Shadows on the Sand

by Gayle Roper

  And other people are nosy. They spy on you and see you dragging your dead husband or wife to the family car for a trip to the nearest wooded area. Or at a stoplight they notice that your companion never blinks or moves from his propped position in the passenger seat. Or blood drips onto the street from the body stashed in the trunk.

  Well, who were “they” to say it’s so hard? That’s what he wanted to know.

  Whoever they were, they hadn’t asked him if he agreed. Granted, he didn’t have as much practice at disposal as one of those deranged serial killers. Half those guys didn’t seem to care about getting rid of their bodies. They left them lying around for anyone to find. It wasn’t because hiding the body was hard. Oh no. It was because they were lazy.

  He would never be so careless, not about bodies or anything. That was why he was so good at what he did. He thought things through, and he always found a satisfactory way of handling every situation, even the ones where death happened.

  So “they” should be talking to him. Maybe he didn’t know as much as some, but he had more experience with disposal than the general population.

  And he was proud of how successful he was at it.

  11

  Have a seat.” I indicated a kitchen chair. “I’ll get the Bactine and stuff.”

  Greg looked uncertain as he sat, and I couldn’t resist. “You’re not afraid of a little Bactine, are you?”

  “Of course not.” But he didn’t sound too convinced.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him as I pulled the first-aid supplies from the shelf where we kept them in a large cardboard box with flaps tucked into each other. “You ever had Bactine sprayed on you before?”

  “Sure, I’ve used it.”

  “On yourself?” I carried the box to the table. “You just tortured your kids with it, right?”

  “Well, actually Ginny did all the torturing. It’s what moms do.”

  I had a brief vision of my mother and thought I knew too well about mothers and torture. Ginny did not fit the mold at all.

  I flipped open the box with a flourish. With a graceful leap, Oreo jumped up to inspect the contents. We had quite a collection of Band-Aids, ointments, meds, and a large spray bottle of Bactine since it wasn’t uncommon to injure ourselves in the line of café duty. I had a giant first-aid kit in the kitchen downstairs too, but this stash was for Linds and me after café hours.

  Oreo put out a paw and batted at the antiseptic.

  “See?” I said. “Even the cat knows the power of Bactine.”

  Greg still looked skeptical. “Pretty cat. Does it always sit on the table?”

  “She thinks she owns the place and sees no surface as off-limits. She’s an indoor cat, so we just ignore her when she jumps on whatever.” I thought of Ricky. “You allergic?”

  Wouldn’t that kill any romance in a hurry? How could I choose between Oreo and some man, even Greg? Oreo had seen Linds and me through years of emotional need and healing. There were times when nothing felt as right as hugging a furry, warm animal.

  “Not allergic.” Greg reached out and lifted the cat onto his lap. She settled down and began to purr as he stroked her.

  You’ve got to love a man who loves your pet.

  Greg sat patiently as I washed the scrapes on his face and arm with a warm, soft, soapy cloth. His eyes closed and seemed to relax. When was the last time someone had taken care of him?

  “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

  He gave a slight smile, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Not a chance with the dreaded Bactine yet to come.”

  I swiped an antiseptic wipe over his cheek, and his eyes flew open at the cold. They locked on to mine. They were so dark the irises blended seamlessly with the pupils. Beautiful.

  He blinked and looked away, his throat working. Oreo looked up to see why the stroking had stopped.

  I took a deep breath and reached for the Polysporin. I put dabs on the scratches covering his cheek. Then I picked up the Bactine.

  “Prepare yourself.” And I shot it all up and down his scraped arm.

  At the first burst, Oreo leaped to the floor, surprised by the fsst and afraid of getting wet. Greg’s brow puckered, preparing for pain. I guess he thought it would be like alcohol or something, and when all he felt was cold again, he looked at me, uncertain.

  “Ginny wasn’t a torturer after all.” I smiled, then turned to the fridge, pulled out a packet of frozen peas, and wrapped it in a dishtowel. “Here. On your cheek and forehead, though I imagine it’s several hours too late to do much good.”

