The Beach House

by Vicky Jones

  Running over, Lucy fought her way through the crowd of children that had assembled around a boy who’d fallen from halfway up the climbing frame, landing in a heap on the grassy bank next to it. His face was streaming with tears, both hands clutching his knee. Lucy felt faint when she saw it was David.

  “Oh my, now what happened here? Are you OK, sweetie?” Lucy crouched down to roll up David’s pant leg. The wound was smaller than she’d feared, only a tiny graze and, after checking the knee joint was still bending fine, Lucy lifted him up off the ground and brushed the dirt and leaves off his legs. “There, there, all better now. How about we get some ice for that knee? I think I’ve got some cookies left too.” Lucy smiled, hoping that this would stop the tears that were still flowing down David’s bright red face. At the mention of the cookie, he sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his grassy hand.

  Principal Miller, after following Lucy outside, had seen the whole thing. Her face thunderous, she cast a look of pure disappointment at Lucy as she passed her on the way to the medical room with David.

  “My office, ten minutes,” Miller barked.

  By the time Lucy had patched up David and made her way to the principal’s office, Chloe was already at the school and sitting in there with Miller seated at her desk. They both stared at Lucy as she pushed open the door. Before she could say hello, David rushed past and into his mother’s arms.

  Chloe caught him and sat him on her knee. Her face hardened as she looked back at Lucy. “So as I was saying, Principal Miller, I’m not at all happy my son wasn’t supervised. He could have been seriously hurt.”

  Miller laughed nervously. “I’m sincerely sorry this happened, Mrs. Clark. You can be sure I will be treating this matter with the utmost care. Lucy, would you like to explain what happened today to Mrs. Clark?”

  Lucy struggled to find her voice. Moments later, the tension between them was broken by David tugging on his mother’s sleeve.

  “Momma, it’s OK, my leg don’t hurt that much now. Miss Adamson put something cold on it. It’s all better now. And I got a cookie. Can we have macaroni and cheese tonight?”

  Chloe gave a tight smile to Miller and lowered her lips to David’s head, breathing in the scent from his hair. “Of course we can, baby. You sure your leg’s OK?”

  David nodded and jumped down. He walked over to Lucy and held his hand out to shake hers. “Thank you, Miss, for looking after me.”

  Lucy blushed and shook David’s hand. “You’re welcome.”

  Chloe glared back at Principal Miller. “I want something done about this.” She took David’s hand, almost dragging him away. The look she gave Lucy as she passed could have killed her stone dead.

  “Sit down, Lucy. We need to talk,” Miller instructed after Chloe had closed the door behind her.

  Lillian Adamson laid a tray loaded with a coffee pot and two cups on the table between her cream leather couch and the armchair Lucy had sunk into after returning home from work.

  “So, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or do I have to keep asking?” her mother began. She poured them both a cup of strong black coffee and dropped two cubes of sugar in her own.

  “Nothing’s bothering me. Just tired from work, that’s all,” Lucy replied, stirring her coffee. She sat back in her armchair, her eyes glazed.

  “Well, there’s obviously something on your mind. You’ve had that look on your face for over a week now. Is the job not going OK?”

  “It’s going fine, mother. Please stop asking.”

  Lillian rolled her eyes, then offered Lucy a sympathetic smile. “I know what it is. You’re missing Ray, aren’t you?” She reached over to tap her daughter’s hand. “Are you regretting splitting up with him, honey?”

  Lucy shook her head. “He was a loser, mom. I’m happy to be rid of him.”

  “He was a lawyer, darling. He had really good prospects. Oh, I know he wasn’t the most tender of men, but you can’t have it all. You can’t be single all your life, Lucy. You’re almost thirty years old. Time you got yourself a husband.” She sipped her coffee. “I got a call from Margaret Miller today.”

  Lucy looked up. “What? Why, what did she tell you?” The hand holding her coffee cup began to shake.

  “She said you hadn’t been concentrating on your job lately. She’s worried about you. As am I. Margaret and I go way back, what did you expect? Are you mixed up in some kind of trouble, Lucy?”

