by Jenny Hale
“I think so,” Sasha said, shielding her eyes so she could participate in the conversation without being blinded by the sun. “They’re at the back of my trailer. The sea wind is cooler closer to the ocean and, with the shade of the umbrella, the temperatures might just be bearable.”
They were in for a hot summer, the radio had said on the journey.
Perfect for ice cream.
* * *
Einstein alternated between digging in the sand and sprawling under the shade of the beach umbrella that they’d dug out of the trailer and brought down to the shore. It hadn’t been long before the champagne had come out. They’d opened it once they’d finished their iced tea, and it was clear that the alcohol had loosened Melly and Sasha up. Melly had kicked off her flip-flops, her feet buried in the sand, her head tipped back against the chair like she was trying to get some color on her face, that wispy hair dangling over the sand behind her, and Sasha had that familiar glazed look to her eyes and the funny smile she only got when she’d been drinking.
Alice could feel a slight buzz of her own, but she’d cut back, knowing she needed to keep an eye on Henry in the water. It was nice to see Sasha and Melly relaxing, though. Melly fit in like they’d known her for ages, but Alice could’ve guessed that right when she’d met her.
“I’m actually here because I’ve run away,” Melly confessed. She said it like it was nothing, her head still tipped back, her eyes closed, but both Sasha and Alice stared at her, waiting for her to make eye contact. Run away? To what kind of running away was Melly referring? Alice observed her with different eyes, wondering if she was some sort of fugitive, or had she joined the witness protection program? Melly finally lifted her head to take another sip of her champagne and then clearly realized they were both gaping at her.
“Oh!” she said, looking back and forth between them. “My husband doesn’t know where I am.”
Sasha’s eyes grew wider, that smile of hers dropping to a frown of confusion, shocking Melly into further explanation.
“I mean, my ex-husband. We’re divorced. Nearly.” As she said the word “divorced,” her face looked weathered suddenly, worn and tired.
“Well, join the club, sistah,” Sasha said lightheartedly. “That’s why the two of us are here. My husband left too. And Alice’s scumbag boyfriend ran off with his personal trainer.” Sasha paused dramatically and eyed them both.
Einstein shook his body, sending sand onto Alice’s leg, and then rolled over onto his back and tried to bite his tail.
“I feel like we need to start a women’s support group or something. Look at us!” Sasha waved her hands in the air, the champagne sloshing precariously in her glass. (She’d opted not to use the coffee mug after all.) “We’ve all been hurt and we are smokin’ hot women!”
Melly leaned forward, avoiding a laugh that would propel her sip of champagne onto the sand. She swallowed it down.
“And not just hot—we’re strong, independent women. Am I right?” She winked at Alice, making her smile.
“I’d like to find someone I could grow old with, though,” Melly offered, a far-away look in her eyes for just an instant before she snapped to, taking another sip of her champagne. “But we’ll find someone if it’s meant to be. There might even be someone right here—you never know!”
Sasha raised her eyebrows in Alice’s direction before saying, “Alice might have found someone already! She met a guy at the grocery store. He grabbed her apples.” She snorted with hysterics and Alice rolled her eyes.
“Do tell!” Melly said, stifling a grin.
Alice took in a deep breath, trying not to break out into an embarrassingly large smile at the thought of him. “His name is Jack Murphy, and he didn’t grab my anything. I barely know him.”
Melly’s glass tipped precariously to the side, the liquid nearly spilling onto the sand, her eyes as round as saucers. “Doctor Jack Murphy? The Dr. Murphy?”
Alice met Melly’s eyes, curiosity filling her. Doctor? “I guess. Do you know him?”
“I’m a nurse at the local hospital and all the nurses know who he is. He’s this famous, uber-wealthy, single doctor that they all swoon over. He’s in town, staying with his father.”
An unexpected surge of excitement shot through Alice’s chest. He wasn’t married like she’d originally thought…
“Apparently, he used to live here,” Melly continued, “but left his father all alone on the island to chase his millions in Chicago. He only came home, we hear, because he owed another doctor at the hospital a favor.”
“Really,” Alice said, her chest feeling like a deflated balloon, her hopes dashed. Well, that would make more sense than the picture of him that she’d created in her mind. Real life had slapped her in the face before she’d let herself get caught up in her feelings. She shouldn’t feel disappointed; instead, she should consider herself lucky to have found out this soon.
Sasha was casting her protective stare at her friend, but she didn’t need to. Alice wasn’t going to allow anyone to hurt her like Matt had ever again, so she didn’t need to worry. “So,” she said, changing the subject. “Enough about Jack. I’m dying to know: how did you end up here?” she asked Melly.
Melly took in a deep breath as if to clear the air of all her thoughts. “I’ve never lived at the beach before, but I saw this job for a nurse at the hospital here and I jumped at the chance. I drove all the way here to interview and it went well! The director did say that he had to tell everyone the position could be only temporary, but he assured me that the warning was just a formality to cover himself on paper. The hospital is growing and needs the staff and I didn’t have anything to worry about. While I’d normally wait and see, something in me told me to jump with both feet. I did a search for cottages on this street, and it was very difficult to find one, so when mine came on the market, I bought it sight unseen. It didn’t matter what it looked like—I’d make it work. The cottage took all my savings, but I don’t even care because I’d always told myself I was saving that money for a rainy day. This is my rainy day.” Melly smiled, and looked out at the ocean, clearly proud of herself for making the move.
