Ten Beach Road

by Wendy Wax

  Robby smiled. Chase gave her a curt nod. She was not invited to accompany them on their tour of the house and its bathrooms and water lines. As they left the kitchen she poured herself another cup of coffee and sank into a chair at the kitchen table, where Madeline was making a list on a legal pad. Without comment, she reached over and slid the box of doughnuts toward Avery.

  “He acts like he’s being generous when he gives me any information at all.” She selected a chocolate-covered doughnut and practically inhaled it. “He’s completely maddening.”

  “But you do feel like he knows what he’s doing?” Madeline asked, her brow creasing.

  “Oh, probably.” The admission was grudging. “But I’m not going to spend an entire summer being treated like I have no brain or experience.” She ate half of the second doughnut before she realized what she was doing. “Great. Day one and he’s already driving me to eat.” She stood and dropped the rest of the doughnut in the garbage. When the next truck pulled into the drive, she strode toward the front door, determined to be included.

  Enrico Dante, the roof man, could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy. He was small and wizened, like a grape that had been left a bit too long on the vine. When he swept off his baseball cap in greeting, he revealed a head as smooth and round as a cue ball.

  “Buon giorno, signorina,” he said in a marked Italian accent. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I understand we will do some work on the roof tiles, yes?”

  “Well, possibly. We’ll have to see whether . . .”

  Before she could finish, Chase was there and stepping forward to engulf Enrico in a bear hug. “Buon giorno, mi amico. Come stai?”

  They conversed easily in Italian for several moments, apparently happy as clams to see each other. Avery stiffened when Chase ruffled her hair and said something in Italian that made both men laugh.

  “You know,” she began, trying desperately to hold on to her temper. “I don’t appreciate—”

  Once again Chase cut her off. “Before you ask for Enrico’s credentials I’ll tell you that his grandfather was one of your hero Addison Mizner’s favored artisans. He and his brothers came over from Italy to work for him and they did the roofs of many of the best known homes in Palm Beach. No one is more qualified to assess what needs to be done to Bella Flora’s roof.”

  Enrico bowed and smiled at her. Chase shot her an insolent wink as he threw an arm around Enrico’s shoulder and left her standing in the foyer while they retrieved a ladder from Enrico’s truck and carried it around to the back of the house.

  Avery wanted to climb that ladder and see the damage for herself. She wanted to hear Enrico’s take on what would be needed and get some idea of time and cost, but once again Chase had cut her out. Just as Trent had. She stood in the foyer staring out through the open front door as this sank all the way in. Was she going to just sit back and be dismissed again? Was she going to let someone else relegate her to pointing and gesturing?

  Only if she allowed herself to be.

  Avery slammed the front door shut. Turning, she strode down the central hallway and out the rear French doors to the covered loggia. She saw the ladder perched against the west end of the house. Refusing to second-guess herself, she climbed quickly up the ladder and stepped carefully onto a flat expanse of roof. Enrico and Chase crouched a few feet away on a sharply angled gable.

  She stepped closer and up onto the angled section so that she could peer over their shoulders. “This is where the old sleeping porch was joined to the master, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Chase started in surprise and for a second she thought he was going to tumble backward and take her with him. “What are you doing up here?”

  Enrico put a steadying hand on Chase’s shoulder and the moment passed. The roofer stood easily, as sure-footed as a mountain goat. Chase didn’t look quite as comfortable, but then he was considerably larger than Enrico and had to tread more carefully.

  “I wanted to see what the problem was,” Avery said. “It’s where the roof segments are joined, isn’t it?” she asked Enrico. “That’s always the weakest spot.”

  “Yes, signorina,” Enrico said with an approving smile as he beckoned her closer.

  Avery moved next to him and peered down into the master bedroom. “That bird probably fell in the first time,” she said. “And then decided to build its nest there.” She looked beyond the roof and out over the Gulf of Mexico for a moment; the angled section of barrel tiles like a red arrow pointing toward the postcard picture view. “Can we get tiles that match?”

