The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

“I hope you get things straightened out,” Nate said. He meant that, even though, from his personal knowledge of her situation, he doubted that would happen.

  “When will you have Wendell’s service?”

  “That’ll depend on the autopsy,” Riley said. She bit her lip. “The sheriff … seems to think Wendell’s death wasn’t an accident. That he was killed. And there are all these horrible rumors floating around. Some television reporter in Raleigh left a voice mail on my phone. About an FBI investigation into Wendell’s finances.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, appalled that she’d just spilled out the latest chapter in her ongoing shit show of a life.

  “Oh, damn. I shouldn’t have said anything about that. I’m a mess. Please don’t repeat what I just told you. Not to anybody.” She was crying again, despising herself for being such a blubbering baby.

  He felt an involuntary chill go down his spine. “I’m sorry,” he said again and, after a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and placed his hand over hers.

  “If there’s anything I can do, I wish you’d let me know. Anything at all.”

  “Mom?”

  Maggy Griggs stood before Riley and Nate Milas with a foil-wrapped sandwich in her hand and a look of undisguised wrath on her face.

  “Hey.” Riley’s single-syllable greeting to her daughter contained a mixture of guilt, surprise, resentment, and wariness.

  Nate took a step sideways, feeling the withering heat of the girl’s glowering disapproval.

  “Anyway,” he said, after an awkward pause. “I better get back up top. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help out.”

  Maggy plopped down on the bench and eventually began sucking so noisily on the straw in her drink, Riley caught herself grinding her back molars in acute annoyance.

  The minutes ticked by. The bay was calm and soon they caught sight of Big Belle silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky.

  “What did that jerk want?” Maggy demanded.

  “Nate? He just wanted to offer his condolences.”

  “How do you know him?” Maggy demanded.

  “He grew up on the island, but he moved away after college. His father was Captain Joe, you remember him. Anyway, Nate and I have known each other since we were your age. He just wanted to offer his condolences,” Riley said. “His father died recently, so he knows what it’s like—to lose a loved one.”

  “So … somebody hit his dad on the head and pushed him into the water and left him like that too?”

  Riley closed her eyes and waited a moment before replying calmly. “No. I believe his father died of a heart attack.”

  “So he doesn’t really know what it’s like to have somebody in his family get murdered, does he?”

  Their eyes met. Maggy’s were unblinking. Riley felt her right eyelid twitch rapidly. “Do you enjoy being difficult?”

  “Why is that difficult? You said that guy knew what it was like to lose somebody he loved, and I was just pointing out that he probably has no idea what it’s like to have your father killed, like I just did. Plus, he’s an asshole. He took Shane’s phone away, just because he was playing some music.”

  “Maggy, I swear…”

  The girl jumped up and headed for the bow, leaving her mother twitching and cursing under her breath.

  * * *

  The cluster of departing passengers stood aside to allow the arriving passengers access to the Belle Isle ferry entry ramp.

  “Riley!” She looked up to see Scott standing among the waiting passengers, a leather tote slung across his shoulder.

  He gave her a brief hug. “How did it go at the hospital? Was it unspeakable?”

  She gave a wry smile. “It was … unpleasant. Did you see Maggy come off the ferry just now?”

  “She went streaking past me when she saw Billy standing by your mother’s golf cart.”

  “Of course.” Riley tugged at Scott’s bag. “You’re leaving today? Already?”

  “Yes.” He sighed loudly. “There are so many moving parts to this steak house install, something’s bound to go wrong unless I get there a day early to sort everything out.”

  “Will you be back later in the week?”

  “It depends on how work’s going,” Scott said. “And I’m sorry about that. But you know I’ll be thinking of you and Maggy, right? Have you set the date?”

  “Not yet. Billy will let you know as soon as I do.”

  The ferry sounded the five-minute warning horn.

  Riley felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Ed Godchaux standing beside her with a briefcase dangling from one hand.

  “You’re leaving today?”

  “Duty calls,” Ed said. He looked over at Scott. “You, too? We could have driven back to Raleigh together if I’d known that.”

  “Except I’m driving over to Charlotte to catch a flight to Vegas tonight,” Scott said.

