Beach Girls

by Luanne Rice

  “And you got married?”

  “Yes. While we were still in college. We eloped . . .”

  “I remember you wrote to tell me. I think that was the last I heard from you.”

  Stevie sighed. “That's probably true. I was on such a quest—”

  “What kind of quest?”

  “To find art and love.”

  Madeleine laughed. “I thought you'd found both.”

  Stevie shook her head. “I was born with both. Most people are, I think. But then we spend our lives complicating things. My parents loved me so much. I was—I don't want to say spoiled by it—affected, I guess. I had such high expectations. To think that life could always, would always, be that way. Even after my mother died, my father was—”

  “Everything to you. I remember.”

  “He was. He loved me so much. Always put me first, made me feel as if I could do anything. He raised me to be really independent, to believe in myself, but to question everything. He'd tell me, ‘Stevie, artists look at what is, what they can see, and they draw it. Poets never trust the surface. They learn to look beneath, and to trust what they can't see.'”

  “What they can't see . . .” Madeleine said.

  “I looked at Kevin and saw a handsome, brilliant artist. It wasn't until years later, married to him, that I looked beneath . . . I saw a troubled man who envied everyone. He was so bitter. Any time one of our classmates had a show, he'd make comments about selling out, pandering to collectors. He hated them. And then I started doing children's books. . . .”

  “And became very successful,” Madeleine added.

  “And that made him start to hate me, too. It was so hard to live with,” Stevie said, looking out over the sea, tension in her eyes. “I found Tilly—she was a kitten, a little New York street cat born in the alley behind our building. She was such a comfort to me—my husband was so closed off, he barely talked to me. We never slept together. But I had Tilly.”

  “Unconditional love.”

  “Yes. That's it. I kept thinking of my father's words . . . I still wasn't looking inward—below the surface. I knew how happy love had made me when I was young, and I knew that loving a cat wasn't enough, so I became almost frantic about finding it. I went to a lecture in Woods Hole, and that's when I met Linus.”

  “Linus?”

  “My second husband. I left Kevin for him. By then, Kevin was lost in the bottle. I'm not sure he even noticed.”

  Madeleine sipped her champagne. Lost in the bottle did not refer to her. She sipped again.

  “Linus was an ornithologist. He was English, so bright and interesting. He had a son from his first marriage—I loved being a stepmother. I really thought I had found it all. He was used to carrying different species of birds in and out of England, knew all the inspectors—somehow we beat the quarantine they had for pets. He told me not to worry about Tilly, that the inspectors would look the other way. And they did.”

  “Grounds enough to love the man!”

  Stevie laughed. “Exactly. We lived in Oxford, in a stone house across from a medieval church. His son lived in London, but would come to us on weekends and holidays. My painting flowed—it was during that time that I sold the movie rights to Red Robin . . . I wanted to have a baby. . . .”

  “You did?” Madeleine asked. “I wanted to, too. . . .”

  “But you didn't?”

  Madeleine shook her head. “No. I couldn't get pregnant. We tried for years, and even did two rounds of in vitro. But it didn't happen. It was okay, because I had . . .” She trailed off, unable to say “Nell.” Stevie waited for her to finish her thought, but Madeleine just shrugged and smiled. “I had Chris.”

  “I did get pregnant,” Stevie said. Her voice sounded calm, but her cheeks turned bright pink.

  “You have a child?”

  “No. I miscarried. . . .”

  “Oh, Stevie. I'm sorry.”

  Stevie closed her eyes. “I never knew how terrible that could be. Before, when I'd heard about women it happened to, I'd think, ‘They can try again.' ‘It's not like losing a real baby.' But it is like that. It is a real baby.”

  “How far along were you?”

  “Three months. I had just told my father and aunt. It was a girl.”

  “A girl . . .” Like Nell. “What happened?”

  “I was very upset. I wanted us to name her, have a funeral. Linus refused. He thought I was being ridiculous. He was so scientific, clinical about it. He talked about how ‘it' must have been sick, probably wouldn't have lived on ‘its' own, and he started explaining Darwin to me, natural selection and survival of the fittest. I told him that she deserved better than that. I named her Clare, after my mother. I had a private funeral for her. And then I left Linus.”

