A Beach Wish

by Shelley Noble

  While Floret steeped tea, Zoe sat at the kitchen table watching the professor, his head bent over his work, which consisted of piling slice after slice of corned beef onto a piece of mustard-slathered rye bread.

  He looked over his shoulder at Zoe, his wiry curls springing about his ears in reaction to his enthusiasm. “For weeks I’ve been living on masa and beans, with the occasional piece of meat that defied classification, and dreaming about Jim Kelly’s corned beef.”

  “Which he had as soon as he deposited his suitcase inside.” Henry lifted a tin down from the cabinet and set it on the table. “Jim sent him home with another pound of beef and a loaf of rye bread.”

  “Well, this is the last of it,” the professor said, smiling down at his creation. He slathered more mustard on a second piece of bread and balanced it on top. “Ah. A masterpiece.” He stood back to admire his handiwork.

  “You’d better sit down and have a cup of chamomile tea with that,” Floret said, bringing the pot to the table. “Aids in digestion,” she explained to Zoe.

  “I will, my dear, but later. After I’ve washed this sandwich down with a couple of beers.” His head disappeared into the refrigerator. He came out with a brown bottle. “German beer and corned beef. A marriage fit for heaven. You know, no matter how much fun I have out in the world, there is no place like home.” He bounced on his toes, clicked his heels together like Dorothy in Oz, and carried his sandwich and beer to the table.

  Zoe smiled. The professor’s energy lit up the room, in a different way from Henry and Floret, but just as important, she realized. Sometimes when you added a new person to a group, it took away from the group’s spontaneity, but here the camaraderie just kept growing.

  The professor sat down and pulled his chair close to the table, but instead of digging in, he laid his palms flat on each side of the plate. He inhaled, closed his eyes, and exhaled.

  Zoe found herself breathing with him.

  Then slowly he opened his eyes. “Ah,” he said again, and dug in.

  Floret poured the tea into Zoe’s mug; the sweet aroma of chamomile filled the air, and Zoe relaxed a little. Floret’s simple, practiced movements, Henry’s calm presence, the professor’s effervescence . . . They were all so different from the people she knew, how she lived.

  Ordinarily she knew how to deal with people. Manipulate when necessary. It was what made her good at her job. She’d been called the ultimate VIP herder by one of the guys at work. Not totally a compliment, she realized.

  But this group. They had become her VIPs. Every single one of them. They were her family, her friends, even though she had just met them.

  She wanted to feel at home here. But too much was preying on her mind.

  She sipped her tea even though it was too hot to enjoy. Refused the tea cakes that Henry offered. She felt as if there was something she needed to do, something that couldn’t wait.

  “I have to go,” she said halfway through her first cup of tea.

  Floret just smiled at her.

  “I’m worried about Eve and Mel. And . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain, dear.”

  “Thanks for the tea.” Zoe pushed her chair back from the table and headed for the door.

  Henry stood. The professor bounced up from his chair.

  “You don’t need to see me out. Thank you.”

  She fled.

  She didn’t know whether they followed her or not, but once she’d left the house, she faltered. She’d been so anxious to get away, but now didn’t know what she’d intended to do. Why had she suddenly panicked like that? She turned back to see both Floret and Henry standing on the porch.

  As if welcoming a stranger? Or saying good-bye.

  Both, Zoe realized as she reached the gate and saw Mel running across the yard. Zoe opened the gate and stepped out to meet her, but she barely slowed down.

  “I thought it would be better, but it’s not. You were wrong. It’s not.” Her voice broke. “Tell Mom I’m okay.”

  She tore open the gate and ran past Dulcie to the porch, where she threw herself into Floret’s open arms. Floret looked past her to Zoe, then took the girl inside.

  Chapter 18

  Eve stood in the middle of the living-room floor, surrounded by posters of the world, and wanted nothing more than to have her whole family at home with her. After twenty minutes she’d accepted that Mel wasn’t coming back. She couldn’t go after her. Running down Main Street begging for her forgiveness would be beyond embarrassing to both of them.