  Ed turned back to Riley. He pointed toward the parking lot. “Parrish is right there. I think the two of you deserve a cocktail.”

  “You don’t know how desperately I need one right now,” Riley said. “Will you be back next weekend?”

  “Always,” Ed said.

  “For sure,” Scott assured her.

  After the men left to board the ferry, she joined Billy and Parrish in the parking lot, a few yards away from where Evelyn, Roo, and Maggy waited in the golf cart. The ferry tooted again, and the water around the big engine frothed as it slowly backed away from its berth with the weekenders ensconced on the upper deck.

  Parrish used her hand as a makeshift sunshade and sighed audibly. “I hate Sunday nights. That ferry horn gets me every time.”

  “I know what you mean,” Riley said. “When we were little, I’d get so sad, seeing Daddy packing up to leave on the Sunday night ferry. And then, after Wendell became a weekender like Daddy, I used to dread Sundays. Maggy would get herself all worked up and beg Wendell not to go. I mean, yeah, I missed him during the week, but mostly I dreaded the fact that I’d be a single mom for the next five days.”

  “And I can remember those same Sunday nights when we were kids,” Billy chimed in. “But I guess I had a different reaction. I can remember thinking, ‘Okay, he’s gone. I can slouch and sleep late and not pretend to care about baseball or fishing or any of that he-man crap.’ It was a relief, really.”

  Parrish gave him a sympathetic smile. “I think fathers are always harder on their sons.”

  “Especially when their sons would really prefer to be whipping up a cake in their Easy-Bake Oven,” Billy said. “Now, though, yeah, Sunday nights are sad, because it means Scott’s leaving. Which is why I usually start the day with a Bloody Mary breakfast.”

  “Bebo!” Maggy called from the golf cart. “Mom! Let’s go.”

  “Coming.” Billy loped off in the direction of the golf cart.

  Parrish linked an arm around Riley’s waist as they crossed the parking lot. “Was it awful?”

  “It was … surreal,” Riley said, searching for the right words that could sum up the past few hours.

  “How was Maggy?”

  Riley rolled her eyes. “Upset, of course, when she saw Wendell. Then, after we left the hospital, she accused me of being glad he was dead.”

  “No way.”

  “She’s so angry it’s scary. And most of it’s directed at me. I don’t know what to say to her, Parrish. I can’t lie about the state of our marriage. And I can’t tell her the truth about what was going on with Wendell, because I don’t know the truth. Get this—she made me promise to find out who killed him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What could I say? I told her I’d try.”

  Parrish nodded, then reached into the pocket of her shorts and brought out a folded sheet of paper, which she pressed into her friend’s hand.

  “Here. Ed flaked out on me on the lawyer front, so I made some phone calls myself.”

  The paper was one of Parrish’s pale, seafoam-green, heavy, linen, monogramm
ed notecards. Two lines. A name and a phone number.

  “Sharon Douglas?”

  “I don’t know her personally, but from what I hear, she’s a ball-buster. She’s younger than us, only thirty-two, but she clerked for a federal appeals court judge after she finished law school, then worked as an assistant D.A. in Atlanta. She worked briefly for the feds, and only hung out her shingle in Wilmington as a solo practitioner last year.”

  Riley studied the name. “Did she go to law school at Duke or Carolina?”

  “Neither. University of Georgia. And don’t be such a snob. I Googled her. She’s the real deal. Editor of her law school review, finished first in her class. Divorced, no kids.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll call her Tuesday.”

  Parrish shook her head. “Sweetie? Call her tonight. I kinda went rogue on you and actually reached out to her myself after you and I talked this morning. She’s expecting to hear from you.”

  Riley gulped. “Oh, God. You think things are really, really bad, don’t you?”

  Parrish studied her old friend’s face. She hated keeping secrets, but on the other hand, she’d given Ed her word. “In times like these I think it’s a good policy to hope for the best but expect the worst.”

  * * *

  “Everything all right?” Evelyn asked as Riley climbed into the seat beside Billy. “Do we have a date for Wendell’s service?”

