The Summer Retreat

by Sheila Roberts

  “Daddy made a mistake.” Daddy was a shit.

  “He could change.”

  If he had a lobotomy. Jenna reached over and hugged her daughter. “Honey, your dad and I—we’ve both moved on.” A tear leaked out Sabrina’s eye and Jenna wiped it away. “I know that’s hard for you. I’m sorry you’re getting shuffled back and forth all the time. I’m sorry we’re not together as a family anymore. But too much has happened between your father and me for us to be able to build the kind of relationship we once had. The good news is that we both love you and we always will.”

  “If you stopped loving each other...” Sabrina bit her cheek and looked at the floor.

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Jenna knew what she was thinking. “That doesn’t mean we’ll ever stop loving you. Parent love is totally different from grown-up love. It stays forever.” She kissed the top of Sabrina’s head. “So let’s keep on the way we are and think of the times you get to see Daddy and your grandparents as vacations.”

  “I wish I’d had vacations that many times when I was your age,” Celeste said. She handed a carton of ice cream to Sabrina. “Open.”

  Sabrina obliged and almost managed a smile as Jenna put an arm around her.

  “You have so many people who love you, it’s ridiculous,” Celeste told her. “They just happen to live all over the place.”

  Sabrina nodded to indicate the message had been received. Reluctantly, but received all the same.

  The microwave dinged. “Okay,” Celeste said. “Popcorn time!”

  Jenna handed the tray of goodies to her daughter. “Why don’t you take these out to Aunt Edie. She’s probably thinking we all died in here.”

  Sabrina nodded and left the room, and Jenna let out a breath.

  “You handled that well,” Celeste said as she returned to making their root beer floats.

  “I tried.” Jenna got the popcorn from the microwave and put it in a bowl.

  “What do you think really happened with Damien and Aurora?”

  “Who knows? Maybe she was hoping for something more serious than what they had.”

  “Or maybe she got tired of living in his parents’ basement,” said Celeste with a grin. “She probably found somebody else with money. Of his own,” she added with a sneer.

  “I wish he’d find somebody with money,” Jenna said.

  Celeste rolled her eyes. “He did. You.”

  “Someone with more money than me. Wouldn’t that be nice? He could have his own personal patron of the arts.”

  Sabrina came back into the kitchen to fetch the floats, and that ended the conversation. Which was fine with Jenna. Damien had taken enough from her. Was still taking from her. She wasn’t about to let him steal her good mood.

  “Come on, gang,” she said and picked up the popcorn. “Let’s go watch a movie.”

  They all settled on the couch and Celeste started Ocean’s Eight.

  There was a time when Jenna would’ve sat stewing over her ex-husband’s antics, unable to enjoy herself. That time was not now or ever again. She sprinkled a handful of chocolate-covered raisins on her popcorn and settled in to enjoy the movie.

  Chapter Eight

  “Please, no,” she pleaded.

  As if begging would make a difference. As if he could stop what he’d started. She’d asked for this and now it had to play out. He looked at the knife, so sharp. Then he looked at her and said...

  “Housekeeping.”

  Henry blinked. “What?”

  “Housekeeping. I’m changing that bed today whether you want it or not.” The door opened and in walked Clam Girl, clean sheets in her arms.

  “I’m right in the middle of something here.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “Now, come on. Move your something over to the desk while I change the sheets. It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

  Henry scowled at her. “I can’t believe your timing.”

  “Did I save someone from being murdered?”

  “No. The murder will happen,” he said, relocating to the desk.

  “That’s so creepy,” she muttered.

  “It’s fiction. It’s not real.”

  “But just thinking about it.” She shuddered as she yanked back the bedspread. “I don’t know how you can sleep at night with all those gory images in your brain.”

  He slept just fine, thank you. She walked to the bed to pull off the top sheet and he caught a whiff of perfume. Who wore perfume to clean rooms? She leaned over and yanked off the sheet from the other side of the bed. The woman had a cute ass.

  Never mind her ass, he told himself and turned back to his laptop.

  Now she was humming.

  “Do you have to do that?” he snapped.

  She straightened and looked at him, brows knit. “Do what?”

  “Hum.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She stopped humming and got back to work.

  But a moment later she was doing it again, and it sounded a lot like “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Good grief. How was he supposed to write something serious and suspenseful when the maid was in his room, humming pop songs?

  “Look, what’s your name?”

  “Celeste,” she said. “Celeste Jones. My sister owns this place.”

  So her sister had felt sorry for her and given her a job?

  “Celeste. I’m trying to write here. I can’t write with you making noise.”

  “Oh. I was doing it again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry. I get a song stuck in my head.” She yanked off the last sheet and rolled it up.

  He slammed the laptop shut. “I can’t work with you in here humming.”

  “I’ll only be another minute,” she promised.

  “Never mind. Take as long as you want,” he said irritably. He picked up his laptop and marched out of the room. He’d go sit on a log somewhere and work.

  Even after he found a log to lean against and had nothing but the gentle whoosh of the waves to listen to he couldn’t recapture the mood. He wanted to write about his killer slashing and bashing, and all he could think of was Celeste Jones, the maid with the perky, round posterior. And those spectacular lips. What would it feel like to kiss her?

