Cure for the Common Breakup

by Beth Kendrick

  “I conjured her with Facebook.” Summer rolled her eyes. “I keep telling you, there’s this magical thing now called the Internet.”

  Hattie stiffened her spine. “I have no desire to see her ever again.”

  “I know.”

  “I have made my feelings very clear on this.” Hattie trembled with rage, but Summer detected an undertone of fear. “You betrayed me.”

  “You’ve gone behind my back lots of times,” Summer pointed out. “But then you tell me you’re doing it for my own good. So now it’s my turn.”

  When Pauline was twenty feet away, Hattie threw up her arms to ward her off.

  Pauline stopped, still smiling determinedly. “Well, my goodness, Hattie, you got so thin. Don’t you eat anymore?”

  Hattie crossed her arms. “Not as much as you, clearly.”

  Pauline threw back her head and laughed, and Summer realized that she’d never once heard Hattie laugh. “Yes, I still love my chocolate and my cheese.” She took another tiny step toward her sister. “I see you’re still dressing like an uptight preppy.”

  “And you’re dressing like a flower child slattern.” To Summer’s astonishment, Hattie took a step toward Pauline. “You got old, too, you know.”

  “Not as old as you. Your hair is so short.”

  “Yours is too bleached.”

  They each took another step.

  “Still trying to hide your freckles under your makeup, I see,” Pauline said.

  “At least I’m aging gracefully,” Hattie retorted. “It’s plain as day you’re using Botox.”

  Another step closer.

  “And you’re still mean and sharp-tongued as a snake.”

  “And you’re still flighty and superficial.”

  “Some things never change.”

  Pauline pounced, throwing both arms around her sister.

  Hattie made a halfhearted show of struggling, but only for a moment. “Get off of me! I can’t breathe!”

  “Ah, sisterly love.” Summer clasped her hands over her heart. “Reunited and it feels so good.”

  —

  “Let’s go, you two. One foot in front of the other. Do I have to frisk you for weapons, or can you behave yourselves in public?” Summer dragged the Huntington sisters out of the hotel lobby to the sidewalk. Hattie had made another attempt to escape to the isolation of her hotel suite, but Summer had managed to head her off at the elevators. “We’re off to do some bonding.”

  “What exactly do you mean by ‘bonding’?” Hattie eyed her with suspicion.

  “Yes.” Pauline seemed apprehensive, too. “What does bonding entail?”

  “Forced marches and alcohol. Hup, two, three, four.” Summer led the way down a treelined path to the nearby town, which, despite being billed as a “quaint fishing village,” featured gourmet restaurants, boutiques capable of obliterating an entire credit card limit in a single transaction, and an obscenely expensive pâtisserie.

  Pauline flitted alongside her sister. “Hattie, I’d given up on ever talking to you again. I was so thrilled when you sent me that Facebook message.”

  “I didn’t.” Hattie stomped over a sewer grate in her spotless white loafers.

  “I handle all her personal correspondence,” Summer explained. “Just doing my job as her companion.”

  “I do not correspond with my sister,” Hattie said. “Nor do I have a Facebook account.”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve made your point.” Pauline confided to Summer, “I sent her Christmas cards for twenty years straight before I gave up.”

  Summer nodded. “She can be a little hardheaded.”

  “Runs in the family, I suppose.” Pauline raised her voice as if her sister were deaf instead of ignoring her. “So, Hattie, what are you up to these days?”

  Hattie kept her mouth closed and her gaze straight ahead, striding past charming cafés and breathtaking seaside vistas without a second glance.

  “She’s still living in Black Dog Bay,” Summer told Pauline. “Lording it over all the peasants.”

  “Really?” Pauline was practically shouting at Hattie. “I thought you hated that place.” She told Summer, “When we were little, she used to say she was moving to New York as soon as she finished high school.” To Hattie she said, “I’m living in California now, not that you asked. In a lovely little bungalow by Carmel. I make jewelry and grow my own vegetables.”

