She touched Coco’s braids and managed to square her shoulders. She reminded herself of her goal: All she had to do was appear as if she’d moved on. She just had to get through one day at a time. After this week, she’d probably never see Fin or Ray-Lynn or Grand-Aunt Esther or Uncle Frank or that young nurse ever again.
“Where’s Daddy?” Coco whispered.
Except Roy. He was someone she’d unfortunately have to deal with forever.
“He’ll come.”
“Darling.” Lovey reached for Giselle’s hand. She dipped her champagne-colored coiffure toward Coco and kissed both her cheeks with an exaggerated smack. Coco giggled and threw her arms around her grandmother.
“I’m so glad you came,” Lovey said. “Come join us.” She tugged at Giselle’s hands, but did a double take when she realized Fin was part of the entourage.
Shame and pride warred in Giselle’s chest, but Lovey simply held out her hand. “I’m Lovey, Giselle’s former mother-in-law.”
“Fin Hensen.”
“The surfer?”
Fin’s hesitation was noticeable only to Giselle. “Yes.”
Giselle took another long look at him. She thought his name might be recognizable to one or two of the younger people here, but she didn’t expect him to be recognized by her sixty-nine-year-old mother-in-law.
“Please.” Lovey motioned toward the row of seats that sat like little soldiers around the raised casket.
“I’d feel more comfortable back here,” Giselle whispered.
Lovey started to say something, but then acquiesced. She shot a glance toward her son, who had just arrived and was taking a seat in the front row, staring toward the casket, his young nurse at his side. The nurse studied the crowd through wide-rimmed sunglasses and a patterned head scarf that gave her a mysterious Jayne Mansfield look.
“It’s awful,” Lovey whispered. “I’m sorry he brought her here. Are you sure you won’t join us?”
Giselle nodded. She was having a hard time taking her eyes off Roy and his nurse. Roy seemed . . . smaller, somehow. Even from just four months ago.
“Can I take Coco?” Lovey asked tentatively.
Giselle had been gripping Coco’s shoulder with a certain protectiveness, but releasing her to Lovey was the right thing to do. Of course Lovey would want to spend time with her only grandchild. She’d always adored her, sending her cards and games in the mail, calling her on the phone on the first Wednesday of every month to share knock-knock jokes, and coming to visit Indiana when she could so she could take Coco to the lake.
“Can we take her to the house?” Lovey’s eyes begged.
Giselle nodded again. But she shuddered at the deep loneliness already creeping up her spine.
She bent to remind Coco to mind her manners, and Coco held out her palm. “Kissing hand?” the little girl whispered.
Giselle planted a kiss right in the center before Coco bounced away with Lovey.
“What’s a kissing hand?” Fin said from behind her.
Giselle wiped an errant tear from the corner of her eye. “It’s from a book. The mother raccoon kisses her baby’s hand and leaves the kiss in his palm. That way he can press it against his cheek whenever he needs it.”
Fin nodded solemnly and shoved his hands in his pockets. He took a few steps closer. “Are you okay?”
She was swept with gratitude that he was here. If he hadn’t been, she’d quite possibly be standing here, on the outskirts of this grave site, on the outskirts of this family, feeling more alone than she’d ever felt in her life.
“I will be,” she said.
And, for the first time, she had a tiny ray of hope that it might be true.
• • •
When the grave site ceremony ended, Fin turned, like a bodyguard, to scout for the good doctor. And spotted him, immediately. Heading their way. Alarm for Giselle ignited through him. He scanned the crowd to see whether the hot girlfriend was in tow.
“He’s coming to talk to you. Want me to stay?” he asked.
Her gaze slid over his shoulder, her nod barely perceptible.
“Giselle!” the doctor called.
“Roy.” Giselle gave him a tight, sort of keep-away-from-me hug; the doctor returned it with a little less keeping away, as far as Fin was concerned. But at least the girlfriend wasn’t around.
A silence fell. It occurred to Fin that the doctor was waiting for an introduction.
“Fin Hensen.” He thrust his hand forward. That was all he was going to say. Let the bastard wonder.
“You’re the surfer,” he said as the name registered. His handshake was fishy and wet.
“Yes.”
“Roy Underwood.”
Fin nodded curtly.
Roy stared at his ex-wife with curiosity.
That’s right, you idiot, Fin thought. You’re not the only one who can sleep around.
Although, of course, Giselle wasn’t sleeping around. Which was too bad for Fin. But the point was, she could if she wanted to. Fin went back to slandering Roy in his head.
“Are you coming to the house?” Roy asked, pointing his question to Giselle.
Fin shoved his hands in his pockets and sized Roy up. He’d expected Giselle’s ex to be tall for some reason, but he was just average, unremarkable, with a froglike shape. His suit was nice, though—he’d give him that.
“Coco looks great,” Roy said into the next silence.
Fin glanced at Giselle to see her reaction to that. It seemed like a weird thing to say about your kid. As if she were a pot of daisies, or the new siding on the house.
“She’s doing well,” she responded politely.
