Beach Trip (4 page)

Sara sat down on the stool, pushing her carry-on between her feet. She caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a pomegranate martini.

“What do you think?” Mel asked, watching the man in the gray suit walk away. “Married?”

“Definitely.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Mel smiled at Sara, giving her an appraising look. Sara had been a pretty girl, but she was a lovely woman. She seemed to have come into her own. She had filled out some since college; she was definitely curvier, but on her it looked right. Her hair was still dark and curly, although threaded now with highlights.

Sara, feeling Mel’s eyes upon her, glanced at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and quickly looked away. “So how are you?” she said. It felt awkward but it was all she could think to say. It had been easier talking to Mel on the phone than it was sitting beside her, face-to-face.

“I’m good. Life is good.” Mel smiled and nodded her head, wondering if she sounded convincing. You couldn’t just pick up where you left off twenty-three years ago, at least not without a great deal of effort on both their parts. Maybe another drink would help. She raised her glass and nodded at the bartender.

Sara spun a paper coaster on the bar in front of her. “So how’s New York?”

Mel smiled. If she told Sara about New York, then she’d have to ask Sara about Atlanta, and neither one was ready for that. “I like what you’ve done with your hair,” she said, putting her hand up and lightly brushing Sara’s bangs. “You’ve added some highlights.”

“I had my upper lip waxed, too.”

“I had mine lasered. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?”

Sara glanced in the bar mirror again, fluffing her hair with her fingers.
She tried not to stare at Mel, who watched her with an amused expression. “Remember in college when we used to slather ourselves in baby oil and lay out in the sun?”

“No. But I do remember how you used to roll your hair around a jumbo orange juice can and then sleep with panty hose wrapped around your head.”

Sara shook her head. “I can’t believe we were so stupid. I can’t believe we’re not dead from skin cancer.”

The bartender brought their drinks. “You don’t still do that, do you?” Mel asked innocently, raising her Cosmopolitan.

“What, slather myself in baby oil and bake in the sun? Of course not.”

“No. Wear an orange juice can and panty hose to bed.”

Sara eyed her steadily above the edge of her drink. “No,” she said.

“Too bad. That was such a good look for you.”

They stared at each other and slowly grinned. Mel tapped the edge of her drink to Sara’s. “Cheers,” she said.

They drank for a while in companionable silence, both happy now that the awkwardness between them seemed to be slipping away. A plane taxied past them on the runway. Far off beyond the distant rim of blue sky, a bank of white clouds drifted slowly. Mel sighed, set her drink down, and touched Sara’s arm. “Okay,” she said. “Show me the photos of your kids. You never send any photos with your Christmas cards.”

There was a reason for that, of course, but Sara said nothing, just leaned over and pulled her wallet out of her purse. She opened it to the school photos of Nicky and Adam.

“Wow,” Mel said, taking a photo from her. She flushed slightly, gently removing a smudge from the plastic with one finger. She hadn’t expected this. “He’s gorgeous. How old is he?”

“Fourteen.”

Mel picked up the other photo. “And she looks just like you.”

“I know, everyone says that.” She had a picture of Tom, hidden behind those of the children, but she didn’t take it out, trying to walk the thin line between her own pride and Mel’s motherless, single state.

They both sat staring politely into her children’s faces and then Sara slid them back into her wallet and put it away. Mel turned around and set her elbows on the bar, sipping her drink. “Lola has a good-looking son,” she said after a while.

“Henry? Oh, I know. He looks a little like Briggs did at that age. And he’s a good boy, too. He adores his mother. They’ve always been so close.”

Mel smiled slightly, and set her drink down. “She was like a girl when we took that trip to England. Always calling him,
Henry, we’re at your favorite place, the tower of London
or
Henry, I got lost on the tube and the Bobbies had to hunt me down.
The two of them always giggling together over some crazy thing she’d done.”

“Did
she get lost on the tube?”

Mel raised one eyebrow. “Repeatedly,” she said. “On the tube. In Harrods. Walking along Carnaby Street. You know Lola.”

Sara smiled sadly and ran her finger around the top of her glass. “She was always kind of scatterbrained but I swear it’s getting worse with age.”

“It’s that fucking Briggs,” Mel said. “He keeps her so medicated.”

