Beach House

by Mary Monroe

  “Why do you say that?”

  “How many years has she been gone? Twenty? In all those years how many times has she come to you for advice? Or just to visit and hang out and, I don’t know, go through those old pictures together?” Her eyes flashed. “I can’t think of a single time.”

  Lovie turned back to the photographs, feeling the pain of the comment deeply. “She’s busy and has her own life.”

  “I think it’s because it’s easier. You two fight a lot.”

  “We do not.”

  “Maybe not yelling or such. You’re much too polite for that,” she said with a nudge. “But there’s always been this unspoken argument between the two of you. I suppose it’s just your way. But if you ask me—and I know you aren’t asking but here’s my opinion anyway—the two of you could use one good ol’ knock-down-drag-out fight. Spit it all out.”

  “What a suggestion!” Lovie replied, irked that her dearest friend couldn’t understand the situation at all. “You’ve known us for long enough to know better. Cara’s simply moved far away. It’s only natural that there be an emotional distance as well. Besides, Cara’s always been a loner and perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”

  “Being able to take care of herself and being by herself are two separate things entirely.”

  “What are you saying?” The notion struck her hard.

  “Well, does she have a fella?”

  “Who knows, though I’ve asked her enough times. She gets prickly when I so much as broach the subject. She mentioned a Richard Selby from her office who she’s been seeing for some time. My ears perk up whenever a man’s name is mentioned twice in her life. But it seems to me if he were the least bit special she would be on the phone with him. She hasn’t called a soul.” Lovie thought back to the empty-eyed expression she’d caught when Cara was staring out the window. “Do you think she’s lonely?”

  “How should I know? It’s possible. I mean, she may be superwoman at work but she’s still a woman when she goes home at night.”

  Lovie set the photos down in her lap, flustered. “But, I just told you. She lives a busy, full life. She’s always going someplace or doing something with someone. Cara loves the theater, you know. She’s seen all the latest shows.”

  Flo’s blue eyes seemed to burn right through Lovie’s arguments. “You might know better than most how empty a busy life can be.”

  Lovie’s breath caught and she couldn’t reply. It felt as though her world, which just a few moments ago seemed peaceful and orderly, was thrown off-kilter.

  “I’m sorry,” Flo said. “You know me, I speak first and think later. You wouldn’t be the first one to toss a ripe tomato my way. Go right ahead.”

  Lovie shook her head with a shaky smile. “It’s what I love most about you. But, I wonder if you might be right about Cara, after all.” She picked up a photograph from the pile on her lap. It showed a dark-haired Cara at about thirteen, all thin arms and legs. She was curled up like a cat in the branches of an enormous, twisted live oak tree, reading a book.

  “Look at her,” Flo said with affection. “She was scowling even then.”

  Lovie chuckled and ran a finger over the girl’s image. “I remember taking this one. That old tree was her favorite spot. She’d go up there to read or think, or just to be alone. Hiding out, most likely. She was a funny little thing. Always seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

  “Pubescent girls often behave like that. They’re teetering at the edge of womanhood and are so damn moody.”

  “Perhaps. We used to be very close when she was little but she became so distant. I could almost feel her hand pushing me away.”

  “Again, that’s normal for a girl that age.”

  “Be that as it may, it’s still painful for the mother to go through.” She sighed. “She’s still pushing me away. But that’s nothing compared to her father. She may have pushed me away but she raised her dukes to him. Went toe-to-toe with him at every chance. I was terrified for her. You know how his temper was. I daresay she enjoyed torturing him.”

  “Yeah? Well, good for her.”

  “Flo!”

  “What? You know how I felt about Stratton. God rest his soul, though I hate to think where the old coot’s roasting now.”

  Lovie frowned but let that pass without comment. The least response from her about Stratton would get Flo wound up like a top. She couldn’t stand the man and the feeling had been mutual. But that was all water under the bridge, as far as Lovie was concerned.

