Beach Colors

by Shelley Noble

“Oh hell, Linda, I gave her a speeding ticket on her way into town. She nearly ran over Connor last night and brought him home. I thanked her; I would have thanked her again, but she cut out. She doesn’t like me much. And I have no feelings about her whatsoever. So don’t even start with me.”

  Linda guffawed. An over-the-top reaction that let him know she wasn’t buying any of it.

  “I was just surprised to see her at the Cut—at Le Coif.”

  For once Linda didn’t have a sassy comment. Just turned around with the empty coffeepot in her hand and studied him.

  “Uh, the coffee?”

  “Yeah, right.” She replaced the carafe and turned on the coffeemaker, then leaned against the counter facing him. “Didn’t you know her when her family summuhed here.”

  “No. Summer people didn’t mix with us townies.”

  “Poor you. I’d get out my violin but I had to use it for firewood.”

  Nick tried not to smile, he wanted to be pissed off at her for asking too many questions. Questions he really didn’t know the answers to. But he couldn’t.

  “One day that mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble.”

  “Oh, promises, promises.”

  The coffeemaker spit out its last puff of steam; Linda filled a mug and handed it to him. “Now where did I put that fruit cake?” She placed a plate of freshly baked cookies in front of him.

  Nick took one and bit into it.

  “When was the last time you had sex?”

  Nick choked on the cookie, coughed out cookie crumbs. Linda whacked him on the back.

  “Jesus, Linda. What the hell kind of question is that?” He hoped to hell she wasn’t going to proposition him. When he first moved in, they kind of danced around the possibility until she figured out he wasn’t interested. As it turned out, she wasn’t offended or really disappointed. Linda had her pick of men in the town. She hadn’t really been interested in Nick. It was more of a habit with her.

  “Every night I listen for sounds of amore coming from your apartment and I get zip, nada. The only action I hear is you turning the page of some old history book.” She sighed heavily. “Why Nick, are you blushing?

  “I was just kidding. I don’t hear a thing. Ever. The history book was just a good guess. But what I haven’t heard, or seen, is some beauty sneaking down the stairs in the middle of the night. And you’re home every night, ergo . . .”

  “Linda, I don’t have time to even meet women. Much less date them. And if I ever do start, I won’t bring them here, knowing you’ve got a glass pressed to the ceiling.”

  “Aw, you’re no fun. If I promise not to listen or spy, will you get a girlfriend?”

  “On my next day off.” Nick stood up, snagged another cookie, and headed for the door.

  “Aren’t you off this Friday?” Linda called after him.

  Seven

  Margaux watched from the kitchen window as a red Dodge came to a stop behind the house. She quickly dried her hands and ran outside to meet her friends. Grace hopped out of the car and waved as Brianna emerged more slowly from the passenger side. Her long legs unfolded to the ground and she seemed to stretch in slow motion, tall and lean with golden hair piled nonchalantly on the top of her head. As poised and beautiful as ever.

  And then she grinned. “Mags!”

  Brianna held out her arms and Margaux fell into her hug, nearly knocking her over. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Brianna laughed, low and throaty. “I’ve been here. I can’t believe you’re here. Group hug.” She opened one arm to make room for Grace. They laughed and exclaimed and cried until finally Bri pulled away.

  “We all look fabulous, haven’t aged a bit, and are just ecstatic to be together again. But enough already. The ice is melting.”

  She reached over them for a bag of ice which she handed to Margaux. Reached in again and came out with a large thermos. “Watermelon martinis.” She walked off toward the kitchen door.

  “Is she limping?” Margaux whispered to Grace.

  Grace nodded. “A long story, she’ll tell you after a martini or two.”

  Grace hoisted a box of groceries out of the trunk. “Steaks, potatoes, salad, chips, dip, cheese, crackers, olives—and cupcakes. Close the trunk, will you?”

  They bustled about the kitchen, putting away food, getting down glasses, grinning and shaking their heads each time they passed. And by the time everything was put away, they were the Selkies again.

  “Lunch or beach?” asked Margaux.

  “Beach,” Bri said.

  Grace rolled her eyes.

  “Oh come on, both of you could use a little vitamin D and I have a great sunscreen.”

  They went off to separate bedrooms to change into their suits. As soon as Margaux was ready, she went downstairs to get the pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade and round up a stack of beach towels.

  Grace was already on the porch, sitting on the railing, wearing a white tailored shirt that came to mid-thigh.

  “Is there a suit under there?” asked Margaux as she handed her the pitcher of lemonade.

  “Yes. Is there one under there?” She nodded to Margaux’s knee-length bathrobe.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Hey, where are you?” Bri called from the house.

  “Out here,” Margaux called back.

  “Don’t stare,” Grace said quickly before the screen door opened and Bri struck a pose in the doorway. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt with a voluptuous torso in a string bikini printed on the front.

  “Ta-da.”

  “Very chic.” Margaux adjusted the towels, picked up the beach umbrella, and marched off to stake a place in the sand.

  It took several minutes to spread out towels and unload beach bags. None of them seemed too eager to be the first to take off her beach cover-up.

