The Beach House

by Sally John

  “The valet said no problem and opened the taxi door for me. I hopped in and said to the driver please just go. He wasn’t too swift. He’d never make it in Chicago. I think that was when I yelled.”

  They both hooted now.

  “Something like ‘Get out of this parking lot!’ I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t want to come to the house for fear Todd would show up and I’d have to talk to him. Did he come?”

  They shook their heads. Molly asked, “Has he called?”

  “I turned off my phone after I talked to Cam last night. Just now I skimmed through the missed calls looking for Cam’s number—he did not call, by the way—and noticed Todd’s number. I didn’t check voice mail. I’m sure he got the hint.” She paused. “Also I didn’t want to come here because I simply could not face you three.”

  Now they nodded.

  That memory jumped at her again, the one from her sixteenth birthday, more vivid than earlier. She saw Molly, Jo, and Andie in the restaurant booth, nodding vigorously, compassion and understanding clearly written on their youthful faces. She heard Andie’s invitation as loud and clear as she had that day: You can live at my house.

  They were right there with her, all those years ago and now today. They knew shame kept her away last night until the wee hours of the morning. They understood she would have blamed them for her feeling that way.

  Oh, God! How could I have been so blind?

  After a deep breath, she went on. “Anyway, back to the taxi. I was absolutely freezing, so I told the driver to take me to any store that stayed open past ten PM. He found one of those discount superstores miles from here and waited while I bought sweats and shoes. Then he dropped me off a few blocks from here.” Last night’s loneliness struck her anew and tears stung. “I figured I’d wait until the coast was clear.”

  “Oh, hon,” Molly said. “What did you do?”

  “Sat on the seawall and nearly lost my mind trying to make sense of my life. Then out of the blue up walks Julian. I jumped about a foot.” She felt them tense. “I swear, the entire boardwalk was empty as far as I could see in both directions. Nobody came by that whole time.”

  Molly looked relieved. “Promise you will not do that again?”

  “Okay, promise.” She had no desire to do that again. “Like always, Julian just barged right in on my space, asking questions. The more he talked, the thicker that tar felt. He said you all would be worried. Somehow my mother came up in the conversation! What is it about that guy? He really gets under my skin, but you know what? He entertained me on my birthday morning when no one else was around, and he got me home last night before I totally flipped out.”

  “He doesn’t add up,” Jo said. “I mean, a beach bum from Scotland who lives in Southern California in that multimillion-dollar house?”

  Molly said, “He seems genuinely interested in our well-being. Like he’s responsible for making sure we enjoy the beach house. He helped Andie get over her fear of the ocean. Evidently he gave her a place to sleep as well.”

  Char said, “That’s what he does. Seriously. He told me at breakfast yesterday. He watches over Faith’s house and guests. But I don’t think he’s a bum. He has money.” She filled them in on Julian’s story. “And he works with that lunatic, Zeke. Oh, maybe he’s not a lunatic, either.” She laughed.

  Molly said, “Maybe Julian is one of Faith’s leftover guardian angels.”

  Jo groaned.

  “You never know.” Molly turned to Char. “Whoever he is, I am glad he brought you home.”

  She basked in the concern that showed on their faces as blatantly as their noses. Why hadn’t she always seen it there?

  “Me too,” she said. “Me too.”

  Forty-Seven

  They raised the patio table’s red umbrella to block the sun. Molly sat in its shade beside Char and read with growing consternation a long list of phone numbers on the tiny cell phone screen. Char scrolled through the “missed calls” record. There were thirteen.

  Eleven from Molly’s home number.

  She felt flushed. Three possible explanations told her it wasn’t a hot flash. First, the desert wind blew again; its heat crept onto the patio. Second, she was pregnant, not exactly on the doorstep of menopause. And third, she had hurt Scotty, an action guaranteed to produce discomfort.

  She said, “Talk about guilt and shame.”

  Char pressed the keypad of her phone. “Molly, dear, whatever you said to your husband can’t hold a candle to what I said to mine.”

