by Wendy Wax
Though check-in wasn’t for another thirty minutes, the entrants had already begun to arrive bearing shovels, buckets, and all manner of forms and carving tools. It was a fascinating mix of people who mingled around the pool sipping coffee. The women’s sailing group, The Broad Reachers, looked shipshape and nautical in navy shorts and yacht club T-shirts while the Deirdre Morgan Fan Club, led by the Amazonian Deirdre who had applied for Deirdre’s position that had gone to Ray Flamingo, were dressed in flowing pant outfits and cover-ups that resembled ones Deirdre had worn. They all had blond hair in shades close to Deirdre’s, which they’d tied with chiffon scarves or covered with sophisticated straw hats. Those who wore butterfly-colored shorts and bathing suits displayed legs and figures that Bitsy and pretty much every other woman present envied. Renée’s gardeners were sturdier and wore long shorts paired with T-shirts that extolled the virtues of “playing in the dirt.” Their head coverings tended toward pith helmets and broad-brimmed straw hats designed to keep off the sun.
Bitsy smiled with satisfaction at the buzz of excited chatter that filled the air. The day was postcard perfect, the crowd far larger than she’d dare hope for, and several local TV vans had just arrived. She poured herself one last cup of coffee, snatched a donut from the tray, and carried both to her command post near the check-in table. It felt wonderful to have a purpose and some modicum of control. For the moment at least, things were moving smoothly and all was right with her world.
• • •
“Has Jason been by here?” Chase asked Avery shortly before the official start time.
“I’ve been too busy going over my notes and making sure everyone knows what we’re doing to notice,” she said. “I thought he was with you all.”
“So did I.” Chase cursed under his breath. “I swear I’m going to kill that boy before this is over.”
“What happened?”
“One minute he was there. Angry and pissed off to be up this early on a Saturday and beyond irritated at having to participate in something ‘this lame,’ but there. The next he’d parked his grandfather under a palm tree and taken off.”
Avery was far too worried about how the plywood forms were going to work to get upset about Jason’s defection. They’d gone round and round about Chase forcing him to come today. She’d been worried that he’d turn out to be more of a distraction than a help, but Chase had been afraid of leaving him to his own devices in Tampa all day and into the evening. Avery had finally stopped arguing when Chase reminded her, yet again, that Jason was not her problem.
She swallowed back the “I told you so” that sprang to her lips and said only, “Maybe he just went inside to use the bathroom? Or into the kitchen to bring out more donuts?”
“Nope, I looked. I even popped my head into the women’s bathroom just in case.”
“And?”
“And I think I scared one of the Broad Reachers half to death. In the men’s room, one of the Deirdres asked me to help her retie her halter top, but there was no sign of Jason. The only good thing is he didn’t manage to take the truck. So wherever he’s gone, he’s gone on foot.”
“He’ll be back,” Avery said. “And I think we need to focus here. The turnout’s great. And there are reporters from the Tampa Bay Times and a couple of the weeklies. This will help put the Sunshine in front of everyone and be good exposure for Hardin Morgan Construction—assuming the sand cottage turns out like it’s supposed to and doesn’t end up in a big heap.”
“True,” Chase agreed. “But I heard a rumor they were serving mimosas up on the rooftop. What do you say we skip the build and go up and sip a couple? We could maybe supervise from up there.”
“That sounds far more attractive than it should,” she conceded as worry gnawed a bigger hole in her confidence. “Unfortunately, we’re not here in a supervisory capacity. Enrico and his roofing guys just arrived. And your crew has all the plywood forms stacked over there against the building. It’s going to take all of us to get the structure nailed together and the sand mixed and compacted inside them in time for the walled garden to be completed and for Ray to get his end done.”
“Right.” Around them the teams were gathering as close to the beach as possible. Everyone clutched tools and buckets. She waved to Maddie, who’d been helping man the check-in table. Will stood nearby, smiling and signing autographs while they waited for the official start, which was now only fifteen minutes away.
