A Beach Wish

by Shelley Noble

  She turned to go back, but she really needed to talk to Eli. If she cut across their hotel beach, she could see him and come back. It would hardly take any time at all.

  He’d come straight over last night to tell her that he thought he’d done well on his exam, but he didn’t stay long; he said he still had to study. She could tell he was excited about going away. More excited than he was about staying with her.

  Mel just wanted things to stay the same. She wasn’t smart or talented like Noelle—and look at her. All that work and she was back living at home.

  Noelle had been so happy when she graduated; now she didn’t think she was so great. Mel didn’t want to admit it, but she was kind of glad, in a mean-girl way.

  And that made her feel worse. Noelle wasn’t mean. Mel was. Especially when she didn’t understand what was going on. Like now. And that scared her.

  She was scared. So was Noelle. Maybe her mom was scared, too.

  She turned to go back, took two steps toward the inn, then turned and ran down the path to the beach.

  Zoe and Chris sat on the bed in her hotel room, heads together, Zoe too upset to even cry.

  “Don’t worry about it, Dil. They’ll come around.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “They will.” But he didn’t sound totally convinced to Zoe.

  “It was almost like they’d been waiting for my call,” she said.

  “It was the fastest text to conference call I’ve witnessed in years,” Chris agreed. He pushed off the bed and went over to the mini fridge. Took out a bottle of wine and a can of beer.

  Zoe shook her head. “I think I’ll be sick if I drink that.”

  “Because you probably haven’t eaten today. Have you?”

  Zoe shrugged. “I . . . don’t remember.”

  “Well, I’m calling room service.” He picked up the phone. “And then we’ll go out on the town. Catch some action. You can sit in with the local band, I’ll applaud in all the right places while I’m checking out the scene. It’ll be just like the good old days in Manhattan.”

  The good old days. She tried to smile. She’d loved making the rounds of the music clubs and bars with Chris. He’d always been supportive. Even now.

  But still. Trying to talk to Errol had been hard. Maybe the hardest thing she’d ever done. Hands down the hardest phone call she’d ever made. It started out okay. They’d been concerned for her. Though she noticed no one had tried calling or texting her to see if she’d made it.

  And then she hit them with the news. Her mother had sent her to Wind Chime Beach because she had another daughter there. That had been met with total silence. Then she hit them with the rest. That she was only their half sister.

  “God, that was awful,” she said after Chris hung up the phone.

  “I thought onion rings would cheer you up,” he said.

  “They do—I mean the other stuff.”

  “The part where Errol refused to believe you were only a half sister, or when Robert screamed, ‘They’re after your inheritance!’ What a putz.”

  She laughed. It had been rather hysterical. “I don’t know how Laura puts up with him.”

  “By being a saint in public and putting it to him when they get home.”

  “No.”

  “He’ll be calling to apologize before the night is out. Mark my words.”

  “But he’s right.”

  “What? That Eve Gordon is after your measly quarter of a mil. Have you looked at this place? Gold mine.”

  “No. About the inheritance.”

  “Lost me.”

  “I’m not a Bascombe.”

  “Sure you are.”

  Zoe gave him a look.

  “Well, half maybe, and our dad isn’t any great shakes.” He sighed and dropped his hands and shoulders in an over-the-top reaction that always made her laugh. “I’d much rather have a father who was a rock star than a bloated, philandering lawyer who deserted us for his secretary. Unimaginative even in Long Island.”

  “Maybe I should give it back.”

  “Your inheritance? Are you nuts? You’re Mom’s daughter, it’s her fortune and her choice. And have you ever known our mother not to organize everything just the way she wants it?”

  Except twice in her life.

  “So just get that out of your head right now.” His frown turned to a big smile. “Besides, if you did, I’d have to share my third with you, cause that’s how we roll, sister mine.”

  “Oh, Chris, I do love you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “I didn’t even get a chance to invite them to the ceremony.”

  “Well, hell, you haven’t planned one yet. Have you?”

  Zoe shook her head.

  “Plenty of time. They’ll come around. We’ll leave it to the wives for that one. Just hang here with the Gordons for a bit and let things take their course. Not to be insensitive or anything, but there’s really no rush.” He lifted his beer can toward the dresser and the green urn. “You don’t mind hanging for a while, do you, Mom?”

  “Chris.”

  “I know. Sacrilegious, but so was she, when you think about it. And she kept you and Eve secret for so many years. I wish I had known that woman.” He sniffed.

  So did Zoe.

  “Well, that’s settled,” he said.

  “And what about you?”

  “Me?” He grinned. “I’ll provide moral support and handle the guest list.” He walked out to the balcony and leaned over the rail.

  She followed him out.

  “I mean what about your life. Do you have to get back to the city right away? I love having you here, but aren’t you getting antsy to get back to auditioning? Or have you decided to go to Chicago?”

  “Hey, isn’t that Mel out on the lawn?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said, watching Mel turn in one direction then the other. “What’s she doing?”

  “Her slo-mo Wonder Woman act?”

