by Lori Wilde
“Why do you care if May June took it out of the trash?” Madison asked. “If you threw away perfectly good nail polish?”
“I don’t care about the damn polish.” Shelley stabbed her needle through the square in front of her and raised both palms. “I’m saying May June likes to snoop through Grammy’s trash.”
There was a tone to Shelley’s voice, innuendo that flew right over Gia’s head. Something else was definitely unfolding between her older sisters, but she had no idea what it was.
“Oh.” Suddenly, Madison blanched pale, then she said again in a completely different tone, a soft and surprisingly vulnerable tone, “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Shelley grimaced. “Oh.”
Gia straightened. “What are you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” Shelley and Madison said in unison.
Well, at least they were finally on the same side, but now Gia was feeling overlooked and incidental.
“You guys always leave me out,” Gia grumbled. “Treat me like a mushroom, keep me in the dark and feed me—”
“This conversation has taken a strange turn,” Darynda interrupted. “Why don’t we change the subject? How are the wedding plans coming, Gia? Have you given the ceremony much thought?”
Grateful for Darynda, Gia said, “Anna Drury’s making the wedding cake. We’re having strawberry.”
“A strawberry wedding cake?” Madison frowned. “Are you sure? Do that many people like strawberry cake?”
“Strawberry shortcake is a universal crowd-pleaser,” Shelley said.
“I don’t like how soggy the sponge cake gets with all the strawberry juice,” Darynda said.
“Really?” Shelley stared at Darynda as if she were an oddity. “The sogginess is the best part.”
“True strawberry shortcake is actually made with sweet biscuits.” Madison shifted into full-blown hostess mode. Gia got it. Homemaking was both her passion and her job.
“Thanks for the strawberry shortcake history lesson, Martha Stewart,” Shelley mumbled. “I feel so enlightened now.”
Gia was getting irritated with them both. “We’re having strawberry cake, not strawberry shortcake.”
“You mean like a strawberry pound cake?” Shelley asked. “Or angel food? Dang, I’m getting hungry for cake now.”
“You can’t be serious, Gia. You’re getting married in the fall . . . and it’s a wedding,” Madison protested.
“So she should serve spice cake because it’s fall?” Shelley snorted. “How many people like spice cake?”
“I do.” Darynda raised her hand. “I like all cake.”
“Except soggy strawberry shortcake,” Shelley pointed out.
“No. Gia should serve white cake,” Madison said firmly. “It’s tradition, and they should have a chocolate groom’s cake on the side.”
“We’re not having a groom’s cake.” The ridiculousness of the conversation was indicative of their faltering relationships. There wasn’t even going to be a wedding. It was all pretend. They were arguing over a pretend wedding cake.
“Why not?” Madison straightened her shoulders.
“Who needs so much cake?” Gia threw her hands in the air. “Who needs the extra expense?”
“What about the people who prefer chocolate?” Madison’s sleek blond bob bounced in time to her vigorous head shake. “And if money is the issue, I’ll make the groom’s cake.”
“What about the people who prefer strawberry, hmm?” Gia asked. “What about them?” Why was she being stubborn? It wasn’t like her and it wasn’t as if she was married to the idea of strawberry, but she couldn’t seem to stop defending the flavor choice.
Shelley blew a raspberry. “Pfftt on tradition. She can have strawberry cake and forget having a groom’s cake if that’s what she wants.”
“A good host thinks of her guests’ wants and needs, not her own.” Madison looked so damned prim.
“But Gia is the one getting married and she didn’t hire you as her wedding planner. Let her serve whatever she wants.”
Okay, things were officially out of hand.
Desperate to get the quilting back on track, Gia pressed her palms together in front of her heart. “Could we not—”
“Traditions are traditions for a reason. Sacred rituals give—”
“Oh, save the Madison’s Mark speech for your TV show.” Shelley’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “We’re not your demographic.”
“Girls,” Darynda said. “Let’s all—”
Madison stuck out her palm. “Hand me the scissors.”
