The Beach House

“I hope she’s all right.”

“Everything is fine now, thank you.” She skipped a beat then said as casually as she could, “I take it that Mr. Selby is still with the agency?”

Trish laughed. It was a high trill sound ringing with astonishment. “Of course he is. In fact, he’s been promoted! Didn’t you know? Mr. Selby is now Vice President Senior Attorney.”

Cara’s heart beat faster as suspicion did its nasty job of creating doubt in her mind. It wasn’t hard to create a diabolical picture. Richard worked in legal. He knew the mass layoffs were coming. And yet, he was promoted. That could only mean he was on the inside track on this one. He had to have known that her name was on the list. And knowing, he had left town while the dirty work was done. He let her go to the chopping block with a blindfold on.

Why, the sneaky little coward, she thought, wringing the telephone cord in her fingers. And on her birthday…

“Miss Rutledge?”

“What wonderful news for him,” she replied in an even voice. “I imagine you must be very busy moving offices.”

“Oh, no, we’re done now. The announcement wasn’t made until this week but we’ve known for a while and had time to get things packed up. It’s just that, you know, Mr. Selby didn’t want to make it official until after the layoffs and all. Oh—” She paused, suddenly unsure, as though just remembering that Cara had been one of the unfortunate ones. “I’m sorry, Miss Rutledge. But, of course, you knew all this.” There was a nervous question in the statement.

“Of course,” Cara replied. She needed to get some air.

“He’s in a meeting now, but I know he wants to talk to you. Like I said, he’s been calling and calling. I’ll be sure to tell him you’re out of town. Is there a number where he can reach you?”

Cara paused, feeling his betrayal claw at her heart. “No,” she replied calmly. “I’ll be on the road. Please tell him I’ll call him later. At home,” she added before hanging up, preserving the illusion that they were still on intimate terms.

At the moment, that’s all it was. A hideous illusion. All the closeness, confidences, hours that they’d shared for four years were meaningless! She felt her fury rise up to howl in her chest. Her hand hovered over the phone as she fought the urge to call his home and leave a blistering message on that infernal machine.

She closed her hand in a fist and let it slide to rest at her side. It would be a cold day in hell before she called that bastard again. Even hurt and angry, she wasn’t so stupid that she’d leave a message like that recorded for him to play over to whoever with a chuckle and a drink. He’d be patted on the back for the narrow escape he made. Cara’s eyes squeezed at the pain. How could he have done this to her? She’d never known he could be so ruthless—at least not with her. No, they weren’t married, but she’d thought of them as a team. She recalled the many, happy occasions they’d spent together. There had been so many good memories, so many intimacies shared.

She sat on the hard-backed chair and stared out at the sea, overcome.

Then she laughed.

It started out as a short bark of laughter, a guffaw of disbelief blended with self-mockery then rolled into a choppy cadence of laughs. Oh, it was all too pathetic! This was the real top-aroo. What hellish astrological event brought all these catastrophes her way? She’d turned forty, lost her job and now her boyfriend had dumped her. If she had a dog, it would have been run over by a car. What was next?

Lord, she thought as her laughing ended, she had to get out of this house or she’d go mad. She rose quickly from the chair, eager to put distance between herself and the phone, the beach house, everything. Outside, the late morning sun was high and cast a glistening sheen across the ocean.

She grabbed one of her mother’s broad-rimmed straw hats from a basket by the door and lunged into the sunshine. Though she felt the power of a spring sun on her shoulders, she kept walking, making her way through a narrow path in the empty lots across the street. Such a broad expanse of unoccupied land was unusual on this valuable stretch of beach. Only a few beachfront lots were left on the entire island and here were three lopped together. Her mother was lucky to live across from them and keep her ocean view.

The path cut up a sandy incline and curved around a tall dune. Once again she was exhilarated at the sudden, surprising sight of the wide expanse of sparkling blue water. She heard the echoing roar punctuated by the cries of a gull. Far off in the mist, she caught the shadowy form of a cargo ship and, closer in, a line of pelicans coasted low over the waves. It was a marvel how she couldn’t think about her problems or solutions while staring out at the sea. It was as if she’d pushed a delete button in her brain and the monitor had cleared. The breeze greeted her with a caress, drawing her down from her perch on the dune to the wide arc of beach.

