Holidays at Crescent Cove

by Shelley Noble

  She lost track of time, maybe she dozed. When she opened her eyes again, the sky had turned from blue to mauve and the sun sat like a fiery fat beach ball on the horizon. The crabbers were gone. The family gathered up towels and their cooler and trudged up the beach toward home.

  A solitary gull strutted near the water’s edge, his bill jackhammering the sand in search of food. A wave rolled in; he swooped into the sky and was swallowed by the dusk.

  Margaux was alone.

  Lights began to come on in the condominium complex two coves away where her mother lived. Was Jude sitting on her balcony watching the sunset? Could she see Margaux? And what would she think if she did?

  Would her failure become one of those moments printed indelibly on the memory, linked forever with these steps, this porch. Posing for pictures in her white First Communion dress. Chasing sand crabs that Danny had dumped on Jude’s lap to proudly show off his catch. Louis’s proposal. Dad, Jude, and her sitting together the Sunday after Danny died. And sitting with her mother, years later, when Henry Sullivan followed his son.

  From deep inside the house the telephone rang. Resolutely, Margaux stood and climbed the steps to the porch. A rectangle of wood hung from a nail beneath the porch light; its black letters spelled out The Sullivans. She lifted the sign. Paint flakes drifted to the floor; a spider, disturbed from sleep, scuttled beneath the cedar shakes. She extracted the house key and let the sign fall back into place.

  The lock was stiff and she had to lean against the door to open it. But when she stepped over the threshold, she stopped, suddenly terrified. What had she been thinking? How could she come back like this—jobless, husbandless, childless. How could she face Jude with her boundless compassion and unfailing optimism.

  The phone continued to ring. She groped her way across the dark foyer and picked up the receiver.

  “You’re there,” said Jude’s familiar voice.

  “I’m here.”

  “I saw you from my terrace. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I would have aired the house.”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

  “Are you free for dinner?”

  “Sure, but let’s eat here.”

  “Deke’s? I can pick up food and be there in an hour.”

  “Deke’s would be great.” Margaux replaced the receiver and closed her eyes. She didn’t think clam rolls were exactly what she needed to salvage her life. But maybe her mother could help.

  JUDE SLID THE glass doors shut and called Deke’s Clam Shack.

  “Holy cow,” said Deke O’Halloran. “The only reason you’d be eating fried is if Mags was home.”

  “She’s home,” Jude said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. It wasn’t like Margaux to show up unannounced. It wasn’t like her to show up at all. She hadn’t been back in years.

  “Twenty minutes,” Deke said. “I’ll put on a fresh batch.”

  Jude hung up. When she’d seen the figure sitting on the front steps of the beach house and recognized her daughter, her heart leapt to her throat. Something it hadn’t done in a long while.

  Margaux never told her the real reason she and Louis had stopped coming to the shore, though Jude suspected it had nothing to do with how busy she was. She’d just about given up hope of them coming again, but she kept the house clean anyway—just in case. Jude had been disappointed but not surprised when Margaux called to say she’d filed for divorce. She didn’t say why, only that things weren’t working and that she could handle it.

  Jude was proud of Margaux’s strength. She had always known what she wanted, worked hard to get there. But that strength had become brittle in the last few years and Jude was worried. Strength ebbed and flowed, but brittle would break.

  Well, whatever it was, they would see it through together. She glanced at the clock. Time to go. And on her way, she’d stop by the church to light a candle to the saints; her daughter had come home.

  MARGAUX SAT AT the kitchen table, running her bare toes across the old linoleum floor, scratched from years of sandy feet. She was tired, she wanted to be alone, to stay in this cozy old kitchen while its dark maple cabinets and wallpaper of watering cans and ivy created a cocoon of safety around her.

  But she knew that was impossible and when she heard the familiar beep-beep of Jude’s Citroën as it pulled into the drive, she dragged herself from the chair and went to meet her.

  Jude bustled through the door, carrying a greasy paper bag and a six-pack of Budweiser. She was trim and fit, a few inches shorter than Margaux with the same auburn red hair. She was sixty-two but she had a new hairstyle that made her look years younger. She put down her parcels and opened her arms. Margaux walked into a hug. Her mother’s cologne mingled with the smell of fresh fried clams, and the aroma was enough to make her cry.

  Jude gave her a squeeze. “Let’s eat. Deke’ll kill me if the clams get cold. He put on a fresh batch just for you.”

  Margaux pulled away. “You told him I was here?”

  “Well, of course.” Jude frowned. “Shouldn’t I—”

  “You have a new hairdo. It looks great.”

  “Whole town does. Even Dottie, if you can believe that. New girl. From Brooklyn of all places. Bought the old Cut ’n Curl across from the marina. And a sheer genius.” She smiled at her own joke. “By the way, Dottie said she better see you at the diner first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Dottie knows, too?” She’d hoped to hibernate for a while, but now that was impossible. Dottie’s Diner was the local gossip exchange.

  Jude opened the bag and placed two foil-wrapped paper cartons on the table. “I was supposed to meet her for girls’ night. Had to call to tell her I wasn’t coming.” She flipped the tab of one can, then stopped and peered at Margaux. “Is there a reason you don’t want people to know you’re here?”

