Finally, the scent of seaweed and coffee had grown so strong in her room that she had to face reality and get out of bed. Downstairs, she found Chloe and Shelly already eating breakfast at the picnic table on the porch. She sat next to Shelly and busied herself pouring cereal, slicing a peach, struggling to let the dream go. She was still bursting with the physical sensations of it, and her gaze was drawn again and again across the street to Poll-Rory.
If only she could confide her feelings for Rory to her sisters and get some sisterly advice, but that was impossible. She’d always avoided speaking to Chloe about love and desire. It didn’t seem fair to talk to Chloe about that sort of thing, when Chloe, by virtue of her vow of chastity, could not experience those feelings for herself. And Shelly would make entirely too much of it. She might even say something inappropriate in front of Rory. Anyway, what advice would Shelly have to give?
Shelly was filling the porch with her chatter. She’d found a tiny, perfect starfish on the beach that morning, she said. And dozens of pieces of cobalt-blue glass.
Chloe was silent. Oddly silent. Finally, she interrupted her youngest sister.
“Shelly,” she said gently, “can you tell us why you suddenly want to know who your real mother is? You never seemed to care before, and I don’t understand why it’s suddenly so important to you.”
The change in Shelly’s features was abrupt. She looked into her bowl, dipping her spoon in and out of the milky cereal. There was a sheen of tears in her eyes that surprised Daria, and her own throat tightened as she waited for her younger sister to speak.
Shelly looked up at them. “I always wanted to know,” she said. “I just never said anything about it. I didn’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings. But now that Dad is gone, I thought it was time for me to find out. You both know who your mother and father are. I loved Mom and Dad and I’m really glad they were my parents, but I need to know more.” A tear spilled over her lower lashes and slipped down her cheek.
Chloe leaned forward to cover Shelly’s hand with her own.
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed,” Chloe said. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up and then have them shattered.”
“I know,” Shelly said. She wiped her nose with her napkin.
Daria’s heart ached. They had accepted Shelly’s good nature and ever-present cheer at face value. They’d never seen the pain behind that facade.
“Just know,” Chloe said to Shelly, “that no matter what you learn or what you don’t learn, we love you. Daria and I love you and adore you. Nothing you find out will ever change that.”
Chloe looked across the table at Daria, who tried to read the message in her sister’s eyes. For the first time, she wondered if Chloe might know what she knew about what had taken place that morning long ago. The thought sent a chill up her spine. Maybe it was time for Shelly to learn the truth, she thought. Maybe it was time for everyone to know what had happened on the beach that morning.
20
RORY INCREASED THE TENSION ON HIS EXERCISE BIKE AND glanced next to him, where Zack was pedaling furiously while reading the latest copy of Sports Illustrated. He was certain Zack had set his tension even higher than Rory’s, yet he was still pedaling faster and barely working up a sweat. Rory could probably work just as hard, he tried to convince himself, but what was the point, really? This easy pace was fine. He planned to take Daria’s advice about talking with Zack while involved in an activity, but he knew he wouldn’t have the wind for a conversation unless he kept the tension low.
He was getting a little annoyed with himself about this new competitive streak he felt with Zack. He hoped that, at the age of thirty-six, he was not already slipping into a midlife crisis.
“Can you get your nose out of that magazine long enough to talk?” Rory asked.
Zack glanced over at him. “I’m working out,” he said.
“But you’ll only know you’re at the proper level of exertion if you can carry on a conversation,” Rory said.
“That’s an old theory, Dad,” Zack said.
It was? “Nevertheless,” Rory countered, “I’d like to talk with you about Kara.”
“What about her?” Zack shot him a wary look, and with good reason, Rory thought.
“Well, not about Kara specifically. But about you and Kara together. You and any girl.” He was stumbling a bit on this.
Zack rolled his eyes. “Is this some kind of sex talk?” he asked.