  It would feel great, of course. But the Henrys of this world weren’t meant to have the Celestes. Celestes went for sports pros, actors, rich dudes.

  Hey, he wasn’t poor. So what if he didn’t drive a Lexus or own a house in some exclusive Seattle neighborhood like the Highlands. Someday, once he made it big, he could. If he wanted to. Not that he wanted to. The world was full of greedy bastards and pretentious shits. He didn’t need to join that club. His Jeep was paid off, he had stock in his former company, which was doing just fine, and he had money in the bank. And he was perfectly happy with his houseboat.

  But no dog. No woman.

  He shut the laptop and sat watching the waves. A gull soared past, coasting on the wind. The sky was cerulean, the air clean. The sound of the waves washed over him like a caress. He wished he wasn’t sitting here on the beach alone. Did Celeste Jones have a man in her life?

  Who cared? You’re not her type. Remember? And she wasn’t his.

  Not that he was sure what his type was anymore. When he was younger, someone who was simply breathing was his type. Then he started watching reruns of Friends and decided he wanted a girl like Jennifer Aniston, someone cute and bubbly. Yes, he liked bubbly, outgoing women, women who had the kind of social confidence he lacked. Nikki had been outgoing and bubbly.

  He frowned. No, that wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted now.

  Yes, it was. He wanted someone who was easy to be with, someone who could pull him out of himself once in a while.

  Not that he didn’t love that interior world of imagination, but he also wanted to live in the real wor
ld, have sex with a real woman, have someone to talk to besides himself.

  “You’re deep, Henry,” his mom used to tell him. “You need a woman who can appreciate that.”

  “Your mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” his father would say. “You need to be out there living. Find a woman who’ll make you go and do things.”

  “You just need to get laid,” said his big brother, Joe.

  Nikki had come along, and she’d been that woman, the one who’d made him feel he was really living, the one who had appeared to appreciate his so-called depth. And as far as getting laid went, that had been stellar. She’d ticked off all the boxes. She was The One. Or so he’d thought. Turned out he’d thought wrong.

  As far as his mom was concerned, Nikki’s departure proved her point. He needed a woman who understood his mind, his artist’s soul.

  Wasn’t there a woman out there somewhere who could understand the call of a good book and be a Jennifer Aniston, too? Someone who appreciated both imaginary and real worlds, who could put a foot in both?

  Celeste the maid, the happy clam girl.

  No. Even though he wasn’t sure anymore what his type of woman was, one thing he did know. She wasn’t it. She was Nikki the Second. Nikki the First had been enough.

  He forced his attention back to his work in progress, his masterpiece of mayhem. The real plus about being a writer was that you could control everything that happened in the story. You were the master of that universe. Unlike real life, where nothing went according to plan.

  This was his killer’s first big scene, what he’d been leading up to for so many pages. He was going to relish every moment, every word, every syllable.

  An hour later Henry had one paragraph to show for his efforts and he wasn’t convinced that it was very good. The muse, unfaithful bitch that she was, had deserted him.

  There was one cure for that—barbecue potato chips. He’d have to make a run to the store.

  * * *

  “Can I drive?” Sabrina asked as they walked to Celeste’s car. Sabrina had her afternoon driver’s ed class and Celeste was chauffeuring her. “I have to get in more driving time,” she added.

  Jenna hadn’t officially given Celeste a thumbs-up for riding with Sabrina, but really, what did it matter? What could happen between Moonlight Harbor and the Safety First Driving School in Quinault anyway?

  “Okay,” she said and handed over the keys.

  They eased out of the parking lot and Sabrina turned onto Harbor Boulevard like a pro. As they tooled down the road, Celeste didn’t even have to remind her to keep to the speed limit.

  She was doing well with her driving; so well Celeste felt she could take her eyes off the road long enough to find some music on the radio.

  “Oh, here, we can use Spotify,” Sabrina said, reaching for her purse, which was between them. “We can get it from my phone.”

  “I’ll do it,” Celeste said. “You just watch—” the deer strolling onto Harbor Boulevard. Aaack! “Deer!” she cried and jerked the steering wheel to the left, into the other lane going in the same direction.

  “Car!” Sabrina shrieked.

  Too late. They bounced off the car in that lane like bumper cars in Nora’s funplex. This wasn’t fun, though. The deer bounded away, unhurt, and a shaken Sabrina pulled off to the side of the road, the other car right behind them.

  “Oh, no, it’s Mrs. Frank,” Sabrina said, panicked.

  Why wasn’t Susan Frank at her shop anyway? Oh, yeah. It was Monday. Since weekends were prime tourist business days, a lot of the shop owners closed on Mondays. Still, shouldn’t Susan have been in her subpar clothing shop, making up for the time she’d spent playing hooky on the beach?

  “Mom’s gonna kill me,” Sabrina whimpered.

  “Let me handle it,” Celeste said.

  The poor kid was white as a seagull’s feather and looking as if their car had been surrounded by cannibals. She nodded, eager to have someone take control.

