“Wow. Billy married, with children. I guess we’re both grown-ups now.”
“Huh! Whatever that means. I see kids in here goofing around and it feels like yesterday that was us. Me and Scott and Campbell all looking for trouble—and usually finding it.” He laughed. “You ever hear from any of those guys?” She could tell he was trying to make the question sound nonchalant.
She shook her head no, looking down as her face colored with embarrassment—or longing—she couldn’t tell which.
“Well,” Billy mercifully went on, “they’re both still here. You hang around long enough, you just might see one of them.” They both knew which one he referred to. He put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close enough to whisper. “I’ll be sure to tell him to keep an eye out for you.” He let go of her, ignoring her red face and gesturing toward the deli counter where a worker waved for his help. “It was great to see you, Lindsey. Really great. Don’t be a stranger, okay? How long you here for?” he asked.
She turned back to look at him before she left. “As long as it takes,” she said.
Chapter 6
Sunset Beach
Early Fall 1986
Campbell sat in the car while Ellie cried quietly in the passenger seat beside him. The tears, he thought to himself, were just for show. He didn’t get the feeling she was all that sorry.
He looked out the windshield at his parents’ house, imagining walking inside and telling them the news. “Are you sure?” he asked her again. “I mean, shouldn’t you go to a doctor or something?”
“Why, so you can dodge this bullet and be free of me? So you can cover up this dirty little secret with your precious girlfriend?” She turned to face him, mascara making raccoon rings around her gray eyes. She was still beautiful even when she was an emotional wreck. “This is real, Campbell. This is happening. You’ve been sleeping with me and now I am pregnant. You can’t just have a fling and then pretend like everything’s fine again when she comes back next summer.” She sniffed. “By next summer, the baby will be here anyway.”
He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. His sins, as his mother always said, had found him out. Lindsey knew that something was wrong. He had written her only a few times since he finally succumbed to Ellie that first night, and he had called her just twice, keeping the conversations brief, feeling like a miserable excuse for a human being. He looked over at Ellie, feeling nothing for her. And yet, she would have his child. How did he get here? Even as the thought made his stomach turn, he knew what would be expected of him.
“So, do you, like, want to get married?” The words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. He prayed she would say no, be a modern woman who wanted to do this on her own. But it was too late for prayers.
Ellie shrugged her shoulders and used a fast-food napkin to wipe her eyes. “Campbell, aren’t you supposed to love the person you marry?” she asked.
He didn’t miss the note of hope in her voice as she said it. “Well, there’s such a thing as growing to love someone,” he said. “And,” he added, “we’ll love the baby. We’ll have that for starters.”
She looked at him with a smile. It felt good to make her smile, and he hoped that was a good sign. “You think you really will love the baby?”
“It’s my baby, right?” he asked. As soon as it was out of his mouth he knew that, even though he didn’t mean it like it sounded, it was the wrong thing to say. He steeled himself for her response.
“Of course it is, Campbell!” she yelled. “How can you even ask that?”
He thought of the things he had heard about her but still put his hand on her shoulder. “I will love my baby. And we will figure this out.”
She looked at him like he was her hero. Lindsey’s face popped into his mind, but he pushed the image aside. “So,” he heard her ask, “does this mean we’re getting married?” She giggled like a little girl, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was going to be a mother. “I mean, how is this all going to work?”
He remembered Lindsey asking him the same question that first summer. As he promised Ellie that they would make it work, he couldn’t help but think of his broken promise to Lindsey. The realization of what he was throwing away made his heart ache.
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Sunset Beach
Late Fall 1986
Campbell sat in the sand beside the mailbox alone. It was nearing November, and most of the tourists were long gone. He liked being there alone. It was a good place to think.
He tried to absorb the fact that he would never go to the mailbox with Lindsey again. He held a loose-leaf page from the mailbox in his hand and shivered a bit in the crisp ocean breeze. He sat with the pen poised above the paper, using a notebook as his writing surface, waiting on the words to come. This would be the letter he would mail to Lindsey, a letter telling her what had happened with Ellie. It was time to confess, as much as he didn’t want to. It was time to admit the kind of guy he really was.
He looked down at the ring he now wore on his left hand. He hadn’t talked to Lindsey in weeks, and he knew she sensed something was wrong. Just yesterday he had received a letter from her that read simply, Just tell me. Did we break up?
How do I explain, he began to write, what I don’t understand myself? He wrote the letter as quickly as possible. I am sitting here at the mailbox, he continued, a place I promised would always be ours. He wrote down all the things he regretted, all the things he would change, and explained why he had married Ellie, why he felt it was the right thing to do even as the words made his gut clench. His baby would have a family, a father. Something Lindsey herself had always wanted.
He stood up and folded the letter, slipping it into his pocket. He placed the notebook back in the mailbox, along with the pen, hoping that whoever came and used the items next would have something happier to write about. He pictured Lindsey coming here in the future and hoped that she still would. As he closed the mailbox, he had an idea that brought a smile to his face. He walked away whistling the tune to “Boys of Summer,” feeling closer to Lindsey than he had in weeks.
