Two Weeks in August

by Nat Burns

  Rhonda be damned, Mander be damned. Mama New be damned. Nina was hers to love. And as soon as Nina returned, she would tell her so.

  Many hours later, when Hazy was sitting down to a meal prepared by Mama New and Heather, there was a knock on the door of the cottage. Heather ran to answer it, her pink shorts billowing as she raced across the room. Hazy followed at a much slower pace and was surprised to see Mander Sheridan standing there bantering gaily with Heather.

  “Hello, Mander,” Hazy said guardedly. “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you know where Nina Christie is?” Mander asked. “I came to tell her the house is ready for her to start moving in but she’s not there. The door’s broken too. Do you think she’s all right?”

  Hazy felt her color rise but answered quickly. “I saw her this morning and she seemed okay. I figured she was out at the house with you.”

  “No, she never came by,” Mander said, running her hands through her hair in a worried gesture. “What about that door though? Suppose someone took her or something?”

  “No, I broke the door myself by accident. I’m waitin’ on Manny to bring my toolbox back so I can have a go at fixin’ it. I wonder where she is though, no kiddin’.” She frowned as several possibilities entered her mind.

  “Well,” Mander sighed. “I’ll be going then. Just tell her the house is ready whenever you see her. I left my key in the pantry.” She smiled boastfully and leaned close to Hazy. “I’ve gotta go—hot date tonight with Ally Charling. She’s such a babe.”

  “But I thought you and Nina...I guess she chose the other one.” Hazy said, mostly to herself.

  Mander shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we just never hit it off. Not for lack of trying on my part, though. Maybe it’s for the best. Ally’s a local, easier to get on with.”

  Hazy stood thoughtfully while Heather told Mander about the latest mishap on her tricycle.

  Mama New came forward then and greeted the guest. “Hello Amanda, how’ve you been, dear?” she said politely. “How’s your mother?”

  “Oh, she’s fine,” replied Mander. “Although her headaches are back. Doc Townsend says it’s the high blood pressure medication she’s taking.”

  “Well, he’s going to change it, isn’t he?” Her tone was indignant.

  Mander frowned and sighed. “I suppose so, but she’s been on this pill about eight years. It’ll be tough switching her to something else.”

  “Tell her I’ll stop by and see her next Wednesday when I’m in town.”

  She paused and swept her heavy arm toward the bar laden with a steaming pot of shrimp, hot corn on the cob and fresh hush puppies. “You’d best come on an’ join us for a bite.”

  Mander looked as though her mouth was watering but she declined the invitation protesting she had to eat with her date. Mama New would not let her leave without a handful of hush puppies, however, and she left happily munching on their steaming, oniony goodness.

  “Oh, by the way,” she told Hazy through a mouthful of fried bread. “You may want to prop that door a little better. It looks like it might fall any minute. A gust come along and it’ll be firewood.”

  With a wave and a muffled mutter of gratitude for the food, she was gone.

  Hazy returned to the bar but the meal was suddenly subdued.

  “Mema, what’s wrong,” Heather said in a piping voice as she smeared her half-ear of corn in the pile of butter she’d heaped on her plate. “You look so sad.”

  A circle of butter and corn highlighted her lips and Hazy smiled finally as she looked at her. “Nothin’, little bit, you just keep workin’ on that ear there.”

  “Hazel,” Mama New stated softly. “There’s somethin’ strange going on here. I think maybe we’d better talk about it.”

  Hazy studied her dear round face with gentle eyes. “Soon. We’ll talk soon.”

  After dinner, Hazy crossed the Channel Haven driveway toward cottage number eight. Nina still had not returned and Hazy was worried.

  Eyeing the broken door she felt shame wash across her again. And to add insult to injury, she probably wouldn’t be able to have the door fixed as quickly as she’d hoped.

  Perhaps, if Nina didn’t mind, she could work on it later this evening or tomorrow. It might also give her a chance to talk with her about the two of them. A swatch of white on the kitchen table caught her eye and she crossed to pick it up. It was an envelope and had her name written across the front.

