had to do with her husband. He’d come into the store one afternoon. He was athletic, clean-cut, and handsome, like someone who’d had Olympic ambitions when he was in high school but had dislocated a shoulder at exactly the wrong moment. He was in “sales,” whatever that meant, and there was something in the restless, flirty way he’d been with Mandy that made her think it was only a matter of time before Elaine found out he’d had an affair with a babysitter in town. They didn’t have any kids, and Mandy was positive that had been his decision, not Elaine’s.
When she got home, David and her mother were sitting on the front porch in rocking chairs and he was reading aloud to her from the book she’d left on his bed. Her mother had her eyes closed and was grinning as she listened, and looked so relaxed, Mandy felt she’d actually done something right for once in her stupid life. By her calculations, David was scheduled to leave in two days, but there was no sign of that happening.
When David spotted her, he put the book down and stood up. “I’ve been waiting for you. No excuses. We have to get started tonight. We’re running out of time.”
“You could stay on a little longer,” Mandy said. She knew she sounded too eager, but maybe he’d be flattered.
“He is staying on,” Julie said. “But since we don’t know for how long, you’d better get to work. Everything takes longer than you think.”
“Your plan worked, Mandy.”
“What plan?”
“Stalling, refusing to settle down, leaving that book in my room. I have to stay until we get to the end. Let’s go inside. And, Julie, no listening in. Maybe take Opal for a walk?”
Mandy had been dreading this moment, even though she was the one who’d invited him to Beauport. She felt somehow that all her weaknesses and flaws were going to be exposed as they discussed college, her lack of direction, and her shameful absence of talent, which was maybe the thing she liked least about herself. But sooner or later, she was going to have to face it.
She followed him into the cool, dark dining room. There were only stained-glass windows here, high up on one paneled wall and facing the hedge. It was always shadowy and quiet. He’d set up papers and folders on the table, all of which looked surprisingly official to her, considering how informal he was when they talked and how she’d only seen him in his beat-up corduroys and long-sleeved blue or white shirts with the cuffs rolled up. Tonight it was blue.
He handed her a folder that was labeled THE SEVEN STEPS TO YOUR FUTURE, with her name below in marker.
“Seven steps?” she said. “How long is this going to take?”
“We won’t do it all at once. Mostly that’s just so I can charge my clients more money, which obviously isn’t an issue here.”
“You aren’t sorry you came, are you?”
“No, of course not.” He looked so surprised as he said it, she trusted he was being honest. “I’ve loved being here.”
“Why?” She had a burning need to know.
“Among other things, I’ve lost four pounds. Your mother has been dragging me on long walks after dinner. And it’s given me a feeling of purpose, which isn’t something I realized I needed so badly until I got here.”
She studied him as he said this. She knew she’d been around adult men who didn’t have children, but she wasn’t sure who they were. Even Amira’s husband supposedly had children from another marriage stashed away somewhere. Craig didn’t have kids as far as she knew, but then, he didn’t come off as an adult either. Maybe childlessness was what made David feel purposeless. If he needed a mi
ssion in the form of a needy child to take care of, he had his hands full with her mother.
“I appreciate your interest in me,” he said, “but we’re here to talk about you. For starters, why don’t you tell me what you like least about high school?”
“The bottom of the incredibly long list? Probably the gossip—in person, online, social media.”
“Funny,” he said. “I love gossip. I like hearing about people’s lives. It’s what I like best about my job. If I had my life to do over again—which I’m guessing is unlikely—I’d study psychology.”
Something came into her head that she’d been mulling over for days without fully realizing it. Before she could stop herself, she said, “If you had your life to live over again, would you still ask Mom to marry you?”
He took off his round reading glasses and studied her face. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Because you’re gay?”
“I suppose that’s the main reason, yes.”
She reached into the pocket on the leg of her overalls and pulled out the old photo of her mother and David and their dog that she’d found months ago. She looked at it briefly. She’d grown more attached to the photo since she’d found it and she really wanted the happy, free look on her mother’s face to count for something. If he said no, that he wouldn’t have married her, it would negate the whole thing. She slid the photo across the table to him. He put his glasses back on and studied it for a moment as his face softened.
“I see your point,” he said as he passed it back to her. “We had a lot of happy times, and no, I wouldn’t trade them. So I guess the answer is yes, I would. Does that make you feel better?”
She fell back into her chair as if she’d been relieved of a great weight. “I think she might have a secret boyfriend.”
“Good for her. I hope she does. What about you? Do you have a secret boyfriend?”
He asked it casually, as if he was setting a trap. She figured it was best to change the subject.
“To be clear, my mother hasn’t said anything about it, but one weekend when I came back from my father’s, she seemed a little different. Like she was happier but trying not to show it.”
“Maybe you’re not as averse to gossip as you claim.”
“Maybe. Which step are we on now?” she asked.
“We’re farther along than you think. I work stealthily.” He took out some more papers from his folders and said, “Your grades are decent.”
“Meaning not great?”
“I think you know that. We’ll hear in a few weeks about your SAT scores. That should give us a better idea of appropriate schools.” He closed up his computer and put away his glasses. She was surprised the interview seemed to be at an end. For some reason, it disappointed her. She felt she’d let him down. “You know this means a lot to your mother, don’t you?”
“I think it means more to my father.”
“If you mean he cares about your education more than she does, you’re wrong. They’re still a united front on that point. If you mean your father is scrutinizing Julie to see how much you get done this summer, you’re right. I need you to care about this, Mandy, for everyone’s sake.”
