A Beach Wish

by Shelley Noble

  “I just sort of pushed her out of my mind. We didn’t have Google then. And I had several mothers and extended family to keep me busy and give me love and after a while she just faded away. Then Zoe came and I found an old photo and she and my daughter Mel looked so much alike—”

  “And the rest, as they say,” Chris said, “is history. Our history.”

  “Oh, Chris, I do love you.” Zoe threw her arms around him.

  “I think I love you, too,” said Eve, and fought not to burst into a full-blown blubber.

  “So let’s meet in the morning,” Zoe said, “and we’ll go down to the commune and—”

  “Commune?” Chris asked.

  “Commune,” Zoe said. “Henry said he would tell me the whole story once I showed Eve the letter. I’m sure he’ll include you, Chris.”

  “Sure you don’t want a nightcap?”

  “Not for me,” Eve said. “I’m pretty wiped out and I still have to close out tonight’s books.”

  “How ’bout you, Dil, what now?” Chris asked.

  “Right now, I think I have to go to bed.”

  “Lord, girl, it’s not even eight o’clock.”

  “I know, but I’m beat. How about a cup of tea in your room while you unpack? I want to hear about what happened to the show.”

  Chris rolled his eyes as Eve imagined all brothers might do. And she liked him for it.

  “Okay, tea, then bed for you. Then maybe I’ll take a walk around the town. Got any nightlife here, Eve?”

  “Something for everyone.”

  “Gotcha. Night, Eve, sister mine.” He gave Eve a peck on the cheek.

  Eve wished they would hurry and leave. She was tottering on the brink of a total meltdown and she didn’t want to embarrass herself.

  Zoe touched her arm. “See you in the morning?”

  Eve nodded.

  Zoe gave her a hug. Not a quick, friendly, see-you-later hug, but a long, sisterly hug. Then she took Chris’s arm and the two of them walked toward the elevator.

  They moved in step like a couple of dancers, Eve thought. Comfortable, sure of each other.

  “I got you, Dil,” Chris sang.

  “I got you, Chris,” Zoe sang back.

  They stepped into the elevator and stuck their heads out long enough to sing, “And we got you, Eve,” before the doors closed.

  “I’ve got you, too,” Eve said quietly. “I’ve got you.”

  She walked past the empty reception desk and into the office. The night clerk, Ivo Branch, was sitting on the couch eating a sandwich and streaming a movie on his laptop. He jumped up when she entered.

  “My shift ended an hour ago and I didn’t want to bother you . . .” He trailed off.

  “Mel didn’t show up?”

  He shook his head. “She probably forgot, no biggie. I just got hungry.” He closed his laptop and began wrapping up his sandwich. “You want me to watch the desk? I have something on later, but . . .”

  “No, you go on, and thanks for staying. Be sure to add the extra time to your hours. I’ll take it from here.”

  He shoved everything into his backpack and was gone with a “have a nice night,” leaving a faint odor of tuna in the air.

  Eve lit a candle. Not her favorite, tuna fish.

  She’d barely sat down at the desk before the door opened.

  She swiveled her chair around. “It’s about time you showed—” And stopped. Her father stood in the doorway.

  He seemed unsteady on his feet, and at first she thought he was drunk. God knows she had vivid memories of those times when he’d come home in the middle of the night, out of his mind with booze and bitterness. Eve didn’t know which was more frightening, the alcohol or the emotions it unleashed.

  “Come in,” Eve said. “Is the band here?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  She swallowed, or would have if her saliva hadn’t fled, leaving her mouth as dry as sand.

  He just stood there looking at her. And for a moment she thought he might just back up and close the door as if nothing had happened, but finally he took one step forward just enough to close the door.

  “She’s Jenny’s daughter, isn’t she?”

  Eve wanted to say, Who are you talking about? She was so not ready for this conversation, fight, explosion, whatever might happen right now. She wanted to savor her newfound status. Wanted to put off confronting her father or her grandmother about all the years they kept her in darkness. But it would just postpone the inevitable.