  “Mom, please. Just leave it, OK? There’s nothing wrong.” She let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I’m gonna go to bed, I think. My head hurts.”

  Lillian looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s only six o’clock. I’ve got dinner in the oven.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Lucy called over her shoulder as she disappeared up the stairs to her room.

  Chapter 35

  Shona had been twisting her wrench around a stubborn bolt for the last five minutes until it finally loosened, but in the process, she lost her grip, dropping it to the concrete.

  “Damn it, that’s gonna be hard to reach.” She wriggled underneath the truck, reaching out to grab the fallen wrench which was now only millimeters from her grasp. “Come on, nearly…” Placing the very tips of her fingers on the leather grip she at last got a good hold on it. She was about to slide out when something in the corner of her eye made her turn her head. A pair of white pumps had appeared, just about visible between the truck’s front two wheels. Face down, Shona pushed her arms against the concrete to move her body backwards and out from underneath the truck. Now sitting on her haunches, she looked up at her customer. Her expression darkened immediately.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” The wrench weighed in Shona’s clenched hand as she spoke.

  The hard swallow in Lucy’s throat was clearly visible.

  “I don’t want you here. Get out,” Shona continued. Her face creased into the most disgusted look Lucy had ever seen. It pained her like a slice through the heart.

  “I came… I came to…” Lucy stuttered, then licked her dry lips and tried again after clearing her throat a few times. “I needed to come over here. I never expected to see you again. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to explain to you about what happened that night.”

  “And you won’t never get too neither,” Shona interjected. “Get the fuck off my property or by God I’ll…” She stepped forward, her face reddening with eight years of pent-up confusion and anger.

  Lucy took a step back and looked down at her white pumps. “Shona, I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I would be too. But please, you gotta let me explain. Please.”

  Shona curled her lip and walked back to her tool chest at the far corner of the garage.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you hear me out,” Lucy continued, walking over.

  Shona spun around to face Lucy, her eyes glassy.

  “Why? Why are you here? In the one place I’m finally in. And happy. Goddamn it, I’ve finally got everything I could ever want after all those years of fighting, hurting, being attacked for who I was.” She wiped her face with the back of her oily hand and pointed her wrench in Lucy’s face. “All those months we spent together back in Mississippi, me trying to be your friend and save you from that asshole boyfriend of yours. You doing all those disgusting things for money and still, there I was, believing in you. Then, when I finally think I’ve made a friend, one I could trust, you think it’d be sport to lead me on, didn’t you? Thought it’d be a real big tickle to try and catch me out so you could tell the rest of the town what a dirty pervert I was. Is that about right?”

  “No, of course not. That’s not how it was, Shona. All those months we were friends, how could you not see how I felt about you? I was falling for you.” Lucy’s own tears were rolling down her cheeks now, but her voice was dripping with frustration at how Shona had remembered that night.

  “What? Are you crazy? You liked me? You had a boyfriend! You were a fucking prostitute, Lucy. All thos
e men that you were with every night, and now you tell me it was me you were wanting? And I’m supposed to buy that crap?”

  “Yes,” Lucy whispered. “I came over that night to Dorothy’s house to tell you how I felt about you. I hadn’t told a soul I was going over there. I didn’t want Frank to know, let alone anyone else. When we sat on the couch together, oh my, the feeling in my stomach, it was like I had a million fireflies in there. All I wanted to do was tell you I was in love with you, Shona.” Lucy shrugged. “I’d fallen for you. And all I wanted to do in that moment was kiss you. I was praying you’d kiss me back and tell me you felt the same. Oh Shona, there were so many times we spent together when I was sure you would if I ever made the first move. So that’s what I did.” She walked up to Shona and grasped her wrists. “I swear on everything I hold dear, I never arranged for Chuck and his friends to be there. Chuck was a creep who followed me everywhere. I would never want you hurt, not in a million years.”

  Shona ripped her wrists away. “Then why did you say what you said?” Her eyes blazed raw anguish.