  Suddenly afraid, Hazy held it in her hands for several moments as she gathered courage, one index finger tracing the letters Nina had penned. Upon opening it, her heart painfully skipped a beat.

  The envelope held only money. No note, no explanation. Only money; enough to pay the week’s rental. The money said a lot to her. It said Nina was breaking all ties with her, that she was gone and would have no reason to see Hazy again. The envelope full of money said their business contract was complete.

  Hazy hung her head as the gloom of evening descended around her.

  Chapter 37

  Though Nina thought it was Hazy’s shouting that woke her the next morning, it took only a minute or two for her to realize the shouting came from two adolescent boys who were frolicking just outside her window.

  The window. She had forgotten to close the curtains completely last night and now a hot ray of sunlight was slanting across her face, making her body feel heated and sensual. She longed suddenly for someone—for Hazy—to share the sensation but forced the traitorous thought aside.

  Slowly she rose to a sitting position and allowed the coverlet to slide off her satin-clad body. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she peered toward the bathroom of the small cottage she had rented from Mrs. Loreli the day before. Even willing herself in the right direction seemed like too much trouble, and Nina let herself relax back onto the bed.

  She had just pulled the coverlet back snugly to her neck when the soft accented voice, which so often haunted her dreams, sounded from within the confines of the room.

  “I often feel that way meself, first thing in the morning,” Hazy said quietly.

  Nina sprang back to a sitting position and studied the room. Try as she might, she couldn’t see the rogue.

  “I’m here in the chair by the door,” she said with a soft sigh.

  “How dare you,” Nina said, the words barely audible in the now quiet morning air. “How dare you enter my room while I’m sleeping? I’ve never met anyone as rude as you.”

  “It’s okay, love, I meant no harm. I was actually enjoying watching you sleep. Angelic you are, then. Quite different from when your eyes are open.”

  Wrapping the coverlet around herself, Nina swung her feet to the floor. “I can’t believe you’ve broken into one of Mrs. Loreli’s cottages. I hope she strings you up.”

  She paused and uncertainly eyed the dark corner where the voice hailed from. “I didn’t leave the door unlocked, did I?”

  “No,” Hazy assured her. “I unlocked it and came in.”

  “Unlocked it? I don’t understand. Mrs. Loreli would never have given you the key to my room.”

  Hazy sighed and leaned forward. Now Nina could glimpse the lightness of her hair amid the gloom of the corner. “Emma had no choice. I’m a working woman, Nina,” Hazy said, her voice very low and very soft. “And I choose to make my living off the tourist trade. I have several places here on the island, and I’d hoped to find you at one of them. I’ve been checking registers most of the morning. And here you are.”

  “If that isn’t the most low-down, underhanded thing I’ve ever heard,” Nina ground out. “Just because you own a couple rental businesses does not give you the right to go barging into people’s private rooms. That’s what we pay our rent for, you pompous ass. This cottage belongs to me as long as I pay my rent and you have no right coming in here. Now leave!”

  “Nina, you don’t understand. I had to see you. This is our last chance to be together. You don’t need Rhonda or anybody else. You and I belong tog
ether, can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, I see,” Nina replied hotly. “I see what you’re trying to do.” She paused for breath. “What are you planning to do with me, Hazy? Set me up in some nice little apartment somewhere and come see me when the urge hits you?”

  Hazy looked puzzled by her words. “Nina, why do you need an apartment? You have a house already.”

  “You are such an idiot!” she shouted as she came to her feet beside the bed. “As if something like that would go on in Grandpapa’s house! Just get out of here and leave me alone. I can’t stand to be in the same room with you. You make me sick.”

  “Surely you don’t mean that, ducks,” Hazy replied softly. “Look, let’s pack your things and we’ll go back to Channel Haven and work this all out. We’ve got all the time in the world to clear up these misunderstandings.”

  She moved to stand close to Nina. “Please?”

