Best Beach Ever

by Wendy Wax

  “Well, if she’s anything like her mother, she can handle whatever’s thrown at her.”

  She smiled at the compliment. It was only when things had fallen apart that she’d discovered just how much she could handle. But what if Kyra couldn’t handle the movie and all it entailed? What if Kyra and Dustin fell apart and she wasn’t there to help put them back together?

  With a personal comment to each man in line, Will handed out the plates of food. Maddie poured coffee and juice then did her best to join in the conversation around the table. After the men headed out to morning activities, she lingered with Will. But no matter how many times she reminded herself that Kyra was an adult and that there was no reason to waste this gift of a day, she couldn’t stop imagining worst-case scenarios.

  “Maddie?” Will was no longer sitting across from her. He stood next to the table, Lori Blair beside him. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and smiled. Pulling her thoughts back where they belonged, she stood.

  “Lori needs me to look at the additions Aquarian wants to make to the tour schedule.”

  “I’m good.” Maddie got up and began to clear the table. “I’m just going to put the dishes in the dishwasher and tidy up a bit.”

  “You know one of the guys has KP duty.” He was watching her closely. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “But I’m glad to. I’ve got most of the day free.”

  Maddie cleaned up then wandered outside. The sky was a clear blue, the ocean a layered turquoise. Seagulls skimmed low, diving when something caught their eye beneath the surface. With nowhere she had to be and nothing she had to do, she wandered past the pool and across a small slice of beach. The hammock that she’d been sleeping in that long-ago holiday weekend when Will first approached her—the one she’d considered her “lucky” hammock ever since—swayed gently as she climbed into it. She lay quietly for a time while she debated whether to text Kyra. Who was a grown-up. And a mother. And was undoubtedly fine.

  There was activity around her—yoga in the pavilion, a discussion about addiction on the front porch, Romeo the rooster and his harem pecked at the ground in a nearby clearing, but none of it required her attention.

  Finally, she texted, R U okay?

  For a time she held the cell phone tightly in one hand waiting for a response. Then she stopped looking at the screen and instead focused on the jagged green palm fronds above her in stark counterpoint to the cloudless blue sky. The breeze off the ocean picked up, stirring the palms, a moving scrim of shade and light. The drone of insects grew louder. Her thoughts slowed and scattered, breaking the dark mass of worry into smaller bits.

  Cocooned, she swayed gently. Her limbs began to loosen. Her head lolled to one side. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this relaxed. She was just shy of sleep when a text dinged in. Raising her cell phone and rousing the screen, she peered at the message from Kyra.

  Depends on what you mean by okay. And what you’re supposed to say when your child asks how his father got other children.

  * * *

  • • •

  Nikki followed the flower-lined path to the Sunshine’s main building and stepped into the lobby they’d remodeled in an unsuccessful attempt to turn Do Over back into the renovation program they’d originally envisioned. The result was a beautiful mix of new materials and vintage charm that had given the midcentury hotel and beach club new life.

  Her gaze ran over the refurbished sand-colored terrazzo floor with the blue and black bits that stood out in the sunlight that now streamed through new south- and west-facing glass walls. The sagging roof had not only been replaced but raised and a rooftop bar and grill added above it. The long, light-filled space held card and game tables as well as vintage pinball machines. Seating areas composed of clean-lined sofas, love seats, and Arne Jacobsen–style Egg chairs surrounded reproduction free-form Noguchi tables. All of it upholstered in brightly colored fabrics designed to hold up under damp bathing suits and tracked-in sand.

  She paused in front of the wall of photographs that interior designer Ray Flamingo had framed and hung. Shot between the hotel’s opening in the forties until its closing in the early eighties, the photos featured the Handlemans, who’d owned and run it, as well as the regular guests and beach club members, who’d been treated like extended family.