Sara looked surprised. “Do you think so?”

“I’d bet money on it.”

“How do you medicate someone against their will?”

“Who says it’s against her will? Remember, she’s married to Briggs.”

“I thought you liked Briggs.”

“Maybe twenty years ago. Not now.” Mel stood up, excused herself, and went to the rest room. When she came back she glanced at the clock and said, “What time did you say Annie gets in?”

“Three-twenty, I think. Lola’s car is picking us up at three-thirty.”

“Okay, that gives us just enough time,” Mel said, waving at the bartender.

“Just enough time for what?”

“Just enough time to get loaded before Annie gets here.”

Sara laughed and looked around the bar. It was a small airport and there were only a few people, scattered here and there, waiting for their planes. “I love Annie.”

“I love Annie, too, but she drives me crazy if I’m sober.”

“They have medication these days for obsessive-compulsive disorders.”

“She doesn’t take it. Trust me, I was with her in London.”

“I hope you realize you’re getting ready to spend a week with her on a practically deserted island accessible only by boat.”

Mel grinned and said, “But I plan on getting liquored up so it won’t matter.” She picked up her glass, drained it, then set it back on the bar. “Deserted island?” she said. “Accessible only by boat?”

Sara laughed at her expression. “You obviously haven’t done your homework.” The bartender brought their drinks and Sara sipped her martini before continuing. “Whale Head Island is accessible only by ferry or private boat. It’s very exclusive. No cars are allowed on the island, only golf carts or bicycles. Families have been coming there for generations to get away from the stress of modern life. There wasn’t even electricity until the nineteen-sixties. There are no condos or hotels, only private houses that are very expensive to rent.” She shrugged and crossed her arms on the bar. “It cuts down on the riffraff I guess.”

“No riffraff? Who am I going to party with?”

Sara grinned slowly. She picked up her glass and tapped it against Mel’s. “I guess that would be me,” she said.

Annie called Sara the minute her plane touched down. She could hear giggling in the background, which meant they were probably already sauced. Which meant she’d have a hard time getting them collected and into Lola’s car.
Damn.
“Where are you?” she asked.

More giggles. “In the bar.” Of course they were. The boat ride to the island would be a long one. Annie hoped this wasn’t going to be like London, where she had wound up taking care of everyone. She’d taken care of Mitchell through five kidney stones, and she was pretty much over the whole Florence Nightingale thing.

“Anne Louise!” Mel shouted when she saw her, lifting her glass. Her face was flushed. Sara was leaning against the bar sipping from a wide-mouthed glass. Annie picked her way through the sparse crowd, pulling her bag behind her. “Don’t get us banned from the airport,” she said, stowing her carry-on and a small cooler under the nearest barstool. “They’re pretty strict these days about unruly travelers.” Sara stood up and hugged her, and Annie hugged her back.

“Who you calling unruly?” Mel said.

“You’ve let your hair go white,” Sara said, holding her at arm’s length.

“I quit coloring it years ago. I got tired of messing with it.”

A weary-looking bartender slouched across the bar. He had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a moon face covered in freckles. An earring dangled from his left ear. “You ladies might want to get something in your stomachs,” he said, slapping a menu down on the bar.

“Just keep the drinks coming,” Mel said.

“We really don’t have time to eat,” Annie said, picking up the menu and
giving it back to him. “We’re being picked up in five minutes.” She pointed at their drinks and held up two fingers, indicating that he should close out the tab. The bartender, looking relieved, turned around and went to ring them up.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Sara said, smiling at Annie. “We need someone to keep us in line.”

Mel swung her arm around her head like she was twirling a lasso. “Crack that whip,” she said.

“Crack it yourself,” Annie said. “I’m on vacation.”

The car sent to take them to the ferry was a long white Escalade with twelve-spoke wheels. “That car has Briggs written all over it,” Mel said as it pulled up in front of the airport. A young man wearing a blue polo shirt and khaki pants opened the driver’s door and jumped out. “You must be Mrs. Furman’s friends,” he said, coming around to take their bags. “I’m Stewart. I’ll be your driver today.” He grinned and Mel grinned back.

“Where’s Mrs. Furman?”

“Oh, she’s back at the boat with Captain Mike. They’re waiting for you at the ferry landing.”

