Beach Trip

by Cathy Holton

  “I’ve had a lot of fun on this trip but I’m looking forward to going home,” Sara said quietly.

  “Yes,” Annie said.

  She pictured Mitchell slumped in front of the TV in his favorite recliner, his stockinged feet pointed at the screen, his one glass of red wine, carefully poured out and measured according to the doctor’s instructions, resting on a side table. Things that had once annoyed her about Mitchell, seen now in the gentle light of missing him, seemed incredibly dear. His snoring, his dirty laundry left on the bathroom floor, his loud honks and gags as he cleared his throat every morning. In the movies, love was always loud and passionate; it was always unrelenting and tragic. She had had a taste of that kind of love with Paul Ballard. But there was a different kind too, a slow, quiet contentment that built gradually over time, a feeling based on trust and fortitude, on the shared experiences of raising children, on grief and hardship and joy. That was the love Annie felt for Mitchell. She had never, until this moment, realized it so clearly. She loved Mitchell, and yet she had come so incredibly close to losing him.

  “We should do this again,” Mel said.

  “Every year,” Sara said.

  “Yes,” Annie said.

  She had come close to losing him through her own fault. Things that had seemed beyond her control at the time, situations that had caused her pain, had worked out for the best. Well, most of them had anyway; there were some things you could never explain or do over, you just had to accept them. Maybe that’s what grace was. Maybe you had to reach a certain age before you could look back and see it at work in your life.

  Annie put her head back and stared up at the starry sky. A bright yellow moon rose over the sea, bathing the ridge in a clear, luminous light. One thing was certain, though. When she got back to Nashville, she was introducing Mitchell to Agnes Grace.

  A phone rang suddenly, startling them with its insistent chirping. Sara pulled her cell out of her purse and checked the display. “It’s my husband,” she said, rising.

  “Talk about timely,” Mel said.

  Sara walked a little ways down the ridge. When she came back, a short while later, she was smiling.

  “Does he miss you?” Annie asked, wondering if it was too late to call Mitchell.

  Sara grinned. “Is the pope Catholic?” she said.

  “How are Tom and the kids anyway?”

  Mel groaned. “Haven’t we talked enough about the husband and kids? Christ, that’s all I’ve heard all week.”

  “He’s fine,” Sara said to Annie. “They’re fine.” She cut her eyes over to Mel and then back to Annie. “Thanks for asking.”

  Mel raised her hands apologetically. “It’s not that I don’t care,” she said. “It’s just that I figure J.T. has his hands full, what with taking care of the kids while you’re gone.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Sara said. “No one’s called him that since college.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Radford.”

  “His name is Tom,” she said, shoving the phone back into her purse. “That’s the name he goes by now.”

  Chapter 38

  SATURDAY

  heir last day at the beach dawned cloudy and rainy Mel, packing her bags in her bedroom, was glad. It would be hard to leave paradise on a brilliant sun-drenched day Rain seemed more conducive to her mood. Over on the dresser her cell phone was flashing its sad little light, warning of an unheeded call. She checked and was surprised to find a message from Leland.

  “How you doing?” the message said. He sounded strange. Melancholy and strange. “I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

  Mel sensed that he wanted to chat, which was odd because she and Leland never called each other to chat. She hoped he wasn’t on the verge of senile dementia, some latent mental illness that would drive him steadily and progressively back into his dismal childhood. Or hers. She had learned years ago that revenge was an unhealthy obsession. She had forgiven him, she had to, to get well, but the forgiveness was for her sake and not his own. Sooner or later Leland would have to wrestle with his own demons.

  She pushed a button and erased the message. She’d call him tomorrow from the airport.

  She finished packing and went downstairs to check on the others. They had planned to spend their last evening on the boat, but the rain would, no doubt, change all that.

  She was surprised to find Captain Mike, Lola, and April in the kitchen laughing and talking, apparently unconcerned by the weather.