  As he gingerly pressed the peas to his face, I heard someone coming up the back stairs, and it wasn’t Lindsay. Too heavy a step. There was a brief knock, and the back door opened. Mary Prudence walked in.

  “Now I remember why I moved to a single-story place.” Puffing, she lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs. “Those steps are killers.”

  I gave her a hug. “Thanks so much for your help today. I’d have been in real trouble without you.” I poured her a glass of iced tea and gave one to Greg too.

  Mary P took a long drink. “You need another server. And I’m not applying for the job.”

  “I know. I’ve got a Help Wanted sign in the window, but so far no takers.”

  “Someone will show. Someone always does. All you’ve got to do is pray them in.”

  Which was what she’d done with Lindsay and me.

  “So how’d the shopping go?” she asked Greg.

  “Plywood’s nailed in place, thanks to Carrie’s help. At least it’ll keep the weather out.”

  “And we got Lindsay her light tubes,” I said.

  Mary P nodded, her attention on Greg. She leveled her pointer finger at him. “All right, now give. Tell me everything. I read the exaggerated and ridiculous stories posted on Twitter”—she held up her iPhone—“but I want the real scoop. Did some guy in a yellow Hummer ram the Sand and Sea and try to kill you in the bargain? Or did he try to kill you and ram the Sand and Sea when he missed?”

  “Good question,” Greg said. “The guy is nuts enough for it to have gone either way.”

  Mary P held out her glass for more tea. “I once met a guy who told me the most cockamamie conspiracy theory I ever heard. When I questioned the logic and logistics of his little hypothesis, he looked me in the eye. ‘I read it on the Internet, and you know everything there is the truth.’ ”

  “Ri-i-ight,” I said while Greg grinned.

  “And they’re saying it was attempted murder.” Mary P leaned forward. “Was it?”

  “Who knows?” Greg launched into the eviction story and Chaz’s reaction. Midway through the telling, absorbed in the tale, he lowered his hand and let the peas fall from his face.

  “Uh-uh.” I lifted his hand with the peas to his forehead again. I held it there perhaps a beat or two longer than necessary for him to get the idea, foolishly thrilled for another legitimate chance to touch him.

  He ignored me, but I thought there might be a little hitch in his voice. If there was and I wasn’t imagining it, it was without doubt because I was hurting him by pressing on the bruise. Certainly my touch didn’t do for him what touching him did for me. Life as I knew it just didn’t work that well.

  Then I glanced at Mary Prudence and had to apologize to the Lord for that last thought. Life sometimes worked quite well. If ever someone was where I needed her to be when I needed her, it was Mary P, God’s gift to us Carter girls. If it weren’t for her and her husband, Warren …

  “If I get this job,” I told Lindsay just before I entered the Surfside, “it means you’ll be alone for several hours each day.”

  “That’s okay. Alone here isn’t as scary as alone back home.”

  And wasn’t that the truth. “As soon as I get a paycheck and some tips, I’ll get us a room. You’ll be safe there.”

  “How long?”

  “One week. Two tops.”

  She straightened her skinny shoulders. “Don’t worry about me, Carrie. I
’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

  “I love you, kid.” I gave her a fierce hug. I couldn’t let her down! God, if You’re there, don’t let me let her down.

  I walked into the Surfside and found my savior in Mary Prudence and through her, my Savior.

  I told Mary Prudence—or Mrs. Hastings as she was to me then—my made-up story about being eighteen and having a mother in the military. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing. To my great relief she hired me to work breakfasts and dinners with four hours off in the middle of the day. Then she did something that floored me.

  “Here’s your first week’s wages.” She handed me a fistful of bills.

  I stared at them. Food for Lindsay! A room! God, maybe You’re there after all. Maybe. In case You are, thank You!

  “Now you’d better show up tomorrow.” Mary P waved her pointer finger under my nose. “I don’t tolerate thieves, and taking that money and not showing would be stealing.”

  “I’ll be here at six thirty tomorrow morning. I promise!”

