Beach Trip

by Cathy Holton

  Lola stood up. She yawned and raised her arms so high above her head that her belly-button ring showed, glinting in the sunlight. “I’ll be right back,” she said, padding down the hallway to her room. The door clicked shut behind her.

  Captain Mike poured himself a cup of coffee and stood at the breakfast bar observing them skeptically. “Are we clear on the plans, then?” He seemed to suspect that without a little pushing, they would spend the rest of the day lounging in their pajamas.

  Mel still hadn’t forgiven him for ignoring her earlier. She said, “Where’s April?”

  He sipped his coffee. Steam curled around his face and his eyes, in the slanting light, were a pale blue. “She had to pick up a few supplies at the grocery store. She’s coming by to pick me up later.”

  “Lola says she’s from Wilmington.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you from Wilmington?”

  He set his cup down on the counter. It was apparent that he didn’t want to talk about himself. “I’ve lived there,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Among other places.”

  Before she could continue with her line of questioning, the phone rang. Captain Mike picked up his cup and walked over to the long windows where he stood watching the rowdy teenagers playing Frisbee.

  Annie looked at the phone, watching the caller ID display light up like a traffic controller’s screen. “It’s Briggs,” she said morosely, staring at the display. Mel and Sara exchanged glances. The phone continued to ring. “Why doesn’t Lola answer it?”

  “She doesn’t answer it because she doesn’t know it’s ringing,” Mel said. “I unplugged the phone in her room last night when we got home.”

  “She told you not to do that.”

  “No, she told me she needed to talk to Briggs if he called. She didn’t tell me not to unplug the phone.”

  “You have a rather convenient idea of right and wrong,” Sara said.

  “I know. I should have been an attorney.”

  “Well, someone needs to answer the phone,” Annie said flatly. She had no intention of doing so. She had probably said no more than ten words to Briggs Furman her entire life. He had always ignored her, as if she were nothing more than a worn piece of furniture, something large and unwieldy that took up space without adding much in the way of beauty or comfort.

  The phone stopped ringing. In the sudden silence they could hear the coffee gurgling in the pot.

  Over by the windows, Captain Mike said quietly, “He’ll just call again.” His T-shirt was torn in the back, and a strip of fabric hung down over his hip like a forlorn flag.

  “I don’t know why he has to call every day,” Mel said, staring at Captain Mike, who stood, alert and waiting, as if he was listening to something no one else could hear. She sank down on the sofa and stretched her legs out, pointing at Annie with her coffee cup. “Your husband doesn’t call every day,” she said. She hesitated, bringing the cup to her lips and then resting it on her chest. “Sara’s husband doesn’t call every day.”

  Sara turned abruptly and went to toast a bagel.

  Annie stared at the phone. It was true; Mitchell didn’t call every day but he called often enough. He had called last night while she was taking a lukewarm bath, trying to soothe her sunburned skin.

  “I miss you, honey,” he said. He was watching the History Channel; she could hear the guns of Omaha Beach going off in the background, shelling the beachhead. “This big old bed sure is cold without you here to warm it up.”

  She surprised herself by blushing. “Did you remember to feed the cat?” she said.

  “I mean it, honey. It’s cold as a brass monkey in a deep freeze without you here.”

  She smiled suddenly. “And you’ll need to give him his hairball pills. They’re in the cabinet above the cat food.”

  “Remember that little bed we used to sleep in when we were first married?”

  Annie remembered it, a dark oak Victorian spindle bed passed down from a dead great-aunt. “You’ll have to hold his mouth open and force it in,” she said.

  “Remember all the fun we used to have?”

  She smiled again, picturing him in his faded robe and slippers with his dear little bald spot gleaming under the lights. “Or better yet,” she said, “roll it up in a little piece of lunch meat and feed it to him.”