  “What?” Lucy replied.

  “You said, ‘I knew you was one of those screw-ups,’ when Chuck burst into the house. If you didn’t set it all up, then why did you say that if you weren’t expecting him?”

  Lucy covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh my God, Shona, I saw him there and I thought he’d tell Frank and then the whole town would know if I had kissed you. I wimped out.” Her eyes filled with shame. “I had to make it look like you were forcing yourself on me.”

  “You just left me there. They could have killed me, and you just saved your own skin. And you say you were in love with me?”

  “Shona, I’m so sorry. I was so scared. He was obsessed with me. He said so to the judge at his trial. I read it in the paper afterwards. He was so angry that I wanted you, and not him, so he took it out on you. Afterwards he never got the chance to get to me because that next morning I called home and my parents came to pick me up. That car ride back here was the longest of my life, Shona. How could I ever explain to them what had happened to me? To you? I hated myself for what I did, Shona. I still do.”

  “And so you should,” Shona spat back. “You called me a ‘screw-up.’ That’s the one thing I can’t forget hearing. I don’t remember a lot that happened, he hit me so hard, but I remember what you said so clearly.” Shona paced the floor rubbing her head. “Then his friends began kicking me. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital with Dorothy telling me what she’d found when she got down the stairs.” Shona paused and sat down on a stool by her workbench. “Dorothy said she saw Chuck and his friends running out of the house leaving me on the floor in a bad way. Then minutes later a doctor came round.”

  Lucy’s face brightened. “That was me who told him to come over. I had to do something.”

  “You got the doctor?” Shona’s face turned deathly pale.

  Lucy walked back over and kneeled in front of her. Clasping her hands around her face, she wiped Shona’s tears away with her thumbs. “I loved you. From the first moment I saw you,” she laughed, “in a garage pretty similar to here. Heck, I even look the same now as I did that day.” Lucy tugged at her lemon yellow summer dress tied at the waist by a thin white belt. “Talk about déjà vu.” She wiped her cheek with the cuff of her white cotton cardigan. Shona looked down to her boots and sniffed. Lucy lowered her hands and sat back on her heels. “I think about you often, you know.”

  “I think about you too,” Shona replied. Lucy’s eyes brightened. “Every time the cold hurts my ribs, I remember you.”

  Lucy fought back the tears. “I am truly sorry, Shona. I would do anything to take that night back. Well, just the way it ended, I mean.”

  Their eyes locked for a second before Lucy moved her face closer to Shona’s. At the last second, Shona pulled away and stood up, her hands on her hips. “No. You can’t just walk in here and start doing things like that, Lucy. It’s not fair.”

  Lucy stood up. “Because you’re with that Chloe now?”

  “Yes. I am. You got that? I just want to live quietly with no drama. This town has finally backed off and left us alone after so many years of trying to catch us out. I don’t need this in my life now, Lucy. I don’t want this.” She leaned back against the inside of the garage doors, the cool breeze from outside bristling over her hot face.

  “Oh yeah?” Lucy replied, stung by the rejection. “And what do you think people in this town will say when they find out that you two aren’t actually sisters or whatever it is you say you are? Things may have moved on since back then in Mississippi, Shona, but if there’s one thing this town hates more than homosexuals, it’s liars.”

  Shona let out a mirthless laugh. “And what do you think those same people will say when they find out you’ve slept with half of Mississippi? For money.” She fixed Lucy with a stare as hard as the one Lucy was aiming back over to her. “What would your boss Miller think, huh? So don’t talk to me about being judged.”

  Lucy stared at the ground. “I’m sorry, Shona. You’re right.” Looking up, she walked over to the garage doors and reached down for Shona’s hand and squeezed it gently before leaving.

  “I’m going out tonight, Mother, don’t wait up,” Lucy called up to the bedroom from the hallway downstairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna try that new bar over in Sunnybrook. Bertie’s, it’s called.”

  “Bar?” Lillian Adamson’s head shot around the top banister, her eyebrows arched.