  “Yes.”

  “I could tell the minute I saw her. She walked into the bar. Why did she come here?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Eve watched her father’s fists tighten, release, tighten. Ready to lash out, hit something. She wasn’t afraid. Not for herself, anyway. The only things she’d ever seen him hit were a wall, a tree, or a table, hard enough to send magazines sliding to the floor.

  “Sit down. You’ll give yourself a heart attack.” Her voice sounded cold, as if she didn’t care what happened to him. As if she didn’t care about him. She did. She loved him, but right now he was the last person she wanted to see. And she didn’t want to be the one to tell him that Jenny Bascombe, née Campbell, was dead.

  He eyed her suspiciously, but finally lowered himself onto the couch. His long legs set at a perfect right angle to the floor. His back straight. But his head was bent. “Whatever you got to say, better say it. I’ve got to do a sound check in a minute.”

  In her mind she could hear Noelle saying, “Yeah, well, sound check this,” and almost smiled. Her one daughter who never cut him any slack.

  “So you gonna answer me? Did Jenny send her? What does she want?”

  Eve took a breath and jumped off the cliff. “She wants to meet her father.”

  Lee’s head jerked up. He narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t shaved, probably in several days, but at least he didn’t smell like bourbon.

  She could see the confusion and the slow grasp of understanding transform his expression. He shook his head, as if that was enough.

  “She’s your daughter. Zoe Bascombe is your daughter, too.”

  “No.”

  Lee unfolded himself from the couch but didn’t quite make it to his feet. He fell back onto the seat. “No.”

  Eve waited for him to riffle through the rolodex of his life.

  “It’s not possible.”

  Eve gave him a nudge. “Remember one little night backstage at Nassau Coliseum in the summer of eighty-eight? Jenny came back after the show. Must have been a big surprise after all that time, huh?”

  His expression changed in a moment of recognition, and again into a sad, reminiscent smile that made Eve want to stop. To just take him in her arms and tell him to forget it. That she’d send Zoe on her way and to forget she’d ever come.

  But Eve was too selfish for that. She wanted to know everything Zoe could tell her about her mother. She wanted to get to know her sister and her half brothers. She wanted her girls to know their aunt and uncles.

  “Remember that night, Dad? She’d seen the ad and bought a ticket.”

  “I remember.” His voice was so distant, Eve wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to himself.

  “You must have been glad to see her. Really glad.”

  “Don’t use that tone of voice about your mother.”

  Eve flinched. “Then tell me the truth.”

  “The truth? She was the only woman I ever loved. She walked out on me. Gave you up. That’s the truth.”

  “It didn’t stop you from having one more go, though, did it?”

  “Don’t be vulgar.”

  “Did it?”

  “No. And then she walked out again. But she can forget about walking back into our lives now. No more chances. And I don’t believe that girl is my daughter. So if she’s thinking about getting money out of me, she can forget it. They won’t get anything from me or your grandmother. Not one dime.”

  “You arrogant bastard. Yo
u think after all this time she would suddenly need something from you?” Eve said. “What on earth could you give her but a bucketful of bitterness?”

  He flinched.

  “God, you’re just like Hannah. You two are so poisoned. I used to think it was because of what my mother did, but I think you did it to each other.

  “Well, you can stop worrying. Jenny will never want anything from you again. She’s dead. That’s why Zoe’s here.”

  Lee sat for a long time, not speaking. Eve didn’t back down, though she was longing to comfort him like always. Maybe she should have left well enough alone. “Dad.”

  “Jenny has been dead to me for a long time. I don’t want anything more to do with her or her daughter.”

  “Does that include me, Dad?”

  He opened his mouth. Closed it.

  “What did you do with the letters?”

  He just stared at her.

  “What did you do with them? Read them? Burn them? Throw them away so I couldn’t see them?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The letters my mother sent me.”

