Beach House for Rent

by Mary Alice Monroe

  Heather turned her head to study his profile. His long forehead, straight nose. A gentle face that came together so pleasingly. But from this angle she couldn’t see his eyes. Oh, God, she loved his blue eyes.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Well, shorebirds tell us about the health of our oceans because they eat the local fish. If they’re sick, that warns us about what’s happening out there. Kind of like canaries in coal mines.”

  “I never thought of it like that. It makes sense. So?” she asked, curious. “How are the shorebirds doing?”

  He made a face. “Not good. Shorebird populations have shrunk on average by an estimated seventy percent across North America since 1973. Experts are worried that without action, some might go extinct.”

  Heather felt a sense of dread. And it was personal. All those magnificent birds she’d been photographing and sketching . . . “I didn’t realize the drop in population was so massive.”

  “Most people don’t. It’s especially bad for those birds that migrate thousands of miles.” He turned his head, his eyes gleaming. “See, they make these epic round-trip journeys each year, some flying farther than the distance to the moon over the course of their lifetimes. Imagine that.” He paused, then glanced at her again. “Those big issues are for the experts. I figure the rest of us can either sit back and moan, or do something. It’s the old act locally thing.” He shrugged lightly. “So I rescue shorebirds.”

  “Light one candle,” Heather said, quoting from the Bible verse.

  He smiled, appreciating that she understood. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “What about pelicans?” she asked. “They rebounded from the pesticide pollution of the sixties. Wasn’t that a success story?”

  “It was. But now plastic and abandoned fishing line, like the one that got this poor guy, is threatening not only pelicans but dolphins and turtles and all marine life. At some point in a pelican’s life, in Florida, eighty percent will become entangled either in an active line or in discarded line thrown thoughtlessly into the sea.”

  Heather was shocked the statistic was so high and couldn’t respond.

  They drove for a while in silence, but this time it didn’t feel uncomfortable. Heather leaned back and stretched out her legs. She glanced again at him. He was so handsome. His cheeks bore stubble and she hoped he wasn’t growing a beard. Today she’d seen yet another side of Bo. He never failed to surprise her. His humor, his breadth of knowledge, his endless capacity for kindness. She usually felt very shy with men, but Bo made her feel like she’d known him forever.

  Perhaps he kept surprising her, she pondered, because she was limiting him in her mind. Sabotaging him so that she wouldn’t fall in love with him. That was a frustrating part of her mixed-up self-defense system of social avoidance. And yet Bo had persevered. He had become, with no apparent effort or goal, a part of her life. And if she’d learned nothing else the past week, she’d learned that when he was not in it, she was lonely.

  Bo had talked about habituation, how at the center they didn’t want raptors to become accustomed to humans so that they would remain wild. By contrast, her therapist had helped Heather work out a plan to habituate herself to her new surroundings. To seek out small challenges that would raise her anxiety levels without triggering a full-scale panic.

  For step one of her plan, she’d started walking the beach for short spurts of time, gradually getting used to the area, seeking out reassuring markers. Day by day she’d added more time until now she was out for hours. She’d succeeded with that step.

  The second step was to fight her social avoidance with low-risk opportunities. Basically, to talk to nice people one-on-one. Bo had been an answer to a prayer. He worked around the house every day, so it was low-risk. And he was exceedingly friendly, a great storyteller, and easy to talk to. Mission accomplished.

  Step three was to speak with someone she’d be potentially interested in dating. Right from the start, Heather had felt an attraction to Bo. Seeing him, she understood what women meant when they talked about having butterflies in their stomachs. Not from anxiety, oh, no. This was a very different kind of fluttering. With most other men, if she was even remotely interested, she’d start self-sabotaging and clamming up, unable to do more than blurt out inane responses. It had been—and still was—humiliating. But with Bo . . . even if her nervousness made her comments less than brilliant, she’d kept up her side of the conversation, not slipping into long silences. She’d even enjoyed the conversations, more than she could have imagined.

