Whisper Beach

by Shelley Noble

  “What’s between you and your father is one thing. But Joe—”

  “I talked to Joe today. And I paid back the money Gigi gave me years ago with interest and more.” Van made two checks in the air.

  Dorie raised one eyebrow, an expression Van remembered well.

  “Sorry, but it’s over. I’ve moved on.”

  “But Dana hasn’t.”

  “And I’m sorry Dana’s life is messed up, but that’s not my fault.”

  “Of course it isn’t.” Dorie huffed out a sigh. “I don’t know why you girls can’t let things go. What happened is over. Has been over for a long time. Done.”

  Van felt her bottom lip tremble; she bit it to quiet it. “It isn’t over. Not for me.”

  “What do you mean it isn’t over for you?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Did I ask you if it was important?”

  Van shook her head, inhaled. It seemed that that her lungs had been sucked closed, then they suddenly opened and she swallowed air. She’d been here before, pouring out her heart to Dorie and Dorie ready to comfort. Though Van was beyond comforting. Maybe she just didn’t care anymore.

  “You want to know? And then it will be finished, okay?” She hesitated. Was she really going to do this? “I lost more than a boyfriend. More than that baby when I miscarried. I lost any chance of having other children.”

  There, she’d said it out loud. She’d never told anyone, never. Except Suze, and they never talked about it after that night in the hospital.

  The room grew completely quiet; not even a car passed outside on the street. Van wished she could just get up and leave. She was afraid she might start sobbing and not be able to stop. Why had she blurted out the truth? It was so much easier to live with when it was buried.

  “Well, that sucks,” Dorie said. “Does that make a difference to you? I mean, do you want children?”

  “Not really. It was bad at first. I decided I didn’t deserve kids. But then I just got busy and wouldn’t have had the time for them anyway. They’re just not a part of my life.”

  “And men? Are they a part of your life?”

  “Sure. I’ve had relationships, just not significant ones. So it doesn’t really matter.” Van shrugged, attempted a smile. It didn’t matter what she wanted; she’d met men who said they didn’t want children, but as soon as you confessed that you couldn’t have their children, they had a way of becoming the past. It didn’t matter. “No biggie really.” She breathed in. “So that ties up one more loose end.”

  “Which one?”

  “The future. Joe always wanted a large family. We even talked about it. Check three.”

  “I think he’d rather have you than kids, even now.”

  Van shook her head. “Dorie, he hasn’t seen me in years, and I haven’t thought about him. So don’t keep thinking that things will—” Her voice cracked. “Change. It’s all fine so don’t feel sorry for me. Now I really have to get to sleep.”

  She stood, made it to the base of the stairs before Dorie spoke again.

  “And your father?”

  “Not happening.”

  “They say he’s a changed man.”

  “Well, whoop-de-do. It only took killing my mother and getting rid of me to make him happy. I was over at the house today. All my mother’s things and mine were there all neatly put away. Stuff on the dressers and the bookshelves. Even the makeup in the bathroom. It’s over a decade old. Nothing had been moved.

  “But he took everything that was his with him. There is nothing, nothing there to show that he ever existed. Like he just erased himself from our lives.”

  “Or he felt he had no right to what was yours.”

  “Well, he’s right there. The keys to the house are on my dresser. Tell Gigi I’m sorry, but I had to leave. If she wants, she and the kids can live in my house until she can get on her feet. If she doesn’t want it, ask her to return the keys to my lawyer. He’ll put the house on the market for me.”

  “Gigi doesn’t need for you to give her a house; she needs you to light a fire under her. Everyone else is already enabling her to do nothing.”

  “I think it’s too late for her to change. I’ll send you some ideas for streamlining the dining room at the Crab. Should be a fairly simple fix. And tell Suze . . . well, I’ll apologize to her before I leave.”

  “Vanessa Moran.”

  “I’ve loved being here with you and Suze, even seeing Joe again, but the rest of it— I thought it would be good for me, but it isn’t. Don’t ask me to stay. It’s just too hard.”

