“No. I told her I was bringing a date.”
“Really? Who?”
Suze slumped back in the chair. “I thought maybe I’d call Jerry and see if he was available.”
She gave Van such a bland look that Van burst out laughing.
“I know. Fish out of water. Do you think he’ll do it?”
“Call and see, but are you sure you want to put the poor man through one of your mother’s cocktail parties?”
“I guess it wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
Van shrugged. “But it would be very interesting.”
“I just might do it. I’ll warn him, of course. It wouldn’t be fair to let him enter the lion’s den unprepared.”
“Poor Jerry.”
“The other alternative is for you to go with me.”
“Thanks, but let’s try Jerry first.”
Chapter 17
THE FIRST THING VAN DID THE NEXT MORNING WAS CALL the office, but not to check up on them; they’d be doing fine. The good part of setting up something efficiently was that it practically ran itself. The problem with it was . . . It practically ran itself.
“I’m not calling to check up on you,” Van told Ellen before she had a chance to complain. “I need your expertise. I need the names of . . .” Van explained what she wanted.
“This does not sound like lying on the beach to me,” Ellen said.
“A friend of mine owns a restaurant here. She just needs some advice about restructuring. I thought maybe she could get in touch with somebody who has experience. What was the name of the guy in the penthouse on Sixty-Eighth? He’s a restaurateur. We just restructured his second bedroom into an IT center, remember? Thought he could help my friend to restructure her restaurant.”
“First promise me that you’re having a good time.”
“I am.” Now that she had something to do.
“And you’re meeting hot men.”
“That too.”
“Pinky swear?”
“Pinky swear.”
“Okay, his name is Milo Duchamp. Here’s his e-mail and cell.”
Van took down the information. As soon as she hung up, she called Mr. Duchamp and left a message for him to call her.
She went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. Suze and Dana were there. Dorie had gone to the Crab to wait for deliveries.
“What’s on the agenda today?” she asked.
“Working and waiting for the mail,” Suze said.
“Reading the want ads,” Dana said.
“No luck yet?”
“No,” both said.
Van sat down to drink her coffee and look over her plans while she waited for Duchamp to call her back.
He did a half hour later. He remembered her very well. He loved his home office. She explained what she was doing and what she needed to know. He agreed to look over a prospectus once she had a better handle on the situation.
After they hung up, Van went online and began looking at restaurant supplies. Storage bins, tables, chairs. She made notes and took screen shots.
She had a week left. She knew she could turn the environment and organization of the Blue Crab around in that time. But retraining the staff would be Dorie’s responsibility, and Van wanted to oversee her inauguration of that effort. Dorie ran the Crab on the laissez-faire principle. If she wanted to jump to the next level, she’d have to be more labor intensive.
A week left. It would definitely take that long to set up a long-range plan for the Crab. She also had to decide what to do with her house, which meant she’d have to talk to Uncle Nate.
And she wanted to see Joe again. Which was probably crazy. She should leave well enough alone. But she wanted more. But how much more? To solidify their friendship, get to know him better? For what reason? Have a chance to say good-bye and good luck?
All that and the restaurant, too? Absolutely. She was revved. This was her idea of a vacation.
She jumped when there was a knock at the door.
Suze stuck her head in. “Gigi’s downstairs. I told her you were working, but you’d be right down.”
“Damn, I forgot.” She’d called and made plans last night before they went to bed. And then forgot all about them in her excitement about talking with Duchamp. “Tell her I’ll be right down. Does she have her swimsuit?”
Suze nodded. “And her sunglasses. And don’t look at me. I’m staying in my room until further notice.”
Van sighed. She was not looking forward to a day on the beach. It wasn’t Gigi; it was the doing nothing. She changed into her bikini, slipped her notebook into a carryall, just in case she had a minute to study it, and went downstairs.
“Sorry I took so long,” Van said when she reached the foyer where Gigi was waiting. “I was just finishing up some things I need to get for reorganizing the Crab.”
Gig sighed. “You’re not starting today, are you?” The disappointment on her face was pathetic.
“No. Have you had lunch? I’m kind of hungry. I can’t even remember having breakfast.”
“I ate already.” And she didn’t look like she wanted to wait for Van to have lunch.
“Let me just grab us some waters and a snack and we’ll go.” Van needed fortification if she was going to really sit down and talk with Gigi, encourage her to get on with her life and whatever else Nate expected her to do.
She grabbed a couple of apples, some grapes, and two bottles of water. Put them in her carryall with her notes and went out to get Gigi.
“Isn’t Suze coming?” Gigi asked.
“No. She has to work. It’s just the two of us. Is that okay?”
Gigi shrugged.
Van tried not to feel impatient. Gigi wasn’t happy when they were all together, and she didn’t seem happy to have Van all to herself. Closets and kitchens—even nannies—were so much simpler to understand.