Maddie gave Avery a thumbs-up, stole a glance at her watch, then stood. “Do you mind taking over here for a few minutes?” she asked Will. “All the teams are checked in and I promised Bitsy I’d take Sherlock over to Nikki’s before John and Steve start showing her cottage.”
“Sure.”
She hid a smile as a small and extremely curvy Deirdre look-alike with a slight five o’clock shadow strutted up to Will and batted her fake eyelashes at him. Not wanting to miss the start, Maddie retrieved Sherlock from Bitsy, escorted him to a nearby palm tree, then race-walked him to Joe and Nikki’s cottage.
“It’s me!” Maddie called as she let herself in. The only answer was the sound of crying. “What’s wrong?” she called in a panic as she rushed into the bedroom with Sherlock at her heels. “Are you okay?”
Nikki’s face was tear-streaked. Her cell phone was clutched tightly in one hand.
“Are you in labor?”
Nikki shook her head sadly. “Joe called. I’ve been so relieved that he was finally coming back. But he was delayed getting out of San Francisco. There was some kind of mechanical failure and they had to wait for another plane.”
“It’ll be okay,” Maddie soothed. “The main thing is that he’s on his way.”
“Right.” Nikki swiped at the tears cascading down her cheeks then nodded without conviction. “How are things going out there? You know, in the real world. Where there’s fresh air. And a sky. And people.”
Sherlock whimpered as if in sympathy before settling on the floor next to Nikki’s bed.
“Actually, things are looking really good,” Maddie replied. “The teams are all pretty pumped up and they all brought cheering sections with them, so I think we’ll be making a profit on food and drink. The Realtors will be coming through starting at ten A.M. And then there are all the Deirdres.” Hoping to cheer Nikki up, she pulled some of her favorite shots up on her phone to show her. “One Deirdre was flirting with Will when I left to come here.”
Nikki took the phone and examined the photo. “Yeah,” she said drily even as tears continued to spill down her cheeks. “I’d hurry back if I were you. Most of the Deirdres are kind of cute.”
“Very funny.” Gently, she helped Nikki to the bathroom then brought her a fresh drink and her prenatal vitamins. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
Nikki sniffed. “No. Sorry for whining. I keep swearing I won’t and then I do. I don’t know, I’m just so tired of lying like a heap in bed. I’d love to at least come out and watch.”
“It’s a zoo out there and everybody’s going to be working. I think you’re better off in here. But I will have my phone in my pocket in case you need anything and we’ll be checking on you regularly. Maybe Joe will bring you out to see the finished sculptures when he gets here.” She pocketed her phone. “If you need anything, just text or call, okay?”
“Sure.” Nikki nodded. “If you have a spare minute out there, maybe you should get in touch with Guinness. You know, in case they want to snap a picture of the oldest, largest, least attractive pregnant woman carrying twins for this year’s book of world records.” She sighed as Maddie laughed.
Maddie made it back just in time to watch the teams race to their assigned patches of sand carting their tools and supplies with them. She spotted Kyra shooting video as she moved through the herd of people. When she stopped at Hardin Morgan’s build, Maddie walked out to join her.
“This is wild, isn’t it?
” Kyra said as she framed up a wide shot of Avery and her team scratching wall placement into the sand then digging narrow trenches to sink the plywood forms into. Avery’s face was creased in concentration as she directed her crew and conferred with Jeff, who sat in his beach wheelchair holding the plans. Kyra panned the camera across to Chase, who looked a bit distracted.
“Oh, look! There’s Dustin!” Maddie pointed and Kyra walked with her to the children’s build, where Dustin and a crowd of kids were happily digging under a beach club counselor’s direction. Kyra realized as she watched him just how seldom he was with other children. In that moment she vowed to sign him up for Mommy and me and Gymboree and all the other things that ended in “ee” that had been a part of her childhood in a two-parent suburban family. She’d been so busy struggling to make a go of Do Over that she hadn’t thought about providing social interaction for Dustin or looking for other mothers her age. Seeing the happiness on Dustin’s face, she vowed to do better.
