Beachcombers

by Nancy Thayer

  "That's true."

  The woman didn't seem to notice them. She walked around the Playhouse, studying it, stopping here and there, nodding to herself.

  "What's she doing?" Abbie whispered.

  "Well, I don't know, do I?" Emma frowned. "Maybe she's going to paint the trim? It certainly needs it."

  "But why would she paint the trim? She's only renting. How long is she renting for?"

  "The summer, I think. I admit, I haven't exactly paid attention to anything Lily or Dad said recently."

  "Dad must be worried about money if he rented the Playhouse."

  "I think he is." Emma began to cry. "I was going to take care of Dad. I had a special savings account earmarked for him. And it all just--went."

  "Oh, honey." Abbie reached over and took her sister's hand. "No one ever expected you to do anything like that."

  "But I want to!"

  "I know. But come on. Dad's not that old. He's what, fifty-two? And you have to admit, he looks ten years younger."

  "And I wanted to give him grandchildren."

  "You will. 'Course you will. You're not even thirty yet. You'll meet someone new."

  "I don't think so, Abbie. I'm so tired. I could go back to bed right now."

  "Maybe you should see the doctor. Maybe try an antidepressant?"

  "Yes, because meds work so well for our family." Emma stood up. "I can't do this anymore. I'm going back to bed."

  "I'll call you for dinner."

  Perhaps she shouldn't have mentioned antidepressants to Emma, Abbie thought as she sat alone in the garden. It was a tough subject for them all. But Abbie couldn't help but worry about Emma and she knew Lily was right to call her home. Emma had always been the determined one, the ambitious one, the optimist. Seeing her like this was just wrong. Abbie didn't think she had the depression gene, if there was such a thing, but Emma was close to the mark when she accused Abbie of not letting herself get vulnerable. Abbie didn't want to put herself out there emotionally, because she wasn't sure she could take a fall. And as for her youngest sister, Lily seemed to be naturally lighthearted, fun-loving, superficial. Plus dramatic Lily probably shed any unpleasant pressures by turning even the slightest problem into a soap opera.

  How odd it was that of the three sisters, optimistic Emma was the one who had struggled with a tendency for depression. All her life, Abbie had been aware of this. Weeks and months had passed when they were children when Emma would get quiet and melancholy. But she'd always bounced out of it. And when she got to college, she seemed to have burned away any despondency with the strong bright light of hope.

  Now this. Now Emma's world had crashed down around her. But Abbie was sure Emma would recover. And it was the beginning of summer on the island, a languorous time of year when each day was blessed with natural riches--sunshine, blue sky, sparkling water, soft breezes. It was a good time for starting over.

  As she sat musing, Abbie idly observed the woman at the far end of the garden. She had walked around the Playhouse, tilted her head up to scan the sky, and studied the fence that ran along the back. She went into the Playhouse by the blue front door and returned carrying an old red wooden chair. An apple tree arched possessively over the Playhouse--also, Abbie noticed, covered with ivy. The woman set the chair in the shade of the tree, stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, nodded to herself, and went back into the house. She returned carrying a small table.

  You've got our tea table! Abbie thought indignantly. Then she laughed at herself. It had been over a decade since any of them had even thought of the old table.

  The woman set the table next to the chair. She sat down on the edge of the chair. Abbie was hidden in the shade, or at least the woman didn't seem to see Abbie. She rose several times to adjust the position of the chair and table.

  I'd face the fence. It's covered with honeysuckle and clematis, Abbie thought.

  As if the woman had heard Abbie's thoughts, she stood and angled the chair and table so she was facing the fence. She walked back into her house and returned carrying a glass--it looked like a wineglass--and a book. When she finally settled, her back was to Abbie, which for some obscure reason offended Abbie.

  Now she began to understand why Lily had been so bent out of shape. Their lives had not been without sorrow, but certain periods of it had been heavenly. Abbie couldn't remember a time when the Playhouse didn't exist. Her father had begun building it when his first child was born. He'd built small chairs and a little table, and their mother had made curtains for the windows. Over the years their parents had furnished the place with miniature tea sets and bunk beds for their dolls and stuffed animals. They even had a little bookshelf and a hutch for the dishes. An old mattress was dragged up the stairs to the Playhouse loft and flopped on the floor, to be covered by a variety of tattered blankets.

