“Stop fussing, Bess,” Marta commanded.
Nathan smiled. “You know she can’t. Fussing is in her blood.” He turned to Bess. “I’ve got the list for the fish market. Mike, want to come along?”
Mike agreed. “I’ll bring the bags up when I get back,” he told Marta.
“I’ll take them up,” Marta said quickly. “There’s no need to wait on me.”
Bess thought Mike was about to argue, but he didn’t.
“Don’t forget the oysters,” she instructed as the men walked toward the door. “A lot of them. You still love oysters, right?” Bess asked Marta when they had gone.
“I don’t know about love them,” Marta said. “They’re okay. Mike will eat what I don’t, no worries there.”
“I could call Nathan and have him pick up something else for you, whatever you’d like. Mussels? Clams? I could make clams casino or—”
“Bess! Enough. You’re not entertaining royalty. It’s just us. Good ole Mike and Marta.”
Bess smiled warmly. “My best friends in the world.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I sounded short-tempered,” Marta said. “It was the drive. My back is hurting, that’s all.”
“Back pain is the worst! Would you like a heating pad or an ice pack?” Bess asked. “I have ibuprofen and Tylenol, and I’m almost certain there’s a brand-new tube of one of those creams you rub into sore muscles. I can’t remember if it’s the kind that turns hot or cold, but I can get it for you.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Marta insisted. “I don’t need anything. Really. The house is beautiful, by the way. How did you get it? Don’t these places usually book years in advance?”
“They do. It’s a miracle that it was available.” Bess suddenly frowned. “I just hope it won’t be too tight once everyone is here.”
Marta laughed. “It’s not as if a person couldn’t escape to the beach if she needed some time on her own. You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Bess.”
“A girl only gets married once.” Bess winced. “God, I’m glad Allison isn’t here. What I mean is that I intend to marry only once.”
“I don’t think many people intend to marry multiple times,” Marta pointed out. “Things just turn out that way.”
“They won’t for me,” Bess insisted. “I know it. Only death will part me from Nathan and Nathan from me.”
“You know, when your Pollyanna attitude isn’t annoying me it’s striking me as being oddly admirable.”
Bess smiled. “Thank you.”
“But could we lighten up a bit, please?” Marta asked. “There’s no need to bring death into things.”
“Sorry. But we’re having death in the ceremony. What I mean is the minister is saying ‘til death do you part’ or something like that.”
“You’re taking this very seriously, aren’t you?” Marta said in a considering tone.
Bess frowned. “Of course, I am,” she said. “How could I not?”
Marta put her arm around Bess’s shoulders. “Don’t mind me. Like I said, my back hurts and pain makes me grumpy.”
“How about a glass of champagne?” Bess suggested. “I know you don’t usually drink but champagne is pretty much the antidote to anything unpleasant.”
“No, thanks,” Marta said. “But that shouldn’t stop you. I’ll have a glass of whatever juice you’ve got on hand and we’ll toast. To Bess and Nathan and the most perfect wedding ever.”
Bess fetched the drinks. After taking a sip of her champagne, she said, “I’m looking forward to seeing Allison, but I’m also a bit nervous. I mean, are we not supposed to ask about the divorce? All Allison will tell me is that things weren’t working anymore. What does that even mean? It’s so ridiculously vague.”
“She’s hiding something, all right,” Marta said. “They’re probably claiming irreconcilable differences as the cause for the divorce, which is just a convenient way of saying to others, butt out. Bad stuff happened and it’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, maybe, but—”
“Leave Allison alone, Bess. Let her just enjoy this beautiful house on the beach.”
But Bess couldn’t leave it alone. “I just can’t understand why neither one of them came to us for support. We’re all so close.”
“We were close,” Marta replied. “Once upon a time. But we’ve changed, Bess. Everything has changed. Everything is always changing. That’s the only constant in life, change.”
Bess knew the horror she felt at Marta’s words showed; she did not have what was known as a poker face. “Surely not everything changes,” she cried. “Because if nothing is sure and solid, then why am I bothering to get married?”
