Beach Girls

by Luanne Rice

  Jack remembered what Stevie had said about her meetings with Susan; her words had helped him feel better about Dr. Galford.

  “Through Susan's guidance, Johnny bought some paints and encouraged Stevie to finger paint. She did it . . . without being able to see the colors. All her pictures were of birds. She told him . . .” Aunt Aida's voice broke. “That she wanted to grow wings, so she could fly to heaven and see her mother.”

  The sight of Stevie and Nell together filled Jack with a kind of momentary despair—the knowledge that life could change in an instant. But seeing them wading out, joking, also made him feel happy—to think that his daughter had found someone she liked so much, and to know that Stevie, of all people, knew exactly what Nell had been through. Jack had made up his mind, after Emma died, to do whatever he had to do for Nell. He wanted her to love her mother, as Stevie had loved hers. But protecting her memory came with such a high cost. He thought of his sister and trailed back.

  “Why does your shirt say ‘Talking Heads'?” Nell asked, her voice carrying back across the water.

  “It's a band that went to my school.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “No, they were ahead of me. But I like their music.”

  “What school was it?”

  “RISD. Rhode Island School of Design.”

  “How come painters and musicians went to the same school?”

  Stevie laughed. “Art isn't any one thing,” she said. “It's big, bigger than anything. It's how you express what's inside.”

  “Who would want to know what's inside me?” Nell asked, giggling nervously.

  “The whole world would,” Stevie said.

  “I don't get that,” Nell said.

  “I think you will someday,” Stevie said, touching Nell's head, and the sight of it made Jack's heart turn over. “I'm pretty sure there's an artist in there.”

  Nell laughed again. The sandy bottom had suddenly turned mucky, and they stopped walking. Stevie hooked the bucket inside the inner tube, and she gave Jack and Nell the two clam rakes. They had long, curved iron “tines” and old wooden handles, splintery from getting wet with salt water and drying out again.

  “Okay . . . you just drag the rakes through the mud till you feel something . . . then pull it up and flip it into the bucket.”

  “What'll it feel like?” Nell asked.

  “It's hard to explain,” Stevie said. “But when it happens, you'll know!”

  “What'll you use?” Jack asked, because there wasn't a third rake.

  Stevie beamed and lifted a sopping red sneaker out of the water. “My feet!” she said.

  They went to it. Jack raked the mud, feeling a strange satisfaction and excitement. There was something about the uncertainty, never knowing which rakeful would yield treasure. He thought about how results-oriented and workmanlike he had become. When he drew lines and angles, plans and blueprints, bridges were inevitably built. He was into equations he could solve, formulas he could count on. He gravitated toward foregone conclusions.

  That's what Scotland was to him. Quit Structural, pack up daughter, move as far from the truth as possible—happy, normal life. But it stuck in his mind—the pleasure of doing something for no reason at all, and the way his heart had flipped to hear Stevie talking to Nell about art.

  “I got one!” Nell squealed.

  Jack and Stevie leaned in, watched her bring up the rake. Gray muck dripped into the water as Nell dropped the whole thing into the bucket suspended in the inner tube. Water flowed through the holes, dispersing the mud, revealing a nice big cherrystone.

  “Wow, good job!” Jack said.

  “That is a great clam,” Stevie said, holding it up, admiring it in the light.

  “What will we do with it?” Nell asked.

  “Well, if we catch more, we can have dinner,” Jack said. “Maybe Stevie will join us.”

  “Thank you,” Stevie said, her face glowing as much as Nell's.

  They kept at it as the sun began to go down. They must have found a good spot, because suddenly they all began getting clams. Stevie seemed to feel them with her feet, then worked them to the surface, and picked them up. The light was clear and gray, tinged with purple and gold. It lay across the water, creating a flat pewter shine, and it hit the rock islands in the southeast, North and South Brother, turning their granite crags burnt orange.