Rory remembered when Zack was seven or eight and wanted to know how babies were created. He’d embraced the opportunity to talk with his son on the subject, and he’d been good at it, too, if he did say so himself. But that had been a piece of cake compared to this.
“Well, I just think it’s time we had a man-to-man talk,” Rory said.
“I have a feeling this isn’t going to be man-to-man,” Zack said. He was standing up on the pedals, pumping hard. “More like man-to-boy.”
“Well, enough of the preamble,” Rory said. “I’m just concerned that you and Kara are getting a little too…close. I have nothing against her. I like her.” Rory still didn’t know her well enough to know if he liked her or not. Kara was a closed book, as far as he could tell. “I just wanted to…talk with you a bit about it. I mean, I was your age once, and I know the temptation to go too far.”
“You were fifteen in the Middle Ages,” Zack said. “Things are different now.”
“Oh, they’re not as different as you think. Testosterone hasn’t changed. What it can do to good judgment hasn’t changed.”
“Why don’t you just say it and get it over with?” Zack asked. “Don’t have sex. That’s what you’re getting at. I hear you. You’ve done the counseling thing. Thanks for the talk.” He was speaking loudly. A young woman on the bike next to his glanced in their direction before returning her attention to the book she was reading.
“No, that’s not all I want to say,” Rory lowered his voice. It certainly was his major point, but he knew it was not enough. Like spitting in the wind. He had indeed been fifteen once. “I just want to be sure that if you do end up…having sex, that you use protection.”
“I know all about that, Dad.”
“Well, you can know all about it, and still not use it,” Rory argued. “Think about Shelly. She was an unwanted baby, left to die on the beach. Her mother was probably a kid Kara’s age. If that boy had used protection, that girl wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, and the baby wouldn’t have been abandoned.”
“So, you want me and Kara to break up.”
Rory frowned. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” It took him a moment to realize that Zack was being intentionally obtuse. “I think you know what I’m saying,” he said.
“You and Grace are probably doing it every time I leave the cottage,” Zack provoked him.
“For your information, Grace and I have barely held hands,” he said, as though that noble restraint was his choice. “And besides, Grace and I are adults.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Zack asked.
“You know the answer to that,” Rory said.
Zack stopped pedaling. He lifted the towel from his neck and mopped his face with it. “Look, Dad. You dragged me to stupid North Carolina and I’m just trying to make the best of it, okay?” He got off the bike. “I’m going over to the cardio-kickboxing class. I can walk home. You don’t have to wait for me.”
Rory watched him walk away. Cardio-kickboxing. Zack had gone to the one place in the gym where Rory could never hope to follow him. And he certainly knew it.
After leaving the gym, Rory drove to the cul-de-sac and parked his car in Poll-Rory’s driveway, but didn’t go inside. Linda’s big female golden retriever, Melissa, was waiting for him on his front steps, and he decided to take that as a sign. It was time he picked Linda’s brain about the summer of ’77.
He walked down the cul-de-sac to the cottage nearest the beach road, Melissa at his side. The dog ran up the porch steps ahead of him
, and Rory knocked on the screen door, instantly setting off a cacophony of barking from inside the cottage.
In a moment, a woman with chin-length red hair came to the door. A mass of gold fur swirled around her legs. Four dogs, at least. The woman looked at him just for a second before breaking into a smile.
“Hello, Rory Taylor,” she said.
“Hi…Jackie, is it?”
“That’s right.” She opened the door just enough to reach out and shake his hand, then glanced down at Melissa, who hadn’t budged from his side. “I heard Melissa’s become your little groupie,” she said. “She’s our escape artist, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve been enjoying her company,” he said, scratching the top of Melissa’s head.
“Are you looking for Linda?” Jackie asked.
“If she’s not busy.”
“She’s been expecting you to stop by. I guess you’ve been talking to people who were here back when Shelly Cato was found, huh?”
“I’ll talk to anybody who’s willing to talk to me,” he said.
“Stay there a second.” Jackie disappeared inside the cottage, and in a moment Linda came onto the porch, three bottles of beer clasped between her hands and four dogs at her heels.
