The Beach House

by Sally John

  China. Absolutely nothing stood between her and that mysterious faraway country except seawater. The thought exhilarated her. Or maybe it was the realization that little Andie Mouse had stepped so incredibly far away from the wall. She had even rounded another corner and now stood in the midst of all that was unknown. The only thing she could control at that moment—well! She couldn’t think of a thing she could control at that moment. She was in the ocean, and her feet could not touch bottom! She wore a swimsuit in late September when Midwestern leaves were turning gold. Her hair probably looked as if it were glued to her scalp. She hadn’t even applied cheek blush. And, tucked in with all that cellulite, were a pair of decidedly nubbly legs.

  Wouldn’t Paul be—Oh, there were too many adjectives to describe what he would be!

  “Andie!” Julian called from a short distance away to her left. He too wore a wet suit and floated upon a boogie board. “Get ready!”

  An approaching wave heaved, much larger than the previous one. She quickly rehearsed what Julian had taught her over the past hour or so. Her position and the size of the wave eliminated the option to ride over it. She could wait for it to crash atop her and get tumbled about. The clothes dryer routine cleared out her sinuses but wasn’t particularly enjoyable. She would have to dive through it, a maneuver she hadn’t quite mastered.

  Without further hesitation, she kicked and pushed herself downward, down into the bowels of the rushing tower. Instant quiet enshrouded her. A moment later she emerged on the backside of the wave and expelled her breath in a hearty laugh.

  “I did it!”

  “Woo!”

  They propelled themselves out farther. The water rippled gently, and they drifted, giving their legs a rest.

  Andie crossed her arms on the board and rested her chin on them. The exhilaration calmed too, and she sighed in satisfaction. The sun warmed the back of her wet head.

  Who would believe it? Not Paul. Nor the boys. Even Char wasn’t so sure, and she’d been right there watching her struggle into the wet suit.

  How had she gotten there? Only Julian seemed to think it possible as he gently suggested a way to combat her fears. He had offered his assistance and patiently waited for her decision, never once pressuring. Twenty nervous, determined minutes later she met him on the sand.

  “Andie!” he called now and pointed.

  The sight of the incoming wave took her breath away. It raced toward them, blocking half the sky. There was no going over or through it. The thought of tumbling under it nearly strangled her.

  “Julian!” she squealed.

  “You can do it! Let’s go!”

  Like him, she grasped the front edge of the board and kicked around in a half circle until she faced the shore.

  “Go, Andie! Go!”

  The roar of water swallowed his voice. Not far to her left the wave began its curl, crashing over into white water, racing in her direction like a bolt of lightening. With all her might she kicked. If she didn’t meet the white water at the exact moment it reached her, the wave would win and she would lose.

  Lose. She understood losing. She’d lost her Grandmère Babette. She’d lost her dad too soon. She’d lost Paul. She was losing her sons, both off to college over the next two years. She’d lost her spunk.

  She was tired of losing.

  “Lord.”

  The wave lifted her. Higher and higher still. She froze, her teeth gritted and her heart pounding in her throat.

  And then she realized she had done it. She had caught the wave! She was one with it.

  Her locked jaw released itself as did something deep inside of her. Grinning, she flew on liquid glass, the power of a jet engine propelling her forward. The wind whistled in her ears.

  A long breathtaking moment later the wave diminished, its power spent. Andie stayed with it, letting it carry her until her knees dragged on the sandy floor. Nearly overcome with laughter she stood and raised her hands Rocky style.

  She turned around. Where was Julian? She must share the moment with him. There he was, far out still, floating on the board. He had missed the ride! She waved to him.

  He raised an arm, his hand fisted, a thumb skyward. Then he headed back toward the horizon. He wasn’t coming in to coax her out again as he’d done numerous times.

  Andie felt as if she had graduated. Who would believe it?

  With a giggle, she picked up the board and walked onto the beach.

