“Here’s to Isa’s discharge from the hospital!” Charles cheered as he lifted up the glass of beer – “No bottles in the living room!” his mother had insisted – in his right hand.
“Here! Here!” Charlie and Etta echoed, both raising their glasses of sweet tea. Charlie, while of age to drink, opted not to since Etta wasn’t yet twenty-one.
“Here’s the Derek helping Charles pass his history classes!” Mr. Musgraves sounded.
“Here! Here!” Charles and Mary echoed. Mary lifted her glass of white wine as Charles took another pull from his beer.
“Here’s to Anne and Derek graduating tomorrow!” Mrs. Musgraves added.
“Here! Here!” everybody except for Mary echoed.
Charles, sitting next to his wife, eyed her carefully. He had witnessed her taking a large gulp of wine as everybody else cheered for her sister. Then he watched her top off her glass.
Leaning forward, Sophy Croft asked Anne what her plans were for after graduation.
“Father and Elizabeth want me to join in them at the beach house for a while, but otherwise I’m going to be applying for teaching jobs.”
“What if you get an interview?”
“With any luck, I’ll have enough notice that I can return back here before the interview. It’s only a two-day trip. I don’t like making that drive in one take.”
“Why don’t you fly?”
“I’m not that fond of flying,” she answered Sophy. “I will, when necessary, but if I can get away with taking my car with me, I’d rather have my car than rent one.”
Bitterly, Mary took a swig of her wine. “Why do they even want you there in the first place?”
Turning to look at her sister, Anne kept her expression neutral. “If I knew why they wanted me there I would tell you.” Truthfully, she didn’t have a clue why they wanted her in Florida with them to begin with. She would rather be going to North Carolina with her aunt again, despite what had happened on her last trip to that area.
This time, she mused, she would know more people and made a vow, when she did make it back, that she would go visit the Harvilles. Just because one or two bad things had happened surrounding North Carolina, didn’t mean it overshadowed all of her other experiences in that state.
Mentally, Anne suspected Mary was bitter that Anne would be leaving her alone with her children. Once again Charles was planning on taking summer classes to get caught up thanks to the classes he didn’t get to take thanks to constantly retaking the first American History class.
Mary hadn’t noticed that Anne had been hands-off with the boys during her student teaching placements.
Derek, paying close attention, wondered exactly where this beach house was, but the current situation didn’t allow him to ask.
“Dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Musgraves grinned, hearing the timer in the kitchen that signaled it was time to remove whatever it was she had put in the oven.
Everybody else surged towards the formal dining room as she disappeared into the kitchen.
Derek, leaned forward and pulled Anne back onto the sofa they shared, whispered, “Thankful that you aren’t having to cook tonight?”
“More than you realize,” she whispered back. “Although, truthfully, all I want to do is go back to the house and fall asleep until I have to start getting ready tomorrow.”
“Are your father and sister coming up?”
Shaking her head, Anne ignored the feeling of relief that filled her. “They complained that they would have to stay in a hotel room,” she explained with an eye roll.
“They could have stayed at Kellynch,” Derek pointed out.
“They felt awkward asking Sophy and Bob. Besides,” she started to say while cutting her eyes in his direction, “I don’t think Father would understand that Bob removed so many of the mirrors in the house and stashed them in the guest room.”
“And Elizabeth’s room,” Derek added. “They ran out of room in the guest room.”
“Derek! Anne!” Charles called from the dining room doorway.
“Coming!” Anne answered him. “We better head in. Charles still thinks you are seeing his sister.”
“I swear James is spending more time with Isa than I am.”
Standing up, Anne looked down at where Derek was still sitting down. “I know,” was all she said before leaving him alone.
The only people who weren’t aware of the budding relationship between Isa and James were Charles and Mary, and that’s only because they weren’t paying attention.
Chapter Fifty-One
On Anne’s second day in the beach house, Penelope Clay was overheard asking if she needed to return home.
“I don’t know why,” Elizabeth dismissed her while looking through the new clothes she had just purchased. “Anne doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“But you don’t need me anymore,” Penelope pointed out. “Anne does a much better job grocery shopping and cooking than either of us ever have.”
“But Anne is not my best friend,” Elizabeth interjected. “Father only wants Anne here because Aunt Cassandra is coming down for business and will certainly guilt him over leaving Anne in Tennessee with Mary and her in-laws.”
Shaking her head, Anne moved away from the door, unsurprised by the heedless comments her sister and friend were making. Unfortunately, she was also aware that they were true.
And so, from her commandeered workspace, Anne tapped away at each application she could. Even applications for districts that didn’t have open Art or English teacher positions listed. She didn’t know why she had put off the applications until after graduation. It might have been a combination of procrastination and something else, but she suspected it had more to do with her disappointment over Derek.