“Hey, Rory!” She offered him a broad, white grin. “Let’s go up on the deck.”
He was momentarily taken aback by the sheer force of her reception, although her greeting the day he’d met her on the beach had been equally as exuberant. The quiet, painfully shy girl from years ago no longer appeared to exist.
He followed Jackie and Linda and their large, blond retrievers up the winding wooden stairway to the small deck. Linda handed him one of the beers and motioned for him to sit on the lounge chair. The dogs sniffed and wagged around him, and Melissa rested her head on his thigh.
“So.” Linda leaned forward, elbows on knees, the beer in her right hand. “You’re trying to find out who deserted Shelly on the beach.”
“That’s right,” Rory said. “I know it was a long time ago, but I thought I would see what you remembered.”
“I’ve tried to forget those years, actually,” Linda said, still smiling. “They were kind of rough for me.”
He nodded his understanding. He had gay friends and knew that in many cases, their adolescent years had not been easy. “Well, you seem great now,” he said. “What kind of work are you doing?”
“Besides raising too many dogs? Teaching. Jackie and I both teach at Duke.”
“I’m math,” Jackie said. “Linda’s literature.”
Rory grimaced at the combination. “And you two get along?” he asked.
“Most of the time.” Linda laughed.
“So,” Jackie said, crossing one leg over the other, “tell me what Linda was like when she was a kid.”
Linda laughed again. “We’re not talking about me, Jack. We’re talking about all those rowdy kids who used to live on the cul-de-sac.”
“Rowdy?” Rory asked. “I didn’t think they were anything unusual.”
“That’s because you were one of them,” Linda said. “I was sitting on the sidelines, watching the world go by.”
“Then you’re probably a good one to talk to,” Rory said. “Maybe you can be more objective than anyone else.”
“I bet it was no one we knew,” Linda said. “I mean, I can certainly come up with some ideas for who it might have been, but the truth is, it was summertime and Kill Devil Hills was hoppin’. It could easily have been someone just down for the week. Or even the day.”
“That’s true,” Rory said. “But I’m going to focus on the cul-de-sac for now. I’ll branch out from there.”
“Well, there was always Cindy Trump.” Linda turned to Jackie. “They called her Cindy Tramp.”
“Ah,” Jackie said.
“She was unbelievable, wasn’t she?” Linda asked Rory. “Honest to God. Those boobs. I remember she got them when she was, like, ten, or something. And she wore this bathing suit, this one-piece—she couldn’t have been more than twelve—and when it got wet, it became sort of see-through. You could see her pubic hair through it, which really blew me away back then, ‘cause I was only about nine and barely knew what I was looking at. You could see her nipples and everything.”
Rory had to laugh. He could feel the heat of the memory on the back of his neck. “I’d forgotten about that bathing suit, although I can picture it now that you mention it. It was pink, right?”
“Lavender, I think. Close enough.”
“And I remember the bathing suits she wore later on.”
“God, yes.” Linda groaned, and he knew that she’d had the same visceral reaction to Cindy and her voluptuous body that he’d had. “She’d wear these crocheted bikinis,” Linda said to Jackie. “She was always real tan and she’d go prancing around on the beach leaving males lusting in her wake. And there I was, drooling from behind my book.”
“I never knew, Linda,” Rory said, shaking his head. “Never knew that you and I had so much in common back then.”
Linda laughed.
“Chloe was pretty hot back then, too,” Linda said. “She was…sultry, with that long thick hair and those eyelashes.”
“Sister Chloe?” Jackie asked.
“Oh, yes,” Linda said. “Chloe and her cousin, Ellen. You know Ellen, who comes down every once in a while with her husband? The heavyset woman?”
Jackie nodded.
“Yes, Chloe was hot,” Rory agreed, “but she was always skinny as a rail. Except for….” He let his voice trail off. It felt odd to discuss Chloe’s body with women, and odder still to discuss the body of a nun.