  Hattie said nothing.

  “Married?” Summer asked.

  “Twice,” Pauline said. “The first husband divorced me, the second one died. But I’ve got lots of friends, always somewhere to go and something to do.”

  Summer shot a sidelong look at Hattie. “Do you golf?”

  “Heavens, no.” Pauline wrinkled her nose. “But I just started going to Zumba, and I think I might stick with it.”

  Summer linked her arm through Pauline’s. “You’re my favorite.”

  Hattie finally broke her silence. “Pauline’s everyone’s favorite.” She jerked Summer away from her sister. “Don’t forget who’s paying you.”

  Summer drifted back toward Pauline. “Any kids?”

  “Not officially, but I’ve got five godchildren, plus three cats, two dogs, and a goat named Millie.”

  Hattie came to a halt in the middle of an intersection. “Millie? As in Millie Palmer?”

  Pauline blinked. “Who?”

  Summer shepherded both sisters toward the curb as a car approached.

  “Millie Palmer,” Hattie said. “From Bayside Drive. The one who wore the bright pink hat to church and wouldn’t stop pestering Mies Jansen. I’m sure you remember him.”

  Pauline gave Summer a mischievous wink. “Oh, really now, who can remember all that ancient history?”

  “I remember it perfectly, so don’t you dare try to rewrite it. You never cared how you hurt me, as long as everyone else liked you.”

  “Behave yourself,” Summer hissed at Hattie. “Better, not bitter, remember?”

  “Speak for yourself, Miss Benson.”

  —

  Two hours and four authentic French macarons later, Summer had given up on brokering any kind of peace between the Huntington sisters, who seemed hell-bent on keeping their feud going for another fifty years. She savored a salted chocolate and caramel confection, lagging several yards behind Pauline and Hattie as they stormed back to the hotel.

  “I can’t believe I flew all the way to Europe and you still won’t be civil to me.” Pauline’s patience finally snapped after a long afternoon in the sun.

  “Then go home,” Hattie snapped back. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

  Pauline clicked her tongue. “You know, you turned out just like Aunt Nora.”

  “Take that back!”

  “I’ll take it back when you stop acting like Aunt Nora. Petty and prudish and—”

  “And you wonder why I don’t speak to you?”

  “Girls!” Summer took another bite of salty caramel goodness. “Could you please dial down the negativity? I’m trying to have a moment with my macaron, here.”

  They both ignored her and kept sniping.

  Summer grabbed Hattie’s elbow with one hand, Pauline’s with the other hand, and tried to bring them both back toward the center of the path. “Mies Jansen must have been a catch and a half, to be worth all this drama. Either explain to me what was so great about the guy, or shut up about him, already.”

  “Well, he . . .” Pauline paused for a long moment. “You know, after all these years, it’s hard to remember.”

  Hattie let out a little squeak of indignation.

  Pauline exchanged a glance with Summer. “I imagine Black Dog Bay is still a small town today, but back in the fifties, it was desolate. We didn’t have many boys to choose from.”

  “There were enough that you co
uld have found your own,” Hattie sniffed.

  “Not like Mies!” Pauline fluttered her eyelashes. “Mies Jansen was dashing and charming, and, oh, just a hoot and a holler.”

  “And he was mine.” Hattie tugged up the neckline of her cardigan.

  “Now who’s stretching the truth?” Pauline swatted her sister on the arm. “He was Millie Palmer’s before you stole him away.”

  “Hold up.” Summer’s jaw dropped as she turned to Hattie. “You stole him from Millie Palmer?”

  “I didn’t steal anyone; he went willingly.” Hattie developed a great fascination with the foliage. “Millie Palmer wasn’t right for him, anyway.”

  “But you were?” Summer asked.

  “I loved him desperately.” Hattie’s voice had gone quiet and tremulous.

  “Not as much as you love not speaking to people,” Pauline muttered.

  “Then how did he end up with Pauline?” Summer asked.