  But she couldn’t stand here and do nothing. She called Mike.

  “Slow down and tell me what happened.”

  She took a breath and told him.

  “Do you want me to send some of the guys out to look for her?”

  “No. I don’t know. I slapped her, Mike.”

  “I know, babe. But you’ll both survive. It was just a slap.”

  “But what if she feels so despondent, she—”

  “Will not do anything drastic. Did you check with Eli?”

  “Not yet.”

  “She’s probably gone there. Just give her some space. She’ll get over it.”

  “Do you think so? David said they broke up because Lee had threatened them.”

  “Damn the man.”

  “I’m going to his house right now. That’s one thing I can do.”

  “Do what you have to do. I’ll stay here at the bar and keep an eye out. I’ll call you if I see her. Okay?”

  “Thanks.” Eve rang off, stuffed her cell in her pants pocket, and cut across the back of the hotel to the mostly deserted part of town where her father lived in one of the old beach cottages.

  Eve didn’t like coming here. The old road was used only for delivery vans and the occasional unsuspecting visitor who took the wrong turn into town and didn’t have the sense to turn back toward the highway.

  An unsuspecting visitor like Zoe. Had he seen her drive through that night? Did he hail her over and give her directions, little suspecting who she was? Of course he didn’t. It wasn’t her father’s way.

  His way was bitterness and loneliness. Well, he’d gone too far when he threatened Eli and Mel.

  It was cool and damp beneath the scrub oak and pines that hugged the pockmarked road. Fallen trees littered the way. In daytime, glimpses of cottages could be seen through the woods. Cottages that had once been brightly painted and rented to capacity during the summer months, before decades of storms had washed away the beaches in front of them. Now they were pitiful remnants of a better time, sagging under their own weight, just waiting for the next big storm to sweep through and finally put them out of their misery.

  Zoe must have thought she’d entered the Twilight Zone when she drove this route in the dark.

  Eve felt a little like that now. But her anger and her shame kept her from turning back.

  Her father’s cottage had been restored somewhat; Hannah had seen to that. But he might as well be living on a deserted island for all the visitors he had. She walked through the leaves up to his door, setting off the smell of damp decay that even the summer heat hadn’t managed to erase.

  Up the creaky steps.

  She knocked. Waited. And finally the door opened.

  Her father stood there in tattered jeans, and a stretched-out Grateful Dead T-shirt.

  They stood eyeing each other for a few long moments. Him, wondering why she’d come, or perhaps knowing and not caring. Her anger threatening to boil over.

  She wanted to beat him with both fists. Make him tell her why he had frightened and threatened his own granddaughter.

  “Well?” he said, and stepped aside.

  She stepped inside and shut the door to her back. Suddenly she was afraid. She was standing before a man she didn’t even know, or maybe just knew too well. “You threatened Mel and Eli.”

  “I told them how it would be.”

  “You told Eli to never see her again.”

  “For their own good.”
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  “To satisfy your self-imposed unhappiness.”

  “Bullshit. He’ll get her knocked up and then go off to college and then where’ll she be?”

  “You don’t threaten your family.”

  “Looks like it worked, though.”

  “Are you happy, then? Because Mel has run away. If something happens to her, it will be on your head.” She took a shuddering breath. “And I will never, never forgive you.”

  She turned and groped for the wobbly doorknob. She felt like ripping it out of the wood.

  “She’s probably run off with that Zoe person.”

  Eve gripped the doorknob. “That Zoe person is your daughter.”

  “Get out.”

  “Gladly.” She yanked the door open. Fury blinding her. Turned back. “And by the way. There were letters. Lots of them. Letters to me. From my mother. She wrote to me, loved me, wanted to know me. But I never knew because Hannah stole those letters. She’s kept them hidden all these years. She never even bothered to read them. Just kept them for God knows what. Some kind of emotional blackmail that she might be able to use one day. There are letters. I have them.”