  The problem had come when Bo asked her for a date. What would seem like a harmless and casual date to most people felt daunting to people with anxiety. She’d backed off, come up with excuses. And in the process threatened a relationship that meant a great deal to her.

  Heather slid another glance at Bo as he drove. Her heart melted just looking at him. She had a huge crush, there was no denying it. If she wanted to salvage any hope of a relationship, the moment was now. She had to let Bo know about her anxiety symptoms. If she didn’t, she’d wait and wait and wait and only grow more anxious and stand to lose any chance with him. What was the worst he could do? she asked herself. The answer came quickly. He’d walk away. But he’d do that anyway if she didn’t explain. She clasped her hands in her lap, squeezing tight.

  “Hey, Bo?” she said in a soft voice. He didn’t hear her. Heather cleared her throat and started again. “Bo?”

  He swung his gaze from the road. “Yeah?”

  She looked at her hands. Tell him now, while he’s driving. While you still have the nerve. “I . . . I wanted to talk to you about . . . about when you asked me to dinner.” Heather looked up quickly to see that though his eyes were on the road, his face had grown taut. She knew he was listening. “I want to explain . . . to try to explain why I didn’t go out with you.”

  He swung his head from the road to look at her again, amazement in his eyes. “Okay.”

  She willed herself to say the words, to not back down now. She clutched her hands together and unconsciously began wringing them in her lap.

  “You see, I have what’s called social anxiety. My mama used to call me shy, but it’s much more than that. I had a hard time through high school, but after graduation my mother’s car accident made everything spiral downhill.”

  “You were in a car accident?”

  “Yeah,” she answered in a soft voice. “I was in pretty bad shape. My mother died in that accident.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She heard the shock in his voice. She had to force herself to continue. “Over time my body healed, but my anxiety symptoms were so much worse. No one could say I was shy anymore. I had a breakdown. I felt nervous and tense all the time. I wouldn’t leave the house. I wouldn’t look people in the eyes.”

  She paused to glance at him again, to gauge his reaction. His face was unreadable, his eyes on the road. Worry nagged at her: What did he think of her? Did he think she was bat crazy? She wanted him to say something, but he remained quiet. Listening. The silence dragged on, each second excruciating. Heather gathered herself together and pressed on.

  “Anyway, I’ve been in therapy since then. And I take medication. I’ve been working very hard so I wouldn’t be stuck like that forever. And I’ve made progress,” she said, her tone more positive. “I still don’t like going to parties and I hate small talk. I get nervous in new situations and find it hard to go out alone to new places. And”—she laughed lightly—“I’m guessing you figured out I get very anxious during conversations. I’m even nervous talking to you right now.”

  “Why?” He turned his head to look at her. “It’s just me.”

  “I’m not always nervous talking to you,” she hurried to add. “Actually, you’re one of the few people I’m not nervous to talk with. I enjoy talking with you.” She paused. “A lot.”

  “But you’re nervous now?” he asked gently.

  “Yes. Because I’m trying to explain what’s g
oing on in my head, and it’s embarrassing.” She felt blood rush to her face. “It’s not something I usually share with anyone. But I care about you and I want you to understand what I’m experiencing. So you’ll understand that the night you invited me to dinner, I wanted to go.”

  He looked at her, and his eyes were bright, but he didn’t speak.

  “All my old fears flew up in my head again. I wanted to go.” She threw up her hands. “It sucks having anxiety. It’s not you. It’s me.” She felt tears threaten and knew she had to finish quickly. “Please don’t be frustrated, and try to understand. If you’ll be patient with me, and maybe even ask again someday . . .” Her voice cracked and she took a deep breath, then looked up at him.

  Bo turned his head from the wheel and she saw in his eyes the same glow that she witnessed in the sunrise—fiery, ablaze with hope. He reached across the seat and grabbed her hand from her lap and held it.