  “He didn’t end up with me,” Pauline pointed out. “He ended up with that summer girl.”

  Hattie could contain herself no longer. “He married that summer girl, had a passel of bratty children with her, and rubbed it in my face every chance he got. And don’t try to change the subject.” Hattie shook her handbag at Pauline. “He only dallied with you because you lured him.”

  Pauline gasped in outrage. “Excuse me?”

  Hattie addressed Summer as though her sister had never spoken. “She stole my dress and copied my hairstyle and tried to snare my boyfriend for herself without a shred of virtue or remorse.”

  “You gave me that dress!” Pauline cried. “You said it was ugly and you didn’t want it anymore!”

  “This is like the plot of a Sweet Valley High novel.” Summer took another bite of macaron.

  Pauline got up in Hattie’s face, jabbing her index finger. “You’re just mad because someone else stole the man you stole for yourself.”

  Hattie jabbed her index finger right back. “You know what you did! All these years and you still can’t admit it!”

  Summer tried to step in between them. “Time out, time out. Let’s take a minute to cool down.”

  She had to duck out of the way before she lost an eye to all the index fingers.

  “He told me he loved me,” Hattie informed Pauline.

  “He told me he adored me,” Pauline shot back.

  “Love is better than adored.”

  “It is not.”

  “Is, too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Ladies. If you’re going to have a bar fight, let’s at least have it in a bar.” Summer plugged her ears and herded everybody back through the hotel gates and into the lobby.

  The front of the property was steeped in tradition and classic architecture, but the back of the building opened up into a sleek, spare patio overlooking the coastline. Low wicker benches surrounded small glass tables, and hand-finished hardwood planks added to the nautical atmosphere.

  “Is this the bar?” Summer asked a hotel employee in a white jacket and black tie.

  “Champagne lounge, actually.”

  “The mother ship.” Summer hustled the squabbling sisters over to the far end of the patio, where they continued to verbally assault each other on a bench directly above the beach. A server arrived to take their order, but Summer waved him off and headed over to the long, marble-topped bar herself.

  “Bonjour.” She gave the bartender her flirtiest smile and hoped it would compensate for her horrendous French. “Serait-il possible de faire boisson spéciale?”

  “Of course, mademoiselle,” the bartender replied in flawless English. “What would you like?”

  “Well, we’ll start with champagne. The good stuff.”

  He nodded and produced three delicate crystal flutes. “We have an elegant and harmonious 2004 Louis Roederer.”

  “That does sound pretty damn good.” Summer pointed out Hattie. “Charge it to her room. Okay, so we’ll start with that. And then, we’ll need some fresh vermouth. . . .”

  She returned to the Huntington sisters just in time to hear Pauline say, “Well, you were right when you said I was fast. He and I did all sorts of things in the backseat of his car, and you know what? I’d do it all over again.”

  Hattie sat up even straighter. “He respected me too much to even suggest such a thing.”

  Summer sat down and enjoyed the warm breeze ruffling her hair. “Drinks will be here shortly.”

  “Thank you, darling. You are a treasure.” Pauline patted Summer’s hand. Summer shot a satisfied glance at Hattie, who looked murderous.

  “You should have gone parking with him, too,” Pauline told Hattie. “Life is too short to be a slave to societal conventions.”

  “Am I hearing this right?” Summer asked Hattie. “You’ve been pining away over this fool for fifty years and you didn’t even have sex with him?”

  Hattie toyed with her slim gold wristwatch. “We were very much in love.”

  “Well, I would hope so,” Summer marveled. “Dude better have been the hottest manslice in all of Christendom.”

  “He was very handsome in his youth,” Hattie said. Then she turned to Pauline. “But he didn’t age well.” With an air of great conciliation, she admitted to Summer, “His grandson has much better bone structure.”

  “I went parking with the grandson,” Summer explained to Pauline, who did a little chair dance in solidarity. “It was fantastic.”

  “Is the grandson a smooth talker, too?” Pauline asked.

