Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3)

by Wisler, Alice J.

  “I admire you,” she says. “I think it’s wonderful you’re going to open up the bed and breakfast again.”

  “Thanks.” She really isn’t a bad person, I tell myself. I just don’t like the way Davis looks at her, or that he sends her flowers, or that they used to date.

  Sheerly ushers us to our seats once more, and we listen as she and the band sing a song she wrote about the Bailey House. She says the band has only practiced it once, earlier today, so to bear with them. The lyrics are about the region of Hatteras wanting to put the lovely landmark back on the map under the shimmering sun. The chorus says, “Dreams are made to live.”

  An auction follows, and I’m surprised by how many donations my aunt has collected. The most unique is an acrylic painting on canvas. The painter has named it “Frogs by the Marsh on a Summer Afternoon.” The two green tree frogs are perched on the edge of a chipped pier beside a dense marsh. Their eyes are vibrant red.

  “You are so talented,” I whisper to Buck.

  I consider bidding for the painting, but when the auctioneer starts the bidding at two hundred dollars, I keep my hand in my lap. I’m renting a bed and breakfast. Time to start being frugal.

  Within two minutes, the painting sells for four hundred two dollars to an art dealer from Maryland. He’s a tourist who just happened to come by The Rose Lattice after picking up a flyer about the fundraiser.

  Buck says, “You have to love the Outer Banks tourists. Each time I see one of those oval black-and-white OBX car stickers, I’m thankful. An OBX lover keeps our jobs from vanishing.”

  This is a lesson we all seem to be learning.

  After the auction ends, and before the art dealer carts the painting to his vehicle, I view Buck’s frogs. I like the way he shaded in the pier so that it looks like the sunlight is casting a slight shadow over the frogs and marsh. With a closer look, I see he’s added a spindlylegged spider near the grasses and a feathery turquoise butterfly in the right-hand corner.

  “Did you go to see Kelly at Ocean Floral?” Buck asks before heading out the door.

  “Yeah, why did you—?” Zane bolts around the corner and runs into my legs.

  “Jackie,” he says over my groan, “can I ride home with you? And can we stop at Food Lion and buy some chocolate ice cream?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

  Zane doesn’t just want ice cream; he finds cereal, pretzels, and sour-cream-and-chives chips to add to the shopping cart. I agree to one bag of chips for him but remind him that the last bag of pretzels he opened, he spread out on the living room floor and used his trucks to flatten them into the carpet.

  “So no pretzels today, Zane.”

  “I cleaned it all up,” he says as he crams his hands into his pants pockets.

  I distract him by telling him to get some juice while I give in to temptation and grab a bag of white corn tortilla chips to put in the cart, deliberately placing the bag under the container of ice cream.

  As we leave the grocery store, walking out into the windy evening, my gaze catches two people entering Movies and Tunes, the DVD rental store at the end of the row of shops. The man, tall and handsome and much too familiar, smiles at the woman in a cream-colored dress. He opens the door for her—one hand on the door, the other hand lingering along her back, fingers moving up and down. The familiar gesture makes me freeze.

  “What’s the matter?” asks Zane as the store’s door slams and my own heart knocks against my chest.

  When I don’t move, he says, “Come on, Jackie. The ice cream is going to melt.” He tugs at the loaded plastic bag in my right hand.

  For a moment I want to run inside the DVD store and scream, “I caught you!” like we used to do when playing hide-and-seek. But I’m not a child anymore, so after strapping Zane into his car seat, I revert to an inane act of adult behavior—I gun my engine. Five times.

  Then I back my truck out of the lot as though I’m trying out for the speedway.

  Zane giggles. “That’s cool, Jackie!”

  This is how short-lived joy can be. I was feeling joy about the fundraiser, yet now I give in to the angry feelings brought about at seeing Davis and Vanessa so happy together.

  Suddenly, I realize that if someone saw me seated next to Buck at The Rose Lattice, rumors could start then, too. “Oh, he’s just a friend of the family,” is what I could say. I could launch into the story about catching him spying on Minnie and me when we sat in my bedroom talking about school dances and boys.