Chapter 7
Sunset Beach
Summer 1987
“Hey, Holly, wait up!” Lindsey yelled at her friend, who was riding far ahead of her. They had gotten in the habit of riding bicycles each evening that summer just after dinner. Holly liked to ride fast, while Lindsey tended to get lost in thought, her memories slowing her down as she pedaled aimlessly down Sunset Beach’s streets.
Holly turned around and waved back, motioning for her to catch up as she neared the Island Market. The two girls were deeply tanned and had turned sunbathing into something of a science during their time at Sunset that summer—to great effect. Lindsey could tell by the appreciative glances she and Holly received any time they were out together. But there was one appreciative glance she wouldn’t be receiving this summer and, of course, it was the one that mattered most.
Holly was already inside the store by the time Lindsey arrived. She leaned her bike beside Holly’s up against the building and took a deep breath before she walked in. As always, she had a simultaneous fear and hope that she would run into Campbell. Part of her wanted the thrill of slapping him in the face, and part of her wanted the satisfaction of just seeing him again, being close enough to breathe the same air. But another part of her was terrified of seeing him at all. “Girl, you have it bad,” Holly chided her when Lindsey had admitted her feelings aloud.
Lindsey scanned the inside of the store for Holly and found her by the freezer selecting an ice cream. She watched as a young man started talking to Holly. It took her a moment to register that the young man was Billy, Campbell’s best friend. She marched over to them, determined not to look brokenhearted. “Billy, you snake, hitting on my friend!” she said, teasing him. Her eyes darted around the store, expecting to
catch a glimpse of Campbell. In the past wherever Billy was, Campbell wasn’t far behind.
Billy’s eyes widened. She realized he was embarrassed to see her. He blinked at her a few times. “Uh, hi, Lindsey. It’s, um, great to see you,” he sputtered. He gave her a half-hearted hug.
“You too, Billy,” she said. Act normal. Don’t give him anything to tell Campbell. Just act like everything’s fine and your heart’s not broken into a thousand pieces. “I see you’ve met my friend Holly.”
Billy extended his hand to Holly. “Very nice to meet you, Holly,” he said.
Sensing the unspoken tension, Holly plucked a Nutty Buddy cone from the freezer and held it aloft. Holly hated Nutty Buddies. “Nice to meet you too, Billy. I got what I came for!” she said. The two girls turned toward the register to pay for the ice cream.
“Wait—” Billy said.
Before turning around to face him, Lindsey grimaced. “Almost a clean getaway,” she muttered under her breath.
Holly elbowed her and raised her eyebrows before turning back to face Billy. “This should be good,” she said.
Billy closed the gap between them in a few steps, leaning into her as if he was about to deliver top-secret information. “Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but I just want to tell you what a bonehead my friend is,” he said. “What he did was stupid and what she did—” his face colored slightly—“was lousy.”
Lindsey nodded, a knot forming in her throat. Billy knew everything. Billy, if pressed, could answer some of those questions that had kept her up nights ever since Campbell’s letter arrived. “So I guess they have a baby now?”
“She’s just a few weeks old,” he said.
“A little girl,” Lindsey said, her voice stronger than she thought it would be.
“Yeah. They named her Nicole. But Campbell calls her Nikki. She’s a cute little thing.” He looked over at Lindsey. “I mean, if you’re into babies, which I’m not really.” He looked over at Holly, who laughed.
Holly clapped Lindsey on the back. “Well,” she said, holding up her ice cream, “we better be going before this cone melts!”
Billy took it from her and put it back in the freezer, pulling two new ones out. “These are on me.” He smiled at both of them. “You girls have a nice night.”
w
Lindsey waited until Holly was asleep to slip out of the bed they shared and steal up to the roof deck of her aunt and uncle’s beach house. In her hand, she clutched Campbell’s last letter to her. The paper was worn, and the ink was faded.
She loved having Holly at the beach with her this summer. She had been a great distraction, a buffer from the reality of Campbell’s absence. Originally Lindsey said she would not return to Sunset, but it was Holly who talked her into coming. “You have to face it one way or another. You love Sunset—and not just because Campbell lives there. Tell you what.” Holly grinned. “Why don’t I come with you? That way if you see him or you just need someone by your side, I will be there.”
Lindsey nodded and took a deep breath. “Deal.”
But Holly’s constant presence had also kept her from having the time to remember Campbell, to mourn what was lost, to confront the betrayal that simmered just below the surface of her skin. She had taken to coming up to the roof deck late at night to watch the moonlight bounce off the ocean and hear the sound of the waves crashing, to wonder if maybe at that moment Campbell was sitting on the roof deck of his house as well, missing her as much as she missed him. It helped her to feel connected to him, however tenuous that connection was. She tried to push aside the image that intruded on her pleasant fantasies—an image of Ellie holding Campbell’s baby. A baby that, she now knew, was a little girl. “Campbell calls her Nikki,” Billy had said that evening. The thought made her want to throw up.
She unfolded the letter.
Dear Lindsey,
How do I explain what I don’t understand myself? I am sitting here at the mailbox, a place I promised would always be ours. Just like the pier where we danced. Two places, both special because of you.
