Summer Rental

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “I didn’t bring that many shoes,” Ellis said. “Mostly just flip-flops and tennis shoes. The only thing I have that would go with this rig is my black ballet flats.”

  “God no,” Julia said swiftly. She went back to the open closet, but stopped and frowned. “No good. My feet are like gunboats. I wear a ten, and you’re like, what, a size six?”

  “Six or seven,” Ellis said. “The ballet flats will be fine.”

  “Ballet flats?” Dorie said, arriving with pill bottle and first aid kit in hand. “No, no, no. You need some strappy little sandals with heels with that skirt. I’ve got just the thing. Can you squeeze into my fives?”

  “Not if I want to walk,” Ellis said dryly. “Guys, it’s fine. It’s just a pair of shoes.”

  “It’s never just a pair of shoes.”

  All three heads swiveled in Madison’s direction. She stood, wincing. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” Dorie cried. “You really shouldn’t walk until I get you taped up.…”

  But Madison was already limping down the hall, towards the stairway.

  Five minutes later, she was back, dangling a pair of wicked-looking sandals. They had a tangle of black grosgrain ribbon straps, three-inch spike heels, and the soles were an audacious red.

  “Perfect!” Dorie said, clapping her hands in delight.

  “Christian Louboutin?” Julia said, raising one eyebrow. “You bring Christian Louboutins to the beach?”

  Madison handed the sandals to Ellis and sank down onto the bed. “So kill me. I have a thing for nice shoes. Anyway, I got them on end-of-the-season clearance last summer.” She nodded at Ellis. “I’m a seven and a half, but Louboutins run small. Go ahead. Try ’em on.”

  Ellis examined the shoes carefully. “But these have hardly been worn,” she said, tapping the bright crimson, unmarred shoe sole. “I can’t wear your brand-new shoes.”

  “Sure you can,” Madison said easily. “Look, in my old life, I had several pairs like this. But all that’s gone. I don’t even know why I packed ’em. Please, Ellis. I would love it if you’d wear them tonight.”

  “I don’t know,” Ellis said, but she slid her feet into the sandals and fastened the straps. She stood, wobbily, and did a slow pirouette.

  Dorie and Ellis applauded and whistled. Even Madison gave a quick golf clap.

  “Wait one minute,” Julia said. She scrabbled around in a quilted satin box on her dresser before triumphantly holding up a pair of dangly chandelier earrings made from crystals and jet beads.

  Ellis screwed the earring backs to the posts. “Done,” she said. She blew kisses to her friends and tottered towards the door. “Gotta go. Thanks, guys. I mean it. You’re the best.”

  “Run along,” Dorie said. “Have fun. Okay? You do remember how to have fun, right?”

  “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Julia advised.

  “I can’t think of anything you wouldn’t do,” Ellis said.

  Julia nodded approvingly. “That’s my point.”

  27

  The girl who answered the door at Ebbtide looked only vaguely like the Ellis Sullivan Ty had seen on the beach and on Sunday night at Cadillac Jack’s.

  Ty was no fashion expert, but it looked to him as though Ellis had been transformed. She was wearing some kind of lacy, low-cut black lingerie-looking top with a cobwebby jacket sort of thing over it. The hem of her skirt barely brushed the tops of her knees, and she was wearing some ridiculously high heels. Her hair was in some kind of sophisticated updo, with earrings that nearly brushed the tops of her nearly bare shoulders.

  She opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch, giving him a shy smile. “Hey,” she said.

  He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help himself. “You’re beautiful,” he blurted. Mental headslap. Of course she was beautiful. Ellis Sullivan was beautiful in those goofy cupcake boxers, with her hair in a lopsided ponytail. But tonight, she was different. He’d have said she looked spectacular, if he were the kind of guy who ever used the word “spectacular.”

  Ellis blushed. “Julia and Dorie double-teamed me,” she said. “I feel sorta like Cinderella. This is all borrowed finery. The only thing I’m wearing that’s my own is my panties.” She gasped and blushed even harder. “Sorry. TMI again. You seem to have that effect on me.”

