Stargazey Point

by Shelley Noble

  “It just slipped my mind. I don’t see why they keep botherin’ us.”

  “Oh, Millie. You were supposed to give them a partial payment. Do I have to do everything myself? No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. But what happened to the money?”

  Abbie knew she should creep away. This was family business she had no business listening to.

  “Well, Rowena Thompkins’s baby had a turn for the worse. I ran into her at the pharmacy. Rod’s out of work still. They have no insurance. She couldn’t even pay for her prescription. I just gave her a little something to tide her over.”

  “Two hundred dollars? Millie, there are agencies to help her.”

  “It’s our duty to help out the less fortunate. Daddy always helped others.”

  Marnie barked out a laugh. “We are the less fortunate. Daddy should have seen to his own family.”

  “For shame, Sister. We are still leaders in this town. People look to us for guidance.”

  Marnie groaned. “And money.”

  “It was an emergency.”

  “This is an emergency.” More rattling of paper. It must be a letter.

  “I don’t know why they just don’t leave us alone; we’ve paid our taxes faithfully for years, and Daddy before us. They should be able to wait a little while.”

  “Not with beachfront real estate as profitable as this. They’ll take the house and sell it to a developer and make a bundle off it, who will in turn make a bundle off it, while we walk away with nothing. How are we going to live then?”

  Millie mumbled something that Abbie couldn’t hear.

  “And do you know what will happen to the other residents in town once we cave?”

  “But she was in such dire need.”

  Marnie sighed. “We’ll have to sell more silver. It won’t fetch what it’s worth, but it will keep the hyenas from the door for another year maybe.”

  “You can’t. That’s the last set, and it was Momma’s favorite.”

  “Would you rather sell the house and grounds?”

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “No, but life isn’t fair.”

  Millie began to cry.

  Abbie tiptoed away. They were as generous as they could be. They’d taken in Abbie even though it was obviously putting a strain on their limited resources. She wondered if she should call Celeste. But what good would that do? Just worry Celeste because somehow Abbie doubted that the three would take money from their niece even if Celeste could come up with it.

  Abbie left a note on the kitchen table saying she was at the beach and would be back in time to help with dinner.

  She wouldn’t impose on the Crispins any longer. She had some money, plus a life insurance policy Werner had not told her about. It wasn’t much, but it would keep her afloat long enough to figure out what to do with her life. She wouldn’t use the insurance money on herself unless she had to. She’d find a good cause and donate it all. And then she’d figure out what to do.

  And that’s where she began her journal. What to do with my life. She sat cross-legged on the sand, the wind rippling off the water and the late-afternoon sun warming her back. She stared at the first sentence and the subsequent empty page. Sort of like her future, a blank slate, a tabula rasa, a barren desert? It could be anything she wanted it to be, she thought. She could stay right where she was. Get a job. Maybe Bethanne would need help in the summer. She would work cheap if it included room and board.

  Or she could travel. She could buy a car. Not a jeep or Humvee, but something girly, small and low to the ground, electric blue or silver.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the thought. The truth was she had nothing to look forward to. But she wouldn’t write that down. Everything that was important about her had happened in her past, which would be okay if she was still on track. But she’d been derailed, and she didn’t know how the hell she was going to carry on.

  She didn’t write that down either.

  She wrote about Werner.

  She’d just graduated from Ann Arbor and had gone down to Guatemala to help build Habitat houses. The trip was a graduation gift from her parents. She knew a little about construction, electrical work, plumbing. All the Sinclair children did. You never knew when you’d be called on to help your neighbor repair his roof or fix a burned-out fuse. And since she was the only Sinclair who hadn’t known from childhood which area of selfless service she would make her life’s work, she learned a little bit of everything.

  She studied communications in college. A degree that landed her a job as a weathergirl at a Chicago television station, which if you had a really good imagination—and all the Sinclairs did—you could count as a service job.

  But she was ahead of herself. She was in Guatemala. Werner was part of a Dutch filming crew who were making a documentary in a nearby village.

  They camped along with the Habitat people because the Habitat people had edible food, hot water, and decent living quarters. She and Werner started talking over mess and talked far into the night. He was older, wiser, so full of life, so determined to effect change, and so handsome.

  In the early hours of morning, they went back to his room and made love. They were together for another week, then the documentary crew left for another location. The Habitat group left two weeks later. Abbie settled into her job as weathergirl for the same station Celeste worked for. They became friends. Celeste was the person Abbie ran to when her world fell apart.

  Abbie looked down at what she’d written. What to do with my life. Guatemala. The rest of the page was blank. It seems that Werner refused to be put on the page. It was so like him. Her throat burned.

  She closed the book, brushed the sand off her pants, and went back to the house to help with dinner and try not to think about Werner or how she had failed at the end.

  Supper, as Millie called it, was served early that night. There was fish fried in cornmeal, sliced tomatoes and onions, coleslaw, and stewed greens that Marnie said were collards. And the famed hush puppies that were balls of deep-fried corn bread filled with succulent pieces of onion.