“I went to look at schools with my mother,” she said, although even to her own ears it had a tragic ring. They’d spent a weekend dragging through a series of campus visits, the specific campuses chosen because they could cram them all into two days of driving around New England. The awful part was, she did care about it, more than he could know, more than she liked to admit to herself. The hardest part was imagining that any decent colleges would care about her. She had a terrible urge to please him, to get his approval, but for some reason, it’s always easier to get a person’s disapproval. “Don’t give up on me,” she said.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I give up on myself much more quickly than I do other people.” He handed her a sheet of paper with three questions on it. “These are from the application for University of Chicago. I’m not expecting you’ll apply there, but they have notoriously creative essay questions on their application. I’d like you to try responding to one of these, and then we’ll look at it together and start there. Does that sound good?”
Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis, real or imagined.
Dog and cat. Coffee and tea. Everyone knows there are two types of people in the world. What are they?
What is Square One and can you really go back to it?
* * *
“They’re not easy,” she said.
“That’s pretty much the point,” he said. “I’d recommend choosing the one that leaps out at you without giving it too much thought. If you can come up with something good, we can adapt it for the common app essay. Their questions are a little more bland and straightforward.”
“Bland and straightforward is more my style,” she said.
“It’s not, but you don’t realize it yet. I’m making omelets for dinner. They should be ready in about an hour. Maybe you could jot down a few words while waiting. Beginning is the hardest part.”
As she was almost at the staircase up to the second floor, he said, “You never answered me about whether or not you have a boyfriend.” This was a question she assumed she’d successfully dodged. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I thought maybe the guy with curly hair you were talking to in a van the second day I was here was one.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. The idea that Craig was anyone’s boyfriend, was capable of being a real boyfriend, struck her as ridiculous. On the other hand, he had made out with her in the front seat of the van. It wasn’t as if that didn’t mean anything. And so she added, “Not really.”
“That’s usually an evasive way of saying yes. If you ever want to talk about it, you know which minuscule room you can find me in. I don’t want you to end up crying on the steps of the library at midnight.”
* * *
Once she’d made it to the top floor of the house, she took out her phone and texted Craig.
Hey it’s Mandy. Just making sure you haven’t done any more littering.
She spent the next ten minutes staring at the phone, but there was no response. Then, right before she was called down to dinner: Ready to come work for me?
She wished she could take back the stupid comment she’d made to David. Not really. Yes, really, she really had no boyfriend. But at least she had someone’s interest.
Not yet, she wrote back. But I’m thinking about it.
19
Julie had always believed that even if it’s the big, unexpected events (good and bad) that make life memorable and occasionally exciting, it’s the small, predictable routines that hold life together and make it worth living. By the end of David’s first week in Beauport, they had an established routine. She wasn’t yet sure if it was enough to hold her life together, but at the very least, it made it a lot easier to wait for Pamela’s estimate on the jewelry.
David cooked dinner in the early evening, using ingredients she’d shopped for, and the three of them—if Mandy wasn’t working at the store—ate at the dining room table (with candles!) and then cleaned up together. Mandy didn’t even grumble about doing the dishes. They’d fallen into this pattern easily and spontaneously, and suddenly they felt like a reasonably happy, if slightly dysfunctional, family.
Poor Mrs. Grayson—who spent more time waiting to be summoned by her son and his wife than she spent in their company—had no idea what to make of the arrangement and was too discreet to ask for clarification. She grinned whenever she saw them all together, commented on the weather, and wandered off to the porch to sit and await a phone call. She must have known David was sleeping in the tiny room off the hall, but probably didn’t know how to process the information.
David referred to her as “the long-suffering southern belle” and felt there was passive-aggression in her stoic refusal to complain about the way she was being treated even though she made damn sure everyone
knew she was being ignored. Julie had dropped her objection to his credible imitation of her Virginia accent and accurate mimicry of the loud stage whisper she spoke in, as if she was afraid to disturb anyone but was determined to be heard. He was being a little mean, but not cruel, and Julie could see his point. No doubt, she’d idealized Mrs. Grayson. She could laugh with him but preferred to play the role of dutiful surrogate daughter to compensate for the way Mrs. Grayson was being treated by her real family.
After dinner, she and David took Opal along the Atlantic Pathway on walks that cut across the cliffs above the ocean. It was something she’d insisted on once she understood he was wrestling with his own demons and seemed to be making an effort at getting into better shape. Sometimes, to her surprise, they held hands as they walked. One of them would reach for the other, and they’d amble along talking about old friends and past adventures and memorable moments from their time with Oliver, the long-gone mutt who’d died as they held him. The time they thought they’d lost him in Riverside Park, the time he’d opened a drawer and chewed up a pair of socks. She supposed David found their touching as comforting and uncomplicated as she did. She hoped so.
They never talked about her pregnancy or his friendship with Antrim, and everything that had happened in their final months. She was grateful for that.
When they got back to the house, they’d stretch out at opposite ends of the sofa thing in the living room, and he’d read aloud from Queen Lucia until one or the other of them fell asleep.
It was on one of their walks, on an evening when the sky was still light at nine o’clock, that he asked her if she’d looked into other options, in case she wasn’t able to come up with the money in time to buy the house from Henry. Naturally, she had thought about this, had even spent a Saturday evening perusing real estate listings, had gone to two open houses, but the question stung her. She’d been counting on him as an ally, and merely bringing it up felt like a small but deep betrayal. She dropped his hand and froze on the path.
My Ex-Life: A Novel Page 13
