“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked, lighting the candles that sat on the outdoor table. Mrs. B had decided to hold tonight’s game out on the back patio, which was something she reserved for special occasions.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. B assured me.
She’d regaled me with many tales of her friends’ weekly mahjong games. They were sacred. Almost like the female version of the Masons, or at least that was the impression I’d gotten. No outsiders were ever permitted.
They’d started playing when they were teenagers because they thought it was a mature game. They also used to sneak alcohol from their parents’ liquor cabinets and drink. As I watched Mrs. B shake up a beverage that had a lot more alcohol in it than spritzer, I saw that some things hadn’t changed.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Intrude? Pshh. The girls have to meet my girl.” Mrs. B set down the shaker and cupped my cheek. “I’ve told them all about you, my special girl.”
It was strange to admit as a twenty-five-year-old, but I’d never felt like I was special to anyone except Mrs. B. My mother had been so depressed, I never felt like I was special to her. And I honestly didn’t think my father even liked me.
“Really?” I felt myself tearing up.
“Of course I did!” She pulled me into her arms and when tears began to fall down my cheek, she rubbed my back like she used to when I was little. “Oh sweetie, it’s okay. I know.”
I hugged her tightly for a moment, but then pulled away and wiped my eyes. I didn’t want to be crying when the mahjong ladies arrived. How could I explain to them that I was crying because the only person I’d ever been special to was a woman who’d been paid to take care of me?
Mrs. B handed me a tissue that she’d magically had in her pocket. I used to think that her pockets were like Mary Poppins’ purse, holding endless possibilities and all sorts of wonders.
“What are these tears about?” She gave me “the look,” the one that told me she meant business.
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
“Sit down.”
I did as she instructed, lowering down onto one of the patio chairs. She took a seat across from me, reached out, and cradled my hands in hers.
“Listen here. Your momma loved you. She did. She just didn’t know how to deal with the cards she’d been dealt. She was a young woman who had a young child and she was terrified. She was scared of getting too close to you. She thought it would be better, for you, if you didn’t get too attached.”
I’d never discussed how my mother felt about me with anyone except a therapist—ironically, another person who’d been paid to care for me. But I took what he’d said with a grain of salt because, never having met my mother, he could obviously only hypothesize on what may have caused her emotional absence. It was strange, talking about her with someone who’d actually known her. “She said that?”
“She did.” Mrs. B’s chin dipped in a nod. “I did my best to get her to see things differently, but I think her heart condition wasn’t the only battle she was fighting.”
“You mean the depression?”
“Well, now, I don’t know if she was ever formally diagnosed, but I don’t see how it could’ve been anything else.”
It was liberating being able to speak openly with someone who had firsthand knowledge of what I’d been through with my mother. But before I could ask anything more, though, voices came from inside the boarding house.
“Yoo-hoo!”
“Hello!”
“Anyone home?”
“Out here!” Mrs. B shouted as she stood and began filling drinks again.
Within seconds there was a flurry of activity—colorful scarves flying, people hugging, and lots of very loud talking. Apparently, the mahjong crowd was not a quiet one.
Mrs. B introduced me to Caroline Shaw, Anna May Birch, and Sonja Rojas as, “her girl.”
“Isabella,” I clarified with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” I offered my hand but was pulled into a four-way hug.
It was all a little overwhelming, but I had to admit, it felt nice to be so easily accepted.
“Look at this hair.” Miss Shaw ran her fingers through my ponytail. “So thick and healthy.”
“Caroline owns a beauty salon,” Mrs. Birch interjected. “Pretty in Peach, right down on the dock. Beautiful location.”
“It used to be the only beauty salon on the island before those damn Montgomerys paid for their little girl to play hairdresser,” Miss Shaw shot back.
“The Montgomerys opened The Beauty Mark for their daughter Kendra after she was scandalized for promoting a diet pill that turned out to cause organ failure,” Mrs. Rojas explained, her tone hushed despite the twinkle in her eye at delivering the dramatic news.