  At the soda fountain that duplicated the original down to the vintage cooler from which ice cream sandwiches could be taken on the honor system just as they had been when Renée Franklin and her sister Annelise Handleman were children, Nikki eyed the glass-dome-covered dish that held a tantalizing assortment of homemade brownies. Her mouth watered, but memories of her attempts to squeeze into pre-pregnancy clothing sent her into the glass-walled dining room in search of coffee instead.

  There she found the waitstaff clearing the last of breakfast and setting up for lunch.

  “There’s half a pretty fresh pot in the kitchen,” Randy, whose company operated the dining room and rooftop grill, offered. “And a couple of cinnamon buns.”

  “Thanks.” Coffee in hand and willpower still in place, she headed back out to what they generously called the gift shop but was actually a series of small displays that had been worked in around the hotel’s original front desk.

  An assortment of Sunshine Hotel and Beach Club T-shirts and sweatshirts hung on a curving wrought iron display rack framed in a slice of window. A shelf affixed to the wall held a variety of postcards. Visors and neon-colored flip-flops filled some of the wooden cubbies that hung on the wall next to the sun-shaped clock. Original forties-era cottage keys with dangling nameplates filled the others.

  She straightened the merchandise and greeted a foursome of beach club members who’d reserved a card table for bridge. She considered calling Joe, to whom she’d blubbered pathetically last night when she’d been unable to fit her current body into her former clothing, but she was reluctant to bother him while he was working. Because, really, what did she have to share?

  Next she rearranged and refolded all the T-shirts while sneaking peeks at the brownies on the soda fountain counter. When she imagined she heard them calling her name, she turned her back and caught a glimpse of Luvie wheeling the double stroller from the beach through the low pink wall.

  A deep flush of shame and guilt heated her face as she realized that she was standing here doing pretty much nothing while someone else took care of her children. At Luvie’s cheery wave, Nikki stepped outside.

  “Goodness, but we’ve had ourselves a lovely walk.” Luvie tightened the strings of the large floppy straw hat without which she did not venture outside.

  “That’s great, isn’t it, sweeties?” Nikki smiled and bent to kiss her daughters’ cheeks, which was when she noticed that Sofia and Gemma’s sun hats were identical to Luvie’s.

  “Gwak!” Sofia repeated happily. Gemma reached her hands out in an attempt to touch her bare toes. When she couldn’t reach them, her face scrunched up. Nikki braced for a shriek of displeasure, but before Gemma could emit a squeak let alone one of her bloodcurdling wails, the supernanny handed her a squeaky toy shaped like a puppy. Gemma chortled happily and said, “Oof! Dokkie!!” Neither of them said “Mommy” or tried to get out of the stroller to reach for her.

  “Nice hats,” Nikki said.

  “Oh, I do hope you don’t mind. They seemed to love how mine flopped about, and I felt they offered a bit more protection from the sun than those adorable baseball caps they’d been wearing.”

  “Of course.”

  Luvie waited. When nothing else was said, she smiled brightly. “Well then, I’ll get the girls back to the cottage and start preparing their lunch, shall I?”

  “Lunch!” The girls said in unison and quite clearly. Nikki knew she was just imagining the British accent. But as the nanny wheeled the girls away, Nikki was the one who felt like the odd one out. She wanted a do over.<
br />
  * * *

  • • •

  “Please go to the bathroom,” Kyra begged Max. “The car is already waiting.” She offered an apologetic wave to the driver who sat behind the steering wheel of the SUV that would deliver them to the production offices.

  But Max was not stupid. He’d figured out that once he finished he was going back inside, and so he took his time squatting for a small piddle here, another over there. This was followed by sniffing and circling as if something important was about to happen.

  During lunch Kyra had done her best to try to prepare Dustin for what he might expect on set and at today’s wardrobe fittings. She’d also prepared a few “talking points” for Tonja should the opportunity or need arise, and had vowed to never again allow Dustin to be alone with the Deranian-Kay children. What she hadn’t figured out was how to get Max to do his business on command.

