The Beach House

by Sally John

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “I care, Char.”

  “You could have fooled me, C.P. Goodbye.”

  She disconnected before he could reply. At that point, there was absolutely nothing he could say that would make any difference whatsoever.

  Thirty-Nine

  Jo sat on the edge of the bed and pressed a damp cloth to Molly’s forehead. Even in the low lamplight her face appeared drained of all color.

  “Moll, I can get something for you. I’ve got my prescription pad with me. A pharmacy is down the street.”

  She grimaced. “Throwing up comes with the territory, especially when I’m stupid enough to eat the spiciest kung pao I’ve ever tasted in my life. Promise me you won’t say ‘Chinese’ in front of me for a long, long time?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey. Don’t look so worried. I’m fine. I will be fine.”

  “Can we get you anything else?” Jo glanced at the nightstand, where she’d placed water bottles, saltines, and her cell phone for Molly to use.

  “What else is there?” Her mouth twisted, a brave attempt at a smile. “I can’t believe Andie walked three blocks in the dark to buy those crackers. Make that Spunky Andie. Let’s keep calling her that so she doesn’t lose sight of it. Okay?”

  “It’s a deal. Think you can sleep now?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She closed her eyes. “You’ll leave the door unlocked for Char?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “You’ll wake me if she doesn’t come home soon?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “So we can go find her.”

  “Yeah, right. Go to sleep.”

  Molly smiled through a groan. “One for all and all for one.”

  Jo stood. “Do you want this light on?”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes remained shut. “Maybe I’ll read.”

  “Okay. Yell if we can do anything.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Moll?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m sorry for being such a smart mouth about the way you mother your kids.”

  “No worries. I’m sorry for attacking your chewing habits.”

  “That hardly mattered. I attacked you personally.”

  Molly looked at her now through dark lashes that obscured the gray-green eyes. “And I’m sorry for thinking you’re a snob who will never get it.”

  “I am a snob.” She waited, unsure if she wanted to hear more. “I’m still envious of your thick eyelashes.”

  “Chicken. You’re changing the subject.”

  Jo thought of Andie fighting her fears with every ounce of courage she could rally. And of Molly, so intensely searching for herself during a few short days away from everyday distractions that surely could not leave her time to think.

  Wasn’t all of that the point? The reason Jo had wanted to be with her friends? To feel their collective strength and battle her own fears and find that piece of herself she had lost?

  “Okay,” Jo said. “I am a snob who will never get what?”

  “That God loves you unconditionally.”

  She sank onto the bed again, pushed there by two giant hands, one emitting God’s radiant love, the other His blazing fire. It was the Molly Effect, full-on assault.

  “Moll,” she whispered. “I can’t reconcile the fire and the love. I’m the poster child for filth. If I get close, He’ll burn me up.”

  “I keep telling you, that’s why Jesus came. He forgives the junk. All you have to do is ask. Andie will forgive you too. All you have to do…sorry, I…” A soft snore rattled in her throat.

  Molly was fast asleep! God oozing from her every pore and she was fast asleep!

  Of all the nerve.

  Jo walked out into the living room. Andie was nowhere to be seen.

  Except in Jo’s imagination.

  She’ll forgive you too. Molly’s words referred to Andie, to Jo’s confession of making out with Paul after the rehearsal dinner.

  Maybe she would just go to bed. Sleep in the beach house had been deeper than she’d experienced in a long time without the aid of a pill. Whether it was angels, leftover Faith Fontaine vibes, recalled Babette memories, or a combination of all three, that beach house presence induced rest. Soul-soothing, dead-to-the-world slumber.

  Now, though, thoughts of her friends intruded, zapping the need to escape. If a friend would not let a friend drive drunk, neither would she ignore needs she might be able to meet. Molly was ill, Char was confused about where she stood with them, and Andie…

  Andie needed to hear how she had been wronged by Jo. The air between them needed to be cleared. Perhaps that sort of thing gave more space to angels, Faith vibes, and Babette memories.

  Perhaps it gave space to the radiant love that wasn’t so ethereal anymore.

  Jo found Andie outdoors standing in the dark at the seawall, gazing toward the ocean.

  “Hey.” Jo stepped beside her.

  “Hey. How’s Molly?”

  “She’s asleep. She should have dinner out of her system, anyway.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “But it’s so worth it, right? At least that’s what I hear, especially from mommies when they first hold their brand-new baby. By comparison, what’s a few months of barfing, a few hours of working a bowling ball from the womb?”

  Andie chuckled. “That’s true. It is so worth it.”

  Jo faced the ocean but didn’t see it. She saw only her old friends giving birth. Eight children between them. Why hadn’t Jo been a part of even one’s entrance into the world? Distance and marital status. Those seemed silly excuses.

  “Jo, it must be unbearably hard. Delivering all those babies and not having your own.”

  She leaned heavily against the wall, pushed again by those giant hands. No, only by one this time. The one emitting blazing fire. She deserved His wrath.