Gia added, “Please.”
Shelley picked up the scissors from the table beside her, held them out of Madison’s reach. “Tell Gia that strawberry cake is perfectly fine for her fall wedding.”
“But it’s not.” Madison stood up.
Shelley jumped up, knocking over her chair in the process. It smacked to the floor with a loud bang.
Gia and Darynda cringed in unison.
“It’s not your wedding. You already had your chance.”
“Yes, I did, Shelley, and you blew it.”
They glared at each other, arms akimbo.
“I’ll have white cake, Maddie,” Gia said. “I’ll have white cake. Just please, sit back down. White cake it is. And I’ll do the groom’s cake, too.”
“Don’t cave in to her, Gia,” Shelley said. “Bowing down just feeds the beast.”
“Are you calling me a beast?” Madison’s eyes were daggers.
“Girls!” Darynda’s voice was sharp but no one was listening to her.
“If the shoe fits . . .” Shelley crossed her arms and glowered.
“Please, please, please, can we just get along?” Gia beseeched.
“Give me those scissors right now.” Madison growled, her eyes dark and her body shaking all over as she glared at Shelley. “Or I will come over there and I will take them away from you.”
Shelley dangled the scissors over her head. “C’mon, I dare you.”
“Son of a bitch!” Madison exploded.
“Madison, stop it,” Darynda said.
For one horrific second, Gia thought Madison was about to throat-punch Shelley. She swung her gaze to her older sister, ready to fling herself in front of Shelley to protect her, but Madison was staring out across the yard at the beach.
Something else besides Shelley had triggered her curse.
“What is it?” Gia swiveled her head.
Darynda stood up. “Mercy, what is going on here?”
Her sister stormed down the porch steps. On her way across the sloping lawn, Madison stopped long enough to snatch up one of Grammy’s pink flamingos staked into the ground. “Hey, you. You there!”
Simultaneously, Shelley and Gia hurried down the steps after her as Madison waved the plastic pink flamingo at a male jogger who’d stopped to urinate in the shrubbery dividing the Moonglow Inn property from their neighbors to the west. Darynda stayed on the porch watching the altercation.
The guy startled and fell back into the sand on his butt, raising his arms to cover his face as Maddie charged him.
“Pervert!” she exclaimed.
Even from the middle of the lawn, Gia could hear the swoosh when Madison swung the flamingo through the air like a baseball bat. In high school, Madison had played softball, and she’d been damn good at it.
Uh-oh. Gia pitied the guy.
Lifting his butt up off the sand, he scurried backward on his hands like a hermit crab, desperate to get away from flamingo-wielding Madison, but unable to scramble to his feet before she reached him.
Madison swatted at his crotch with the flamingo, but he rolled away before she made contact. “How dare you pee in the bushes! This is a family beach! There are children around! If you can’t wait for the Porta Potty, have the decency to go in the ocean!”
Shelley and Gia flew down the beach toward them. Gia wasn’t really sure whether they were there to back up Madison or save the jogger.
; Maddie swung the flamingo again, but he was quicker and got out of the way.
Arm raised to protect his face, he cried, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Maddie stood over him, breathing hard and straddling his legs, the flamingo cocked back on her shoulder, sweat beading her brow.
The jogger cupped his crotch. “Please don’t hit me.”
“Madison,” Shelley said, her voice soft, but firm. “Put down the flamingo. He’s not the one you’re really mad at.”
“He was peeing in our bushes.” Madison held tightly to the flamingo, but Gia saw all the fight go out of her. “It’s the third time this week, and I’m sick of it. Just because he has a penis doesn’t mean the world is his toilet.”
“You’re crazy, lady.” The jogger chuffed.
“I suggest you hush up,” Shelley said. “Before we go back to the house and let her have at you.”
“Don’t go,” the jogger said in a high, scared voice.
“For the record”—Maddie sniffed—“I didn’t hit you.”
“It wasn’t from lack of trying.” The jogger kept his hands firmly resting over his junk. “I was too quick for you.”
