Secrets at the Beach House

by Diane Chamberlain

  Kit held up her hands. “Cole, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That wasn’t meant for your ears.”

  “No, I’m sure it wasn’t,” he said, walking toward her slowly. She saw the dark circles under his eyes, the lines at the corners of his mouth. He set the can on the counter. “You’re always telling me how much you want to be her friend,” he said. “How hard you try. Is that just a line you’ve been handing me?”

  “I have tried,” she said. “But it’s useless. She’s always putting me down.”

  “Oh, poor Kit.” The sarcasm in his voice made her wince. “Tell her to leave you alone then. Where’s your backbone?”

  “You’re the one without the backbone!” she said angrily.

  “You guys,” Janni pleaded. “Don’t say things you’ll—”

  “She lies to you and you swallow every word,” Kit said. “She has you wrapped so tightly around her little finger the circulation’s been cut off to your brain.”

  “You’d better just shut up,” he warned.

  “I’m sick of shutting up! We’re always protecting you, as though there’s some unwritten rule not to let you know what a malicious, conniving, backbiting wench she is.”

  “Are you jealous of her, Kit? Is that it?” He was mocking her, coming way too close to the truth.

  “No. It’s not just me. Ask anybody.” She glanced at Janni who was staring at them, wide-eyed and silent, a log still in her arms. “There’s so much tension when she’s in the house, I can’t stand it,” Kit continued. “Are you immune to it? Sometimes I don’t want to come home from work because I’m afraid she’ll be here.”

  “Then don’t come home from work, if it’s so terrible for you,” he said. “Estelle’s been a part of this group a hell of a lot longer than you have, Kit. If you can’t stand being around her, maybe you’d better just move out.”

  “Me move out!” Any second her voice would break. “I’ve contributed a lot to this household. What has Estelle contributed? Her good looks? She may be beautiful on the outside, Cole, but inside she’s ugly to the core.”

  He shook his head slowly, his eyes hard. “I had no idea what a fucking bitch you can be.” He leaned toward her as though he wanted to make sure she heard him. “And you can go straight to hell for all I care.” He picked up the coffee can and walked back into the pantry.

  He may as well have slapped her. Janni set down the log and walked toward her, one arm outstretched, but Kit shook her head. She needed to get out of the kitchen. Tears burned her eyes as she walked through the living room and up the stairs.

  In her bedroom, she sat down on the window seat by the bay window, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stared at the water. A few boats were far out in the ocean. Her run on the beach that morning seemed like days ago.

  Maybe you’d better move out.

  She couldn’t get Cole’s words out of her mind. Maybe she should leave. The house had served its purpose for her. Her emotional strength was back. She no longer had any need to be coddled. And what good was she doing herself here? Every day she was pummeled by Estelle. And every day she was pulled deeper into this relationship with Cole, a relationship that promised to go nowhere.

  There was a knock on her door and she didn’t bother to answer. Cole walked in and crossed the room, picking up her dressing table chair and setting it near her. She kept her gaze firmly fastened on the water.

  “I’ve been kidding myself,” he said, his voice so flat that she had to look at him. “I keep pretending that she’s the old Estelle. She used to be so different. I wish you’d known her years ago, Kit.” A little sparkle came into his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. “Something’s not right with her,” he said. “I’ve known for a while but I’ve tried to ignore it. I didn’t realize how hard she’s been on you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I tried to. You didn’t want to hear it.”

  He was quiet. “I knew she could be very . . . well . . . cutting. But I didn’t think she was capable of being so vicious. Janni told me some of the things she’s said to you. I want you to know that I never said anything about what you and Sandy do in the privacy of your bedroom.”

  She looked down at the window seat, played with a thread coming loose from the cushion.

  “Do you think she’s crazy?” he asked.

  “That depends on your definition of crazy. She switches from sweet to sour just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And she’s certainly paranoid.”

  He nodded. “Once during the summer she told me she felt desperate, or something like that.”