On this side of the island, far from the hotels and restaurants, there were fewer tourists. But farther ahead, groups of sunbathers stretched out on colorful beach towels or sat in the shade under cheery umbrellas anchored in the sand. She began walking toward them, fixing as her goal the long stretch of pier two miles up where she knew she could get a cool drink and rest. As she walked along in her dressy silk outfit, she caught the idle stares of young girls in bikinis and mothers who stood by as toddlers splashed in the warm tidal pools. When she passed a small triangle of space on a dune outlined by wooden stakes, orange tape and a bright plastic warning sign, she smiled. This was a loggerhead turtle nest and it was likely her mother had marked it.

Her shoulders were beginning to burn by the time she reached the pier and the small business section of the island called Front Beach. Young, hard-muscled teens played ferocious games of volleyball before a cheering crowd. Desperately thirsty, she walked up the wooden pathway that led to the Banana Cabana. Tables under red umbrellas were available but she was hot and sweaty and longed for the cool of an air-conditioned room. Stepping inside, she faced a blessed wall of cool and blinked in the dim light of the darkly paneled restaurant.

Cara took a small table beside the wall under a neon beer sign. She didn’t mind sitting alone. Her job had required lots of travel and she was accustomed to eating alone in a restaurant or biding her time at an airport bar. But on a business trip, her mind was focused on the job and her suit and briefcase made her invisible. Here, she idly stared at the walls and her dressy silk outfit screamed “Outsider!” in this easygoing crowd dressed in shorts, T-shirts and beach cover-ups.

A young waitress appeared and pulled out a pad and pencil. She already had a fabulous tan that she was eager to show off. Cara ordered a Diet Coke and a Cajun shrimp salad. It arrived quickly and she began mining through a salad the size of a small planet. As she jabbed her fork into the greens, she got the tingly sensation that someone was watching her. Quickly turning her head, she locked with a pair of eyes exactly the color of the cerulean sky she had left outside the dark room.

The spark of attraction shot straight down to her toes. He was sitting with his elbows on the bar and looking at her intently, his head turned over broad shoulders that stretched the faded blue fabric of his shirt. His thick hair was tawny colored and windblown, there was a stubble on his cheek and long lines cut through his deep tan at the corners of his eyes. He exuded a restrained power too ripe for a boy.

He sat at the bar with his three buddies, each of them a sterling example of a good ol’ boy pulling down a beer at a favorite pub. The bearded redhead to his right leaned over to mutter something close to his ear, followed by a short laugh and a quick glance her way. She saw the tall man’s glance slide from her face down to her shoes, then a slow, easy grin lifted the left corner of his mouth like he’d just caught the punch line of a private joke. He turned his head back to the baseball game on the TV over the bar, dismissing her.

Cara’s cheeks flamed. In her mind’s eye she could see that her strappy sandals with their sparkling rhinestones, which might have looked fabulous in the city, were a joke here.

“Check, please!” she called out, flagging her waitress. The girl came bouncing over, scribbling in her pad en route. Cara whipped her credit card out of her purse before the girl even arrived. The bill was soon settled and Cara hurried from the restaurant, walking swiftly past the bar without so much as a glance.

Outside the sun was blinding and stung her tender shoulders but Cara was mad now and not to be daunted. The anger felt good, the first real emotion she’d had in days. Even better, she now had a mission. Looking from left to right, she searched the lazy street. Her gaze passed over crazy murals on whitewashed buildings, ice cream and pizza parlors, a surf shop and a new, miniature chain hotel to zero in on a small boutique where a loud, raucous African parrot whistled and called. Cara smiled and made her choice, crossing the street.

“Good job,” she said to the parrot as she entered the shop.

The salesgirl, though young, looked Cara over with an experienced eye. From the way she scurried around from behind the counter, Cara knew she had Customer In Dire Need of Help written all over her.

“What can I do for you?” the girl asked in a cheery voice.

“I need a dressing room,” Cara replied, briskly walking through the narrow aisles of neatly folded clothes. She pulled out two pairs of shorts, four T-shirts, a thin stretchy sweat suit that would be perfect for nights on the beach, two swimsuits, a thin terry cloth cover-up, a long black flowing cotton dress decorated with red Hawaiian flowers and a blue tie-dyed beach towel that she couldn’t pass by. She went into the dressing room and emerged soon after in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt with the tags hanging out. The salesgirl laughed as she snipped the tags off and carefully folded the mint silk ensemble into a bag.