She spent the next hour moving from spot to spot to document the day. She shot footage of her father and John Franklin as they spoke to and escorted Realtors to see the sand structure under construction and then to Bitsy’s unit and the two-bedroom model. From the rooftop deck she shot down over the Plexiglas railing to provide wide shots for cover and also a bird’s-eye view of the sand sculpting. Periodically she posted video to all of their social media and responded to comments about them. It was the kind of day that postcards were made to capture and that were almost impossible to do justice to. The sun was a brilliant yellow and the sky a pale, clear blue. The Gulf sparkled blue-green where it edged against the clean white sand. The breeze stirred the palms that rose like sentinels around the property. The swish of the tide and the caw of the gulls provided the perfect soundtrack. She breathed it all in and felt her nerves calm. Accepting a glass of orange juice, she drank it slowly. From here she could see not only the building in progress, but the growing number of people who’d chosen to tour the models. Today would not solve her financial problems or resolve their dilemma about what they could and couldn’t do professionally, but if they sold two units and a handful or two of beach memberships, she’d be able to make that first loan payment.
She handed her empty juice glass to the waiter and refocused on the sand sculpting going on below. The crowd around the children’s sand castle had grown. She narrowed her gaze to search for Dustin and found him in the center of the crowd next to a man who looked like . . . her eyes narrowed further . . . What the hell? . . . who was his father. Kyra leaned over the railing and squinted at the pack of photographers surrounding them. The tallest was Nigel Bracken. The potato-faced pap named Bill stood next to him.
Taking the stairs two at a time, she reached the registration table just as Daniel lifted Dustin up into his arms and planted a kiss on his sandy cheek for the cameras.
“What are you doing here, Daniel?” Bracken’s British accent rang out practically delirious with glee.
Kyra thought this was a very good question. One that should be followed by, “And how had the paparazzi known he was coming?” “Did you know Daniel was coming?” she asked her mother.
“No.”
“How about you, Dad? Will? Was this another collaborative tabloid photo op like your fake fight at the grand opening?” She studied their faces carefully, but they looked as surprised as she was.
“No, kitten,” her father said. “While I can’t say I’m sorry he’s here getting the Sunshine more attention, he came on his own. And I’m pretty sure he brought the paparazzi with him.”
The photographers shouted happily as they jockeyed for position and shot picture after picture of her child and his famous father. “Are you going to help build a castle, Daniel? How often do you see your son? Does Tonja know you’re here?”
The real reporters joined the tabloid photographers. She cringed as she recognized someone she thought worked for People Magazine and another she’d seen on Entertainment This Week. This was not an unexpected celebrity spotting; this was a carefully set up scenario. One that either Daniel or someone who worked for him had orchestrated.
“What are you doing here?” the People magazine reporter called out. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for The Exchange?”
Understanding blossomed at the mention of his movie. He was not here just to draw attention to them. He was here for a very specific reason. She raced toward the spectacle that Daniel had created, thinking only of plucking Dustin out of Daniel’s arms before Daniel did what he’d come to do. She was still pushing her way through the photographers and reporters, catching only glimpses of Dustin and his dad, when Daniel put on his movie star smile and removed his sunglasses so that he could make eye contact with as many camera lenses as possible. As she neared, he made room for her at his side as if he was expecting her and said, “Kyra’s the reason I’m here. I’ve come to try to convince Dustin’s mother to let him play my son on the big screen.”
Furious, she watched Dustin remove his sunglasses just like Daniel had. At his father’s nod, he smiled a smile that was a smaller, sweeter version of his father’s and proclaimed, “Dustin wanna hact with Dandiel!”