  “I’ll ask you every night, if you like,” Bo said. “Till you say yes.”

  She felt dangerously emotional, afraid of tears. “Okay.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  As Bo turned the truck into the entrance of the Center for Birds of Prey, Heather felt a tremendous relief. The pelican wasn’t the only creature being saved that day, she thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE FOG ROLLED in, thick as a wet blanket. Even though it was late afternoon, the sun was blocked by clouds. The behemoth cargo ship coming into Charleston Harbor bellowed out its mournful foghorn again and again as it made its slow journey to port.

  Cara sat on her sofa staring blankly at the television set, unaware and uncaring of whatever midday court drama was playing out on the small screen. She felt frozen with fear after her visits with her lawyer and accountant. Unable to think beyond the fact that she was, for the first time in her life, feeling utterly helpless. She didn’t know what to do.

  This feeling was foreign to Cara. She was accustomed to confrontation, even enjoyed going toe-to-toe with adversaries. She’d learned from the best, after all. Her father had been a mean son of a bitch who tolerated no disobedience, especially from what he considered the weaker sex. Theirs had always been a turbulent relationship of glares and threats, shouts, and a volleying, circular pattern of his demands and her refusals. It had been only a matter of time until their headstrong relationship came to a crisis. Cara had persevered. Her motto was that what didn’t kill her only made her stronger. She’d moved to Chicago and landed a low-paying starting position in an advertising agency. It was the perfect fit for the creative, bright, and hungry young woman. While her colleagues on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder went out for drinks after work, Cara had gone to night school. She was like a dog with a bone, not letting go of her goals. For seven long years she’d persisted, finally getting her college degree in communications as she slowly rose up several rungs on that ladder. She’d impressed her seniors with her drive and intelligence. When she was finally offered the job of junior marketing executive, she’d been ready to soar.

  She’d moved up fast after that, taking no prisoners. She had the reputation of being tough but fair. She’d tolerated few errors and no fools. If anyone confronted her, she chopped them off at the knees.

  And then came the mass layoffs. It was a hard time for a lot of people—Cara among them. She and the other high-level execs were unceremoniously walked out of the offices of Leo Burnett by an armed guard. A humiliating experience that had sparked a midlife crisis. At forty years of age, Cara felt her life come to a screeching halt. She’d given up everything for her career, mainlining work, and the abrupt collapse sent her running home to her mother—back to Charleston.

  That was when she’d discovered her mother was dying, and Cara had dug deep and found the strength and courage not only to start again, but also to help her mother. In retrospect, she could see that thinking of another person had made her open up and heal herself. She had been happier that summer than she’d ever dreamed possible. That summer Cara had found her softer, sensitive side, and wasn’t afraid to let go of her control and fall in love. Brett had come to her like a ray of sunshine to a piece of ice. He’d melted her resistance, and she’d blossomed under his warmth.

  Now he was gone, and with him all that they’d worked for together for the past ten years. Cara didn’t know if she had the strength to rally a third time in her life. She felt empty. Nothing left to give. So she sat, staring vacantly at the television hour after hour, not even registering what program was on. Her mind was blank.

  When the doorbell rang, she winced. Why did people persist in bothering her? She ducked so no one could see her from the window. “Go away, go away,” she mumbled with clenched fists. It rang again.

  After several moments, the knocker on the door banged insistently.

  “Go away!” Cara shouted.

  More knocking.

  “Please!” she shouted louder, then put her face in her hands.

  “I hear you say please, sister mine. But I’m still not going away. You gave me a key, remember? The knocking was just a courtesy.”

  Cara moved her arm from her head and lifted her head toward the door. “Palmer?”

  She heard a key clicking in the lock, and the door opened. Her brother stood holding the door handle, uncharacteristically sheepish. “Can I come in?”

