Whisper Beach

by Shelley Noble

  “Not so much, but mainly because I don’t want them. They don’t call it the entitled generation for nothing.”

  “Dorie,” Van said, surprised.

  “Can’t help it. No camaraderie anymore.” She sighed, slapped her cheek. “Damn, I sound like an old fart.”

  Van laughed at that. “Why don’t you come sit on the beach with us?”

  “Har. And make this bag of skin even more wrinkled than it is already? But I will make dinner if you’re not planning to go out.”

  “Do you want to make dinner or are you trying to find out if I’m going out with Joe?”

  “Both. So?”

  “We’re not going out. But we were nice to each other.”

  Dorie threw up her hands. “Oh Lord, what is this world coming to? Now, they want to be nice.” She zeroed in on Van. “Is that the best you could do?”

  “I think it’s important not to have any bad feelings.”

  Dorie heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Looks like I’m making dinner. Now go on down to the beach.”

  On her way back to the beach, Van called Suze’s cell.

  “Where are you?” Suze answered in a chipper voice totally unlike herself.

  “I was at the restaurant, but I’m on my way back. Just wanted to make sure you guys were still there.”

  “Oh yes, but I’m getting burnt to a crisp and Gigi is already a tomato.”

  “Then I’ll come get my beach chair and we can go back to the house.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll bring it. We’ll meet you there.”

  Van hung up. Suze sounded so bright that Van decided she must be pissed at her for abandoning her with Gigi. They were supposed to be helping her cope with her recent loss and Van had wandered away.

  She’d just meant to work out the fidgets, not end up at the Crab reorganizing shelves, and certainly not going to the beach with Joe.

  And maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t. She didn’t even know what to think, except that somehow the thing that broke them up wasn’t important anymore. Maybe hadn’t been important then except for the way it played out. For her anyway.

  She wondered if they could be friends, cut through some of that awkwardness. Though maybe she’d gotten what she deserved, and this was a reminder to leave it alone.

  She beat Suze and Gigi back to Dorie’s. She sat down on the porch to wait for them. They showed up a few minutes later and she went out to relieve them of the beach chairs.

  “I’m going up to take a shower,” Suze said and disappeared.

  “I guess I better get back to the house. Mom’s had the kids all day, she’ll probably want a break by now.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came,” Van said. “Sorry I wandered off. I stopped by the restaurant, and then Joe came—”

  “Oh, you saw Joe?”

  “For a few minutes.”

  “So are things back on with you two?”

  Van frowned at her cousin. “No. We’re different people, and, besides, I won’t be around to see where it might go. Or not go.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “A couple of days. Are you tired of me already?” Van meant it as a joke but Gigi teared up.

  “No, of course I don’t want you to go. Why would I?”

  “Well, not to worry, I’m going to offer some suggestions to Dorie about streamlining the Crab and then I’ll probably continue on down to Rehoboth for the rest of my vacation. I’ll see you tomorrow if you can get away.”

  “I’ll see.”

  Van stood on the porch until Gigi got in the car, waved as she drove away.

  “Whew,” Suze said behind her.

  “Sorry,” Van said. “Didn’t mean to desert you. I just started doing stuff at the Crab and one thing led to another. I think Gigi’s upset.”

  “Uh-huh. Boy, did I get an earful.”

  “She ragged on me?”

  “No, just asked a lot of questions. You and Joe, you and me, but strangely she didn’t mention dead husband or kiddies even once.”

  “Strange, isn’t it? Maybe she’s past the ‘Why me? Life will never be the same’ stage and has moved on to the next.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The stages of grief. I don’t remember what they are, but I think there are five or six.”

  “Well, don’t look at me. In Shakespeare, they grieve and then they die.”

  Van shuddered. “On a happier note, Joe came and we walked over to Whisper Beach and talked for a minute.”

  “And?”