  “I unloaded all my anxiety on him and got upset when he more or less told me I was looking at it all wrong. The battery went dead about then. I didn’t call him back to finish the conversation. I didn’t want to hear any more of his nonempathy. Which I’m sure he knew because that’s what I told him on my birthday.”

  Jo stood. “He probably called on my phone too. I’ll go get it.” She went inside the house.

  Char said, “I’ll get his voice mail for you.”

  “No. I feel bad enough. I’ll call him with Jo’s phone. Let’s keep yours open for Cam.”

  “Okay. First I guess I should see if Todd left a message. I’ll have to put closure to this mess one way or another.” She held the phone to her ear and listened for a few moments.

  Molly heard a male voice and watched Char’s face redden.

  She hurriedly moved the phone and pressed a key. “Well. Enough of that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “A lady would never repeat such things.” She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Hmm. Okay. That’s that then. I’d say he got the hint loud and clear.”

  “Char, what will happen when you go home? With him living next door?”

  “I haven’t really considered that yet.” She sat silent for a moment. “Our houses are large enough and far enough apart; a fence and hedge separate our backyards. None of us have to see each other unless we make a point of it. And…there’s a woman over one block. Younger. Single.” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “He has noticed her. Of course, she’s not nearly the catch I am, but he will not lack female companionship.”

  Jo returned to the patio with her phone. “Looks like you’ve got one or two messages from him.” She sat at the table. “Moll, is there anything we can do?”

  She shook her head.

  “I think…” Jo began, a sheepish expression spreading over her face. “I think if we were in your shoes, you would have been praying for us by now.”

  “Of course. You’re my good friends.”

  “Does it work on yourself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re in need, Moll. I don’t have the connection you have with God. I can’t do it for you. Can’t you do it for yourself?”

  “Sure.” When she felt like it. She didn’t feel like it. She was too ticked at what had happened. At what God had allowed—Or was it simply the consequences of their stupid actions? But God knew—

  “So.” Jo glanced at Char and then looked back at Molly. “Do you want us in on it?”

  Char nodded in agreement.

  “On what?” Molly asked.

  “On prayer. For you. We could sit with you while you pray.”

  “For what?”

  “Molly!” Frustration spiked Jo’s tone. “I don’t know for what. You’re upset about being pregnant. You’re mad at Scott. You made this trip to find your identity in God, but for all I know you’re mad at Him too.”

  Molly winced involuntarily.

  “Now I may be all wrong here, but it seems like He would give you some relief. You’ve almost convinced even me that He loves all of us unconditionally. Wouldn’t He answer your prayers for the ability to accept the situation?”

  Char leaned toward her and said gently, “Sugar, you know it’s not like you have a choice. The situation is what it is.”

  “But,” Molly heard the ugly whine in her voice and swallowed. “Yes, Jo, He would answer that prayer. But…I don’t want to ask it.”
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  There was a glint in Jo’s narrowed eyes. “You’re saying you don’t want to get out from under the pile?”

  Molly’s jaw dropped. “You snot!”

  Jo looked at Char. “Hormones.”

  “Not the menopausal kind though!”

  “Nope!”

  Molly said, “Ha-ha. You two are hilarious.”

  Jo’s smile lessened. “Seriously now, why don’t you want to ask it?”

  Her head felt like it could pop. “Because then I have to accept that I am after all only Pastor Scott’s wife, mother of Eli, Betsy, Abigail, Hannah, and Number Five. I have no identity, no permanent role outside my home, and I never will have. Hold it! On second thought, maybe I can—when I’m sixty years old.”

  “And,” Jo said, leaning in now, her voice soft, her eyes tender. “What is so wrong with that?”

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve got your role, this…this major identity that affects hundreds of lives. You can’t imagine what it’s like not to have that. We are smart women with college degrees. I should be doing more with my life!”