  I rushed to the alley where I’d left Lindsay and showed her the money.

  She started to cry. I shoved the money in my pocket and hugged her.

  “It’s going to be okay, Linds. You’ll see. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Can we go eat right now?” she asked through her hiccups. “A real meal?”

  “We can. And then we’ll find us a room. All we need is a bed and a bathroom. That shouldn’t cost too much.”

  “I think you should come back to the Surfside for your meal.”

  We both jumped and looked to the end of the alley where Mary P stood, feet apart, hands on her hips. She looked like a triangle with legs, backlit as she was.

  I had been thinking more McDonald’s than the Surfside for our budget’s sake. “How much?”

  “Meals are free for our staff.”

  I could eat free? My stomach growled as it had when I was in the restaurant and smelled all the wonderful scents coming from the kitchen. The big box of saltines and the jar of peanut butter I’d cadged from the store back home had lost their appeal a day ago.

  But what about Linds? I looked at my sister.

  “And their families,” Mary P added.

  Lindsay grabbed my hand. I fought against tears. I hadn’t cried in years, and I wasn’t about to start. But kindness was new to me, and I didn’t know how to react.

  “Come on, both of you,” Mary P said. “I’m not certain which one of you looks hungrier.” She stalked back to the restaurant.

  “Me,” Lindsay called with ten-year-old openness as she ran after the woman. I was just embarrassed that our need was so obvious.

  Mary P held the door for us. “Pick whatever you want from the menu. Mr. Hastings will make it for you.”

  My mouth was watering so much I had to keep swallowing.

  “Then you can tell me your real story.”

  My mouth went dry.

  I grabbed Lindsay and pulled her to me. “Thanks, but we got to go.” I reached in my pocket for the money to give back to her.

  “No!” Lindsay looked like a kid who’d had her birthday cake snatched from under her nose—not that she’d ever had one.

  Mary P looked at me for a minute and read my panic. “If you want to tell me, that is. You don’t have to.”

  I managed to breathe again.

  She fed us well, but I didn’t tell her our true story. If I did, I knew children’s services would be there for both of us, and who knew what would happen then? Chances were good we’d be separated. People’d be much more willing to take a cute ten-year-old than a sulky sixteen-year-old. No sir, the truth was too risky. The truth stayed locked up inside. I stuck to the military mother until I turned eighteen for real. Mary Prudence merely raised her eyebrows whenever I had cause to mention her, which wasn’t often and was only in response to a direct question from someone about my family. Neither she nor Warren commented on the absurdity of a parent deployed for years with no leaves and no attempts to provide income or a home for her daughters.

  During that summer, Lindsay and I lived in a single room on the top floor of a boardinghouse that catered to summer lodgers. Most came for a week or two, but we planned to stay until the place closed for the winter.

  I found myself another part-time job on the boardwalk, serving lunchtime hot dogs and Cokes to sandy people spending the day at the beach. It meant I didn’t have a free moment, but at least Linds and I got lunch every day. I was allowed one hot dog and a drink, and I got very good at slipping Lindsay one of each when the boss wasn’t looking. Then the end of summer loomed.

  “I have a friend at church who has a little apartment at the top of her house she’d like to rent. She doesn’t want to live alone, but she’s not looking for a baby-sitter either,” Mary P said to me just after Labor Day. “Interested?”

  Was I ever! I’d been lying awake at night worrying about where we’d go after the boardinghouse closed in two more weeks.

  And so we met Bess Meyerson. “Just like the old-time Miss America,” Bess said, but since neither Lindsay nor I had any idea who the old-time Miss America was, we weren’t impressed. All we knew was that this Bess Meyerson was not Miss America material. She was older than Mary P, well into her seventies, and as skinny as Mary P was round. Not slim, mind you. Skinny. And wrinkled. I’d seen pictures of Shar-Pei dogs with fewer wrinkles.

  But when Bess smiled, she had that same magic as Mary P. Her face lit up, and you couldn’t help smiling back.

