Don’s voice was low. “Maryn. Where the hell are you? We need to talk. Look, I admit I lost my temper. But you know I never intended to hurt you. I love you, baby. Call me, okay? And let me know you’re all right. You’re starting to worry me.”
She snorted. Oh yeah, he was worried all right. Maybe a little about her. What she’d seen, who she might tell. But mostly, she was sure, he was worried about that briefcase full of money. And his laptop computer and whatever secrets it might hold. She went down the phone log and tapped each of his messages, deleting without listening. She was done listening to Don Shackleford.
She called Adam’s cell phone, and it went directly to voice mail.
“Adam, it’s me,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve … I’ve left Don. I’m down south. Look, a lot has happened. You were right. About everything. I really need to talk to you, okay? Call me as soon as you get this, no matter what time it is.”
Madison considered calling her mother, but rejected the idea immediately. They hadn’t talked in months, why call her now? She didn’t think Don would have contacted her mother. He had no interest in her family, and she was fairly sure he didn’t even have her mother’s phone number.
Idly, she tapped the phone. A wallpaper screen came up, a photo she’d taken right after they’d returned from Aruba. Don, sitting on the porch of the town house, relaxed, smiling, his arm draped companionably across the shoulder of his one true friend. Biggie.
Biggie! Why hadn’t she thought of that? Maryn jumped out of the car and ran, splashing through the rain, for the house. And Don’s laptop.
21
Ellis found herself drawn to the window in her bedroom. She told herself it was the scenery, the dark blue-green waves crashing on the sand, the rain and wind blowing and bending the tufts of sea oats lining the dunes below. She pulled a wooden chair up to the window, and rested her forehead against the moisture-beaded glass. And if she leaned in just the right way, she could see the weather-beaten boards of the garage, and the apartment above, and the dull glow of one lit lamp within.
He was home. She could see his Bronco parked to the side of the driveway. What was he doing on this rainy Sunday afternoon? Probably working, planning his next trade. She decided he was definitely not doing what she was doing. No way he was reliving that moment on the beach last night. No way he was analyzing that kiss, that amazing, lingering kiss, or the feeling of dizzying heat when they’d embraced. No way Ty Bazemore was telling himself to get over himself. Which was what Ellis was doing.
She tried reading. She had a stack of book club books, the ones she’d been too busy to read over the past year, back when she had a career. They were all highly recommended books, literary masterpieces, food for the mind. Stacked on her nightstand, they gently reproved her. But right now what she craved was mind candy, the idle, delicious retelling of a love story—featuring a heroine who looked uncannily like Ellis Sullivan and a hero with sun-streaked hair who could only be Ty Bazemore.
At five o’clock, she watched as Ty came splashing down the wooden stairs from his apartment. He wore khaki cargo shorts, top-siders, and a black T-shirt with CADILLAC JACK’S in hot pink script across the back. He jumped in the Bronco and headed down the driveway. Ellis watched him go, and a plan took root.
At seven, Ellis wandered into the kitchen, where she found Julia, dressed in cut-offs and a faded black tank top, and Dorie, still dressed in cotton pajama pants and an oversized Braves T-shirt. They were studying a handful of takeout menus.
“Pizza or Chinese?” Julia asked, looking up.
“Neither,” Ellis said. “We’ve been stuck inside all day and I’ve got a bad case of cabin fever. I say we get dressed up and head out and do the town. We could do girls’ night out, like the old days.”
“What town?” Julia asked. “Are you telling me there’s a club scene in Nags Head?”
“Not really a club scene,” Ellis said hesitantly. “But I’ve heard about a place—Cadillac Jack’s. They’ve supposedly got a halfway decent menu, and a bar, and music. Sunday nights it’s supposed to be the place to see and be seen.”
Julia raised one eyebrow. “By who?”
“By whom, you mean,” Dorie said, yawning. “You guys go on without me. Since I can’t drink, I might as well stay home and eat leftovers. Anyway, I’m gonna turn in early tonight.”
“That leaves us,” Ellis told Julia. “Unless we want to include Madison?”
