Beach Trip (31 page)

Lola frowned like a schoolteacher and asked, “Where’s your milk thistle shake?”

“I threw it up in the toilet, along with everything else in my stomach.”

They sat for a few minutes, staring out at the sunlit sea. A lone jogger passed by slowly. Farther down the beach, a line of brightly colored umbrellas sprouted from the sand like poppies.

“We should go to the beach today,” Mel said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to her.

“We should!” Lola agreed gaily.

Sara groaned and put her head back. She had forgotten how hard it was to keep up with Mel. She was not as young as she used to be. She was older but perhaps less wiser, more rigid in body and spirit. Life and disappointment had done that to her.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Mel said, “I threw up, too.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I have an ironclad stomach.”

Sara pulled her blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “And an ironclad liver to match,” she said sullenly.

Annie joined them an hour later, her white hair standing up on one side of her head like a gull’s wing. She slumped down into an overstuffed chair, stretching her legs out along an ottoman. Her slippers were pale and puffy, and made her legs look like toothpicks stuck in a pair of marshmallows.

“You know, you snore like a freight train,” Mel said to her.

Annie turned her head and stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Look who’s talking,” she said grimly.

“As God is my witness,” Sara said, holding up one hand, “I’ll never drink Margaronas again.”

“Oh, now, Scarlett, don’t go turning this into a challenge,” Mel said.

“I’ll never drink anything again,” Annie agreed sullenly. “At least not on this trip. I’m giving my liver a break.”

“We’ve heard that before.”

“This time I mean it.”

“Milk thistle is good for your liver,” Lola said, sipping her shake.

Annie gave Lola a weary look.

“Y’all are just a bunch of pansies,” Mel said, swiveling her head back and forth so that her eyes rolled and wobbled in their sockets like runaway marbles. She was determined to put on a brave front. “The Margaronas weren’t that bad.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sara said, eyeing her morosely. “Well, just so you know, I think I might have had an out-of-body experience.”

Lola stared dreamily out at the horizon. Her eyes were soft and blue. “Don’t you just love the astral plane?” she said to no one in particular.

Beyond the tall windows, rolling dunes glittered in the sunlight. Great waves of spartina grass swayed and flattened with the wind. Annie roused herself, staring out at the sea. “The Shuar tribes in Ecuador use mind-altering native plants to induce religious intoxication.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Mel said. “Margaronas are like a milder form of LSD. We haven’t been getting wasted; we’ve been expanding our consciousness.”

Sara made a derogatory sound. “The only thing expanding on this trip is my waistline,” she said. She got up and went into the kitchen to make another pot of coffee. When it was ready, she poured herself a cup and leaned across the breakfast bar, sipping gingerly. “Where’s April?”

Lola stopped playing with her empty glass. She set it down on the coffee table. “I gave her the morning off,” she said.

“It was the least you could do,” Sara said, nodding at the display of penis-fold napkins that still stood erect in the center of the dining table. “Considering how late we kept her boyfriend up.”

“I don’t think she minded too much,” Mel said, “judging from the giggling coming from the crofter at three o’clock this morning.”

“April? Giggling? I can’t picture that,” Sara said.

“I can’t believe I’m the only one who hears what goes on back there.”

“You’re the only one who cares what goes on back there.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to get some sleep. Between Annie’s snoring and April’s giggling, I’m a little behind.”

Annie flipped her the bird. The gesture was awkward and obviously little
used. Mel laughed and yawned, spreading her arms expansively over her head. “Maybe we should stay up all night so y’all can hear what goes on out in the crofter for yourselves.”

Lola coughed lightly and stared pensively at the sea. Watching her, Sara felt a momentary sadness settle around her. It felt sometimes as if there was a tragedy hovering over Lola’s life, a hint of calamity waiting patiently in the wings.

As if to confirm her feelings, Lola stirred suddenly and asked, “Don’t you hate it when you’re traveling on the astral plane and your little silver umbilical cord gets all tangled up and you’re not sure you can get back into your body?”

The room got quiet. Mel broke the silence first, snorting loudly and looking at the ceiling as she laughed. Lola smiled but looked puzzled. “What?” she asked. “What’s so funny?”