  “She admitted it?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t encourage her. It bothered me to hear her talk that way.”

  “She needs help, Cole.”

  “I know, but she’ll never agree to it. Maybe if I gave her an ultimatum. Either she gets into therapy or we split up, though I’m not certain I could hold to my end of the deal.”

  “It might work. You’re the one thing that’s important to her.” She wondered where her kindness came from. She would just as soon see Estelle flattened by a bus as see her get better.

  “Kit, I’m so sorry for the things I said downstairs. You’re the least bitchy person I know.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Don’t even think of moving out,” he said. “I’d hate it if you left.” He looked past her through the window, out to the ocean. “This has been a terrible month for me,” he said, “not that that’s any kind of an excuse for the things I said. But the unit’s a baby factory. I’m getting sued. I’ll probably lose the funding for the program. My mother has cancer. My father’s proved himself to be a Grade-A wimp. And my girlfriend’s a sociopath.” He looked at her. “And then I hurt my closest friend.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, and she fought the urge to take his face in her hands and kiss him back, really kiss him. But it would be the last thing he needed right now. The last thing either of them needed.

  15.

  He sat on the sofa in Frank Jansen’s waiting room, his thigh pressing against Estelle’s. She was nervous. He felt an occasional quiver run through her leg. She was reading a magazine, or just pretending to read it; he hadn’t seen her turn a page for several minutes.

  She’d pleaded with him to come with her and he’d finally agreed. “Just the first time,” he said. “Unless he thinks I should continue to come, too.” He was willing to do anything Frank Jansen suggested. All his hope was focused on the man behind that big oak door.

  He slid his hand into hers now, weaving his warm fingers between her cool ones. She didn’t look at him, didn’t lift her eyes from the magazine.

  Frank called them into his office and motioned them into soft upholstered chairs, set close together. The walls of the room were covered by books and woolly wall hangings that matched the man himself, with his gray mop of hair and full beard. Janni had said he was an overgrown hippie. She told them he knew about the living arrangements at the Chapel House. They wouldn’t have to waste time trying to make him understand.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” he asked.

  “He made me come,” Estelle said.

  Frank raised his eyebrows. “Just from looking at you I wouldn’t guess you’re that easily coerced.”

  “He told me that if I refused to start therapy he would end our relationship.”

  “I see. The relationship’s important to you, then.”

  “It’s everything to me.” Her voice was a whisper. Cole felt cruel.

  Frank turned to him. “Why would you make your relationship with Estelle contingent on her being in therapy?”

  Cole cleared his throat. “I don’t think she’s content with herself.”

  “That’s not it,” Estelle said. “I’m not the one doing the complaining. You’re the one who’s not content.”

  Frank looked at Cole, obviously waiting for him to speak.

  “I’m the one doing the complaining because she’s costing me my friends.
She’s been . . . verbally abusive to them. She . . .” His mind went blank. “I don’t know,” he said, feeling foolish.

  Estelle smiled, crossing one long leg over the other. “A pretty weak argument for forcing me into therapy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Do you two fight much?”

  Cole said yes at the same time that Estelle answered no.

  Frank smiled. “I see,” he said.

  Cole turned to her. “How can you say that we don’t fight?”

  “We make love far more than we fight,” she said to Frank. “One outweighs the other.”

  This was going nowhere. “Look.” Cole sat forward in his chair. “She nearly got fired because she can’t get along with the other women at work. She’s so possessive of me that I can’t breathe. She’s critical of everyone I care about.”

  “Why are you with her then?”

  “I love her.”

  “You don’t make her sound very lovable.”

  He hesitated, looked at her. “She used to be. She still is, sometimes. When we’re together. Alone. She’s different then.”

  Frank turned to Estelle. “Cole’s painted a picture of an unhappy, insecure woman, Estelle. Does that fit?”

  “He’s the reason I’m unhappy. He won’t live with me. He makes it sound as though I’m the sick one in this relationship. But what do you think of a grown man who’s afraid to leave home?”