Mel looked at Sara and mouthed
Captain Mike.
Sara shrugged and helped Stewart load her bags into the back of the Escalade.

“Careful with that cooler,” Annie said. “It’s got deviled eggs in there.”

“You brought deviled eggs to the beach?”

“Well, I couldn’t just come empty-handed, could I?”

No, of course she couldn’t. They were all Southern girls and had been raised to come bearing gifts. What each woman brought said a lot about her personality. Sara brought a beautifully wrapped, lacquered picture frame with a photo of the four of them standing out in front of their college apartment. Mel brought a bottle of Dos Amigos tequila.

Stewart closed the back door. “Are we ready, ladies?”

“I’ll ride up front with Stewart,” Mel said, quickly climbing into the front seat.

It was a forty-minute drive from the airport to the Whale Head Island Ferry, long enough for Sara and Mel to sober up. They drove down narrow asphalt roads surrounded on both sides by wide flat fields of marsh grass. Late-afternoon sun shimmered across the landscape, and high overhead a hawk soared, circling above the distant tree line. Sara’s cell phone rang once but she didn’t answer it. It was Tom, calling to see if she’d arrived. She
couldn’t talk to him here, in front of everyone. A faint feeling of homesickness stirred her bowels. They’d been married for seventeen years, and in all that time had never been apart for more than two nights. She thought of her husband’s smile, of her children’s sweet faces, and the homesickness swelled to a thick lump in her throat. Away from them she felt only half herself.

Annie, as if reading her mind, asked, “How’re Tom and the kids?”

“They’re fine. Thanks. And Mitchell? The boys?” Even now, when things got so bad, Sara could not imagine a life without Tom.

“As ornery as ever. The boys have summer jobs, William in Chicago and Carleton out in Colorado.”

“We’re not going to talk about the husband and kids the whole time we’re here, are we?” Mel asked.

The fleeting camaraderie Sara had felt with Mel in the bar seemed false now, a desperate desire to become what they had once been, and could never be again. A product of that age-old elixir of forgetfulness, alcohol. This trip would require a lot of alcohol.

She looked at Mel and thought,
I shouldn’t have come.
She thought,
Things will turn out badly.

The ferry landing was a low, quaint building of weathered gray cypress built to resemble something in a New England port town. It was swarming with tourists and island dwellers who didn’t have their own boats and had to ride the ferry with the tourists. There was only one grocery store and three restaurants on the island, so people brought most of their own supplies, loaded into big plastic tubs with locking lids. A long line of shiny SUVs stood outside the landing, their owners unloading plastic tubs, bicycles, and beach gear on to a series of trolleys manned by an army of fresh-faced porters, who rolled the loaded trolleys into the baggage hold of the ferry. Children played in the sun, oblivious to the shouts of their stressed-out parents, who were trying to keep one eye on the luggage and one eye on their children.

Stewart pulled slowly past the long line of SUVs, careful not to hit any of the scurrying pedestrians, and drove several hundred feet along the water’s edge to a small marina. The crowds here were thinner and less hectic, as island people loaded supplies onto their boats and called to one another by name.

“Which boat is Lola’s?” Sara asked.

“Boat?” Stewart said, chuckling. He lifted one hand and pointed. It was
the largest one in the marina, of course, a one-hundred-twelve-foot Hargrave yacht sporting the name
Miss Behavin’.

“I love that name,” Mel said.

April, the girl hired to make beds and cook, stood out front holding an empty trolley She was tanned and pretty, and had the confident air of a young woman in her twenties. Behind her was another trolley loaded with groceries. She introduced herself to the women, then went to help Stewart load the luggage.

“Where’s Lola?” Annie asked, shielding her eyes with her hand and squinting at the
Miss Behavin’.
But Lola had already seen them and was running across the deck and the gangway toward the dock. She looked like a girl, with her hair loose about her shoulders and her feet bare. She was wearing a pair of white capris, a sleeveless shirt, and dark-rimmed sunglasses.

“My God, you look like a movie star,” Mel called to her.

She threw her arms around Mel and then hugged each one of them, laughing. Even Annie got caught up in her exuberance and smiled shyly. “I brought deviled eggs,” she said.