I just smiled, not sure how to respond. My eyes shot to Mrs. B, hoping for a lifeline. I simply didn’t do well meeting new people, no matter how friendly and accepting they were.
“Be right back, I’m gonna go check on the pigs in a blanket!” Mrs. B called out, heading inside.
It looked like I was on my own.
“I can’t believe you’re really here. In the flesh!” Mrs. Birch exclaimed.
“Vera’s been telling us about you for years,” Miss Shaw added.
Vera?
Oh, she was talking about Mrs. B. It just dawned on me I’d never known Mrs. B’s first name. What did that say about me as a person? Who doesn’t know someone’s first name when that person was such a huge part of their life?
Apparently, moi.
Mrs. Rojas adjusted her black rimmed glasses as she looked me up and down. “We were beginning to think that you weren’t real.”
“I’m real.” It was the only response that came to mind.
“Well, I’m just sorry it took a health scare to get you here.” Miss Shaw took off her shawl and placed it on the back of one of the chairs.
The other two women stared at her in horror.
“Caroline,” Mrs. Birch whispered between clenched teeth, her smile still firmly in place. “Didn’t you read the text?”
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Mrs. Birch might be speaking like that because she thought I couldn’t hear her if her lips weren’t moving. Sort of a secret-telling twist on ventriloquism?
“What text?” Miss Shaw asked.
Neither Mrs. Rojas or Mrs. Birch answered, they just continued staring sugar-coated daggers at her.
“Well, if you won’t tell me, I’ll just look for myself.” Miss Shaw pulled a phone and reading glasses out of what I could only assume was her knitting bag, as it had the words, “I Knit Shit,” emblazoned in bold lettering across it.
She put the phone up to her face then moved it away, before bringing it back about half the distance. As she read, her brows furrowed but then her face relaxed and her lips made an O shape. “Ohhhhhh…I see.”
That was it. No other explanation. She put both the glasses and the phone in her bag.
Before my “health scare,” I would have politely sat and let that entire scene go by without comment. But that wasn’t me anymore. “See what?”
“Nothing.” Mrs. Birch answered, the words coming out as a high-pitched squeak.
My eyes bounced between all three women until one of them spoke.
“It was a message from Vera.” Mrs. Rojas leaned forward and patted my hand. “She didn’t want us mentioning…you know.”
“My diagnosis.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Hey, the way I see it, everyone’s dying. My Albert was told he had six months, and that stubborn SOB lasted nine years. No one knows when the good Lord is gonna call them home.” Mrs. Rojas squeezed my hand before turning toward Miss Shaw and covering her hand. “And then there was your Henry.”
“The curse.” Miss Shaw’s lips tightened.
Mrs. Rojas pulled her hand back, made the sign of the cross, then lifted and kissed the crucifix necklace that hung around her neck.
“What curse?” I asked.
&nbs
p; “The Comfort Curse,” the trio chorused.
Comfort? As in Jimmy and Cheyenne Comfort?
“A few generations back, Lucille Abernathy was betrothed to a longshoreman named Phillip Comfort,” Mrs. Rojas began. “He was beneath her station, but she was madly in love and chose him over her family, giving up her wealth and inheritance. So her family disowned her.”
“And that was just the beginning of Lucille’s heartaches,” Mrs. Birch cut in. “After she was shunned, Phillip Comfort called off their union and married a maid that worked for the Abernathys. Lucille went back to her family, tail between her legs, but they weren’t having it. They turned her away.”
Damn. Apparently I’m not the only one with a controlling parent!
“The next day,” Mrs. Rojas took the story back over, leaning across the table. “The family woke to discover a window broken in the parlor. Upon further investigation, Lucille’s lifeless body was discovered in her childhood bed.”