“I know what you mean.” Linda finished the thought for him with a chuckle.
“Well, it sounds to me,” Jackie said, “that it couldn’t have been this Cindy Tramp person if she was always parading around in a bikini. How would she hide her pregnancy?”
“But that’s the thing,” Linda said. “Daria found Shelly right at the beginning of the summer, and the week before had been totally shitty weather. So nobody was parading around in any kind of bathing suit. We were all bundled up that week.” Suddenly, she leaned toward Rory, a serious expression on her face. “Rory,” she said, “I’m afraid to tell you who I really think Shelly’s mother was.”
He frowned. “Why?” he asked. “Who?”
“I always thought it was Polly.” There was an apology in her voice.
“Who was Polly?” Jackie asked.
Rory sat back in his chair, sinking his fingers into the fur on Melissa’s neck. “My sister,” he said. Then to Linda, “Why would you think that?”
“It just seemed logical to me,” Linda said. “I mean, hadn’t you ever considered it?”
“No,” he said vehemently, “not at all.” He looked at Jackie. “My sister had Down’s syndrome.”
“And that’s just it,” Linda said. “It would have been easy for someone to take advantage of Polly, and if she’d gotten pregnant, she might not have had any idea what was happening to her body. She might not have known any better than to try to get rid of the baby.”
Rory smiled tolerantly. “Even Polly would have known how cruel and inhumane that would be,” he said. It disturbed him that Linda would think otherwise.
“Well,” Linda said, sitting back in her chair. “I can assure you it wasn’t me. And if it wasn’t Polly, and if it was someone on the cul-de-sac, then you’d better try to track down Cindy Trump.”
21
FROM THE LIVING-ROOM WINDOW IN HER SMALL APARTMENT above the garage, Grace could see her house. It was after ten in the morning; surely Eddie had gone to the café by now. She was avoiding her husband to the best of her ability. She had to see him when she went into work, of course, but even there, she limited conversation to those words that had to be said to keep the café and shop running smoothly.
She descended the outside apartment stairs and entered the house by the back door. Since moving above the garage, she only went into the house when
she knew Eddie wouldn’t be there, and the house always seemed too still and empty to her. Quiet as a tomb. Today, she had only one quick task to do there, and then she would head up to Kill Devil Hills.
She went upstairs and opened the door to the room she had been avoiding for months. Pamela’s room. It gave her a jolt to see the bare mattress on the bed, the walls stripped of posters and photographs. Eddie must have cleaned out the room, and it angered her that he had not asked her permission. Had he cleaned out her closet, too?
She walked quickly across the room to the closet and slid open one of the doors. Pamela’s clothes were indeed gone, but there were a few boxes of items left on the closet shelf, along with the large glass jar containing the shell collection. Grace reached up to pull the jar into her arms. Its lid was dusty, and she cleaned it off with a swipe of her hand as she walked out into the hallway. Shutting the door behind her, she realized she’d been holding her breath, and she stood still for a moment, trying to breathe normally again.
She was downstairs in the living room, nearly to the front door, when she was startled by the deep, very familiar voice of her husband.
“What are you doing with Pam’s shell collection?” Eddie asked.
She nearly dropped the jar as she turned to face him. “How come you’re not at work?” she asked.
“Sally opened for me,” Eddie said, referring to one of the waitresses. “And I think I’m going to have to hire someone else, too. You’ve been…not too reliable recently.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Where have you been lately, Grace?” he asked. “Why haven’t you been at the café? I don’t mind doing most of the work, but it would help if you could at least let me know when you’re going to be there.”
“I had a number of doctors’ appointments,” Grace lied, and immediately regretted it. A look of worry crossed Eddie’s face as he took a step closer to her, but he seemed to know better than to touch her.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, and her heart betrayed her by filling with love for him. He looked very tired. New gray streaks marbled his dark hair, and there were bags beneath his blue eyes. These past few months had been rough for him, too.
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