  “Whatever you’re wearing, it’s working,” Ty said. He gestured down at the khaki slacks he’d so laboriously pressed and the starched white button-down shirt, which he’d found still in the dry-cleaner’s bag at the back of his closet, along with his navy blazer, which he hadn’t worn since the time when, in one last desperate attempt to rein him into the family fold, Kendra had dragged him to a cocktail party at her father’s country club. He’d even polished his best loafers until they shone like they hadn’t since the day he bought them. No socks, though. He had to draw the line somewhere.

  “Sorry, but this is all my own stuff,” he joked. “Good thing Julia and Dorie aren’t here to see me.”

  He took her hand and led her down the porch steps to the Bronco, which he’d washed and vacuumed earlier in the day. He’d even thrown away all the beer bottles and fast-food wrappers.

  “Oh, they can see you, all right,” Ellis said, nodding her chin just slightly north. “They’re watching us from the window in Julia’s room.”

  Ty glanced up, but all he saw was the slightest twitch of a curtain. “Let’s give ’em something worth watching,” he said, taking Ellis’s hand and kissing the back of it before he opened the car door and helped her in. Then he turned and waved, and the curtain twitched again. As he pulled the Bronco out of the driveway, he saw Ellis, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror.

  * * *

  He’d chosen a seafood restaurant in Duck, twenty minutes north of Nags Head. It was a tiny place at the end of a gravel road, at a marina overlooking the sound. It had weathered cedar-plank walls, a rusted tin roof, and a buzzing neon sign out front that said FISH FOOD.

  “Don’t let the decor scare you,” Ty said, parking the car. “This is the best food on the Outer Banks.”

  “This looks very nice,” Ellis said with a look of surprise after they’d been shown to their table at a window overlooking a long row of docks. “You know, before we came down, I sent away for the chamber of commerce information packet, and I even bought the Mobil Outer Banks travel guide, and not one of them mentioned this place.”

  “You sent away for stuff?” Ty laughed. “Who does that?”

  “I do,” Ellis said. “I don’t like surprises. And anyway, they usually have good coupons. You know, for, like, a free appetizer or dessert.”

  “I thought all women loved surprises,” Ty said. “Anyway, you won’t find Fish Food in a restaurant guide. And I’m pretty sure they don’t give coupons. This is kind of a local place. Eddie, the chef, used to wait tables at a restaurant I worked at in high school. He’s got kind of a squirrely sense of humor, but he knows his way around the kitchen.”

  The waitress came, and Ty asked Ellis if she wanted a drink. “I’ll have a Blue Dawg—you’ve got that on draft, right? And she’ll have…” He looked over at Ellis, trying to remember what she’d ordered Sunday night, at Cadillac Jack’s. “A cosmo, right?”

  They chatted aimlessly until the waitress was back with their drinks and the menus.

  “What’s good here?” Ellis asked, looking down at the grease-spattered photocopied sheet of paper.

  She was sitting up very straight in her chair and was fiddling with the ribbon that seemed to tie her top together in the front. When she wasn’t trying to hike the top up to keep her breasts from further spilling out, she was tugging at the hem of her short skirt, which was a lost cause anyway. The skirt barely brushed the tops of her thighs, which were lightly dusted with freckles, as was her nose, or what he could see of her nose underneath the layer of sparkly powder covering it. Ty’s fingers itched to reach across the table and yank at both ends of the ri
bbons, just to see what would happen. Was that pink lace bra thing attached to the girdle-looking top she was wearing? He decided that would need further study.

  “Ty? Oh my God, is that really you?”

  He looked up. Kendra and Ryan were standing, waiting to be seated at the next table over. He felt the blood drain from his face. And now Kendra was actually coming over to their table, with Ryan, that fuckhead, trailing right behind.

  Kill me now, Ty thought. Right here.

  “It is you,” Kendra said shrilly. “All dressed up in your Sunday best.”

  Ty Bazemore had been “raised right,” at his mother’s and grandmother’s insistence. Two years of cotillion, relentless etiquette drilled into him. You addressed your elders as “sir” and “ma’am.” You stood when a lady entered the room, and you greeted a gentleman by looking him in the eye, smilingly, with a firm handshake. Reluctantly, Ty stood. “Hi, Kendra,” he said, his face expressionless. He nodded in Fuckface’s direction. “Ryan.” He would not shake Ryan’s hand. If his mother had been alive, even she would have understood. If his grandmother had been alive, she would have applauded, or maybe smacked Fuckface across the face with her ever-present flyswatter.

