Moon Shell Beach: A Novel (23 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

S
ome August days shone like pure gold. On those days the humidity lifted just a little, so that the sky was clearer, the air purer, and everyone was in a better mood. The merchants were swelling their bank accounts, foreseeing a pleasant, even lavish, winter ahead. They’d be able to take their families to Costa Rica for school vacation, perhaps even add that second bathroom. The institutions—the library, historical association, science museum—found their coffers filling as relaxed billionaires happily presented checks and started endowment funds in their names. Blue, red, and white sails zipped across the horizon during the day, and at night the island’s restaurants were all booked, table after table of rested, tanned, happy patrons enjoying the ruby tomatoes from Moors End and Bartlett’s Farm, or the delicate perfection of rococo desserts.

As Labor Day grew closer, more women crowded into Moon Shell Beach, wanting to buy souvenirs of their summer, wanting to take some of the radiance of Lexi’s clothing home with them, like taking a suitcase full of glittering sun into the coming fall.

Lexi’s morning was too busy for thought. At noon, there was a lull. “Oksana, I’ve got to go to the bank. And I’ll bring back some lunch. Want anything?”

Oksana was in a cubicle, gathering clothing. She emerged, drawing aside the curtain. “Some noodles from Even Keel and an iced coffee. Thanks.”

As Lexi walked past the boat basin and up Main Street, she felt better, not so nauseous, and stronger. The sun on her shoulders relaxed her. She knew she looked great in her cocoa slip dress and beaded sandals. Could she trust her stomach to accept a nice big iced chocolate coffee? That might clear her brain. She might be able to think more than an hour into the future. She might be able to clear up her confusion about Jesse.

“Hi, Lexi,” Mimi called from the bookstore.

Smiling, Lexi waved back. She was home, after all. She’d been in worse places in her life, that was for sure. She could be optimistic.

Someone grabbed her shoulder—hard. Someone yanked her so that she spun sideways, nearly losing her balance.

“I need to talk to you.” Bonnie Frost stood there, looking strained. Stuffed into his little backpack, her son gnawed on his fist, grizzling and drooling, red-faced, rashy.

“Hi, Bonnie! Hi, baby!” Lexi put her finger up to stroke the baby, but Bonnie jerked away from her as if she were poison.

Bonnie’s face was dark with anger. “I thought I made it clear I want you to stop visiting Jewel on the pier!”

Lexi took a deep breath and tried to keep her tone placating. “Look, Bonnie. I’m not
making
her sit there. I’m not encouraging her. I’m just keeping Jewel company. She seems so
lonely
.”

“Don’t you dare tell me about my own child! You have no idea what is best for her. I’m her
mother.
I know what’s going on in her mind, and I’m worried sick!”

Bonnie didn’t seem to be aware that she was shouting. Passing shoppers stifled embarrassed grins and some just stopped on the sidewalk, frankly staring at the two women as if they were another of Nantucket’s entertainments.

“Bonnie, let’s sit down.” Lexi put her hand on the other woman’s arm, intending to lead her to one of the wooden benches.

Bonnie jerked herself away. “Take your hands off me! And
listen.
I’m not kidding! I’m going to go to court and get you served with a restraining order if you don’t stay away from Jewel.”

Lexi was appalled. “Bonnie, that’s way over the top! I’m not hurting Jewel.”

“You’re giving her hope that her father’s alive!”

“Well, maybe he is!” Lexi shot back. “Maybe he’s not conveniently dead just because
you want
him to be.”

Bonnie slapped Lexi hard on the face.

Lexi gasped. Her hand flew to her cheek as sudden tears sprang into her eyes.

“You have no right to judge me,” Bonnie hissed. “I’m trying to protect Jewel from getting her heart broken worse than it already is. You have no right to encourage her to hope for the impossible!”

Lexi was hyperaware now, as if she were both in her body and outside it, looking down at herself with her bright red cheek and Bonnie with her angry face and the sidewalk crammed with people gawking with concern and delight.

She was aware of Bonnie’s baby grabbing Bonnie’s hair and trying to get it in his mouth.