Twenty-five
Avery stood barefoot in what had to be her hundredth bucket of sand and water tromping it into a solid building material. She and Enrico Dante were the only members of the crew with feet small enough to fit inside the cut-open bucket to create the necessary “surface tension.” And while Enrico continued to smile and make jokes about treading on grapes versus sand and water, Avery had been reduced to gritted teeth and swallowed oaths.
Squishiness aside, she and Enrico were the bottleneck—or more accurately, the bucket-neck. A factor she had not anticipated in her enthusiasm to sculpt the tiny house version of the one-bedroom cottage in sand.
Despite the thundercloud that was Chase’s face and the way his eyes repeatedly scanned the beach and pool area for some sign of Jason, a distinct carnival atmosphere prevailed. Pockets of people stood watching and commenting on the sand sculptors’ progress. The Deirdres were for the most part entertainers and their build was a high-energy performance that drew decidedly raucous laughter. Renée’s garden club, who were busy creating gorgeous flower beds and hedges in sand, drew the most oohs and ahhs, while the kids’ build had drawn the largest and most vocal audience.
Beachgoers wandered up and lingered, and an encouraging number of people seemed to be taking the tour of the property and model cottages. Conversation and the clink of glasses and silverware wafted down from the rooftop grille.
“We’ve got to step this up if we’re going to finish in time for anyone to walk through it.”
“No doubt about it,” Chase agreed.
“Any ideas?” She leaned on his shoulder for support as she climbed out of the bucket.
“We go out and find more people with freakishly small feet?”
“Hey!” She punched the shoulder she’d just finished leaning on. “My feet are in total proportion to my height.” Unlike other parts of her. “And so are Enrico’s.”
“Fine. Then we go out and look for extremely short strangers willing to stomp up and down in bucket after bucket of sand and water.”
Another bucket had been filled long before she was ready to step back in and commence stomping. “I don’t know. Seems like a pretty hard sell.” She blew a bang off her forehead and looked for the will to continue. “Is there a plan B?”
“Our only other choice is to scale back. Like we did when we didn’t have enough money to do a complete reno of the Sunshine Hotel and its beach club.”
She wanted to argue. She’d spent so much time thinking about the structure, debating how detailed to make it, then collaborating with Ray Flamingo about the decorative details. Now it all seemed wasted effort on an impossible task.
“Look, why don’t we just complete the walls and the built-ins and forget about the sand f
urniture?”
“But the whole idea was to give them a taste of the spaciousness of the design and how much could be fit inside it.”
“I know what the idea was. But we achieve nothing if we’re still building when the showdown’s over. This way we have a chance of completing something that is at least a conversation starter and then we funnel anyone interested over to Steve and John.”
“But we brought all our guys in,” she argued. After all, more was, well, more. “They gave up a whole day.”
“And they’re having a blast,” Chase pointed out. “The weather’s gorgeous and they’re on a beach. We’ve drawn a serious crowd. Will’s going to perform. I’m sure they don’t care exactly how much of this we build.”
As he spoke, his eyes strayed and searched.
“Anything from Jason?” she asked.
His jaw hardened into a fair impression of a slab of granite.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said quietly.
“Sorry.” Chase ran a sandy hand through his hair in exasperation. “He knows exactly how to yank my chain and exactly how hard.” He paused. Drew a deep breath. “Are you okay with stepping it down?”
When you had a Kewpie doll face and a body too small for your Dolly Parton bust, you didn’t get far if you gave up every time things didn’t go according to plan. But even she didn’t see another choice. “I guess building less is preferable than not finishing more.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He helped her into the waiting bucket. “And I’ll let Ray know. When we’re finished, I’m going to go find Jason if I have to look under every sea oat and palm tree on Pass-a-Grille.”
“And I’ll help.” As she tried to resign herself to the compromises that were being made, she began to tramp the water and sand together, creating the surface tension that would make the sand molecules cling to one another. She felt a kinship with the contents currently squishing between her toes and wished her own tension had remained on the surface and hadn’t burrowed so deep inside.