  It was delicious and filling, especially the hush puppies. Abbie ate two. The greens were bitter but with a different taste from broccoli rabe or escarole. Chewier, even though Abbie was pretty sure they had been cooking since that morning when Marnie brought them in.

  A block of wood sat at Beau’s elbow like an extra fork. He must have completed the one he’d been working on the day before, because this one was uncut. He didn’t reach for it once, but as soon as he finished eating, he stood up and put it in his pocket.

  “If y’all will excuse me, I promised Cab I’d come down and help him with an electrical matter.”

  “You ask him what time he’s coming for Abbie tomorrow,” Millie reminded him.

  “I will.”

  “Only if he has the time,” said Abbie. And the inclination, she added silently. She didn’t know if she was up for sightseeing with a person who so obviously didn’t like her.

  “He has plenty of time,” Millie said.

  “I have to get going too,” Marnie said. “Leave the dishes until I get back.” She followed Beau out, leaving Millie and Abbie alone in the dining room.

  “I’ll help you clear,” Abbie said when Millie pushed her chair away from the table.

  “That’s all right, dear. I’ll—”

  “I insist. If you trust me with these lovely dishes.”

  Millie beamed. “Of course I do, but you don’t need to lift a finger, just sit back and enjoy yourself.”

  Abbie needed to take a stand or she would be twiddling her thumbs until she left. “I appreciate your hospitality, Millie, but I want to help. I’m not very good at doing nothing, like Marnie said. And I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I could just be a part of things instead of the pampered guest.”

  Millie
pursed her lips and placed her hand on her chest. “Oh, my dear, of course. You’ll be just like one of the family.”

  They cleared the table, and Abbie scraped the dishes while Millie washed. “You know it’s Beau’s birthday come July.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Abbie said.

  “I’m goin’ to throw him a big party. Invite the whole town and a few friends from Charleston. But it’s a surprise.” Millie’s eyes wrinkled in delight. “We’ll open up the ballroom, and there’ll be dancin’ and a food table that’ll stretch down the whole length of the room.”

  Abbie felt a little uncomfortable. Surely Millie couldn’t be serious, not after the things Marnie had said.

  “Momma and Daddy used to have glorious parties. It was a real honor to be invited to a party at Crispin House. Sometimes Beau would come home from the fleet. So handsome in his uniform. All the girls were wild for him.”

  “He was in the navy?”

  Millie’s face clouded over. “No. The merchant marines.” Millie sighed. “We thought for a while he’d marry Susie Tolliver, but he never stayed long enough for anything to come of it. As soon as he could, he’d be off to some other foreign port. Him and Marnie just couldn’t seem to sit still.”

  Her eyes took on a glassy, faraway look. “Funny how we all ended up right back here where we were born. And where we belong,” she added, almost defiantly. “Let’s just let these air dry. Would you like to watch some Jeopardy! on television? Or would you like to see the ballroom?”

  There was no question which one Millie wanted, so Abbie said, “Ballroom, of course,” and exchanged a delighted, if somewhat faked, smile with her hostess. Millie led her past the library to the back of the house and a wide double door made from dark wood. It was divided into four panels with parquet inlay, a testament to a richer, more elegant time.

  Millie paused at the door, then turned back to look at Abbie, her expression so delighted and conspiratorial that Abbie began to catch her excitement. She could imagine Millie and Marnie as children staring over the balustrade, watching the elegant guests arrive. And later as young girls, dressed in flowing ball gowns.

  Or maybe these were just images she’d seen in a movie.

  Millie pulled on both doors, and they stepped inside. The room was dark at first, then gradually it became lighter at the far side, and Abbie realized that the entire back wall was windowed and looked out onto the sea.

  It was breathtakingly beautiful.

  And it was also unused. Millie found the light switch, and a yellow haze spread through the empty space. A wide plank wooden floor stretched across an expansive room. Along the walls, white tarps covered what Abbie presumed were chairs and settees and tables. A balcony overlooked the room; the orchestra surely must have played from there.

  Millie walked to the center of the floor then turned back and motioned to Abbie.

  “We’ll have to take the dust covers off and give the floor a good polishing. And make all his favorite dishes. Not caterers. They never do things right, though I might ask Penny Farlowe to do the desserts. And we’ll have to hire people to serve. And the invitations. I’ll have to drive over to Georgetown to the stationers, and . . .”

  The thought of Millie driving even as far as Hadley’s was enough to rattle Abbie. And she knew there was no way all these preparations were even remotely possible. Surely Millie didn’t really believe she could pull off such a large event.

  But she was right about one thing. It was a grand ballroom and a pity it was going to waste. Abbie wouldn’t mind seeing it lit up in all its former glory, herself.

  “And dancin’. Not a fiddle and a piano, either. A string quartet . . . We always had an orchestra. Sometimes when it was hot, the party would spill over to the lawn and the orchestra would move to the summah house.”

  It took Abbie a second to translate her words to summerhouse. The gazebo.