Fin spread his legs and dug his heels into the grass. He and Giselle had come up with two signs just moments before Roy had arrived—a touch to his forearm meant: Do not leave under any circumstances. And a mission—Fin, could you go check on Coco—meant she needed time alone. They weren’t clever signs, of course—pretty damned straightforward—but he wanted to be sure they had this all under control.
But now she did neither.
“My dad would’ve appreciated your coming,” Roy went on, polite as all get-out, as if he were speaking to the cleaning lady.
Fin allowed himself another glance toward Giselle. He expected her to seem a little strained. But, instead, she was the epitome of reserve. He wondered whether Roy thought of how beautiful she was when he ran into her—did he think he’d let her slip away? Or was he already so wrapped up in his own life that he didn’t see it anymore? Fin remembered the hot number in the high heels. She was gorgeous, too, in a very come-fuck-me way, but Giselle’s beauty was different. It began at her spine, or maybe at her soul, and radiated from there. He’d read once that a pretty woman was only pretty while she was young, but a beautiful woman was beautiful her whole life. The line finally made sense to him.
“Can I talk to you privately?” the good doctor whispered toward Giselle’s shoulder.
Ah, here we go.
Fin waited for his cue.
“Actually, anything you need to say, you can say in front of Fin.” Her fingers curled at Fin’s biceps—a detail the ex didn’t seem to miss.
“I’d rather not,” the doctor said.
“I’d rather.” Giselle raised her chin. Fin couldn’t help but feel a flash of pride in her.
Roy crossed his arms and dropped his gaze to his shoes. The gesture was so one of a surgeon, coming to tell the family that the patient had died—that Fin had the irresistible urge to put his arm around Giselle, before she heard the bad news. But he refrained. Aside from the “don’t go away” sign, they’d decided on only necessary touching, which was Giselle’s request, but he hadn’t argued. He figured having rules about touching was good. Although her fingers wrapped around his biceps right now weren’t escaping his notice. But he was the o
ne who needed the rules. After that kiss, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself.
“I just wanted you to know . . .” Roy angled his shoulder to block Fin out. “. . . Kimber is pregnant.”
Fin glanced at Giselle. Kimber? Was that the hot blonde? Roy’s delivery seemed so overdramatic, with that lowered voice and exotic name, that Fin half expected Giselle to rail in some over-the-top soap-opera way. But instead she held her neck up as if Roy hadn’t spoken at all. As if she were still waiting for the interesting part.
Roy blinked a few times and glanced at Fin, as if they were just two men now, both confused by a woman’s behavior.
“I haven’t told Coco,” Roy went on. “I’d rather not say anything until later.”
Giselle stood completely still, the epitome of poise.
“We’ll see you, Roy,” was all she said, and she started stepping toward the car.
As they walked away, Fin couldn’t help it. He reached up and put his arm around her. He figured this time, of all times, was one of the necessary touches.
• • •
“Of all the cockamamie, for-crying-out-loud things,” Giselle said out the car window, as Fin pulled through the cemetery.
He let her curse in her beauty-queen way while he maneuvered from what looked like a luxury-car sales lot.
“He never even wanted Coco,” she said, exasperated, flinging her hand toward the window.
That got his attention.
Damn. The more he was learning about this bastard, the more he wanted to beat the crap out of him.
“What do you mean, he didn’t want Coco?”
Giselle blinked at him, as if she suddenly realized she’d been saying all these things out loud. Her attention drifted to the hills rolling by.
“When I told him, he said he wanted me to get an abortion.” Her voice cracked over the last word. “He was barely out of medical school, and still doing his residency, and he thought it would be too hard for us. He even came to me with a business card of one of his associates—someone he trusted. I doubt he’s handing her that card.”
The sadness that hung over Giselle was so palpable, Fin felt like pulling over and doing whatever was necessary to stop it. But he had no idea what that would be. He felt helpless—a feeling he hated more than anything in the world. Instead he just sat there, at a stop sign, ready to pull out of the cemetery site. He kept his hands on top of the steering wheel.
“Can you roll the window down?” she said, touching her throat.
He quickly hit the button.
She leaned her head back and took in big gulps of air.
“Look, Giselle, how about if I take you somewhere? Get something to eat, get your thoughts together? You can pay your respects in your own way, later.”
He didn’t really know how to handle a situation like this, but he did know that she’d rip herself apart by showing up at that house. She’d have to watch that Kimber babe from across the room and know that Coco was going to have a new little sister or brother someday soon.
“No,” she said, with surprising conviction. “I need to go.”
“Of course you do, but you don’t need to go for four hours. How about if we go somewhere for an hour or so, let you take a few deep breaths, and then we’ll arrive at the house in the middle of the reception, make an appearance, gather Coco, and leave? Will she be okay for an hour?”
Giselle thought about that for a minute. “She’s fine with Lovey.”
Fin switched his blinker to the opposite direction and squealed into the street before she could change her mind.
“Have you ever had a fish taco?” he asked as the wind whipped through their hair.
She shook her head. She was still looking out the window as if her world had just caved in. Which, he supposed, it had.
“Well, welcome to Southern California, home of the best fish tacos in the States.”