She was aware of her own baby, floating peacefully in her belly.

“Bonnie,” she said very quietly, “sometimes it’s okay to believe in the impossible. Sometimes miracles happen.”

“Don’t be such a fool,” Bonnie snapped. “Tris is dead, and I’m telling you once and for all, you crazy bitch, leave my daughter alone.” She strode away.

By late afternoon
everyone in town had heard about Bonnie Frost slapping Lexi. People took sides, arguing over the phone, over drinks, over dinner. Some thought Lexi was meddling in matters she should leave alone. Others thought Bonnie had been neglecting Jewel ever since she started her affair with Ken Frost, and it was a good thing
someone
was paying attention to the child.

As Clare waited on customers and settled chocolates into their ruffled paper cups and rang up sales, she overheard people gossiping, but she didn’t join in. Lexi, it seemed to Clare, was not doing anything wrong. Jewel was a good kid, too precocious for her own good, and obviously an independent thinker, a bit of a loner—someone Clare and Lexi would have hung out with if they were all the same age. All Bonnie and Ken thought about was money, and more money. Clare sympathized with Jewel, and with Lexi.

Then she remembered that Lexi was pregnant with Jesse’s child and a lightning bolt of jealousy speared through her. Maybe the baby would be a little girl like Lexi. Or a boy who looked just like Jesse. She squeezed her eyes shut, warding off the pain.
Not now. Not now.
She had to work. Thank goodness for work.

THIRTY-NINE

T
his Sunday morning with its heavy fug of humidity had an almost Louisiana lethargy about it. The harbor was as still and flat as a sheet of glass and few boats had their sails up.

Lexi turned the air conditioners onto high. Heat made her drowsy, and the cool dryness seemed to alleviate the worst of the nausea. She’d thrown up that morning, and now her stomach growled hungrily.

She strolled around the shop, straightening and double checking her inventory. A frantic customer rushed in and bought ten small boxes for party favors. A man came in to buy a necklace his girlfriend had admired, and while Lexi wrapped it in a gift box, five women off a tour boat clustered in, chattering and bumping into the display cases, lifting shawls and skirts and letting them fall. Lexi glanced at her watch. Where was Oksana?

Finally all the customers were gone. Lexi wondered if she had time to rush upstairs to grab a peach.

The door opened.

“Busy morning?” Lexi’s mother came in. Myrna looked good these days, tanned and rested and cute in white clam diggers and a striped top.

“Pretty busy. And Oksana hasn’t shown up yet. And I’m starving.”

“Well, you’ll be glad I came in.” Myrna lifted a thermos and a box from her woven basket. “Iced tiramisu coffee and some homemade blueberry muffins. Thought you could use a little picker-upper.”

“Gosh, Mom, thanks!” Lexi grabbed a muffin and munched ravenously. How cool it was, having her mother here like this. She wanted to tell her mother she was pregnant, but not yet. And not here, where a customer could walk in. “Delicious.”

“Good.” Myrna looked around the shop. “I remember when Dad and I ran our store, our summer help was usually college kids. They always partied too hard on Saturday nights and showed up late on Sundays or came in with hangovers.”

“Oksana’s not like that.” Lexi drank the iced coffee carefully. Her stomach seemed ready to accept it. “She’s never done this before. I hope she’s not sick.”

The store phone rang.

“That’s probably her right now,” Myrna said.

“Moon Shell Beach, Lexi speaking.”

“Hi, Lexi,” a man growled. “Clyde Thompson here. Have you seen Jesse?”

“No…”

“He didn’t show up for work today. I’m shorthanded as it is.”

Last night Jesse had stayed at his parents’ house, claiming exhaustion, but this was more information than Clyde Thompson needed. “Look, I’ll phone you if I hear from him—” All at once Lexi’s heart thudded. “Oh, Clyde.” She dropped the phone, reaching for the stability of the countertop.

“What’s wrong?” Myrna grabbed up the phone. “Hello? This is Myrna Laney. Can I help you?”