  Sixteen

  “Molly. Sugar.” Char heard a tinge of exasperation in her voice and paused to glide her tongue along the backs of her teeth.“You are truly welcome to pick up this cell phone and use it whenever and for however long you would like. It makes no never mind to me or Cam or the phone company. I never use up my allotted minutes.” Well, not every month, anyway.

  Molly sat at the kitchen table, her hands tightly clasped beside the phone, a forlorn expression on her face. “You’re sure?”

  Standing at the counter, Char traced the fronts of her teeth and swiveled around to pick up the coffee carafe. How could the woman be so out of touch with the twenty-first century?

  “Molly, I am sure.” She poured the last of the coffee into her mug.

  “I would have used Jo’s earlier, but she didn’t take it to the restaurant. It must be hormones.”

  “What must be hormones?” Char turned to face her.

  “This…” Molly waved her hands above her head and twirled her fingers. “This…I don’t know! This out-of-body experience.”

  “You’re having an out-of-body experience?”

  “It feels that way. Like my brain detached itself. I don’t feel in control. Not that I am truly ever in control, but this is like I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth until it’s already been said.”

  “Sounds like caffeine overload. How much coffee have you had?”

  “Only a cup, and most of that was soymilk. Ten minutes ago I was fine. And now look at me.” She pulled the elastic from her ponytail and combed her fingers through her hair. “I’m totally unnerved because there is no telephone in this place!”

  “There are three, hon. Three cell phones and you are welcome to use any of them. Jo would even turn hers on more than once a day for you.”

  Char sipped from what was her fourth cup of coffee. Evidently her caffeine tolerance surpassed Molly’s. Only now did she begin to feel awake and ready to face the day, which appeared to be developing into a complicated one. Jo’s moodiness remained intact after twelve years. She had disappeared into her room again. Char wondered if she should check on her. Or search the room for a bottle? No way was she climbing into a car with a drunk behind the wheel.

  Then there was Andie. Spunky aside, she’d always possessed an eggshell exterior and, like last night, it was shattered on a regular basis. Nothing new there—until Char found her first thing that morning wiggling into a wet suit, asking for help with the back zipper. It was as if a hard-boiled interior had emerged, a totally uncharacteristic version of the soft woman she knew. Andie was simply the last woman on earth who would surf, especially with a stranger.

  And Molly was the last woman on earth who would fall apart over a telephone. Maybe it had something to do with her fortieth and that business she mentioned about Scott, something about pretending their marriage was okay.

  Molly fiddled with the phone. “It’s just that I’ve never been away from the kids for such a long period of time.”

  Long period—What? “Twenty-four hours?”

  “Well-l-l, it will be a long time before I get home.”

  “Honey, how are you and Scotty? You said something about your birthday…”

  “We’re fine. We’re working on some issues. You probably know what I mean. You’ve made it to what? Fifteen, sixteen years?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen. That’s great. We were just growing apart. I was feeling—” Abruptly she stood. “Will you excuse me, please? I have to call him.” Without a backward glance, she p
almed the cell, her long legs already in motion. She crossed the room and went down the hallway.

  Char remained standing and drank her coffee. Molly probably wouldn’t care to hear how she and Cam had made it to seventeen years. How a couple could just ignore the inevitable growing apartness. How she could find fulfillment in school and community affairs and innumerable friends. How he could be content fixing teeth and watching television and not be concerned that one of her closest confidants was the neighbor guy. Why go to all the effort of working on issues?

  Oh, well. Different strokes for different folks.

  Seventeen

  Molly lay on her stomach on one of the twin beds in her room. With Char’s tiny phone pressed against her ear, she counted the rings of the church phone at the other end, her nausea increasing with each. Hadn’t he said he’d be in the office that morning? Though she had left a message yesterday, they hadn’t talked since she’d left home. Maybe something happened. He had Jo’s cell phone number, but she didn’t know if Jo had checked for messages yet. Apparently not using the thing was part of her friend’s vacation.

