by Wendy Wax
I raise my glass to my lips, but I don’t drink. There’s no way I can possibly swallow right now. I’m trying my hardest not to even think about Daniel, Tonja Kay, and their entourage tromping around the house that changed all of our lives; I’m definitely not going to drink to it. I also try not to think about my father and how he’s betraying my mother, actually betraying all of us. That’s a lot of things not to think about. I feel warm and overdressed, even though it’s cold out here now that the sun has gone down. I can actually feel my body temperature rising. If I were a teapot, I’d be close to a boil.
“I can hardly wait for the new year and the fresh start that it brings,” my mother continues, eerily echoing what my father said. “We’ll all have a clean slate to write on. There’s so much opportunity to . . .”
“Oh, my God!” I cut her off midsentence. I just can’t take it. “Are you serious?”
My mother looks at me. Her expression is one of concern, not anger, which makes me feel even worse. If, in fact, that’s possible. “Are you completely blind?” I ask. “Or don’t you care that Daddy is . . .”
“No, Kyra,” she interrupts me. “This isn’t a good time to talk about your father.”
There’s a warning note in her voice, but everything’s roiling inside me, looking for a way out. “I heard Dad on the phone,” I say in a rush. “He was talking to another woman!”
No one says anything as I spew out the rest. “He told her that he missed her. That he can’t wait to get back to Atlanta.” I barely stop long enough to breathe. “After everything he’s done, after everything he’s put you through, I can’t believe you’re letting him cheat on you.”
I can’t believe I’m losing it like this, either, but I can’t seem to stop. I know I should have waited until we were alone to bring this up—or not brought it up at all—but I just can’t handle it alone. I look at my mother’s face. She’s upset but not shocked. I look at Deirdre and Avery and Nicole. Their discomfort is obvious, but they’re not shocked either.
Everyone already knows. Everyone but me.
“It’s not what you think,” my mother says while everyone else tries to look as if they’re not there or at least not listening. “It’s . . .”
“It’s what?” My internal censor has checked out, and I’m practically shrieking like a child. Which is what I feel like. Small and irrational and helpless and unable to control what’s happening to my life as I know it. “He has a girlfriend and you don’t care?” I’m mortally offended on my mother’s behalf. She deserves so much more than this. But I’m also mad at her for letting him get away with this. I can’t stand that I’m about to cry.
“Kyra, sweetie. It’s all right. Everything’s okay.”
“How can you say that?” I watched my mother take on the whole load for our family when my father fell apart. I’ve been surprised and inspired by her unexpected strength. I want her to storm inside and threaten to cut off his balls. And at the same time I want her to smooth things over. To fix this like she’s always fixed everything else. “This is definitely not okay!” And never would be again.
“Kyra, honey. Your father is seeing someone. But that’s because we’re already living . . . separately.” She swallows and I think about her insistence that Dustin and I stay in her bedroom. The physical distance they’ve maintained that I’ve been trying not to notice. “Because we’re getting a divorce.”
My hand drops to my video camera and my fingers wrap around the grip. I wish I could pick it up and hide behind it. “But why didn’t you tell me. How could you not tell me?”
“We didn’t want to ruin the holiday, sweetheart. We wanted you and Andrew and Dustin to have this last Christmas with both of us. As a family.”
Tears fill my eyes, turning everything soft and out of focus. My parents, who’ve been married for twenty-six years, are getting a divorce. “He’s divorcing you? But, why would he want a divorce now? How can he do this to you?”
“He’s not doing this to me, honey. He’s giving me what I want. I asked for the divorce.”
Without speaking, Avery, Nikki, and Deirdre get up and begin to carry things inside. Vaguely I realize the sky is darkening.
“But I don’t understand. You’ve been together for so long. You’ve been through so much. All the hardest stuff is over. Dad’s back on his feet. You’re fifty-one. Why would you want to be alone now? I mean, that’s just . . .”
