The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Since the family’s golf cart was still in the garage at the house on the south end of the island, she’d booked a shuttle ticket, but now Riley dreaded the thought of crowding into the tram car with the prying eyes of weekenders who’d just seen her at her very worst.

  “Come on,” Parrish said, nodding at the six-seater golf cart that had just pulled up to the passenger loading area. “Ed brought over most of our stuff earlier. We’ll give you guys a lift.”

  Riley watched while Parrish gave Ed Godchaux a hushed, condensed version of the events that had just occurred. Ed jumped out of the cart and, within five minutes, he and Billy managed to load everything into the golf cart.

  Billy hugged Riley tightly and whispered in her ear. “Now I really will kill him for you. But first I’ll get Mama’s groceries and crap unloaded over at Shutters, and then I’ll come over and help you get settled in at your place. Okay?”

  “Thanks,” Riley said wearily. “Don’t tell Mama, okay?”

  “Never!”

  Maggy sat, stone-faced and teary-eyed on the rear-facing last seat on the cart, as far away from her mother as she could get. Banks sat on the seat beside her, tethered by his leash. Maggy still hadn’t uttered a single word.

  Billy approached the golf cart and tapped his niece on the arm. “Be nice to your mom, okay? Remember, she’s on your side.” He ruffled the girl’s hair and sighed. “Hell of a way to start the summer.”

  * * *

  As the golf cart bumped over the crushed-shell path leading away from the landing, Riley held on to the back of her seat and watched the passing landscape with mild disinterest. She’d been here a month earlier, but for less than twenty-four hours. It was as though the entire island was exploding with lush, green, summer growth. Confederate jasmine with creamy, star-shaped blossoms climbed the trunks of the bent and gnarled pin oaks, dwarf myrtle scented the air, and tiny yellow wildflowers bloomed along the road’s shoulder.

  The temperature had dropped just in the half hour since they’d docked, and shafts of dark golden sunshine pierced the tree canopy.

  Parrish turned around in the seat to face Riley. “I can’t believe Wendell would pull a stunt like that. Having you served with papers in front of Maggy and everybody.” She tapped Ed’s shoulder. “As soon as we get back to the house, Ed’s going to call Sue Simpson. Doesn’t she have a house down here somewhere, honey?”

  “At Wrightsville Beach.” He turned halfway around in the seat, and his craggy face signaled his concern. “She’s the best at what she does, Riley. That’s who I’d hire if I were you.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. She glanced at the back of Maggy’s head. “Let’s talk about it later, okay? I don’t want her any more upset than she needs to be.”

  Other golf carts passed them on the road. Ed and Parrish waved and nodded; Riley kept her eyes downcast. By now, the whole island would know what had happened. Andrea Payne would see to that.

  The ride to Sand Dollar Lane and their dream house took fifteen minutes.

  For the first few years of their marriage, when her father was still grooming Wendell to take over Belle Isle Enterprises, they’d always stayed at the Shutters during vacations and summers on the island.

  But as big and gracious-looking as her parents’ home seemed, the old house had only three bathrooms, all of them fitted out with charming but undersize claw-foot bathtubs, and the only shower was the outside cold-water shower. Her parents saw no need to modernize, a fact that infuriated Wendell Griggs.

  “Jesus! It’s not like they don’t have the money,” he’d griped to Riley. “I bet they could completely redo all those bathrooms plus the kitchen for around fifty thousand dollars.”

  “But you know Mama. She wants everything at the Shutters left just like it was when her grandfather built the place.”

  “It’s like living in the Dark Ages here,” Wendell complained.

  When they were ready for a house of their own, Riley wanted to buy one of the original houses on the bluff that her great-grandfather had built, one that was half a mile away from Shutters, which had been the first house built on the island.

  Like the other homes of that 1920s era, the house she’d lusted after had been built in the twenties with weather-beaten gray cedar shingle siding, wide, gracious porches, sweeping views of the sound, and yes, miniscule bathrooms and a kitchen a quarter the size of the one in their house back in the Hayes-Barton neighborhood in Raleigh.