I came here to write this letter to you, the hardest letter I have ever had to write. I knew that coming here would make me feel closer to you. And I need to feel close to you right now, because so much has happened to push us away from each other and it’s all my fault.
I know that we fought about Ellie before you left. I guess you knew more about the way things were going than I gave you credit for or even realized. The night you left, Ellie and I were at the same party. I was really sad about you leaving and she listened to me talk. She kept giving me beers that she had snuck out of her house and I guess I got pretty drunk. I don’t even remember most of that night, but I do know that I slept with Ellie before it was all said and done.
It was stupid. And what’s worse, I kept seeing her. I know you sensed that something was wrong between you and me because I stopped calling and writing. I felt so guilty over what I had done, and how I had betrayed you. I couldn’t face you.
The worst part in all this is that what I really want is to ask your forgiveness and try to move forward with you, but that can’t happen. Because Ellie is pregnant. As crazy as it sounds, I married her. I hope it was the right thing. I won’t go into all my reasons for making that choice. Just know it wasn’t what I wanted, but it was what I felt I had to do.
I do not have the right words to say how sorry I am for hurting you. I am a stupid guy who threw away the best thing he ever had and I know I can’t ever get it back. I want you to go on with your life, to find someone to love you the way you deserve to be loved. I am just sorry I blew my chance to be that guy.
And one last thing—not that I am in a position to ask anything of you—but I want to ask you to please keep coming here to the mailbox. I would hate to think of you not coming back here because it reminds you of me. I like to think that you will still come here to pour your heart out to the Kindred Spirit. It makes me feel close to you to think of you coming here, sitting on this same sand and maybe thinking of me from time to time as you do.
I will never forget the time we spent together here or what it felt like to hold you in my arms as we danced on the pier. I will hold you in my heart forever and, I know it’s hard to believe after what I’ve done, but I do love you. Always.
Campbell
Lindsey wiped the tears from her eyes. As she folded the letter and tucked it back into the pocket of her sweatpants, she gazed out at the ocean and wondered when the hurting would stop and if it was possible for her to not love Campbell Forrester anymore.
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Sunset Beach
Summer 1987
Campbell sat outside holding the baby, who shifted uncomfortably in his arms and let out a howl. His mother said it was colic and that no one knew how long it would go on or how to cure it. Ellie was inside the house sleeping, again. He never knew a tiny person could wear out so many adults. He and his parents and Ellie all moved around like robots, worn out from lack of sleep and the high stress brought on by a colicky infant. He rocked Nikki in his arms and felt sorry for himself, then felt guilty for feeling sorry for himself.
All of this was his doing. Had he just told Ellie to take a hike that night like he should have, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t be married. They wouldn’t be living with his parents and causing them stress. He doubted he would even know Ellie at all. He stared off down the street, willing Lindsey to walk down it. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was on the island at that very minute, if she had already gotten over him or if she was still sad about their breakup.
He looked down at Nikki, at her little scrunched-up face. Everywhere they took her, people commented on what a beautiful baby she was. He loved her, but sometimes wished her away. What a dog he was. What kind of father wished away his daughter? Maybe a father who wanted his old life back. One who wasn’t re
ady to be a dad. He kissed the baby on her velvet cheek. “I do love you, little one,” he told her.
He looked up to see Billy’s truck pulling into the drive. Billy had been coming around less and less since Nikki was born. Campbell waved and shifted Nikki up onto his shoulder, patting her back as she rooted around and bobbed her unstable head. Billy took the stairs up to the deck two at a time, just as he always had. Campbell couldn’t help but notice how carefree he looked. He looked away, jealous, pretending to be interested in the top of Nikki’s head. Just the night before, Campbell’s mother had showed him how to scrub it gently for cradle cap.
“Hey, buddy,” Billy said, clapping him on the back and peering down at Nikki. “Whatcha doing out here?”
He yanked his thumb in the direction of the door. “Ellie’s taking a nap, so I’m trying to keep the baby quiet.”
Billy shook his head. “She was asleep the last time I was here.”
Campbell shrugged his shoulders. “Well, she gets up with Nikki a lot at night so she tries to sleep during the day.” He wondered why he was defending Ellie. The truth was, they all took turns getting up with Nikki at night. Ellie just whined about it more than anyone else.
Billy nodded, satisfied. “Well, I just wanted to check on you. Make sure you were still alive.” He laughed. “Guess you are, barely.”
Campbell smiled back at him. “Yeah, barely is right.”
They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes. Nikki had fallen asleep, her little mouth working her pacifier. Campbell stared down at her and wondered how he could resent her and love her all at the same time.
Billy cleared his throat. “Um, look, dude, I just wanted to tell you that I saw Lindsey. Yesterday.”
“You did? She’s here?” Campbell tried not to look overanxious.
“Yeah, she was with some friend of hers. Holly?”
Campbell nodded. “Her best friend.”
“Yeah, well, she’s hot. Wish Lindsey had brought her last summer so we could have double-dated. Of course now I’m like a leper to her because I have the misfortune of being your best friend.” He grinned. “But I forgive you.”
The Mailbox Page 5