  “Who’s in the Chapel House now?” Frank asked.

  Cole started to answer but Frank asked Estelle to tell him.

  “Janni and Jay. Janni owns the place. You know that, I guess.” She went on to describe Jay as unobtrusive, Janni as pushy and interfering. “She hates it when I’m there,” she said. “I can feel the icicles when I walk in the door.”

  “Who else is in the house?”

  “Maris Lavender. She’s this miserable, funereal black woman who thinks the world owes her an apology for screwing up her life.”

  “It does,” said Cole. He looked at Frank. “Her husband was killed in a car accident two years ago. Her mother died of leukemia when Maris was fourteen, and a year later her two brothers died in a fire in their house.”

  “Wow,” Frank said.

  Estelle looked annoyed. “She probably struck the match.”

  “Estelle.” Cole looked at Frank. See what I mean? he said with his eyes.

  “And then we have Kit.” Estelle turned in her chair to look at Cole, and he was afraid of what she might say. “Kit is out to snare Cole. She’s sneaky and subtle. She has this goody-two-shoes demeanor, innocent as a lamb, but what she’s really after is getting him into bed with her.”

  He felt relieved. She thought it was Kit who wanted him. She didn’t know she had it backward.

  “Assuming Kit is out to get Cole, as you say, do you think she could succeed?”

  Estelle shrugged. “He’s only human. The flesh is weak.” She looked at Cole as if she were examining his weak flesh. “I don’t understand why he’d be attracted, really. She’s a runner, and she has that look . . . you know, like a malnourished greyhound. But Cole is enormously attracted to women. All women. That’s why he became an obstetrician. To legitimize his obsession.”

  Cole had to laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  Frank held up a hand to silence him. Estelle was on a roll, and he seemed to want her to continue. “Who else?”

  “In the house, you mean? No one. But we haven’t talked about Virginia.”

  “Virginia?”

  “Cole’s mother. She thinks I’m the devil incarnate. She would do anything to break us up. She had a mastectomy two weeks ago and she clings to Cole as though he’s her husband. He’s with her nearly all the time that he’s not working, and I never get to see him.”

  “Are you saying that Cole’s mother had a mastectomy in an attempt to break you two up?”

  Estelle looked suspicious. “Of course not. But she probably would think it had been worth it if it did.”

  “Estelle, please don’t talk that way.”

  “You want me to tell it all, don’t you, Cole? Let out every insane thought in my head?”

  He looked at her, not certain what to say.

  “Do you think you’re insane, Estelle?” Frank asked.

  Cole expected her to say no, but she hesitated. “Everybody wonders if they’re insane at one time or another,” she said, her dark blue eyes serious.

  “Yes, many people do,” Frank said thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on his chin. He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me why you nearly got fired,” he said.

  She recounted the incident enthusiastically, and Cole watched the lines deepen on Frank’s forehead as she spoke. He wished he could change the subject or walk out the door. What had he expected? That Frank would have to pull every word out of her? She was exposing so much to him. He hated hearing her sound so transparently crazy. He wouldn’t come with her again.

  16.

  She’d lost sight of Sandy in the crowd of spectators waiting for the race to begin. She was near the middle of the pack. That was best. She wouldn’t be left behind and she wouldn’t be knocked over. She jumped up and down to keep the blood flowing.

  Twenty-six miles in three and a half hours if she wanted to qualify for Boston. Last night, lying with Sandy in their Somerville motel room, she’d been optimistic. But now she felt weighed down. The article in that morning’s paper filled her thoughts. Blair Loses Ground in Fight for Program, the headline read. In smaller letters beneath it: Physician Sued.

  Sandy had tried to keep it from her. He knew it was the last thing she needed to see before the race. But she’d grown suspicious at the way he kept that section of the paper to himself, and she finally snuck it away from him.

  The article itself said very little. The damage was done in the headline. She called Cole. He’d seen the paper already and he sounded resigned.