  Andie said, “It’s none of my business—”

  “Of course it is, Andie. We reunited because we had a great friendship and wanted to experience that closeness again. That closeness of sharing all our business.” She turned and slid sideways up onto the wall. “I’m not sure how I ended up an obstetrician. I never really planned on having children. My parents cured me of any innate tendency in that area. But when I was going to school and helping Ernie at the clinic, I most loved working with the pregnant women. And so it seemed an obvious choice to go that direction. I think it had something to do with observing the miracle of life over and over. I couldn’t get enough of that. Still can’t.”

  Jo stopped short of addressing Andie’s comment about the profession being difficult for her. Did she really have to go there? Must she describe how some days it was indeed unbearably difficult because a hysterectomy at age thirty-six made it so?

  All Jo’s determination to reconnect with her friends fizzled. Maybe their deeply personal journeys were no one else’s business. She swung her legs over the top of the seawall and twisted around to face the ocean.

  Andie sat beside her. “Oomph,” she grunted as she pulled her legs up one at a time. “In the water I feel so light and athletic! This wall is a little reality check. I should have skipped the fourth egg roll.” She sighed loudly. “It just went down so easily. There was Paul in my mind, talking me out of tomorrow’s flight of fancy. ‘Andrea.’” She lowered her voice. “ ‘Do you truly believe that going to a motel is really the best use of your time and money?’ ”

  Jo patted her shoulder. “Of course it’s the best use of them. It’ll be like one of those camps where they challenge people to move way beyond their comfort zone by staying out in the woods all night alone or rock climbing.”

  “That’s what I think. I also think while I’m out there, maybe I’ll find some new tapes to play in my head. Twenty years is quite long enough to filter every thought through ‘But Andrea, if you do it my way, won’t that be better?’”

  Jo shivered. The night air remained balmy, but the t
hought of Paul, year after year, crushing the spunk right out of Andie chilled her to the bone.

  Was it really her place to add even more weight to the power he held over her friend?

  But which was the worst offense? To add weight or to withhold the truth?

  The truth would free Jo of some guilt. It would clear the air between them.

  But it would hurt her…

  And yet, maybe telling the truth was like Andie’s work, like kneading toxins loose in order to open the way for healing energy to flow.

  Andie said, “You must think I’m such a ninny. You’re so strong and independent.”

  “Hon, I spent years drinking myself into oblivion on a regular basis. That makes me the ninny. You’ve just been doing the best you could, taking care of your children and home while living under a smothering personality. And from the descriptions of your sons and your work, I think you’ve done a superior job.”

  “I’m not too sure about that.”

  “Well, you should be. You know what I’ve noticed since we arrived?”

  “What?”

  “Our first two days together, you said ‘Paul’ in every other sentence. He thought this, he thought that, he would say this or that. You’re bringing him up less and less.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She paused and looked at Andie. “But I have to bring him up. There was…uh…something happened. A long time ago.”

  She turned toward Andie.

  “I want to ask your forgiveness. I did a stupid, stupid thing.” Jo felt her throat close up. Her pulse raced. Her head pounded. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I drank too much at your wedding rehearsal dinner.”

  “Jo, I forgave you for that—”

  “I know. You always did. Every time I messed things up you did. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Paul drank too much as well. And after he took you home, we met at a bar. He made a pass. I let him make another one. We sat in a booth and…made out. Then I remembered Ernie was on his way to pick me up after his shift. End of story.”

  Andie’s face was hidden by shadows, unreadable.

  “It was a drunken flirtation that meant nothing to either one of us. I only saw him twice after that, at Char’s and Molly’s weddings. We never spoke of it or even hinted at that night. There were lots of other people around. A big party.” She caught herself before saying “other women.” Hard telling what the guy had gone on to do that night. “He probably doesn’t even remember anything. I’m sorry.”

  “Well.” Andie’s breathing sounded uneven. “Why are you telling me now?”

  “I need your forgiveness.”

  “You didn’t cover this the last time you went through the Steps.”

  Jo shook her head. “No, I didn’t. And I’m not going through the Steps now. I just…want to get right with you. And God.”

  “He’ll forgive you.”

  Jo waited.

  “I…”She slid off the seawall. “I… it shouldn’t matter now. So long ago. And kissing you in a bar one time was a mere drop in the bucket. He, um, he hasn’t been faithful since…maybe never. I-I don’t want to talk right now.” She hurried across the boardwalk toward the house.

  Jo’s heart pounded and she whispered to herself, “Hang in there, Spunky Andie. Hang in there.”

  Forty

  The refrigerator in the beach house kitchen was a nice one. It even had a light bulb in the freezer section. Like the noonday sun, that light illumined the compartment and the one item—besides ice cubes—stored in it, namely a carton of ice cream. Black raspberry chocolate ice cream. A half gallon. Unopened.

  The container was turned sideways, allowing the label’s list of ingredients to catch the full impact of the light, making the fine print easily readable.

  Fat grams. Saturated.

  Carbohydrate grams. Not the complex kind.

  Sugar.

  Corn syrup.

  Mono- and diglycerides.

  Sodium phosphates.

  Artificial flavoring.

  Artificial coloring.

  The fan kicked on. Frosty air blew on Andie’s face.