  Wendell was having none of it. “I can build us a house on one of the new oceanfront lots that’ll be ten times better than those old dumps,” he’d said. “It would take at least a hundred thousand dollars in improvements to make one of those places comparable to a new house. Anyway, how’s it going to look if the CEO of Belle Isle Enterprises doesn’t buy into our new development?”

  He’d had a point, of course. The old houses on the bluff were beautiful but wildly impractical. The one Riley liked best had no insulation, windows that rattled in the wind, a sagging roof, outdated plumbing, and original knob-and-tube wiring. The cedar-shake siding needed replacing and leaked in places. And Maggy had been only two years old, and a fussy toddler, and Riley hadn’t had the energy to fight him on the issue.

  Which was how Wendell came to build a contemporary six-thousand-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-bathroom home for a family of three.

  He’d seen a house like it on the cover of a magazine in an airport newsstand in L.A. and, by the time Riley picked him up at RDU, he’d sketched out the entire house on the back of the paper place mat they used for first-class meal service.

  “This is going to be a statement house,” he’d told Riley excitedly. “The cantilevered roofline, the skylights, the masses of poured concrete and the urban silo observation tower? Crazy good, right? Steel-frame windows that can withstand hurricane-force winds, and the concrete will never need paint. You’ll have the best kitchen on the island—a master bath with all Carrara marble and a soaker tub like the ones in your decorating magazines. And I’ll have a man cave in the silo with a flat-screen television.”

  He’d picked the best lot in the new development for their house, and when it turned out that a large sand dune obscured the view of the ocean from the open-plan living room with one whole wall of windows and doors, he’d waited until January, when Belle Isle was largely deserted, and simply bulldozed the dune, and the sea oats and beach rosemary, along with Riley’s protestations, into oblivion.

  * * *

  As the sun retreated, Riley felt chilled. “You okay back there, Mags?” Riley asked, tapping her daughter’s arm. “Warm enough? I’ve got a windbreaker in my bag if you need it.”

  “I’m fine,” Maggy said. She clutched Banks so tightly the dog yipped in protest.

  “Almost there,” Riley said, trying to sound cheerful. Ed whipped the golf cart off Sand Dollar Lane and onto the narrow drive that led to the house. Palmetto fronds and wax myrtle branches slapped against the sides of the cart.

  Riley dug in her tote for her phone. Wendell loved gadgets, and he’d had everything in the house wired so it could be remotely controlled with a tap on their smartphones.

  Normally she would have turned down the air-conditioning from the ferry, but due to circumstances beyond her control, the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

  All the lights were on timers, and as the drive curved around, the gleaming white mass of house emerged from the dusk. Tree-mounted spotlights threw washes of yellow light on the monolithic entryway, and pale blue light shone through the tall, narrow front windows.

  “Here we are,” Riley said, trying for cheery and failing.

  Ed pulled the cart up in front of the garage. “I’ll go ahead and get your golf cart charged if you’ll open the doors,” he offered.

  “That would be great,” Riley said. She tapped the Unlock icon on the phone, and then the icon for the garage and front door. She tapped the Open icon and waited for the garage doors to slide noiselessly upward.

  “Banks needs to
pee, and so do I,” Maggy announced as she climbed out of the cart. The dog scampered over to a clump of oleanders, and Maggy held on to the leash. “Hurry up, Banks,” she ordered. “I gotta go, too.”

  The garage doors didn’t move. Riley tapped again.

  “What’s wrong?” Parrish asked, as she climbed out and grabbed one of the suitcases.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the battery’s dead on the opener.”

  “Open the front door, Mom,” Maggy called, pulling Banks away from the trees.

  Riley tapped the icon and got out of the cart, shouldering one of the L.L. Bean canvas tote bags. “I hope the damned computer thingy isn’t on the fritz. I don’t know why we can’t just have a lock and key like normal people.”

  “Hey, Mom!” Maggy called.

  “Honey, I’m coming! Just give me a minute, will you? You’re not the only one who needs a bathroom.”

  “There’s some kind of sign on the door,” Maggy called.

  Riley dropped the bags and hurried toward the doorway, where her daughter stood bathed in a pool of light.