  “The front’s scheduled to move out by early afternoon,” Captain Mike explained, “and we’ll have smooth sailing from then on.” He was loading fish into a cooler. April was loading kitchen supplies into a plastic tub. She glanced over her shoulder, giving Mel a wan smile. She seemed friendlier, more relaxed, as if she, too, realized that this trip was almost over and she was grateful for that.

  “Well, I might be wrong but I don’t think you’ll get Annie out on a boat in rough seas,” Mel said, sitting down at the breakfast bar to pour herself a cup of coffee.

  Lola glanced at Mike but he smiled and closed the lid to the cooler. “You leave Annie to me,” he said.

  True to form, Annie refused to budge. They sat in the great room all morning watching the storm-tossed seas through the long windows. Mike tried to tell her the front would be moving out by midafternoon. Lola offered her Xanax, which she had somehow miraculously found. Finally Annie said, “I don’t know why you’re pushing this, Lola. You know how dangerous it can be out there in a storm. They don’t call it the Graveyard of the Atlantic for nothing.”

  “I know,” Lola said in a soothing voice. The hint of sadness that seemed to follow her had returned, settling around her narrow shoulders and delicate face. She seemed nervous; every time the phone rang she jumped, and Mel imagined how hard it must be for her, contemplating a return to Briggs. “But there’s this hidden cove I really wanted you to see. I wanted all of you to see it by moonlight.”

  “What moonlight?” Annie asked in a wavering voice. “It’s pitch-black out there.”

  Captain Mike stood at the window watching the rain, his hands clasped behind his back. “It’ll clear,” he said.

  And then, as if following his command, it did clear. By three o’clock the gray clouds moved off and the sun peeked through, shimmering across the wet landscape. The sea continued to roll wildly, great foamy waves crashing against the beach, and Annie watched them anxiously Lola went over and sat down next to her on the sofa. She put her arms around Annie.

  “Don’t worry,” she said in her little-girl voice. “Captain Mike knows what he’s doing. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

  “I won’t take it out into open sea while the water’s rough,” Mike said to Annie. “I’ll keep to the coves and inlets.”

  “Oh, all right,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be the one ruining everyone else’s fun.”

  “That hasn’t stopped you before,” Mel said.

  “Bite me, Mel.”

  Sara laughed. Lola said mildly, “I just want it to be special. I want our last night together to be special.”

  True to his word, Captain Mike stuck to the coves and inlets. The women sat in the salon, sipping tall glasses of iced tea and watching the narrow islands pass beyond the long windows. They motored through the Carolina Beach Inlet and through Myrtle Grove Sound, past Masonboro Island and Wrightsville Beach. Dusk was falling as they passed the wide beach and tangled underbrush of the Isle of Pines, and continued north through Topsail Sound, anchoring finally in a sheltered cove off the northern tip of Lea Island. The water in the failing light was an oily gray color, and far out beyond Topsail Inlet the sea was a wide dark shape.

  Mel leaned back and put her arm up across the back of the curved sofa. “Annie, are you still with us?”

  Annie had taken Lola up on her offer of the Xanax. She’d taken half a tablet and sat now looking out at the distant shape of Lea Island with a dazed expression on her face. “It’s strange,” she said.

&nbs
p; “What’s strange?”

  She turned her head slightly, trying to focus on Mel’s face. “The way I feel. I mean, I know I’m in danger, I know the boat may capsize and we may all drown, but I don’t really care.”

  “I know,” Lola said brightly. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Don’t get used to taking pharmaceuticals,” Sara warned Annie, as if there might be a danger of this. “I see a lot of sad cases come through the court system.”

  “Speaking of pharmaceuticals,” Mel said to Lola. “Were you able to score some weed?” Lola grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Sara said flatly, “I told y’all I’m not doing that.”

  “No one’s twisting your arm.”

  “I mean it this time, Mel.”

  “I know you do, Sara. And it’s okay.”