  “All the guests would dance in the moonlight. You could hear the waves each time the orchestra stopped playing.” Millie walked to the window and peered out into the dark night.

  “I think I saw it yesterday when I was out walking,” Abbie said.

  “When Beau was a boy, he would spend the whole day out there, even in the winter, paintin’ the sea and whatever else he came across. He wanted to go to art school, but Daddy put his foot down and sent him off to the Citadel. There was a big set-to. It happened right down there in the summah house. I’d never seen Daddy so angry. He—”

  She shuddered and turned from the window. “Then Beau left for school. Momma got sick and the parties stopped and nobody went down there anymore.

  “But why are we talking about that horrid old thing when we have this lovely ballroom. It’s perfect for Beau’s party.”

  Abbie suspected Beau would enjoy something a little more informal. She could imagine Cabot the third dressed in a tux and waltzing his way around the room, but the idea of Beau or Silas being comfortable in bow ties and dance shoes eluded her.

  Millie wasn’t being rational. Should she say something to Marnie? Or should she just mind her own business?

  The world is our business, Abbie, Werner had once told her. She’d just tossed a handful of change to a small beggar boy. He was immediately set on by other boys who wrested the few coins from him, then shoved him to the ground. It’s hopeless, she’d cried. What are we doing? Nothing will ever change. He took her by the shoulders. Held her firmly until she looked up at him. We can’t change it all. But we sure as hell can try.

  And they had tried. Chipping away, incident by incident, horror story by horror story. Sometimes effecting a brief respite, sometimes not making a ripple.

  Over the years Werner had moved away from documenting people’s lives and got more involved with stopping injustice. At first she’d been swept along on his fervor. It had been exciting, important work, stories of waste and war and greed. But Abbie cared about individuals more than causes. And their work began to gnaw at her, break her down. It killed a little piece of her. Maybe a big chunk of her.

  Werner noticed it, and he was understanding. “Everybody burns out along the way; just hang in and it will pass.” She believed him; she believed in him. But it didn’t pass.

  He began spending more and more time on editing, distribution, and fund-raising. She didn’t remember exactly when she first realized their lives, their hopes, their desires were diverging.

  She’d hung in until the end, but her fervor had only grown dimmer. He’d left her behind and never even noticed.

  He risked his life more than once to get his film. Times when he could have turned his back, taken an easier route. Times when she begged him to do just that, tried to convince him that he couldn’t make things better if he was dead. But he wouldn’t pull back. It was as if a stronger fire had ignited within him. And in the end it killed him. Not angry villagers, or an epidemic or widespread rebellion, but greed.

  He was murdered to keep him from exposing the practices of a multibillion-dollar company who refused to pay the barest decent wages or lift a finger to save the countryside they were exploiting.

  “Do you waltz?”

  Abbie jerked back to the present. Millie was standing a few feet away swaying to some unheard music, her arms outspread as if resting on her hoopskirt.

  “No,” said Abbie. “I never learned to dance.”

  “Well, we’ll teach you before the party. Beau was an excellent dancer in his day. And so was I.” Suddenly she dropped her arms. “Let’s go see if Jeopardy! is still on.”

  Abbie followed her silently out of the room, still disoriented from her flashback and even more disoriented by Millie’s strange behavior. Abbie wasn’t the only person living in the present and longing for the past. She’d found a kindred sprit, a fellow sufferer in Millie, but as much as she was beginning to care for the older woman, she didn’t want to be like her.

  Mill
ie flipped the light switch, and the room was plunged into darkness. They felt their way back into the hallway.

  The television, an unwieldy box with rabbit ears, was in a small den behind the parlor with an overstuffed sofa and chair, two battered leather ottomans, and a metal stand holding four floral-printed television tables.

  Abbie sat down on the sofa. Millie sat down beside her and pressed the remote buttons until the game show came on the air.

  “Aristotle was the teacher of this world conqueror.”

  “Who is Alexander the Great?” Millie called out the correct answer a second before the contestant.

  “Beau says I should be on this show,” Millie said with a mixture of pride and disdain.

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t presume,” she said and answered the next question.

  Chapter 6

  Cab stood in the dark, listening. He could barely hear the waves in the distance. He groped for the light switch. The light flicked on, casting a low glow over its surroundings. And there she was. Midnight Lady. Black and sleek. Flanks tense. Nostrils flared, head tossed and straining to break free. He ran his hand over her back, slapped her shoulder. I’m here.

  How many times he came back to her, how many times he left again. From the time he could first reach the stirrup, he’d hoist himself up, throw his leg over the saddle and they would gallop away. Down to the beach, over the world, with Cab on her back, slicing the wind, unfettered, happy—free.

  How many times had he taken that ride in the past only to lose his way again?

  She was older now and so was he. What a huge amount of time he’d wasted trying to get ahead, when as it turned out all he wanted was to come home.

  “Cab, are you in there?”

  Beau was here. “Coming.” Cab slid a hand down the horse’s side in a final caress, carefully pulled the blanket over her, and turned out the light. When he came out, Beau was down on his haunches staring into the wooden engine housing.