Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  She knows enough to realize that she’s not going anywhere for a few days—not if this storm is worse than the Halloween nor’easter. She and Laura had been visiting a friend of theirs out in Chatham that week, and Jennie remembered how the furious, foaming waves had attacked the coast and carried away houses and cars and trees.

  “You’re from Boston? What part?”

  “Back Bay.”

  “Nice there, isn’t it? I grew up in Quincy.”

  So did I, Jennie almost tells him, but she stops herself. No reason to get into a conversation with a stranger, nice and friendly as he seems.

  She casts a glance at the soda fountain. “Do you serve coffee there?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course. Go on over and Shirley will fix you up. She’s my wife, and anyone can tell you that she brews the best coffee on the island.”

  Probably the only coffee on the island, Jennie thought, heading toward the alcove. This place wasn’t exactly hopping.

  The beach had been deserted the whole time she’d spent walking—well over an hour. First she’d gone north, away from the inn, where the strip of sand gradually became wider and the landscape along the coast rougher and more desolate. A few houses dotted the shore here and there, but all of them were deserted.

  It was hard to imagine what those places must be like in summer, when the windows and doors would be open and flowers would be blooming in windowboxes and people would be sitting around on decks.

  It was hard to imagine the beach itself in another season, too—when children would be building sandcastles, teenagers listening to radios and gossiping, and people jogging and swimming and tossing frisbees.

  Now, in winter, the shore was a gray, wild lonely place—so like the coast in England. Jennie unexpectedly found herself with memories of the semester she’d spent there. With Harry.

  Harry of the wide grin and twinkling eyes and surprisingly gentle touch . . .

  She’d walked and thought about him until the beach gave way to a rocky cliff that loomed ahead rising straight up and jutting out into the water. On top of the cliff was an enormous, sprawling house with turrets and peaks and porches, looking like something out of a gothic novel.

  With a shiver—mostly cold but partly a response to the creepy-looking house—Jennie had turned away and headed back toward the inn. She’d planned on going in, but when she reached it, she realized she wasn’t ready. She wanted to be alone awhile longer, with the ocean and her memories of Harry.

  “Hi, sweetie. What can I get you?” asks the angular, gray-haired woman behind the counter in the alcove.

  “Just a cup of coffee, please—with milk, instead of cream, if you have it,” Jennie tells her, then spots a glass bakery case. “And a croissant, too,” she adds, and suddenly her mouth is watering and her stomach feels completely empty.

  “Coming right up, sweetie. You can go ahead and have a seat.”

  Jennie nods and turns toward the booths. Out of five, only two are occupied. In one, an artsy-looking couple—he with long dreadlocks, she with a crew cut and an earring in her nose—sits having an animated conversation.

  In the other booth, Jennie sees, is a blond woman who looks an awful lot like . . .

  “Hello—Laura, isn’t it?”

  Reluctantly, Jennie nods and approaches the booth where Liza Danning is waving to her. She doesn’t look particularly friendly, but her tone is civil enough.

  “Mind if I join you?” Jennie asks, because it would be awkward not to.

  “No, go ahead.” Liza gestures at the empty seat across from her, and Jennie can’t tell whether or not she’s pleased to have company. Her expression is cool and her manner detached.

  Maybe that’s just her way, Jennie thinks. It’s what Gran would have said. She always wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt, and she’d taught her granddaughters to do the same.

  Laura is so like Gran—optimistic and trusting, even with strangers. Unlike Jennie.

  But I’m trying, Jennie silently tells her grandmother and her sister. See?

  She puts on a smile and asks Liza Danning how she is.

  “Lousy,” the woman says, taking a sip of her black coffee, then shaking her head. “I’ve had the worst day already, and it’s barely even started.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jennie knows she’ll be sorry she asked, but what else can she do?

  “I ran my only pair of stockings when I was getting dressed, for starters. I have an important business meeting here and now I don’t know what I’m going to wear.”