  “I’ll do it,” Annie said, waving her hand vaguely. “It’s probably the last time I’ll ever do it, so I’ll do it for old time’s sake.”

  “You’re already under the influence. I think you should leave it at that,” Sara said.

  Annie stared at the rolling sea, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I only took half a tablet. And it’s wearing off. In about two hours I’ll need something to take the edge off.”

  Mel laughed. “Here’s to taking the edge off,” she said, lifting her glass of sweet tea. They all raised their glasses. Annie sipped her tea slowly, then set the glass down on the table. “We did what you wanted to do,” she said, waving her finger at Sara. “Renew our friendship—we did that.” She looked around the room as if daring anyone to dispute this, and no one did. “And I did something I’ve never done before. I dyed my hair. I let you dress me up like a tart. So now it’s only fair that we do what Lola wanted to do, and smoke some weed.”

  Mel patted Annie’s arm. “Easy there, Anne Louise. It doesn’t have to be a group thing. Let’s lighten up on the peer pressure, okay?”

  Sara leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “We still haven’t done what Mel wanted to do either.”

  “You mean fuck Captain Mike?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hey,” Mel said. “The night’s still young.”

  The weed was a gift from Captain Mike, some BC bud he’d picked up on a fishing trip to Canada. They sat out on the aft deck after dinner, smoking and enjoying the cool evening. The sky had cleared, and the moon shone like a lantern. Clouds of fireflies flickered in the darkness of Lea Island. Captain Mike and April cleared the table, carrying dishes into the galley. They left the women to their own devices (or vices), although as she was going in through the sliding doors, April gave them a smirk, the kind of look a cheeky teenage girl might give an octogenarian who shows up wearing a bikini on the beach. A look that said clearly, Why don’t you women act your age?

  Just wait, Mel thought dismally, watching the girl turn and step through the door. Your time will come.

  She relit the doobie, which was professionally rolled and spoke volumes about Captain Mike’s extracurricular activities. (“What,” she’d said when he gave it to them, “no bong?”) She passed it to Lola, who took a hit and passed it to Annie.

  “Don’t you just hate getting old?” Mel said. The moon peeked shyly from behind a screen of swiftly moving clouds. The water shone as smooth as glass.

  “It sure beats the alternative,” Annie said, exhaling.

  “We’re not old,” Sara said, putting her feet up on one of the deck chairs. “Forty-five is not old.” No one offered her a hit. Through the glass doors they could see Captain Mike and April, laughing and talking in the brightly lit galley.

  “Well, we’re not young either,” Annie said.

  “We’re experienced” Mel said.

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “In some ways I like it better now,” Annie said. “I’m more settled than I was at twenty-two. The boys are grown, and it’s just Mitchell and me now, and that’s been a change, that’s not been easy, but I’m starting to get used to it.”

  “So what are you and Mitchell going to do now that the kids are grown?” Mel asked. “Sell the big house and move to Boca Raton?”

  “I’ll never leave that house,” Annie said. She and Mitchell had talked about traveling more, now that the business was going well and the boys were grown, but she was a homebody. She liked her nest.

  “What about you, Lola, now that Henry’s grown and soon to be a married man?” Sara asked.

  Lola took a hit and lifted her chin, exhaling slowly. “Briggs wants to sell the place here and buy something in Aspen. He says he’s tired of the beach.”

  “But what do you want to do?” Mel asked.

  Lola shook her head, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Hawaii sounds nice,” she said. “Someplace tropical.”

  “What about you, Mel? Do you think you’ll ever remarry?”

  “No. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not the marrying kind, I guess.” It felt good to let go of that, finally. She had tried, and failed, at something she just wasn’t cut out for. She had seen so clearly, as a young girl, the path her life must take, and despite the detours she’d taken along the way, despite wandering for so long in a desert of doubt and uncertainty, she saw clearly now that her youthful vision had been true. What was it Robert Frost had said, prattling on about two roads that diverged in a yellow wood? I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

  Captain Mike opened the sliding door and stuck his head out. “You girls okay?” he asked. Behind him, Pete Yorn sang on the sound system.