  “Okay,” said Bri. “On the count of three, we strip.” She grinned satanically. “In order of age.”

  “Okay,” Grace said, obviously relieved.

  “Youngest first.”

  “Not fair.”

  “Tough.” Bri pointed to Grace with a finger whose manicure was showing signs of wear, then to Margaux, then to herself. “Un, deux, trois. Ready?”

  “I have nothing to hide . . . much.” Grace slowly unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it off. Beneath it was a navy blue one-piece with low-cut legs and a square neckline.

  “I have a sedentary lifestyle,” she said defensively.

  “You look great,” Margaux said.

  “You look just like a lawyer in a swimsuit,” Bri said, and turned to Margaux.

  “Oh, all right.” Margaux untied the sash and let the robe fall to the sand.

  Grace sputtered. “Strawberries?”

  Brianna groaned. “And ruffles. Wait a minute. I remember that suit. You were twelve or something.”

  Margaux pulled a face. “I found it in the dresser. I guess I’ll have to buy a new suit next time I’m in town.”

  She and Grace both turned toward Bri.

  “Are you ready?”

  Margaux thought she heard a subtle tremor in her friend’s voice.

  Bri pulled the T-shirt over her head. Her suit was not even a bikini, it was almost nothing. Just three tiny patches of gold with three tiny strings holding them together.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty,” said Grace. “Do you want us to get arrested for indecent exposure?”

  Brianna grimaced. “Too much?”

  “Too little,” said Grace.

  “You want to trade?” Bri reached for the minuscule string around her neck.

  “No! Can you imagine if any of my clients saw me wearing that?”

  “You’d have to hand out those little numbers like they have at the deli.”

  “I don’t think so.”

 
Brianna turned to Margaux, one eyebrow lifted. “Well, what do you think?”

  “I—” The suit was amazing, but Margaux hardly noticed it. She was staring at the long ugly scar that stretched from Brianna’s thigh to ankle.

  “Where on earth did you get it?”

  “The suit or the scar?”

  Margaux swallowed. “Both.”

  “The Lido for the suit. The store on Canal Street, not France.” Bri lowered herself to her towel and began to slather on sunscreen. “The scar I got in France.

  “So just to get it out and over with, this is how it went. I was living the good life, yukking it up with the rich and famous, parties, drugs, alcohol, men. You know the drill. The particular man I happened to be with at the moment was drunk and driving his Aston Martin too fast. He took an S turn and skidded out of control. He walked away from the crash. I wrecked my body and ended my career.

  “Fortunately his family was willing to pay to keep me from suing and the newspapers from having a field day. I took the money and came home . . . eventually.”

  “Eventually?”

  “After a stint in rehab and another in the loony bin. Old news.”

  “Not to me.”

  “If it’s any consolation, she didn’t tell me either.” Grace poured lemonade into a plastic tumbler and handed it to Brianna. “And it wasn’t a loony bin.”

  Bri took the glass. “Next best thing.”

  “Why didn’t you let us know?” asked Margaux.

  “I was too ashamed.” Bri gave them a twisted smile. Tears sparkled in her eyes, making her look even more beautiful.

  “To tell your friends? We could have been there for you.” Except Margaux had been too busy building her career to have been able to help Bri. As it turned out, she hadn’t even been able to take care of herself. “I’ve been a terrible friend.”

  “No,” Bri said. “Just busy getting ahead—like the rest of the world.”

  “And here we are right back where we started.”

  Grace frowned at Margaux. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “It turned out okay for me,” Bri said. “I bought a house right outside of town, I went to college and got a degree in business, and I’m in the process of adopting two little girls from China.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing. No man in your life?”

  “Nope.” She took a sip of lemonade. “This lemonade is delicious. Just like Jude used to make.”

  “I learned it from the best,” Margaux said. “So what about you, Grace? Any great loves? Beside the law?”

  “Just the law. Domestic disputes, traffic tickets, and the occasional foreclosure.”

  “Oh, don’t be so modest,” Bri said. “Last year some developer tried to buy up the boardwalk. Okay, so the area has seen better days, but McMansions for rich people? It’s our only public beach. Anyway, our little friend here hustled her butt up to the state assembly and had them put a stay on the sale.”

  “Good for you. So where does it stand now?”

  “Limbo,” Grace said. “Which is as good a place as any when it comes to jurisprudence.”

  “In the meantime, she had the town council apply for historic designation. Seems the carousel is over a hundred years old.”

  “Our carousel? Does it even run?”

  “No. But it’s still there,” Grace said. “And that’s enough to garner interest in saving it.”

  Margaux sighed. “McMansions on the boardwalk. Is no place sacred?”

  “Evidently not.” Brianna leaned back on her elbows. “So, Mags. I heard you closed M Atelier. What’s up with that?”

  Margaux glanced at Grace. Grace shook her head.

  “Grace didn’t blab. I read it in the trades. They didn’t say why.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Oh God.” Margaux dropped her head to her hands.

  “Come on. Out with it.”

  Margaux looked up. “The short version. Louis stole every cent I had, then disappeared, the bank foreclosed on my apartment and my business. I’m finished.”