  “Hey, dude!” Ryan, clueless, held out his hand, but when Kendra shot him a withering glance, he dropped it back to his side.

  “How are you?” Kendra gave him a hug, standing on her tiptoes, even in heels, to do it. He was enveloped in a toxic cloud of her signature scent, which, to him, smelled like overripe pineapples.

  “Just fine,” Ty said, extending only a wooden, one-handed half hug. When she finally released him, he took a step backwards, just in case Fuckface got any ideas. He would throw away this blazer and shirt when he got home. If he got out of here alive.

  “Really?” Kendra said, frowning. “You’re sure? I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Ever since we moved back. Did you know? Daddy finally talked me into joining the firm. Of course, I think he only did it because he knew he’d get Ryan as part of the package. A twofer, he calls it.”

  “Great,” Ty said. “Congratulations.” If there was a bigger, more pompous asshole than Boomer Wilcox on the Outer Banks, Ty had never met him. Ryan and Boomer deserved each other.

  “We heard you’re day trading,” Kendra said, her voice oozing concern. “I know that’s got to be tough in this economy, right?”

  “It’s all right,” Ty said, managing to unclench his teeth. “You win some, you lose some.” He looked desperately around the room, hoping that something, somehow, would make this horror show grind to a halt. A lightning bolt, maybe. But he’d settle for a minor grease fire.

  And now he saw Ellis, still seated, looking up at him, smiling expectantly. In his mind’s eye, he could see his grandmother’s flyswatter hovering at the back of his neck, just waiting to deliver a smack, should he forget his upbringing.

  “Kendra, Ryan, this is Ellis, my, uh, friend.”

  “Oh, hi,” Kendra said, her voice going up a decibel. “Alice?”

  “Actually, it’s Ellis,” Ellis said. “With an E.”

  “Hiya, Ellis,” Ryan said, automatically extending his hand. Ellis, who had apparently also undergone some rigorous training—and who, after all, had no history with Kendra or Fuckface—stood, smiled radiantly, and shook both their hands.

  “Ellis is such an unusual name,” Kendra was saying. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a woman named Ellis before. Are you from around here?”

  “No,” Ellis said, “I’m originally from Savannah. My friends and I are visiting here for the whole month.”

  “How did you happen to pick the Outer Banks for vacation?” Kendra asked. “I mean, of course, we adore it, but then, I grew up here.”

  “It was sort of a compromise,” Ellis explained.

  “Wonderful!” Kendra trilled. “Where are you staying? Here at Duck?”

  “We’re staying down at Nags Head,” Ellis said.

  Ty felt his scalp prickle at the mention of Nags Head. A slow dread started to work its way south. He knew what was coming, and he was powerless to stop it.

  “Oh!” Kendra said. “Nags Head. That’s my old stomping grounds, you know. Mama and Daddy have Cedar Haven. Do you know it? It’s that huge, rambling, old pile of junk on the Beach Road.”

  Ryan wrapped a proprietary arm around Kendra’s waist. “She calls it a pile of junk,” he said with a chuckle. “What she doesn’t tell you is that Cedar Haven is one of the original houses on Nags Head. There’s only about a dozen of ’em. The ‘unpainted aristocracy,’ they call them. It’s a showplace. Five thousand square feet, and it sits on an ocean-side double lot. Her grandfather built the first swimming pool on Nags Head there.”

  “I think I know that house,” Ellis said excitedly. “It’s about a mile from where we’re staying. On Virginia Dare, right?”

  Don’t say it, Ty pleaded silently. Do not go there.

  “Where are you staying?” Kendra asked.

  “The house we’re renting is kind of a dump,” Ellis confided. “I mean, it could be wonderful, but it hasn’t really been maintained in a while.”

  Ty looked frantically around the dining room. The waitress was approaching with a basket of bread and a cruet of olive oil. Deliverance. He wanted to kiss her on the lips.

  “Hey, listen,” he said. “Here comes our bread. We don’t want it to get cold. They have awesome yeast rolls here. Eddie makes them himself.” He pulled Ellis’s chair away from the table and practically shoved her into it. “Good to see you guys,” he said, giving Kendra and Ryan a dismissive nod.