  Darkness forms around us, and lights start to blink on. As we head north, the truck in front of us towing a red Bay Liner moves slower than frost on a December morning. I’m ready to bang on my horn but then I reconsider. I can’t show anger now. Zane is watching my every move. Mom would tell me I’m an adult and I need to set a good example.

  “Let’s sing a song,” Zane suggests, his face shiny with eagerness. “Why?”

  “Singing makes you feel better.”

  And so we sing “London Bridge Is Falling Down,” and somewhere in the middle, I know that there is no way to repair what has fallen down, my fair lady.

  After Zane has enjoyed a bowl of chocolate ice cream, Minnie sends him to bed. Then she wishes me a good-night and closes her bedroom door. Within minutes, I hear faint music from her room and wonder if she ever has a night when she doesn’t think about Lawrence.

  I change into my nightshirt and turn on my new TV in my bedroom. Mom said that having one would be nice. I flick the remote, searching for something to watch.

  “He was in love with another woman,” a distraught female with bleached blond hair claims.

  The hostess of the talk show asks how she found out.

  “He started wearing English Leather.”

  “Really?” the poised hostess says. “And that made you realize he loved her and not you?”

  “Of course!” says the blonde. “He never wore any cologne when he was with me.”

  I turn off the TV and decide to do some laundry. There’s something about washing clothes in a machine. You add the detergent, turn on the cycle, and imagine that in the time it takes to get your clothes from grungy to clean, you can feel fresh, as well.

  I used to think life was just that simple.

  I used to believe a bowl of cottage cheese and a bag of chips would get you through any crisis.

  In the kitchen, I scoop some small-curd cottage cheese into a cereal bowl and search for the tortilla chips I bought today and hid from Zane in the back of the pantry behind the cans of green beans. Like a treasure, they are there. I take my meal into the living room and, avoiding Zane’s toys, ease onto the sofa.

  And I’m relieved to find that food still serves its purpose of comfort for me.

  33

  Sheerly calls to say that the fundraiser netted over two thousand dollars for the bed and breakfast. “The actual amount, once I got all the donations tallied, is two thousand fifty-two dollars. Jackie, this is tremendous. I just love how giving the people of the Outer Banks are. They all want to see you succeed, you know.”

  I find Minnie in her room, her eyes focused on her computer, and tell her the good news.

  “That’s great! I wish I could have been there.” I know that she asked for time off, but the surf shop is short-staffed these days.

  “What should we use the money for?” she wonders aloud. “You said you paid the first month’s rent, so maybe something else?”

  I hate to think that all the hard work put into the fundraiser is not even going to cover one full month’s rent. I’d love to add a porch to the house like Mrs. Bailey told me she wanted someday. I wish Davis would want this for the house, as well, instead of being so insistent that nothing can change.

  Minnie’s attention returns to her computer screen. “Guess what. I met this guy on Facebook. He lives in Roanoke.”

  I wait for more.

  “But I’m not ready to go out with anyone.” The words come out in a rush. “Still, he says I’m cute.”
<
br />   Of course. Most people would agree with that.

  “I feel like I’m cheating.”

  “What?” I almost choke on my Diet Pepsi.

  “On Lawrence.”

  “But . . . how?”

  “I’m corresponding with a man, Jackie.”

  “I think Lawrence would forgive you.”

  “I can’t forgive myself. Not yet.” She closes the page she was on and moves to her bed. “I still don’t believe there’s anyone else for me. I mean, people tell me that I’m young and should find someone else.” With a long sigh, she draws her knees to her chest and gazes out her bedroom window. “I wonder why people are so quick to put a life together again.”

  “They’re uncomfortable,” I say. “They want you to be better so that they can feel better.”

  “Really?” She looks at me as though I’ve said something profound.

  “Yeah, I really think so. People don’t know how to handle grief. They think that after the furneral and a few crises, you should be back to your old self again.”