  “I wanted to capture Cara in her tree and I’m glad I did,” she said, returning her attention to the photograph. “Hurricane Hugo took that oak away along with so many others. Such a pity,” she ended with a sigh and set the photo aside. “I’ll show this to her later. She’s bound to notice her tree is gone.”

  “When you do, why don’t you ask her what else she remembers about that time? It’s a good way to open things up between you.”

  “Oh, Flo, those days are long gone. Why stir up bad memories? This is the first time she’s come home just to visit me. I’d like to keep things cheery and positive. And who knows? You might be right and it was nothing more than teenage angst, anyway. Best to leave things lie.”

  “There you go, tucking everything neatly away again.” She looked at her fingernails and said, “Speaking of which, have you talked to her about, well—” she raised her eyes “—you?”

  “About me? Good heavens, no. She’s only just arrived.”

  “She’s been here for days! I know you, Olivia Rutledge. You’ll keep mum and hold it all inside so as not to rock the boat.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in a few days. I’ve waited this long to tell her, I can wait a few days more.”

  “You will tell her?”

  “Of course.”

  Flo’s eyes bore into hers one more time, as though to gage whether or not to believe her. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in Lovie’s eyes, she sighed deeply, slapped her palms on her thighs and rose to a stand. “I have to go check on Miranda. She caught a slight cold but at her age everything’s a worry. Oh! I almost forgot the reason I came over. There was a stranding this morning over on Sullivan’s Island.”

  “Was it a loggerhead?”

  Flo nodded. “A juvenile. Poor thing. Its carapace was sliced up by a propeller. Probably in the harbor. That’s the sixth dead turtle that’s washed up this season. I hate it when the dead ones outnumber the nests. What with the shrimping season getting underway, we can expect to see a lot more.”

  “I hope not. It’s early. Our girls are still out in the swells and they’re just getting started. Give them time. It might be a slow start, but it’s going to be a great season. Our best.” She looked at the photograph of Cara and smiled with the brightness of hope. “I can feel it.”

  The loggerhead is named for its unusually large head. She has a powerful beaklike jaw and her eardrums are covered by skin. She has a keen sense of smell and an even keener instinct for survival—one that has kept the species alive since prehistoric times.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After a week of moping about the house in her pajamas, Cara decided she’d had enough wallowing. Today she would start her visit over. She waited behind the closed door of her bedroom until she heard the front door close and the footsteps of Lovie and Toy departing from the cottage. It had been another in a series of wild mornings of the telephone ringing with reports from the turtle volunteers, followed by a bustle of motion as Toy and Lovie gathered their supplies into the red bucket and headed for The Gold Bug and whatever point along the beach that turtle tracks were found.

  The coast was clear, as she and Palmer used to say when their father had left for work. She showered as best she could in the pitiful stream of water that escaped through a faucet with a chokehold of lime, but the French lavender soap her mother laid out went a long way to making her feel enormously better. There were large, thirsty towels and
a lovely gardenia-scented lotion to complete her bath. Back in her room, she saw that her mother had unpacked her suitcase for her. Inside the dresser drawer she found a fresh sachet.

  Cara smiled, shaking her head and murmuring, “Mama…”

  Her mother had always picked up her messy room during her teens. True, the room was vacuumed, the dirty dishes and laundry removed, but Cara knew it was really her mother’s clever way of keeping tabs on her rebellious offspring. One day Cara planted a package of condoms in a brown paper bag far back in the drawer beneath her bras. Oh, how the fireworks exploded that afternoon when she came home from the beach! Lovie tried both to scold Cara and defend herself for rifling through her daughter’s drawers. Cara’s hand stilled on the dresser, remembering that her mother had never told her father about the contents of that paper bag.

  Hanging in the cramped closet were her dressy slacks, silk blouses and one sexy black dress. Her closet back in Chicago was bulging with lovely tropical weight wool suits, silk blouses and scarves, and fine leather boots and shoes for a professional working in a city. But she had nothing for a casual day at the beach. Her life in Chicago had not been casual.