  “Okay, leave if you must. But at least go say good-bye to Joe. You left him once before; don’t do it to him again.”

  “I already told him it was nice to see him. We didn’t make plans to see each other again. It isn’t his fault that I left. I was pissed at him and Dana. But I overreacted.” She paused to take a breath. “The only time I ever just reacted without thinking of the consequences, and look what happened. I did it to myself. My responsibility, not Joe’s, not Dana’s.”

  In one movement, she turned and ran up the stairs. Closed the door to her room and leaned against it, no longer able to hold back the tears she’d held in for so long.

  She didn’t make any noise, didn’t shudder or gasp. She’d learned early on not to let anyone know how much she hurt. Not her mother, not her father, and now, not even Dorie.

  MAYBE SHE WAS getting too old for this, Dorie thought as she stood in the hallway between the three guest rooms. She had a full house again. She hadn’t had one of those in years.

  There had been a time when the girls and the boys would come to her for shelter in whatever particular storm they were going through. Dorie never turned them away. Even if she had to sleep some of them on the floor with a blanket and a couch pillow for their heads.

  Harold took it all in stride. Of course, Harold liked having the girls around. In those days, he had a roving eye, and an occasional roving hand, but he never compromised a young woman as far as she knew. It was later that the real philandering started.

  But to love Harold, you had to love the whole man. The man who built (with her help) a successful restaurant from nothing. The man who put their entire savings into shares of the hotel only to have it go belly-up a few years later. He sold his shares to the new owners for a song. But that had been years ago, before the hotel became the favorite place to stay and before Sandy ended its reign and wrecked the foundation beyond repair.

  Maybe it was working in the shadow of that hotel year after year, knowing he’d almost owned it, that he was the man who almost made it, that gave Harold wanderlust. Not just for women but for adventure.

  Though his idea of adventure was sometimes just weird. Scuba diving in the Keys—surely a young thing in a bikini accompanied that one. An immersion course in Hungarian? He came back from four weeks in Budapest emaciated with walking pneumonia.

  Did that stop him? No. Vegas to study poker, dealing not gambling. He could just as easily have learned in Atlantic City. Definitely picked up a woman or two in Vegas. Stupid old man. He was a good ten years older than Dorie, pushing eighty.

  Still going like the Energizer bunny.

  And still coming back when he got tired or ran out of money.

  Dorie didn’t begrudge him his travels or his women, though if they were getting any more than an arm to hang on she’d be surprised. She wasn’t even jealous. Never had been.

  They had three kids. All moved away and more or less successful. Dorie was alone a lot, but she didn’t really mind, did she? She looked at the three closed doors. Well, she wasn’t alone now.

  This was all the adventure she needed. And if she helped out a few people along the way, gave them a place to be safe for a minute, well, hell, it’s what she did. Let Harold go out and search for whatever he was searching for. She had everything she needed or wanted right here. She just wished she had the money to keep it going.

  IT WAS MUCH later than Van had intended
when she bumped her packed suitcase down the stairs the next morning. She could smell coffee and bacon of all things and heard the murmur of conversation coming from the kitchen.

  She rolled her suitcase to the front door. She’d have to come back for her printer and laptop. She knew her eyes were puffy and not just from lack of sleep, but there was no help for it. She’d just have to brazen her way through the good-byes.

  Quick and gracious, optimistic plans to keep in touch and then she’d be on her way to her vacation.

  Her vacation. Maybe she should just go home to Manhattan.

  She wiped her hands on the front of her new shorts and strode down the hall to the kitchen.

  They were sitting around the table, Dorie, Suze still in her pajamas, and Dana, wearing what had to be Dorie’s bathrobe.

  Conversation stopped. Van stepped inside.

  “Hey, just wanted to say a quick good-bye before I take off.”

  She got no response.

  Van came farther into the room. Gave Dorie a one-armed hug and stepped away. “Thanks . . . for everything. Suze, let’s get together.”