  Taped to the door was an official-looking plastic-coated poster.

  NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE.

  “Oh my God,” Riley whispered.

  “What’s it mean?” Maggy asked, dancing from one foot to another. “Why can’t we get in the house?”

  “Oh my God,” Riley repeated. She took out the document she’d been served on the ferry and actually read it this time, her eyes glazing over all the legalese. But there were two words she understood: default and foreclosure.

  “Ed,” she called, holding up the document.

  “Right here,” he said, setting down the tub of groceries. He took a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket and stared at the notice for a moment. “Ah shit,” he said under his breath.

  “What the hell?” Parrish said, joining them. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”

  “It’s no joke,” Ed said. He handed his phone to his wife. “Parrish, see if you can get the sheriff’s office on the line.”

  * * *

  “Mom!” Maggy cried. “I’ve got to go. Don’t you have a key? Or something?”

  “Let’s go around to the back of the house,” Riley said. “Your dad was the last one here, and sometimes he forgets and leaves a door unlocked.”

  “Ohmygod, I’m gonna wet my pants,” Maggy said, following Riley along the flagstone path toward the rear of the house. “I can’t hold it.”

  Riley pointed toward a clump of shoulder-high azaleas. “Just go over there and wilder-pee like you used to do when you were a Girl Scout.”

  “Gross!” Maggy protested, but she hurried over to the shrubbery and a moment later rejoined her mother on the path. “Ugh. There were tree frogs over there. And a lizard.”

  “You used to adore tree frogs and lizards,” Riley reminded her. “Come on, let’s see if we can get in the house.”

  The light was a dusky purple now. Cicadas thrummed from the tall grass, and an owl hooted from a nearby tree. She glanced up at the sky, and was somewhat reassured by the ever-present blanket of stars. It was the one constant on Belle Isle. Oh yes, and there was a full moon tonight, too.

  As they walked, Riley composed a mental to-do list. Call sheriff’s office. Get house unlocked. Have old–fashioned locks installed. Charge up golf cart. Get grass cut and shrubs trimmed. Track down Wendell Griggs and divorce his ass.

  “Come on, let’s try the kitchen,” Riley told her daughter. They crossed the dense green lawn, their ankles damp with evening dew. She tried the kitchen door, but it too, was locked.

  Now Maggy pressed herself up beside her mother. “Mom? Can we get in? What’s going on?”

  Riley curled an arm around Maggy’s shoulder. “I don’t know, honey. Dad must have changed the locks for some reason. Um, let’s go back to the front of the house where Ed and Parrish are.”

  She willed herself not to break into a run, or burst into hysterics, or do anything to alarm her daughter.

  “This has to be a mistake,” she said to herself.

  * * *

  They heard the putt-putting of the golf cart before Billy pulled up alongside Ed’s cart.

  Ed held his cell phone to one ear while Parrish sat in the cart and fumed. “What’s going on?” Billy asked. “Where are the girls?”

  “Right here,” Riley called, as she and Maggy rejoined the others.

  Ed held his phone away from his ear. “I’m on hold with the sheriff’s office. What did you see around back?”

  “Nothing. Everything is locked up tight, and I can’t even see inside.”

  “Is there any way to jimmy one of the doors open?” Parrish asked.

  Ed frowned. “Not until we know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t get it,” Billy said, looking from Ed to Riley and back to Ed again.

  “There’s a foreclosure notice posted on the front door, and the locks have apparently all been changed,” Parrish said bitterly. “And that document your sister was served on the ferry—that was a foreclosure notice.”

  Billy’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Dead serious,” Riley said.

  “Can they do that?” Parrish asked her husband. “I mean, is that even legal? Riley, you didn’t get any kind of notices or anything in the mail, right?”

  “No!” Riley said sharply. “Don’t you think I would have paid attention to something like a foreclosure notice?”

  “That can’t be legal, right?” Billy said, turning again to Ed.

  “Hang on, somebody’s coming on the line,” Ed said.