  “Shit.” Bri sat up. “Shit. That rat bastard. Do you need a good lawyer? I just happen to know of one.”

  “I already offered.”

  “I have one. She’s a shark.”

  “With sharp teeth, I hope.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Margaux said.

  “So do you have a plan?”

  “To start on my tan.” Margaux lay down and for the next few minutes life was good.

  “This is great,” Grace said on a yawn. “Being back together.”

  “Hmm,” agreed Margaux. “Thank God for friends.”

  “Hmm,” said Grace.

  “I wasn’t sure I still had any.”

  Bri sat up. “Are you kidding me? We’re the Selkies. We swore to be friends forever. Remember?”

  Grace opened one eye. “Not really.”

  “Sure you do. We wrote down our dreams in a diary and buried it in the Grotto and swore to be together forever.”

  Margaux sat up. “I remember. It was the summer before you moved to New York. Do you think it’s still there?”

  “Wouldn’t that be a kick? Let’s find out.” Bri struggled to her feet.

  Grace lifted her head. “Are you sure we want to go there?”

  Bri looked down at Grace, hands on her hips. “Figuratively, yes. Literally? I might need some help getting over the rocks. It’ll be fun.” She leaned over and hauled Grace to her feet.

  “Come on, Mags. Don’t you want to see what we wrote?”

  “I guess.”

  Bri struck off toward the jetty. Grace and Margaux fell in behind and they walked up the beach as they had hundreds of times before, climbed up the rocks of the jetty, picking out hand- and footholds as if twenty years hadn’t passed. Except that every now and then they had to stop to help Bri over a difficult place.

  “This used to be a lot easier,” Bri grumbled.

  “We used to be younger,” said Grace. “And there used to be cute boys swimming on the other side.”

  “Maybe there still are.”

  “No,” Margaux said.

  Bri gave her a look. “Something you want to tell us?”

  “No. I mean, do you really want to spy on twelve-year-old boys?”

  “I was hoping they’d grown up by now. Oxymoron, I know.”

  “I thought you were done with men,” Grace said.

  “I am, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like to look. Come on.”

  Please don’t let Nick Prescott be there, Margaux prayed. He’d probably think she brought an audience. She gave herself a mental kick. She was approaching middle age, not puberty, she really needed to get a grip. But still she sighed with relief when they reached the crest of the jetty and the cove was empty.

  “What are you smiling about?” asked Grace, huffing to stop beside her.

  “Me? Was I smiling? Just remembering, I guess.”

  “Yeah. The good old days.” Brianna started down the other side.

  Grace scrambled after her. She might be used to Bri’s injury, but Margaux noticed that she stayed close enough to help if she started to fall.

  The tide was in and they splashed knee deep through the water to reach the pebble beach. Brianna led the way up the narrow path. She yanked her T-shirt away from a brambling vine. “I don’t remember it being quite so—wild.”

  They walked single file until the path ended in a tiny clearing.

  “Where’s the Grotto?” asked Grace.

  “Probably behind that tree.” Margaux pointed to a lopsided pine. It was at least two feet in diameter and grew at a sharp angle. The roots lay like coils of gnarled rope over the rock and disappeared beneath the rotting leaves that covered the ground. />
  “Don’t tell me that’s the little runt we used for our pirate flag.”

  Margaux had forgotten that. The days when they were still young enough to play pirates and had made a skull and crossbones from one of Jude’s best handkerchiefs.

  “It used to be so little.”

  “So did we,” Bri said.

  “You were never little,” Grace said.

  “That’s okay. You were short enough for both of us.”

  “Yeah. That was before I hit five-two.”

  Bri barked out a laugh and stepped past them to peer through the tangle of roots and branches.

  Margaux and Grace crowded behind her.

  It wasn’t a real cave, but a deep hollow carved into the rock. Just big enough for three young girls to sit tailor-style, knees touching, and swearing to be friends forever.

  “Well, I can’t go in there,” Bri said, stepping back. “Grace, you’d better go get it.”

  Grace gave her a look. “Now, suddenly you’re going to start crying infirmity.”

  “Oh hell, but if I get stuck you’ll have to drag me out.” Bri crouched down.

  “No. I’ll go.” Grace stepped through the vines and disappeared.

  A screech echoed from inside. A chipmunk skittered out and shot into the underbrush.

  Grace ran out. “What was that?”

  Brianna laughed. “A chipmunk. We’ll all go.”

  It was a tight squeeze and they had to squat down to get beneath the overhang. Margaux knew Brianna must be terribly uncomfortable.

  Grace peered around. “So where’s the diary?”

  “Too bad we didn’t bring a flashlight,” said Brianna. “But I think . . .” She twisted around and stretched out one arm. Something clinked. “Well, I’ll be damned. The cairn,” she intoned in a sepulchral voice.

  “Cairn?” asked Margaux.

  “A mound of rough stones used as a memorial.”

  “Let me guess. English 101,” Grace said.

  “History of the Irish 202.”

  Margaux squinted at the back of the cave and saw the rocks each of them had placed to hide the diary.

  Brianna took the first stone and moved it to the side. “Okay, Mags.”

  Margaux removed the second stone.

  Grace went next.