Beach Girls

by Luanne Rice

  One afternoon about a week after she'd sent the letter, she went over to Aunt Aida's to check on the progress. Her aunt was working madly, trying to finish up her last Beach Series canvas for the show in October. Aida-with-a-Purpose was formidable indeed. A contractor had estimated repair costs to the castle would run about eight hundred thousand dollars, and Aida figured that if she sold every painting, she could donate almost half of the needed amount.

  “I've never thought of you as painting for money,” Stevie said, smiling as she watched her aunt work. Outside, the castle grounds were filled with pickup trucks, electricians' and glaziers' vans, and a backhoe. The staccato of power tools filled the air. Aida grinned ferociously.

  “Just watch me,” she said. “If this is what it takes to keep Van's dream intact, I'll do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. More than ever—I have to establish this place as a nature center in his memory. I want children to visit and know the beauty of the Connecticut shoreline that he so loved. I'm just so afraid I won't be able to pay for it.”

  “What does your lawyer say?”

  “He set up the foundation—so we can raise money. But I don't have the first idea of how to do that—all I know how to do is paint. He says we need someone who understands nonprofits, who can call on people with lots of money to donate.”

  “The kind of thing artists hate to do.”

  Aida nodded, focusing on her canvas. The dimensions were as large as ever—fifty-four by fifty-four inches, broad horizontal bands of color suggesting sea, sand, and sky. In that way, it was absolutely familiar. But as Stevie watched, she saw that her aunt was doing something very different: by stroking one translucent film of color over the next, she was actually mixing the paints on the canvas instead of on the palette.

  “What are you doing?” Stevie asked, watching as she layered yellow over blue—sunlight on water—resulting in a passage of mysterious green.

  “I'm letting the colors mix in the eyes of the viewer, instead of on the canvas.”

  “Have you ever done that before?”

  “Never,” she said, eyes narrowing with intensity. “It's a first. Complete shock to me. Innovation so thrilling even I'm stunned. . . .”

  “Then why? How—now? Just when you're . . .”

  “Selling out? Painting for commerce?” Aida laughed. “Dear girl, you of all people should know there's no such thing! Motivation is a gift, whatever it is. If it feeds your talent, then so be it. In my case, the motivation is love—for Van. In your case, it's love for . . .”

  Stevie was silent, staring at her aunt's simple composition, the bands of thin, luminous color, listening to the saws whine and hum.

  “I know about the letter you sent Nell.”

  “What letter?”

  “The one asking about shore species in Scotland. For your new book. Jack told me that Nell is very excited about it.”

  Stevie listened, her heart thudding as she considered the fact that Jack and Aida had spoken again.

  “You know why you set it in Scotland, don't you?”

  Stevie did know, but she couldn't answer.

  “Because you have to go there. You knew that you would have to travel to Scotland, to research your material. Just as you went to the polar ice, to research emperor penguins.”

  “I went to Antarctica with Linus,” Stevie said. “My research trips have been a travelogue of marital failures.”

  “Sweet girl, why must you be so hard on yourself?”

  “Love is too hard,” Stevie said. The thought of flying to Scotland, getting Nell's hopes up about something, and then having things not work out with Jack was too devastating to contemplate.

  “No,” Aida said calmly, still painting. “Love is not hard. It's the easiest thing there is. It's the layers of doubt and fear and expectation that we layer on that makes it complicated. Just look at Henry and Doreen.”

  “I know.” Stevie had gotten their wedding invitation—the ceremony would be held next Saturday in Newport, where they had met, where Henry had gone through Officer's Candidate School, and where they would live.

  “Henry layered so much fear onto that situation that he almost lost her,” Aida said. “You know, those weeks when he was staying in my guesthouse here, we had some good long talks. It just about broke my heart to see my big, strapping, fifty-something naval commander stepson sitting at my table with tears rolling down his cheeks . . . realizing that he was about to lose Doreen, just because he'd been so chicken.”

  “I never think of Henry as chicken,” Stevie said, picturing him in his uniform.