  Celeste got out of the car to find Susan Frank already out of hers and marching toward them. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a Jeep across the grassy median, pulling over on the side of the road. Good. If Susan took a swing at her, she’d have a witness.

  Except... Wait a minute. She’d seen that Jeep in the Driftwood Inn parking lot, right in front of room twelve. Great. The terror of room twelve would have some rude remark about this the next time she saw him.

  Now was not the time to think about him. Celeste stepped around her car and headed Susan off, asking, “Are you okay?”

  “Hardly! I think I’ve got whiplash. And it’s a wonder I didn’t have a heart attack with you two coming over in my lane like that.”

  “We had to swerve to avoid the deer,” Celeste said.

  “You should have hit the deer. You could have killed me!”

  Susan Frank was like a zombie, impossible to kill. She had her cell phone in hand and began punching in numbers. “I’m calling the police.”

  For just scraping her car? “We could settle this by exchanging insurance information,” Celeste said. Oh, boy. Jenna was going to blow a gasket. Celeste had a sudden vision of the famous painting The Scream. That would be her sister. At least they hadn’t been in Jenna’s car.

  “I think not,” Susan said firmly. “You should always call the police when there’s been an accident.” Someone had answered her call and she went into Drama Queen mode. “This is Susan Frank. Someone ran into me on Harbor Boulevard and we need a policeman here right away. Injured?” She shot a glance in Celeste’s direction and had the grace to look sheepish. “I probably am,” she said, lowering her voice as she walked back to her own car. “And my car has a terrible scratch on it.”

  Yes, a real police emergency. Celeste returned to her niece to find her crying.

  “I almost hit a deer,” Sabrina wailed.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t.”

  “And now Mrs. Frank is mad and Mom’s gonna be really mad.”

  “It was an accident,” Celeste told her. “Accidents happen, even to people who’ve been driving a long time.” That didn’t stop Sabrina from crying.

  Celeste wanted to cry herself.

  Here came the patrol car, and behind the wheel sat Victor King.

  Okay, they were line dancing buddies now. Maybe he’d let her and Sabrina off with a warning, tell Susan not to make such a big deal of this.

  He was hardly out of his patrol car before Susan had him cornered and was launching into her tirade. “They drove right into my lane and sideswiped me,” she said, pointing to Celeste as she hurried over. “You need to give that child a ticket.”

  “She’s only learning,” Celeste argued. “And we swerved to avoid a deer.”

  “She swerved into me!”

  “Ladies, I need you both to get back in your vehicles,” Victor said sternly.

  So much for being friendly line dance buddies.

  “Are you going to give them a ticket?” Susan demanded.

  “Ma’am, I need you in your vehicle. Now,” he said in a tone of voice that made Celeste blink.

  Susan’s head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. “Well,” she huffed. But she obeyed.

  So did Celeste. Where was the friendly, blushing Victor King who’d helped her with her dance steps the night before?

  At the driver’s window, talking to Sabrina. “I need to see your driving permit,” he said to her, and now his voice was gentler.

  Still sobbing, she handed it over. “Are you going to take it away?”

  “No. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to ticket you for inattention to driving. You were clearly at fault.”

  “What about the deer?” Celeste protested.

  He shook his head. “She hit a car.”

  “But I’m the one who grabbed the steering wh
eel,” Celeste said.

  Victor King pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Celeste pressed her point. “It really wasn’t her fault. Isn’t this sort of thing up to the discretion of the officer?”

  Susan Frank was back. “I hope you’re going to give this girl a ticket, Officer.”

  “Ma’am, for the last time, I need you to get in your vehicle.”

  “We have to exchange insurance information,” Susan insisted. “And yours deserves to go up,” she said to Celeste, which made Sabrina cry all the harder.

  “Ma’am, I’m not going to tell you again,” Victor said.

  His stern tone of voice was enough to scare Sabrina. Susan merely sniffed. “Fine,” she said and marched back to her car. “But don’t you be letting them off just because they’re cute or I’ll be talking with the police chief,” she called over her shoulder.

  The muscles in Victor’s jaw twitched. Sabrina continued to sob, and Celeste wished she’d never allowed her behind the wheel. To cap off the whole experience, here came Henry Gilbert.

  He introduced himself to Victor, then said, “I saw the accident. Do you need a witness?”

  “What did you see?” Victor asked.

  “I saw a deer jump in front of the Prius. They swerved and scraped the side of the Toyota, which was close to being over the line.”

  Victor nodded and made notes. “Can I get your name and address, sir?”

  Sir Galahad, thought Celeste gratefully.

  Victor took Henry’s contact information, thanked him and sent him on his way. Then he walked along the road, measuring and making more notes. After he’d gathered the information he needed, he handed Sabrina an official warning, had a talk with Susan, which left her red-faced and huffing, made sure both drivers had each other’s insurance information and then he, too, went on his way.

  And Celeste drove Sabrina to her driver’s education class. She was almost as shaken as her niece and wound up going ten miles under the speed limit.

  It wasn’t easy telling Jenna about what had happened when Celeste returned to the Driftwood.

  Jenna’s nervous tic surfaced and her right eye began to blink. “How could she not see a deer? I keep telling her she has to pay attention.”