There was nothing she could do about it. Everybody else assumed that Derek was Isa’s boyfriend all because he hadn’t put a stop to her advances. Certainly, she could wish he’d developed a bit of a backbone before Isa’s accident, but there was nothing either of them could do about it now.
It was all in Isa’s hands.
And so, Anne filled out application after application in hopes of escaping her family. She slightly felt horrible about it, but she was tired of trying to help bail out a sinking ship. She had no intention of drowning financially all because her father and sisters had no budgeting sense.
And that infuriated her. Elizabeth had the head for finances that the family needed, but she had a spending habit formed by their father keeping their bad habits unchecked.
Loans and mortgages and who knows what else and instead of getting back into practicing law, he goes to Florida and acts as if he has the social standing to hang out with the bigwigs who turned their noses up at his appearances and laughed at him behind his back.
It was like high school all over again, but with people in their fifties and sixties.
And Walter Elliot, as oblivious as he was, didn’t even see that the people he considered important enough for him, were doing to him the exact same things he had done to others at home.
No. Anne was fed up with this behavior and she was getting out. She just had to figure out how.
Admittedly, she wasn’t expecting to be filling out job applications while she was in Florida either. She had, mistakenly, assumed that her family would return to Kellynch Place after the semester was over.
She had mistakenly assumed that her father and older sister would be joining Mary and the Musgraves in the stands for her graduation. Instead, they had demanded her presence at the beach house.
Drawing in a breath, the last person Anne expected to walk through those doors on her third day in Florida was the previously estranged from the family cousin, Will.
Admittedly, the last time she had seen him was that ill-fated Spring Break trip, but she really hadn’t expected to see him in Florida.
“Father,” Elizabeth asked from her place on the sofa. She had chosen the spot in order to block out the table where Anne was working.
; “Yes?”
“Is Will coming by today?”
“I think so,” he answered her, not looking up from the newspaper he had delivered.
“Will?” Anne asked, looking up from her laptop and her third application for the day.
“Will Elliot,” Elizabeth answered. Even though she couldn’t see it, Anne sensed the eye roll that had accompanied her sister’s answer. “Our cousin.”
“Oh,” Anne replied. “I wasn’t aware that we were talking to him again. I wish I had known that during my spring break trip.”
“Why would it have mattered then?”
When she tried to tell her sister and father that she had seen Will during Spring Break her words fell on deaf ears. Frankly, she wasn’t certain why he was hanging around them to begin with.
“But I did see him,” she protested, describing him to the best of her memory.
“Well, we can’t prove or disprove it, can we?” Elizabeth snapped, her finger hitting the channel changing button repeatedly and too quickly for her to keep track of what was appearing on the screen. “There’s nothing on T.V.” she hissed, turning it off in a huff.
“We can always go to the boardwalk,” Penelope suggested.
“And miss Will? I don’t think so!”
Thankfully, after ignoring Elizabeth’s impatient tapping for over twenty minutes, the doorbell sounded.
“Anne,” Elizabeth snapped her fingers, “go answer that.”
“I’m in the middle of something. You go answer it.” She didn’t see any reason to interrupt her job application in order to answer the door for somebody that she didn’t really care if she saw or not. If Elizabeth’s strange crush had returned, then she could answer the door.
Anne refused to admit that despite Will being adopted into the family and not a blood-relative, it was still odd to have a crush on your cousin.
“Anne!” Elizabeth hissed.
“I’m busy,” she snapped. “I need a job in order to pay my student loans back!”
“I’ll get it,” Penelope interrupted, getting up and going to the door.
“You better pay attention to our guest and not spend all of your time on your laptop,” Elizabeth hissed, getting up and moving towards where Anne was situated. She appeared to be considering unplugging the computer from the wall.
“The more time I work on this job application, the less time I’ll be hogging Will’s attention,” Anne pointed out without looking up from where she was typing in her education history into the prompt.
Mentally she was wondering why they had her upload her resume if they were going to ask for the exact same information on the application. What was the point of uploading the required resume if she had to input that information twice?
Entering the room in front of Penelope, Will greeted everybody before turning towards Anne.
Standing up, she held out her hand and said, “Anne Elliot, your extremely busy cousin. I’m filling out job applications,” she explained, nodding towards her laptop.
“You look familiar,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Were you in North Carolina back in March?”
“Yes. We stayed at…” she answered, giving him the name of a well-known mid-budget hotel chain.
“Right!” Will grinned, momentarily stunning her with his charmingly lopsided smile. “We ran into each other in the doorway,” he said. Turning towards the room, he added, “Anne’s suitcase caught on a floor divider and I ran right into her.”
Holding back a smirk, Anne was extremely tempted to tell her sister, ‘I told you so,’ but held it in. Elizabeth’s surprised glance with Penelope was enough.
“I hope your trip went well,” Anne politely replied.