  “Doesn’t this store sell pantyhose?” Jennie looks over her shoulder, thinking that even though the place is small, its crowded shelves look like they must hold a pretty good variety of items.

  “Sure, they sell pantyhose, but I need silk stockings,” Liza says, a pout curling her pink lips.

  Jennie frowns. She doesn’t know anyone who wears real silk stockings, the kind you attach to a garter belt—although Laura did buy some when she was shopping for honeymoon lingerie a few years back. She’d gleefully reported that Brian had actually ripped them off of her on their wedding night. Back then, Jennie had thought that sounded passionate. But that was before Brian had shown his true colors.

  “Well, what are you going to do?” Jennie asks Liza.

  “I have no idea. Probably buy pantyhose. But of course, this rinky-dink place doesn’t have any black ones.”

  She says it loudly, and Jennie realizes it’s so that Shirley, the waitress, will hear. She’s walking toward them with Jennie’s coffee and croissant, and her expression doesn’t look nearly as friendly as it did before. Obviously, Liza has already registered a complaint or two.

  “Here you go,” Shirley says brusquely, plunking Jennie’s order down in front of her and walking away.

  Great, Jennie thinks. I’m making enemies by association.

  Hanging around with Liza obviously isn’t a good idea, especially on such a small island. Jennie decides to steer clear of the blonde after this.

  “And on top of this whole wardrobe fiasco,” Liza goes on, as though there has been no interruption, “that twit at the inn, Jasper Hammel, didn’t call me to the phone when the person I’m meeting tried to get in touch with me.”

  Jennie murmurs, “That’s too bad” and stirs her coffee.

  “Oh, well,” Liza says with a sigh. “Too late to do anything about it now. So how’s your day? Better, I hope.”

  “So far, it’s fine.” Jennie marvels at the way Liza can seem like a self-absorbed bitch one moment and turn on the charm the next. Maybe she’s an actress in her spare time.

  “You didn’t opt to have breakfast at the inn either, I see,” Liza comments, motioning at Jennie’s coffee and croissant.

  “Uh, no, I—”

  “Couldn’t wait to get out of there?” Liza supplies. “It’s creepy, don’t you think?”

  Jennie isn’t sure what to say. “I guess it is a little. . . . I don’t know. . . .”

  “Creepy. Like I said. Not my kind of place at all,” Liza tells her. “But business is business, and it’s not like I chose to come here.”

  Jennie recalls what Liza had told Sandy last night. “You said you were in publishing?”

  Liza nods. “I’m an editor.”

  “Must be exciting.”

  “It is. What do you do?”

  Jennie’s pretty sure the woman was around when Sandy was asking about her job last night, but obviously Liza hadn’t cared enough to remember. She probably doesn’t care now, either, but Jennie tells her, “I’m an antique dealer.”

  “Really? I’m not crazy about antiques.”

  “Oh . . .” Jennie has no idea what to say to that.

  “I like modern things. Although someone once gave me an exquisite antique gold locket that I really loved.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Yeah, it was. I sold it for a lot of money.”

  Again, Jennie’s at a loss for words, so she just repeats, “That’s nice.” />
  Liza decides she likes Laura Towne. She’s nice to talk to, and she doesn’t ask too many questions—not like that chubby chatterbox back at the inn. Personally, she herself isn’t much of a conversationalist when it comes to talking to strangers, but she finds herself curious about the woman sitting across from her. There’s a haunted look in her lilac eyes that’s been there since last night, and Liza wonders what she’s hiding.

  She takes another sip of her coffee, which by this time has grown cold. She looks around, considering asking that old lady behind the counter for a refill. But then again, it’s not even that good. Liza usually drinks only gourmet latte from Starbucks.

  She sets down her cup and looks at Laura. “Where are you from?” she asks directly.

  Laura looks a little taken aback, but says, “Boston.”

  Figures. She looks like the preppy New England type. “Perfect place for an antique dealer.” Liza wrinkles her nose. “After all, Boston’s full of old buildings and churches and museums and that sort of thing, right?”