  She settled on a chic mint-green silk outfit and a pair of very dressy, strappy leather sandals studded with rhinestones that looked great on Michigan Avenue. Looking in the long mirror tacked to the back of the door, she saw a tall, sleek, dark-haired woman dressed to the nines and terribly out of place on the laid-back island. Then, because she felt a need for bolstering, she added a touch of shadow and mascara and a spritz of scent. Her dark hair, still damp, was rolled into a twist and secured with a clip.

  By the time she stepped into the living room, the fog had swept out to sea and sunshine poured in from the windows. Her spirits lifted at the prospect of a lovely day as she stood for a moment just inhaling great gulps of the fresh, salty air.

  She took her growling stomach as a good sign and moved into the small kitchen, neat and sparkling in the sun. She helped herself to a quick breakfast, then began to prowl, glancing out the windows, peeking in all the rooms and running her fingers through magazines on the coffee table. Before long, she felt the old restlessness stirring. She wasn’t accustomed to so much time on her hands. She had no agenda. She was anxious to do something.

  She rationalized that she’d needed a long, overdue vacation. But now it was time to regroup. She’d make a few calls and develop a game plan. Perhaps set up a couple of meetings. After all, she had contacts in the business, and a solid reputation to fall back on.

  Except, she didn’t have her computer with her. Or her cell phone. How could she have been so dazed as to leave them in Chicago? She’d stormed out of the city, determined to disengage. But rather than feel freer, she felt totally cut off without access to her e-mail. She was addicted to the connection. Without it she felt jittery and antsy. Marooned on some deserted island.

  While she paced, her wandering gaze caught sight of a cluster of photographs on the mantel that hadn’t been there before. Her mother must have just put them up. Her curiosity pricked, she walked closer to inspect.

  She was drawn first to the photograph of herself, naturally enough. In a small silver frame she saw herself as a young teen curled up in a tree reading a book. She felt a ping somewhere deep inside and raised her eyes out the rear window to search for the old oak tree that had been a dear friend to her for many years. But it wasn’t in the yard. “Poor old tree,” she said softly, mourning its loss. A flood of memories coursed through her and, instinctively, she placed the photograph back on the mantel and moved on.

  The largest was a silver-framed family photograph taken on the veranda of the Charleston house. A ruddy-faced Palmer in a navy blazer with shiny brass buttons sat with his arm around a slender, erect Julia in pale linen, every hair in place. Palmer had borne the butt of many jokes about how he’d married a gal just like mom, but Cara had never laughed. She’d always found that at the root of jokes there often lay a core of truth. On either side of them sat their children, Linnea and Cooper.

  She picked up a flowery, porcelain-framed school photo of her niece to study. Linnea was a pretty girl, an interesting combination of her parents. Counting back, Cara figured her niece was nine years old now. She had Palmer’s warm smile and flirtatious grin that would someday wrap a boy around her little finger. But in everything else, she looked like her mother and grandmother: petite, with brilliant blue eyes, fine white-gold hair and porcelain skin. Ol’ Palmer would have his hands full keeping the boys from that one, she thought with a chuckle. And it would only be God’s good justice after the hell he’d raised growing up.

  But Cooper was all Rutledge, from his strong jaw stuck out at a rebellious angle, to his broad forehead with the Rutledge hairline and the hint of what would someday become a proud, straight nose. He didn’t smile as much as grimace for the camera, as if to say, Do I have to? She tried to recall how old he was, ashamed that she didn’t know. It was a sad statement about her relationship with her brother. From the pudgy cheeks and the uncertain, wobbly smile, he looked to be no older than five. There was something in his eyes, however, a dark-brown like her own and her father’s, that drew her in. It was the vulnerability behind the bravado that she understood so well.

