by Jenn Bennett
MARBLECLIFF RESORT: Snootiest and oldest resort in Beauty. Rude people at desk. Walls paper-thin. Best breakfast in town, though, I’ll give them that. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 22
I didn’t think I’d sleep that night. Not with the gilded antique furniture, mounted butterfly collection, a nineteenth century portrait with eyes that seemed to watch me in the darkness, and a fireplace big enough to burn all four of us at once.
But just add that to the ever-growing list of Josie Was Wrong about These Things.
Take, for instance, time bombs. I was so certain of an explosion when Grandma Diedre entered town, but I was wrong. Granted, something crouches in the back of my head, still waiting for my grandmother’s presence to blow my life to smithereens; maybe she’s one of those buried bombs from WWII that you suddenly walk across in a field and it detonates after years of being lost. Or your ship runs into one at sea, and kablam! The worst of the bombs.
Or maybe the ticking time bomb of Grandma doesn’t matter anymore because the real bombs were the other things I was wrong about all along. Like my mom. And my father … Because I’m still struggling to reconcile the image I have of him from all the interviews I’ve read online—from the few times I’ve met him. Our scattered phone conversations. His cool life. His perfect family. His house in Malibu.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
God, that stupid magazine internship that I fretted over—that got me so angry at Levi Summers for rejecting me … All of it goes back to wanting my father’s approval.
And it was all for nothing.
It’s hard to accept something’s wrong when you once felt deep in your soul it was right.
I once felt deep in my soul that Los Angeles was my way forward.
That my father was my ticket out.
That my grandmother was going to tear my family apart.
That my mother didn’t want me.
But I was so wrong about all of it.
What else am I wrong about?
What else … ?
But I try not to think of it now, here in our suite at the Marblecliff, where not only did I sleep like the dead last night, I did it with Mom curled up next to me in the same bed, because there was only the one room with two queens available when we arrived, bedraggled, at midnight. Evie and Franny took one bed, Mom and I took the other.
One fractured and very strange family.
And I don’t know. Maybe Marblecliff’s mattresses are stuffed with drugs as well as feathers, or maybe it was the sound of the harbor waves crashing against the rocky cliffs below that lulled us to sleep. Or maybe it was that my entire life was turned upside down in one day, and my body just said, Forget it, I’ve had enough. Regardless, after we deplete all the hot water and luxury hair products in the newly remodeled bathroom, we gather in the suite’s cozy sitting area in front of the enormous fireplace, lounging in crested bathrobes.
“I feel like I’ve just returned from a really bad weekend in Las Vegas,” Mom says, looking out over a stunning view of the blue harbor, where the mid-morning sun is glinting across boats dotting the Beauty Yacht Club’s waters.
Franny laughs darkly, looking very jet-lagged. “Try living in the worst pollution you can imagine with no toilets, electricity, or showers. The people were wonderful, and once you got out of the smog of the city, it was beautiful. But I was trying to juggle grief and Mom, and an entirely different culture, and now …” She shakes her head. “Now I think I need a dewormer, because our cheapskate mother forced me to eat some bargain biscuits from the Beauty Supersaver Market that she’d been hoarding in her luggage, and they smelled a little off—and now my stomach hasn’t been right for months.”
“Wow,” Mom says. “We’ll take you to a vet today.”
“Thanks,” Aunt Franny says, smiling for the first time since last night. “I’m okay right now. I’ve always loved this resort. Softest beds in town. I could live here.…”
“You know who owns it now, right?” Evie says, glancing at me. “Bunny Perera’s father.”
“Seriously?” I say. “This town is small.”
“And that family knows their way around some fine, luxury linen,” Aunt Franny purrs, pulling her robe around her.
“Hey, Mom?” Evie asks. “Hate to spoil your hotel fantasy vibes, but I’m just wondering.… Where are we going to live?”
“No fair,” I say. “I was going to ask that first. Aren’t we all sort of homeless now?”
Mom sighs heavily. “Yeah, Franny. Glad to see you, but we’ve got to iron out some kinks. Because Josie and I cannot live with the old bat.”