  “How sad,” Madeleine said. “That he couldn't understand what you needed.”

  “It was,” Stevie said.

  They sat quietly for a few minutes. Madeleine thought about the pain of losing a little girl. She thought about Nell and knew that Stevie was thinking about Clare.

  “And it was sad that I couldn't understand what I needed. I really didn't know myself at all,” Stevie said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Emma used to tease me—saying that I always needed to be connected. She was right. I was convinced that I needed a man to make me okay. I looked at Kevin, at Linus, and saw what I needed to see. I married them expecting—needing—them to give me things they weren't capable of. I had seen my parents' marriage, and I wanted life to be like that. Wonderful couple who were really, really soul mates, a child to love . . . The old clock thing, you know?”

  “Oh, all too well.”

  “I moved back to New York—by freighter. Tilly and I in our own cabin. We sailed out of Southampton. By the time we reached the Azores—”

  “You jumped ship?”

  “Nope. Fell in love with the captain.”

  Madeleine laughed, and so did Stevie. “Don't tell me . . .”

  “It was a long voyage. Freighters aren't like cruise ships. They don't go directly from one port to the next. It's more like one port to another, by way of a long circle, halfway around the world. Months go by. I had signed on wanting time at sea, to think and figure things out.”

  “Maybe a little too much time at sea?”

  “Yes. With a lot too much aquavit. It was a Swedish vessel, and they were very big on broiled salmon, smoked salmon, cured salmon, and salmon roe . . . all served with large quantities of aquavit. Also, champagne was served every time we left port—and we made a lot of ports.”

  “Is that when you gave up drinking?”

  “Yes, but not quite soon enough,” Stevie said. “I was out at sea, steaming to the Azores, Tenerife, Cape Town, Rio, Miami, with a lot of water in between, and a lot of time for thinking. I was a two-time divorcée, I was looking down the barrel at thirty-seven—”

  “You wanted a baby.”

  “Yep.”

  “So you married the captain.”

  “At least he didn't perform his own ceremony,” Stevie said, and laughed lightly. “The first mate did.”

  “How resourceful.”

  “Well, sort of. It was also, luckily, illegal. By the time we docked in Manhattan, I knew I was in trouble, and in deep. My father met the ship, and he got me a lawyer who would have gotten me an annulment—if the marriage had been lawful.”

  “What did the captain do?”

  Stevie stared down at the beach. “He was angry. But in the short time I spent with him, after our ‘I do's,' I saw that he was always angry. Through the aquavit, I had mistaken it for passionate intensity. I realized what it was when he kicked Tilly.”

  “He kicked your cat?”

  “Tried to. But I dove to protect her, and he caught my chin instead.”

  “Bastard.”

  Stevie nodded and sighed. Madeleine reached over to squeeze her hand. They sat there for a few minutes, and Madeleine felt grateful for her life with Chris. A seagull
flew past the terrace, coasting on an updraft from the beach. The women watched it fly by so effortlessly, not even flapping its wings. Tilly sat inside the screen door, tracking it with fierce eyes.

  “It's the last time.”

  “The last time what?”

  “That I'm getting married.”

  “You don't know that. Someone wonderful might come along. Someone like Chris.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Well, he's smart, funny, a great friend . . . he has his own insurance agency, and he's very good at it. He really cares about his clients—he sees them through all life's passages. Getting married, buying houses, having kids, taking care of sick parents, dying. . . . He really gets involved.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Jack bought insurance from him. Way back, when he and Emma were first together. They liked him so much, they set us up.”

  “That's a good way—introduced by people who know and love you.”

  “Yes,” Madeleine said. “It was.” She sat still, amazed how comfortable she felt, slipping into the old friendship. Stevie had always been so easy to talk to. She remembered how, sometimes, Emma would be busy with her mother, or doing errands, and Madeleine would savor the chance to have Stevie to herself.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Oh, of Emma,” Madeleine said.