The three of them sat, looking out at the crashing waves, their similar circumstances unifying them—or at least that was how Alice felt about it. She’d scrolled through social media a thousand times after her breakup, peering down at all those photos of happy families; their new houses, or their vacations to exotic places, kids with new toys, anniversary celebrations—all of it made her feel like she’d missed out on something. And even though the three of them, sprawled in their beach chairs after having a little too much champagne, weren’t comparable to those gorgeous photos she’d seen online, it made her feel like there really were people like her, that she wasn’t alone, and that she could do this.
Chapter Seven
Henry rode the waves in the whole evening. Alice wondered if he would stay out all night if she let him. The sea enchanted him—she could see it in his eyes—and it gave her confidence that she was making the right choice by moving here. She’d never made such a major decision so quickly before, but like her new friend, this, too, was her rainy day.
Alice wriggled her toes, the sand dancing on her feet. She peered down at the grains, realizing they weren’t sand but the little mites that the sandpipers chased as they pattered down toward the breaking waves. She shook her feet and set them on top of the earth, the surface like fire from the day’s sun. She didn’t mind. The drinks and the lapping waves had given her a sense of numbing calm that made her feel like everything would be okay as long as she just sat back and let it happen naturally.
She’d hardly thought about Matt all day, and from the look of it, neither had Henry, which was exactly how she wanted it. They were swept up in the magic of the Outer Banks, pulled from their old reality, and facing a bright summer ahead.
Melly grasped the arm of the chair with one hand, her nearly empty glass in the other. “I suppose I need to go home and get s
ome things done. I have an early shift in the morning.”
Alice stood up beside her, the spray from the ocean floating through the air, cooling her skin where the alcohol and sun had heated it. She’d enjoyed making a new friend. Today had made Alice feel like she belonged in the Outer Banks.
Sasha stood up too, grabbing the bottle between her fingers.
“Yes, and Henry needs some dinner,” Alice said, as the three women looked out at him. Einstein sat up, his ears perking in interest. She reached down and stroked his head, her gaze out in front of her.
A wave pummeled Henry’s little body, the boogie board flying from the surf like a rocket. He popped above the bubbling crash of the wave, shook off the water, and sent a thumbs-up their way, a smile enveloping his entire face.
“Are you hungry?” Alice called down to him.
Henry shook his head, his board—neon green and black with an orange flash of a logo on the other side—under his arm. He hadn’t been this excited about something since baseball, and it was nice to see. She couldn’t help but feel the thrill that this interest was something different than his father’s baseball. It was uniquely Henry’s. He had a whole strip of islands to explore, full of new opportunities. Perhaps he’d find himself here.
Alice walked down to him. “Well, come in anyway. It’s probably good that you take a break. The waves will be there whenever you want them.”
They all gathered the chairs and put down the umbrella. Alice shook the towel downwind to free all the sand that Einstein had put on it and folded it up, wadding it under her arm, while Sasha held Einstein’s leash in one hand and the chairs in the other. Seeing the umbrella lying alone in the sand, Melly grabbed it, and they walked back up to the house.
Once all the beach gear had been safely stored against the house on the patio, Melly said her goodbyes and Alice and Sasha went inside with Henry and Einstein.
“I like Melly,” Sasha said, peering at their new friend through the window as she crossed the street to her cottage.
“Yes, she’s so much like us, isn’t she?”
Sasha nodded, and the solidarity in her eyes told Alice that Sasha felt just like she did about Melly. It was as if they were all meant to meet. Alice hadn’t asked Melly why she’d run from her ex-husband, but Alice could understand without an explanation because, in a way, she was running too; Alice was escaping a life of mediocrity, a life of trying to make things work that just didn’t.
Once they were upstairs, Alice pulled a blue and white check tablecloth from one of the boxes and fluffed it out before putting it on the table. Einstein tried to grab it, jumping in the air, but she shooed him away playfully. He settled on the floor, his oversized paws causing a thud on the hardwoods. Not long after, he allowed the exhaustion to take over from spending the day on the beach and he laid his head down, sprawled across the floor, closing his eyes.
Alice fixed Henry a sandwich in the small kitchenette and set it in front of him as he climbed up onto the chair. His hair was fuzzing up on top, the humidity taking hold of the drying strands. She also noticed that his cheeks were pink from the sun, reminding her that here, where the rays were so strong, she’d have to reapply his sunscreen more often.
“Did you have fun today?” Alice asked, sliding a glass of milk with one of his favorite bendy straws next to his plate. He got on his knees and leaned over his plate to take a sip from it. Einstein heaved himself to his feet and moved under the table, where he curled up sleepily with a chew toy Alice had gotten the day she’d bought him, his tail thumping the old wooden floor.
“It was so much fun!” Henry picked up his sandwich and took a bite from the middle, leaving crumbs on each cheek. “Can I go back out after I eat?”