  “It’s Jesus,” she told me one day when I mentioned her smile. “He gives me joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

  I blinked but said nothing. How could I respond to such an outrageous statement?

  Our new apartment was painted white, all white, and it looked so clean! There was a bedroom and a bath, a tiny living room, and an even tinier kitchen. If you opened the bedroom window, you could hear the ocean a block and a half away, smell its briny scent. And if you climbed out the window, you could sit on the almost flat roof of the second-floor porch.

  “We’ve got a balcony.” Lindsay grinned at me. “I’m so happy!”

  So was I, though I wasn’t effusive about it like my sister. Sometimes I envied her her resilience and ability to forget the ugly things we’d left behind, but most of the time I was too tired to do more than tuck us in.

  I continued to work at the Surfside, realizing how fortunate I was to have gotten a job at one of the few restaurants that stayed open the whole year. As in most shore-resort towns, the vast majority of businesses, including eating establishments, were closed by the end of September until the following May or June.

  When Lindsay was old enough, she went to work for Mary P and Warren too.

  “Mr. H., can I help with dinner prep?” she asked one day, and it soon became obvious that she had a flare for food.

  “I love the kitchen,” she told me. “And I love to bake.”

  Warren quickly saw her culinary promise, and soon she acted as the Surfside’s equivalent of a sous-chef and baker while I took over more and more of the dining room responsibilities.

  Now the restaurant was ours. I reached across the table and patted Mary P’s hand. I couldn’t imagine where we’d be without her.

  She smiled. “What’s that for?”

  “For being you.” I love you.

  I turned at the sound of Lindsay’s footfalls on the stairs, and my eyes caught Greg’s. He was studying me with a thoughtful expression.

  Thoughtfully was better than absently, wasn’t it?

  12

  Greg kept giving his head mental shakes. Was he really sitting with Carrie Carter in her personal living space, not the café? Sure, Mary P was here and Lindsay was walking in the door, but he was sitting at Carrie’s table, drinking Carrie’s iced tea, letting Carrie tend his—his what? Wounds sounded too extreme, regardless of what they were saying on Twitter and Facebook. All he had were a few scrapes and bruises. No big deal.

  But Carrie ha
d treated them with such care.

  And she’d enjoyed Home Depot!

  Man, Lord, what am I thinking?

  He stood. “Well, I’d, ah, better go.”

  He was pretty sure that was a flash of disappointment on Carrie’s face, though she was quick to hide it. He couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. He held out the now-defrosted packet of peas. Carrie took it and put it back in the freezer.

  “You’re not allowed to leave.” Lindsay pushed him back in his chair. “I haven’t had the report straight from the horse’s mouth yet.” She sat across from him beside Mary P. “Come on, Greg, Carrie. I want to know what really happened.”

  Greg began telling the story again as Carrie paced, in spite of the empty chair beside him.

  “So it wasn’t that big a deal,” he finished.

  “Ha!” Carrie said behind him. “The guy could have killed you! I know. I was there. Only your quickness saved you.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “When he drove at you—” She began to pace faster.

  “Sit, Carrie,” Lindsay ordered. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  So Carrie sat, back straight, eyes fixed on her sister, hands folded on the table like a kid ready to say grace. To him, she seemed on edge, not the usual easygoing Carrie of the café. She’d been tense when they’d gone to Home Depot, but he’d chalked that up to driving the truck. What did she have to be stressed about now? And she seemed determined not to look at him.

  What did he expect? He’d kept his distance for all the years he’d been coming to the café. Of course, it wasn’t just Carrie he’d kept at arm’s length; it was any woman.

  It had taken his breath when he discovered that as soon as Ginny was dead, there were women who saw him as available. They didn’t seem to understand that loving someone didn’t stop just because that person died. Deep and true emotions continued, even seemed to intensify, with the absence of the loved one and the stark realization that she was now gone forever. If anything, the fact that he was grieving seemed to bring out the nesting, mothering instincts in these women. They wanted to take care of him, coddle him, marry him.