Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

  “Shit,” the man said. “Boss’ll be disappointed. Danny, you’d better run outside and tell him. Maybe he’ll want to head back to the marina after all.”

  Some of the men had drifted into the dark, cozy bar. Candles flickered on every table, some of the old oak surfaces carved with artists’ drawings and initials. Landscapes and nudes covered the walls. One by one, the houseguests looked up. They were either artists or people attracted by artists, and they regarded the seafarers with a mixture of alarm and curiosity.

  Behind the bar was a particularly lush and decadent nude, depicting a large-breasted blond woman with tragedy in her eyes. The trick of the painting was that the background was money. At first glance it appeared to be foliage, but if you looked closely, it was coins and currency. To the artists, the picture was a sophisticated conversation piece, an excellent execution of trompe l’oeil done by one of Caroline’s guests, who had gone on to become well known. But to the new visitors it was lewd and lascivious, and they stood around making loud toasts to the model’s erect nipples.

  Caroline stood quietly, listening to Clea and Michele ask each other what should be done. The language was growing raunchy. Some of the guests were squirming, staring with distaste at the men. Clea and Michele began to circulate among the tables, attempting damage control by offering drinks on the house.

  “Are my guys behaving themselves?” came a deep voice from behind her.

  “Not exactly,” Caroline said, turning to see who had spoken.

  The man was tall and fair. He had tousled blond hair, streaked from the sun and salt. His blue eyes were wide and clear, and their serious expression was deep, in contrast with his smile. He wore a faded blue polo shirt, the tails untucked and the collar frayed. His arms were tan and strong.

  “Hey, captain,” called the man with the broken tooth and tattoos. “We want to buy you a drink.”

  “How about remembering you’re not at sea anymore,” the blond man said good-naturedly to his crew at large. “Be scientists and gentlemen.” They listened with no apparent rancor, nodding and raising their glasses. One of them bought the man a drink, and it appeared to be a glass of cranberry juice. He held it, and Caroline could see how big his hands were.

  “Danny says you’re all booked up?” the man asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can offer you two rooms for tonight, but that’s just because we had unexpected cancellations. I think you’ll have a hard time finding enough rooms for as long as you want them. Black Hall gets pretty busy in the summer.”

  “I’m disappointed,” the captain said. “I’ve always wanted to stay at the Renwick Inn.”

  “Really?” she asked, skeptical but flattered.

  “Really,” he said.

  “We get a lot of artists here,” she said. “Not many sailors and…what did you say? Scientists?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” he asked, surveying his ragtag crew, desperately in need of razors and shampoo, drooling over the sad-eyed nude. “Half those guys are oceanographers and the other half are pirates.”

  “Which half are you?” she asked.

  “I’m definitely a pirate,” he replied.

  “No kidding,” she said. They stood there, smiling at each other. He had a sultry sexiness about him, but in spite of his easy way, there was something secretive behind his eyes.

  “I run a salvage company in Florida,” he said. “We dive on sunken ships, bring up what we can. Sometimes we contract out for government work, and sometimes we do our own thing.”

  “What do you salvage?” Caroline asked.

  “Treasure.” He grinned.

  “Treasure?” she asked, still skeptical.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just fishing gear and a water-logged outboard motor. A drunken captain who didn’t know the water and went aground. Or a family sailboat the father didn’t know how to navigate and hit a rock.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way up from Florida to raise a family sailboat,” Caroline said.

  “That’s right,” he replied. “Earlier this year I went off Louisiana and brought up a chest of yellow topaz. A mound of silver pesos four inches high and eighty feet long. All from a Spanish brig that went down in 1784.”

  The romance of wrecks had always intrigued Caroline. Growing up at Firefly Hill, she and her sisters would look out to sea and imagine the ships that had gone down on the rocky shoals. There were legends about pirates and wreckers on this coast, and one memorable tale about an English ship lost in a terrible storm. “Do you expect to find something like that up here?” she asked, growing excited at the prospect. “Real treasure?”