  Kendra gave him an odd look, but she allowed herself to be herded back to her table.

  “They seem nice,” Ellis said, helping herself to one of the yeast rolls.

  If you only knew, Ty thought.

  Dinner was agony. He ordered for both of them, and he tried to act normal. But every time he looked at Ellis, he saw the table just behind her. Kendra and Fuckface, laughing, talking, their golden heads bowed together. Every once in a while, Kendra would see him looking, and she’d lean in closer, her hand hiding her mouth, whispering something in her husband’s ear. They were talking about him, he knew. Mocking him in his yellowing dress shirt and frayed college graduation blazer with the sleeves just a quarter inch too short. His stomach burned.

  Their entrées took a lifetime to arrive. He couldn’t have said what he ordered. It was hot, and it was vaguely seafoodish looking. Somehow, he managed to choke it down. Ellis picked at her broiled swordfish, nibbling delicately at the steamed broccoli and the couscous on her plate.

  At one point, the waitress appeared with a bottle of chilled wine. It was Moët & Chandon Nectar Imperial Rose; Ty knew the label well. Sixty bucks a bottle, and that was if you bought it at Harris Teeter. “We didn’t order this,” he said, pushing the wine bucket away.

  “The lady and gentleman at that table there sent it over. With their compliments,” the waitress said.

  He looked up, and Kendra gave him a little finger wave. The Imperial Rose was her favorite, and it had triggered many a fight when they were practically penniless first-year law students at Carolina. Their friends were all in the same boat, living on ramen noodles and Hot Pockets. When they had parties, they were glad to swill whatever rotgut was on sale. But Kendra, who said life was too short to drink bad wine, would appear with a bottle of her Moët & Chandon, paid for with the money Boomer had transferred into their checking account every month.

  “How nice,” Ellis murmured. Ty couldn’t send the bottle back, not without making a scene. So he allowed the waitress to pour Ellis a glass, but he’d be damned if he’d touch the stuff himself. Instead he asked for another draft Blue Dawg.

  He emptied the glass in a couple of long swigs. Ellis sipped hers slowly.

  A dead, awkward silence fell over the table. He thought he’d averted disaster, but he’d been wrong.

  The waitress came back to their table. She was a local, with purple-streaked blond hair and
too much black eyeliner and a tattoo of an octopus whose swirling tentacles slithered all the way across her chest and probably cost more than the girl made in a week working for Eddie. She looked down at their half-eaten meals and shrugged, although she didn’t bother to pick them up. “Dessert?” she asked, putting a large black slate on a stand on the table. “Eddie’s got fresh peach cobbler with homemade lemon-basil gelato, and the cheesecake tonight is turtle track, which means it’s done with toasted pecans and butterscotch topping…”

  Ty gave Ellis a questioning glance. “I don’t know,” she started to say.

  “Just the check, please,” Ty said brusquely.

  And of course it took her forever to come back with the check. Ellis sipped her wine and Ty drummed the tabletop with his fingers, determined not to look over at Kendra’s table.

  Finally, the waitress brought the check. He was tucking the cash in the leather-bound check holder, his escape imminent, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan get up from his table and start to approach.

  Ty tried to calm himself. Even Fuckface had a right to go to the men’s room, and he couldn’t get there without passing the table where Ty and Ellis had been seated.

  But no, Ryan stopped right beside their table. Ty stood and pulled Ellis’s chair out, his back to Ryan, determined to make his escape unscathed, even if it meant ignoring Fuckface.

  “Hey Ty, buddy,” Ryan said, putting his hand on Ty’s sleeve, leaning in, talking low, confidentially. Like they were old pals. “Look, Kendra and I were just talking. We saw the notice about Ebbtide in the legal ads. Kendra was saying Ebbtide’s been in your family as long as Cedar Haven’s been in hers. Helluva note, losing it after all these years. Thing is, we’re in the market for a place of our own. So maybe we could help each other out.”

  Ty froze. Could this really be happening?

  Ryan reached into the inner pocket of his sport coat and came out with a sterling silver monogrammed card case. Somewhere, in the boxes he’d never unpacked after moving back to Nags Head, Ty had an identical card case, although with his own initials monogrammed on it. His had been a wedding gift from Kendra’s mother, who was never noted for her originality.