  “It's as if she's here,” Stevie said. “I can feel her with us now.”

  “I was just remembering,” Maddie said, her voice shaking, “of how she tended to take things over. When she wanted something, she got it.”

  “She really stood up for herself,” Stevie said.

  Emma had had a possessive streak—of friends, and later, of Jack and Nell. How could she have decided to throw them away? The thought made Madeleine want to refill her glass, but after Stevie's words about her own drinking, she held back.

  “What do you say we take a walk?” Stevie said after a while.

  “I'd love to look around, see what's changed and what's the same,” Madeleine said, relieved to move, to hopefully get away from her own dark thoughts.

  The day was clear, the sky bright blue. Madeleine was glad to stretch her legs. It kept her from thinking about the champagne. As they wandered slowly up and down the winding roads of Hubbard's Point, Stevie seemed very vigilant, as if she was hoping—or fearing—to see someone. They strolled down past the tennis court, into the beach parking lot.

  “I remember playing here,” Madeleine said.

  “Really?” Stevie said. “I don't remember that we played much tennis—we were always on the beach.”

  “Not with you and Emma,” Madeleine said. “With my brother. Jack was always so patient with me—I was four years younger, but he'd stand right there and hit to me . . .”

  Maddie stared at the baseline, and she swore she could see her brother right there—six-three, with that long dark hair he always forgot to cut, now turning gray. How would he look today? It had been a full year. Would he still wear those dark-rimmed sunglasses? Would his hair be much grayer? Would grief have etched his face with lines, as it had hers?

  The two friends walked all the way through the sandy parking lot to the boardwalk. Stevie kicked off her sandals, and Madeleine followed suit. They walked across the sand—and it was so hot, they had to run down to the water's edge just to cool off the soles of their feet.

  “I look at children that age and think of me and Emma,” Stevie said, glancing at two toddlers at the water's edge. “We met the very first summer of our lives.”

  “Way before I came along.”

  “Yes, but we were never as close as we were when you joined in.”

  “Remember when we went to Little Beach, and Emma found that stick and drew the circle?”

  “And we swore we'd be bonded for life . . .”

  “By the power vested by the full moon . . .”

  They looked at each other and knew what they had to do: they didn't even speak, but set off for Little Beach. The walk was long and hot. Madeleine's dress stuck to her body, but she didn't care. She felt like a girl again, traveling back through time. Stevie held her hand, pulling her up the steep part of the hidden path.

  They ran through the trees—Madeleine remembered every inch of the way. She recognized the old oaks and black gum trees, grown huge since she'd last been here. Their branches interlaced overhead; sunlight and shadows dappled the narrow dirt path. Suddenly they emerged on a secret beach, the sands blazing white with sun.

  The two friends rushed across the beach, behind the enormous great-white-shark boulder, to the even more secret sands . . . where Emma had drawn the circle.

  “She's here with us now,” Stevie said. “Can't you feel it?”

  “I can,” Madeleine said. Driftwood littered the tide line, smooth and gleaming like bones. Stevie bent down, picked up a long stick, handed it to Madeleine. They didn't speak, brushed hands. Turning slowly, Madeleine tried to trace a ring.

  “By the power vested by tonight's full moon . . .” Stevie said.

  “The girl in the moon,” Madeleine said—the words coming out of the past, making her feel dizzy.

  Madeleine dropped the stick and closed her eyes. She longed for the magic to be there. She felt her blood crackle and her hair tingle. But it was just the heat and the wind. The beach girl magic was gone. . . . Emma was gone. . . .

  “I can't,” Madeleine whispered.

  Stevie's grip tightened on her hands. “I'm sorry,” Stevie said. “I shouldn't have brought you here.”

  “I'm thinking of Emma,” Madeleine said, her eyes filling. “Of how much she loved the beach. How she should be here.”

  “She is here,” Stevie said. “In our love for her.”