  On the tenth ring Scott picked up. “Hope Church.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Molly,” he breathed her name as if in relief. “What can’t you do, sweetheart?”

  “Be this far away from you and the kids.”

  He chuckled. “That’s the most pathetic thing you’ve ever said.”

  “I know. What’s even more pathetic is it’s the truth. And it makes me feel like throwing up.”

  “Okay, okay. You win. You miss me more than I miss you. I have no indication my breakfast is moving upward. What did you eat, by the way?”

  She followed his lead down a rabbit trail of detailed chitchat about their mornings and the children. After a time her stomach relaxed, and her mind stopped swirling.

  “Scotty, seriously, this is harder than I imagined.”

  “That’s the best time to practice leaning on Him.”

  “I just feel so vulnerable.”

  “Like an adolescent trying to figure out who she is?”

  “Have I said that?”

  “Once or twice. Maybe six times. Moll, I do miss you, and not because I’m doing the housework.”

  She smiled. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “But you’re fine?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And the kids are fine?”

  “The kids are great. So go be strong. Be Molly Preston, not Mrs. Scott Preston, mother of the pastor’s four wild rugrats who played hide-and-seek in the church during choir practice last night.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “Ready or not!” he shouted.“Here I come!”

  “Scott!”

  “I was on the phone. After I got off, I tied them together in a pew.”

  She laughed. What a distance they’d come! Three months ago he never would have allowed them within shouting distance of the choir or his office while he worked.

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you give me Char’s phone number?”

  “I don’t know what it is. How do I figure it out?”

  “There’s a menu. Check that.”

  “Hold on.” She lowered the phone, studied the micro screen a moment, and put it back to her ear. “Gobbledygook. I’ll have to ask Char.”

  “All right. Get Andie’s too. Maybe you’ll feel better knowing I have all three. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “I’d better go.” He rattled off his schedule, which included Bible study that night. The next two days he would do surveying work up the Elk River. Way up. Where pay phones were unheard of and the cellular kind did not function.

  They had taken giant steps in their marriage. They were growing back together, balancing kids and work in a healthier way. She was off on her own, for the first time in twelve years, getting reacquainted with old friends, including someone named Molly Preston.

  Life was full of God’s blessings. Why in the world did she want to cry?

  The flood of tears broke loose after they said goodbye. She bawled herself to sleep right there in the cozy beach house in the middle of a sunny morning, her hand tight around Char’s phone.

  Eighteen

  Jo stood beside her car, gulped down half a bottle of water along with four ibuprofen, and kneaded her forehead.

  Not a blade of grass in sight, the single-vehicle carport more or less was the backyard. It afforded a spot of shade amid the relentless glare of sunlight. She faced the one-way, alley-sized thoroughfare and squinted. Heat waves quivered off lofty stucco walls, parked vehicles, and concrete. A tribute to the tenacity of life, plants sprouted everywhere, in pots and through cracks in the hard surfaces: jade, azalea, bougainvillea, bird of paradise, and even a palm tree. The sweet scent of alyssum wafted from somewhere.

  Jo’s head throbbed, in sync with her pounding heart. What had she gotten herself into, inviting three strangers to spend a week in such close proximity? She felt like a bug under a microscope, limbs splayed and pinned down. No matter their common history, the women did not know each other. And to think she had been sober when she called them!

  In an attempt to wriggle out from that feeling of being scrutinized, she scheduled activities. They could focus on things and Jo could ignore the feeling she just might pop. The ugly beach house, weird neighbor, and unaccustomed tenderness unnerved her.

  The event-driven approach wasn’t working. Already the original timetable was shot to pieces. Molly was napping. Char had wandered down the boardwalk in search of a newspaper and who knew what else once she reached all those souvenir kiosks. Andie was at the front of the house, hosing down a boogie board and wet suit, the bridge of her nose scraped raw from an impact with the ocean floor. If yesterday’s hairstyle, makeup, and clothes were any indication, she was still at least an hour and a half away from being ready. When Jo walked past her on the way to the carport, Andie squirted Jo’s sandaled feet and teased, “Tag, you’re it, Zambruski!”