Mrs. Birch tagged in. “She left a note explaining that she’d poisoned herself, but not before putting a curse on Phillip Comfort and all of his male heirs. It doomed them to a lifetime of the same heartache that she had faced. Her curse damned each of them to fall madly in love, only to have it end in tragedy. Either they, or their one true love, would be destined to die young.”
“That’s the Comfort Curse.” Mrs. Rojas made the sign of the cross and kissed her necklace once more. “Caroline’s dear Henry Comfort died in a plane crash a month before they were set to get married.”
“I’m so sorry.” I felt horrible that that had happened to her, of course, but I couldn’t help but wonder if people actually believed it was a result of a curse.
“That Jimmy sure is the spittin’ image of your Henry, Caroline.” Mrs. Birch took a sip of the drink in front of her.
Jimmy. That man just kept popping up. I blushed. That phrasing put a very X-rated picture in my mind: when he’d popped out of his shorts.
“Are we talking about Jimmy Comfort?” Mrs. B brought out a plate of pigs in a blanket and set it down in the center of the table.
“We are,” Mrs. Birch confirmed.
“That boy has heartbreaker written all over him, but I love him to pieces.” Miss Shaw was clearly fond of Jimmy and I didn’t think it necessarily had to do with his resemblance to her late fiancé.
“Do you think he’ll ever settle down, or do you think the curse will keep him from committing?” Mrs. Rojas pulled the mahjong case out from her oversized tote.
“I don’t think it’s the curse that’s keepin’ him single. I just think that boy is spoilt for choice.” Miss Shaw started dispersing the tiles.
“Why eat the same steak every night when you have a free ticket to the buffet?” Mrs. B grinned as she examined the tiles in front of her.
All the women chuckled before getting down to business.
As I sat and watched them laughing, playing, drinking, eating, I wondered if I would ever make it to be their age. And if I did, would I have the friendships that they had? I was already behind the eight ball on that one. They’d all known one another since primary school.
I also couldn’t help thinking about Jimmy and his free ticket to the proverbial buffet. It made me a little bit sad thinking of him never settling down with someone. I didn’t know why. He was obviously living the dream. But for some reason, thinking of him still a bachelor his entire life, just hooking up with random women…it sounded lonely.
I hated thinking of him that way. Almost as much as I hated thinking of him at the buffet, sampling all the other women.
CHAPTER 11
Jimmy
I walked up the steps to the boarding house two at a time. As I reached out to grab the door, I realized I was out of breath and my palms were sweaty. I did my best to try and get my body under control before I opened it.
If I’d had it my way, I would’ve been there an hour ago. But I figured that showin’ up sixty minutes early might not be the best move, so I’d waited. Forty-five minutes to be exact. I was still ten minutes early, but damn, I just couldn’t stay away.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the door open. I expected to see Mrs. B at the reception desk, but she wasn’t there. As much as I loved Mrs. B, I couldn’t say that I was too disappointed. Taking the time to say hi to her would’ve meant a delay in seeing Bella. And I wasn’t sure I could wait a second longer.
Thankfully, I’d been to the boarding house a time or two, so I knew my way to room sixteen. I did my best not to speed walk down the hall and stopped in front of Bella’s door. I wiped my hands on my jeans, hoping to get some of the excess moisture off before I knocked.
When the door opened, I took a step back and every thought evaporated from my brain. Bella was wearing a flowy, off-the-shoulder shirt and jeans that hugged her curves in all the right places. Her hair was up, exposing the slender curve of her neck and a thin silver chain rested on her collar bone. She smelled fresh and floral, like a dewy spring morning. Her blue eyes fluttered up at me through a thick bed of dark lashes and my heart expanded.
It had only been twenty-four hours—just one day—since I’d seen her last, but somehow, she’d become even more beautiful.
I was trying to play it cool, not reveal how seeing her again affected me, when the corners of her mouth pulled up and she smiled widely.
That was it. One smile and I was a goner. Any hope I had of holding myself together flew right out the window. Her smile was the sort that inspired love songs. The kind men started wars over. It was a smile that could both cure heartbreak and cause it. It had temporarily caused me to forget how to intake oxygen.
