The Forever Summer

by Jamie Brenner

  “It always varies, depending on the size, the material, the design. My energy level. And I’m really busy right now—that’s where you come in. I’m making a surprise piece for Amelia.”

  She unrolled a large sketch and set it on the table.

  “It’s a Beach Rose Inn sign she can hang out front to replace the old one. My not-so-subtle hint that I want her to reopen next summer.”

  “Is this a color legend?”

  “Exactly. I’m going to fill in this entire sketch with colored pencil but I’m working off this for now. This shows the areas that will be tiles and smalti. The lettering is going to be all shells that Amelia has collected over the years, and then here will be a beach rose. These notes are my materials: sea glass, Venetian tiles, smalti, shells.”

  She gestured for Marin to follow her to one of the shelves.

  “All of these bins are filled with stuff Amelia found.”

  The containers were labeled: ANGEL WINGS, MOON SNAIL, BLUE MUSSEL, SLIPPER SHELL. On the bottom shelf were mason jars filled with sea glass.

  “She collected all of this stuff?”

  Kelly nodded. “Every morning for years, she’s walked the beach looking for pieces to bring back to me.”

  Marin decided she wanted to walk the beach looking for its treasures at least once before she left.

  “That sounds like a great morning routine.”

  “Personally, I like to work first thing in the morning—or very late at night. It’s when my mind is most open and creative.”

  “I want to collect a few things to bring back to New York. To remind me of this trip.”

  “Go along with Amelia tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love it. Okay, are you ready to get to work?”

  “Yes,” Marin said, surprised by how excited she felt to do something productive.

  “Okay, so you see these mosaics are constructed of hundreds of little pieces. Some are tiles, some are glass, some are smalti…all need to be cut. That takes time, and if you can do some of the cutting, that frees me up for working on the actual sign.”

  “Don’t you have a lot of this stuff already cut? I mean, all these shelves…”

  “I ordered specific materials for Amelia’s piece. Like this metallic smalti that’s too expensive to buy for no reason.”

  “Smalti?”

  “It’s special material produced in Venice just for mosaics. It gives us more options than tile because it has various opacities and the colors are extremely vivid. It arrives in sheets and has to be cut by hand.” She picked up the odd tool that looked like gardening shears with wheels at the top. “A wheel cutter. Amelia calls it a nipper.” She handed it to Marin. “Are you ready?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Blythe stood outside on her bedroom balcony hoping for decent reception and dialed Kip’s phone. Straight to voice mail. Undeterred, she called his office. His secretary started giving some song and dance about a meeting, but Blythe—uncharacteristically—cut her off and said, “Just get him on the line.”

  “Blythe, this isn’t a good time,” Kip said when he picked up.

  “Have you spoken to Marin?”

  Kip sighed. “Not since the middle of last week. I’ve left messages on her phone. You said you were heading up to the city. Are you still with her?”

  “Yes. Actually, I thought she should get away for a few days, so we’re in Cape Cod.”

  “A change of scenery is probably good for her.”

  “It hasn’t been good for her. She’s getting worse.” Of course, she was omitting a large piece of the Marin puzzle. It was impossible to convey Marin’s mental state without telling him the truth about what was going on. But she didn’t want to have that conversation over the phone.

  “She’s had a rough few weeks. She’ll rally,” Kip said. “Do you want me to talk to her? Put her on the phone.”

  “She’s locked in her room. She’s depressed. I’m really worried.”

  Blythe realized that the only way Marin would accept the situation was if Blythe and Kip showed a united front. She would have to tell him the truth. What was the worst that could happen? He was filing for divorce. Their marriage was over. She didn’t want to hurt him, but if it meant saving Marin’s sanity, she’d do it.

  Kip sighed. “When are you getting back? I’ll drive up and spend some time with her.”

  “I think you should come out here.”

  “To the Cape? Blythe, I’m bogged down here. I can’t just pick up and fly out there right now. Get her back to New York and I’ll talk some sense into her.”

  “Kip, I realize we are getting divorced. I am not asking you for me, I’m asking you for our daughter. For once in your life, put family first.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Amelia waited until the house was settled. After years of running the inn, she had a sense of when the inhabitants were in their rooms and it was time to unwind.

  Next to her in bed, Kelly brushed out her hair with one hand while holding her e-reader with the other. Amelia couldn’t understand how she could choose that device over actual books, but Kelly insisted it was easier on her eyes.

  Amelia was irritated with Kelly. It was rare for her to feel that way, and the emotion took her by surprise, so much so that she was almost paralyzed by it. All day, she’d been waiting for the feeling to pass, but it hadn’t. And so now it was time to say something.

  “Can you put that down for a minute?” she asked, taking off her glasses. She pressed her fingers to the creases of her eyes. She was exhausted; it was one of those days when she felt her age.

  “Is something wrong?” Kelly asked, sensitive enough to know the answer to that question.

  “I’m a little disappointed by the way you’re handling Marin’s fragile emotional state.”