Three quick raps sound on our suite’s door. We all turn our heads, and as if summoned by magic, my grandmother’s voice slithers through the wood. “Girls? It’s Diedre. Are you up? I brought a late breakfast.”
Frantic and wide-eyed, Mom motions for everyone to stay silent, but Franny shakes her head. “She knows we’re here, sis. The jig is up.”
Evie opens the door, and in sashays my grandmother … along with three golden carts of breakfast foods, ferried by uniformed servers. I keep my robe pulled closed, watching as a series of cloches are uncovered and fragrant steam fills up the small suite.
Seduction through freshly made patisserie and hot coffee?
This smells like a big old stinkin’ trap. I don’t trust it.
Mom doesn’t either. The entire room is tense. I don’t want a fight. I don’t want the time bomb to start ticking again in the middle of the pastries and freshly squeezed orange juice.
“Mother … what are you doing here?” Mom asks my grandmother in a strained voice. “It’s ten-thirty. Don’t you have a store to run? Or have you come to ask for my keys back?”
Grandma swings a single gray braid over one shoulder. I need to stop wearing my hair the same way. Seriously. It’s giving me the creeps. “Why would I do that? Sales are sky-high since you took over. I’m old, but I’m not a half-wit. I’ve been looking at the P&L reports, Winnie. You’re better at managing inventory than I am.”
“Did we just enter the Twilight Zone?” Mom asks, looking around the room, squinting. “I didn’t see a logo or a sign.…”
“I’m closing the shop today,” Grandma informs us.
A collective gasp circles the room.
The Nook doesn’t close. Ever. Only on holidays. Only when it’s supposed to. The Nook doesn’t close unexpectedly.
“Until I can get some things squared away. Beauty can survive one day without books. We’ll reopen tomorrow … if we feel like it.” Then she inspects her nails and adds, “I put an announcement sign on the door over the nudie of Winnie. Bucky at the art gallery says there’s an industrial-strength solvent he’ll loan us to get that off later today, by the way.”
“Lord, give me strength,” Mom says to the ceiling.
Grandma turns to me. “Josephine, do you have something decent to wear? I need you to walk me to my taxi.”
I look around, as if there might be another Josephine in the room. “Me?”
“Mother, no,” my mom says sharply.
No fighting, no fighting …
“I just need to speak with my granddaughter in private for five minutes. I don’t bite, and she doesn’t look breakable.”
My mom starts to protest, but I speak up. “Let me put on my jeans. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
After I hurriedly yank on yesterday’s clothes, listening through a cracked bathroom door to make sure no spats are breaking out in my absence, I jog through the suite, and Aunt Franny says, “Don’t be ashamed to use the panic button on your phone. I used it in Kathmandu. Zero regrets.”
Think that’s the jet lag talking.
“Be careful” is all Mom warns me, very seriously.
I’ve got this. It’s only a grandmother. Not an actual weapon of war.
That’s what I repeat over and over as I stride across plush hotel carpet and head down an elevator to the lobby, which is covered in framed painting
s of Beauty in the 1800s and lit by a tasteful chandelier. Marble floors, the pride of our coastal town, gleam in the sunlight as I straighten my shoulders and catch up with Diedre Saint-Martin.
“You’re looking lovely,” she says. “Too bad about the freckles, but you can cover them up with makeup.”
“Thanks?”
“Walk with me,” she encourages, nodding toward a set of doors that leads to the back of the resort. Outside, a wide, empty porch winds around the bottom floor of the hotel. I think they have a lot of events out here—wedding photos, things like that. Massive rocks below. Blue water. The Harborwalk, where people the size of bunny rabbits stroll toward the main pier.
A placid scene. Good place for an ambush.
My stomach twists.
“Do you know why I went to Nepal?” Grandma asks, leaning against the railing of the porch to look out over the harbor.
Strange question. “To help Aunt Franny get over Uncle Ed’s death.”
“That’s one reason. But I did it for Winona, too.”