  “Hey, turn that up,” Mel said as he disappeared and a few minutes later the deck speakers came on. Mel smiled at him through the glass doors. She watched him duck his head and step through the salon door to the staterooms. “Not that I wouldn’t like a little male companionship in my life.”

  “Well, there’s always the UPS guy.”

  “I’m sorry now that I told you about that.” She stretched her legs out and put her feet up on the side of Sara’s chair. “One thing’s for certain,” she said. “When I get back to New York I’m looking for a man just like Captain Mike. Someone with a little experience who knows how to look after himself. Someone who’s good with his hands.”

  “Har,” Annie said.

  “You know what I mean. Someone who’s smart and funny but handy around the house, too. The kind of guy who listens to public radio and works on his own car. Someone you’d feel safe with walking down Union Turnpike at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “You’ll have to move south to find someone like that,” Annie said. Lola smiled and passed her the joint. The moon disappeared behind a cloud. Far off in the distance a rumbling began, low and mournful as cannon fire.

  Annie paused, holding the glowing joint in front of her. “Is that thunder?” she said.

  “I don’t believe all that crap about everyone having just one true soul mate,” Mel said, still talking about her love life. “I mean, look at me. I’ve had four.”

  Sara looked at her quickly and said in a dubious tone, “Are you including Tom in that group?”

  Mel took the joint from Annie and inhaled slowly. She put her head back and exhaled, staring at the moon as if she was weighing something she had to say, wanting to make sure she got it right. “If you’re asking me if I had it to do all over again, would I break up with him, knowing what I know now? Probably not. He was perfect for me. But was I perfect for him? Could I have given him the things he wanted, a stable home life, children? Could I have made him happy? I don’t think so. And he deserves to be happy. He deserves you, Sara.”

  Sara smiled faintly, her face coloring delicately. She moved and tucked her feet underneath her.

  Mel passed the joint to Lola. “Since I’m getting everything off my chest, since I’m confessing, I just want you to know, I never really blamed you for what happened between you and J.T. Sorry, I mean Tom. I just felt left out when you two got married. It was hard, losing my two best friends at
the same time. It made me really bitter for a while.”

  Annie said, “Your two best friends?”

  Sara plucked at her sleeve. “And I felt guilty,” she said, glancing at Mel and then down again at her sleeve. “I felt like I’d stolen something from you, which is ridiculous because you didn’t want it. You didn’t want him. You were already married to someone else.”

  “Yes.” Mel nodded dully.

  “I almost picked up the phone a million times to call you but over the years it just seemed to drag on. It just got more and more awkward.”

  “It felt like there was a wall between us. Something I couldn’t get over.”

  “Which is crazy when you think about it.”

  “After all we’ve been through together.”

  “Yes.”

  The sky, where it met the sea, was a deep luminous green. Waves lapped gently against the side of the boat.

  Lola stirred, giving them a dazzling smile. “See,” she said. “Isn’t this better?”

  Mel pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the distant horizon. “He wanted babies and I didn’t. He wanted a settled life and I didn’t. Anyone who’s ever seen you two together knows you were meant for each other.”

  Sara gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  The boat rocked peacefully beneath them. Moonlight fell in a wide swath across the water. Lola leaned her cheek on the palm of her hand and said to Mel, “Your novels are your babies, if you think about it.”

  Mel smiled. Funny, she never had.

  The distant rumbling had stopped but there was a smell of rain in the air. A sudden gust of wind blew out the candle on the table.

  “It’s not getting ready to storm, is it?” Annie asked, looking around at the others. She giggled suddenly. The BC bud was definitely beginning to take effect. The weed was stronger than anything they’d ever smoked in their youth.