  Kelly sat straight up and placed the e-reader and the brush in her lap.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Getting her drunk in the middle of the afternoon? Getting tattoos? Her mother is very upset and I can’t say I blame her. Marin should be spending this week getting fresh air, taking long walks, talking. Discovering the town. We should be helping her deal with all of this in a healthy, constructive way.”

  Kelly had always been impetuous; she did what she wanted, when she wanted. She was a rule breaker. It was a trait Amelia loved, and it was that fearless exuberance that had helped shake Amelia out of the rut of her marriage, out of her life of resignation, of duty. It was what had made it possible for Kelly to drop everything and move to Provincetown all those years ago. But it was also the thing about Kelly that frustrated Amelia the most.

  Kelly sighed. “Okay, when you put it like that, it sounds bad.”

  “And Paul is a terrible influence on you.”

  “This has nothing to do with Paul. Listen, Marin was leaving, okay? She was not going to spend another night here. If I hadn’t found a way to connect with her, she’d be back in New York at this very moment, probably never to be heard from again. Instead, she’s asking me if you will take her on your morning walk tomorrow. She wants to go with you.”

  Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I told her you’d wake her in the morning.”

  Silence settled between them. “So what you’re saying to me is the ends justify the means?”

  Kelly nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Kelly.”

  She sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe I went too far. I’m sorry. My heart was in the right place.”

  Amelia squeezed her hand. “I know. It always is.”

  “So much for a calm, uneventful summer,” Kelly said, turning off the light on her side of the bed.

  Amelia propped herself up on one elbow, gazing at her wife. Kelly’s long hair was loose, and her bare face looked not a day older than the girls’. It was that Irish skin, shielded from the sun out of necessity year after year. She leaned over and kissed her.

  “It’s just one week. Things will get back to normal,” Amelia sai
d.

  “I’m not complaining! I love having a full house. And I know you do too.” Kelly smiled, a hopeful, almost childlike expression taking over her face. “I was thinking we should ask them to stay another few weeks. They really should experience a proper Provincetown Fourth of July.”

  “Do you think they’d want to?”

  Kelly shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”

  “Can you believe this whole thing?”

  “It’s amazing. Beyond amazing. And you know, it’s making me think we were too quick to shut down the inn. I know you thought I needed to take it easy because of my health scare. But having the house full of people is a good thing. I think it’s good for you, especially.”

  “It was hard to cancel on people and to turn away guests,” Amelia admitted. “I felt particularly bad about the Millers.” The Miller family had had standing reservations for the first week in August since the summer of 1996. Amelia and Kelly had watched their children grow up. “They must be so disappointed. They didn’t even respond to my e-mail. I can’t blame them, I guess.”

  “I’ll call them. I’m sure they’re over it by now,” Kelly said. “So next summer we’ll reopen. Maybe Marin and Rachel will come for a while. And we’ll make it up to the Millers—give them a free weekend or something.”

  Amelia smiled. “Okay, then. We’ll call this our one-season vacation.” She turned off her light and spooned Kelly. “By the way, have you noticed that love might be in bloom?”

  “Who?”

  “Rachel and Luke Duncan.”

  “What happened with his girlfriend? That pretty Asian woman he brought last summer?”

  Amelia shook her head. “Thomas said Luke ended it just before he came out here. I certainly hope that’s the case if he’s flirting with Rachel.”

  “What is it about this island and love at first sight?” Kelly said with a sly smile.

  Amelia started to say something, then stopped. Kelly was being romantic; she knew that. But it hit the wrong note with her. Love at first sight was not always harmless and romantic.

  Oh, the agony when their affair had first begun! Amelia played all the mental games with herself that people do when they cross a line. She told herself it was just this one time. Then she told herself, Okay, it’s the summer and then it’s over. She assured herself it was harmless as long as no one found out.

  But of course, someone always finds out.

  Unfortunately, in their case, that person was Nick. Nick, who was supposed to be with his father at a fund-raiser at the theater one night but who came home early and went straight to Kelly’s room. Nick could no longer wait, could no longer be subtle; he was ready to profess his adoration for Kelly, his need to be with her.

  Instead, he walked in on her making love to his mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marin dug her toes into the wet sand.

  “Some days I just pick up whatever strikes my fancy,” Amelia said. “An oyster shell. A channeled whelk. A sand-dollar skeleton if I’m lucky. Other days, I’m on a mission. Maybe it’s green sea glass, or white pebbles.”

  Marin nodded, bending down to roll up her cargo pants, then tying the drawstring tight to keep them high on her hips. The edges were soaked. The pants had enough pockets to hold whatever she collected that morning. She checked that the bandanna tied around her wrist to shield her tattoo from the sun was still in place, then tilted her face to the sky.

  “I have this idea of getting a mason jar and filling it with sea glass from this week and then keeping it next to my bed at home,” she said.

  “Well, it’s a lovely thought, but you won’t find that much sea glass in the time you have here.”

  “I guess I could start with what I find and then just buy the rest to fill in.”

  Amelia looked at her like she had two heads.

  “Buy it? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? When you find it yourself, it has meaning. It marks this day, this walk—this moment in time. Your hands pluck it from the place that produced it and make it your own.”