  Madeleine shook her head, and the tears spilled out. She couldn't tell Stevie what she was really feeling—that what she felt for Emma was no longer lifelong love, but a sort of warped, twisted hate. For what she had been about to do to Jack and Nell . . .

  “She's not here,” Madeleine said, trying to maintain control of her voice. She wanted to run and scream. If she didn't hold on tight, she'd tell Stevie everything: every last detail of what Emma had told her, the look on Jack's face when Madeleine had divulged it to him—all of it.

  “Maddie—” Stevie said, her eyes wild with concern.

  Madeleine squeezed her eyes tight. Emma's not here, she told herself. Yet she was. The phantom-limb–sister-in-law syndrome was kicking in again. Being with Stevie had activated it like mad. Her right side itched. Her right arm longed to encircle Emma's shoulders, hold her tight, draw her back into the fold, into the family, back to life—where she belonged.

  “Let's go back to the main beach,” Stevie said gently.

  Madeleine nodded. As they walked away, she glanced back over her shoulder: the circle was right there in the sand, where she had drawn it. The waves licked up the beach, the tide encroaching. Soon the ring would be washed away—just like the original one that Emma had drawn so many years ago.

  Did she still believe in the magic?

  She thought about the crazy longing, the need to believe in something, the yearning that all young girls had. They—Emma, Stevie, and Maddie, the beach girls—had needed to surround themselves with the symbols of sun and moon, sand and sea—to convince themselves that it would all go on forever. They had convinced themselves in the magic of the beach.

  How foolish.

  By the time Stevie and Madeleine had climbed back down the path and emerged on the main beach, Madeleine had chased all tears and vestiges of the “magic” circle away. She desperately craved champagne. The quicker she could get Stevie back to her house, the happier she would be.

  But as they walked along, barefoot in the water, every sight chipped away at her a little more.

  “I look at children that age and think of . . .” Madeleine began, gazing at a little girl, about four years old, carefully patting a sand castle to make it strong and beautiful. Her mother helped her by adding several
shells for decoration. Madeleine's mind filled with Nell, and she had to look away.

  “Think of what, Maddie?”

  Madeleine couldn't speak, so she pretended not to hear. They continued walking along the wet sand, feeling the waves lick their ankles. Again, the water washed away her feelings, replaced them with the peace of a summer day. The tide was coming in, and Madeleine nearly tripped on a boy scurrying out of the way of a wave. She caught Stevie's arm, nearly dragging her down.

  Laughing, Stevie splashed Madeleine, who kicked up water in a quick silver arc. The drops felt so salty and cool, and they kept at it, playing and giggling as if they were teenagers again. Bit by bit, they waded in deeper—Stevie in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and Madeleine holding up the hem of her long dress.

  “Let's go swimming,” Stevie said suddenly, eyes shining, peeking out from under her bangs.

  “We're dressed!”

  “Who cares? Let's just do it!”

  “That's something your wild aunt would do! Or a woman who'd go halfway around the world on a freighter—go swimming in clothes in Portofino or Positano or . . . I don't know, somewhere glamorous! But I can't go in front of all these proper suburban people.”

  “It's the beach!”

  “And, darling, we are wearing clothes.”

  “We're Zelda, and life is a fountain!” Stevie said, diving into the water and coming up looking the way Madeleine had always remembered her—edgy and creative and crazy in a way that seemed sexy and in love with life. She watched as Stevie swam to the jetty and back, her black head as sleek as a seal.

  “Did you bring a bathing suit? Want to go up and change into it?” Stevie asked, treading water.

  “Please—I don't even own one anymore.”

  The champagne and joy of seeing Stevie had made Madeleine forget to feel self-conscious about her weight. But now she noticed her friend's trim, muscular legs and arms, her narrow face and high cheekbones, and she took two steps back, out of the shallow water.

  “You go ahead,” she said to Stevie. “Keep swimming.”

  “Not without you,” Stevie said, her eyes twinkling as she jumped out of the water and shook her head like a wet Labrador retriever. She stood beside Madeleine and took her arm. “But I promise you this—by the end of the summer, I'll get you back here to see me and go swimming.”