A polite, beauty-queen smile forced its way across her face. “And outside the States?”
“That would be Mexico. That’s where we learned it. But let me take you to my favorite place. It’s not far from here.”
Fin threw the car into fourth and took Giselle away from everything.
Even if only for an hour.
CHAPTER
Eight
The smell of grills and salsa mingled through the small room as Giselle followed Fin all the way to the back, toward a turquoise Formica table under a makeshift thatched palapa. Surf pictures and boards hung from the ceiling and walls; tiki lights draped from corner to corner; and surfing and skateboarding stickers covered every conceivable surface: booths, chairs, tables, walls, floor, doors, and even the windows. It struck Giselle as a decidedly mixed atmosphere of rope hammock, crashing wave, and daring athleticism.
She scooted in her chair as Fin slid out of his jacket and nodded hello to one of the workers.
“Do I even want to know what ‘sex wax’ is?” she said, squinting at the bright red letters of one of the stickers slapped to the table.
Fin took his seat and rubbed the side of his nose, as if he weren’t sure he wanted to answer. “Not as interesting as it sounds.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a wax you rub on your board. Keeps your feet from sliding.”
“Why is it called ‘sex wax’?”
Fin glanced at her from under his bangs, then looked away. “‘Wax your stick,’ that kind of thing.” He suddenly seemed to find his receipt very interesting.
She felt her face go hot and tried to think of something else to say.
She tried to imagine how she must appear to him—in her low-heeled proper shoes, someone you couldn’t say “sex wax” to without lowering your eyes—and wondered what this whole marital drama must look like to a young, single guy. Especially the part with the ex-husband strutting around with a D-cup mistress, then dropping the news at a funeral that he’d gotten the girl pregnant. She wondered whether Roy seemed ridiculous to Fin—as if it weren’t occurring to him that if he kept turning his mistresses into mothers, they’d lose their appeal. Didn’t a doctor know better? And she wondered whether she seemed pathetic for sticking around while it happened.
Especially a second time.
Jillian had happened two years ago, when Coco was only three. Giselle had been devastated that there would be another child in this world who would be related to Roy and Coco, whom they’d all be bringing into their lives. Who would involve weekend visits and birthday gifts. Who would represent Roy’s disrespect. It was almost more than she could bear, but she took Roy back anyway. She didn’t want to deprive Coco of a two-parent home, and her love for Roy had turned into a sort of desperation. Plus she had nowhere to go—she hadn’t planned a career, had no real life of her own. She figured she could suck up a little disrespect so that Coco could have as close to a normal life as possible. But then Jillian lost the baby. And Roy said he was coming back to Giselle and Coco “for real.” No more infidelities. He’d learned his lesson, he’d said. He’d given Giselle his pager and cell phone, asked her to check it every night. He’d made his life an open book—all in an effort to prove to Giselle that he was devoted to them, that he’d never make such a foolish mistake again.
But then D-cups had come a-calling again. A different set. And Giselle and Coco were left in the wake again.
That was when Giselle found the note underneath the cantaloupe: “I’ve met someone else, G. I’m so very sorry.”
Giselle had sat for four days in a darkened house, telling Coco that she had a tummy ache. She’d made brief sojourns to Coco’s preschool in her slippers and pajamas and then gone home and cried for hours.
Roy didn’t call. He didn’t return her messages. She had no idea what had happened.
But then, about a week later, she’d snapped herself back together.
She’d gotten up, gotten a hai
rcut at the most expensive salon she could find, charged it to Roy, gone shopping for the most expensive clothes she could find, charged those to Roy, and then packed up and found a place at a swanky hotel in Indianapolis, where she could still take Coco to school every day but where they could dine in style, on Roy’s dime, and she could think.
She’d called a lawyer. Collected the divorce papers. And then she’d called Lia to ask if they could stay in Sandy Cove for a little while, just to clear her head. Her hands had shaken through every one of these activities, but she did them.
Calling her sisters and her mom had been the hardest part. She knew there’d be an element of “I told you so.” And she didn’t even have a good explanation for why he’d left. She’d always been the responsible oldest sister, the one to do the right thing, the smart thing, to take care of everyone. And admitting that she’d made the most enormous mistake of all—but wasn’t sure what it was—was almost more than she could bear. She had no bank account, no job, no work experience, no skills, not even her own friends. Her Audi wasn’t even in her own name.
But she’d swallowed her pride, made the calls, listened to Noelle’s sighs of pity, listened to Lia’s list of things she would have done to be more financially independent, listened to her mom’s litany of all the reasons she never liked Roy in the first place, and then started packing for Sandy Cove.
Roy stayed oddly away. He tried to contact her only a few times, to see Coco, and always through texts. They arranged for him to pick Coco up after school on a couple of Fridays; then Giselle would pick her up after school on Mondays, so they still didn’t talk. When she caught him answering his phone in real time once, she jumped at the chance to ask him what she most wanted to know: “Why?”
“I can’t explain it,” was all he said. His voice was robotic. He listened to her sobbing and then said they’d talk later, and hung up.
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