  Then Mel broke into a run headlong across the lawn and down the path to the beach.

  “Uh-oh, trouble in Laundry City.”

  Zoe turned to look at him. “Think we should intervene?”

  Chris gave her a look that said, Stupid question.

  “What should I do?”

  “What you do best. Fix things.”

  Zoe had already started for the door. She should probably just stay out of it, but Mel was family. So was Chris. “Then we fix you.”

  The last thing she heard before the door closed behind her, was Chris’s voice. “Can you put a hold on that room-service order?”

  Zoe took the elevator to the path that led straight down to the beach. There were a few people sunbathing, but she didn’t see Mel anywhere. She walked over to where the footpath opened onto the sand. No sign of Mel. Maybe she had changed her mind and gone back.

  Zoe made one last sweep of the beach. And found her. Sitting on the top of the jetty, her arms clasped tight around her knees, her head buried.

  One unhappy teenager. Teenager-dom was a decade behind Zoe but she recognized Mel’s “the whole world’s against me” posture. The “nobody understands me” depths of despair. God knows she’d felt it all when she realized she’d lost her chance at Juilliard, and even before that. Now that she thought about it, the prom, the cheerleading squad, all the things that she hardly remembered now but had been worthy of so much angst then.

  They had diminished in her mind, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still sympathize with the pain they’d caused.

  She took off her shoes and trudged over the sand. Climbed up the rocks and out to where her niece sat.

  Maybe she just wanted to be alone.

  But Zoe also remembered wishing she could talk to someone who would just listen. Her mother had listened but never really heard. Zoe would be different with her niece. Hopefully.

  She sat down on the rock next to Mel. “Hey.”

  “Go away.”

  Zoe didn’t move.

  Mel turned her h
ead enough to glare at her. “I wish you’d never come.”

  “Ouch,” Zoe said, reminding herself that she was the adult here. “I know this is pretty unsettling. At least you’ve always known who your family was. Imagine my surprise.”

  Mel’s head rose a little higher. “You mean you really had no idea?”

  “None.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Spread my mom’s ashes. Look for a new job. Get on with my life. Like the rest of the world.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “Do I? Then don’t listen to me. It isn’t easy. It kind of makes me sick to think about what’s going to happen next.” She was here to help Mel, she reminded herself. Not let all her own insecurities make things worse.

  “Really, it does?”

  “Make me sick? Yeah, it kinda does.”

  “Me, too.” Mel frowned at her. “But you know what you want to do.”

  “Do I? Glad I fooled somebody.”

  Mel straightened up and turned to face her. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “I know what I could do. What I might do. What I might have to do. But I’ll figure it out when I have to.”

  “I wish I knew what to do. But it seems like even if you want to do something, it doesn’t work out. Harmony wanted to be a teacher. Noelle wants to be a graphic artist. Harmony is always pregnant, and Noelle can’t get a job.”

  “She will. What about you?”

  “What do I want?”

  “Yeah, what do you want?”

  “I don’t know. I just want to marry Eli and stay home and raise our children. A lot of people do that.”

  “That’s cool. If you have enough money.”

  Mel shrugged. “I guess I would have to get a part-time job. I like working the reception desk okay. Except Mom is so set about me going to college. I know I should be grateful and I am, it’s just . . . Everyone seems to know what they want to do, and I don’t. I’m such a loser. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

  Zoe laughed. “Sorry, not laughing at you, but at how much you sound like me.”

  “No, I don’t. You’re a successful event planner.”

  “I wanted to be a songwriter.”

  “You did? What happened?”

  “My family wanted me to go into business. I blew my audition at Juilliard, so I went into business.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It turned out that I liked my job. And now that I think about it, I could have been writing music as well. You don’t need an office to do that.” You just have to have the guts, she told herself.

  “I think Mom wanted to travel, but that’s not a profession.”

  “It could be. Look at Eli’s uncle. He travels for work. Do you want to travel?”

  “I don’t think so. Well, maybe a little. But I like being here, where everything is . . . I don’t know.”

  “Safe?”

  Mel hesitated, bit her lip, then slowly nodded.

  “Home will always be here.”

  Mel turned to fully look at her, frowning as if that hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Look at the professor. He goes off to see the world. But he always comes back. One day he’ll probably retire here for good.”

  “But what about Eli? He might go and not want to come back.”

  “I don’t know much, but I do know better than to depend on another person for my own happiness. You kind of have to find your own place and once you’ve done that, other people make it better. But you have to make it for yourself first.”

  Mel turned away, looked out to the waves. “My family kinda sucks at doing that. Not Noelle and Mom. But Granddad never got over your mom, did he? That’s why he’s so bitter. And Granna has to control everybody’s life . . . because she isn’t happy with herself. Am I like that?”

  How did Zoe answer something like that? She was so tempted to say, You’ll understand when you’re older. But she was older and she didn’t have a clue.

  “I don’t think so. You don’t have to be.”

  “Do you have a . . . a significant other?”

  Zoe laughed. “I’m still a work in progress.”

