by Nancy Thayer
“And it would be so great if we had Jewel with us when he gets off the plane!”
Adam steered the car to the nearest side street and then down to Dover and over to Francis and back toward town on Washington Street. There was just enough room for him to double park behind a truck in front of the Harbor Master’s office. Adam and Clare both jumped out and ran around the small building and out onto the pier.
“Jewel!” they called. “Jewel!”
The day was sunny, the water throwing back spangles of light that half blinded them as they thumped down the wooden pier. Boston whalers, sunfish, small motor yachts, and gray inflatable rafts bobbed gently at anchor, and at the end of the pier Bill Blount’s fishing vessel The Ruthie B. rose, imposing and stately. A couple of kids chased each other over the boards and several people in shorts and scalloper’s caps lugged coolers toward their boats, but there was no little girl sitting at the end of the pier. No Jewel.
Clare approached a woman who was urging her yellow Lab into a boat. “Excuse me. Have you seen a little girl, about this tall, lots of red hair, hanging out down here this morning?”
“No. Sorry.”
Adam took Clare’s arm. “We don’t have time. Let’s just go. We’ll find Jewel later.”
They ran back down the pier, jumped into the Jeep, and with a scream of burning tires, Adam executed a three-point turn and headed back out of town.
“Who else can I call?” Clare muttered.
“Call my mom and dad. They might know where Lexi is, and Lexi might know where Jewel is.”
“Great idea!” Clare dialed—and got a machine. “Damn. How can it be that with so much technology we still have trouble finding one another?”
“Never mind. We’re almost there. Clare, I just can’t believe this is happening, I can’t believe I just spoke to Tris!”
“I wish I could be there when Jewel sees that her father’s alive.”
“Sorry, buddy, not today,” Adam grumbled as he passed a truck waiting on a side street to get into the long line of Orange Street traffic. “I usually stop and let people in,” he told Clare, “but right now I don’t want to let anyone slow me down.”
“Who else could I call?” Clare wondered.
“Never mind, we’re almost there.”
They turned onto the airport road. A few minutes later, Adam stopped the Jeep in the short-term parking lot. They jumped out and hurtled toward the arrivals gate, a long room with two wooden benches and a soft-drink machine. Windows opened onto the landing field where nine-seater planes sputtered to a stop or lumbered out for take-off. The lounge was filled with people waiting for friends and relatives, everyone in full summer dress. The men wore Nantucket red Bermuda shorts, polo shirts, and leather loafers without socks, or white flannels and striped button-down shirts. The women sported sleek floral Lilly Pulitzer sheaths or tennis whites and one chic brunette, Clare noticed, wore an indigo halter top with a Moon Shell Beach sarong.
“I think this is his plane.” Adam took Clare’s hand and squeezed it hard.
They watched as the small plane taxied into place. The attendant opened the door that folded down to become a ramp. The first person off was a woman with a baby. After that came a man with a dog. Then a woman with a straw hat tied with a navy blue ribbon.
And then came Tris.
“Good God,” Adam whispered.
The Tris they had known had been slender but muscular. The man limping toward the terminal was gaunt. It wasn’t just that his borrowed clothing—jeans and a baggy sweatshirt—were too big for him. His face was sunken and deeply lined. His red hair was streaked with white. He was thirty-three, but he looked fifty.
But when he caught sight of Adam, he smiled, and his eyes brightened, and he looked young again.
“Tris. Hot damn.” Adam grabbed his friend up in a huge bear hug.
Clare moved back slightly, allowing the two men their privacy. She could see Adam’s shoulders shake. Tris clutched Adam’s arms, and she saw how his hands and arms were darkly tanned and scarred.
Other passengers looked curiously at the men as they passed, but quickly the room emptied out and for a moment there was no drone of airplane engine, no burst of chatter. In the silence, Clare heard Tris’s muffled sobs.
“I thought I was going to die out there, Adam,” he choked out. “I thought I was going to die.”
Adam pounded his friend on the back hard, as if trying to drive out such an idea. “It’s a miracle, man; it’s a miracle.” He held Tris away from him, studying him. “Tris, man, you look rough.” Both men laughed, wiping the tears from their faces.
“Tris, I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad you’re alive.” Clare reached out her arms and embraced him.
But Tris looked confused. “Um, Clare?” He looked from her to Adam questioningly.
“We’re together,” Adam told him. “We’ll explain later. Let’s take care of you first. Look, maybe you should go to the hospital.”
Tris waved the suggestions away. “No, I’m fine. I need a bath and a good meal, but more than that, I need to see Jewel.”
“We’ve been trying to find her for you,” Clare said. “We can’t seem to reach anyone on the phone. Not surprising, I guess, on such a perfect Sunday afternoon.”
“Come to my house,” Adam suggested. “You can take a bath and shave and we’ll fix you a big meal, and by that time someone is sure to be home.”
Tris grinned ruefully at his borrowed clothing. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to clean up a bit.”
“You can borrow my clothes. Or we can go by your house and get some of your own.”
“My house”—Tris shook his head in wonder—“I can’t believe I’m here.”
They were in the Jeep and buckling their seat belts when Clare’s phone rang.
“Hi, Clare,” Adam’s mother said. “That was quite a message you left.”
