Driftwood Point (16 page)

“For the record, I'd have said ninety. Maybe, on a good day, eighty-eight.”

“I think that be more like it.” Ruby nodded, a twinkle in her eyes.

Lis headed over the dune, stopping midway to take off her sandals. She paused at the edge of the road, where one car was speeding in her direction. She stepped back onto the sand as it passed in a flash, way too fast for the island.

That same white Cadillac again. At least she thought it was the same one. What were the chances there'd be two different but identical cars this week on Cannonball Island?

She frowned as it rounded the curve near one of the old chapels, wondering if he was headed toward the point again, though she couldn't imagine what business the driver might have there. Alec had said the man was a client of his, and she'd assumed that meant for a boat or some sort of renovation, neither of which explained his presence on the island again today. She'd ask Alec about him when she saw him.

Lis crossed the road, recalling that she had noted once before that there were no speed signs posted, and wondered if drivers took that to mean there were no limits. She'd have to look into that, though she wasn't sure who was responsible for law enforcement on the island, since they had no police department of their own. In the meantime, she had sand and sun and the Chesapeake at her fingertips—and at her toes. She walked onto the hard-packed sand of the
beach and tossed her water bottle and towel onto the ground and took off her shirt before slathering on the sunscreen. She picked her way around the dark helmetlike shell of a horseshoe crab as she headed for the water.

The bay was calmest on this side of the island, the waves barely registering as blips as the water rolled onto the beach and brushed against her feet. She knew that a mere three feet from the shore, the sea grass grew thick enough to hide crabs and small fish. She'd walked there as a child once, and never did again. Lis could still feel the slippery fronds of the seaweed as it undulated around her legs, and the sharp pinch of the crab that had grabbed one of her toes when she disturbed it. From that moment on, if it was swimming she was after, Lis headed to the point. For walking along the shore, or for sunbathing, this narrow stretch of beach would do just fine.

She tried to recall the last time she'd brought a towel down and soaked up some sun, but she couldn't say for certain if it had been last summer or the one before. It was a shame, either way. It was quiet here and peaceful, with no crowds to fight for a place to sit. She placed the towel out flat on the sand and folded the shirt for a pillow, then lay down on her back and closed her eyes. She could relax here, clear her mind and let her thoughts drift as the tension lifted from her shoulders and her back. She imagined herself on a raft, floating aimlessly on the bay, no destination, no worries, no deep thoughts to mar the peace of the moment.

For a while, the sun was delightfully warm, but
before too long, she began to feel like she'd been basted and put into an oven. She got up and walked to the water's edge to wet her arms and legs to cool off. Ruby had intimated that she was pale and could use some color in her cheeks, but Lis figured she probably had that covered by now. She'd had enough for that first day out in the sun, sunscreen or no.

Lis gathered her things and started toward the road, but had to stop for another car. She was just thinking how at one time seeing more than one car in the same morning would be notable when the car slowed to pull up next to her, then stopped.

“Hey.” Alec leaned over the seat.

“Hey yourself.” She walked to the passenger door as the window slid down.

“How's the water?”

“Here?” She pointed back toward the bay. “I don't go in past my ankles along here. Too much seaweed. Reaches out and wraps itself around your legs.” She pretended to shiver. “Creepy.”

“You could always take a dive off the pier up at the point.”

“Not today. Hey, I'm pretty sure I saw your client go by awhile ago. He was headed in that direction.”

Alec shrugged. “Who knows? By the way, I looked at the cottage roof this morning. There's no way to salvage it. The entire thing is rotted. I can't believe it hasn't blown off.”

“I figured as much. What about the beams? You were worried about them, too.”

“I called a termite guy but he can't come out until
the weekend.” Alec paused. “Speaking of which, you have a big day coming up next Saturday.”

“I do. My debut in St. Dennis as an artist.” She tried to make light of it.