  Jo rubbed her forehead again and closed her eyes. The sensation of pressure mounting refused to go away.

  “Good morning!”

  Jo looked up and saw a man walking in the narrow street. He stopped when he reached the carport, a few yards from her.

  “Morning,” she said.

  He smiled, a dazzling flash of white against flawless ebony skin. Black braided locks sprouted from his head every direction like a fireworks display held in suspension. A trimmed beard covered the lower half of his narrow face.

  “How ya doin?” he asked.

  “Just—” The word “fine” tangled with her vocal cords and didn’t make its way out. She wasn’t fine, and something in his black eyes told her he knew it.

  “Oh, sister, life can be hard at times, can’t it?” The singsong cadence of his voice mesmerized.

  She felt glued to the concrete. Something unearthly emanated from the stranger.

  He said, “I find when I express my troubles out loud to another human being, they just sort of…” He spread his arms out like a band leader and wiggled his fingers.“Dissipate.” He laid a hand to his chest. “The heart doesn’t take on the full impact of unbearable pain.”

  What was this? A Rastafarian-looking shrink in faded blue jeans and white button-down shirt with rolled up sleeves?

  “My name is Zeke.” Now he held the hand out to her.

  She crossed the distance between them and shook it. “I’m Jo.”

  “Nice to meet you.” His eyes remained focused on hers. They were like magnets.“Your heart looks like it’s breaking with unbearable pain, Sister Jo.”

  She folded her arms, locking them across her midsection. Her deep heart cried out that yes, the pain was unbearable. Unbearable and unspeakable.

  Zeke shifted his stance. Expectancy was written in his posture and on his unlined face.

  And then she knew he was right, to speak the anguish was somehow to bear it. She should tell her friends. The
y would give her sympathy and practical advice. Wasn’t that, in all honesty, the reason she had called them?

  Her throat ached from its tight grip on words of confession. They would be swallowed, though. She knew that by the time she met up with Char, Molly, and Andie, she would have talked herself out of saying them. She would dredge up old things between them and shove the words back down.

  Zeke, on the other hand, carried no baggage. He called her “sister.” In the twinkling of an eye he had connected with her on a deep level. Intuitively she understood he would offer something beyond sympathy and practical advice.

  And he was available now even as her words clamored for release.

  She said,“How much do you charge an hour?”

  “Time means nothing to the good Lord.” He smiled. “I try to follow His example.”

  Jo hesitated for the briefest of moments. She saw no fire in the man’s eyes, only acceptance.

  “Four months ago I killed a sixteen-year-old girl and her baby.”

  Midafternoon Jo strolled with her friends along a walkway in Old Town between historical white stucco buildings with red tile roofs. Eucalyptus trees cast long afternoon shadows.

  Char purred a sound of delight and pointed to an open-air gift shop on their left. “Look at those wind chimes!”

  Almost simultaneously Andie pointed to the right. “A hacienda! History!”

  The two of them laughed.

  Molly pointed straight ahead and moaned.“I’m going there to that grassy spot and sitting down. No way can I shop or sightsee. I ate one too many tortilla chips!”

  “Molly, honey,” Char said, “perhaps it was the grande platter of tacos, enchiladas, refried beans, and rice you ate with the chips.”

  She smiled.“Perhaps. Come plop with me, and then we’ll do something more tangible than digest lunch.”

  Jo thought lunch a misnomer. It was after three o’clock.

  They reached a vacant wooden picnic table where Char and Andie sat on the bench seat. Jo chose the ground. She slipped off her sandals and folded her legs lotus style. Molly stretched out full length on her back in the grass, crossed her feet at the ankles, hooked her hands behind her head, and eyed Jo.