  “No, he’s kind of blunt. Gets right to the point.” Summer focused her gaze on the dark blue line where the ocean blurred into the sky and thought about the sea of roses blooming in Dutch’s garden. “But he’s really . . . He’s so . . .”

  “You’re very much in love,” Pauline finished for her.

  “No, no.” Summer shook herself out of her reverie. “I mean, I was. Maybe. Before we came to Paris.”

  Pauline shook her head at Hattie. “You ripped this poor girl away from her true love?”

  Hattie’s expression hardened. “It was for her own good.”

  Pauline’s eyes were the same shade of blue as Hattie’s, but the color seemed so much softer. “You must miss him terribly.”

  “I do.” Summer turned her face away. “I haven’t heard from him since I left Black Dog Bay. No call, no e-mail, no text . . .”

  “Texts.” Hattie snorted. “You young people today have no idea what you’re missing. When I was your age, we sent proper love letters.”

  “Have you tried to contact him?” Pauline persisted.

  “I left him a message.” Summer gnawed on the inside of her cheek. “Haven’t heard back.”

  “Just one message?”

  “Trust me, I was loud and clear.”

  “Send him a love letter,” Hattie advised, before she could stop herself. “Sorry. That was the south of France talking.”

  “Mies used to write me letters.” Pauline took on a dreamy, faraway expression. “Long, romantic letters. And he’d always sign them, ‘I love you more than you know.’”

  Hattie nearly toppled off her bench. “Pardon?”

  “‘I love you more than you know,’” her sister repeated.

  “But that’s how he used to sign his letters to me!”

  “What? No. Surely not!”

  Summer shot to her feet. “Let me go check on those drinks.” But the older women hunched closer together, blocking her way.

  “I memorized every line he ever wrote to me,” Hattie assured Pauline. “And that’s how he signed his letters.”

  “Do you suppose . . .” Pauline’s eyes widened. “You don’t think that’s how he signed his letters to Millie Palmer, too?”

  “It’s probably how he signed every letter to everyone.” Summer sat back down.
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  “How cheap. How dull and disappointing.” Hattie looked so stricken, Summer put an arm around her shoulders.

  Pauline shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “Let’s face it: Mies was nice to look at, but he wasn’t a staggering genius.”

  “Yeah.” Summer gave Hattie another little squeeze. “I’m sure plagiarizing himself was only one of his many faults.”

  Hattie mulled this over for a minute, then finally said, “Sometimes, after he came back from the dock, he did smell like fish.”

  Pauline brightened. “Remember his toenails? Ragged and unsightly.”

  “That’s true,” Hattie conceded. “And his mother was a terror.”

  “And his cousins were worse.”

  “And he was terribly vain.”

  “Always checking his part and combing his hair.” Both sisters giggled. “Remember the boar bristle brush?”

  “Who could forget?”

  “We should look up Millie Palmer and see how she’s doing.” Pauline appealed to Summer. “Can you do that with the Facebook, dear?”

  “Wow, it’s like I’m back at the Whinery.” Summer felt a stab of homesickness.

  “What’s the Whinery?” Pauline asked.

  “Only the best bar ever,” Summer said. “You two would fit right in if you ever get back to Black Dog Bay. Jenna, the owner, will make you a Cure for the Common Breakup.”

  “What’s the cure for the common breakup?”

  Summer motioned for them to clear a path to the glass table as the server arrived with three cocktails on a silver platter. “You’re about to find out.”

  Hattie and Pauline opted to shoot death glares at each other in lieu of toasting.

  “Cheers!” Summer said for all of them.

  And then the sisters sipped, and their long-held bitterness simply couldn’t withstand the bubbly sweetness.

  “Delicious!” Hattie murmured.

  “Divine!” Pauline cried.

  Suddenly, Hattie put down her glass and pointed at the sand. “Oh my goodness! Look at that!” She wore an expression Summer had never seen before—amazed, excited, unguarded.