  “No, one wouldn't. But that was the case, nonetheless.”

  Stevie listened, thinking of how afraid she felt—much more of a coward than Henry could ever be. She called it self-protective, but it was the same thing. Or she told herself she was thinking of them—Jack and Nell. That she'd made so many mistakes, she didn't want to inflict her messy life on them.

  “Love is not hard,” Stevie said, echoing her aunt's words.

  “No, it's not,” Aida said. “It just takes care of itself, if you'll let it. We'll see the proof of that on Saturday, with Henry and Doreen at St. Mary's Church. If you believe in that kind of love, it can move heaven and earth.”

  “Like what you're doing with Uncle Van's castle,” Stevie said, as the sounds of the backhoe moving earth and men reroofing the tower in the sky blasted through the cottage.

  “Yes. Love,” Aida said. “And, God willing, the help of a really, really good fund-raiser.”

  Chapter 26

  THE LADAPOOL TEAM WAS ALL geared up, trying to beat projections and get the project into the realm of the builders as soon as possible. They had taken a block of rooms at the Highlands Inn, one of the business hotels that had come to the Orkneys to serve the oil business.

  Jack and Nell had a suite on the fourth floor, overlooking the site. Jack knew that his soul was in serious trouble—he knew it by the fact that he could look at the view from his window, over glassy bays, rock islands, distant mountains, and call it “the site.” Nell did her schoolwork there; Miss Robertson came up for a few days every week.

  During her free time, Nell pored over the field guides he had bought her, matching up shells, feathers, crustaceans, egg cases with names in the books. She wrote to Stevie as soon as she'd identified something new—which was every day.

  Propped up on the bureau were two invitations that had arrived in the mail—both from Aida. One was for the opening of her art show—a glossy card showing one of her translucent, meditative Beach Series paintings. The other was for her stepson Henry's wedding, which was going to be in Newport, Rhode Island, that Saturday.

  “I want to go, Dad,” Nell said one morning after they'd had breakfast. She sat at the desk by the room's window, drawing a picture of ducks she'd seen at dawn.

  “Go where?”

  “To the wedding.”

  “Nell, they only sent us an invitation to be polite.”

  “No they didn't! They want us there!”

  “Nell—we hardly know Henry. I have the feeling that it's a small family wedding, and Aida just sent us the invitation to let us know about it.”

  “Aunt Aida wouldn't do that,” Nell said. “Sending out invitations and hoping we don't come. Just so we'll send a present.”

  “That's not what I meant, honey—it's just that we're here in Scotland—three thousand miles away.”

  “We could get on a plane, couldn't we?”

  “Nell, she doesn't expect us to fly all the way home for the wedding.”

  “You said it, Dad,” Nell said, jumping up from the table. “You said ‘home.'”

  “I meant—”

  “The United States is our home—not here. I miss it so much! I miss Peggy, and the beach, and Aunt Aida, and Tilly—and Dad, I miss Stevie!”

  “I know . . .”

  “And now Francesca is here. Right in our hotel, staying right across the hall!”

  “We don't
have to see her very much.”

  “You do. At work. She's a big intruder!”

  “Sssh, Nell,” Jack said quickly, wanting to calm her down before she got worked up into a full-blown attack. He reached for her, to hug her, but she wrenched herself away. Grabbing the invitation, she held it to her chest.

  “We're invited—I want to go.”

  “It's too far. You know the kind of pressure I'm under to get this job done. Maybe when it's finished, we could talk about a visit home. Thanksgiving, or Christmas, maybe. Or even Aida's art show in October . . .”

  “That's different,” Nell said, her voice quavering. “That's something anyone can go to. Henry's wedding is special. Like you said, only family are invited. I want family, Dad!”

  “You have me, honey.”

  “But I want other people, too,” she said. “Don't you? We used to have so much. I had you and Mommy, and I had Aunt Maddie and Uncle Chris. . . . We had Stevie. . . . They're all gone!”