“Silly?” she asks quietly. “You think I’m too old to bother?”
“No,” I say, but of course that’s exactly what I think. “No, of course not.”
She sighs. “At my age you start thinking not only about the length of time you have left, but the quality of that life. And despite everything we’ve been through—or maybe because of it—I can’t be myself—the self I am now anyway—with your father.” Her smile is apologetic. It’s me she’s worried about.
I hear the finality in her voice and I can’t hold back the tears anymore. They pour out of my eyes and skid down my cheeks.
My mother wraps her arms around me. “Oh, Kyra. Honey. I’m so sorry.” She wipes a tear off my cheek and I look up at her, but her face is a blur. “I’ll always love your father in certain ways, and I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me you and Andrew.”
I’m crying full-out now.
“He’ll always be your father. And Dustin’s grandfather.” She pauses. “But I think I deserve to make the most of the time I have left, don’t you?”
I nod because I know I’m supposed to, but I feel like someone ripped a hole in my chest the size of the Holland Tunnel. I just can’t process this on top of everything else.
I hate that I’m crying, but it’s a lot harder to stop than it is to start. “I just feel like there isn’t anything I can do about . . . anything.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She brings her forehead to mine. “There’s nothing to be done. Change is the only constant, and there’s no point in wasting time and energy trying to fight it. There’s just acceptance and moving forward.”
I sniff and nod, my forehead pressing into hers. My mother has turned into this font of New Age wisdom when all I really want is the pancakes with the smiley face formed with chocolate bits and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches shaped like stars. Is that too selfish for words?
She unwraps her arms from around me but holds on to my hand. I don’t know if she signals them that it’s okay or they’ve been watching and waiting for the right moment, but Avery, Nikki, and Deirdre come back bearing more wine. I try not to be mad that they knew about my parents before I did. Timing isn’t really the point.
Nicole fills everyone’s glasses and I take a long drink.
“Are you okay?” Avery asks.
I nod even though I’m not. The tears are on intermittent now, but I can’t seem to locate the OFF switch. It’s small of me. I think I’ve already used the words childish and selfish, but I can’t help it. I’m both of those things. I just can’t bear to be the only one dealing with bad news. So I raise my glass. “I guess this is as good a time as any to share some news.”
I have their attention now and I don’t let myself stop and think about whether this is the best time to share it. “Daniel bought Bella Flora. He’s the mystery buyer. Tonja Kay called today to tell me how pissed off she is about it.”
I see the shock and horror on their faces, but I’m beyond caring. “She can’t wait to get her hands on it. She and her designer.” Deirdre once worked for Tonja Kay, but not anymore. “She’s thinking about gutting the first floor so that they can build an indoor pool.”
No one speaks or moves. No one even lifts a glass to her lips or so much as swallows. I’m not sure anyone is breathing.
“So I guess my one good thing is that we won’t be here when he moves Tonja Kay, their kids, and her interior designer into the place she referred to as Bella fucking Flora.”
/> Eight
We’re sitting in a stunned silence when Troy walks up from the beach. Once the sunset is complete, the camera-free zone ceases to exist, so his camera is on his shoulder. The men are right behind him. My father is holding Dustin’s hand. Chase and his father and sons are arranged around him. Andrew brings up the rear. They look like a batch of linemen in a protective formation around a miniature quarterback.
The pack of paparazzi straggle up the path behind them and plant themselves in the no-man’s-land of scrub and sand that lies between Bella Flora and the jetty. Apparently no real celebrities or celebrity look-alikes have popped up in the Tampa Bay area. We will have to do.
I brush my lips across Dustin’s sandy forehead and brush a dark curl back out of his eye, but I don’t meet my father’s eye when he hands Dustin to me, and I don’t speak when Troy begins to herd us inside for the grand announcement of the location of our next Do Over. I’m not sure how it’s possible to seethe and go numb at the same time, but that’s what I’m doing. I am an emotional Oreo cookie—hard and crumbly on the outside, soft and seething in the middle.