“You went to Nepal for my mom?” I say scrunching up my nose.
“That’s right,” she says, glancing at my face. “See, it took me a few years to figure it out, but I finally did. I wanted my daughter—Winona—and my granddaughter, you, to come home. But the problem was, my daughter hates my guts. You don’t know how that feels, because you don’t have a daughter yet. But you might one day. And let me tell you, it’s the worst feeling in the world.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” I say.
“She does,” Grandma says diplomatically. “But I’d like to change that. And the only way I can do that is if she’s home. And the only way to get my daughter home was to leave.”
I blink at her. “You went to Nepal …”
Grandma nods. “So that Winnie would come home. And bring you home. But hey—I’m no fool. I know relationships take time. And I know everything that’s happened was not part of the plan. I like a good plan, see.”
“Me too,” I say.
“But my plan got screwed up when Franny insisted on coming back early. So here we are. And we can’t all live together, of course. There would be five corpses before sundown.”
She’s not wrong.…
“So now we’re on to plan B. You have to have a backup plan. It’s as important as the main plan. That’s what people never understand. It’s two plans, really. Two equal plans.”
“Two equal plans,” I say, realizing immediately that I have failed miserably on this account. Damn. She’s good—evil, but good. Tenacious. Wily as a fox, even.
“So, here’s my backup plan,” she says. “You and Winnie? You take the apartment. I’m moving out.”
“Wait—hold on. It’s your apartment.”
“Yours just as much as mine. We’re just stewards. It belongs to all of us. And if we’re getting technical, then what I want is to start a conversation with your mother about her taking legal ownership of the apartment. But I thought I’d talk to you first, to make sure that’s something you’d want.”
“Me?”
“You and your mother.”
“But … where will you go?”
“I bought a condo before we left for Nepal.” She points over the railing, down toward the main pier. There’s a little white building past the yacht club. “See that? Robin’s Nest Condos. Nick Karras’s parents have one there too, which is how I found out about it, at one of Kat’s backyard barbecues after church on Sundays—”
What. Is. Happening.
“They’ve got stair access to the Harborwalk,” she says, “and I can walk anywhere, including the Shanty Pub, where there’s a group called Yankee Fiddler that plays live traditional New England music every weekend through the fall, and they serve spiked iced lemonade on the patio.”
That sounds like a waking nightmare.
“Also,” she says brightly, “I can bike to the Nook. Or walk. It’s less than a mile. Or I could buy a little boat and dock it at Nick and Kat’s, who knows. Maybe I don’t need to work as much, anyway. Once a week? I like storytime on Saturdays.” She shrugs. “Your mother and I can work out something, I’m sure. And you can keep your darkroom where it’s at—as long as you aren’t taking nudies like your mother. That’s where I put my foot down.”
Ugh. Hearing this now makes me ashamed. Why was I so quick to believe Henry Zabka, a man I didn’t know, over my own mother? My grandmother did the same thing, believing Adrian Summers to be a perfect golden boy who could do no wrong. Seems as if a lot of women are quick to judge other women, and quicker to forgive men.
“You’ll like my condo, though,” Grandma says, as if we’re making casual conversation and not changing lives. “It’s got three bedrooms, and I already furnished it with the basics, so if Franny and Evie need to live with me until we can kick their tenants out, we’ll do that.”
Aunt Franny won’t like that. Doubt Evie will be all that keen on it either.
My head is reeling. Too much information. Too good to be true. Something feels off.
“Now, as far as this situation you’ve gotten yourself in … ,” she says.
Okay, I should have known. This is it; the trap is set. My twisting stomach drops to the bottom of the porch and falls into the harbor.
“Grandma—” I start, but she cuts me off with a wave of her hand.
“I already talked to Kat Karras and Levi Summers this morning,” she says matter-of-factly. “I told Levi if he doesn’t drop the settlement against the Karrases, then I will band together with Kat and sue him for what his boy has done to our neighborhood. I also told him I was on my way to the courthouse to file a restraining order against Adrian for harassing my granddaughters, and that gossip about everything Adrian’s done would be all over town by the afternoon. That did the trick, all right.”