  “Jackie?” She studies a worn patch on her bedspread. “I don’t remember what my old self was like.”

  For as close as I live to the beach, actually walking along it or sitting beside it is not something I regularly do. This September evening is different. Perhaps it helps that the tourists are almost all back to their homes in Michigan, Kansas, or Iowa, preparing for autumn and then snow and ice, and more snow. The seagulls own the shores again, gliding across a pale sky. A lonely fisherman stands by a checkered canvas chair, his line dipped into the foamy water.

  Davis hasn’t called me since I dropped off the lease papers. Since I sighted him with Vanessa, I’ve felt distanced from him. I’m not sure where our relationship stands. He constantly occupies a corner of my mind, and sometimes I close my eyes and feel his arms around me. I would never admit it to anyone, but I have scribbled his name and mine together inside a lopsided heart in my notebook.

  An elderly couple in matching straw hats strolls toward me. From my position on the sand, near a lanky growth of sea oats, I can see that his stomach sags underneath his blue Hawaiian shirt. She has thighs that are streaked with varicose veins. He reaches for her hand as they stop to take in the view, their feet brushed by the playful waves.

  My heart cries, “I want that!” I want to be them in forty years.

  I watch them continue their walk; they stop to point at a dune. This time she grasps his hand. He turns to smile at her, and my heart fills with a yearning stronger than any I’ve ever known.

  When I look out over the horizon and ponder my future, it is Buck’s name I see written in the wispy lavender clouds. Each letter appears to be formed with deliberate flair. Slowly, with the changing light, the clouds turn to gray—a sky poised for a night of twinkling stars and a bright round moon against a charcoal backdrop. When did he go from being just my brother’s friend to a man I care about deeply and miss when he’s gone?

  I let out a sigh that is barely audible over the pulsating tide. I wish Buck were here right now. I have this mad desire to run over to his apartment and tell him that I want to go for a kayak ride or to the coffee shop for chai. But he’s gone to California to visit his cousin. Why didn’t I tell him how much he means to me before he left? What if his plane crashes and he never knows?

  Opening my phone, I stare at his name in my list of contacts. Buck Griffins. His given name is Alexander—a name his parents called him until he went hunting with his dad and instead of shooting deer, sketched a pencil drawing of a buck. Who would have known that the skinny kid who hung out with my baby brother would one day capture my heart?

  I wonder what to say in a text message to him. Miss you? Wish you were here? Can’t wait to see you again?

  Closing my phone, I stuff it into my pocket. I’m a writer; I should be able to come up with something interesting to say. Maybe something clever like Don’t fall for any of those California girls. Because, really, the Beach Boys are right; southern girls do keep their boyfriends warm at night.

  As the clouds sprawl into a mass of twilight, I think of how Davis and I walked along the beach holding hands, and then shared our first kiss. I contemplate telling Minnie how I feel, asking her to help me decide. Yet when darkness takes over the shore, I wonder why I feel secure about one man and uncertain about the other.

  34

  I bake banana bread and imagine serving it at breakfast to guests at the Bailey House. This afternoon I want to create a Web page for the bed and breakfast so that people from around the world can read about the property and see what it has to offer and maybe decide to stay with us. Cassidy could take photos for the site once we’re done with the cleaning and renovations; I know she’d make each room look inviting.

  I hear the front door open. Minnie stands on the threshold as if she doesn’t know whether to come in or go out.

  “Hey,” I call out to her. “You’re just in time. I’m baking today.” I take the bread out of the oven with a worn oven mitt and the aroma fills our duplex.

  She enters the kitchen, and I note how pale she looks.

  “Are you okay?” I go to her and rub her back with my free hand. “Baking keeps me from worrying about Davis, so I think it’s good therapy. I’ve only—”

  “Mom died last night.”

  I almost drop the banana bread.

  “Dicey called to tell me.”

  When I open my mouth, no words come out.

  “She’s gone . . .”