Marta sighed. “Oh, come on, Bess! You can’t really be telling me that at the age of forty-two you’re not well aware of the fact that nothing stays the same for very long.”
“All right,” Bess conceded. “Of course, I know that most things don’t stay the same for long, sometimes not even from one moment to the next. But that doesn’t mean I can’t believe that love never dies or that friendship can survive any manner of traumas.”
“Bess, your firm belief in the fundamental goodness of people and in the fairness of the world is one of the primary reasons we all love you.”
Did she detect something insincere behind Marta’s words? No, Bess thought. That was craziness.
“Thanks, Marta,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Chapter 8
Marta looked around the room Bess had selected for her and Mike. The semi-sheer curtains were a sparkling white. The sheets on the bed were high count cotton. The pillows were perfectly plumped. A vase of fresh flowers lent the room a pleasant but not overwhelming scent of early summer. A stack of fresh white towels sat on a bench next to the painted dresser.
Mike’s favorite bit of the room was the massive welcome basket. It contained all sorts of goodies. There was a bottle of sunblock and a tube of lip balm. There were two sun visors, one navy, one pink, on which was printed: BESS LOVES NATHAN. There were two pairs of red plastic sunglasses with frames shaped like hearts. There was a box of truffles from Harbor Candy in Ogunquit. Mike loved truffles. A plastic-coated folding map of the attractions in the area would come in handy; it highlighted historic homes and museums; shops and galleries; nature preserves and beaches. A bottle of wine, a jar of caviar, a box of crackers—was there nothing Bess had not thought of?
With her attention to the details of comfort, and her warm and giving nature, Bess would have made a very good mother, which was why Marta found it odd that Bess had never wanted children. But no one ever knew what went on in another person’s psyche, Marta thought as she stretched out on the comfortable bed. Bess’s sisters had certainly provided their older sibling with plenty of kids to spend time with if she chose to.
Marta reviewed what she knew of Bess’s sisters. Neither Ann nor Mae Culpepper had gone to college. Each had married soon after graduating from high school. Ann had four children and was pregnant with her fifth. Mae had three children, the oldest of whom was ten. Neither woman worked outside of the home. For money, that is. Bess had intimated that Ann and Mae were active in the Green Lakes community. It was where they had been born and raised.
How much, then, did Marta have in common with Bess’s younger sisters, especially Ann? More than most people knew.
“My deep, dark secret,” Marta whispered. Well, one of them. The other would remain forever veiled....
Marta had often wondered what would compel a person to write an autobiography. (Apart from a huge advance, of course.) Whenever she tried to trace the route her life had taken, she met with so many obstacles to memory. Facts blurred. Fictions seemed real. Timing got mixed up; what had she done and when had she done it? Lately, this exercise had been driving her a little mad.
There were a few irrefutable facts, however. Mike had gone on to law school after graduation from college. Marta had not. Her decision had come as a surprise to just about everyone who k
new her. Her grades were excellent. Her LSAT scores near perfect. Her extracurricular activities, including important internships, outstanding. Then why, people wanted to know, wasn’t Marta going on to obtain a degree in the law as she had planned?
Why indeed.
If Marta’s memory served her—and that was debatable—the decision had developed slowly but surely during the course of her junior and senior years. The more she read about the emotional and intellectual benefits to a child of growing up with a parent (or grandparent) tending the home fires, the more she thought about how much she appreciated having grown up with a stay-at-home parent, the more certain she became. What she really wanted for her life was to be a full-time mother, to raise a family without having to divide her time between the demands of a career and the demands of the home. There would be time and space for other things in the future.
Marta frowned. Here was where things had gotten odd. Smart women like Marta Kennedy didn’t put a stop to their careers before they had begun to stay at home and raise kids. They just didn’t. Strong, intelligent, nobody’s fool Marta, though convinced of the rightness of her chosen path, had yet been too embarrassed to admit the reason behind her decision to forgo law school. “I’ve changed my mind,” she told inquirers loftily. “I believe I’m allowed to do that.” To herself she said: “I can go back to school anytime I want. School will always be there.”