  “Yes,” Enrico said. “I have a resource for this, but it will take several weeks to get them. We’ll put a tarp for now to keep the elements and animals out. Then I will spend about a week repairing the wood battens and mudding so that I can affix the tiles when they arrive.”

  She didn’t press for figures. Enrico was a professional and Chase’s ownership should ensure that he would watch the expenditures carefully; she wasn’t looking to throw her weight around, she just needed to know and approve of what was going on.

  “Great. Thanks.” She smiled her appreciation at the roofer and then climbed down the ladder satisfied.

  Reminding herself that she could only be cut out if she allowed herself to be, she went to find Robby and ask his take on the scope of what he’d need to do. His answers weren’t exactly what she would have liked to hear—they were going to be down to the kitchen and one bathroom for the foreseeable future as he shut off everything below the main waterline, but he answered her questions clearly and easily and he didn’t speak down to her like Chase did. In fact, he seemed exceedingly eager to please.

  An hour later, she stood in the driveway watching all three trucks disappear. Chase had not seen fit to share any information with her, but she didn’t need him to. He could be as big a jerk as he wanted as long as she didn’t allow it to stop her from finding out what she needed to know. Avery smiled, glad they had Bella Flora to themselves again and even gladder that she now had a plan of attack, a way to deal with the infuriating Chase Hardin. She and Chase could have their own version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  By the end of the day, Madeline felt like she had when Kyra was four and Andrew just born and she’d first discovered what the word “exhausted” actually meant. Avery had braved the mass of junk crammed in the detached four-car garage and retrieved two ladders and what looked like an assortment of antique tools. The ladders had allowed them to reach crown moldings and the salon’s coffered ceiling and almost all of the hanging light fixtures, which put Madeline up close and personal with more cobwebs and their occupants, both living and dead, than she ever wanted to see again.

  Nicole, who had been assigned to re-mop all of the upstairs floors, had not yet made it to the front stairs when they broke around one o’clock for lunch.

  “I’m going to be dusting, wiping, and mopping in my sleep tonight,” Madeline groaned as she carried the pitcher of sun tea she’d made to the kitchen table and swiped at a cobweb that hung down over her forehead.

  “I wouldn’t care what I was dreaming if I was actually asleep.” Nicole reached for the bag of chips. “To think I wasted all that money on a personal trainer when I could have turned my biceps into quivering masses of jelly pushing a mop.”

  “I know what you mean,” Avery said. “I can hardly move my arms and I’ve only taped up about a tenth of a percent of the missing and broken window panes.” She bit into her sandwich. “I had no idea I was so out of shape.”

  After a brief negotiation, they gave themselves twenty minutes before forcing themselves and each other back to work. By the end of the day, Madeline would have given everything she owned—not that that was much of anything at this point—for a filled pool to dive into.

  For the last half hour before quitting time, they worked in the back, righting and scrubbing bird droppings from the concrete picnic table and its half-moon benches and sweeping, bagging, and carting away the rubble from the pool deck
. There was plenty of groaning and complaining as their overworked and stunned muscles and joints protested the abuse, but the day was warm and balmy and the sun sparkled off the blue green water like diamonds strewn across the slight swells.

  At six thirty P.M. they quit and by tacit agreement gathered to watch the sunset. Nicole brought out the plastic glasses and a chilled bottle of pinot grigio. Avery followed with a plate of Cheez Doodles.

  “Really?” Nicole asked when she saw them.

  Madeline bit back a smile at Nicole’s pained expression.

  “Really,” Avery replied as she sank down into her aluminum beach chair and scooted it a bit to maximize her view of the sun suspended over the water. “If you need something fancier, feel free to create it.”

  Nicole pinched two doodles from the plate before passing their hors d’oeuvres to Madeline. “I may just have to do that,” she said.