  “You’ve got five more minutes,” she said. Because after that she’d need another five to ten to get him into the crate. Not that the crate had proven overly effective or particularly Max-proof.

  At precisely one P.M., Kyra and Dustin were delivered to the film’s base camp. As its name implied, the area surrounding a film location looked a lot like a military installation. In this case the camp was arranged around the former fruit processing plant that now housed the film’s production offices and a massive soundstage.

  The production assistant, Mary, who greeted them with a toss of her dark hair, was young, pretty, and enthusiastic. She was also close to the age Kyra had been when she reported to work on her first and only movie set, and Kyra wondered if the girl would fare better, be smarter.

  It was hard to avoid the comparisons or the memories as Mary led them through the maze of temporary outbuildings, tent-covered areas, and trailers, whose arrangement, Kyra knew, was far from random. Big stars had big trailers. Supporting actors had smaller trailers farther from the center of action. Bit and day players were even farther away and were lucky to be assigned to multi “hole” units referred to as three bangers and five bangers, each banger typically consisting of a bed, television, and toilet.

  Mary pointed out the honey wagon comprising multiple potties, which existed for those without trailers. A food tent stretched along the opposite perimeter.

  “First stop is wardrobe and makeup,” Mary said as they passed the main production office then walked through the soundstage where hotel interiors were under construction. Her friendly chatter and Kyra’s walk down memory lane came to a screeching halt at the sight of Tonja Kay waiting for them in the wardrobe department. The PA blinked nervously in the movie star’s presence. Kyra dropped her hands to Dustin’s shoulders and pulled him up against her protectively.

  Tonja looked the part of the working producer, comfortable on set, her blond hair in a French braid, her makeup flawless but subdued, her clothes casual but perfectly put together. The PA had not yet recovered the use of her vocal cords when Tonja introduced them to Margaret Mills, a smiling, fiftysomething woman with short salt-and-pepper hair who sized up Dustin expertly then pulled a collection of shorts, T-shirts, pajamas, and bathing suits from a hanging rack with his name on it.

  “Let’s slip these on. When you’re dressed, I’ll take a few pictures to show the director and to make sure I remember which outfits we’ll use for which scenes. Then you can be on your way.”

  The wardrobe session moved quickly with Margaret, as she asked to be called, helping Dustin in and out of each outfit.

  The visit to the makeup department was even briefer.

  “Four-year-old children are never perfectly groomed or coiffed, are they?” Tonja smiled at Kyra in a mother-to-mother kind of way that set Kyra’s teeth on edge. Then she bent down to brush Dustin’s bang out of the way as the makeup artist scribbled notes.

  “Children aren’t perfectly groomed or coiffed,” Kyra agreed. “And sometimes they repeat the truly nasty things they’ve heard their parents say in order to hurt another child.”

  Tonja’s smile puckered slightly.

  “If that were to happen again, the hurt child’s mother would have to remove her child from the situation.” She held Tonja’s gaze as she delivered the threat. “Do you understand?”

  “I do.” With a crisp nod, Tonja led them outside and escorted them to one of the largest trailers closest to the soundstage. A numeral three had been taped to its side. “This is Dustin’s.”

  “This is for Dustin?” Kyra asked, certain she’d misunderstood. Daniel and Tonja would be numbers one and two on the call sheet. She’d assumed that Derek Hanson and Christian Sommersby would be three and four and that Dustin would share a small trailer with some other young supporting actor.

  “Yes.”

  They stepped inside the long, beautifully appointed space with its plush built-in sofa and seating area. A big-screen television took up most of the opposite wall. A bedroom and bathroom filled the remainder of the space. It was almost identical to the trailer in which Daniel had first seduced her, the place she’d naively thought of as “theirs.”

  “This will be your home away from home while you’re on set. It will come along with us when we’re on location.” The explanation was aimed at Dustin, but Tonja’s eyes never really settled on him. She was looking at Kyra.