  The tide turned, and the water began flooding back in. Jack felt the surface rise from his knees to his thighs. Stevie was waist deep, and Nell was up to her chest. They both started to laugh, and at once ducked under. Coming up, their hair slick, shoulders dripping, the black shirt stuck to Stevie's body. She glanced at him, eyes sparkling with the fun she was having, and he forced a smile. She was beautiful and radiant, and Nell loved her, and she was about as far from a foregone conclusion as Jack could imagine, and he made himself look away.

  THEY WENT to Stevie's house. Since her dad was so tall, his clothes hadn't gotten wet. So he went into the kitchen to wash the clams while Nell and Stevie rinsed off in the outside shower. Nell loved it—standing outside in the cool air, smelling honeysuckle and sassafras while hot water poured over her head.

  They wrapped up in towels and ran barefoot up the side hill, into the kitchen.

  “Don't look, Dad,” Nell laughed, and her father pretended to hide his eyes. She and Stevie went upstairs; because Nell's clothes were soaking wet, Stevie rummaged through her drawers for something she could wear.

  “How about these?” she asked, holding up a pair of pedal pushers and a sweatshirt.

  “Sure,” Nell said. She pulled them on. She liked the way the shirt felt so soft and smelled like Stevie. Stevie found a big safety pin, and she pinned the waistband of the pants, to keep them from falling down. The sun was down now, and the bird was asleep in its cage. Nell went over and stared at it while Stevie got dressed. The crow looked so alone, its head tucked under its wing. The sight made Nell's heart hurt. She wondered where its family was.

  Downstairs, they all worked together to get dinner ready. Stevie showed Nell where the table-setting things were. She used cloth napkins, which seemed very, very special, and Tilly sat on the table, watching that Nell put them in the right places. Out in the kitchen, her father chopped garlic and shallots. He made a joke about the onion making him cry, but Nell and Stevie could see he was really laughing. That made Nell feel so happy.

  “We've got pasta boiling, we've got shallots and garlic cooking in olive oil,” her father said. “What else do we need for the sauce?”

  “Fresh herbs!” Stevie said, grabbing both of their hands. She pulled them outside, to the small herb garden beside the house, with Tilly scooting into the trees. “Hubbard's Point herb gardens are magical,” she said. “Almost every house has one.”

  “But not as magical as yours,” Nell's father laughed. “We all know what the kids say about you.”

  “Dad!” Nell said, shocked that he would bring up the witch rumor.

  “Oh, Nell . . . there's a little bit of truth in everything the kids say,” Stevie said, standing knee-high among the fragrant herbs. “I do believe in magic.”

  “Really?” Nell asked, stepping in to stand beside her. The scents of rosemary, thyme, mint, and chervil swirled around them and made her feel almost dizzy.

  “Yes. I believe that if you want something enough, and wish in the right way, then the right thing will happen.”

  “The right way?” Nell's father asked.

  “Yes,” Stevie said, pointing out which herbs to pick.

  “But how?”

  “Well, you do your best to bring it about. And then you give up control of the results.”

  Nell reached down; it was dark, and she couldn't see what she was grabbing. There could be mice, or spiders, or snakes in there. But she trusted Stevie. And the herbs smelled so good, and the night felt enchanted. She picked handfuls of parsley and cilantro.

  “Who do you give up the control to?” Jack asked.

&
nbsp; Stevie didn't answer, and neither did Nell. She closed her eyes tight. She remembered being in Georgia, being so sad at every single thing, and how she had wished, wished with everything she had, that she and her father could be happy. And that very weekend, he'd told her that they were going to move to Boston to try something new. And that step had somehow led them to coming to Hubbard's Point for the summer, where she'd met Peggy . . . and Stevie. With her eyes still closed, she wished their time together would never end.

  Just then they heard some music booming from down at the beach. Nell felt scared—it sounded so strange and eerie, like voices coming from the sky.

  “What's that?” she asked.

  “Beach movie,” her father and Stevie said at the same time.

  “Can we go?” she gasped, looking from one to the other.

  “Dinner's almost ready,” her father said.

  “We could eat fast . . .” Stevie said.

  “Let's do it,” her father said.