  As the years passed, Abbie and Emma had dragged in cast-off furniture that fit adult bodies to mingle with the smaller furniture Lily still used. When Abbie became a teenager, she used the Playhouse as a refuge and inner sanctum. She would lie on the old love seat covered with cabbage rose chintz and read to her heart's content while the rain thundered down all around her.

  When Abbie was fifteen, she took Andy Mitchell up to that mattress in the loft. They were in the middle of some pretty serious cuddling when they heard the door slam and Abbie's father came thundering up the stairs. He chased Andy out and gave Abbie holy hell and the next day he dragged the mattress into his truck and took it out to the dump.

  Perhaps that was why their father had started on a long, complicated, DIY project, adding the bathroom and a real kitchen to the back of the Playhouse. He told them he was turning it into a guesthouse, for when they brought friends home from college, but really, Abbie thought now, he was probably just trying to keep her and Emma out of it while they were teenagers. It took him five years to do it all, to build the frame, add the shingles, have someone install electricity and run water and plumbing from the same lines that fed his shop at the back of the garage. It was too bad for Lily, really, because she was still little and would have loved the fantasy world at the back of their yard. Lily was twelve when the Playhouse was ready again. She used it, Abbie had always thought, for escape, in the same way Abbie had, except it was Abbie that Lily was escaping. It was Abbie who had taken their mother's place, running the house, cooking and cleaning and acting as disciplinarian and protector. It was Abbie who freaked out when she caught twelve-year-old Lily and her friends smoking in the Playhouse, and it was Abbie who chased Lily's first boyfriend away from the sagging sofa when Abbie caught them with their clothes off.

  Now as Abbie sat reminiscing, a truck pulled into their driveway and parked next to the house. Her father got out. Eager to greet him, Abbie half rose, but he didn't notice her. To her surprise, he headed toward the Playhouse. He was carrying a cooler. When he got to the bottom of the garden, he called out--Abbie could hear his voice but not the words--and the woman turned in her chair, then stood. As Abbie watched, her father set the cooler down, reached into it, and handed the woman something. The two talked easily; Abbie could tell by the music of their voices that they were friendly.

  She took the opportunity to study her father. She hadn't seen him for nearly two years but he appeared pretty much like he always had, tall and broad-shouldered, with the muscular posture of a contractor.

  Her father said a few more words to the woman, picked up the cooler, and came toward the house.

  When he was only a couple of yards away, Abbie stood up. "Hey, Dad!"

  To her surprise, her father's face turned bright red. Was he blushing?

  "Well, my gosh, Abbie, I didn't even see you there! Sweetheart, you look grand!" Jim Fox strode toward his daughter, dropped the cooler on the terrace, and embraced her in a grizzly bear hug. "Lily told me you were coming, but I didn't realize it was so soon. How are you?"

  "I'm great! How are you? Man, you don't look a day older! What's your secret?"

  Her fathe
r blushed again. And his hazel eyes sparkled.

  "So you've rented the Playhouse."

  His face continued to flame as he turned toward the bottom of the garden. "Well, yes, in this economy I've got to say I can use the money."

  "Who's the renter? Is she nice?"

  Jim Fox cleared his throat. "Her name's Marina Warren. She's from the Midwest, and yes, she's very nice. I just gave her some bluefish, actually. Iggy Holdgate hauled in a large catch and gave me some." He opened the cooler. "A big guy."

  "Super! I'll cook it for dinner!"

  "You'll cook? Honey, you just got here."

  "Oh, I'm fine, I had a good nap. I love bluefish."

  As they talked, they went into the mudroom and on into the kitchen. Her father put the fish in the refrigerator, then said, "I'm going to take a shower."

  "Fine. I'll get started in the kitchen."

  "Where are your sisters?"

  Abbie squatted down to dig through the crisper and found a bag of fresh lettuce and two bunches of asparagus.

  She told her father, "Lily's taken off--I don't know where--and Emma's upstairs in her room."