“You are,” Mel said. She rose and went into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Two boys on boogie boards skimmed along the beach followed by an overweight golden retriever who ran with a stiff rolling gait. Mel stretched out beside Sara across the breakfast bar. Annie and Lola were busy talking astral projection and Ecuadorian tribal practices. Mel prodded Sara with her elbow and pointed at Lola with her coffee cup.

“Whatever she’s on,” Mel said, in a low voice, “I want some.”

It took them about an hour to get dressed and gather their gear, so by the time they headed down to the beach the sun was directly overhead. It was a hot sultry day with very little breeze. Cicadas droned in the heavy air. The sun glared off the surface of the dunes, with their wispy mounds of spartina grass, and glittered along the pale green sea. They walked in single file along the weathered boardwalk, Lola in front, followed by Annie in a wide, floppy hat, then Mel, with Sara bringing up the rear. Sara was carrying a beach chair and a brightly striped umbrella, and she could feel sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades and dampening the small of her back. It was silly to be wearing a cover-up in this heat—she could have simply worn her swimsuit like Mel was doing—but Sara was still self-conscious about the bulge of baby fat around her waist.
Not that it was getting any better with this trip
, she thought, scowling at Mel’s trim, long-legged figure. Mel was one of those people who could eat and drink whatever she wanted and never put on a pound. And it helped, of course, that she’d never had a child.

The sea rose and fell before them like a giant slumbering beast. A pair of distant pelicans, drawn by a school of bluefish, flattened their wings and dive-bombed into the sparkling water. The beach in front of Lola’s house was empty, and as they came over the last dune and clattered down the boardwalk steps to the beach, Sara was glad they didn’t have much farther to walk. Her arm was numb from the weight of the chair, and the umbrella strap was cutting into the tender flesh of her shoulder.

Mel had suggested that Captain Mike bring the chairs and umbrellas down to the beach for them but Lola, staring out at the sea, had tipped her head and said in a small voice, “He’s not here. He left early this morning for town. He had some errands to run.” Then she added brightly, still staring at the distant water, “He thought we might like to take the boat out tomorrow to the Isle of Pines for a picnic.” She lifted her little hand like a visor so that it hid her eyes and shielded her face from the merciless sun.

If Mel was disappointed that Captain Mike wasn’t here to carry their gear she didn’t show it. She shouldered the umbrella and chair at her feet and headed out across the dunes, stopping when they got to the wide beach. The hot sand burned their bare feet. Mel, cursing, picked up her gear and sprinted to the edge of the water with the umbrella bumping across her shoulder like a rifle. Lola, giggling, followed her but Annie simply stopped, took a pair of flip-flops out of her bag, and slid them on to her feet. Sara did the same, and then they picked up their gear and strolled down to where Mel and Lola were busy setting up their beach umbrella. They had plunged it into the sand and were busy rocking it back and forth. When it was deep enough, Lola opened the top and they arranged their chairs, towels, and bags underneath. Sara slid her umbrella out of its plastic sleeve and began her own valiant attempts to sink it into the coarse gray sand. She had to admit, it would have been nice to have Captain Mike here to set up for them.

“Do you need some help?” Mel said.

“No, I’ve got it.” Sara opened the umbrella and arranged her chair and gear on the sand beneath the canopy, leaving room for Annie. “I just wish Captain Mike was here to wait on us hand and foot like he did last night.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Mel said.

“You know, he’s probably hiding out from you.” She shouldn’t have said it; she wasn’t even sure why she had. Sara had a sudden image of Mike fleeing the island under cover of darkness, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Mel.

Mel popped the top on a tube of sunscreen and began to apply it carefully to her arms and chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Last night. You were hanging all over him.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were, and you don’t even remember.”

Mel grinned. “Well, I remember some of it,” she said. She bent over and rubbed the lotion on her legs. “Besides,” she said, looking up at Sara from beneath the screen of her hair. “What difference does it make to you?”

“I’m just looking out for April.”

“I told you before. April’s a big girl. She can look out for herself.”