“Myrna! We’ve got Tris in the car with us! He just got off the plane. He was shipwrecked on an island up north of Maine. Listen,” Clare rushed on, “do you know where Lexi is? We think she might know where Jewel is.”
“Lexi has Jewel with her today. Bonnie and Ken are at some lawn party…”
“Jewel’s with Lexi!” Clare told Tris and Adam. To Adam’s mother, she said, “Do you know their plans?”
“I think Lexi was taking her to a special place…a beach—”
“Get out!” Clare shrieked. “Sorry, Myrna, didn’t mean to break your eardrum. I know where they are, thanks, we’ll phone you later.” She leaned forward. “Adam, Lexi’s taken Jewel to Moon Shell Beach.”
Adam gunned the engine and did a U-turn back toward Polpis Road.
“I wonder if Jewel should see me looking like this,” Tris said.
“She won’t care how you look, man,” Adam told him, punching his shoulder. “All she’ll care about is seeing you. Alive and kicking.”
The mass of contractors’ trucks and flashy convertibles and UPS vans and Marine Home Center flatbeds crept at a snail’s pace.
“Tell me about Jewel,” Tris said.
Clare was nearly bouncing in her seat. “Tris, she was amazing. She came every single day to wait for you on the town pier. She knew you would be coming home.”
“And why is Jewel with your sister?” Tris asked Adam.
“Long story short,” Adam said. “Lexi’s back on the island. She’s started her own boutique, a clothing store—”
“Right next door to me!” Clare interjected.
“And Lexi saw Jewel sitting out there every day and she started hanging out with Jewel and they became close.”
Tris frowned. “Isn’t Lexi married to that Hardin fellow?”
“She was. They’re divorced. Lexi’s back here for good.” Clare met Adam’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Tris, we had a storm a few days ago. A bad one. Jewel went into the water, and Lexi ran out and saved her.”
“Clare helped,” Adam added.
“Is she okay?” Tris asked urgently
.
“She’s fine. The thing is, Bonnie has forbidden her from ever going out on the town pier again.”
“I guess that’s understandable,” Tris said.
“So I think Lexi brought Jewel out to a little private beach where we played when we were girls. You can see the harbor from there. Jewel was obsessed with the idea that you’d be brought home by boat, she wanted you to see her waiting for you, she wanted you to know she never gave up hope.”
Tris’s shoulders heaved and he rubbed at his eyes.
“We’re here,” Adam said. He stopped the Jeep on the side of the road and looked over at his friend. “You okay?”
“There’s Lexi’s Range Rover,” Clare said, pointing. “They’re out on Moon Shell Beach.”
“Moon Shell Beach?” Tris asked.
Clare opened her door and jumped out. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Her heart was leaping in her throat as she led the two men through the swampy marshland toward the secret path. The land squelched under her feet as she cut through the tangle of cattails, berry bushes, and beach grass. High overhead in the brilliant blue sky, a gull flew, shrieking. Clare parted the wall of grasses and stepped out onto the golden curve of sand.
Two figures were kneeling on the beach, making a sand castle. Jewel wore shorts and a yellow T-shirt and her hair was in braids tied with blue ribbons. Next to her, Lexi wore a white T-shirt and khaki shorts. Behind them, dozens of boats bobbed in the idle blue waters of the harbor. Tris came through the tall grasses, and Adam followed.
“Hi, guys,” Clare said, and her voice came out high and squeaky, because her heart was pounding so hard.
Jewel turned and looked up. Her eyes went wide. She jumped up, screaming, “Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy!” Sand flew up as she ran toward her father. Tris reached out and caught her in his arms and held her to him. “Daddy, you’re home! I knew you’d come home! We’ve been waiting for you!”
Tris hugged his daughter, kissing the top of her head, smelling her, inhaling her, then looking at her face.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Jewel said softly.
“Happy tears, Jewel,” Tris told her.
Adam came quietly to put an arm around Clare, who was smiling while tears ran down her face.
“Daddy, Daddy,” Jewel squirmed, lifting an arm free so she could point to Lexi. “Daddy, you have to meet Lexi. She helped me hope for you.”
Lexi had been standing by the water, watching. Now she came forward, her blond hair glowing in the sun.
“Hello, Lexi,” Tris said, reaching out to shake her hand.
“Hi, Tris,” Lexi said, and her smile welcomed him home.
About the Author
NANCY THAYER is the New York Times bestselling author of The Hot Flash Club, The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again, Hot Flash Holidays, The Hot Flash Club Chills Out, and Between Husbands and Friends. She lives on Nantucket.
ALSO BY NANCY THAYER
The Hot Flash Club Chills Out
Hot Flash Holidays
The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again
The Hot Flash Club
An Act of Love
Belonging
Between Husbands and Friends
Bodies and Souls
Custody
Everlasting
Family Secrets
My Dearest Friend
Nell
Spirit Lost
Stepping
Three Women at the Water’s Edge
Morning
Moon Shell Beach is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Nancy Thayer
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Thayer, Nancy.
Moon Shell Beach : a novel / by Nancy Thayer.
p. cm.
1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Divorced women—Fiction. 3. Homecoming—Fiction. 4. Nantucket Island (Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3570.H3475M66 2008
813'.54—dc22
2008002520
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-51328-1
v3.0