  They went inside; Stevie threw the herbs into the copper pot. It only took a few minutes for the clams to open. Nell's father made her some plain linguine with butter, just in case, and that was good, because Nell didn't want to eat the clams she'd just dug. But her father and Stevie ate them, and said they were the best they'd ever had.

  When they finished eating, Stevie and her father quickly rinsed the plates, and Nell danced around the first floor with Tilly watching her from a hiding spot on the mantel. Nell felt as if this was her house, and she wished she could come back again and again. The wish made her stop dancing.

  She thought of what Stevie had said in the herb garden. That you wish and do your best . . . and things happen.

  Nell had wished that this day would never end, and now they were all going to the beach movie together. It made her feel strange and powerful. She hadn't had something to believe in in a long time. It was like raking the mud, finding a perfect clam. Or being in the dark, sticking your hand into a garden you couldn't even see, coming out with herbs for dinner.

  Maybe Stevie was a witch, after all. . . .

  STEVIE COULD hardly believe she was doing this. Although her house faced the beach, and the sound of the movies bounced up the rock ledge every Thursday night in the summer, she hadn't been down to a beach movie since she was a teenager. She and Nell bundled up in extra sweaters, and she gave Jack an old Trinity sweatshirt of her father's. The cartoons were just ending as the three of them crossed the footbridge.

  Nell raced across the beach to look for a good spot to put their blanket. The projector was set up on the boardwalk, focused on a somewhat rippled screen hanging from what looked like a weather-beaten goalpost. The crowd was made up of a combination of families with young kids, teenage girls out for the night, and teenage couples taking advantage of the dark and a legitimate reason to be lying on a blanket together.

  Peggy was there with Bay, Dan, Tara, and Annie. Billy was haunting the boardwalk with his pals. Everyone seemed to see Nell at once, and they all called and said they'd move their blankets over and make room. Stevie walked through the crowd to the spot, aware that people were noticing. Nell held her hand proudly while Jack spread out the blanket.

  “Hi, everyone,” Stevie said.

  “Hi, Stevie, hi, Jack.”

  “Thanks for making room for us,” he said. The night was dark, but the projector light on the blank screen illuminated everyone's face.

  “Oh, we're thrilled to!” Bay said, grinning so madly, Stevie wondered what she was thinking. Tara seemed to be beaming with the same intensity. Peggy gave her a long, cautious stare; Stevie tried to reassure her with a smile.

  “Where's Joe?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, out keeping the world a safer place,” Tara said. “And leaving me footloose and fancy free at the beach movies.”

  “Watch it—you're a betrothed woman,” Bay warned.

  “I know. Love has taken the sting out of this cruel, cruel world,” Tara said. “Watch out, Stevie—once I say my ‘I do's,' you'll officially be the designated Scarlet Woman of the Point.”

  “I wear it well,” Stevie said, laughing.

  Just then, the movie started. It was just as Stevie remembered from her youth—the old projector creaking along, the film ratcheting through the spools, the sound competing with the crash of the waves, and the picture distorted by folds in the windblown screen. In other words, the movie was beside the point. She laughed with the joy of being back.

  Jack and Nell had dug a pit, patted the pile of sand into a sturdy backrest, and spread the blanket. The three of them settled into their seats, with Jack in the middle, so Nell could sit beside Peggy on one side. The movie was Tiger Bay, and Stevie was completely positive she had seen it—probably this very same ancient copy—with Emma and Madeleine.

  “I don't think of you that way,” Jack said, turning toward Stevie, his voice too low for the others to hear.

  “What way?”

  “As a scarlet woman. I'm sure Tara was just teas-ing you.”

  Stevie looked at him, surprised, then actually stunned—that he would come to her defense. “Thank you,” she said. “But I am, sort of. Unintentionally.”