“Maybe wait a little while so you don’t get a cramp.”
Alice had no idea how she was going to get anything unpacked with Henry outside all day. Sasha would gladly watch him, but she didn’t want to put that burden on her friend—Sasha had her own unpacking to do—and nor did she want to make Sasha decorate the whole upstairs apartment while she was outside. But that was what being a single mom was all about: figuring it out. At the end of the day, she had to do it all.
From the time she was a young girl, Alice had wanted to be a mom. As a child, she never asked for just one baby doll for Christmas; instead, she’d ask for three or four, pretending to adopt them all and have her own little family. She cared for each one, changing its diapers, feeding the ones that actually cried like real babies, and putting them all to bed individually. Perhaps she was practicing early for her role as a single mother. The difference was, Henry didn’t have a house full of siblings. And while taking care of him was difficult all by herself, she would gladly have a house brimming with kids.
Having also grown up as an only child, she knew what Henry’s childhood was like, and she wanted more for him. Perhaps it was her deepest yearning to have a sister of her own—someone she could share things with, someone who wouldn’t judge her because after all, they were family, and family does anything for one another. But she was lucky in other ways. She had great friends like Sasha.
Alice pulled the white porcelain water jug from the box and set it in the center of the table. “I’d like to get some yellow daisies for this.”
“That would be so pretty,” Sasha said, her phone in the palm of her hand as she sat down in the chair beside Henry.
For the most part, Sasha had seemed to enjoy the afternoon and she’d been more herself than she had recently, although she wasn’t quite as lively as she normally was. To a passerby she would look completely normal, but Alice knew better; she could see something lurking below her skin, weighing her friend down. Henry offered her a potato chip.
“Thank you,” she told him as she popped it into her mouth.
Alice leaned on the windowsill to take in the view of the ocean through the small window. “We could open this wall up a bit when we renovate to get in some light.” She turned around. The walls were white clapboard, and with the blue of the tablecloth she’d placed on the table, it had a nautical feel already. She was really just making conversation with her remark about opening the wall, though. The majority of her money would go toward the restoration downstairs for the ice cream shop rather than anything upstairs, but she could just imagine the potential of this place. With a few alterations, it could be amazing, and the views were stunning.
Sasha was madly typing on her phone. “Guess what,” she said, her eyes never leaving the little screen in her hand. “We’ve got a dinner date with Jack Murphy. I just set it up.” She finally made eye contact and waved her phone in the air.
The champagne had clearly had its way with Sasha’s discretion. She would usually at least ask Alice before throwing her out on a date. At least it was a group date. “What did you say to him?” Alice asked, her heart speeding up at the memory of those arms. She tried unsuccessfully to free her mind from the image as Melly’s little anecdote surfaced.
“I just told him that we wanted to thank him for helping you.”
“Who’s Jack Murphy?” Henry asked, and Alice prickled with unease.
“No one important,” she told him. “Just someone I met in town. He helped me find my handbag.” But, despite her own caution, as she remembered the adorable look on Jack’s face when he caught the last few apples, she had to straighten out the smile that kept wanting to surface.
Chapter Eight
They’d spent the whole next day unpacking while Henry busied himself with building a model train he’d found in one of Gramps’s trunks. As young as he was, he had meticulous attention to detail and he was able to focus for quite some time on it. Alice had been so grateful for those trains because they had allowed her and Sasha to spend the entire day getting things done. It was as if Gramps had offered to watch Henry for her. She looked over at the train, now completely assembled, and smiled at the thought.
By the time Alice had gotten ready for dinner, she’d completely convinced herself that she
wasn’t even going to think about Jack after this evening. What Melly had told her about him kept running through her head. As she’d gotten her sundress on—the white flowy one that she’d brought along for special occasions—she’d wondered against her will about the type of girls Jack liked, immediately scolding herself. It was an indulgent line of thinking, but there was something about him that made her yearn to know more. Just pondering these things, she wanted to kick herself. So, as she clasped her last silver hoop earring, she reminded herself that she and Henry were just fine on their own, where neither of them could get their heart broken again.
Henry had on a pale blue surf shirt that she’d picked up for him at the local shop when she’d run out for more milk after Melly had left yesterday. All his clothes were wrinkled from being packed, and she wanted him to look nice. She didn’t know why—it was none of Jack Murphy’s business whether or not she dressed her child in wrinkled clothing—but for whatever reason, she wanted to make a good impression. The color of the shirt against his sun-kissed skin and white-blond hair brought out his sapphire eyes.
“You look handsome,” Alice told her son as they walked into the beachside restaurant.
Henry puffed out his chest with a smile. “Thank you.”
Alice put her hand on his back to lead him inside. The restaurant was open to the air, the beach waves competing with the island music playing. Bright lanterns hanging from the top of the bar swayed in the breeze that had wound its way in from the shore. The whole place had floors made of thick planks of wood salvaged from old boats and cottages, and the walls were covered in surfing stickers, competition posters, and snapshots of locals.
She zeroed in on Jack as he stood up and waved, beckoning them over to a table for four, menus already in place in front of each chair.