“Hey, it's a big deal.” He put the car in park. “People take their art real serious around here. Everyone I know is going.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. You're famous. Celebrities buy your paintings and talk about them in TV interviews. Everyone who ever said hello to you back in high school is claiming BFF status now. Last I heard, two TV stations from Baltimore are covering the opening.”

“Oh my God.” Lis put a hand over her face. “I didn't realize this was going to be such a big production. Carly didn't mention anything to me about media coverage.”

“Hey, St. Dennis is a happening place. It's a tourist destination these days. Carly is expecting a packed house. I heard Beck is bringing in a couple of part-time officers from Ballard to help control the traffic and make sure no one parks in front of anyone's driveway.”

“Beck? Do you mean Gabriel Beck?” Lis rested her arms on the open window.

Alec nodded. “He's chief of police now.”

“Is this the same Gabriel Beck who used to spend most of his time in the principal's office back in the day?”

“The same. Hard to believe, right? He's married and has a sweet baby girl and another one on the
way. His wife, Mia, is a former FBI agent, works for the state police now.”

“It is hard to believe. My mother always blamed him for leading my brother into trouble.” She realized Alec's gaze appeared to have drifted to her cleavage. Pulling the shirt closed and buttoning it, she said, “It's not nice to stare.”

“Sorry.” He looked like he was about to make a wisecrack but decided better of it. “Wait. How do you know what I'm looking at? I'm wearing superdark glasses.” He took them off and held them up to make a point.

“A girl always knows, Alec.”

“Sorry, but it's sort of hard not to notice . . . never mind.” He slipped the glasses back on. “So I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me after the whole thing at the gallery is over.”

“I'm going to have Ruby with me.”

“She's welcome to join us,” he said without hesitation. “I don't mind having your great-grandmother come along on our first date.”

Lis laughed. “Well, in that case, sure.”

“Great. Do you have any preferences?”

“I don't even know what restaurants are in town, other than Lola's and Captain Walt's and the inn. They've all been around forever.”

“I'll choose, then. Unless Ruby wants to.”

“She'll be fine, whatever you decide.”

“Great. Well, I'll see you before then, I'm sure.”

She stepped back from the side of the car and waved as he drove on. It didn't occur to her to
wonder what he was doing on the island—again—until she got back to the store.

“Alec wants to take us to dinner after the gallery exhibit,” she told Ruby.

“Well, that be nice of him.” Ruby was busying herself refilling the sugar jar at the coffee station.

“Ummm.” Lis disposed of her empty water bottle. “Is he always on the island so much? I don't remember that he was around so much the other times I've been here.”

“Guess he has business 'sides me. Heard he was helping Abby's boy fix their garage door.”

“I guess.” That would explain it, of course, but still, something felt off to Lis.

“I'm thinking about lunch right now.” Ruby finished filling the sugar jar and opened a new box of tea bags. “You have anything in mind?”

“I'll go see what we have.” Lis started to the back of the store. “Gigi, how do you get groceries?”

“From the grocery store in town. How else?”

“How do you get there?”

“I don't get there. I make a list, and when I go over to visit with Gracie at the inn, she gives my list to someone to go to the store for me. Andrew down to the market sends me a bill every month and I pay it.”

“That's a nice arrangement.”

“It is. Been doing it that way for a long time now.” Ruby looked across the counter at Lis. “Funny you're just asking now.”

“It didn't occur to me until now.”

“That's just another way of saying what I said.”

Ouch. Another reminder that Lis has been MIA for too long.

“I think I'll just go into the back and fix lunch now.”

“Be a good time to do just that,” Ruby murmured.

RUBY CLOSED UP
the store around eight and turned off the lights.

“Can we sit and talk now?” Lis asked. “I'd like to record you talking about the island and how your family came here.”

“You know all that already,” Ruby reminded her.

“I don't have it on record in your voice.” Lis set her phone to record and placed it on the table between them.