  Worry flashed across her father's face.

  "We had a great talk." Abbie handed him a cold beer. "I'll have one, too, while I cook." With forced enthusiasm, she said, "I'm so glad to be back!"

  "Are you really?" her father asked. "I know it's not London."

  "It's summer on Nantucket!" she told her father. "Nothing could be better!"

  She moved around the kitchen. Everything was familiar, everything was right where it had always been: the knives in the wooden block, with the bread knife space still empty--they never had figured out where that knife went. New heat-proof rubber spatulas hung out with old wooden spoons and slotted spoons in the blue speckled container, while the less popular utensils mingled messily in the top drawer to the left of the sink, along with so many crumbs Abbie suspected the drawer hadn't been cleaned since she was last here.

  The red enamel colander and the salad spinner were on top of the refrigerator, and just inside the pantry door hung their mother's apron. It said Kiss the Cook and their mother had given it to herself for Christmas, laughing as she showed it off. That had been the Christmas Abbie was fifteen. Whenever Abbie came in from a school event or the beach at dinnertime, her mother would be wearing that apron as she prepared dinner. She'd tap her apron and arch her eyebrow.

  "Oh, Mom, you are such a dork," Abbie would say, and she'd huff over, rolling her eyes, to peck a kiss on her mother's cheek before stomping out of the room.

  Now Abbie touched the apron, allowing the memory to flood back. She wished she had been nicer about kissing her mother.

  And there by the far wall, on the low shelf with the cookbooks, was a large white oyster shell she'd found at the beach at Pocomo, the last time the sisters had gone beachcombing. Abbie picked it up and held it in her hand. She'd wanted, after their mother's death, to keep up the tradition of the Beachcombers Club, but the first time she'd forced her younger sisters to go to the beach to search for prizes, they had all ended up sobbing in helpless wrenching grief. She marshaled them out to beachcomb the next year, but their hearts weren't in it; the beach held no magic--it just wasn't the same with their mother gone. They never tried it again.

  Anyway, as the girls grew older, they lost the time and interest for beachcombing. Months passed, and then years, and the gripping sorrow eased into an ache, and then into something more like the memory of an ache. Their father had changed after his wife died. He'd retreated deep inside himself, and he seldom talked about their mother or shared his own grief with his daughters. But on Danielle's birthday, he always took the girls out to dinner, and he always proposed a toast. Abbie could remember lifting her juice glass, saying, "Here's to Mom. Happy Birthday, wherever you are." It was her father who coined the phrase. The girls knew it was exactly what their mother would have liked them to say. It was what she had believed.

  Perhaps once a year, every year, Abbie pestered her busy sisters into giving up an hour from their social lives to go down to the beach together, and two years ago, just before she left for her au pair job, she marshaled them into a trip. They were all in their twenties then; Emma was just home for a week, Lily had finished her junior year of college. They were in their adult lives, but Abbie could be forceful when she got really bossy, so they all went. No one found anything terribly unusual. Abbie won the prize with the oyster shell, a big one with a creamy interior around a spot of deep abalone blue. When she was a girl, she'd used these shells as carriages for her small troll dolls. That summer she'd put it on the trophy shelf and forgot it almost immediately.

  And here it was, a little dustier than before. So much time had passed, so many things had changed, yet here, Abbie thought, was this ordinary shell, sitting on the shelf like an ivory platter full of memories.

  She touched the shell with her fingertip, then went to the sink to wash the lettuce.

  7

  Marina

  As she put the bluefish in the refrigerator, Marina discovered she was smiling. Jim Fox was really attractive, and the electricity that sparked between them had her blood buzzing.

  He was up at his house now, talking with his daughters. She'd been very aware of their presence when she was setting up her little outdoor nest. Their laughter made her smile, even though an awareness of loss plunged through her whenever she overheard any two women laughing together.

  She sank onto the couch and put her head in her hands.