“Hi, Myrna, it’s Clyde Thompson. I’m looking for Jesse. He didn’t show up for work today.”

“I see.” Myrna studied Lexi’s face.

“Is there something going on I should know about?” the contractor demanded.

“I don’t know, Clyde.”

Lexi raised her head. “Just tell him I’ll call him back as soon as I know anything.”

FORTY

L
exi thought she might faint. She swallowed bile, steadying herself against the counter.

Her throat was dry when she said, “Mom, will you watch the shop? I’m going up to the pharmacy—the one where the Russian women work. They might know something about Oksana.”

“Of course,” Myrna said. “Go ahead. Take your time. I’ll be fine.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She hurried into the heart of the town, tripping over cobblestones and bricks, stumbling like someone lost. She didn’t feel the shade from the green arch of the trees above her. She didn’t see the fabulous merchandise in all the shop windows she passed. Her mind would not articulate her fears; instead it played a frantic loop that had her muttering as she walked.

“He
wouldn’t,
he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t just go without a word…”

Occasionally a tourist would glance at her quizzically, but she didn’t care, she was caught up in the pounding of her heart and the thudding of her sandals against the pavement, they were like drum rolls, and she burst into the pharmacy like a mother throwing open the door to a room where her kid sat smoking pot.

Several people were at the counter having coffee and chatting. Behind the counter was the lovely, tall, blond Sophia, adding whipped cream to a hot fudge sundae. Lexi was trembling as she approached the counter.

Sophia wiped her hands on the apron around her waist. “May I help you?”

“Sophia, we’ve met before, I’m Lexi Laney, I own Moon Shell Beach where Oksana works.” The words came tumbling out fast. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to know, you’re a friend of Oksana’s, and she didn’t show up for work today. I was wondering whether you might know where she is.”

Sophie smiled nervously. “Yes, I have something for you.”

Lexi felt the atmosphere change in the pharmacy. Silence fell as the pharmacists and customers went silent, straining to listen.

Sophia reached under the counter. “Oksana left this for you.”

Lexi took the white envelope, so innocent and pristine-looking, with
Lexi
scrawled on it in curly script. Her heart raced, her fingertips felt cold.

“Thank you, Sophia,” she said quietly.

Somehow she managed to leave the store and walk through town back to her shop. The summer sun burned down on her, but she was icy with dread.

When she got to Moon Shell Beach, she didn’t enter the shop but went around to the back to sit on the bulkhead. The ocean lapped musically against the shore. Sails cut back and forth on the blue water. A gull screeched overhead. Lexi opened the envelope.

Two pieces of paper were inside. Lexi unfolded them.

The first, in curly script, said only, “Lexi, I am sorry. Forgive me. I fell in love.”

The other piece of paper was covered in Jesse’s sideways, nearly illegible scrawl.

“Lexi, I’m sorry, but somehow I think you’ll understand. Oksana and I are leaving the island. We’re going to get married as soon as possible, and then we’re going to her hometown. Labinsk—you can find it on the map—is in the middle of Russia. I’ll be able to travel everywhere. With my savings I’ll be able to buy a little shop for me and Oksana. I know this seems awful of me, to just leave like this, but the truth is, it’s like in the
Wizard of Oz,
where the black-and-white world becomes Technicolor. For the first time in my life I know exactly what I want to do. I never meant to hurt you. But I know you don’t love me, not really. We had a good time together, the two of us. I hope your future life is as happy as mine. Fondly, Jesse.”

Fondly?
The casual indifference of the word stabbed Lexi hard. She made two fists, crumpling the notes in her hands as if she could destroy the words.

“Lexi?” Her mother stuck her head out the back door. “You have a customer…”

“Thanks, Mom.” She could not break down right now. She would not. She pushed herself up. She entered the shop. She handed the notes to her mother.

The interior of Moon Shell Beach was cool and dry and calm and fragrant, a tranquil oasis against the summer heat. A woman in a tennis dress stood in the shop, holding one of Lexi’s caftans. Lexi had work to do, and that grounded her for now. She took a deep breath. “How may I help you?” she asked.