I try to speak, but nothing comes out of my mouth.
She folds her arms and gives me a smug look. “It wasn’t difficult. I’ve known Levi all my life, and I just told him how it was—that was that. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about his son. I guess I didn’t want to. To tell you the truth, Levi Summers is a decent man, and not many are who have the money and power he does, at least in my experience.”
“He’s dropping the settlement? The window …”
“Forgotten. His lawyer’s going to talk to Kat’s lawyer and work out an agreeable compensation for anything their insurance didn’t cover on their broken window. It’s done. Forget the window.”
I blink at her. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“No. That’s not right, Grandma. You can’t just swoop in here and fix everything. I mean, in regard to the Karrases, I’m one-hundred-percent grateful,” I say, hand over heart. “But the window is my problem. I broke it. And because of me, Lucky has not only endured gossip around town, he’s been working two jobs to cover the costs. Hard work. Sweaty, demeaning work. All my savings has gone to pay him back—all the cash I earned from my photos online. You just made everything we did this summer completely meaningless. It can’t just be for nothing.”
She stares at me for a long moment. “You sound just like your mother, you know that?”
“Good. Proud to.”
Her head nods once. “Proud that you do too, kid.” She exhales. “Okay, I see your point. You’re thinking that Diedre Saint-Martin meddled in your life, right? That’s what you’re thinking. That’s what Winnie always says.”
Well, yeah. But now I understand why. “You could’ve asked me first. There wasn’t a rush. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet!”
“I haven’t slept,” she admits. “My schedule is all messed up from the flight. But okay. Maybe you have a point. Sometimes I make mistakes and trip over my own feet. If I screwed up, I’m sorry. Nothing is set in stone, though.”
Who is this woman? Not the grandmother I know. Maybe this is the Diedre Saint-Martin that Lucky keeps telling me about—Grandma 2.0. Or perhaps Grandma 1.5 with some bugs that need updating. She�
�s not perfect, by a long shot, but we all have a little growing to do, so I guess this is a start, anyway.
“I need to pay off the window, Grandma.”
“You feel like you still owe a debt? Then pay it back by sticking around and finishing school. Maybe go to college, too? There’s a great art school just up the road. Your mother dropped out, but I think she’d like to see you go all the way.”
“I don’t think so. Mom told me the truth about Henry Zabka—all of it. So I don’t know if that’s the place for me.”
She shakes her head firmly and puts two slender, cool hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me. Don’t let that bastard ruin your dreams. He didn’t invent the camera. You’re talented, kid. If you don’t want to go to that college, then study somewhere else. Find a mentor. Hell, be your own mentor—you can learn anything online these days. Like I’ve told Evie … just do something. Whatever you decide, don’t waste what you’ve got, okay?”
“I’m trying. It’s just hard.”
“I know, baby. If it was easy, any clown would do it. But the Saint-Martins were never scared of a little hard work.” She pats my shoulders and releases me on a long exhale. It’s clear by her body language that this conversation is coming to an end, and suddenly I feel as though this is the longest private conversation we’ve had in years—and yet somehow, she’s not given me nearly enough information.
“Hey, Grandma?” I say. “Was Kat mad? About Lucky taking the fall for me … about smashing the department store window?”
“She’s … confused.”
I groan and put both hands on my hips to keep myself steady, frowning at the picture-postcard view in front of us. “Think I better talk to Lucky.”
“Probably wise.”
“Before the curse has time to sink its teeth into us,” I murmur.
Grandma waves a dismissive hand. “That’s a load of bull. The Saint-Martins aren’t cursed. We just need to stop shutting one another out, that’s all. And this is a start, don’t you think?” She winks at me and heads toward Marblecliff’s lobby, then puts her hand on the doorknob. “Think about the window and tell your mom about staying in the apartment. I’ll text you my condo address. We can have dinner there tonight and discuss what to do about the Nook after I try to kick Franny’s tenants out of their lease.”