“She doesn’t know how devious and underhanded you can be.”

“There’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

Lola clapped her hands. “Oh, look,” she cried. “Dolphins!” They looked where she was pointing and saw several thick gray bodies rolling through the shallow water like wheels. The dolphins passed slowly along the beach, their fins glistening in the sunlight, their gay little snouts lifted playfully. Annie pulled her camera out of her bag and began snapping photos. Lola clapped her hands and jumped up and down on the sand in her striped bikini, with her hair loose and tangled about her shoulders. Looking at her, Sara smiled.

Lola looked good today, childlike and happy, not drugged-out like Mel always claimed she was. Sara was not convinced. Mel had a way of seeing things the way she wanted to see them, regardless of how they really were. She had always been like that.

Sara slumped down in her low-slung beach chair and stretched her legs out in front of her.

Lola stood at the edge of the water with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun, watching as the gray glistening bodies rolled slowly out of sight. There was something slightly melancholy about her small figure outlined against the vast sea and the great arched sky. She was smiling, but a lingering sadness seemed to surface from time to time, passing across her face like a shadow. Her moods seemed to shift as often as the weather, and although she was generally sweet-tempered with a bland and sunny disposition, it was these moments of fleeting darkness that gave Lola her air of vulnerability. She was so childlike in her happiness and despair that you wanted to wrap your arms around her, to keep her safe from the dark thing that seemed to lurk at the edge of her consciousness. Still, Lola’s manic
mood swings had more to do with temperament, Sara felt, watching her, and less to do with drugs. She had always been vague and scatterbrained, even as a girl.

A few feet away, Annie was trying to wrench something round out of a nylon tote bag.

“What in the hell is that?” Mel said, flinging herself down in her beach chair.

“It’s a sunproof cabana,” Annie said. “I bought it for the boys when they were babies.”

“Sunproof? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of lying on the beach?”

Annie gave Mel a stern look. Her sunglasses were old-fashioned and too large for her face. They gave her a slightly menacing, insect-like appearance. “Melanoma is no laughing matter,” she said. “UV light reflects off the sand. That’s why you’ll get a bad burn if you’re not careful.” She tossed the nylon circle into the air and it sprang open magically into the shape of a small, three-sided tent. Sara got up to help her push the tent stakes into the sand, and when they had finished, Annie took her chair and beach bag and climbed inside the small cave-like interior.

Lola began to walk slowly along the beach, following the trail of the rolling dolphins.

“I hope she’s wearing sunscreen,” Annie said, poking her head out.

“She’s got a pretty good base coat,” Mel said, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against her chair. “I’ve never seen her so tan.” She had her chair pulled close to the circle of bright sunlight so that her legs were fully exposed.

“We better ask her,” Sara said worriedly. “I don’t want her to burn. I don’t want Briggs getting as mad at us as he was after the London trip where you lost Lola.”

Mel opened her eyes and turned her head to Sara. “It was only for a few hours,” she said.

“Only for a few hours? I heard Briggs called the U.S. embassy and Scotland Yard.”

“She just kind of wandered off. You know Lola. One minute we’re standing there looking at shoes in Harrods and the next minute she’s gone. We looked for her everywhere and then called the police. A few hours later I had to call Briggs, and he called Lola’s mother.”

“Is that old battle-ax still alive?”

“Maureen? She lives less than ten minutes from Lola in Birmingham.”

“She must be eighty years old by now.”

“What difference does it make? She’ll live forever. She’s too mean to die.” There were few women who frightened Mel, but Maureen Rutherford was one of them.

Sara began to rub lotion over her legs in long, even strokes.

“We eventually found her,” Mel said. “She was in some pub in Chelsea drinking warm beer and singing ‘God Save the Queen’ with the locals.”

Sara laughed. “That sounds like her.” She finished applying the lotion and put the top back on. She looked at the small figure of Lola disappearing along the beach. If she didn’t turn soon, Sara would get up and follow her. “I’m just glad she seems to be doing better coping with her life. I was afraid Henry’s leaving to go off to college would send her into some kind of downward spiral. But she seems to be handling all that pretty well.”