  Suze frowned at her and stood up. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Van turned to Dana, who was looking down at an untouched cup of coffee.

  Her lip was so swollen it was hard to imagine her being able to get the liquid in her mouth. Her eye was swollen, surrounded by deep purple. And something Van hadn’t noticed the night before, her chin was scraped, like a child who had fallen on the sidewalk.

  Van’s stomach lurched; she nodded, gave Dana a tight smile. That was the best she could do. Her emotions were pushed well back inside. She wouldn’t take the chance of reacting to Dana’s injuries and having her own feelings tumble out again.

  “Tell Gigi I’ll call her.” She headed for the door to the hall. Heard chairs scrape; she kept walking, faster now.

  She reached the suitcase, pushed the handle down, and picked it up. It would be faster than rolling it across the lawn.

  “No, Van.” It was Dana and she was alone. “I’ll go. I had no business even coming here. I just didn’t know where else to go.”

  Van forced herself to look at that bruised face. “So if you left now, where would you go?”

  Dana shrugged. “Back to Bud. He doesn’t mean—”

  “Dana, stop right there. Do not go back. You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. No one does. And I’m not leaving because of you.”

  “Then why?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Suze moved forward.

  Van quickly turned away, opened the front door, and walked straight into Gigi.

  “Oh!” Gigi exclaimed and jumped back. She was dressed in beige cotton slacks and a pin-striped blouse. She was balanced on two-inch heels and was incongruously holding a beach bag in one hand. She held a pile of mail in the other.

  Van tried to bypass her, but there was no way it was going to happen. Resigned for more tears, hopefully only on Gigi’s part, Van said, “Oh, I’m glad you dropped by. I wanted to say good-bye before I head out.”

  Gigi seemed to notice the suitcase for the first time. “But . . . where are you going?”

  “I’m on vacation, remember? I have hotel reservations starting today, and I don’t want them to think I’m not coming and give my room away.” Van smiled brightly. It was so fake that not even Gigi the naive could mistake it for a real.

  “I thought— Why can’t you spend your vacation here?”

  Suze efficiently relieved Gigi of the mail and began rifling through the envelopes.

  Momentarily distracted, Gigi asked, “Is she still waiting for those forms?”

  “Yeah. And she’s staying here for a while to write, so you guys can hang out together.”

  “But you promised.”

  Van stared at her. “Me? Promised what?”

  “You said you’d stay.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. After the funeral when we were at Mike’s. I said I knew you didn’t want to stay, and you said you did.”

  “I meant for the day and I stayed over yesterday just to see you.”

  Suze had stopped shuffling through the mail. She dropped it onto the foyer table.

  “Nothing?” Van asked.

  Suze shook her head.

  “I thought you and Suze and I could go to the beach today. Like we did yesterday.”

  “I can’t.” Van leaned forward to give Gigi a quick hug.

  Gigi latched on. “Please. Just for a few days. We’re family.”

  And family was one of the big reasons Van was in a hurry to leave.

  The change in Gigi’s expression was so quick and so stormy that Van stepped back, right onto Dana’s foot.

  Gigi’s eye widened almost comically. “What’s she doing here?”

  Dana rested her chin on Van’s shoulder. “Girls’ weekend away. Too bad you missed it.”

  Dana was back in Dana form; bruises and all, she was going to tough it out. Van dug her heel into Dana’s toes. Dana pushed her from behind. Not strong, but enough to let her know she was a force to be reckoned with. Not that Van had any intentions of dealing with her in any manner ever again.

  “This is all her fault!”

  “No, Gigi, it’s just my schedule.”

  “No, it isn’t. You said you would stay, then she came and now you’re leaving.” Gigi glared at Dana. “Why don’t you just go away?”

  Dana crossed her arms, cocked one hip, feisty and belligerent regardless of her battered face. “Why don’t you?”

  Gigi’s lip quivered.