  She saw her father reach out as if to steady himself. She left him to stand or fall. Right now she didn’t care which.

  Zoe meant to go straight back to the inn and let Eve know that Mel was with Floret and safe. God only knew what she might be imagining. But instead she stepped into the trees looking for the glen Floret and Henry had shown her, wondering at the turn her life had taken.

  She found it near the path to the beach. That day it had seemed magical; the breeze lifting the chimes and singing a gentle lullaby in the air. Today the air was still. The chimes hung limp, not even catching the sun.

  The ashes of others lay around her, or maybe not, maybe they had been blown away by a storm. Maybe no one was even here anymore.

  Scattered so wide as if they’d never existed.

  Would she have the courage to leave her mother here?

  “Is this what you really want?” she asked out loud.

  Not even a bird’s call answered her.

  The ocean was a diamond of blue framed by the trees, and she walked that way. Right up to the opening. A stone threshold stretched from one side to the other and she stepped over it onto a narrow ledge. And was surprised to find the beach closer than she’d imagined.

  So close that she could see David Merrick sitting on the driftwood log, his legs bent, his elbows resting on his knees. She watched him for a minute, wondering what he was thinking. And then something in his hand caught the sun and reflected a quick prism of colored light.

  The piece of wind chime that she’d found in the sand.

  She hurried back to the path, afraid that he was about to throw it into the sea. It shouldn’t matter, but suddenly it mattered more than anything else that had happened.

  She thrashed through the underbrush and slid and stumbled down the rocks to the beach, frantic to stop him.

  He didn’t even look up when she stepped onto the sand.

  Not ignoring her, she realized, but his thoughts so far away that she didn’t exist. She cautioned herself not to butt in, but she walked toward him, sat on the log beside him, watched him turn the piece of glass between his fingers.

  Now that she was there, she could kick herself. How could she intrude on someone like this? What was she thinking? He obviously wanted to be alone. Why had she come? And how was she going to leave without appearing totally stupid?

  She couldn’t. So she just sat. Next to him on the driftwood.

  After a while he looked up, not at her but to the beach. “My parents used to bring my brother and me here to play in the sand. We could wade up to our knees here, because the land sheltered it on two sides. The big beach was too dangerous.”

  Zoe couldn’t see his expression. It was impossible to tell if he was even talking to her or to someone she couldn’t see.

  “We had a yellow plastic pail with a chunk broken off the top. And two big serving spoons that Floret gave us to play with.”

  Now she did look in time to see him smile, a fleeting reminiscent smile that softened his features before disappearing.

  “We had to take them back to use for dinner. Andy would always hold my hand. I was afraid of the water. I don’t remember that. Being afraid. But I remember him holding my hand.”

  His fingers closed around the piece of glass, and Zoe thought maybe he was finished sharing.

  She was trying to think of something to say when he said, “We had nothing when we came here. I don’t remember that either. But Henry and Floret took us in. Gave us a home, became our family. That’s why I brought Eli here when . . . when Andy . . . when Eli’s parents died.”

  This was where she normally would say “I’m sorry,” but it hadn’t worked back at the house, so she didn’t attempt it here. Besides, being sorry didn’t help anything. It was just something you said—even if you meant it—to transition over the awkward moment. “Sorry” was something useless to say unless you had done something wrong.

  Silence descended around them. Only the waves kept their rhythmic caesura, rolling in like the passing of time. One after the other. Like the second hand of the clock. Time was passing for all of them, for Eli and Mel, for David Merrick, for herself. Today the waves were an unrelenting march forward.

  David opened his fingers. The glass sat in his palm, its edges no longer sharp enough to cut, worn down by time and the sand.

  “It belongs there,” she said, and pointed to the glass chime that hung unmoving from a branch of a spindly pine tree. “I have to go.” Which was a stupid thing to say, since he hadn’t invited her here in the first place. Before he could remind her of that, she left him. This time moving quietly, swiftly . . . like the breeze that refused to blow.