Dorie turned from the refrigerator with a bowl of leftover chicken salad. “She’s not here. I saw her drive off about thirty minutes ago.”
“Really?” Julia narrowed her eyes. “Wonder where she was headed?”
“Who cares?” Ellis said impatiently. “What do you say, are you in?”
“Why not?” Julia headed for the hallway. “Just give me fifteen minutes to get changed.”
Twenty minutes later, Julia sat in the living room, thumbing through a magazine. She was dressed in faded denim capris and a tight black T-shirt that barely covered her tanned midriff. She wore brown leather gladiator-style sandals, and she’d done her hair in a loose braid that hung over one shoulder. Large gold hoops gleamed from her ears.
“Ellis!” she hollered, staring up at the ceiling. “Hurry up and get down here before I change my mind and decide to stay home with Dorie.”
“Keep your shirt on,” Ellis said, carefully taking one stair at a time.
Julia swung around to see her friend.
“Hey!” she said suspiciously. “You didn’t say this place was dressy.”
“This isn’t dressy,” Ellis said, walking into the living room.
“That’s a dress you’re wearing,” Julia said, stating the obvious.
It was, in fact, a dress Ellis had never even worn before—a short, cotton Lilly Pulitzer sundress with a pattern of stylized hot-pink-and-yellow daisies. The dress’s spaghetti straps were of a contrasting lime green, and the tight-fitting bodice showed a healthy stretch of Ellis’s freckled cleavage. She wore lime green ballet skimmers, and a pair of dangly pink-pearl earrings nearly brushed her shoulder tops. Ellis had swept her hair into a French twist updo, with feathery bangs.
“No fair,” Julia said, coming closer to examine her friend. “You look like the queen of the Junior League summer country club dance!”
“And you look like a gorgeous high-fashion model who happens to be slumming it in Nags Head,” Ellis said. “I’ve gotta bring out the big guns if I’m going anywhere with you.”
Julia studied Ellis carefully. “You’re even wearing makeup.”
“First time since we got here,” Ellis agreed. “Are you going to stand there giving me the fish-eye, or can we go?”
“Waitin’ on you,” Julia said.
Cadillac Jack’s was actually in Kitty Hawk, eight miles up the road. It was housed in a former Piggly Wiggly supermarket. The old neon sign with the jaunty winking pig still stood by the roadside, but the 1940s-era stucco building had been painted charcoal gray, and the large plate glass windows were shaded by scalloped pink-and-black striped canvas awnings. Ellis joined the line of cars streaming into the parking lot, where a burly off-duty cop in jeans and a navy T-shirt with SECURITY stenciled on the back waved them into one of the few remaining spots, at the rear of the lot.
“This joint is jumping,” Julia said as they walked towards the entrance. “How’d you hear about it?”
“I think I read something in a magazine,” Ellis said vaguely.
“This is kinda cool,” Julia said when her eyes had adjusted to the semidarkness. The club’s walls were still plastered with age-darkened signs advertising specials like CREAM OF WHEAT and COLLARDS and HAM HOCKS with Eisenhower-era prices, but now black leather-upholstered booths filled one wall of the cavernous room and round tables were scattered around the center, with a postcard-sized, slightly elevated wooden dance floor. Music thumped from speakers mounted around the ceiling. Ellis thought she recognized Lady Gaga’s latest hit, but nobody was dancing. The crowd w
as an eclectic mix, with groups of couples and singles Ellis’s age, but also lots of college kids, the girls in clingy tops and short skirts, guys in preppy polo shirts.
A bar took up the back wall of the room, with the grocery’s retro neon MEAT MARKET sign flashing off and on, the light reflecting in the rows of bottles and glasses on the back bar.
“Are we the oldest ones in here?” Ellis asked anxiously, staring at the bobbing heads of girls who looked a generation younger than herself. She suddenly felt horribly, terrifyingly out of place in her childish pink-and-green getup.
“Who gives a shit?” Julia said, tugging at Ellis’s hand. “Come on, let’s get a drink and snag a table.”
“Wait,” Ellis said urgently. “It’s so crowded. I didn’t think there’d be so many people. Maybe we should just find a quiet restaurant.…”
“Too late,” Julia declared, plunging into the crowd, dragging Ellis by the hand towards the back of the room, and the bar.