But that sort of thinking was naïve. Yes, school was always there, but as an adult with a busy life raising children and running a home, how could she ever be a student in the fullest sense? Even if she enrolled part-time in a degree program, how would she manage the day-to-day stuff like driving Leo to debate society and getting Troy ready for school each morning and helping Sam with her history homework while attending classes and writing papers, studying for exams, and meeting with fellow students to argue legal points and hone her writing skills? It was ridiculous to think that Mike and the kids would step in to take over part of her household responsibilities—ridiculous and unfair. Marta often recalled something her paternal grandfather was fond of intoning when one of his grandchildren complained of life’s unfairness: “Tough luck, kiddo,” he would say. “You made your bed, now you’ve got to lie in it.” Her paternal grandfather was not the warmest fellow; his grandchildren seemed more of a source of annoyance to him than of joy. Still, he had a point. Most troubles in life were brought on by one’s poor choices, and to complain about those choices after the fact was totally unproductive. Human, understandable, but unproductive.
Marta twisted onto her side. She had often wondered why her parents of all people hadn’t urged her to continue her studies. They had always been proud of their daughter’s intelligence and work ethic. But even if Marta’s parents had protested, would she have changed her mind and gone on to law school? Unlikely. At the time, she had been thoroughly committed to her domestic goal.
At the time?
Marta sighed. Blushing bride-to-be. Glowing mother-to-be. She was sorry she had been so out of sorts with Bess earlier, but Bess was the sort of person who dug at any little thing she saw as worrying until she unearthed its cause. The problem was that Bess often imagined trouble in the first place, so concerned was she with the well-being of the ones she loved, so that in some crazy way she wound up creating a problem that hadn’t existed in the first place. She could drive you mad but for the fact that her heart was truly in the right place.
“She’s here!”
This shout was followed by the crunch of a car’s tires on gravel. Allison had arrived. Marta got up from the bed and went downstairs to join her friends. They were gathered in the front hall.
Allison had always been thin—she was one of those people who lost a pound if she skipped a meal—but now she looked almost skeletal. The skin around her eyes was taut and her hands were trembling ever so slightly. For a split second, Marta wondered if Allison was physically ill, recovering from something that could be dangerous to a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Then she scolded herself for succumbing to paranoid nonsense. Allison wasn’t careless. If she was carrying a contagious bug she wouldn’t have inflicted herself on her friends, especially at so special a time.
No, Allison’s malady was one of the spirit. This visit must be costing her greatly. Marta felt a flash of annoyance when she recalled how Bess had pursued Chris. His presence at the house would have killed Allison.
Mike leaned toward Marta. “Poor Allison,” he whispered. “She looks awful. Why didn’t she just come for the wedding itself rather than the full two weeks ahead of time? It would have been easier on her I’m sure.”
“I have no idea,” Marta whispered back. She moved forward and greeted Allison, whose hug was quick and light.
“This is truly the most gorgeous beach house I’ve ever seen,” Allison cried, turning to Bess. “Truly. The most gorgeous!”
Marta blinked. Allison’s enthusiasm was almost manic.
“Did my package arrive yet?” Allison asked. “The one marked DO NOT OPEN.”
“Yes,” Bess said, “and I’m dying to see what’s inside. Can’t I—”
Allison shook her finger at Bess. “No, you have to wait until your wedding day.”
Nathan lifted Allison’s bags and headed for the stairs. Mike fidgeted, clearly awkward in Allison’s presence. Bess fussed.
And Marta watched.
Chapter 9
Allison hefted one of her travel bags onto the bed and opened it. She could still feel the eyes of her friends upon her. She was aware she had been acting a bit over the top, extolling the beauties of Driftwood House, being so mock stern with Bess about her not sneaking a look at the painting. It had been a poor effort to avert attention away from her appearance; no doubt her unusual animation had had just the opposite effect.