  “Nell—” he said, grabbing for her, but she ran over to the window, leaned her head against the glass, and sobbed. Jack walked up behind her, his hands shaking. She seemed so wounded, he couldn't even bring himself to touch her shoulders.

  “I'm not going anywhere,” he said.

  “But you might,” she wept. “You leave when things get good. We had a place to live at Hubbard's Point, and we could have stayed longer . . . we went clamming and to the beach movies with Stevie . . . we were happy . . .”

  “I know,” he said, stunned by the truth of her words.

  “I have an aunt who loves me, loves you, and you won't even talk to her. What if I did that to you, Dad? What if I got so mad at you that I never spoke to you again?”

  “Nell, you're my daughter.”

  “She's your sister! That's what you do to the people who love you the most—you just leave them.”

  “I would never leave you, though—”

  Nell sobbed and shook her head. “That's what you say now,” she said. “But what if I do the one wrong thing that makes you so mad you hate me as much as you hate Aunt Maddie?”

  “I never could hate you. And I don't hate her—I love her.” The words' truth rang through him as he saw his sister standing by her car in the driveway at Hubbard's Point—the ten feet between them as hard to cross as a canyon.

  He stared at the back of Nell's head. She wouldn't turn to look at him, even when he touched her hair.

  THE PHONE RANG; April had heard Nell crying through the walls.

  “I'm a mother,” she said. “In-room movies work wonders as a bribe.”

  “I think we're past that,” Jack said, frowning, watching Nell stand by the window, shuddering with silent, restrained sobs.

  Leaving her there was excruciating, but he didn't have much choice. He, April, Victor, and the other engineers converged on the road. Some were surveying the lines, others observing as geologists took more tests of the bedrock, as oceanographers measured up from mean low tide. Jack walked down to the edge of the water, to sit on a rock, compile all his data, and try to compose himself. As soon as he went back to the room, he'd find the number Dr. Galford had given him.

  Francesca, seeing him there, made her way down the sand. She swore, and Jack looked up. She wore high black boots, and the heels were sinking. Glancing at him, she gave a wry smile. It was their first private face-to-face meeting since she'd arrived the day before.

  “I'm tempted to call you ‘Benedict,' as in ‘Arnold,' you defector.”

  “Well, you know how it is when an opportunity presents itself,” Jack said. “You have to take it, or you lose it.” The words rang in his ears, in a very different context.

  “Ivan wanted you—that's for sure. He liked the work you did in Maine. Guess he thought you'd be more familiar with this rocky back-of-beyond backwater.”

  Jack chuckled, looking at her boots. Francesca was always more comfortable on city streets, strolling Boston's Newbury Street with her hair swinging and everyone's eyes on her.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “I'd have been a disaster over here. My God, where do you get a good latte around here?”

  “I guess you have to like tea,” Jack said, thinking of the tea Stevie had served, and Aida . . .

  Francesca rolled her eyes. She took a step closer to Jack and let her hand brush against his cheek. Their eyes met—her hair was long, dark blonde, swinging in front of her face, making her expression even more seductive.

  “Have you noticed—aside from the fact that you've moved across the ocean—that things have changed?” she said.

  “What things have changed?”

  “Jack, we don't work for the same company anymore. We don't have the same . . . prohibitions.”

  Jack stared into her sultry eyes—expertly made up, along with the rest of her face. Her lips were so full, lined with subtle color. Jack thought of Stevie, the fact that he couldn't even imagine her in makeup, and looked away.

  “There are different kinds of prohibitions,” Jack said.

  “None that matter,” she said. “We had a good working relationship . . . and I know we could have more than that. Everyone here sees it—why do you think April put our rooms across the hall from each other?”

  April might have been trying to help, Jack thought. But she didn't know the real story about any of it.

  “It's romantic here,” Francesca said. “Once you get past the lack of civilization. I mean, aside from the fact that the place is latte-challenged. I've heard you can see the Northern Lights . . . we could take a walk later, tonight.”

  “I have Nell,” he said.

  “I'll bet Nell would love to play some video games,” Francesca said. “Or read one of her Stevie Moore books. . . .”