  “I don’t know,” Riley said in a voice that was louder than was strictly necessary. “People keep asking me that, but I just don’t know. I don’t know when the coroner will release Wendell’s body. I don’t know when we can have his service. I don’t even know if we will have one.”

  Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “Of course we’ll have a memorial. A nice traditional service at the Chapel in the Pines. I have Father Templeton on notice. He can come down from Edenton any day this week. And the ladies’ auxiliary have already started baking. We’ll have people back at Shutters afterward. Wendell would want that.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Riley said. “Were you even going to consult me on any of this?”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Evelyn said, settling the matter. “Think about how it would look if we didn’t have a service. I wasn’t going to mention this, but rumors are already swirling around the island. If we don’t have a funeral, people will wonder if we have something to hide.”

  “I can’t talk about this right now,” Riley said, knowing that she was only delaying the inevitable.

  * * *

  They were barely out of the ferry parking lot when Ollie, always on alert for trouble, gave a short bark, and without warning, hopped off Evelyn’s lap and went trotting into a thicket of palmettos.

  Evelyn stomped on the brake. “Ollie,” she cried.

  “Oh, let him go. Maybe a gator will get him,” Roo said.

  “Aunt Roo!” Maggy exclaimed. “That’s mean.”

  “I’ll go get him,” Billy said, jumping down to go after the errant pug. “Ollie. Here, Ollie!”

  Maggy hugged Banks tightly to her chest.

  “Daddy’s hair was wrong,” she announced, in a very small voice. She swiveled around in her seat, turning accusing eyes on her mother. “Why didn’t you fix his hair?”

  “What on earth is this child talking about?” Evelyn asked.

  Riley sighed. “At the hospital. Wendell. Somebody … they parted his hair on the wrong side. It was very upsetting.”

  “Mom doesn’t care,” Maggy said. Her arms were crossed, her chin thrust out in full pout.

  “Maggy!” Riley shot her a warning look.

  “She has a boyfriend already,” the girl added.

  “Fuuucccckkk.” Riley breathed it out in one long syllable, then inhaled a gnat, causing her to choke and sputter.

  “Oh my,” Roo said.

  “What’s this?” Evelyn demanded.

  When she could finally catch her breath it took a moment for Riley to gather her composure.

  “Nate Milas was on the ferry just now. He saw how upset I was, and he was commiserating with me, because of course, Captain Joe just passed away, too. Somebody,” she said, glaring at her daughter, “has a very vivid imagination and a very disrespectful attitude right now.”

  “Oh, him,” Evelyn said with a sniff. She stroked Maggy’s hair. “Nate Milas? That man is not your mother’s boyfriend, Margaret. He just steers the ferry, that’s all. So you ought not to go around saying stuff like that, because it will give people the wrong idea.”

  Billy emerged from the palmetto thicket, bits of Spanish moss and pine needles stuck to his hair. He had the pug tucked under his arm like a football. “Got him,” he said triumphantly, handing the dog over to Maggy. “He was staring down a baby possum back up in there.”

  He slid onto the bench seat beside Riley and banged the palm of his hand on the cart’s fiberglass roof, as he would have for a slow-witted New York cabbie. “Come on, Evvy. Floor it! It’s ten after five, which means I’m already two drinks behind schedule.”

  “Me, too,” Riley muttered.

  18

  Sunday night supper in Evelyn Nolan’s home was one of her sacred rituals. Even if dinner was an underdone tuna noodle casserole or an overdone pot roast, certain niceties were always observed. A crisply starched and ironed damask cloth covered the mahogany table, which was set with Evelyn’s mother’s china, silver, and Baccarat crystal. Attendance was as mandatory and set in stone as the dress code—which meant no T-shirts or shorts.

  Riley changed into a sundress before dinner, and nagged a resistant Maggy into doing the same thing. And Billy, after downing two pre-dinner vodka tonics, had donned a too-small button-down oxford-cloth dress shirt worn with a polka-dot clip-on bow tie, in a deliberate—and successful—attempt to irritate his mother.

  As always, Evelyn presided over the table wearing a dress, pearls, and heels. She glided into the dining room and slid a foil-wrapped casserole onto a silver-plated trivet in the middle of the table.