  Outside the windows the bright orange Frisbee sailed over the dunes. Captain Mike finished his coffee. “If you girls don’t need me, I’ll go get the boat ready,” he said, but he seemed in no hurry to go, standing at the window staring pensively down at the wide beach. “I guess there’s plenty,” he began, but was interrupted by the sudden chirping of a cell phone.

  Sara said, “That’ll be Briggs trying to reach Lola on her cell.”

  “Shit.” Mel stood up and looked around. “Where’s the phone?”

  Annie pointed at one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. “In her purse. Over there.”

  It took Mel a while to find the purse and even longer to find the phone, fumbling around inside the cavernous bag. By the time she’d found it, the phone had stopped ringing.

  “You ought to let Mrs. Furman know he called,” Captain Mike said, turning his head so they could see his profile.

  “I’ll handle it,” Mel said flatly, thinking suddenly that he really wasn’t that attractive, not in profile anyway, not without the full effect of those blue-gray eyes.

  “I think you should let Mrs. Furman handle it.”

  “Captain Mike is right,” Sara said. “Let Lola handle it.”

  They all irritated her. They seemed to imply that she didn’t know what she was doing, especially Captain Mike with his stern, self-assured manner, the hint of disapproval in his voice. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t protected Lola before. She knew what she was doing. Mel ignored the other two and said to Annie, “If he calls again, I’ll talk to him.”

  She hadn’t gotten where she was in life by letting other people tell her what to do. She had learned long ago to trust her instincts. They weren’t always right, initially, but they always steered her clear of shoals in the long run. Sara and Annie acted as if their lives were so tough, so complicated, but what did either of them really know about hard work and sacrifice?

  Annie poured cream into her coffee and stirred it slowly. “What do you think Briggs said to her yesterday that made her cry?”

  “Who knows?” Mel said. “Who knows what goes on between two people behind closed doors.” Whatever was wrong with her now had nothing to do with her choice of how to live her life. She would never have been happy with Annie’s narrow, restrictive life. And despite her fabulous husband, she wouldn’t have wanted Sara’s life either, with its constant distractions and detours and myriad small sacrifices.

  She had chosen to be a writer. She had made the commitment and never wavered. Her life had turned out the way she had planned it, so why did it feel sometimes as if her career was less like the Holy Grail and more like a blindfold tied across her eyes?

  “All I know is he’s called every day,” she said.

  As if on cue, the house phone began to ring again. Mel jumped up and answered it. “Briggs,” she said curtly. “How are you?”

  “Where’s my wife?” He sounded furious.

  “She’s sleeping,” she said, lying easily, too easily. She was gripped by a slight sensation of sadness, passing through her belly like a cramp.

  “Well, wake her up. I need to talk to her.”

  “No, I won’t wake her. She’s tired. Talking to you yesterday made her tired.” She stared at Captain Mike, who stood watching the beach with a kind of rapt attention.

  Briggs was quiet for a moment. “Don’t interfere, Mel. It’s none of your business.”

  “Yes, it is my business. She’s my friend.”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Look, Briggs, we’re on vacation. We’re on a girls’ trip. We’ve got three days left, and then you’ll have Lola all to yourself. We haven’t been together in
twenty-three years, not all of us anyway, so give us some space. Okay? We’ll send her back to you safe and sound in three days, I promise.”

  “Tell her to call me when she wakes up,” he said, and hung up.

  Mel clicked off and tossed the phone on the counter. “Asshole,” she said. She couldn’t believe she and Briggs Furman had ever been allies. This thought brought another slight cramping sensation in her stomach. The guy was a total and indisputable prick. Neither of her husbands had been that bad. Except for Booker’s inability to handle misfortune that didn’t involve him, except for Richard’s cloying need to be Ward Cleaver, her husbands hadn’t been bad at all. Most women she knew would have been happy with either one. This knowledge should have cheered her, but instead it only added to the small knot of despondency she felt growing steadily larger in her chest.

  Lola walked into the room wearing a white lace minidress and a large floppy hat, looking adorable and happy. “I can’t wait to show you the Isle of Pines,” she said, her eyes darting over their faces. “It’s one of my favorite places.”