  Kyra shook her head. “We don’t need anything this lavish. We’ll be fine in something smaller and more utilitarian.” It was a refuge for an adult, not a four-year-old child.

  “Daniel insisted,” Tonja replied.

  There was a quick rap on the trailer door and Daniel bounded inside, filling the large space with his astounding looks and oversize personality. A small whimper escaped Mary’s lips. Kyra almost felt sorry for the Production Assistant but even now, knowing him as well as she did and with his wife standing right there, she had to fight off a similar reaction.

  “How do you like your trailer, little man?” Daniel went down on one knee so that he could look Dustin in the eye.

  “Is awesome in here!” Dustin pointed to the video game console that sat beneath the television. “Wanna play a video game, Dandiel?”

  He reached over and ruffled Dustin’s curls. “I have some work I have to take care of right now. But a little later we thought we’d take you to Legoland.” Daniel remained on one knee making direct eye contact. “Would you like to do that?”

  “Legoland?” Dustin’s voice trilled with excitement. “I love Legoland!”

  “Did you really just do that without even running it by me?” It was Christmas and Santa arriving with a Great Dane puppy all over again. “And I’ve already explained to Tonja that I didn’t appreciate some of the words that were thrown around last night.” She would not repeat those words in front of Dustin. “He won’t be going on an outing with your family.”

  Tonja remained silent, her face expressionless.

  “I’m sorry to hear there was a problem.” Daniel managed to sound both surprised and contrite, though he didn’t ask for details. “But we weren’t planning to take the whole family.”

  He sent her the smile that had always turned her legs to rubber. “We need to build a relationship between ‘Tyler’ here”—he clapped a hand on Dustin’s shoulder—“and his on-screen parents that feels convincingly familial before we start shooting. And the park’s right there.” He motioned toward the theme park they’d driven past earlier.

  Kyra felt Tonja and Daniel’s eyes on her. It was a reasonable request, one that could help Dustin get comfortable with being a part of the fictional Roberts family and help prepare him for what lay ahead. “All right,” she said. “I guess we could do that. What time were you thinking?”

  Daniel and Tonja exchanged glances.

  “I should be able to break away by four o’clock,” Daniel said. “But you do understand that it’ll just be Dustin, Tonja, and me. You know, so we can establish rapport and start looking and feelin
g like a real family.”

  “No,” she said once again feeling blindsided. “I didn’t understand.” And she didn’t like the idea one bit.

  Eleven

  It was six P.M. on Tuesday and Bitsy was in the process of locking the front door of Steding & Steding when a young woman, holding a little girl by the hand and a baby cradled in a sling across her chest, rushed up to it. “I know I’m late,” she said, gasping for breath. “I’m Erin Clayton. My appointment was at four, but I had to take two buses to get here. And one of them broke down and . . . Lucy’s been cutting teeth.” She looked down at the baby sleeping against her chest. “And . . .” She swallowed. “Please let us come in so I can talk to the lawyer. I . . .” She stopped talking and looked up at Bitsy beseechingly, her blue eyes flooded with unshed tears. “I . . . online it said that the first appointment was free.” Bitsy remembered how afraid she was when she’d arrived that the free half hour was just some sort of come-on. “I really need to talk to somebody.”

  Bitsy stepped back and ushered them in. “Ms. Steding is on the phone right now,” she said, showing them to seats in the waiting room. “But you’re absolutely right. The first consultation is free.”

  Erin’s shoulders slumped in obvious relief.

  “Why don’t you fill out this form while I let her know you’re here.”

  “Thank you.” There was a quiver in Erin’s voice. “Thank you so much.”

  The little girl climbed up onto the chair next to her mother then scooted against its back. Only her feet reached past the edge. Her lank brown hair hung in messy braids on either side of her pale, pinched face. Her white tights were stained, the Mary Janes scuffed. Bitsy assumed she was no more than five or six. Until she looked into her eyes, which were way older than they should have been.