  Jack's stomach flipped, just hearing her name.

  “Nell's actually helping Stevie write one,” Jack said. “About the birds here. And how they're threatened by oil spills.”

  “You're joking, right?”

  “No, I'm not. Nell's upstairs, writing to her right now.”

  “About oil pollution?”

  Jack gestured down at the tide line, where balls of black, oily tar had washed up with the seaweed. Francesca stared, then looked away quickly.

  “Don't let Ivan hear you talking like this,” Francesca warned. “He'll see it as subversive to the relationship he's built up with Brooks. Environmentalism is all well and good, if it doesn't interfere with his bottom line.”

  “Certain things are more important than bottom lines,” Jack said.

  Francesca laughed. “Coming from the man who left his job to work for IR—knowing they specialize in Scottish oil refinery sites—isn't that a little hypocritical?”

  Jack felt stung by the words—reflecting on what Nell had said. He stared at a raft of birds, swimming in the bay. They were silhouetted by bright sun, with its low northern declination, painting the scenery with light. Light both illuminated and disguised, he thought—who knew what was happening beneath the surface?

  “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe it is.”

  “So quit, and I'll take your position!”

  Jack didn't reply, just watched the birds. He turned around to look up at the hotel. The sun was hitting the front windows, but as he counted up from the ground, he saw his room, spotted Nell still standing there—watching him with Francesca.

  “Look,” Francesca said, pointing at the tidal pools. “Oil isn't the only pollutant. There's all sorts of other trash. Pieces of wood . . .”

  “It's called driftwood,” Jack said.

  She shrugged. “Okay. So it's picturesque trash. But what about those Styrofoam cups, that Coke bottle?”

  “They probably came from our team, standing up there on the road,” Jack said, wading in to get them out of the seaweed. He tossed the garbage onto the sand, by the rock where he'd been sitting, and heard Francesca squeal.

  “Look!” she said. “In the bottle—it's a message!”

  Jack peered down at the beach
—she was right. There was a piece of lined paper, all rolled up and stuck inside.

  “We have to read it,” Francesca said.

  Jack unscrewed the cap, turned the bottle upside down, tapped the opening against his palm. The rolled-up paper came out easily. With Francesca watching, he read the message.

  “What does it say?” Francesca asked. “Come on—you have to tell me! Is it from some shipwrecked sailor, waiting to be rescued?”

  Jack didn't, or couldn't, speak. Francesca was half right—the message was from someone waiting to be rescued. His hands were trembling as he folded the message in half, stuck it into his breast pocket. Francesca was protesting, asking to see it, but he hardly heard her.

  He was too busy staring up at his hotel window. The sun's glare was harsh, but through it he saw Nell leaning against the plate glass, hands held up against the huge pane. He couldn't see clearly, but he knew she was crying. He knew, because he'd read her message, and he felt like crying, too.

  STEVIE TOOK it all in—every word her aunt had said, the sight of all that industry on Lovecraft Hill, her aunt's miraculous new painting style, and her words about fear. She held the conversation close, as something precious, as she decided what to do next. The September light poured into her studio, brighter than she'd ever seen it. Her mind was wild with ideas—so much so, she couldn't sleep or sit still. Some moments she felt she'd never see Jack or Nell again, filling her with despair. But then she'd start to work, enveloped by the golden beach light, and her heart would even out.

  The next morning, Stevie had just gotten back home from her swim when the phone rang. Wrapped in a towel, and shivering in the autumn air, she ran to answer.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hi, Stevie—it's me.”

  “Maddie!”

  “How are you?”

  “I'm fine—how are you?”

  “Better and better. Especially since getting your message about coming to Rhode Island.”

  Stevie had held back from calling her. Her feelings about the Kilvert family were very raw. She understood how hard the meeting between Jack and Maddie must have been, but she couldn't help feeling sad about it—because it seemed to have been the thing that had pushed him into leaving for Scotland. Not that Stevie blamed Maddie in any way—just that she missed Jack and Nell so much.