  Mel said flatly, “Your husband called.”

  Lola’s expression changed, a series of emotions passing swiftly across her face: surprise, distress, sadness. “Oh?” she said.

  “He said for you to call him back but no one would blame you if you didn’t.”

  Captain Mike turned suddenly and crossed the room to the kitchen, setting his cup down in the sink.

  “No,” Lola said. “I have to talk to him. He’ll just call again if I don’t.” She picked up her purse and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

  Captain Mike waited until the door clicked shut, then said sharply, “Don’t forget. Be at the marina by one forty-five.” He went out the kitchen door and they watched him through the glass, striding purposefully across the veranda toward the crofter.

  “Is it my imagination,” Sara said, “or does Captain Mike get more attractive as the week wears on?”

  “It’s not your imagination,” Annie said. “Definitely not.”

  “You two go on and get dressed,” Mel said. “I’ll check on Lola.”

  They took the beach road to the marina. Mel drove with Lola sitting beside her and Sara and Annie in back. A strong wind buffeted the little cart. Sunlight shimmered on the white sand and the distant stretch of sparkling ocean. The narrow road was crowded with golf carts; teenagers with boogie boards strapped to their cart roofs, and families with beach umbrellas strapped to theirs, shuttled back and forth between the beach and the tall houses.

  “Why is it so crowded?” Mel asked, pulling to the side so a cart driven by four underage boys could pass them. The boys honked and waved.

  “It’s almost the weekend,” Lola said. She was wearing jeweled sandals on her tiny feet. Her toenails were painted a deep red. With her dark sunglasses and floppy hat she looked like a movie star from the nineteen-forties, like Ingrid Bergman in Notorious. “A lot of people from the mainland come over here for the weekend.”

  “It’s still not as crowded as Hilton Head,” Sara said, turning her head to gaze at the expanse of sparsely populated beachfront.

  “Or Destin,” Annie said.

  Lola sighed and looked at the sparkling water. “I love the beach,” she said. She seemed none the worse for her conversation with Briggs. It must have gone on for some time but when Mel went to check on her, she was happily applying sunscreen to her legs and singing as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “It’s like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said when Mel stuck her head in the door, and when Mel said, “What?” Lola laughed her gay little laugh and said, “Do you want sunscreen?”

  They passed a golf cart decorated with a sign that read JUST MARRIED, parked in the drive of one of the large houses.

  Lola sighed. “I always wanted a beach wedding,” she said.

  “It seems to be very popular these days,” Sara said.

  “I always wondered how you’d keep the sand out of everything,” Annie said. “Out of your veil. Out of your train. It seems like it would be so—messy.”

  “I got married on the beach,” Mel reminded them.

  “Which time?” Sara asked brightly.

  Mel ignored her. “Maybe Henry and Layla should have a beach wedding,” she said to Lola.

  “Oh, no.” Lola shook her head gravely and put her feet up on the dash, wiggling her toes. “She’s from Ann Arbor. They’ll have a traditional wedding.”

  “What does the ring look like?”

  “What ring?”

  Mel gave her a piercing look. “The engagement ring?”

  “There is no engagement ring,” Lola said, tugging at one of her sandal straps. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Sara and Annie swiveled their heads to look at Lola. “I thought you said they were engaged,” Sara said.

  “Not yet,” Lola said, “but they will be.” She stopped tugging at her sandal and sat back with her hands resting in her lap.

  Sara turned back around. Mel gripped the steering wheel and watched the road. Only Annie continued to stare at Lola over one shoulder. “How do you know?” she asked finally. “How do you know they’re getting married?”

  Lola smiled sweetly. “I read their auras,” she said.

  When they arrived at the yacht, April was in the galley and Captain Mike was up on the flybridge checking the trolling valves. Mel stood on the dock with her arms crossed over her chest watching him until he glanced down and noticed her.