  Damn, Dana. She never knew when to leave things alone. Van could walk out the door now, leave the others to sort things out among themselves. She could be in Rehoboth in a few hours, lie on the beach alone, have her meals alone, drink at the bar alone, then go to bed alone— What kind of vacation was that?

  Or she could have the problems that hounded her here instead. But then what kind of vacation would staying here be?

  Gigi smiled tentatively. “Please?”

  “Yes, for crying out loud, please,” Suze said under her breath. “You really can’t leave me and Dorie like this.”

  “You’re welcome to come with me,” Van said just as quietly.

  “Ple-e-e-ease,” Suze whined in a parody of Gigi. “I promise not to mention work if you promise not to say Rehoboth.”

  “Suze, don’t ask—”

  “I’m dying,” Dorie blurted out.

  Chapter 12

  THE OTHER FOUR WOMEN STARED AT HER.

  Then Gigi started crying.

  Van put a comforting arm around her. “Dorie, if this is your idea of a joke, stop it.”

  “I’m not joking. Well, I’m not dying, either. At least I hope I’m not.”

  “Not funny!” Dana yelled. “Not funny, Dorie.”

  “Chill. Look at you all. Suze is totally balled up over the mail. Dana, you act like you’re mad at the world, when you’re here with people who care about you. Van can’t wait to get away. Gigi, I don’t even know what to say about you. You just stopped growing somewhere along the line.”

  “I’m going upstairs,” Suze said.

  Van reached for her suitcase.

  “Stop! All of you.”

  Van stopped, Dana crossed her arms and glared at them, Suze looked down on them like the wrath of the almighty college professor.

  “Would you have stayed if you thought I was dying?”

  No one answered.

  “You’re all so caught up in your own problems or agendas or whatever that you don’t even see what’s in front of you.”

  “And what would that be?” Dana asked.

  Dorie looked them over, long enough to make Van squirm.

  “You know, life is short. Before you know it, you’re looking back on it and wondering what the hell happened.

  “And it’s too late to fix the things you didn’t fix, or really e
njoy the things that you didn’t even pay attention to.”

  “But you’re not really dying, are you?” Gigi asked, her voice trembling.

  “When you get to be my age, you’re always dying.”

  “Oh, horse twaddle,” Suze said, coming back down the stairs.

  “Okay, here’s the truth. I’m not dying, but the Crab is. Harold has totally cleaned out the operating money not to mention the joint bank account, and if I don’t figure out how to do things more efficiently, I’m going to lose it.”

  Van narrowed her eyes at Dorie. Her confession sounded sincere, but Dorie was clever that way.

  “You’re serious this time?” Van asked.

  “Dead serious.”

  Still Van hesitated. She didn’t like to be manipulated. But if Dorie needed help with the Crab, Van could turn it around. And it would be more fun than sitting on the beach by herself.

  She looked at Suze and could see she was thinking the same thing. Gigi looked hopeful. Dana just looked pissed off. But then Dana only had two looks: pissed off and her version of sexy.

  “And when were you going to get around to telling us this?”

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. But . . .” Dorie shrugged. “What little was left, left with Harold this week.”

  Suze cut a look toward Van.

  Van hesitated.

  Dana and Gigi both turned to look at her. Then Dorie.

  “Oh, what the hell. I’ll call the hotel and cancel my reservations. But Dorie has to make pancakes.”

  Van hauled her suitcase back upstairs. When she got up to her room, she called the Rehoboth hotel and canceled her reservation. If things got too complicated, she’d just go home to Manhattan.

  When she came downstairs again, Suze and Dorie were bustling about the kitchen. Gigi sat at the kitchen table across from Dana, watching her like a terrier at a rat hole. Though what she expected Dana to do was anybody’s guess.

  Van walked over to the stove. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “You can make some more coffee.”

  Van got down the coffee and filled the coffeemaker. Suze passed by with a stack of plates. Van gave her a quick look and then glanced toward the table.

  Suze shrugged.