  “No.” Margaux sat down at the table.

  Jude sat down, too, but she didn’t take her eyes off Margaux. “Is something wrong?”

  Margaux shook her head, nodded.

  Jude handed her a napkin. “Eat. Then we’ll talk. There’s nothing in this world that can’t be fixed.”

  Margaux picked up her clam roll. It was so stuffed with succulent clams that a handful fell out when she bit into the roll.

  They ate in silence. When Margaux had scooped up the last clam bit, Jude put down her beer. “Now tell me what’s happened.”

  Margaux took a breath but the words stuck in her throat. She took another breath. “In a nutshell. While I was climbing the ladder of haute couture, becoming famous and building a nest egg so we could start a family, Louis stole everything. Savings, investments, everything, then dropped out of sight. I’ve lost the apartment, my business—”

  “What? No. This can’t be.”

  “He—” Margaux’s voice cracked; a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. She sucked in air. “They repossessed everything. Patterns, machines, fabric, even the drafting paper. I only had enough credit left to pay my staff.

  “And my designs. They shoved them into cardboard boxes and took them away. What could the bank possibly want with them?”

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned into her mother and held on for dear life. “I’ve lost everything. How could Louis do this?”

  And how could she have been so stupid not to notice before it was too late?

  “Why didn’t you call me? I could have transferred funds, sold the condo.”

  “It was over before I knew what was happening. Besides, I couldn’t ask you to bail me out. It wouldn’t have done any good. We’re talking about a couple million.”

  Jude pulled away abruptly. “I’ll call a lawyer I know. We’ll stop this.”

  “I have a lawyer. She had the court freeze whatever assets were left. There wasn’t much. She has a forensic accountant trying to trace the money, but the
y may never find it, if he still has it.”

  Margaux groped for a napkin. “You hear about this kind of thing all the time and you think, That could never happen to me. I’d never be so stupid. And look.” She held out her hands. “Everything I dreamed of, worked for. Gone. I was on the brink of making it big, and now, zip, nada, nothing.” The thin control she’d been holding on to for the last few weeks broke and she cried, sobbing in big gulps and not caring. “I would have given him half—money, property—more than half. I only wanted one thing and he took that, too.”

  Jude pushed a wild strand of hair from Margaux’s cheek. “What?”

  “My future.”

  “Oh, Margaux. It only seems that way now. You were right to come home.”

  Margaux sniffed. “Where else could I go?” She hated herself for sounding so needy, so incapable, but she’d used up every reservoir of strength just getting through the last two months.

  “No place else in the world. You’ve got family and friends and a home. You’ll create more designs, make more money, and someday you’ll meet someone to love and have a family with.”

  “Mom, I’m thirty-four.”

  “Thirty-four is nothing. Women have children into their forties these days.”

  “There won’t be anyone else.”

  “Of course there will be. It’s early days yet.”

  “There wasn’t for you.”

  “No.” Jude smiled. “You’re exhausted. Things will look better when you’ve rested. Why don’t you come stay at the condo with me tonight?”

  “Thanks, but—” Margaux shook her head.

  “Or . . . I could stay here.”

  “No. I just need to sleep. You go on home. I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Jude gathered up their trash. “Okay, but call me if you change your mind. Doesn’t matter what time. I mean it.”

  “I will.” Margaux walked her to the car.

  Jude kissed her good night. “Dottie’s for waffles. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  “Mom, I can’t.”

  “Sure you can. You don’t want to hurt Dottie’s feelings and you need to eat.”

  Margaux gave in. It took more than she had to resist. By tomorrow she’d be able to hold herself together. For a while anyway.

  Jude beeped as she rounded the curve and Margaux went inside. She was numb with shock, with pain, with sheer exhaustion, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. It seemed like she hadn’t slept in years, and the stairs to her bedroom seemed to stretch forever.

  She walked through the parlor and out the front door.

  She hesitated at the bottom of the porch steps. The beach was dark, the sand eerily illuminated by the sliver of moon. She took a step and the sand shifted beneath her feet. Another step, another shift. Another . . . and another until the sand turned wet and hard. Another and another until she stood ankle deep in the cold water of the Sound.

  She looked into the darkness, opened her arms, and gave in to the pull of the tide, strong, relentless, its siren call singing her home.

  And read an exclusive excerpt from Shelley Noble’s latest

  Stargazey Point

  Chapter One

  HATE. HOW MANY times a day did that word come up in conversation? I hate these shoes with this outfit. I hate Jell-O with fruit. People laugh and say I hate it when that happens. Hate could be a joke. Or an all-consuming fire that singed your spirit before eating your soul.

  Abbie Sinclair had seen it in all its forms, okay maybe not all, and for that she was thankful, but in too many forms to process, to turn a cold eye, to keep plugging away in spite of it all.

  A sad commentary on someone who had just turned thirty. Somehow, Abbie thought that the big three-oh would set her free, leave the crushed, dispirited twenties behind. But as the therapist told her during her first session, she wouldn’t be able to go forward until she came to terms with her past. She didn’t go back—to the therapist or the past.