  “Orrin said the reporters will start calling any minute and I should tell them I have no comment,” he said. “It makes me furious. I haven’t done a damn thing wrong. It’s just the fact that someone sued me, no matter how out of line it is, that can ruin my credibility.”

  “I know, Cole,” she’d said. “Look, ‘no comment’ sounds like you’re guilty. Speak from your heart. What do you have to lose?”

  Stupid question, she thought now. He had everything to lose.

  The cloth pinned to her shirt read 517. She repeated the numbers over and over in her mind, like a mantra. She looked down at her shoes for what had to be the hundredth time to be certain she’d tied double knots in the laces.

  She heard the sound of the gun and suddenly they were moving like one massive animal. She couldn’t see the road in front of her or the people cheering along the sidewalk. Just the bodies surrounding her. She studied their fluid, graceful movements until she felt hypnotized by the rhythm.

  This was fun. She moved easily, not too fast. Not yet. The air was crisp and cool, clean in her lungs. The trees were beginning to turn, but she let them blur by without taking time to notice their colors. She had to focus on the race, on the way each step felt to her feet and legs. She pushed the Fetal Surgery Program to some back corner of her mind and vowed to keep it there for the rest of the day.

  She passed the eight-mile marker at noon. Terrific. Better than she’d hoped for.

  She knew there were plenty of hills in the middle stretch. The first loomed in front of her. She heard the breathing of the runners around her as they started the climb. Her legs felt strong. She felt every contraction of the muscles, the way they grabbed and let go. She sailed over the crest and stayed in careful control downhill. No sense giving it your all when you didn’t need to. You were born to run over hills. She was a little giddy. For about five miles she felt as if she were flying instead of running.

  At mile fifteen, though, she came to a narrow hill that curved and dipped, and it took all her concentration to get over and around it. She suddenly felt very tired. Eleven miles lef
t.

  Okay, you’re tired, she told herself. Keep moving, one step after the other. What hurts? Nothing much. Really, nothing too much. Calves would like a good stretch, they feel pretty tight. Breathing’s good. Very smooth. Weren’t you that fat little asthmatic kid? She was passing people. That amazed her. Of course some passed her too, but that didn’t really matter.

  She spotted the twenty-mile marker at one-thirty. She wasn’t sure if she should trust her watch or not. It was too good. She had a full hour left to run the six miles that would qualify her for Boston. She felt like smiling but couldn’t. Everything hurt now. Her eyes burned and teared and a wide band of pain ran across her chest. She had trouble separating one pain from another in her legs and feet. She would spend two miles doing exactly that, she thought. There was a tight pain in her calves, a tighter pain in her hamstrings, threatening to cramp. She wouldn’t let herself think about that possibility. The pain in her right hamstring was worse than the pain in her left. Quite a bit worse; it bit into her leg with every step. She’d never be able to make love tonight. Poor Sandy. No. Don’t think about Sandy. Back to running. Keep up the pace. The marker for mile twenty-two was just ahead.

  The crowd was thick now, roaring in her ears. She kept her eyes straight ahead. For the next mile she’d focus on the sound of her footsteps, the rhythm they made with the footsteps of the other runners. How had it taken her twenty-two miles to notice that pattering sound? Like rain on a tin roof.

  At mile twenty-three she began to cry. God, she hurt. The runners in front of her were wavy streaks of color. She must look foolish to the people lining the street. Don’t think about it. You’re probably not the only person crying. Get back to the pain. Think about it objectively. Pick it apart. The right knee, she thought. That was new. And it felt like her feet were bleeding. She didn’t look down for fear her shoes had turned red with her blood.

  Mile twenty-five. The home stretch. Oh God. There were TV cameras. People on the shoulders of other people. She saw it all through the edges of her vision. She loved the people running near her now. She didn’t look at them, didn’t know if they were men or women. She thought of how they were sharing something extraordinary. Her right calf was cramping, tight as a fist. She thanked it out loud for waiting until she was nearly done.