  Mel snorted. Rolled her eyes.

  Zoe stood up. “Come on.”

  “Where to?”

  “To the nude-beach side. We’re going skinny-dipping.”

  “No way.”

  “Double-dog dare you.” Zoe scrambled off the jetty and ran across the sand to the private beach.

  “Wait, Zoe, you can’t. We’ll be in so much trouble.”

  “Try and stop me,” Zoe called over her shoulder, and started pulling her T-shirt over her head.

  Mel caught up to her and grabbed the tail of Zoe’s shirt. Zoe spun around and they both fell fully clothed into the surf.

  Mel sputtered, and Zoe, laughing, took the opportunity to splash her. Mel splashed back. Zoe jumped up and began kicking water. Mel grabbed her ankle, and they fell together laughing in the surf.

  In the end they didn’t go skinny-dipping. Actually, Zoe hadn’t really planned to. But they had a little fun before they finally staggered out of the water, holding on to each other and giggling.

  They stood on the sand, panting, until Mel stood upright, suddenly serious again. “I left Noelle to do all the laundry by herself. I gotta go.”

  She took off over the sand and was soon sprinting up the path.

  Zoe gathered up their shoes and her cell phone and followed more slowly, texting as she went. Forget room service. Put on your high-heel sneakers, bro, ’cause we’re going out tonight.

  Chapter 16

  David and Henry sat stretched out on two chaises on the front lawn, drinking beer and watching the ocean sky go through its pyrotechnics of sunset. The smell of fresh-mowed grass mixed with salt air. David was half thinking about going to get his camera, but he had photographed thousands of sunsets from all over the world and tonight there were more important things on his mind.

  He glanced back to the house and Eli’s window. He was inside studying. He’d been studying for weeks whenever he wasn’t with Mel. Even more since returning from taking his exam. David didn’t know what that meant. Did he think he was accepted? What was he going to do about Mel? How was David going to see him through if he left before Eli got started?

  “I got a gig offer today,” he said into space.

  Henry made a “go on” sound but kept looking at the sky.

  “September through most of October.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Patagonia.”

  Henry chuckled and pulled on his beer. “Had enough of civilization?”

  “Not really. Well, yeah, sort of. It’s a travel shoot, but there are also some interesting caves and . . . but I don’t know.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “I don’t . . .” David tapped his beer bottle with one finger, started again. “Here’s the thing . . .” He wished Henry would help him out here. He wasn’t sure why he was worried about leaving. He’d done it plenty of times before. But usually not for so long and not when everything was up in the air.

  “First of all, there’s Eli.”

  “I have no doubt he’ll be accepted into the pre-semester program and then he’ll start college. Floret and I will make sure he gets settled.” Henry turned his head on the chair cushion. “I’ll even wear jeans and a button-down shirt.” He grinned.

  David grinned back and was struck with a wave of love and trust he didn’t often let loose. He’d known Henry for most of his life; he’d been like a grandfather, uncle, mentor, and friend all rolled into one. He trusted him completely with Eli and anything else.

  “I guess I’m just worried that he’ll feel abandoned.”

  “Floret will keep him stocked with cookies. The regular kind.”

  “I know but . . .”

  “You feel responsible.”

  “Yeah, even though I know you’re the ones who have really raised him. And I can’t tell you—”r />
  “Then don’t.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You know what they say. It takes a village. Not sure who said it, but they were right. We’ll be here for him until you get back.”

  “I know, but I’m kind of worried about him. He’s been remote lately. I don’t think he’s even seen Mel since he got back from the exam. Do you think they broke up?”

  Henry laughed, slapped his knee.

  “Really. I mean, it would be for the best, but then I feel bad for thinking that way.”

  “Well, if you’re worried about him, go talk to him.”

  David glanced back at the house. “He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me lately.”

  “It’s what kids do when they’re making the break from their parents.”

  “Does he seem different to you?”

  “He seems preoccupied. And he and Mel might be feeling like they’re stuck between the Montagues and the Capulets.”

  “Nobody’s against them going out together. But the sex thing.”

  Henry burst out laughing.

  “You laugh, but look at Eve and Zoe Bascombe.”

  “Now you’re thinking Eli and Mel are doomed to repeat history?”

  “Actually. Well, hell, I was down tearing out the steps to the beach, which I didn’t finish because Zoe interrupted me. Anyway, she found a sleeping bag and a bunch of stuff under the steps. They belonged to Mel and Eli.”

  “They’re young and in love. If you think they’re not using protection, say something.” Henry shook his head. “That I should have come to this. Advice on birth control. But I wouldn’t worry. Eli’s had the talk from both of us and probably Floret, too. And I’m sure Eve has done the same with Mel.”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then what is it? Spit it out.”

  “I kind of got pissed off and tossed the place and then threw the stuff in the dumpster.”

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “I don’t know. It was such a suck-ass thing to do. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Fear.”

  “Jeez, Henry.”

  “Loss of control, maybe?”

  “I think it’s because I’m an idiot.”