  So here she was five thousand feet above Indiana, Kentucky, or some other state, on her way from Chicago to South Carolina, thinking about hate instead of worrying about what to have for dessert instead of Jell-O or what shoes would go with this outfit.

  Abbie knew she had to jettison her hate or it would destroy her. But no matter how many times she’d written the word, torn the paper into little strips, shredded it, burned it, ran water over it until it disintegrated, stepped on it. No matter how many times she’d symbolically thrown it away, forced it out of her heart, there seemed to be just a little left, and it would grow back, like pus in an infected wound.

  Pus? Really? Had she really just made that analogy? Abbie pressed her fingers to her temples. The absolute lowest. Purple prose. Bad writing and ineffective emotion, something her mentor and lover insisted had no place in cutting-edge documentaries. Something her post-flower-child mother insisted had no place anywhere in life. And something that her best friend, Celeste, said was just plain tacky.

  Besides, it didn’t come close to what she really felt.

  Abbie had been full of fire when she started out. She’d planned to expose the evils of the world, do her part in righting injustice, make people understand and change. The Sinclairs’ youngest daughter would finally join the ranks of her do-gooding family. Instead, that fire had turned inward and was destroying her. How arrogant and naïve she had been. How easily she’d lost hope.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Celeste said when Abbie showed up at her apartment with one jungle-rotted duffel bag and a bucketful of tears. “You can probably get your old job back. Want me to ask?”

  Abbie just wanted to sleep, except with sleep came dreams peopled by the dead, asking why, why, why of the living.

  They decided what she needed was a change of scene. At least that’s what Celeste decided. Somewhere comfortable with people who were kind. Celeste knew just the place. With her relatives in a South Carolina beach town named Stargazey Point.

  “You’ll like it there,” Celeste said. “And you’ll love Aunt Marnie and Millie and Uncle Beau. They’re really my great- or maybe it’s my great-great- . . . but they’re sweethearts and they’d love to have you.”

  It did sound good; quiet, peaceful, sun and surf. “I’ll go,” Abbie said.

  She was a basket case. She needed therapy. She went on vacation instead.

  Celeste drove her to O’Hare. “You’ll have to take a cab from the airport. I don’t think they drive anymore. It’ll take about forty minutes if there’s no traffic and cost about sixty dollars. Here.” She thrust a handful of bills at Abbie, then tried to take her coat. “You won’t need it there.”

  Abbie refused the money and clung to her coat. She didn’t need it. That burning emotion she couldn’t kill was enough to keep her warm on the coldest day.

  There was a mini bottle of unopened chardonnay on the tray table before her. She was still clutching her coat.

  She wasn’t ordinarily a slow learner. And she usually didn’t run. That had changed in a heartbeat. And that’s when the hate rushed in.

  She hated the company whose arrogance had washed away an entire schoolroom of children and the boy and his donkey, hated the security people who had smashed their cameras, hated those who stood by and watched or ran in terror, who dragged her away when she was only trying to save someone, anyone. Those who arrested Werner and threw him in a jail where he met with an “unfortunate accident.”

  For that she hated them most of all. Selfish, but there it was. They had killed Werner on top of everything else.

  And there was not a damn thing she could do about it. There was no footage, no Werner, she’d barely escaped before they confiscated her visa. Others weren’t so lucky.

  The tears started, she forced them back. How could she allow herself tears when eve
ryone else had suffered more?

  “SHE SHOULD BE here any minute now, sister, and you haven’t gotten out the tea service. Do you think it’s goin’ to polish itself? And look how you’re dressed.”

  Marnie Crispin glanced down at her dungarees and the old white T-shirt that Beau had put out for the veterans’ box, then looked at her younger sister and sighed. Millie was dressed in a floral print shirtwaist that had to be twenty years old, but was pressed like it had just come off the rack at Belks Department Store.

  “I know how I’m dressed, the garden doesn’t weed itself. I’m planning to change. And I’m not getting out the tea service.”

  “But, sister.”

  “You don’t want to scare the girl away, do you?”

  “No,” said Millie, patting at the white wisps of hair that framed her thin face. “But she’s come all the way from Chicago, poor thing. And I want everything to be just perfect for her. Beau, you’re dropping shavings all over my carpet.”

  Their younger brother, who would turn seventy-nine in two months, was sitting in his favorite chintz-covered chair, the ubiquitous block of wood and his pocketknife in hand. He looked down at his feet and the curls of wood littered there.

  “Oh.” He attempted to push them under the chair with the side of his boot.

  “How many times have I told you not to drop shavings on my carpet?”

  Beau rocked forward and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Beau looked down at the carving in his hand, back at Millie. “Going to watch out for that taxicab from the front porch.”

  Millie pursed her lips, but there was no rancor in it. Beau was Beau and they loved him. “Just you mind you don’t drop shavings all over my porch.”

  Beau shuffled out of the room.

  “And tuck that shirttail in,” Millie called after him.

  CABOT MONTGOMERY HEARD the car go by. They didn’t get much sightseeing this time of year, a few fishermen, an occasional antiquer, a handful of diehard sun worshipers, though most of them preferred the more upscale hotels of Myrtle Beach.