“I could smack you right now.” Madison raised the flamingo again.
The jogger squealed and curled into a ball.
“Maddie,” Gia coaxed. “Please put down the yard ornament.”
“Should I call the police?” Darynda asked from across the lawn, raising her voice to be heard.
Gia shook her head at Darynda, waved a hand. “We’ve got this.”
Breathing heavily, Madison handed the flamingo to Gia.
Shelley snapped her fingers at the jogger. “Stop peeing in people’s bushes. If you do it again, we’re calling Beach Patrol and reporting you for indecent exposure.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s no big deal. I was just taking a whiz.” His eyes went flat.
“Gia.” Shelley made gimme motions with her fingers. “Hand me that flamingo . . .”
The jogger clambered to his feet. “You’re all crazy.”
“Scram,” Shelley said from the corner of her mouth. “And if I were you, I’d find another place to jog.”
The jogger took off at a dead sprint, kicking sand all over them.
“What is going on with you?” Gia asked Maddie, concerned for her sister’s mental health. Was it the stress of Grammy’s illness? Or were there more wounds seething inside Maddie that Gia knew nothing about?
“I’m tired of men feeling free to whip it out whenever they want.” Madison crossed her arms over her chest. “Without consequences.”
“You need a hug.” Shelley held her arms wide.
Madison rolled her eyes, but she let Shelley hug her.
“See.” Gia counted the hug as a win. “That wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
“Group hug.” Shelley freed one arm and waved Gia over.
Together, arms around one another, they turned and walked back to the house. On the porch, they discovered that Darynda had closed and raised the quilting frame, poured four glasses of wine and set them on the table, and opened a second bottle.
Quilting was over for the evening.
They might not have made much headway on the quilt, but they had shared a group hug and that was something. Gia would take any forward motion she could get.
* * *
FOR TWO HOURS, the four of them drank and talked and remembered.
Fun stuff. Silly stuff. Adventures they’d had. People they’d met. Stories of running the inn. Nothing heavy. Nothing sad. Nothing that stirred tension. As if they’d silently agreed upon a truce, and while the cease-fire might be tentative, for the first time since her sisters had come home, Gia saw genuine hope.
At eleven, Darynda called it a night. Because she’d had too much to drink, she took one of the guest bedrooms to sleep in.
Madison followed shortly afterward, leaving Shelley and Gia on the porch, both a little tipsy and riding the glow of what turned out to be a nice evening.
“I get the feeling something is going on with Madison. Something more than just Grammy,” Gia said, finishing off the last of the wine.
“There is.”
Gia sat up straighter, wished her head wasn’t so fuzzy. “What is it?”
“She’s been carrying around a big secret and she’s too proud to tell us about it,” Shelley said.
“What secret?”
Silently, Shelley got up, went to her tote bag, took something out. She came back and slipped a framed picture into Gia’s hands.
Confused, Gia stared at the dark grainy photograph that had been torn in pieces and then taped back together, trying through the haze of wine and the lull of the ocean to figure out what she was seeing.
When she finally realized what the picture was, Gia’s heart broke right in two.
Chapter Thirteen
Madison
MIRROR IMAGE: The reverse of an image or how it might appear if held up to a mirror.
STANDING AT THE open window of the blue room, the ocean breeze ruffling the material of her silk pajamas, Madison could see the corner of the back porch. She heard her sisters murmuring in the darkness below and thought, They know.
Thanks to May June, who liked to dig in trash cans.
It was a relief actually, that her sisters had found out and she hadn’t had to tell them herself. Hadn’t had to say the words I was pregnant, but lost the baby. Hadn’t had to listen to the useless condolences, the sorrowful expressions, the too-tight hugs.
Still, it felt lonely here, by herself.
Disconnected.
Cut off.
Severed.
Not just from her sisters, but from herself. From the bright, industrious girl she used to be. The girl with such big dreams.
What a naïve child she’d been. Thinking she knew all the answers.