  “Yes, Mother. We’ve had this conversation, remember?”

  “Yes, but why there? I’ve heard about that place. It attracts a certain kind, so I’m told.”

  “For God’s sake, mother, there’s nothing wrong with that place. It’s just Marjory from the country club filling your head with rumors.”

  “They had a riot in that town, trashed the place. Most of the reprobates involved came from that bar. ‘All those queers causing trouble for law-abiding folk,’ that’s what Marjory’s husband said. And he should know.”

  “Mother, it was women from San Francisco who did most of the damage. Didn’t you read it in the paper? They were celebrating. And you know what? I’m on their side. You can hardly blame people for fighting back. It’s how they’re treated, mother. People like Marjory and her husband are nothing but gossip mongers and bullies,” Lucy replied with a tired sigh.

  “They should think themselves lucky we allow them to live among us. In my day they would have been run out of town without even a right of reply. Or worse still, strung up.”

  Lucy looked up at her mother. “Can I go now?”

  Lillian paused, then nodded her permission. “Put a cardigan on over that dress, at least. It’s way too low-cut for a lady. What if someone from school sees you?”

  “Mother, it’s fine,” Lucy replied, rolling her eyes. She smoothed down the straps on her best red and black cocktail dress but, feeling the weight of her mother’s disapproving stare, took a red silk scarf from the coat stand and wrapped it around her neck. Pausing to model it to her mother, she reached down to pick up her purse and slammed the door behind her.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie? You’ve been quiet since you came home from work.” Chloe put her fork down on her plate and lay a hand on Shona’s dropped shoulder.

  “Huh?” Shona replied, looking up from her plate. Her chin was still resting on her palm. “Oh, nothing. I just had a long day. Say, do you mind if I go out for a little bit? I just need to clear my head of a few things.”

  Chloe, tired from her own long day and not really wanting to spend the evening alone as well, nodded. “Sure. I know you need that sometimes.”

  Shona got up from her seat and kissed Chloe on the forehead. “I won’t be late, I just… You know?”

  “I know,” Chloe whispered back as Shona headed into the bedroom to change her shirt.

  A few minutes later she reappeared, hair combed and wearing a green and blac
k checked button-down shirt and turn-up blue jeans.

  “You look real nice there,” Chloe said with a tinge of sadness. “I thought you were just going out for a drive or something?”

  “I thought I’d go see some of the girls down at Bertie’s. I ain’t been for a while so…”

  “Should I be worried?” Chloe replied after an awkward few seconds.

  “Ain’t nothing you gotta worry about. I won’t be late.”

  “Who is that?” Dee whispered in Bertie’s ear as she cast her glance across the bar to Lucy who’d been sitting in a booth in the corner for the last half an hour. “I’ve seen her before. She’s kinda nice, don’t you think?”

  Bertie looked up and grunted. “Yeah, good luck with that one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I get the feeling she’s waiting for someone.”

  “Well, I’m sure my apple butter can take her mind off that,” Dee winked and stole two whiskey sours from Bertie’s drink order, then made her way over to Lucy. “Hi, I’m Dee. Anybody sitting here?” Dee placed the drinks down on the table and sat down.

  Lucy dragged her gaze away from the entrance to the bar. “Umm…no, I guess not. You work here?”

  “Sometimes. You, umm…with anyone?” Dee said, looking around.

  “No, but I’m kinda wanting a little space tonight.” Lucy winced as she smiled. “Sorry. Is that OK?”

  Dee tried to be as nonchalant as possible as she rose to her feet. “Sure, don’t sweat it, girl. Just being friendly.” She took one of the drinks and sidled back over to the bar where Bertie was attempting, unsuccessfully, to stifle a grin. “Yeah, well, at least I had the balls to try, Bert.”

  “Plenny more fish in the sea, girl.”

  “Yeah, but she’s a hot one alright. Clearly there’s someone else on her mind, though,” Dee added, noticing that every time the door opened, Lucy craned her neck to see who it was. Male or female, Lucy’s hopeful expression saddened more each time.