“I had to leave early,” Will told her. Hesitating briefly, he added “I got a call the next morning and needed to head back here. I had a patient that couldn’t wait for my vacation to finish and refused to be seen by one of my associates.”
“That happens,” Anne wisely said, nodding her head as if she knew how it was.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Drawing in a deep breath, Isa took hold of James’ hand. “Charles, Mary, Derek,” she nodded at them. “We have an announcement.”
Derek’s audible intake drew everybody’s attention. They looked back and forth between the obvious couple and Derek before noticing that he was grinning. “Congratulations!” he announced.
His acceptance of this news - news that Isa and James didn’t technically reveal - seemed to spur everybody else into action as they started chattering away with, and at, the new couple.
He never would have paired Isa with James. Even after her accident, they all started noticing she was acting more serious than she had been before the accident. His biggest concern was that James was too old for the nineteen-year-old. He had his own misgivings when Isa was chasing him and they had only a five-year age gap between them. There were only seven years between Isa and James.
Apparently, the Musgraves didn’t have an issue with the age difference when the new couple approached them with their news. Derek shrugged his shoulder in disbelief; if he ever had a daughter, he knew he would have issues with that big of an age difference.
The significance of their announcement didn’t escape him.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“Hey, Derek?” Charles called over the phone. “If you are going down to Florida, Mary wants you to take some boxes to Anne.”
“Why?” he asked, confused. “It’s not as if Anne won’t be back.”
“I know, I know,” Charles replied. “But this box seems to be important and Mary claims Anne wants it shipped down there, but if you are going down there with your sister and her husband, then it’ll be cheaper if you take it.”
“We’re flying,” Derek interjected.
“It’s not a large box. Just come over and check it out. I think you can put it in your carry on. I doubt that Anne actually wants the whole box, just what is in the box.”
“Fine,” Derek sighed. Looking at his half-packed suitcase and carry-on bag, he shook his head. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“You don’t have to rush,” Charles insisted.
Turning towards Etta as he disconnected, Charles gave her the look that he’d been holding back since Etta had made her request. “Now, why did I just lie to Derek?”
Releasing a sigh, Etta admitted to what she had overheard in the car. “I also went into Anne’s room after she left,” she confessed. “There was a sketchbook on her desk.”
“You looked through Anne’s stuff?”
“I always did like looking at her sketches,” Etta stated. “I went up there looking for a skirt. Anne has some of the best skirts, but she never wears them anymore, except for her student teaching placements.” Before Charles could scold her, she added, “I did ask Anne first if I could borrow a skirt. I even kept the text message as proof. She told me I could as long as I cleaned it. So, I went up there and the sketchbook was on her desk and my curiosity got the better of me. I started flipping through it, recognizing scenes from North Carolina, but not the North Carolina we visited. At least not exactly. The boardwalks were the same, but things like beach chairs and houses and other things were off.”
Shaking her head, Etta continued to confess, leading Charles upstairs as she did so. “And then I noticed that there were drawings of Derek. It wasn’t just one or two, but he started appearing on every other page. There were still her usual scenes, but Derek dominated a bulk of those scenes. It went from scenes of families playing on the beach, or beach grass and sand dunes, to Derek on picnic tables and on the boardwalk,” she described as they entered Anne’s room.
Going for the book that she had placed in a box, she opened it up. “See!” she exclaimed, holding up the book. “But the sketches of Derek. They are different,” Etta pointed out, quickly flipping through the book to a certain page. “Like this one. You can tell that she was capturing him during an interesting conversation. You can almost see the breeze ruffling his
hair, his hands in motion as he’s gesturing about something. We’ve seen him doing this as he’s talking about history. But she even got his freckles and his facial expression down to the tiniest detail.”
Taking the book from her hands, Charles studied the image, his brow furrowed. Flipping to the front cover, he nodded his head in resignation. “See the dates. She drew these that summer before our Senior year of high school when she met her long-distance boyfriend.”
“See!” Etta exclaimed, bouncing on her feet. “This confirms my suspicions!”
“But they broke up!” Charles exclaimed. Looking towards the door, he kept waiting for Mary to pop her head in wondering what they were doing.
“You yourself said that Anne was eighteen when Derek proposed. She had just graduated high school and he was being shipped out. They weren’t ready yet.”
Charles, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on him, sighed. “If you are right…”
“I am right,” Etta insisted, interrupting her brother.
“But,” he intercepted, putting the book on top of Anne’s bed and starting to leave the room, “just because they were together once doesn’t mean they want to be now.”
“I think,” she whispered, “they would have already been together if it wasn’t for Isa.”
He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“She kept throwing herself at him. Everybody assumed that they were a couple, even though there was never any official or unofficial announcement. There was no handholding or getting caught kissing anywhere. And then she had her accident and it was just assumed even more. Anne and Derek didn’t have a chance to figure it out and when they started to…”
“Isa was her former impulsive self.”
“Exactly!”
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