“All right, then.” Ruby rested her head against the back of her favorite chair in her sitting room. “Where you want me to start?”

“Start where you know.”

“Well, that would be the War of 1812. Everyone taking sides. Mind, now, America be new then. Some stood with them, some with the British. My folks be English, through and through. Thought that England going to win that war and we be under the crown again. Thought they be cutting their losses by standing with the British.” She smiled wryly. “We know how that worked out. People in town didn't take kindly to those folks who were helping their enemies, so they run them out of town. Right across the river where it's shallow there, right around where the bridge is now. Took what they could carry, clothes on their backs. Ended up here. You know the rest.”

“How'd they survive? There were no houses here, right?”

“Built their own. Some had kin in Baltimore or Virginia who brought in wood, supplies, things they needed here on the island. It all worked out.” Ruby closed her eyes. “Things always work out . . .”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Wait right here.” Lis got up and ran up the steps to her room, grabbed the wooden box, and was back downstairs in a flash.

“I found this in one of those cubbyholes upstairs in the cottage.” Lis placed the box on the table in front of Ruby.

“Well, well.” Ruby's smile lit her face. “I wondered what happened to that.”

She picked it up and studied the lid, one finger tracing the painted figures.

“Where did it come from? Was it yours?”

“Came from my great-aunt Louisa. Said her mama brought it with her when she came from Fauldhouse. That be a little place outside Edinburgh.”

“That's in Scotland.”

Ruby nodded. “That be right.”

“I thought you said we were English.”

“We were. Louisa's daddy was from Kingsbury— that be right around London.”

“So Louisa's mother brought this with her. Did she give it to you?”

“On my fifteenth birthday. It had a little silk handkerchief inside. Don't know whatever happened to that. Be long gone now, I guess.”

“Open it. Look at what's inside.”

Ruby lifted the lid, then smiled. “Jacks and a ball. My girls loved to play.”

“There's a piece of paper in there. Take a look.”

Ruby lifted the paper from the bottom of the box and unfolded it. After she read silently, her smile broadened.

“Sarah and that Barden girl used to play together for hours. Looks like Ceely got the best of her that day.” She closed the lid and held the box in both hands. After a moment, she handed it to Lis. “This be yours now.”

“Oh no, Gigi. It belonged to you.”

“Once upon a time, that be so. I be fine without it all these years.” She reached for Lis's hand. “Something to keep your wishes in. That's what Aunt Louisa told me when she gave it to me.”

“I will treasure it then, and thank you.”

“You be most welcome.”

“Gigi, I was thinking that I hardly know anything about your children. You had two sons, right?”

Ruby nodded. “Harold Junior and Simon. Both went to war over to France. Only Simon came back. Left the island in 1945 to go to school up north. Died in a train crash outside of Boston.”

“And your daughters? You had three others besides my grandmother.”

“Four daughters not counting the one I lost when she was a wee one. Right smart and pretty, all four of them. Lisbeth—you were named for her, like she be named for my grandmother—she married a boy from Virginia, moved down that way. Mary Cathrine, she married a local boy, but after the war they moved to Baltimore. Ann taught here on the island till she got
the polio. Died when she wasn't but twenty-two. All gone now. I birthed eight babies. Buried two before they were grown, six lived to grow up. Not one of them left now.”

They sat in silence for a while. Finally, Ruby said, “It's a sad day when a mother buries her child.”

Lis watched a tear form in the corner of each of Ruby's eyes, but neither fell.

“What about your sisters and brothers? I don't know anything about them.”

“Stories for another day, Lisbeth Jane. I be tired now. Think I'll head to my room.”

“Can I get you anything, Ruby? Another cup of tea . . .”

“Thank you, but I be done for the night. You turn off these lights before you go up, hear?”

“I will.” Lis watched Ruby cross the floor toward the door to her living quarters, her feet moving slowly, her back uncharacteristically hunched.

“Gigi, I'm sorry,” Lis called to her.