  Well, when she put it that way. “I guess I’ll just see what I can find.”

  Amelia nodded her approval.

  They walked in silence, both scouring the sand. It crossed Marin’s mind that maybe she should ask about Amelia’s son. It wasn’t that she particularly cared to know—he was nothing more to her than twenty-three chromosomes. An anonymous sperm donor that would have remained anonymous if it weren’t for damned technology. But was it rude not to at least acknowledge him? Surely he had walked that very stretch of beach. She shook the thought away; she would not let the donor take root in her mind, in her heart. To ask about him made him too real. It was a betrayal of her father.

  Marin spotted something round and pale green. She scooped it up, wet sand getting underneath her fingernails, and showed it to Amelia, who held it up to the sky and pronounced, “It’s a pebble, not sea glass.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “No light is coming through it.”

  Marin stuck it in her back pocket anyway.

  Amelia stopped walking. “So Kelly and I were talking last night, and we’d really love it if you would consider staying another week or two. Maybe until the Fourth? It’s a fun day here in town and would be the perfect way to end your trip.”

  Marin’s first impulse was to say no, to give her a litany of reasons why she had to get back to New York. But she couldn’t come up with a single one.

  “That’s really generous of you, Amelia. Thanks. I’ll talk to Rachel and my mother about it.”

  “It might not be my business, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that I think you need to forgive her.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Your mother.”

  Marin looked at her sharply. “No offense, but you really don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “Maybe not,” Amelia said, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun so she could look at Marin. “But I know that life is complicated, that people make mistakes, and that it never pays to judge those who love you.”

  “She lied to me—and my father—my entire life. That’s not a mistake, it’s a choice.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “You know, my son, Nicolau, was not speaking to me at the time of his death. We hadn’t spoken for several years.”

  “I didn’t know that. What happened?”

  “I fell in love with Kelly. While I was married to his father.”

  Okay, not ideal. But still, it paled in comparison to Blythe’s deception.

  “Well, I can see how that would be…upsetting. But I still think what my mother did was worse. Way worse. I mean, you can’t help who you fall in love with.”

  “I think Nick believed he was in love with Kelly.”

  “What?”

  “They were contemporaries. Kelly was my daughter’s best friend. We were all spending the summer here.”

  “At the inn?”

  “Well, it wasn’t an inn back then. It was our family home. And yes, at the house.”

  Marin couldn’t believe it. The drama that had taken place under that very roof! Her biological father, now cast in the light of a tragic romantic figure.

  “That sounds…difficult.”

  “After more than a quarter of a century with Kelly, it’s hard to look at our relationship as a transgression, though I suppose it was that. Regardless, I never meant to hurt my children. But I did, and I’ve had to live with that for thirty years. That’s why I don’t want to see history repeat itself with you and your mother.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Marin said. “Not at all.”

  And truly, thirty years of anger didn’t seem out of the question to her.

  The front porch of the Beach Rose Inn was people-watching central.

  Rachel had found a book about Provincetown on the shelf in her room, Land’s End, by Michael Cunningham, and brought it to the porch rocking chair along with a mug of coffee to settle in for an hour of reading. But h
ow could she focus on reading about Provincetown when it was unfolding in front of her in all its dramatic glory? The thing that amazed her the most was the way everyone seemed to know one another. It was so unlike LA, that sprawling metropolis where you kept seeing people you thought you knew and then realized they were just actors from TV shows you once watched.

  And now, someone she did know appeared on the steps. Luke Duncan.

  He carried two serving trays.

  “Oh, hi!” She jumped up to help him and took one of the trays, a heavy ceramic hand-painted dish she recognized from the day of the party.

  “Thanks. My dad sent me to return these to Amelia.”

  “Great,” she said. Great? Her heart thumped. And it wasn’t the strong coffee.

  He looked around the porch. “What are you guys up to today?”

  “I’m just…reading.” She pulled her book off the chair and waved it at him.

  “That’s a good one.”

  He started to say something else but was distracted by voices just beyond the stairs, and then Marin appeared, trailed by Amelia.

  Rachel realized that Marin was truly beautiful. She wore drawstring pants slung low on her hips and a white tank top; her cheeks were flushed from either exercise or the sun, the bright color serving to highlight the deep brown of her eyes. Her shiny dark hair was in a messy knot on top of her head, a few tendrils escaping so artfully it was as if she had been styled for a beach photo shoot.

  And Rachel was not the only one who noticed.

  “Hey.” Luke smiled at Marin, literally turning his back to her.

  “Hey,” Marin said, focused on unwrapping the red bandanna around her wrist.

  “Let me get those from you, dear,” Amelia said, taking the trays from Luke and Rachel and leaving the three of them to shuffle awkwardly on the porch.

  Marin continued to attend to her wrist, unveiling her tattoo, while Luke watched in rapt attention. Rachel struggled to think of a way to dismiss her.

  “Did you just get that?” he asked her.

  Marin nodded. “Yesterday. After we left the party.”