  She climbed back to the path. As she passed the stairs, she glanced down to see if he was still there. He was. Still sitting on the log, looking out to sea, the piece of broken glass moving like worry beads in his hands.

  It was as if she’d never been there, sitting next to him, listening as he shared a moment from his past.

  Would it be like that once her duty here was over? Would she drive away, until she was out of sight and out of their minds, a dim wisp of memory, without a soul left to wonder where or what she was.

  She didn’t slow down or even look back at Wind Chime House, but hurried down the drive toward town, heedless of the broken pavement, suddenly anxious to get back to Eve and let her know that Mel was with Floret. And she was safe.

  She wasn’t sure why she felt this urgency. It came on as quickly as the emptiness of the glen today, as her sudden empathy for David Merrick and his memories.

  She hurried toward the sunlight and the bustle of the tourists on the street. Her world. Brightness and energy. Music. And she needed to get back to that. She walked faster, head down, determined to get her life back on track.

  Maybe that’s why she didn’t see the big silver Cadillac making the turn into the drive.

  Chapter 19

  Zoe froze. The car was headed straight for her. And it wasn’t stopping. She jumped to the side, but the car turned toward her. She could only watch, unable to breathe, unable to move. At the last second it swerved to the right, just enough so that instead of hitting her head on, it knocked her to the side.

  She landed hard on the asphalt. Felt a pain flash through her shoulder. Was dimly aware that the car had pulled across the width of the drive, blocking it. The window lowered and a shriveled old woman, cheeks red with rouge, short white hair cupping her head, peered out.

  And Zoe knew who it was. Through the pain and confusion and surprise, she knew. Her grandmother had just tried to run her down.

  Zoe staggered to her knees, felt the sting of skinned flesh on legs, elbows, and palms.

  “Get up, you’re not hurt,” the old woman demanded in a thin, dry voice.

  Yes, she was, and not just physically. Her grandmother wanted to hurt her.
Maybe kill her. One thought looped through the fog in her brain. This is your grandmother. Your grandmother.

  Not the nice lady who lived in a colonial brick house in Long Island, who remembered every birthday, sent little notes on special days, who was kind of old-fashioned and way too conservative for Zoe’s taste, but who would never, ever hurt her or her brothers.

  And suddenly it was really important for this horrible woman to know about that grandmother.

  Zoe staggered to her feet and limped toward the car, her knees throbbing and her shoulder and hip pounding with pain.

  She wasn’t sure what she planned to say or do. Dealing with demanding, demeaning clients had thickened her skin, taught her to watch her back, never to get herself backed into a corner. Placate them, but don’t take shit.

  But she had never had a client try to run her down with a car.

  Her own grandmother had.

  As she reached the Cadillac, the door swung open, forcing her back.

  “I’ve been looking for you, girl. Get where I can see you.”

  Cautiously, Zoe moved away from the car. Her heart breaking. What had she ever done to this woman to make her hate her so?

  Hannah scrutinized her from head to foot. It was pointedly rude and dismissive. Zoe half expected her to tell her to twirl around.

  Hannah snorted. “Now I’ve seen you, you can go back where you came from. You won’t get a thing from me or anyone in this family. I’ve seen you around town trying to weasel your way into this family by sucking up to Eve and her girls.”

  And I’ve seen you, stalking Mel and making everyone’s lives miserable.

  “You can forget it. The only thing you’ll get from claiming you’re my son’s daughter is a heap of trouble.”

  The vitriol pouring from this old woman, who should love her, was staggering. And the only thing Zoe could think of to say was “You’re my grandmother.”

  The woman raised her hand; it was bony and frail and shaking slightly, but whether from emotion or old age, Zoe couldn’t tell.

  “So you say. Where’s your proof?”

  “A letter from my mother saying so.”