  Cara looked at him in surprise. She knew she must look a fright. Her mouth was dry; she was probably dehydrated. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten—could it have been since those pastries?—and she certainly hadn’t expected Palmer to walk into her house today. But seeing him, his face scrunched up in worry, made her glad he’d come. He’d been around a lot in the days immediately following the funeral, but had seemed uncertain how to help his sister through her grief, and had appeared almost relieved to leave her to the careful, tender ministrations of Flo and Emmi.

  Until now.

  “Of course,” she said in a hoarse voice, pushing herself up to her feet. “I-I wasn’t expecting to see anybody today.”

  “Good. Because I’m not anybody. I’m your brother!” He stormed in then in his usual blustery manner. “Why the hell is it so dark in here?” He strode to the windows and with brash movements pushed open the curtains and flipped open the shutters.

  “Oh, don’t do that,” Cara said, squinting in the flood of light drenching the room. “And don’t look at me. I’m a mess.” Self-consciously, her hand went to her hair.

  “You asked me to come by.”

  She paused, hearing a voice behind him, and groaned inwardly. “Is that Julia?” Julia had also hung around in the days after the funeral, but her presence had always made Cara feel ill at ease, as if she had to put on a mask of competency in the face of her put-together, well-heeled sister-in-law. Cara had heaved a sigh of gratitude when Julia had left to get back to her day-to-day routine. Not that she didn’t like Julia. In doses. But every hair was always in place with her. She didn’t feel like being judged this morning.

  “Yes, she came with me. The children wanted to come, but we told them next time. We didn’t want to come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

  “Cara, my poor sweet girl, how have you been holding up?” Julia crooned, rushing in behind Palmer. She was impeccably dressed in a blue chambray linen dress with bold strands of blue and white coral around her neck. Julia’s blond hair was neatly cropped around her ears in an elegant, sleek style.

  “Hi, Julia,” Cara said in a dull voice.

  Julia hurried to wrap one arm around Cara, cupping her face with her other hand. “Just look at you! You’re so thin. It’s shocking. Why, you’re just withering away. Well, don’t you worry. We’re here and we are going to take care of you and get you fixed right up. Aren’t we, Palmer?”

  Cara couldn’t respond to the force of Julia’s concern, even felt tears come to her eyes.

  Julia stared her down appraisingly. “I’ll just bet you haven’t eaten yet today.”

  Cara shook her head,
embarrassed, but she didn’t have the presence of mind to lie.

  “I thought not. Tell you what we’re going to do. Palmer, you sit and chat with your sister a minute while I go fix her up something to eat.” She looked to her husband. “Well, go on!”

  Palmer approached his sister as Julia vanished into the kitchen, and they shared a commiserating glance. He chortled and indicated the sofa.

  “Come on, we might as well just go along with her plan. I find it’s easier that way. Sit down, Cara, and tell me how you are. I mean, really are. Because I’ve got to tell you. You look like you’ve been washed, spun, and hung up to dry.” He sat down with a soft thud and patted the seat beside him.

  Cara came to sit beside her brother and, without speaking a word, leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Palmer, caught unawares, sat stiff in surprise, his hands still in the air. This was so uncharacteristic of Cara. After a moment his face softened, and he rested his hand on her back, stroking her shoulder.

  “I remember the last time you came crying to me,” he said in a gentle voice. “You couldn’t have been more than six or seven. You wanted to play ball with us boys and we didn’t want you on our team. The boys said some mean things to you.”

  Cara sniffed. “They told me my hair was a rat’s nest.”

  She heard his laugh deep in his chest. “Well, it was! Kind of like it is now.”

  Cara choked out a laugh. It was true, and only he could tell her. “I was mostly mad that they wouldn’t let me play. Because I was a girl.”

  “Yeah, I know. I felt bad about that.”

  “You got in a fight for me.”

  “I wasn’t a very good fighter. They beat me up, if I recall. Some hero.”

  “You were my hero.”

  He paused and swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry if I fell off that pedestal you sometimes put me on.”

  “Look at me, brother mine. None of us are perfect. I’m lying prostrate on the floor.”