  “My so-called ‘major identity’ means that if all my patients’ names were listed, my obituary would be long. Whoop-de-do. There will be no ‘survived by’ names of people who called me wife and mom. People who knew the real me.”

  Char reached across the table and touched Jo’s hand. “You’ll have us.”

  Jo smiled a thank-you. “Molly, maybe we can’t have it all in this life.”

  But didn’t God promise it all? Didn’t He give her the desire to take on full-time teaching? Couldn’t she do more for Him in that capacity? Instead He placed her in a tiny town with no job opening less than an hour and fifteen minutes away? Instead He gave her a pewful of children?

  Oh, Lord. I am not walking my talk right now.

  That was a pitiful prayer. Sort of.

  At least it was a prayer.

  Jo said, “I almost had it all. Moll, I’ve been where you are, from the other side.”

  Molly started and Char straightened. There was something different in Jo’s tone. A pain.

  “Four years ago I was pregnant. Unplanned. Some birth control expert, huh? I can’t even blame it on being drunk. It…the baby was a girl. I miscarried at five months. There were complications. I had a hysterectomy. The father…transferred to Seattle. True love it wasn’t.”

  “Oh, Jo.” They both offered condolences.

  Molly said, “You didn’t tell us.”

  She shrugged. “You’ve all mourned enough for me through the years.”

  Molly’s head hurt. “I can’t imagine what awful pain you endured. To lose the baby and the ability to ever have any? Oh, Jo. I am so sorry. Have you mourned? Have you cried?”

  “You didn’t ask if I drank.” She winked. “Amazingly, I did not. Seattle Man was good that way for me. But, yes, I did mourn and cry. You know I did because you were there, the other night in the restaurant.”

  “Jo!” they cried again in a mutual tone of combined disbelief and sympathy. “The other night?”

  “It’s okay. I’m learning. I’ve cried every day since, but less and less. It helps.” She paused. “The father and I mourned when it happened.” Her brows went up in a mocking gesture. “We did care for each other and were thrilled about the pregnancy. We planned to marry. Anyway, we had a little ceremony on a beach, just the two of us, and told her goodbye. Want to know what I named her?”

  They nodded.

  “Catherine Michelle Wentworth Zambruski.”

  “Oh, Jo!” they said once more. The name incorporated the middle names of Molly, Andie, and Char.

  “A mouthful.” Jo cocked her head. “Which reminds me, Char, I have a bone to pick with you. I mean, honestly, Wentworth for a middle name?”

  “Oh, right. Like Zambruski is any prize for a last name. It sounds like a beer.”

  It was an old joke between them. While they bantered, Molly massaged her temples. Exhaustion was closing in, but she grasped Jo’s point. She interrupted their chuckles. “What you’re saying is that you accepted not having it all.”

  Jo’s broad smile shrank until only the corners of her mouth remained upturned. “No, not totally. I’ve just been waiting for you to show me how.”

  Overwhelmed with trying to process Jo’s news and the way she challenged her about prayer, Molly stood abruptly. “This is too much. I need a nap, and I am taking your phone, Josephine.”

  She handed it to her. “Chicken.”

  “Whatever. Excuse me.”

  Jo’s chuckle followed her to the door. “God will find you!”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Well, He’ll find you too.”

  “I hope so!”

  Molly changed into shorts and a T-shirt, made the bed, and laid down on top of it.

  She should have rejoiced over Jo’s pressing her about prayer and the comment about hoping God would find her. She should have had an answer to Jo’s reminder that she made the trip to find her identity in God alone—not the kids, Scott, or teaching, full-time or otherwise.

  But Molly’s head pounded and her stomach was doing a gymnastics warm-up, an indication of a full-fledged routine to follow. She grabbed a cracker from the nightstand. It tasted stale.

  Scott answered on the first ring. “Molly?”

  “Scott!” She felt relieved. He should have been gone by now, to work up the Elk River. “You’re still at home?”

  “The trees can wait. You’re more important.”

  “Mmm. Will you say that again?”