  “Need some help?” she asked casually, shading her eyes with one hand. She was wearing a bikini and a pair of short shorts that she knew showed off her long legs to good advantage.

  “Sure,” he said, going back to work. “Why don’t you go down to the galley and see if you can help April stow the food?”

  That wasn’t really what she’d had in mind but she couldn’t very well refuse now that she’d offered. She climbed aboard and set her beach bag on one of the aft bench seats and then went into the galley. April was loading groceries into a Sub-Zero undercounter refrigerator and when Mel told her Captain Mike had sent her to help, she seemed annoyed. She was a quiet girl who kept mostly to herself, and Mel had a hard time reading her. Of course, there was always the chance that she had picked up on Mel’s flirtatious manner toward the Captain, in which case she wouldn’t blame April for being unfriendly, although Mel was surprised to find that she wanted April to like her. She wanted to reassure April that her feelings for Captain Mike were nothing more than an idle distraction, a chance to fill the dull hours until she could figure out some way to get her life back on track. But then she thought better of it and said nothing at all.

  “Those canned goods need to go in the lower pantry,” April said, pointing at a brown bag on the counter.

  They worked for a while in silence, each one efficiently ignoring the other. “You’ve got enough food here to feed an army,” Mel said finally, closing the door of the pantry. She could see Sara out on the dock, talking on her cell phone. She was probably talking to her daughter, who had already called twice this morning to ask her mother’s advice about some boy she was seeing. Mel had listened intently to both conversations, wondering what she would have done if the situation had been reversed, and she had been the mother on the phone giving advice. Would she have said things like, Be careful, you’re only twelve. or Take it slow, boys can be fickle and you need to concentrate on the things you can control, like schoolwork or finding a hobby? No, of course not. She would have said something like, You’re only young once, go for it, Nicky! It was probably best that she was childless.

  She flattened the brown bag and folded it against her chest. “So how long have you worked for the Furmans?” she asked April.

  “Off and on for four years.”

  “How about Captain Mike?”

  “I don’t work for him.”

  The girl was being purposefully obtuse. Mel smiled wanly and said, “I meant how long has Captain Mike worked for the Furmans?”


  April gave her a steady look. “You’ll have to ask him,” she said.

  She was pretty, there was no denying that, with her perfect skin and almond-shaped eyes, but she wasn’t exactly warm. She wasn’t the kind of girl Mel would have pictured Captain Mike with. She wanted to ask her about him, to ask her how they had met, how long they’d been dating but she had the feeling the girl would only shrug and say, Ask him. She didn’t look like the kind of person who gave away confidences easily.

  Mel picked up the empty brown bags scattered around the galley and began to fold them flat. “So you grew up in Wilmington?”

  “That’s right. My parents still live there, and my little sister.” April seemed distracted, checking a handwritten list and ticking things off.

  Mel went back to staring at Sara through the window. She watched her animated face and she thought, What must it be like to have a daughter? Even if she ever, by some miracle, found the right man, would she really want a child? Not that she needed a man. She could adopt. She could find a surrogate. You didn’t need a man these days to have a child (although she wouldn’t, of course, broach this subject with Sara). But even if she could have a child, would she really want the responsibility of caring for someone who was totally dependent on her, whose every whim must take precedence over her own desires for the next eighteen years?

  No, of course not.

  She stacked the folded bags on the counter. “I can’t imagine working for anyone nicer than Lola,” she said.

  April stared at her list and didn’t look up. “Lola’s awesome,” she said.

  “I’ve known her since she was just a girl,” Mel said. “Since college. We all met in college.”

  April crossed out an item on the list. “She paid my tuition to culinary school,” she said.

  “Lola?”

  April glanced up from her list, fixing Mel with a studious expression. “She paid my tuition. She paid for my sister’s operation. My parents don’t have insurance and she paid for it out of her own pocket.”

  This didn’t surprise Mel. Lola’s charity was legendary. “Lola’s a generous person.”