  “And I’m going to add a blender to our acquisition list,” Madeline said as the sun began its descent, leaching the color out of the sky and turning it to the palest blue gray. “Sunsets like this practically demand a frozen drink, maybe even with an umbrella in it.”

  They watched the remainder of the show in silence. When the final wisps of pink had disappeared completely, Madeline offered her “one good thing.” “I think we’ve made real inroads in the fight against dirt and grime. And I think Bella Flora is grateful.” She smiled at Nicole.

  “All right.” Nicole nodded and thought for a moment. “I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I’m beginning to like the ‘eau de chemical’ scent Bella Flora’s wearing. At least compared to the smells it’s starting to mask.”

  Madeline nodded and she and Nicole turned to Avery, whose fingers and lips were now coated a distinct Cheez Doodle orange.

  “Well, I have two good things today.” Avery’s tongue swiped around her lips, presumably in an effort to get the last of the cheese. “Number one—we’re short on bathrooms but there’s a whole Gulf right there just waiting to be soaked in, if anyone wants to go for a swim with me.” She hesitated briefly before smiling broadly. “And despite some very real temptation, I did not buy a weapon or try to do Chase Hardin in.”

  Twelve

  Nicole woke up stiff the next morning, her body no longer used to actual physical labor or to sleeping without benefit of bed frame or box spring. During her childhood a mattress was not a thing to be taken for granted, but over the years since she’d left home and created a new life for herself she’d grown accustomed to creature comforts and was, in fact, immensely comforted by them.

  Sunlight streamed in through the uncovered windows and fanned across her face. Through the window she could see a clear blue sky with only a hint of pulled-cotton clouds. Her cell phone lay next to her attached to the charger that she’d plugged into the closest outlet. Her Louis Vuitton suitcase sat on the floor, its cover propped up against the wall. The house settled around her, its old joints creaking.

  Her gaze flitted around the empty space that would be hers for the summer. She didn’t have furniture or a TV or a single piece of art on the wall, but she did have her own room and bathroom, unusable though it was at the moment. A Sam’s Club towel and washcloth sat on her nightstand. This was what her life had come to.

  Her smile faded as she thought about why and who was responsible for her reduced circumstances, and she closed her eyes briefly against the sunlight and the truth. Six years older than Malcolm, she’d done her best to shield him from the grimmer realities of their childhood—the years when their father, who’d begun as a harbor pilot, had bounced from menial job to more menial job, up and down the eastern seaboard. When he died while working as a day laborer on the docks in Jacksonville, the bouncing stopped. And so did the small trickle of money it had produced. Nicole had been thirteen and Malcolm seven when they’d moved into the dreary duplex that was all their mother could afford on her earnings as a hotel maid. They’d clung to that hovel by their fingertips, their mother working a second job nights at a bar, Nicole trying to fill in the gaps in mothering.

  Even as a child, Malcolm was bright with startling good looks and far more than his fair share of charm. He wielded these assets instinctively at first and then, as he grew older, with a fierce intent. She’d been alternately proud of and worried about him. When he made a wrong choice or cut some corner, Nicole had stepped in to protect him, understanding as no one else could the desperate need to overcome their circumstances. She simply couldn’t bear to see him punished for trying to build a new life or for believing her when she told him that he could be anything and anyone he chose to be.

  It had never occurred to her that he’d one day aspire to being a thief.

  Though she knew it was futile, Nicole pulled her phone close and began to scroll through her address book until she’d called every number she’d ever had for Malcolm, each one representing another step up the ladder of success he’d so determinedly climbed.

  Just like they were the last time she’d tried, all of them were no longer in service or had been disconnected. If Malcolm was using a phone, it wasn’t one he’d ever shared with her or apparently intended to.