  He said it again. And again. Until the cracker was eaten and her eyes were closed.

  Forty-Eight

  Andie leaned on the railing and gazed out over the broad expanse of ocean. She stood on the pier in a small area located behind her motel room. The room was actually a cottage, one of several lining both sides of the pier. They were angled in such a way as to create private decks in back and parking spaces in front. She thought the white cottages cute and inviting with their Delft blue trim and window boxes, from which colorful flowers spilled. Jo would think them decidedly not Southern California.

  As the morning’s gray cloud cover receded, so did Andie’s anxieties. She breathed in the moist salty air and watched a surfer catch a wave.

  “So far so good. I have made it to the motel.”

  Molly’s words came to mind. You know He’s closer to us than the air we breathe.

  She smiled. “Thank You, Lord. Thank You that I am not alone.”

  A short while ago she had awakened in Julian’s upstairs apartment, surprisingly refreshed for falling asleep in a strange place with images of her husband and good friend kissing in a drunken embrace.

  Refreshed but shaky, she gathered every bit of faith and courage she could muster and dressed for the day in her new spunky apricot outfit. She packed the pretty sandals in the large overnight bag and laced up her sensible tan oxfords. Char would never approve of the fashion statement, but the motel was a good hike from Julian’s.

  With trepidation she went down the outdoor staircase to Julian’s door. He refused again to accept money for the overnight use of his place. For a few moments she basked in his fatherly attention. He wished her a good second, independent fortieth celebration. Standing beside him she felt an inpouring of hope that she would not spend the next twenty-four hours curled in a fetal position.

  Not ready to speak to her friends, she had taken the back route and ran into Char behind the beach house. In spite of her crisp just-so clothing and stylish hairdo that was attractive even wet, Char looked a mess.

  Andie remembered her the previous night, gaily going off with Todd, and something zapped her heart. In the blink of an eye her emotions solidified into an ugly chunk of grim satisfaction. So. Little Miss Georgia Peach suffered right along with the rest of them. Aw. Poor thing.

  Andie spoke like a smart aleck to one of her oldest friends. Walking away she was struck with a new thought. Her remarks were a smoke screen. They hid a pain
she wanted to avoid. That pain was rooted in Paul, of course. In his infidelity. But it was also rooted in a dark suspicion about Char, something Andie let remain unacknowledged for twenty years.

  Suddenly she understood the entire week was about her confronting something much more important than her daily fears. It was about addressing the pain. Time was running out.

  And so she had spun around and asked Char point blank if she’d slept with Paul. Char’s horrified reaction melted Andie’s distrust of her old friend on the spot.

  The exchange doused her with courage. Overwhelmed, she had no words to explain things to herself, let alone to Char. She turned away again. The new courage spurred her on down the alley and on to the motel office two hours early to ask if her room was available.

  She smiled again at the ocean.

  Point-blank. That was how her day had begun. That was how she wanted to finish it. That was how she wanted to fill every moment in between.

  Point-blank. Maybe it could become a habit.

  Andie stood at a busy intersection, long purse strap crisscrossed over her shoulders, sunglasses and visor in place. She studied a pamphlet, trying to decipher bus routes.

  San Diego was a huge place.

  Andrea. It was Paul’s belittling voice. That outfit doesn’t exactly flatter you. Maybe it’s the color. Or the style. And what are you doing standing on the street corner waiting for a bus? Go rent a car, for crying out loud. People will think one of Madison’s top real estate agents is a cheapskate if they see his wife on a bus. You’re not really going to attempt to go through that silly list—

  “Hey, sister!”

  She looked up to see Zeke, the wiry Rastafarian-looking street pastor. He approached the bus stop. She smiled. How could she not? His grin split his face in two. Dreadlocks sprouted every direction in such a carefree way. She wished her boys could meet him.

  Julian had introduced Andie to him on their way to boogie board. She saw him again another morning on the boardwalk, and they’d chatted a while. He absolutely glowed with joy, the type, she figured, not of this world.