  Six months ago, Marina had started her period on her fortieth birthday. The moment she woke she wanted to break into a howl of sorrow, but she choked it back as she rose from bed and rushed into the shower. Recently Gerry had been cool, abrupt, even irritated when she talked about her infertility. Their marriage was in one of those distant phases all marriages went through, probably because of problems at the office. Today she and Gerry both had crowded schedules. She needed to ignore her private life and concentrate on her accounts.

  Sometimes she and Gerry drove to work in the same car, but he had a meeting elsewhere in the city today, so they drove separately. She was glad, really. She needed to talk to a friend. Christie was busy with a new baby, so she put on her headset and punched in Dara's number.

  Dara sounded groggy. "Marina. What's up?"

  "Dara, my period started today."

  "Oh, hell. Oh, Marina, fucking damn. I'm sorry. How are you?"

  "Not so great. And work is a rat's nest, which actually is not a bad thing. It will keep me from brooding."

  "Good for you, Marina. Positive attitude. Move forward. How are you celebrating your birthday?"

  "Oh, forget my birthday." Marina sped up and passed an ancient Toyota dawdling in front of her. Dara's chipper attitude irritated Marina. She needed someone to help her mourn, to help her mark this occasion. Dara remained silent on the other end of the line. "Gerry hasn't planned a surprise party for me, has he?"

  Dara laughed. "And I would tell you if he had?"

  "Because I'm not in the mood for a party. I think I'd just like to get hammered. I'd like to sit down with you and drink tequila and wail."

  "No Gerry?"

  "No. We haven't been very close lately. Anyway, he's sick of me blubbering around."

  "Well, honey, if that's what you really want to do, let's do it. Shall we meet at Hoolihan's?"

  "Great. No, wait. I'd better ask Gerry if we have plans. I mean, it is my great-big fat fortieth. I'm sure he has something planned. I'm here. Talk to you later."

  "Marina? Listen, honey--I just want to tell you ... I think you're going to be just fine. I think you're a tremendously strong person."

  "Thanks, Dar'. I love you, too." Marina clicked off.

  Later, she would remember her final words to Dara, and they would crash a world of humiliation down on her heart. How had she ever been so blind?

  How had she ever been a friend anyone could so easily betray?

  There was a surprise fortie
th birthday party, thrown at Dara's house. It was a mob scene, with champagne and every other kind of liquor flowing like Niagara Falls, and music pumped up by a DJ and people dancing and getting properly smashed and yelling out all sorts of inappropriate things. In the midst of such revelry, Marina hardly saw Gerry or Dara. She got good and hammered, and she thought her husband had, too, so when Dara insisted they sleep at her place because they were too wasted to go home, Marina accepted gratefully.

  Saturday morning she awoke in Dara's guest room with a dry mouth and a bad headache. She expected to see Gerry snoring in bed next to her, but she was alone. She pulled on a robe of Dara's over her naked body and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen, toward the smell of coffee.

  Gerry and Dara weren't kissing or embracing or even touching. They were sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table, quietly talking.

  Yet something about the way they were leaning toward each other slapped Marina wide awake.

  She said, "What's going on?"

  Their heads snapped toward her in identical rhythm.

  "Marina. You're awake." Dara stood up, poured a cup of coffee, and put it on the table.

  Marina sat down. She took a sip of coffee--it was strong and rich. Dara was a good cook.

  She looked at Gerry, whose mouth was pulled tight the way it always got during an argument, especially when he was in the wrong.

  Slowly, Marina said, "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

  "I don't know," Gerry countered. "You might like it a lot, if you stop to think about it. I want a divorce, Marina."

  She stared at him. They'd been married for ten years. They must have made love a million times. She knew everything about him, how stupid he looked when he was flapping around the office in a tantrum because of something at work, how tender he could be when they were alone together. He was handsome, and he worked hard at it, exercising at a gym, spending lots of time buying clothes and moussing his hair, he was even considering having a face-lift because he needed to keep his image young and fresh. She knew how his older brother's success as a physician overshadowed Gerry, how his parents scarcely saw their younger son because of the blinding light of their older son's brilliance. She'd held Gerry in her arms as he wept bitterly after they spent Christmas with his parents. Her love for him had been the motivation, really, for the fury with which she attacked her own part in their business. She had wanted to protect him.