  She placed the photograph slowly back onto its place on the mantel, feeling very distant from these children and sorry for it. She had no children of her own—not so much by choice as by circumstance—and they were her only niece and nephew. She’d sent them gifts at Christmas and for their birthdays, for which she promptly received polite but impersonal thank-you notes. Such was the extent of their relationship. She wondered if they would even recognize her if she passed them in the street?

  Making a quick decision, she walked directly to the phone and dialed Palmer’s number at the family house. It was the same number she’d dialed since she was a child. It rang four times before a gruff voice answered.

  “Palmer?” she asked, surprised to find him home in the morning. She’d expected to reach Julia.

  There was a pause. “Mama?”

  Cara laughed. “No, it’s me. Cara. How are you?”

  “Cara? Well, for…This is a surprise! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, fine. In fact, I’m in town.”

  “No kidding? That’s great. How long you in for?”

  “Not too long.”

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure, actually.”

  “Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised. He chuckled softly, a low, masculine rumbling sound unique to Southern men. “Well now, that’s a switch.”

  “Don’t start in on me, Palmer,” she replied, laughing. “Actually, I’m out at the beach house. Mama asked me to come for a visit and I had a few days, so here I am.”

  “Did she now?” He paused as though thinking that over. “So, did you meet her companion?”

  By the way he said the word, she knew instantly that he disapproved of Toy Sooner. Cara sighed, remembering her promise to her mother. “I did. Briefly. She’s been keeping herself scarce and, frankly, I’ve been grounded with a migraine since I arrived. I couldn’t open my mouth except to groan. But I’m feeling much better now. Listen, Palmer, I saw photographs of Cooper and Linnea and I was amazed at how they’ve grown. Actually, I’m calling because I’d like to see y’all while I’m in town.” Palmer’s drawl was so infectious she couldn’t help the Lowcountry from creeping back into her own tone and words.

  “Why sure, honey! We’d love that. Julia will cook up something real special. When can you come?”

  She felt herself smiling. “When do you want me?”

  “Well, here’s the thing. I’m fixing to leave for Charlotte this afternoon. I’ve got some business to tend to up there that’ll take up the week. I’m packing my suitcase right now. How about Saturday? You gonna be here that long? That’s a whole three days away….”

  She let the tease ride. Looking out the window she saw a brilliant blue sky. She’d spen
t her first week groaning in bed with the shades drawn or moping—hardly a vacation. But more importantly, she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here to do. And she wanted to see her niece and nephew.

  “You can count on it, big brother.”

  “Well, good,” he replied, and she could hear the pleasure in his drawl. “We’re all looking forward to it. And bring that runaway back home with you, hear? Tell her that her grandbabies miss her. Mama hasn’t been back here but a few times since she left. She’s like a hermit crab, hiding out in that tiny place. I worry about her.”

  “Come out to the island, then. It’s not far.”

  “Maybe now that summer’s here and the kids are out of school, we’ll do just that. We’ll come out for a good visit.”

  “Mama’d like that.” Then, thinking of Toy, “But it’s a little crowded here now.”

  “Hell, I don’t stay in the cottage anymore,” he said, shooing away the suggestion in his blustery voice that sounded so much like her father’s it was eerie. “I’ve got my own place on Sullivan’s Island. Over by the lighthouse. Problem is, it’s rented out so much in the summer we hardly ever get to come down to the water like we want to.”

  Cara heard the pride in his voice and thought that business must be pretty good for him to buy a summerhouse on Sullivan’s. Last she’d heard, they were saving to buy a house downtown. Could be they liked living in Mother’s house well enough. Then Cara knew an unsettling feeling as a new thought took root.

  “Why don’t y’all come around four o’clock,” he said. “We’ll take a spin on the boat, maybe go up the Intracoastal a ways and come around back to the harbor. I’ll bet you haven’t done that in a long time. We can have ourselves some drinks and watch the sun set like old times. We’ll do it proper.”

  “Sounds great, Palmer,” she said, meaning it. “Is there anything I can bring?”

  “Well now, since you asked. Remember that shack that sells shrimp over on Shem Creek? Clud’s?”