  “Right. Just like New York.”

  Liza grins. She knows Laura’s making a point, and she decides she respects her. In Liza’s opinion, there’s nothing worse than someone who shrinks from her sharp tongue.

  “Yeah, I guess New York’s just as historic as Boston,” she concedes. “And some of those older landmarks in Manhattan are actually halfway decent.”

  Laura raises an eyebrow.

  “Although personally,” Liza goes on, just to bust her chops, “if I had the choice of an apartment in the Dakota or in Trump Tower, I’d go for the Trump. You can’t beat being right upstairs from Tiffany’s.”

  “I don’t know,” Laura says, “I’d rather be in the Dakota, with Central Park across the street.”

  “You know New York?”

  “Yeah.” Laura looks down and stiffly stirs her coffee.

  “How? Did you go to school in the city or something?”

  There’s a pause.

  “I had a . . . friend who liked to spend time there,” Laura says softly.

  Liza watches her. Then she says, “Had?”

  Laura looks up and meets her gaze. “Yeah. He died.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It was awhile ago.”

  There’s an awkward moment of silence, and Liza wants to ask the details, but somehow, she can’t bring herself to do it. Instead, finally, she asks, “Do you have family in Boston?”

  “Just my sister.”

  “Older or younger?”

  Again, Laura hesitates, then says, “Actually, she’s my twin.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that your only family, then?”

  “Uh huh.” Laura bites her lip, then adds, “I had a younger sister, too—Melanie—but she died when I was seventeen. And my dad died when Melanie was just a baby. He was a cop, and he was killed in a robbery. My mom was devastated. We moved in with her parents after it happened, because Mom couldn’t cope alone. She missed him so much that I heard her crying in her room every night for years. I did a lot of crying, myself.”

  “That’s rough.” Liza thinks of her own father, who raised her single-handedly. It would have been much better, she decides, if Chet Danning had been a hero and died when she was little, instead of being a hopeless alcoholic and still living in the same shabby Brooklyn apartment after all these years.

  “How about you?” Laura asks. “Where are you from?”

  “New York.”

  “Manhattan?”

  Liza never tells anyone the truth, and she isn’t about to start now, so she nods.

  “What about your family?” Laura nibbles her croissant.

  “What about them?” She’s sorry as soon as the sharp retort leaves her mouth and tries to make up for it by saying, “I don’t have much family. Just my dad. I lost my mother when I was young.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how it is.”

  Liza nods.

  She doesn’t tell Laura that she didn’t lose her mother to a tragic accident or illness, but instead to a rich Arab businessman who carried her off to Kuwait to live happily ever after—without her husband and daughter.

  During the Gulf War, Liza had wondered often about her mother, whether she was still alive and whether she was sorry about leaving. But she never heard from Diane Danning again. And now that the war is a dim memory, now that Liza has escaped that miserable Flatbush apartment, she no longer cares.

  “Are you close to your father?” Laura asks.

  “Not really. Are you close to your mother?”

  “No . . .” Laura looks like she wants to say more, and Liza waits. Finally, Laura says, “My mother died too. After we lost Melanie, she kind of fell apart. It was like it was too much for her, after losing my dad and everything, and she slowly faded away. They said it was cancer; but I know that if my dad and my sister were still here, she would be, too.”

  Liza nods. No wonder Laura Towne’s beautiful eyes always seem so sad. She’s been through a lot. Liza wonders who the “friend” was—the one who died too—but she can’t bring herself to ask.

  She looks toward the plate-glass window up at the front of the store. It’s raining again—pouring, actually. She wiggles her damp toes inside her thin, leaky leather boots.

  “It’s going to be fun walking back to the inn, huh?”

  Liza looks up at Laura and sees that she, too, is staring out the window.

  “I don’t suppose they have taxis on Tide Island,” she says wistfully.

  “I doubt it.” Laura sighs and slides her empty plate and cup away. “Guess we’ll have to make a run for it.”

  “Or,” Liza says impulsively, “we can just order more coffee—even though it does taste like mud—and stay here until it lets up.”