People were stacked three deep at the bar, but Julia expertly managed to wedge herself into a spot at the corner, between a pair of middle-aged men who were nursing beers and eyeing the crowd.
“Get you somethin’, darlin’?” The taller of the two men had horn-rimmed glasses and wore a pale blue ball cap with UNC embroidered on the bill. He grinned at Julia, and even seemed to include Ellis in his admiring glance.
“No thanks,” Julia said, flashing him a smile that managed to turn him down without shutting him down. It was a uniquely Julia art, one Ellis had always coveted.
Now Julia was leaning over and across the bar, her long, tanned arm waving in the air. “Excuse me,” she called loudly. The bartender, whose back had been to her, turned, and on seeing who was calling, put down the glass he’d been polishing.
“Hey there,” Ty Bazemore said, walking towards them. “Ellis. Julia. This is a nice surprise.” His easy grin took in both the women, but Ellis thought, just maybe, the warmth was directed at her.
“Wow, yeah,” Julia said, half turning and shoving Ellis forward. “It sure is a surprise. I didn’t know you worked here. Did you, Ellis?”
Ellis felt her face turn as pink as her dress. “Oh, well, yeah, I think maybe I did know that.”
“Hmm,” Julia said, enjoying her friend’s discomfort for a moment.
“Can I get you something?” Ty asked.
“What have you got?” Julia asked.
“Well drinks are two for one for the next ten minutes,” Ty said. “But you don’t want any of that rotgut. I’ve got a decent pinot and a cab, or I could fix you something else.…”
“Tanqueray and tonic for me,” Julia said decisively.
“Uh, well…” Ellis floundered.
“Give her a cosmo,” Julia said. “You don’t happen to have any food, do you? We actually didn’t eat dinner.”
He frowned. “The kitchen closes early on Sunday, but I’ll see what I can do.” He turned away, fixed their drinks, and was back a minute later. “I hope you like quesadillas. Go ahead and get a table, and I’ll get somebody to bring them over.”
“Thanks,” Julia said, pushing a twenty-dollar bill across the bar. “I think you just saved our lives.”
“Well,” Julia said when they’d settled into a booth on the far side of the bar with a pair of two-for-one drinks for each of them, and a heaping plate of chicken quesadillas. “That was quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Running into garage boy at Cadillac Jack’s of all places?”
“Umm-hmm,” Ellis said, sipping her drink.
“I think he is totally hot,” Julia said, looking past Ellis at Ty moving up and down the bar, slinging drinks and making small talk with fluid efficiency. “Don’t you?”
Ellis shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess he could grow on you. It was nice of him to get us some food after the kitchen was closed.”
“I think he likes you,” Julia said, her tone lightly teasing. “I checked my watch. Happy hour ended half an hour ago, and he still gave us the special.”
“Oh, no,” Ellis said, busying herself by slathering the quesadilla with sour cream. “He was just being polite. But what makes you think he likes me?”
“I’m a witch, remember?” Julia said, resisting the impulse to admit that she’d seen Ellis and Ty in a moonlit clinch the night before. “I can read the future. And I definitely see a man in your future, Miss Ellis Sullivan.”
“Hope so,” Ellis said fervently.
“Since when are you looking for a man?” Julia challenged.
“You think I’m not interested in men?”
Julia shrugged. “Are you?”
“Well … why not? Look, I know we promised each other that this would be a chick trip. But to be honest with you, I haven’t really dated in a while.”
“How long a while?”
Ellis knew exactly how long it had been. Five years, give or take a month or two. She’d made a brief, disastrous stab at online dating. Nine dates with four different guys. She actually felt queasy thinking about it.
She toyed with a piece of lettuce on her plate. “Please don’t make me talk about this,” she said quietly.
“How bad could it be?” Julia asked.
“Awful,” Ellis said, taking a large swallow of her cosmo. “Soul-searing.”
“Which is exactly why you should talk about it,” Julia coaxed. “Dorie and I are your oldest, bestest friends. There’s nothing you could say that would shock me, of all people, for God’s sake.”