“Anything else?”

“Sandals,” Cara said emphatically, looking down at the now despised ones on her feet. “I need comfortable sandals that I can walk along the beach in and not worry if they get wet. I plan to do a lot of walking.”

“You should get these,” the girl replied, lifting her own foot.

Cara looked at the clunky, wide-strapped sandals with thick rubber soles and thought they were nothing she’d have picked out on her own.

“Size nine,” she replied, slipping off the rhinestone sandals and tossing them in the trash bin.

“How about this?” the salesgirl asked with a wry smile, holding up a purple Koozie with the Isle of Palms logo. Cara laughed and shook her head, but when she saw a navy baseball cap with the South Carolina palm and crescent moon logo, she bought that, too. Placing it on her head, she handed over the straw hat to add to the burgeoning bag. Leaving the shop, she caught a glimpse of herself in a long mirror. Her neck and arms were sunburned and her long thin legs looked as pale as the underbelly of a fish.

“I scream tourist,” Cara said, but laughed, pleased to see the same jaunty look she’d admired in her mother.

“Now you fit right in.”

Though the mother loggerhead is tired and hungry, her work is just beginning. She will nest an average of four times during this season, resting two weeks between each nest.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lovie sat slump shouldered on the hard examining table while her shaky fingers buttoned up her blouse. These radiation therapy sessions leached the energy right out of her. If only it was as efficient with the cancer, she thought. But cancer wasn’t about if onlys. Cancer was about what was, and the plain fact was, the radiation wasn’t doing much. She’d only continued this long in hopes of prolonging her life by a few months. After such a full, active life, Lovie didn’t want to spend her last days as an invalid.

Her hands stilled on her blouse as she considered again whether or not now was the time to tell her children about the cancer. When the tumor was discovered last December she’d felt shocked. Numb with fear. The tumor was already large and inoperable and the prognosis was dim. She had weighed the decision carefully, then drawn on years of experience in keeping unpleasantness from her children. So she’d kept her illness private.

Besides, Palmer would have made such a fuss. He was very attached to her and there would have been lots of his useless hand-wringing and wild declarations on how he was going to call in the experts and holler that she’d get the best damn treatment possible. Then Julia would have been pressed upon to be her primary caregiver and Lovie knew that her daughter-in-law wasn’t up to the task. She was a good girl, but she would fret and worry and generally fall apart at the seams, more about how the illness was affecting her own schedule and life rather than Lovie’s. The resulting chaos would have been too disruptive to the children. Not to mention, Palmer never would have allowed her to leave the house in Charleston and come out to the beach house to live if he knew.

And Cara…Lovie finished the row of buttons, then let her hands fall to her lap. She didn’t know how her daughter would have reacted to the news. She might have taken time from work, flown in and demanded to take charge of the medical treatment in her efficient manner. Or she might simply have sent flowers.

Oh, she’d heard stories from other cancer patients. Heartbreaking tales of children who didn’t visit their sick parents, of old friends who didn’t even pick up the phone to chat, of brothers and sisters who pretended the cancer wasn’t real or that, if ignored, it would simply go away. Did they think cancer was contagious? Were they so self-absorbed that they didn’t want the inconvenience of sickness to interrupt their lives? Or were they so afraid of the very idea of death that they preferred to look the other way? It was no wonder so many of the terminally ill felt so alone.

Lovie shivered on the examining table, staring blankly at the green-tiled walls. The chill of the room went straight through her thin skin to her bones. She was so very tired, she felt like weeping, and the radiation always made her stomach queasy. All she wanted was to go home to her beach house, sit in her favorite rocker on the windward porch and listen to the comforting murmur of the sea.

A brisk knock on the door brought her head up in time to see the door swing open and Dr. Pittman walk in, his long white coat billowing behind him. He always seemed to be in a hurry and when he spoke he shot out the words to get to the point as quickly as humanly possible. She found it unnerving and attributed it to him being both so smart his mouth couldn’t keep up with his brain and to him being from somewhere in the North, Harvard or Yale or some such place. He was said to be the best, but nonetheless Lovie thought he seemed very young to have so many degrees.

“Good morning, Mrs. Rutledge,” he boomed, his eyes still on the chart.