Thankfully, Allison thought, Bess had given her a room clearly meant for one. The bed was a queen; there was one set of pillows on it; there was one armchair in the corner; there was one dresser against the wall. There was nothing within these four walls to emphasize the fact that she was on her own, unlike what had greeted her downstairs. The pitying looks from Bess. Marta’s eagle-eyed glance of concern. Mike had been awkward with her, making it all the more obvious that something was amiss. If only he had grabbed her in a bear hug like he always had, said simply, “It’s good to see you, Allie,” instead of mumbling a greeting, avoiding her eye, and patting her on the shoulder much as he would pat a dog of whom he was unsure. Gently. Cautiously.
Thank God for Nathan, Allison thought as she brought her bras, underwear, and nightgowns to the dresser. Of course, he only knew of her through the others, but Allison had the feeling that even if he had been greeting an old friend who had gone through a traumatic time his manner would be more natural than Mike’s, less pitying than Bess’s, less sharp-eyed than Marta’s. Maybe she was being unfair to her old friends. So be it.
Allison opened the closet to find padded hangers and a sweet-smelling sachet tied to the rack. Chuck would great her normally and naturally, she thought as she slipped a linen blouse onto one of the hangers. And it would be nice to see Dean again. She had enjoyed getting to know him during the three-day festivities that marked his wedding to Chuck. And the baby . . .
Meeting Thomas would be a challenge. Since the miscarriage, the sight of babies and toddlers could cause Allison actual physical discomfort in addition to the expected emotional pain. But she could not let the others see any sign of her discomfort. She could not let slip any clue as to the weighty secret she held.
Allison closed her travel bag and stowed it at the back of the closet. She dreaded dinner that evening. She would join her friends, eat what she could, and escape as soon as possible without giving rise to too much comment once she was gone. Once back in her room she could collapse into her own misery until she had to face her friends again in the morning.
With a sigh, Allison sank into the high-backed rocking chair and carefully removed her wedding ring. The inscription insid
e the ring Chris had given her, worn now by constant wear, read: ALWAYS MINE. The inscription inside the ring Allison had given Chris read: ALWAYS YOURS. Only in the past few months had these sentiments struck her as problematic. Chris had claimed her as eternally his. She had pledged to belong to him eternally. There was a disparity there.
Had she given away all of her agency when she promised to belong to Chris forever? Perhaps it hadn’t been the wisest promise to make, but she had been so in love there had seemed no sacrifice too large.
“I knew from the very moment I first saw you,” Chris had told Allison early in their relationship, “that you were the one I was meant to marry. It was as if there was a shining light over you, a halo around your head.” Allison had laughed. “The halo was probably just the sun on my hair. Surely you don’t see me as a saint?” Chris had smiled. “To me, you are perfect and if that makes you a saint, then so be it.”
Ominous words if only she had known it then. Adoration could not coexist with equality in a relationship. No one could live up to a reputation for saintliness (especially one based on nothing more than the worshipper’s fantasy), and it was wrong of anyone to expect a person to conform to an ideal. Still, there was no getting around the fact that she had failed Chris, the only man she had ever loved, when she had insisted on going to work that fateful day....
Allison returned the ring to her finger, got up, and quickly changed for dinner. Clothes worn on a plane always seemed in need of an immediate and thorough washing; maybe after dinner she would toss a small load into the machine Bess had told her was located in a room off the kitchen.
Allison’s pedestrian musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. She opened it to find Bess.
“I just want you to know something,” she said, coming into the room. “I wanted both you and Marta to stand up for me at the wedding, but Nathan pointed out that given the situation it might be too difficult for you. I mean, it’s probably going to be painful enough for you to smile your way through a wedding ceremony as a guest. To ask you to stand by my side in front of a whole bunch of people you mostly don’t even know—Well, it seemed unfair of me to ask.”
A Wedding on the Beach Page 5