  “She never sent you any letters. She never wrote at all. Is that what this girl told you? That your mother wrote to you? She made it up. Lies, just like her mother’s lies.”

  “Bullshit.” Eve fumbled in her pocket for the letter. Thrust it at him. “Read it. But so help me, if you try to tear it up, I’ll kill you.”

  His eyes rounded; his jaw went slack. He mechanically reached for the letter, but his eyes never left hers, as if searching for the lie that would save him. He wouldn’t find it within her.

  Slowly he unfolded the paper.

  Read.

  His eyes rested on the second page for a long time.

  Eve tensed, alert for the moment his temper would erupt, ready to snatch the letter from his hands if he lashed out and tried to destroy it.

  At length he ran his finger over a line at the bottom. “Mom,” he said, barely audible, a thin creaky sound far from the silver voice of rock ’n’ roll.

  He looked up. “She came to your graduation? Why didn’t she— She never said. No. It can’t be true. It’s just like her to lie. Your mother was a liar, Eve. It’s time you dealt with it.”

  He sounded so certain that for a brief instant Eve almost believed him. But why would her mother lie, knowing she would be dead by the time Eve saw the letter? Learned the truth?

  “What happened to the letters, Dad?”

  Lee thrust the one he was holding back at her and stood.

  She took it quickly before his rage erupted.

  “What did you do with them? Why didn’t you let me see them?”

  “I don’t know anything about any damn letters. There were none. Not a letter, not a postcard, not a phone call, nothing ever, until she walked into my dressing room eighteen years later—and I fell for her lies all over again.”

  She heard the grief in his voice. She didn’t want to hurt him, push him into that dark place where he’d spent so much of his life. But she had to know.

  “Promise me there were no letters,” she said.

  The only answer she got was the door closing behind him.

  Chapter 12

  Lee made one stop before he left the inn. The bar, just long enough to see Mike, though he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the bottles behind the bartender’s head. “Tell the band to cover for me.” Then he turned and got the hell out of the inn.

  He didn’t know where he was going. Right now he didn’t give a shit. He just needed to get away. From it all. The people, the memories, the need to have a drink, down some pills, get high, get forgetful. Any way he could.

  But that wasn’t his MO. Hell, he wouldn’t be done with this until he rubbed it in, wallowed in it, made himself sick over it. The betrayal. The bitch betrayed him. Twice. Devil’s spawn.

  He stumbled at the curb. She’d been a seductress in an innocent girl’s body. She’d sworn her undying love. Forever. To her forever was just a summer, but to him— Dammit, he was singing his own song like it was real.

  It was real, all right. He was a poor excuse for a man, for a father. He stopped as it came flooding back to him in a rage of anger, not for the past—that he kept somewhere else and never let it out—but for tonight. He could see Eve’s face even now. He’d hurt her. Said things—but what had he said? He could never remember when the rage overtook him. He should go back. Tell her. Tell her what?

  A horn blared and he jumped out of the way just as some fancy four-wheel drive screeched to a halt. “You crazy old man—”

  He flipped them off and kept going across the street. Tomorrow, he’d apologize tomorrow. He’d just go home now. Sit in the dark, try not to think. But home was the other way.

  Down the drive. He could see the lights ahead. It had been a long tour. He was tired, strung out on his own misery. Hannah said, You should quit. It’s killing you. No, she said, She’s killing you. Hannah couldn’t forgive. Never could.

  His mother had kept him going. All the times when he wanted to end it all, she’d kept him going. But she was a poison, just the same. No understanding Hannah. She brought him Eve, Your first child, as if he was going to bring home bastard babies from every one-night stand he ever had. Not if he could help it. She meant he’d meet somebody and settle down. Have a family.

  She was wrong. He belonged to Jenny Campbell. Forever. And Eve. God, how he must have let her down. He was despicable. A has-been. Look at him. Just some broken-down old rocker nobody remembered. Not even himself.