  “There!” she said triumphantly.

  “There, what?” Billy grabbed Riley’s empty iced tea goblet and filled it to the rim with wine before handing it back to her. “What smells so good?”

  “Dinner,” Evelyn said, glaring at her son. She peeled back the foil and a cloud of steam escaped. “Andrea Payne dropped this off a little while ago. It’s her beef bourguignon. She made it for book club last spring, and it’s absolutely divine.”

  She lit the ivory tapers in the silver candelabra and dimmed the lights of the glittering rock crystal chandelier before seating herself in her chair at the head of the table.

  “Andrea Payne was here? At the house? I hope you didn’t let her in.” Riley took a healthy swig of wine.

  “Of course I let her in,” Evelyn said. “Why wouldn’t I let her in my home?”

  Evelyn reached for Maggy’s plate and deposited a large spoonful of meat, mushrooms, carrots, and onions, swimming in a sea of wine-soaked sauce.

  “No, thanks,” Maggy said, quickly pushing her plate away. “I had a hot dog on the ferry. I think I’ll just have a roll or something.”

  Evelyn clucked her tongue in disapproval, but placed a yeast roll on the edge of Maggy’s bone china plate.

  “Andrea Payne,” Billy said, topping off his own glass with the wine, “is a notorious snoop and gossip. And a royal pain in the ass. Not to mention she’s a raging homophobe.”

  “What’s a homophobe?” Maggy asked.

  “Nothing we discuss at the dinner table,” Evelyn said quickly.

  Billy waggled a finger in his mother’s direction. “Tsk-tsk, Mimi. This is what we call a teachable moment. For your information, Maggy, a homophobe is somebody who doesn’t approve of your favorite uncle’s lifestyle. And who writes letters to the editor glorifying the sanctity of marriage, even though she herself is on her third marriage that I personally know of.”

  He reached across the table and helped himself to a bite from Maggy’s plate. He took a forkful of be
ef, chewed, and nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll say this though. The bitch can cook.”

  Riley laughed so hard she nearly spat wine from her nostrils.

  “You’re not nearly as funny as you and your sister seem to think you are,” Evelyn said, serving herself from the casserole. She stared pointedly at Billy’s rapidly refilling wineglass.

  “He’s right, Mama,” Riley said, pushing a bite of beef stew around her plate. “Andrea probably only came over here so she could sniff around and find some kind of malicious gossip to spread around the island. If you really are worried about what people will say about my predicament—she’s the one who’ll be saying it. Nobody loves dishing the dirt like that woman.”

  “What is our predicament?” Maggy asked.

  “Now is not the time,” Evelyn said in a warning tone.

  Riley sighed. “Look, Maggy. I think you’re old enough to hear the truth. I don’t know all the details yet, but it looks like we might be in some kind of … financial difficulty.”

  “So does that mean we’re broke? And homeless?”

  Evelyn slapped the table with the palm of her hand, sending wine slopping over the edge of her glass. “Stop this talk right now! All of you!” She turned to Riley. “Are you happy now? Your daughter thinks she’s going to be living in a shelter and applying for food stamps.”

  Maggy cocked her head toward her mother. “So? Are we?”

  “Thankfully, no,” Riley said. “We’re not broke, or homeless. We have resources. And we have family, thank God, and we’ll get through whatever is ahead of us, but I think you need to know we may be facing some tough times. That’s all. And no matter what we do or say, there are going to be people spreading rumors that aren’t necessarily true. So we have to just ignore that stuff and get on with our lives.”

  “Okay.” Maggy gave a hopeful glance toward her grandmother. “Hey, Mimi. Did that homophobe lady bring any dessert?”

  * * *

  Riley stood at the sink carefully rinsing and stacking the same gold-rimmed Wedgewood plates she’d washed on dozens and dozens of other, far less remarkable Sunday nights.

  As usual, Billy had fulfilled his proscribed after-dinner duties—clearing the table and taking out the trash, before beating a hasty retreat to the firehouse and, as usual, Maggy had disappeared to her own room, ostensibly to tackle her summer reading.