  “Maybe,” he said, smiling enigmatically.

  “The English ship. Is that what you’ve come for?” Caroline asked, suddenly understanding. She pictured the boats offshore, the secrecy in the men’s expressions. The man had come north to excavate the old shipwreck.

  Caroline had learned about it in third grade; all the Black Hall kids had. An English sea captain came to the colonies, his hold full of arms and the king’s gold. He fell in love with the lighthouse keeper’s wife, and she was going to run away to England with him. But their ship sank on the Wickland Shoals in a great gale. “Tell me her name, the ship that sank,” Caroline said finally.

  “The Cambria,” the man said, watching her face.

  “That’s right!” she said, looking into his eyes. As she did, she had the feeling she knew him, had known him for a long time and knew him well. A strange sensation came over her: Her skin tingled, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

  “How did you find out about it?” she asked. “It’s only a legend. People have looked before, and they’ve never found any trace. It happened nearly three hundred years ago, if it happened at all.”

  “It happened,” he said softly.

  “But how did you hear? It’s a local story. I’ve never read anything about it.”

  “You told me about it,” the man said.

  “I told you?”

  “In one of your letters you wrote about a ship that had sunk within sight of your house. The Cambria. You’d learned about it in school, and you could see the spot from your bedroom window. You’re Caroline Renwick, aren’t you?”

  She felt the blush spread up her neck. Reaching out, she took his hand. It felt rough and callused, and his grip was tight and didn’t let go. She recognized him now. He looked so much like his picture, that smile and the light in his eyes. She had carried his picture around for ten years, and she was surprised she hadn’t recognized him the minute he walked in the door.

  “Joe,” she said. “Joe Connor.”

  “I should have called first,” he said. “But we came north kind of suddenly.”

  “Joe,” she said again.

  “The Renwick Inn,” he said. “I’ve always wondered whether it was you. Or your family, at least.”

  “It’s hard to believe,” she said. “That we’ve never met before. Of all the times for you to show up…”

  “Life’s strange,” he said, still smiling. But something about the cast of his eyes made her see he was backing off. Whatever friendliness he had initially shown was tempered by their past, the secrecy of his business, or something else. He glanced around, nodded at his men in the bar.

  “It is,” Caroline said. “Strange that you wanted to stay at my inn, considering…”

  “Considering what?”

  “Everything. Considering everything.”

  “That’s ancient history,” Joe said. “You run an inn, and I need a place to put my crew.”

  “Your crew? Not you?” Caroline asked.

  Joe shook his head. “I stay at the site, on board one of the ships. So do most of my guys, but we need a base on land. Showers, a bar, a restaurant.”

  “Looks like they’re enjoying the bar,” Caroline said, watching the bartender frown as he poured shots of Southern Comfort. “Can’t say I remember the last time I saw someone drinking sh
ots in there.”

  “My guys a little too rough for you?” Joe asked with an edge. He grinned. “Good thing you’re booked. We wouldn’t want to coarsen your place up. We’ll finish our drinks and clear out.”

  Caroline brushed back her hair. She felt stiff, off balance. He’d be leaving soon, and she wanted to be glad. Meeting him brought back bad memories, a lot of hurt. She’d done plenty to block the pain out of her life, and she didn’t need to open the door and invite it back in. So when she opened her mouth, her words surprised herself. “Like I said, we have two rooms free.”

  “Yeah?” he asked. “We’ll take them.”

  Clea came forward, a worried look in her green eyes.

  “Someone just made a pass at Leo Dumonde’s wife,” she said, “and Leo wants to fight him outside. I think he’s trying to be Dad.”

  Caroline exhaled; she didn’t have the patience just then. Leo Dumonde was an abstract expressionist from New York, a man with a bigger reputation for investing than painting, and he was one of the artists who tried to live what he thought was the Hugh Renwick way: paint fast, fight hard. Exhibit timber, cheat on your wife, drink too much, hunt and fish enough to get noticed by the sports writers.