It was true. If the game were truth or dare, Julia’s confession of the night before had raised the stakes for all of them.
“If I tell you about it, will you swear never to tell another living soul?”
Julia leaned in until her forehead nearly grazed Ellis’s. “Of course. But, you don’t even want me to tell Dorie?”
“No. Dorie wouldn’t understand. She’s so gorgeous, she’s never had to worry about meeting men. Not that you’ve ever had that problem either.”
Julia cocked her head. “Hey, don’t you remember what I looked like in junior high? That bad perm my mom gave me, the braces, the flat chest? And my God, my acne! I was the original pizza face. Not to mention I weighed, like, eighty-seven pounds and looked like a damned stork.”
Ellis sighed. “Yeah, but by the time we were seventeen, the braces were off, the acne cleared up, and you grew boobs. It was like revenge of the ugly duckling.”
“Turns out my mother was right,” Julia agreed. “I really was a late bloomer.”
“Not as late as me,” Ellis said, her voice low. “I’m thirty-four, Julia. And I haven’t really been with a man since…” She paused, and then forced herself to say it. “Since Ben.”
Julia’s eyes widened. “For real?”
Ellis took another sip of her drink and forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m a freak, right? Eleven years without sex. Not quite the forty-year-old virgin, but close.”
“You are not a freak, Ellis Sullivan!” Julia said fiercely. She gestured at the couples on the dance floor, and in particular at a woman about their age who was grinding her hips into her dance partner, her arms locked around his neck, eyes closed, lips apart. “The freaks are these chicks who’ll give a lap dance or a blow job to some asshole they just met at a bar while on vacation.”
“You’re just saying that,” Ellis said. “Although I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Okay, fine,” Julia said. “I’m not going to make you tell me.” She raised an eyebrow, as though daring Ellis.
Ellis slurped up the last of her cosmo and took the bait. “Oh well. I guess it won’t hurt. I mean, lots of people do it.…”
“I knew it,” Julia said triumphantly. “You were online dating, weren’t you? Come on. Out with it. eHarmony or Match.com?”
Ellis buried her face in her hands. “Match.com. It was the year I turned thirty. I made this stupid New Year’s resolution that I was going to really be out there, you know, in the marketplace. Never again. I’d rather die alone, the crazy lady living in
a double-wide down by the river, with forty-seven cats and a houseful of hoarded tin cans and toilet paper, than try that again.”
Julia rubbed her hands in delight. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single, grotesque detail.”
“I only did it for three months,” Ellis said. “Two different women I worked with met their husbands that way, and they were totally normal, average to above-average nice guys. But I think those women got the last two normal guys on the planet. Either that, or I’m just a major creep magnet.”
“Details,” Julia interrupted. “Gimme.”
“Gawwwwd,” Ellis moaned. “I’ve spent years trying to forget all this stuff. And now you want me to dredge up all the dirt again. Isn’t it enough that I admit I made a major mistake?”
“No,” Julia said. “Quit stalling.”
“Okay,” Ellis said, wincing at the memory. “The first guy—his name actually was Guy—seemed nice, at first. We e-mailed back and forth for a couple weeks, until I convinced myself he wasn’t some kind of psycho axe murderer. We met at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. He was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, well-groomed, nothing scary at all about him. Until he ordered.”
“What? What did he order?”
“It wasn’t what he ordered, it was how he did it. I mean, he made the waitress repeat our order back twice to him, and then when she brought the coffee and his danish, he made this big stink about how she’d screwed it up, and insisted he’d asked for decaf. And I heard him. He did not ask for decaf! And then he said the danish was stale, and it tasted fine. He harangued this poor girl for five minutes, until she was in tears, and when we finished, he left a penny for a tip.”
Julia rolled her eyes. “I can’t stand a waitress baiter. Or a stingy bastard. I’m guessing you never saw Guy again.”
“Never,” Ellis agreed. “But the next guy was worse.” She shuddered. “I’ve blocked out his name.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Okay. It was Bart. Or Barf, as I came to think of him afterwards.”
“What was wrong with Bart?”
Summer Rental Page 17