She was all too aware of the divide between Suze and her and Dana and Gigi. She didn’t think she was being snobbish. Well, hell, that was absurd. But she was independent, and Suze was a respected scholar. Dana hadn’t seemed to have moved past teenage flirt. Gigi was a widow with two children and still living with her parents. Well, maybe Van could help remedy at least the latter.
She just wished the idea of sitting in the sand all day didn’t feel like such a chore.
At least it would give her time to let Gigi talk. Find out what was really going on in that mind of hers. Blurting out that your husband didn’t love you in the middle of Main Street didn’t qualify as a heart-to-heart.
And what about her children? How were they coping through all this? Gigi had barely mentioned them. Were they in school? Who was taking and picking them up? Amelia? Van hadn’t even asked. Well, she’d ask about them today.
Gigi was waiting outside. She’d already gotten the beach chairs out of the shed. She picked hers up as soon as Van reached the porch. It was like she couldn’t wait to get to the beach. Or away from the others? Was Van missing some subtext that Suze had picked up on?
When they got to the beach, Gigi led the way down the steps, but instead of stopping on the sand she kept walking toward the pier, then passed underneath it. The air immediately became fetid and dense. It would have felt clammy if it had been colder, but as it was, it was just uncomfortable.
Gigi was determined to go to Whisper Beach. That was fine with Van. One small group was sitting beneath a bright beach umbrella. The rest of the beach was empty.
They set up their chairs and put on sunscreen.
As soon as she sat down, Van’s mind wandered back to the day she and Joe had talked out here looking at the river. She would like to see his family. His vineyard.
She smiled thinking about the two of them sitting over the computer.
“What’s so funny?” Gigi asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just happy to be out on the beach.” Van put on her sunglasses. Tried to think of something to talk about. She didn’t understand why it was hard. She and Gigi had always told each other everyt
hing.
“So tell me the names of your children again.”
“Clay Junior and Amy.”
“Are they in school?”
“Clay Junior is going to kindergarten next week. Amy is only three. Mom says I should put her in day care and go back to work, but I don’t know. Clay didn’t want me to work. Said children needed to have their mother around to give them proper guidance.”
“Most of my clients with children either send them out or have a nanny.”
“Send them out? You make them sound like laundry.”
“Did I? I didn’t mean to. I like children.”
“What happened to yours?”
“What?”
“You were pregnant when you left, remember? That’s what you told me. Why you had to leave.”
Of course Van remembered. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person could forget even if she tried. “I miscarried.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
How could she tell Gigi that Whisper Bay held nothing for her? That she’d tried to forget living here. Tried to forget her family, and Joe and all of them. Because it was the only way she could pretend to look toward the future instead of being dragged down and strangled by her own abiding fear that she would turn out like her mother had.
That in Whisper Beach she wouldn’t be strong enough to say what she wanted to be. That she couldn’t be anything here. That she was afraid if she did come back she’d end up like Dana or Gigi.
She hated herself for thinking that way. Because there were some really good people here. But Dana hadn’t changed. And Gigi? Gigi had done what girls from their neighborhood did, gotten married, raised a family; she’d done what everyone expected and now she was alone with two kids.
Except she had a large family to buffer her from the world. Van wouldn’t have had that.
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t. But what about you? I know it’s early days yet, but do you have an idea of what you want to do?”
“I’ll have to get a job, I guess.”
“Is there something you’d like to do?”
“No.”
“You always wanted to be a nurse and help people. What if you went back to school?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Van twisted in her chair, tucked her legs up, and tried to read her cousin’s expression. Gigi’s statement had sounded totally without rancor or even sadness. Van didn’t understand how she could be so apathetic.
Her husband was dead, her house was lost, and she had two young children to support. Van didn’t understand why Gigi didn’t do something, but maybe she was just overwhelmed.
Was that what coming to sunbathe was all about? Maybe Gigi was just trying to reconnect with something that made sense, like friendship. People you could count on. Who wouldn’t let you down.
“Gi, I know you feel that way now, but—” She was about to deliver a cliché and she didn’t even know if it was true. She tried a different approach. “When I left Whisper Beach, I felt like my life was over, that I had no friends—”
“But you did have friends.”
“Yes, and I am so grateful to you and Suze, but it took me a long time before I could start building a new life for myself.”
“It was Joe and Dana’s fault. I don’t know how you can be nice to them.”
“Me? You always saw the good in people, not me. I always expected the worse.”
“Maybe you were right.”
“No. I wasn’t. It’s better to be like you.”
“There’s nothing worse than being me.”
This made Van sit upright, then drop to her knees next to Gigi’s beach chair. “You’re a great person, and you have two wonderful children and parents and siblings who love you. And friends. I know it must be so hard to lose your husband and I wish it hadn’t happened. But there is still good stuff out there for you. There really is.”
“Easy for you to say.” Gigi closed her eyes. “Now, can we just lie here and pretend the world doesn’t suck? Just for a little while?”
Van sat back in her chair. Gigi had effectively ended her attempt at consolation. Not that Van could blame her. She hadn’t done a very good job of showing Gigi the bright side.