  “No . . .” He took her hand. Their hands were hidden between them on the blanket, and he laced his fingers with hers, and a shiver went all the way up Stevie's spine. No one could see them, and the secret felt both thrilling and safe. “You're not,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said again. The sea breeze picked up, blowing through her hair. He reached over to brush it out of her eyes, and their eyes locked. She had a hard time catching her breath, and she had to force herself to concentrate on the screen. The movie blared, showing Hayley Mills hiding in the staircase. Nell and Peggy were scared to look, so they asked for their ice cream money early and went tearing up to the Good Humor truck.

  “I've seen this part before,” he said, turning toward her. He let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. She felt sixteen—no, even more excited than she remembered feeling at sixteen, with a boy at the movies. Her heart was pounding, as she felt his breath on her cheek.

  “Me, too.”

  “Even if I hadn't, I'd rather talk to you.”

  She nodded. Me, too, she mouthed, smiling. He brushed her cheek with his lips. They watched the movie for a minute, and suddenly the film broke. Everyone moaned, but someone called out, saying it would be fixed in just a few minutes.

  People surrounded them, but all Stevie could think of was kissing Jack. His arm tightened around her, and their hips pressed together. If they were younger, if Nell wasn't here, they'd go under the boardwalk . . .

  The idea made her laugh, and he looked over. “What are you thinking?”

  “Just that, once a scarlet woman . . .”

  “I swear, I don't see it,” he said stubbornly.

  Stevie nodded. “I didn't grow up thinking, ‘Oh, I want to be married three times before I'm forty.' I really didn't. I . . . did my best. I . . . fall in love easily.”

  “You do?” he asked, smiling broadly.

  She tried to smile. “That didn't come out right. I . . . what I was trying to say is . . . I feel so much for the people that I . . . well, love. I can't turn it on and off. And I grew up believing in marriage, you know?”

  He nodded. “Your aunt told me your parents had a great one.”

  “They did,” she said. Talking about this was hard, in a way she hadn't expected. Suddenly she felt uneasy, having Jack hold her. Their pasts really rose up to swamp her, and she involuntarily pulled back. “They were in a world of just each other. No one else . . . Like you and Emma.”

  Why did he suddenly look away? Wasn't that the whole story? The great love he'd had for Emma? The reason he had left the south, Atlanta, their home? Wasn't it the reason he had stopped speaking to Maddie—because she had said something against his wife?

  “It wasn't,” Jack said.

  “What?”

  “My marriage. It wasn't great,” he said quietly
. “I thought it was. I really did. Emma seemed so happy. She stayed home with Nell, then started working at our church. St. Francis Xavier had a volunteer program—they went to nursing homes, a homeless shelter, the prison. Emma would read to prisoners. My sister's the one . . .”

  Stevie waited. His face was creased with torment. “She's the one who told me,” Jack said. “I had felt something was wrong, but I was too dense to know what it was. Maddie had to tell me after Emma died.”

  “Oh, Jack.”

  “I want to tell you, but I'm not sure I can. It's been so amazing getting to know you, seeing how much Nell likes you. And realizing that you want to do the best for her. I have the feeling I can tell you anything. . . .”

  “You can.”

  He shook his head resolutely. “Not this,” he said. “I want to, but for Nell's sake—she's so young. She loved her mother so much, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “Of course. You want to safeguard Emma's memory,” Stevie said, squeezing his hand. “I understand. But you should let it out to someone, Jack. It's already eaten away at you, destroyed a big part of your life. . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Madeleine. It's kept you from your sister.”

  He stared up at the screen, as if he wished the movie would start, keep them from talking anymore. At the same time, he squeezed her hand hard, and she pressed back.

  “What did she tell you?” Stevie asked.

  The movie began again, the film shakily advancing, the sound fighting against the easterly wind. It was picking up, smelling of the sea—Stevie always felt a northeaster before it actually arrived. She felt the spray on her face, smelled the salt.

  “Maddie told me Emma was going to leave us,” Jack said. His voice cracked—or was he just being drowned out by the movie? Stevie looked at his dark eyes and held his hand tighter.

  “Leave you?” Stevie whispered, but Jack didn't reply.

  “She had a secret life,” he said, not quite answering the question. “A real, true, secret life that I knew nothing about.”

  “But . . .” Stevie began.