  “He came over, we talked a little bit, and he left.” Van looked at Suze. “But . . . oh, I don’t know.”

  “Okay, that’s it. I’m declaring the rest of this day as shot to shit and opening up the pomegranate martini mix. And then you’re going to tell me about the ‘I don’t know’ part.

  “Go change out of that little bikini; you’re making me feel matriarchal. I’ll go look for the little umbrellas.”

  DINNER WAS JUST the three of them, and they talked and laughed like the years hadn’t passed. They even reminisced. At first Van kept up her guard, determined not to wander into territory that might set off her carefully buried demons. But after a while she relaxed, and they sat on the porch not really talking, just hanging out.

  And Van wasn’t bored at all.

  And when they climbed the stairs for bed, she stopped Dorie on the landing. “I’m glad I came.”

  But sleep eluded her. She would start to drift off and some random thought would pop into her head.

  Like Gigi standing on the sidewalk looking helpless and anxious to please. Then her terse “I’ll see” before she left.

  Van turned over, punched her pillow, dozed.

  Joe’s face when they bumped into each other at the restaurant. Dorie saying, he’d love you again if you’d let him. Seeing him again that afternoon and knowing that it was true.

  She looked at the clock. Midnight.

  Suze smiling when she saw Jerry Corso at the restaurant. She’d always liked Jerry.

  Walking into her childhood home, not a home at all.

  Uncle Nate saying You should see your father. Her father dashing her sea glass to the floor. Her father sobbing over her mother’s coffin, not even sober for the funeral.

  He’ll die soon enough.

  He’d love you if you’d let him . . .

  Publish or perish.

  A lonely old woman.

  Don’t you ever go to the beach?

  When are you leaving?

  See ya. See ya.

  Three o’clock. Still dark outside.

  She could just get up and go downstairs, make some tea, get some work done. Maybe being back wasn’t such a great idea.

  She’d carefully trained her new self. Inside out. Gotten an education, purged shore slang from her accent. Polished her manners, her look, took control of her world. Built her business and her image and she swore she would never run from anything like she had so long ago.

  But, boy, would running back to Manhattan be easier than facing all the demons she’d left behind but were somehow crowding into her mind tonight.

  At least the room was cool. Not like when she was a teenager. This had been her room then, too. When she was afraid to go home. When she worked too late. When she just needed to regroup. Only then it had been sweltering, barely cooled by an oscillating fan and an open window. So much nicer now. And quiet.

  Something banged, and she was jerked back from the edge of sleep. Banged again.

  She couldn’t make out where it was coming from. Maybe trash cans being overturned.

  More bangs, too early and too insistent to be garbagemen. She sat up, heard a door open across the hall.

  The door. Someone must be banging on the door downstairs. Harold? Coming back and lost his keys? Wouldn’t that be a reunion with her and Suze there.

  Van grabbed her sleep shirt off the chair, pulled it over her head, and went out into the hall just as Suze’s door opened.

/>   “What’s going on?” Suze asked, yawning.

  “Don’t know.”

  Dorie came out of her room at the end of the hall. “Did you hear something?”

  “The door I think.”

  Dorie breezed past them; Van and Suze fell in step behind her.

  The banging continued, more frantic now. But not the front door. The three of them turned as one toward the kitchen.

  “Dorie, don’t open it until you know who it is,” Van said as they hurried to the back of the house.

  Dorie didn’t answer, just strode across the kitchen, and flung the door open.

  A woman tumbled into Dorie’s outstretched arms.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Van and Suze moved closer together.

  Van couldn’t see the woman’s face, but her nails were painted purple, and one fake tip was missing.

  Then she pulled away from Dorie in surprise, clutched her side. One eye was swollen shut; blood had dried on her lip and chin. And one cheek was scraped and turning blue. But Van recognized her. She hadn’t changed much, just gotten older.

  “Dana?”

  Chapter 11

  DANA STAGGERED BACK, DUCKING HER HEAD AND BRINGING her hand to her face as if she could hide it from the others. But it was too late.