But she hadn’t expected such lack of spirit, even in Gigi. For as much as Van could reorganize offices and bedrooms so that traffic flowed smoothly, so that everything was just a fingertip away—schedules could be tweaked that made everything fall into place . . . city life crisis management, one of her clients had called it—she didn’t know anything that could help her cousin.
Van was good at her job, able to fix just about any external mess. But she couldn’t begin to understand a family’s dynamic; she could recommend places to find the best nannies, but she couldn’t give advice about child rearing. She could pretty much tell if a person was unhappy, but outside of making her daily schedule less stressful, she was at a loss. She couldn’t help a woman regain her self-esteem or tell her how to deal with a job loss or heartbreak.
And clients asked her things like that. Things they wouldn’t even tell a bartender, they told Van. Came to her seeking advice about everything from which cabinet to fill with Tupperware to whether a wife should leave a husband who was having an affair.
And Van would have to tell those clients she couldn’t help. Not because she didn’t want to fix everything, even their personal lives, but because she had no experience to draw from. Her childhood had mostly been a nightmare. She’d had no significant other since Joe. She watched families interact and wondered if it was a trick done with mirrors, a fake façade to keep people from seeing the dark underbelly of their lives.
She was the last person to advise Gigi. And yet here they were.
They sat quietly for a while, then Van stretched her towel out on the sand and lay down on her stomach. It was a few minutes before she realized that Gigi had changed seats and was sitting on Van’s chair watching Van.
Van turned to her side and looked at her cousin’s intense face.
“Take me with you when you go back.”
Van sat up. “Gi . . . you mean for a visit?”
“Take me to the city. You can help me get a job there. I can work for you. I know how to clean and stuff.”
“Gigi, I don’t think you could make enough to get an apartment large enough for the three of you and hire a nanny to watch the kids when you’re not there.”
“I can leave them with Mom . . . I mean, until I save up some money.”
Van was floored—afraid to say anything and afraid not to say something. Had Gigi actually suggested leaving her children to move to New York?
And why was she so shocked? Women had to do that all the time, coming to the States to work and sending money back home to support their families. Some of those women worked for Van, and every one of them spoke of her children with longing. Most of them had no choice.
That wasn’t the same thing, though. And Gigi’s being willing to leave her children just didn’t seem right.
But what did Van know about children and their mothers? She tried to think back to her own mother. Van had been sixteen when she died; Van couldn’t remember much before that but the fighting. And Van would never have children of her own to find out what that relationship might become.
Carefully choosing her words, she said, “Gigi, you wouldn’t really want to leave”—what the hell were those kids’ names?—“Clay and Amy, would you? Really? Who would tuck them in at night? Make sure they were happy? Help them with their homework?”
“What would you know? You got rid of your kid.”
Van stared at her. “My—” Van shook her head. “I didn’t. I miscarried. I told you.”
“No, you didn’t. Not then. You didn’t tell me anything. I sat here day after day waiting to hear from you. And you didn’t call or anything.”
Because even in her delirium, weak from loss of blood, Van had called Suze. Not Gigi, not
anyone from Whisper Beach who would judge her, blame her, tell her she’d gotten just what she deserved, but Suze, who she’d known for a few short weeks during the summers and who she’d trusted with her life.
“I sent you the money I owed you as soon as I could.”
“It’s not the same thing, Van.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I always did what I was told, never caused trouble, was never mean to anybody, and look where it got me.”
Van began to feel a little sick. She wished Dorie or Suze were here to help her out. But no such luck. And she was beginning to feel her sympathy fray. She knew she should listen to Gigi unload. It was probably her way of coping.
But Van would have done just about anything to have been on Gigi’s side of the family, even have Amelia for a mother. Van was sure she would have loved her if she’d been her child. Gigi had had every comfort that they could afford. Now even as a widow, she had two children to brighten her days and a family to take care of her and them.
And even though Van knew in her heart that she’d never willingly trade Gigi’s life for the one she had now, a tiny shard of jealousy pierced her heart. She didn’t want Gigi’s life, but she would have appreciated it more.
Gigi stood and began gathering up her things. “I have to go back. Mom says we have to take Clay Junior shopping for back to school.”
Van stood and slipped on her cover-up, then gathered her own things and followed Gigi across the beach to the boardwalk. Gigi was upset, Van realized that, but she wasn’t sure what she’d done to cause her cousin to abruptly put an end to their day.
Gigi didn’t bother to change but got right into her car and drove away while Van watched from the sidewalk. Then Van went inside.
Dorie was just coming down the stairs. “Where’s Gigi? I thought you two would be down there all afternoon.”
“She had to shop for school clothes.”
“So what’s up? You look angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m perplexed.”
“Gigi unload on you?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“It’s been coming. Saw it the first day she was here. It’s just part of the process. I imagine she can’t say what she feels to Nate or Amelia or even her sister.”
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