Avery goes up on her tiptoes to whisper something in Chase’s ear.
He swears, and I know she’s told him about Daniel buying Bella Flora. Chase poured his heart, his skills, and his money into both of her renovations. I hope Avery’s spared him the part about the indoor pool. And that I’m not around when he tells his dad.
“All right, everybody.” Troy continues to herd us toward the house, filming as we go. “We’re going to shoot the reveal in the salon.”
Just before the doors close behind us, I hear Nigel and Bill and the paparazzi at their backs begging for one more shot. A smile. Anything. Even a mooning from my brother or one of the Hardin boys would probably make their day. But I don’t turn around. They’ve had every bit of the golden hour when the light is best to get shots of Dustin on the beach. That’s as close to a Christmas present as they’re going to get from me.
Inside the lights are still twinkling on the tree. Opened presents lie all over the floor around it. Troy motions Mom, Avery, Chase, Deirdre, Nicole, and me to the sectional near the fireplace, then sets his camera on a tripod across from us, which will allow him to include the tree, the presents, and the rest of the group in the background. It’s exactly where I would have set up if I’d been shooting this, but I will never tell him that.
I breathe deeply and settle Dustin on my lap, trying to focus on what’s happening, but my mind is filled with images of Tonja Kay wreaking foul-mouthed revenge on our poor defenseless Bella Flora and of my family, which will only have one of my parents in it at a time. My reality has altered so much in the last twenty-four hours that I hardly recognize it. I’m afraid if someone looks at me the wrong way I’m going to start crying again.
I want to be anywhere but here. I’d be heading there right now, except that “anywhere but here” is not an option.
Troy locks down the camera, makes a small adjustment, and hands Avery the sealed envelope.
“Are you guys ready?” Avery asks. Her smile is uneven. Her hands tremble so badly that the envelope wobbles. My hands are clasped around Dustin’s stomach, which has the dual purpose of keeping him semistill and disguising my own trembling. He’s busy twirling the propeller of a wooden toy helicopter and kicking one of his legs against mine. He couldn’t care less about the camera, but then people have been aiming them at him since he was born.
Avery licks her lips as she tears open the flap and I realize how dry mine are. My mother reaches a hand over and rests it on mine, but I don’t meet her eyes. We’re about to find out where we’re going next—the network could theoretically send us anywhere in the world—but I still feel oddly half-numb. My emotional Novocain is starting to wear off.
Troy waves one hand above the lens until I look up. His lips stretch into a smile. He points at them and then at me. I smile and try to look eager and engaged. This is business. I have to be professional. No matter how much I resent Troy being first camera and the unpleasant reality TV turn Do Over has taken, none of us can afford to walk away from a network television series. I wear what I hope is an expectant look on my face as Avery’s eyes skim over the card. All of us zone back in from wherever we’ve escaped to as she begins to speak.
“Your next Do Over will start in May,” she intones. “When you turn the home of an extremely high-profile individual into a bed-and-breakfast.” Avery looks up and I can tell that like the rest of us she’s trying to figure out just how high a profile we’re talking. Is it a politician? A movie star? A relative of Mother Teresa?
“That home . . .” She flips the card over then hesitates as if waiting for a drum roll. “ . . . is located somewhere in the Florida Keys.”
There’s a beat of silence and then the guys hoot their approval. Without urging from Troy, they come toward us, talking fast.
“I’ve been down there by boat and car,” Chase says. “The fishing and diving are great. But May’s the beginning of the rainy season. It’s hot and humid as hell there in the summer, and the mosquitoes are as big as helicopters.”
“Hurrykopter!” Dustin says, spinning the wooden propeller.
“One of my roommates went to Key West last year for spring break,” Andrew says. “The pictures were awesome. Lots of body paint and big boobs.”
“Boobs!” Dustin says. I glare at my brother. I can tell by how well the word is formed that this is not the first time Dustin’s heard it. The village that’s raising my child is not always as mature as it might be.