  He tripped in the dark. When had it gotten dark? Since he’d left the drive. And gone into the woods. No. Not here. He didn’t want to come here. But already it was pulling him. Singing him a lullaby, though the air was still and the chimes were quiet.

  So quiet that he could hear her singing on the beach—“Lavender’s blue . . .”—and he would rush to her and make love to her and promise her forever. No one was singing tonight.

  But someone was on the beach. He stopped at the stairs and looked down. Two people on a blanket or something. Wrapped up together like some—

  He grabbed the stair rail, remembered just in time that it was rotten, stole down the path, trying not to make a sound. Wanting to surprise them, scare the shit out of them for trespassing.

  It didn’t matter. They were so hot and heavy, he could have been Big Foot crashing through the brush and they wouldn’t have noticed.

  He slid down the rocks at the far side of the beach, stood a moment at the bottom to pull his keychain flashlight out of his jeans. It served him well on nights when it was too dark and he was too tired and heartsick to see the lock in his own front door.

  He strode across the sand and turned it on. They tore apart, sitting up like a couple of damn jack-in-the-boxes.

  “Get the hell off my beach.” He roared it so loud that it almost made him laugh, until the light hit the girl full in the face and he saw that it was his granddaughter Mel.

  “Get away from him.”

  She scrambled away, and Lee jerked his flashlight to the boy. He didn’t have to. He pretty much knew who it would be. Eli Merrick.

  The little shit lumbered to his feet. Pretty clumsy for a skinny kid. Probably his feet were asleep from messing with his granddaughter.

  “Sir.”

  “Don’t even start.”

  He jabbed his finger at Mel.

  The girl jutted out her chin. “You can’t stop us. We love each other.”

  Lee growled. He heard himself. It scared him. It scared them. Well, good. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the desk tonight?”

  Her mouth fell open. “Shit. I forgot.”

  “Then you’d better get the lead out.”

  She looked to Eli. Lee felt like smacking them both.

  “Go on. It’s okay.”

  She went toward the stairs, and Lee almost yelled at her to stop until he saw her pull her backpack from beneath them. Damn, they came here all the time. Le
e swore he could beat the crap out of both of them.

  He wouldn’t though. He drew the line at that.

  He flicked his head at her and she ran off. He turned to Eli.

  “It’s not her fault,” Eli said.

  “I’m telling you this once. You get that girl pregnant, you’re gonna have to figure out how to take care of them yourself.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Don’t even start with me. You’ll be stuck with the consequences. If you think Eve or Floret will take care of you, you can forget that, too. Hannah will make sure it doesn’t happen.” Lee stopped to take a searing breath. “You don’t want to cross her.”

  “I—”

  “Get out of here. And don’t let me catch you down here again.”

  The kid just stared back at him. Lee fought the urge to throttle him. But he didn’t, and finally the kid grabbed his backpack and trudged across the beach and out of sight.

  Lee stood for a long time. Then he felt the wind across his face, and he knew what would come next. He dropped to the sand and covered his ears with his hands.

  Zoe was the first one downstairs the next morning. The young woman who had mistaken her for Mel was at the desk. Noelle. She waved and smiled until Zoe knew she had to go over and introduce herself.

  She looked more like Eve than Mel did. The reddish-blond hair was the same, slightly wavy, only longer and parted on the side.

  “I’ve been dying to meet you since yesterday. I hope you don’t mind. Mom told me. I think it’s so cool. To have an aunt, I mean. The only other relatives even near my own age are my cousins. Not a brain between them and . . . ugh. Never mind. Are you going to stay for a while? Maybe for a long time. Mom would love that. Especially since Mel is going to college, if she doesn’t do something stupid first, and I’m looking for a job and—”

  “What kind of job?” Zoe broke in, attempting to stanch the unending stream of enthusiasm.

  “Graphic arts.” Noelle made a face. “I know. I should have gone into business, but I like art, what can I say?”