  Nina was much too aware of her nearness and her own partial state of undress even to think coherently. She inhaled Hazy’s delicious scent and felt the air around her grow warm with body heat as Hazy approached. Feeling herself becoming lost in the sensation of Hazy’s nearness, she reacted to save herself in the only way she knew how. Brutally.

  “Go away, Hazy. Do you really believe I could want you? I... have everything now. Rhonda is very rich.”

  Her throat choked on the words as she tried to convince herself it was only an implied lie, not a direct one.

  Hazy reacted as she’d hoped. She pulled away with a shocked hiss and her anger laddered until it fairly crackled against the walls of the room. It was several more moments before she found her voice but her breathing sounded loud and harsh in the small room.

  “All right then,” she said in a voice as cool as Antarctic wind. “Have it your way. Goodbye, Nina.”

  Hazy walked from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  A sudden sense of loss left Nina with weak knees. She wanted to run after her, call her back but felt her legs would not support her weight if she tried to move. She sank back onto the bed and the gulls outside picked up her pitiful weeping and carried the cries, echoing them, to the sky.

  Chapter 38

  When Nina’s parents found her later that afternoon, she was sitting on top of a sand dune which bordered Little Oyster Bay.

  She had been crying off and on for most of the morning and had a blistering headache. The sibilant water of the bay had not helped her mood as she’d hoped, so she had spent the past hour or so wondering where to go and what to do to take her mind off her loss.

  She viewed the arrival of her parents as a blessing and a curse. They would distract her, true, but they might also see through her crocodile smiles to the pain underneath. She didn’t relish the idea of explanations, especially to her parents.

  “We were worried about you,” said her father as he approached Nina and pulled her to her feet. “I actually thought you might have run away because Rhonda showed up again.”

  Her mother stood on his right; a frowning Mrs. Loreli on his left. Nina studied her parents, noting anew what a handsome, happy couple they were. Her father’s tall athletic body always hovered protectively over her mother’s small form and her mother seemed to relish that comfort. Freda’s perfectly coiffed hair was almost solid white now and Nina had a hard time remembering the exact shade of auburn it had been. Throughout Nina’s youth it had been worn braided and wound into a neat coil atop her head. Then, three years ago, she’d had it styled short and rinsed to highlight the white. Nina thought it a lovely improvement, the cut framing her mother’s face and striking green eyes perfectly.

  Nina smiled bravely and patted her father’s arm to reassure him. “No, we just talked and decided we had nothing in common anymore.”

  Patrick Christie grinned. “Hey, I could have told you that if you’d have asked me. I never thought she was the right one for you.”

  “Paddy, hush!” said Nina’s mother, “leave the girl be.” Turning to Nina, she embraced her daughter then studied the tear-stained face. “How are you, Nina, are you all right?”

  Nina wanted very badly to cry in her mother’s arms as she had when she was a little girl, but this was her problem now and Mommy’s arms couldn’t take away the pain as they once had.

  “I’m fine. Just enjoying the bay. Isn’t it pretty?”

  Her mother’s sigh indicated she would go along with Nina’s ploy to change the subject. “Yes, I’ve always loved it here. I wish I could have spent more of my island years here rather than always over on the channel.”

  “You know, I wish we’d bought property here ten years ago,” said Patrick in a musing tone, “we could have increased our investment tenfold by now.”

  Nina and her mother’s eyes met and they rolled them heavenward simultaneously.

  Patrick watched them, enjoying the old game. “What? What did I say?”

  As if suddenly remembering Mrs. Loreli, Freda turned and pulled the woman close. “Emma wants us all to take a swim with her. What do you think?”

  Nina was silent a moment then reminded herself that life had to continue. “Sure,” she sighed finally. “Sounds like fun.”

  “I told them they could use your cottage to change into their suits, is that okay?” Mrs. Loreli asked Nina. “The girls are readying a room for them, but it’s going to take a while.”