Everybody’s talking over each other. Chase’s sons are on their phones, Googling everyone and everything they can think of to try to figure out who the house might belong to and which of the Keys it might be located in.
No one comments on the fact that the high-profile individual, whoever he or she might be, has been chosen because Do Over needs a major ratings boost to survive.
“Has anyone else noticed that we’re going to be on another barrier island in the middle of hurricane season?” Deirdre asks.
“We’ve all noticed.” Avery starts to roll her eyes then remembers she’s on-camera. “I have a feeling they’re not going to be happy until they get footage of us clinging to a rooftop waiting for someone to rescue us.”
“I guess Hurricane Charlene wasn’t enough for them,” Mom says. Charlene was the hurricane that roared up the Gulf Coast, right past Bella Flora, just after we finished renovating her, causing us to spend the night cowering in a Tampa motel bathtub. Last summer, when we were in South Beach, the disaster we faced was entirely man-made.
I see Troy smiling and I can’t really blame him. We’re all so excited that we barely notice that he’s here recording all of our warts and foibles for playback at a future date.
Dustin slides down off my lap and races over to the tree, where my father picks him up and helps him choose a candy cane off a branch. I wish I could forget that he and my mother are no longer the single entity I’ve always considered them. I’m a mother now myself, and the idea of being a child of divorce at the ripe old age of twenty-four is ridiculous, but it still makes my stomach hurt. The thought of Tonja Kay taking her anger at me out on Bella Flora makes the ache even worse.
I hear the loud whine of a boat motor out in the pass. An explosion of flashes lights the sky just long enough for someone to get an exterior shot of Bella Flora with a hint of us inside. I wish I were wearing my burqa right now. Or even the big hair and strap-on boobs that I wore in Nashville. I’m going to have to come up with a lighter, more breathable disguise, something that’s water-repellent, before we head down to the Keys.
I can feel Troy zooming in on my face. He pans the camera lens slowly across the couch, carefully pausing on each of us briefly before moving on. Unlike his lens, my thoughts move in quick jerks and starts. My mother says it’s all about accepting change and moving forward. But I think that
’s easier for the person making the change than it is for the people who are forced to accept it.
I try to imagine who the “high-profile” individual in the Keys might be, but of course high-profile could mean about as much as celebrity does. The house we’ll be renovating could belong to the president of the United States. Or a Project Runway all-star.
Dustin runs to me and climbs into my lap and I hold him tight against me. I don’t have to look to know what Troy is shooting. We are the tabloid version of the Madonna and Child, but our powers are confined to selling magazines and, maybe, if we’re lucky, a successful network television show.
I look around me and I’m reminded that Dustin and I are not alone. We’re all bound up with each other and with Do Over. And another chance to “do over” our own lives. We’ve had two shots at this, and we’ve all made progress. I know I’m not the only one who’s hoping that the saying is true. That the third time, somewhere down in the Florida Keys, will be the charm.
Keep reading for a special preview of the next Ten Beach Road novel by Wendy Wax
THE HOUSE ON MERMAID POINT
Available from Berkley July 2014
Prologue
There had been a time, many times actually, when William Hightower would have left rehab in a limo. That limo, sent by his record label, would have had tinted windows, a fully stocked bar, and an eager woman with long legs, big breasts, and a talented mouth perched on the back seat.
His release would have been celebratory and newsworthy with photographers and fans jostling each other outside the gates so that they could snap photos and scream his name as the limo sped by.
The articles and news stories would run for weeks after his release. Each would begin with pictures of him on a stage surrounded by a vast, undulating sea of enraptured fans. Back when the braid that hung down his back was darker than the night sky over a Florida swamp. When he’d swaggered across a stage as if he owned it. As if he were a real Seminole warrior and not a scared kid from a dusty no name town who had two drops of Native American to every gallon of Florida Cracker blood in his veins.