  “Your father was the real thing,” Joe said. “Leo Dumonde’s a fake. He won’t be stepping outside with anyone from my boat.”

  “You knew our father?” Clea asked, twinkling.

  “Knew of him,” Joe said. “The bastard.”

  Clea’s smile evaporated.

  “Clea, meet Joe Connor,” Caroline said evenly, every one of her senses on guard.

  “The Joe Connor?” Clea asked.

  “I think so,” he said, flashing her a wicked grin and shaking her hand.

  “We’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time,” Clea said.

  “He’s a treasure hunter,” Caroline said. “He’s here to raise the Cambria, and then he’s going home to Florida.”

  “That’s right,” Joe said. “Renwick territory is a little too dangerous for me. Or at least it was when Hugh was around.”

  “We’re our father’s daughters,” Caroline said sharply, the pain of Joe’s rejection as sharp as it had been at fifteen. Amazed that it could still hurt, she felt her eyes fill with tears. He had been her friend, and he had cut her off without a second chance. Not even for her own sins, but for their fathers’. “You’d better not forget that.”

  “I never have,” Joe Connor said softly.

  Closing her office door behind her, Caroline went to her desk. Her hands were shaking, her heart pounding as if she’d just climbed a steep trail. Clea had driven away, and Caroline was glad to be alone. Pulling the curtains, she sat down.

  The bar was noisy. She heard the loud voices, the excited laughter. It was a busy night at the Renwick Inn, and she knew she should feel pleased. Friends and acquaintances from the past often walked through her door. Sometimes they knew she owned the place, often they were surprised to find out. It never mattered: Caroline viewed those visits as serendipitous, lucky business.

  Joe Connor was different.

  Very slowly, she opened the top drawer of her desk. It was cluttered, filled with pens and receipts and mementos. Reaching back, rifling through the papers, she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the old picture and laid it on her desktop.

  It was Joe’s first-grade school picture, taken long ago. The little boy was smiling, his front tooth missing. He had blond hair, the back sticking up in a cowlick. The picture was stained brown, and dark flecks covered the boy’s face. The flecks were his father’s blood.

  Caroline had held James Connor’s hand while he shot himself. Crushed beneath his body, she had pulled his son’s picture from the spreading pool of blood. Silent now, she sat at her desk and stared at Joe’s face.

  Her mother had given her permission to write to him. Against her better judgment, Augusta had let her find his address in Newport, even given her the stamp. Caroline, five years old, had written to Joe Connor, six years old, to tell him she was sorry his father was dead. She didn’t mention the gun, she left out the blood. Her emotions were enough, her sorrow for another child who had lost his father. Her mother had helped her print the words, and the letter was short.

  Joe wrote back. He thanked her for her letter. She could still remember his first-grade printing, his confusing words: “My father had a heart attack with you. I am glad you were with him.”

  Caroline responded. They became pen pals. On and off during the years, they wrote to each other. They sent Christmas cards, birthday cards, valentines. As the years went by, Joe began to ask about his father. From the questions, Caroline could tell that he had been lied to, that he had a totally wrong idea about his father’s death.

  Joe seemed to have the idea that their fathers had been friends. James Connor had met Hugh Renwick during one of his painting forays to Newport, guys from different walks of life who liked to drink together. Somehow James had ended up visiting the Renwicks and had a heart attack in their kitchen.

  To Augusta’s consternation, Joe’s letters began to arrive more regularly. He and Caroline liked each other; when they became teenagers, they liked each other more. It drove Augusta crazy, seeing the name Connor in the return address. She’d grill Caroline about the letters, tell her to stop writing back. Reminded of her husband’s infidelity, she couldn’t stand Joe Connor.

  The letters stopped. Caroline hadn’t thought about that part in years, but the memory still carried power. She felt the color rising in her neck. Joe finally learned the truth, and not from Caroline.

  Joe’s mother had been too ashamed to tell him how his father had died, and one day someone in his family let it slip. An uncle or a cousin, Caroline couldn’t remember. Joe finally learned that his father had committed suicide. The heart attack had been a lie, and so had the story about their fathers being friends.