  “Good God,” Suze whispered.

  Van just stood frozen.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” Dana said through her swollen lip. “I didn’t realize— Sorry.” She tried to turn away, but Dorie grabbed her arm and held on.

  “You’re staying right here.” Dorie flashed Van and Suze a look that dared them to say anything.

  “No. I thought— I didn’t know anyone would be here.” She tried to pull away. “Dorie. Let me go.”

  Van could barely look at her; it made her stomach lurch. “Dorie, maybe we should take her to the hospital.”

  “No. No. I can’t.”

  “We should call the police,” Suze said.

  “No!” Dana shot Dorie a panicked look.

  “No police,” Dorie said. “Who do you think did this?”

  “The police?”

  “One policeman,” Dorie said. “Right, Dana?”

  “I— He—”

  Dorie sighed. “Don’t even try to explain. Come. Sit down and we’ll get you fixed up in a jiff. Then I’ll take you upstairs. You’re staying here with us. Suze, get my supply box out of the hall closet. Van, get some of that brandy out of the pantry. Van!”

  Van jumped, moved numbly toward the pantry. She found the bottle of brandy and set it on the table. Got a tumbler down from the cabinet and poured an inch into it.

  Dana just stared at the floor, expressionless. Van, against her will, felt a pang of compassion.

  Suze returned with a shoebox, the top dusty and broken at the corners and put it on the table. It didn’t look very sanitary, but Van kept quiet. Dorie seemed to know what she was doing, and Van thought it might not be the first time girls—women—like Dana had come to her for help.

  Dorie pulled out a chair facing Dana, lifted her chin at the other two, silently telling them to leave. Van was more than ready to go. And evidently so was Suze. She stepped on Van’s heels as they slipped out of the kitchen.

  But once they’d gotten into the hall, they stopped. And on tacit agreement, turned back to listen, face-to-face, ears to the door. They heard nothing at first, then Dorie’s voice broke the quiet. “I’m not going to give you what-for, tonight. But you’re not doing yourself any favors when you keep going back to that son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t.” Or at least that’s what it sounded like through Dana’s swollen lip. “It’s not his fault.”

  Suze rolled her eyes in disgust, made a sharp twisting motion with her hand that let Van know what she would do to Bud Albright if he laid a hand on her. Van was thinking a big kitchen knife would do the trick.

  Suze began tiptoeing down the hall toward the parlor. Van followed and when Suze rummaged in the liquor cabinet and brought out the bottle of cabernet they’d opened the night before, Van nodded and sat on the couch. She could use something to settle her nerves.

  She was rattled. Well, who wouldn’t be to find an abused woman on your doorstep. And to know that woman and know who did it to her. Not his fault. Hell, if she wasn’t already angry at Dana, that would have pushed her into it.

  “What a stupid, stupid— Ugh.”

  Suze handed her a glass and sat down beside her on the couch. “Well, as much as Dana’s pissed us off in the past, that’s hard to see.”

  “I know. Man, I thought if I ever saw her again, I’d want to scratch her eyes out, but tonight, ugh, I just feel horrified.” Van took a sip of cabernet. “And actually thankful that I got out of here, even if it took a disaster to drive me away.”

  “We used to be friends with Dana.” Suze looked over the rim of her glass at Van.

  “I’m still mad at her.”

  Suze nodded.

  “It’s her fault . . .”

  “That Bud beats her?”

  Van shook her head. “No, of course not. Though if she didn’t stick around, he wouldn’t be able to. That’s her fault.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Is it? Would you stay with somebody who did that to you?”

  Suze didn’t answer.

  “Well, would you?”

  “I don’t know. Until you’ve walked in somebody’s shoes—”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Van, be a little compassionate. How long did you stay living with your father? He may not have beat you, at least I hope he didn’t, but . . .”