  With a sigh, Nicole climbed off her mattress and carried her running clothes through the doorway and down the two steps to the private bath. It was decidedly funky with raspberry tiled walls and a delicate, if still filthy, cut-glass chandelier hanging from the raspberry tile ceiling. The sink was a wall-hung rectangle of once creamy white porcelain. Wishing she could simply turn on the pockmarked chrome handles and wash her face and brush her teeth, she squinted into the ancient mirror with its etched flower border, but the glass was so cloudy she could barely make out the details of her face. With a sigh, she wriggled into the spandex and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

  For the briefest of moments she allowed herself to imagine just heading down to the beach “as is,” but Nicole, who had relied every bit as strenuously on her God-given assets as Malcolm had, carried her makeup bag to the hall bath, also an ode to 1920s tile, and spent the next fifteen minutes applying her “armor.”

  Treading gently so as not to wake the others, Nicole left through the side kitchen door and did her stretching on the pool deck, where she could enjoy the view and the early morning sun on her face and skin.

  She took the path from the house, bypassing the jetty, where a lone fisherman baited his hook. The pelican and seabird audience had already claimed their spots; perhaps these were the early birds that hoped to catch the worm? Once on the beach she began a slow jog, sticking to the hard-packed sand just beyond the tide line. Her shoes crunched rhythmically on the nights’ deposit of broken shell; the warm breeze teased her hair and caressed her cheeks.

  Just beyond the Paradise Grille the beach widened. A bit later the larger Gulf-front homes began. An old man on a bench up near a clump of sea oats watched her progress, his tobacco-colored skin attesting to years probably spent on that very bench.

  Behind her the crunch of shell announced the presence of another runner and Nicole checked her speed slightly to let them pass. Instead the bulky shadow of the other runner melded with and then blotted out her own. Nicole glanced to her right and saw that it was Agent Giraldi, who’d matched his pace to hers so that they were, for all intents and purposes, running together.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, turning her gaze back to the beach in front of her as they ran.

  “Just out for a little run,” he said beside her. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  Nicole kept her tone nonchalant. “It was.”

  She could feel him smile, but he didn’t comment. Nor did he leave.

  She sneaked a peek out of the corner of her eye to take a second look at the bare chest that triangled down to the trim waist and well-defined abs. A plain white T-shirt, which he had taken off and stuck in the waistband of his navy running shorts, bounced against one muscled thigh as he ran. Apparently the FBI still had certain physical requirements. His beak of a nose
looked sunburned and his cheekbones carried early morning stubble. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that did not look like government issue.

  “So what are you doing in Florida, Agent Giraldi?”

  “Same thing I was doing in New York, Ms. Grant,” he replied conversationally.

  At the Don CeSar, the pool boys were setting up chairs and chaises while others carried cushions down to the wooden chaises lined up on the beach. A volleyball net bobbed slightly in the breeze. The thatched hut advertising parasail rides and Jet Ski rentals appeared open for business. Maybe she’d come down here later and have a drink by the pool and pretend she was in civilization.

  “Pass-a-Grille’s not exactly your usual kind of stomping grounds,” Agent Giraldi observed as he ran easily beside her.

  A stitch began to pull at her side and she was feeling just the tiniest bit winded, but the agent hadn’t sounded at all out of breath, so Nicole was careful not to let him see it. Without comment, she turned and began to run back the way she’d come. Agent Giraldi stuck by her side, not missing a step.

  “I’m not here to stomp,” she replied though she’d intended to remain silent in hopes that he’d simply jog off and leave her alone. “And I don’t really appreciate being followed.”

  They ran in silence for a few minutes, but Nicole was too aware of Giraldi to enjoy her surroundings.

  “Your brother was photographed leaving a bank in the Cayman Islands last week,” he said. “Yesterday we caught a glimpse of him on a yacht registered to a dummy corporation in Panama.”

  She managed not to respond, but it wasn’t easy. The stitch in her side was getting bigger; it was getting harder to keep her breathing silent.

  “Your brother is living the high life, Ms. Grant. While you’re sleeping on a mattress in an empty house, which you are currently scrubbing like a maid.”