  She closed her eyes and let the blast cool the hot anger that burned. Her cheeks must have been as red as her hair.

  She had always imagined it had been Char. Char, the out-and-out flirt, turner of men’s heads, not yet engaged to Cam at the time of Andie’s wedding. Not cynical Jo, always disdainful toward Paul, so enamored with Ernesto Delgado she almost didn’t make it to the church in time for the rehearsal.

  Well, in reality Paul smooching with Jo in a bar was not what happened the night before her wedding. True, that knowledge cut her to the core and she would have to deal with it, but it was not the main source of her pain.

  No, he had been with someone else, maybe even Char. Not that he confessed such a thing. She just knew…The dark circles under his eyes…The exchanged snickers with the groomsmen… His uncharacteristically felicitous attention toward her, overmuch even for a wedding day…She had asked, “Okay, what’d you do?”

  Joking.

  “Andrea, I married you.” The wink. The grin that freed a mass of butterflies in her stomach. “That’s what I did.”

  And she let it go.

  Was that the first swing of the ax? The first leg to be knocked out from under her spunk?

  Andie stared again at the carton, at the enlarged depiction of luscious fruit and chocolate chunks surrounded by thick textured raspberry-colored sweetness.

  How could Jo…? Countless other times, her behavior had been easily forgivable. Who could blame her? She truly had never felt loved by her parents or siblings. She drowned her pain with alcohol. She had only her three best friends and Grandmère Babette.

  But now, Andie wasn’t all that eager to forgive.

  Jo and Paul could rot in Hades.

  She slammed shut the freezer door.

  Andie knocked on Julian’s patio door, the one facing the beach. Slivers of light shone around closed vertical blinds.

  The blinds moved. Julian pushed them aside and slid open the door, concern immediately creasing his face. Music poured out. Majestic classical music enveloped her.

  “Andie.” He spoke loudly. “Come in. Let me take that.”

  She shrugged the large overnight bag from her shoulder into his hand and stepped inside. “Thanks.”

  He shut the door behind her. “Have a seat.”

  She gave the room a cursory glance. It was large and comfortable, lit by two floor lamps. Though sparse by Faith’s standards, it was nicely furnished. Blue tones dominated. Overstuffed couches and chairs and a sound system filled the front end. Behind a dividing counter, she spotted the kitchen area.

  He picked up a remote from the coffee table and pointed it at the receiver. The volume lessened.

  “Have a seat,” he said again.

  She remained standing, feeling dazed. A short while ago she had looked at her overnight bag, already packed for tomorrow’s adventure, and was struck with the sensation of freefall, like how a baby robin pushed from its nest must feel. Instinct kicked in, activating limp wings of dormant faith. She flew to the nearest tree branch, trusting in the shelter available there.

  “Julian, I need a place to sleep.”

  “The apartment upstairs is ready and waiting.” His rental space.

  “The couch—”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “I’ll pay—”

  “I don’t charge friends.”

  Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are?

  He tilted his head to the side and studied her for a moment. “Do you want to talk?”

  She shook her head.

  “Cry?”

  She hesitated. Well, yes, she wanted to cry. Above all she wanted to cry. And a shoulder reminiscent of her dad’s would be the perfect place to let her tears fall
.

  But Julian was not her dad.

  Once more she shook her head.

  “I’ll get the key.” He went into the kitchen.

  Forty-One

  Jo watched from the beach.

  Earlier, after confessing to Andie, she had walked a long time, barefoot, at the water’s edge, soaking in the deep quiet, giving Andie space in the house.

  Now she stood, rooted in the sand as her friend walked to the neighbor’s, a large bag hanging from her shoulder.

  Julian opened his door. Andie went inside. He shut the door and the blinds.

  Jo could hardly blame her. Why would Andie want to hang around her any longer? Why would she bother to pretend she didn’t want another man? Any other woman would have left that scoundrel Paul ages ago.

  But she wasn’t any other woman. She was Andie. Jo had never known anyone else like her. Molly was good, solid, but earthy too. Get out from under the pile. Andie was good, not solid so much as shot clear through with purity.

  Lord.

  Jo sank onto the sand where she stood. She dug her feet through the cool top layer, damp from the night ocean air. Beneath it her toes touched pockets of warmth where the sun’s heat lingered.

  Why did it hurt so to do the right thing? It had been right to reveal her true self to Andie. It had been right to not give that abortion pill to the sixteen-year-old girl. It had been right to gather her old friends together.

  Images flashed through her mind.

  The liquor store three blocks away.

  Her wallet on the dresser in her bedroom.

  The tall plastic cups in the cupboard.

  She would use plastic. Glass was prohibited on the beach. Of course, so was alcohol, but she wasn’t about to get sloshed inside Faith Fontaine’s house. Come to think of it, she doubted she could even walk through it in order to get money for the sole purpose of buying booze. That presence she felt in the house—whatever it was—kept chipping away at her desire to escape real life.

  Maybe the salesclerk would extend her credit until tomorrow.

  “God!”

  Other images chased off pictures of herself sitting in the sand with a bottle and a plastic cup.