  He held the phone to his ear again. “Hi. Yes, this is Ed Godchaux. I’m an attorney for Riley Griggs, who owns the property at 555 Sand Dollar Lane over on Belle Isle. There’s a foreclosure notice posted on her front door, and the locks have been changed. All of this has occurred without any prior notification to her. I need to speak to somebody to get this straightened out.”

  He listened, shaking his head in frustration.

  “That’s the best you can do? Yes, I realize you probably don’t consider it an emergency, but I can assure you, my client and her daughter who have been locked out of their home consider it very much of an emergency.”

  Ed removed his glasses, polished the lenses on the hem of his shirt, then put them on again.

  “Well, who can answer my questions? Let me give you my cell number and my client’s. Okay? Can you have somebody call me?”

  He glanced over at Riley and she gave him her cell number. He repeated both numbers to the dispatcher. “Can you have the sheriff call one of us back?”

  Ed rolled his eyes in frustration. “Not until Tuesday? You’re kidding me.”

  “That’s right. I’m well aware that it’s Memorial Day weekend. So you’re saying nobody can tell me anything, or unlock my client’s house … or do ONE GODDAMN THING TO HELP HER OUT until Tuesday?

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I tend to take that tone, and the Lord’s name in vain, when I’m faced with blatant disregard for … Hello?”

  Ed tapped the disconnect button. “She hung up.”

  * * *

  “Can they just do that?” Billy repeated.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. You gotta understand it’s been thirty years since I had a class in real estate law. And I went to law school in Massachusetts. Every state has different statutes when it comes to foreclosures. I really have no idea how things work in North Carolina.”

  “So much for a Harvard law degree,” Parrish said. “Look, we obviously can’t get anything done standing around here in the dark. We’re all hot and tired and hungry. At least, I am. Riley, you guys can just come back to our house. I’ll fix us some dinner.…”

  “Riley, have you talked to Wendell?” Billy asked abruptly.

  “No,” Riley said, her lips compressed. “I’ve tried calling and texting. All day. His phone goes right to voice mail.”

  “It’s not his fault,” Maggy said shrilly. �
�Daddy wouldn’t do this. My parents are not getting a divorce. Somebody screwed up, that’s all.” She raised her voice, shouting now, the words echoing in the darkened treetops, alive now with blinking fireflies. “So everybody stop acting like this is all my dad’s fault!”

  Riley tried hugging her child, but Maggy pulled away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Okay, Mags,” Parrish said, her voice soft, soothing. “Nobody’s saying it’s your dad’s fault. You’re right. It’s just some big screwup. We’ll get it straightened out in the morning. Now, can we go get some pizza? Or Rice Krispies? Or something?”

  “Parrish is right,” Riley said. “You haven’t eaten in hours. We need to check your sugar and get some food in you.”

  Maggy put her hand out. “I’m fine. Just give me a protein bar and one of your stupid juice boxes. Okay? And stop looking at me like I’m gonna pass out or die. How many times do I have to tell you? I. Am. Okay.”

  Riley handed her the bar and the juice without comment. Maggy tore off the wrapper and deliberately tossed it to the ground and took a savage, defiant bite of chocolate and oatmeal.

  “It’s settled then,” Parrish said. “You’ll spend the night at our place, right? We can stash your stuff in the garage until this is all worked out.”

  “What about your cats?” Maggy said, chewing with her mouth open. “Thelma and Louise will beat the crap out of Banksy.” She turned suddenly pleading eyes toward her mother. “Why can’t we just stay at Mimi’s house? I could sleep in my old room, and you could have your old room, and Banks can play with Ollie.”

  “Who’s Ollie?” Ed asked.

  “Mimi’s dog Ollie is Banksy’s sister,” Maggy said. “Please, Mom?”

  This was a moment Riley had been dreading, ever since seeing the black-and-white notice tacked to her front door. She thought of herself as a strong, competent, modern woman. She was a hard-hitting journalist. Well, formerly hard-hitting, former journalist. She’d faced down cops, politicians, crooks, Hollywood publicists, even deranged fans who’d started an online petition two years ago after she’d changed her hair color. But tonight, after everything that had happened, she just didn’t know if she had the energy to deal with her mother.