Madison put a hand to her belly, closed her eyes, and fell back onto the bed. The springs creaked softly underneath her weight. She thought of the pink bedroom in her apartment. Not a gauche color like bubble gum or Barbie DreamHouse, but a demure dusty rose that could grow with the child.
She’d given away the bassinet, the crib, the changing table. Donated the toys. Sold the clothes on Letgo. All the things she’d bought prematurely, optimistically. But she’d lost the momentum of her salty grief by the time the room was emptied, and she hadn’t dredged up the energy to paint over those pink walls.
Besides, what color would she paint them? Certainly not blue. She’d been staying in this blue bedroom for only a few days and already a slow, steady indigo mood dragged at her, pulling her back toward the dark depression that had engulfed her after . . . well . . . everything.
A fan of old-fashioned names, she’d already had one picked out for the baby. Claire Estelle. Bright Star. After it happened, she’d named a star for her daughter through the Star Registry, paying extra for a bright, easily locatable star. Received a certificate with the coordinates to the Claire Estelle Clark star and a Swarovski crystal star to commemorate it. The crystal she’d turned into the necklace that she never took off.
Madison fingered the crystal at her throat. She’d thought naming a star would help her feel closer to the baby when she looked up into the night sky. But she lived in Manhattan, where you couldn’t see the stars for the lights.
You’re at the beach now, Madison. Go outside and look for your baby.
Not yet. Not while her sisters were still out there. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, not the least bit sleepy. She thought of her mother. Wondered if she had loved her daughters as much as Madison had loved Claire Estelle.
Restlessly, she got out of bed, slipped into the hallway. Heard Darynda’s gentle snoring from the room she was sleeping in.
Padding into the bedroom where the Moonglow sisters had once slept in the three black wrought-iron twin beds lined up in a row, Madison paused. Shelley had taken her old bed in the middle. Her sister’s backpack sat at the foot of the matt
ress, as if waiting for her to pack up and take off at a moment’s notice.
That morning, while Shelley had been at the hospital painting Grammy’s toes, and learning secrets from Madison’s number one fan, Gia had driven Madison all over town to run errands.
They’d gone to the bank and paid enough to prevent the foreclosure from going forward. They’d contacted the police and learned they couldn’t even file a police report against the contractor who’d absconded with Grammy’s money because they weren’t the victims. They’d consulted Grammy’s attorney and learned she had a will leaving the Moonglow Inn to all three of them. They visited some of the Quilting Divas and collected quilts the ladies were donating to the Fourth of July pop-up store. Then they went by the AT&T store where Madison bought Shelley a cell phone.
All in all, a productive day, even though she’d forgotten to give Shelley the phone. Fixing things, ticking off items on a checklist, boosted Madison’s spirits, but the organizational high didn’t last for long. Soon, she turned bored and edgy, looking for more things that needed her intervention.
At the end of the twin beds sat three identical hope chests. Madison hadn’t looked inside hers in years. She sank down on her knees in front of it, ears tuned for sounds of her sisters coming inside the house.
She didn’t want Shelley to catch her in here. Not because she was snooping—it was her hope chest after all—she just didn’t want to deal with her sister. They might have made some inroads toward civility, but Madison didn’t trust the tentative cease-fire.
Shelley could test the patience of Job. And patience was not Madison’s long suit.
The hope chest hinge creaked loudly. “Shh, shh.” Madison lifted a finger to her lips.
Look at you, trying to control an inanimate object.
Yeah, okay, she had control issues. Said everyone who took it upon themselves to point out Madison’s flaws.
She paused, ears cocked, wondering if the noise had alerted her sisters. She didn’t know why she was being furtive. She only knew she didn’t feel like talking to them about the baby. It was her pain and she didn’t want to share.
Her mind drifted from her sisters, to her lost child, and finally to her mother. In her head, she was eight again, remembering the time she’d found Mom sobbing in the kitchen one winter day. She’d rushed to her, wrapped her arms around her.