  Van shook her head. “But I did get out.”

  “I know.”

  “Though I didn’t have a choice. He kicked me out.”

  “Oh, Van, is that what happened?”

  Van shrugged. “I would have gone anyway. I couldn’t stay around here. He called me a whore and said I was just like my mother. And to go get whoever knocked me up to take care of me. Let me ruin his life. God, I hated him.” She shuddered. “Sorry, I really haven’t thought about that in years.”

  “Like the sea glass.”

  “Yeah. Whoever said ‘You can’t go home again’ sure the hell knew what he was talking about.”

  “Thomas Wolfe.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s the name of a Thomas Wolfe novel, about a writer who becomes successful and goes home, but everyone resents him so he—”

  “Well, he was right. I should never have come back.”

  IT WAS ALMOST four when Van and Suze heard Dorie take Dana upstairs. Dorie came down to the parlor a few minutes later.

  “I gave her something to help her sleep.” Dorie collapsed into the armchair. “Damned if I know what to do with her. She didn’t want to stay. I think she was embarrassed for you two to see her that way.”

  “How long has this been going on?” Suze asked.

  “A couple of years. Though I have to say, she provokes him. She pokes and prods at him, flirts with every man she comes in contact with. I think she enjoys provoking him.”

  “Even when she knows what will happen afterwards?”

  “A sad case. I’m going to try to get her to stay here for a few days.” Dorie paused. She seemed to be waiting for feedback.

  Finally Suze said, “Of course.”

  “None of my business,” Van said. “I have a hotel reservation in Rehoboth for tomorrow. I think it would be better if I took it.”

  “Better for whom?” Dorie frowned at her with one of her penetrating looks that could make you feel guilty even if you weren’t.

  “You’ll have Suze as backup.”

  Suze shook her head. “Don’t think you’re going to dump her on me. I have to work.”

  “You say you have to work as much as I say I have to go to Rehoboth.”

  Suze just stared at her. “Maybe you’re right. You should go to Rehoboth.”

  “Suze, I’m sorry— I—”


  “In fact I’d better get to bed, if I want to get any w-o-r-k done at all.”

  “Suze.”

  Suze ignored her and climbed the stairs.

  “Are we having fun yet?” Dorie said

  Van stood. “I’d better get to bed, too.”

  “Sit down.”

  Van sat.

  Dorie pulled her chair closer. “You know the world is an effed-up place sometimes.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Dorie tilted her head. “I’m not going to beat this dead horse.”

  “Good.”

  “But you have unfinished business here, and it’s high time you took care of it.”

  “What’s this infatuation everyone has with finishing unfinished business? I have plenty of new business to keep me more than busy. Why can’t I just leave it unfinished?”

  “Is that one of those rhetorical questions or do you want an answer?”

  “You’ve got an answer?”

  “Yeah. It’s sort of like making sourdough bread.”

  Van leaned back. “This I’ve got to hear.”

  “You damn sure do. So you got this starter and if you keep it alive, then when you add your other ingredients to it, you get a nice raised tasty loaf.”

  Van crossed her arms. “Uh-huh.”

  “But if that starter goes bad, and you try using it to make your bread, you ruin the whole batch.”

  “Ergo, if I don’t deal with everything that I left in Whisper Beach, I won’t be able to organize other people’s apartments.”

  Dorie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be gratuitously stupid, Van. Twelve years is too long to be fettered by your past.”

  “I’m not.”

  “The hell you aren’t. You can’t sit on the beach for a half hour before you have to be doing something. And don’t think I’m not grateful, because the Crab has gone to the dogs in the last few years, too much turnover, the prices—but that’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “You walked out on your friends and your family all because you were pissed at Joe and Dana. And you left everyone’s life missing a little piece.”

  “I don’t believe this. My father kicked me out. Joe made his choice. I should have said good-bye to you, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t thinking all that clearly. And I did say good-bye to Gigi. So . . .”