  Nina nodded but eyed Mrs. Loreli suspiciously, wondering why she hadn’t told Nina that she didn’t actually own Sweeping Pines. Did she simply manage the cottages for Hazy? Nina remembered her harsh words about Hazy during their earlier conversation and wondered how much of that was due to sour grapes over being bought out by the businesswoman. She remained silent, however, walking and dusting sand off her shorts at the same time. She led the way to her cottage and ushered her parents inside.

  Later, swimsuits dripping, Nina and her mother sat on the dock and watched as Emma coached Patrick on the fine art of sailboarding. Try as he might, Nina’s father couldn’t master the skill of balancing atop the board while guiding it through the water. The result was many a hilarious spill and Nina and her mother were enjoying the display.

  Freda turned to her daughter finally and, placing her sunglasses on her head, studied her intently. “Something’s different,” she stated firmly.

  Nina sighed and reclined back onto the dock, her forearm shading her eyes from the intense sun. Aspirin had eased her headache somewhat. “What do you mean, Mom? What’s different?”

  “Well, where do you want me to begin,” Freda said indignantly. “You’re pale, quiet, withdrawn and your eyes have this pained expression they’ve never had before. Is that enough or do you want more?”

  “No,” Nina laughed hollowly. “That’s enough.”

  “Well, it’s good to hear you laugh, I guess. Is it Rhonda?”

  “No,” Nina replied. “I told you it’s over. We even separated on decent terms. I was surprised.”

  “What made the two of you split up? What caused what she did to you, running off that way?”

  Nina shrugged, bored with the topic. “I don’t know. Cold feet on her part. Overall, she just doesn’t appeal to me anymore.”

  “So…” Freda eyed her daughter sideways, as if gauging her reaction to her next question. “Is there someone else?”

  “No, and I hope there won’t be for a very long time.”

  Freda fell silent but Nina could sense her dismay. Warm ocean breezes frolicked across their skin and Nina focused on that.

  Patrick joined them a short time later, scattering water droplets and making the two women squeal. He was slightly out of breath from his climb up the sea oats-covered bank and huffed beside them a moment or two before speaking.

  “Hey, Emma wants us to eat dinner with her at The Shallows this evening. What do you girls say?”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” cooed Freda. “What about you, Nina?”

  “Yes, that sounds nice,” she replied mechanically, pasting on a bright smile. “
I’ve always wanted to see what the inside of that club looked like, and now I’ll get the chance.”

  “It’s not that big a deal,” said Freda. “I went there with Papa a few times.”

  “Grandpapa Tom belonged to The Shallows?” Nina hadn’t realized her grandfather had belonged to the island’s only version of a private club.

  “Oh sure, all the old-timers were members,” said Patrick, his fingers combing water from his graying hair.

  Freda grimaced at him. “Old-timers? What a thing to say!”

  She turned back to Nina. “What he means to say is the club was established by the old fishing families to provide some activities apart from the fishing seasons and later, from the influx of tourists each year. The members are mostly long-term locals plus a few newer imports who live here full time. Like you, honey, maybe you should apply for membership.”

  Nina nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe I will. I met some really nice locals last week. Do you know Cyrus Leppard?”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Freda exclaimed. “Do I know Uncle Cyrus? He was the one who took me out for an ice cream cone and a tour of the bay on the Lady Say when my mother died so suddenly. I was glad because I didn’t have to be with Papa right then.” Her eyes had taken on the sheen of memory recalled. “I sure do know him and there never was a sweeter man alive than old Uncle Cyrus.”

  “Hey,” Patrick interjected playfully. “What about your dear husband?”

  Freda leaned and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Now honey, you know you are the very sweetest.”

  “Umm hmm,” he grunted, feigning indignation.

  “Tell me all about him, Nina. How did he look? What was he doing?” Freda demanded.

  Freda’s animation was infectious and soon Nina was sharing with her all the latest news of the island.

  Patrick, easily bored, soon lumbered down the embankment to give sailboarding another try.

  Chapter 39

  As soon as the sun lowered in the west, the Christie family and Mrs. Loreli returned to Sweeping Pines. Nina’s parents set about securing a cottage for themselves and they separated to dress for dinner.