  Laura looks surprised, then smiles and says, “That’s fine with me.”

  And Liza realizes, as she smiles back, that she doesn’t have any real friends anymore—that maybe she never has.

  Not that she wants or needs them.

  She’s better off living a solitary existence. She has plenty of work—and plenty of men—to keep her company when she needs it

  But, Liza decides, if she did ever decide to make a new friend, Laura Towne is the kind of person she would choose.

  He slips silently into the room with the lilac-sprigged wallpaper, knowing that Laura’s safely out of the house, but still somehow feeling the need to be cautious.

  He locks the door behind him, of course, just in case.

  Then he hurries over to the suitcase that’s lying open on the luggage stand beneath the lace-curtained window.

  His breath comes more quickly in anticipation as he reaches in and carefully pushes aside the neatly folded stack of jeans and tee-shirts and sweaters. Beneath them, he finds what he’s looking for.

  Lovingly, he takes out a pair of panties and a bra.

  Then he frowns.

  These simple white cotton garments aren’t at all what he was expecting . . . what he remembers.

  No, Laura always went for the daring lingerie—wisps of black lace, sheer teddies, push-up bras . . .

  He checks the suitcase again to see if she’s hidden the good stuff, but there are only a few more pairs of plain white underwear.

  And something else isn’t right . . .

  He leans forward burying his face in the sweater on top of the pile of clothing in the suitcase.

  That scent that clings to the cotton knit . . . it’s not right either.

  Too light and . . . floral.

  Laura always wore a heavier, musky fragrance. He remembers how it used to drive him crazy, how he would burrow into the soft skin at her throat and breathe her essence until he felt intoxicated with the mere scent of her.

  He remembers what it was like to slide his hands beneath her clothes to stroke her warm skin, what it was like to undress her, sometimes gently, other times roughly in his impatience to consume and possess her . . .r />
  How she used to throw her head back and moan his name and pull him to her with the same urgency he felt . . .

  That was before she started pushing him away whenever he came near her.

  Before she cast him aside carelessly, telling him she no longer needed him, that she never really wanted him in the first place . . .

  He squeezes his eyes shut against a stab of pain that’s as sudden and fresh as if he’s just lost her all over again.

  And when it subsides, he reminds himself that it was a long time ago. That Laura Towne will never hurt him again.

  No one will ever hurt him again.

  Not Laura.

  Not Liza.

  Not Sandy.

  And not Lorraine.

  The thought of Lorraine, and what he’d finally done to her, makes him giddy with excitement.

  Soon, he promises himself, he’ll have that delicious sensation again . . . power and control . . .

  He hears a tearing sound and, startled, looks down to see a pair of Laura’s panties, ripped in his hands.

  For a moment, he feels panic rising in his throat, threatening to gag him . . .

  What have I done? She’ll know I’ve been here. She’ll figure out what’s going on, and she’ll escape before I can carry out my plan . . .

  Then he gets hold of his senses.

  Calmly, he tucks the torn panties into his back pocket and replaces everything else in the suitcase, just as it was when he found it.

  She’ll never know. Even if she notices the panties are missing and gets suspicious, she would never, ever suspect that you’re here.

  And even if, somehow, she happens to catch sight of you before it’s time, she still won’t know.

  As he walks toward the door he glimpses his reflection in the mirror nailed to the back and he pauses to examine himself, pleased with what he sees.

  Hair that’s permed so that it looks wavy, and that’s dyed a natural-looking shade of brown.

  Eyes whose true shade is hidden behind light-blue-colored contact lenses—cornflower blue, the lady in the optical shop had called them.

  And a chiseled, handsome face—the face that he picked out of a catalogue in his plastic surgeon’s office three years ago.

  Sandy huddles under the overhang of rock that juts over the beach like an awning. Here, her body flattened up against the steep, rocky incline that rises from the sand toward the road above, she’s partly sheltered from the driving cold rain and the wind that roars in off the water.