It annihilated me.
“Is everything okay?” Worry clouded her crystal blue eyes as that brilliant, powerful smile disappeared.
“Sorry.” I started breathing again. “You just knocked the wind right out of me.”
Her brows furrowed in question.
“If you were goin’ for breathtaking, darlin’, you nailed it.”
For a moment she just looked at me as if trying to decipher what I’d said, but then she shook her head and stepped out into the hallway. By the time she closed the door and locked it, I’d pulled myself together enough to try and express what I was feeling.
She took one step and I reached for her wrist. “I’m serious. You look beautiful. Stunning.”
Her head tilted to the side as if she were really considering whether or not I was telling the truth. It made me wonder if there was a chance the woman standing in front of me had absolutely no idea how gorgeous she was.
Could that be possible? Was there actually a version of this reality where Bella could ever doubt her appeal, her beauty, her magnetism?
“Thanks.” She smiled, but this time it didn’t really reach her eyes. “You look really nice too.”
Part of me wanted to stay right there, in the hall, until I convinced her that she was, hands down, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, either in real life or on-screen. But I figured that this might be more of a show not tell sort of thing. I was determined that by the end of the night, she would know how beautiful she was. Or at the very least, how beautiful I knew she was.
“Did you have any tours today?” she asked as we stepped out into the mild summer night.
“I did. I took a couple out for a sunrise cruise, and then I had a corporate group this afternoon.”
“Do you like what you do? Being out on the water all the time?”
“I love it. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Did you want to go back out on the boat tonight?” I asked.
We hadn’t really discussed what we would be doing. I had several ideas. The boat hadn’t been one of them, but I was more than happy to take her out on a romantic moonlight trip.
“Actually, I was wondering if we could go to Abernathy Manor.”
I should’ve guessed. Abernathy Manor was one of the biggest tourist attractions on Firefly Island. It was a short walk from the boarding house, so I figured I
’d leave my truck there.
“Let’s go.” I held out my arm in the direction we needed to head.
Bella smiled again, the smile that was lethal. This time, I remembered to breathe as we began walking side by side.
With each step I took, I found myself so overwhelmed by just being in her presence again that I couldn’t think of anything to say to her. It wasn’t something I’d ever had an issue with before—and some would even say that was a serious understatement—so I had no clue how to handle it. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d built this date up so much in my head that I was paralyzed by it, or if just being next to Bella short-circuited my brain. I was leaning toward short-circuit.
“Thanks for going with me,” she breathed. “I was going to go by myself, but…”
“You’re scared.” I could hear it in her voice.
“You’re not scared?” she asked.
Of her effect on me? Yes. Of the house? No.
“Nah.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?” Her head tilted as she looked up at me.
“Sure I do.”
“But you’re not scared of them?” Her eyes widened.
I lifted my shoulder in a shrug. “Never had one give me a reason to be.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she appeared to be considering my statement before she slowly nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Are you? Scared of ghosts?”
“I’m scared of a lot of things.” She blew out a long breath and shook out her hands.
Her answer took me by surprise. That wasn’t the impression that I got from this beautiful creature at all. But like everything about Bella, I was beginning to learn, she was a dichotomy. Fearless yet timid. Innocent yet seductive. Shy yet bold.
I couldn’t understand how someone who was so obviously genuine and authentic could also be all those things wrapped into one. Or how the more time I spent with her, the more questions I had. She was like a Russian nesting doll, each time I uncovered one layer, there was another more intricate and delicate layer to discover underneath.
She remained quiet as we approached the estate, which loomed in the distance, far off the road at the end of a long driveway. Leaves draped from mature oaks, forming a canopy above our heads as we turned down the long and winding path that led to the house. The covering blocked the moonlight that had been illuminating her beautiful face, so I couldn’t see what her reaction to the mansion was.
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