  James Connor had died among enemies. That was terrible, enough to break the heart of any teenage boy. But what was worse, the thing that brought tears to Caroline’s eyes now, was the betrayal. She had been his friend. All along, reading his letters, she had known she should tell him the truth.

  At the end, he couldn’t forgive her. She had known and he didn’t. He was seventeen and needed to know all he could about his father, and Caroline had held back a crucial fact: Her father had been having an affair with his mother, and James Connor had killed himself because of it. She had withheld the most important thing one friend could ever give another: the truth.

  Truth was never big in the Renwick family, but that was no excuse. Sitting at her desk, staring at the bloody picture, she thought of Joe Connor out in her bar. If he were still a friend, she could buy him a drink, catch up on old times, get to know the man in person. But as it stood right now, he was just another customer.

  September 20, 1972

  Dear Joe Connor,

  We have a shipwreck near our house! It happened long ago. The Cambria came from England loaded with treasure. My sisters and I look for coins on Firefly Beach. If we find some, I will send you one. Our beach is magical. Instead of lighthouses we have fireflies. Are you in fourth grade? I’m in third. The Cambria was a barquentine. It is buried in the mud.

  Sincerely yours,

  Caroline Renwick

  October 16, 1972

  Dear Caroline,

  Why do you always write Dear Joe Connor? No other Joe lives here. Shipwrecks are cool, as long as you’re not on them. Newport has plenty. Lots of barques. (The nickname for barquentine.) Yes I’m in fourth. How many sisters do you have? Keep looking for the treasure.

  Your friend,

  Joe

  P.S. Of course it is buried in the mud. Otherwise, it would decompose. (That means “rot” to you third-graders.)

  JOE CONNOR DROVE HIS TRUCK DOWN TO THE DOCK, feeling the air grow thick with sea mist. Behind him was a convoy of vehicles returning to the ship. Bill Shepard sat across the seat, but Joe wished he were alone. He hadn’t been prepared f
or his reaction to meeting Caroline Renwick. He felt wired, as if he had either just landed or lost a black marlin. His hands were actually shaking on the steering wheel. He needed a drink, and he had quit drinking ten years ago.

  For one thing, she was beautiful. Five-six and slender with incredible curves, the kind of body that sailors spend their lives dreaming about. Her face belonged on magazine covers, porcelain-pale with wide gray-blue eyes and high cheekbones, a tender mouth that wanted to smile but didn’t right away. Her dark hair was long and wavy, and with her pallor it gave her a mysterious black-Irish look that made Joe think of whispers and passion and how her fingernails might feel digging into his back.

  For another thing, the main thing, she was Caroline Renwick.

  They had a past. All the letters and then, when he’d found out the truth, the rage. He had seen her father’s famous portrait of her, Girl in a White Dress, hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But by then he was deep into his hatred of the Renwicks. The lies had already come to light.

  “Nice place, the Renwick Inn,” Bill said, yawning as he gazed out the open window.

  “It is,” Joe said.

  “So, we’ll be keeping a couple of rooms there, sort of like a land base?” Bill asked. He was new to Joe’s crew, a diver they’d picked up at the tail end of the last excavation. He was young and eager, but he liked to talk too much. Joe wasn’t big on getting to know his team. They did their work, he paid their salary.

  “Yes,” Joe said.

  “Pretty girls,” Bill said. “That owner chick and her sister. They friends of yours?”

  “Not exactly,” Joe said. “But close enough.”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better, that Caroline. Very hot, very hot. But she has that New England–reserved look, real hard to get. You know?”

  “That’s because she is,” Joe said harshly.

  “Hey, you never know.” Bill laughed in that drawn-out southern way of his. He had a spooky cast to his eyes, and his manner managed to make most things he said sound snide. Joe felt a big knot of anger balling up in his stomach, feeling like the right thing to do was defend Caroline and not really knowing why.