  I feel the slow-motion rhythm of a bad dream, one where I know I’m supposed to run from the predator, but my legs won’t move. “But . . . how?” We just saw her last week and she was fine—well, fine for Irvy.

  “She had another stroke. Massive.” Minnie’s voice does not sound like the one I’m familiar with. When she called to tell me that Lawrence had died, her words held a different pitch from the way they sound in the kitchen today. She was hyperventilating then, just minutes from being sedated. Now she repeats, “Massive.” Her eyes move past me and focus somewhere over my head. “She died right away.”

  Zane enters the house, his Popacorn clutched to his chest. He walks over to me slowly. “Mommy’s sad.”

  Minnie stands in the kitchen like a child lost in a crowd. I put down the banana bread and go to hug her, but she turns and makes her way up the stairs. I start to follow, but Zane is against my thigh, his head on my stomach.

  He whispers, “Everyone dies.”

  Wobbling, I walk over to the sofa. As my head spins, Zane crawls into my lap. Leaning his head against my chest, he tells me, “Please don’t die today.”

  I assure him I have no plans to do that anytime soon.

  My tears slip into his hair as we listen to Minnie’s sobs, unable to be contained inside her bedroom walls.

  With the death of her husband and now her mother, I wonder if Minnie has anything left. I’m afraid if I go into her room I will see only a lonely puddle on the carpet.

  Rubbing Zane’s arm, I draw him closer. He doesn’t protest. We sit until daylight gives way to darkness. Then he tells me he has to eat something or he might die.

  I slice the loaf of bread, now cold. The delighted feelings I held while mixing the batter are long gone.

  I am zipping up a black dress that makes me feel like I don’t belong in it when my phone rings.

  It’s a number I don’t recognize, but I answer anyway.

  Buck’s deep voice fills my ear. “Hi, Jackie.”

  “Hi, how are you?”

  “Do you need me to come back?”

  “What?”

  Slowly, he says, “My mom told me Minnie’s mom died.”

  Word travels faster than clouds move across the sky in the Hatteras wind around here. “It’s horrible. I mean, it was so sudden.”

  “How is Minnie doing?”

  “She’s too calm, too still.”

  “Yeah, she’s been through a lot. Death is always difficult.”

  “It’s so fin
al.” The second the words leave my mouth, I feel stupid. “I mean . . .”

  “I know what you mean.”

  I want Buck here. I want to see his face, to watch the way his hair falls onto his shoulders, to have him tease me, to hear his laughter.

  “I’m glad that Minnie has you.”

  I nod into my phone.

  “You’re a good friend for her, Jackie.”

  My eyes turn watery; I blink and feel tears curve along my cheeks. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, having lots of fun. Fishing in the Pacific. Too bad you aren’t here to eat some of my fish.”

  I’m happy that he’s able to tease me across the miles.

  “I’m sorry that y’all are having such a rough time. Doesn’t seem fair.”

  I toss out a line my mother often told Ron and me when we’d complain about rain when we wanted to swim, or having to complete chores when we wanted to play. “Yeah, well, they say life’s not fair.”

  When our conversation ends, I feel like I have a protective coating around me, like talking with Buck has given me strength to handle the gloom of this day.

  “Call me crazy,” Beatrice Lou tells us at lunch on the Sunday after the funeral. “All of you, go ahead.”

  Not even her daughter Aggie seizes the opportunity.

  Actually, we’re all excited. Ropey is the proud owner of an eighteen-–foot runabout, a used yellow Stingray. He has docked it at the pier by his home, and each morning he opens the shades to make sure it’s still there.

  As we eat slices of coconut cake on this cool afternoon, a southerly breeze flutters against Aunt Sheerly’s flower bed of chrysanthemums. The white blooms make me think of Davis, they being the color of his BMW. I shiver and Sheerly asks, “Cold, honey? Need my sweater?”

  I let her place her white crocheted sweater around my shoulders. I’ve learned that there are times it’s nice to just let people do for you even if you don’t need them to do anything.