by J A Stone
Corey motioned for John to sit down. “I had a meeting with Larry earlier today, and the partners have decided I must take a vacation.”
John’s face showed no surprise, which Corey found interesting. Either Larry had already talked to John, or the partners hadn’t been the only ones thinking she needed to take a break from work. “Larry said for me to brief you on what I’ve got pending that can’t wait a couple of weeks.”
“Sure. Just e-mail the files to me, and I’ll go over them tomorrow. If I have any questions, I’ll let you know. Anything else? I’m supposed to be at the club by five.”
“No . . . except thanks.” Corey hesitated for a moment and then felt like she needed to say something else, or maybe she just wanted to have the last word. “Don’t beat Lester Inman this afternoon. I hear he’s a real bad sport.”
CHAPTER 2
Three hours later, Corey was finally in her car headed home, mentally checking items off her invisible to-do list. Her cell phone rang, startling her because it rang so seldom these days.
“Hey, sis.” The cheerful voice of her sister, Diane, came through the cell phone when she hit the speaker button. “Just checking in. What’s new?”
“Well, my boss ordered me to take two weeks of vacation today,” Corey said.
“You are so lucky! Wish my boss would order me to take a vacation. So what are your plans?”
Corey couldn’t help but smile at her sister’s words. As a teacher, Diane wasn’t exactly lacking in vacation time.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I haven’t had time to think about it yet.” Corey saw the long line of traffic at a standstill ahead of her on Piedmont Road and felt frustrated. Why wasn’t rush hour over by now?
“What a coincidence. I was just calling to pin you down on a date for coming to Mexico Beach, and for once you can’t use work as an excuse. Marcy is at camp right now so we’ll have plenty of time to relax. We’ll drink lots of red wine, lie out on the beach until we turn into crispy critters, and read a trashy beach book every day.”
“Sounds like heaven,” Corey agreed. How long had it been since she’d been to their family’s beach house? Three years? Five years? She couldn’t remember. The beach hadn’t been Luke’s favorite vacation spot. He preferred the excitement of a city. They had taken their vacations to places like Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco instead of Mexico Beach, Florida. But now, Corey suddenly realized that nothing sounded as wonderful to her as sitting on the sugar-white beaches of the Florida Gulf Coast and doing nothing. “Is Sunday too soon?”
“That would be great,” Diane said excitedly, but then she retreated. “Oh wait, I’ve got that teachers’ conference in Tampa starting on Monday. I can be back at the beach on Thursday, though. What if I get Fran to come stay with you until I’m back?”
Corey took her foot off the brake. The traffic was finally moving but still at a crawl. “You don’t have to ask Fran to babysit me. I’m not sick. I’m just tired and overworked. I’ll probably sleep for the first few days anyway. Besides, I haven’t seen Fran since she gave that party for me right before I got married. Is she living at the beach yet?”
“No, not yet, but I think Mark’s almost ready to take the plunge. They’ll probably be living there by this time next year. Okay, I won’t call Fran, but by the time I get there, you better be rested and ready to play.”
The car in front of Corey stopped suddenly, and without her full attention on the road, she almost rear-ended it. “Damn it. Hey, I better pay attention to my driving. I’ll talk to you later.”
When Corey pulled up in front of her end-unit condo, Romeo, one half of the gay couple who lived in the unit next door to her, was standing on his front porch. He had a large manila envelope halfway out of the mailbox mounted beside his door, and he was carefully trying to extricate the rest without damaging it. Their mailman seemed to take perverse pleasure in wedging items into their tiny mailboxes that were way too large for the space.
“I’m going to report him this time,” Romeo said with a huff, his smooth, round face flushed with anger as Corey approached him. “Any fool could see that this doesn’t fit.”
Every time Corey saw Romeo standing on his porch, she remembered the first time Luke had met him standing there. “Romeo? Really? Come on, guy, what’s your real name?” One of Luke’s most endearing or obnoxious qualities, depending upon whether you liked what he said or not, was that he usually said exactly what he thought.
Without a word, their offended neighbor had immediately pulled out his driver’s license and thrust it at Luke. It read Romeo Kermit Thompson. “So . . . what . . . do you think . . . about that?” Romeo had asked, each word dripping with indignant sarcasm.
Without a moment’s hesitation, and using his most adorable grin, Luke had said, “I think you chose the better of the two names. My apologies. Please come over for drinks after we get moved in so I’ll know you’ve forgiven me.”
Romeo struggled to hold on to his righteous anger. “Well, since we are going to be neighbors, I suppose it would help if we are friendly. My partner, Gary, and I will look forward to joining you.”
Once inside their condo, Luke had dissolved into laughter. “Poor guy, his childhood must have been hell with two names like that.” Despite the rocky start to their relationship, Luke had managed to charm Romeo and Gary with his honest, self-confident manner when they came over for drinks. Gary was a giant hulk of a man who sort of reminded Corey of Sean Connery in his later James Bond roles. Romeo was small and compact with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. His wry comments delivered in a soft South Carolina twang often took Corey by surprise. Still, he’d cried more at Luke’s funeral than Corey, who’d remained stoically dry-eyed. Corey had been cried out. Or maybe just shell-shocked. How many losses could one person stand?
The mailbox finally released the envelope in one piece, and Romeo turned to Corey. “You want to eat with us tonight? Gary’s cooking at home for a change, and you know he always has plenty.”
“You’re sweet, but not tonight.” Corey appreciated their thoughtfulness, she really did, but she often felt more alone while having dinner with the happy couple than she did when she was in her condo by herself. “I’m leaving for a couple of weeks on Sunday, so I’ve got a lot of packing to do. Would you mind getting the mail while I’m gone?”
“Be glad to. I hope this is a vacation and not work,” Romeo said with an inquiring expression on his face.
“Definitely a vacation. I’ll be spending two weeks relaxing on a Florida beach.”
“Good, and don’t waste one minute worrying about anything here. We’ll have everything under control.”
“I appreciate it,” Corey said. “See ya later.”
She put her key into the lock. Entering the dark, empty house was the worst part of her day. She turned on lights in every room as she went, and immediately turned on the television for noise. Her condo reminded her of a cave—cold and dank—even on a sweltering summer day like today. After shrugging off her work clothes and putting on her fuzzy blue bathrobe, she sank wearily to the sofa. She decided to order shrimp fried rice from the place on Tenth Street that delivered, but by the time it finally arrived, she wasn’t very hungry. She added the Styrofoam container, still more than half-full, to the city of Styrofoam containers in her refrigerator, adding a mental note to her list to throw away all those leftovers before leaving on Sunday.
Her mother, if she were looking down at her from heaven right now, would be appalled. She had always considered throwing food away to be a sin. If leftovers weren’t served again in their original form, they should be reconstituted into soup or casseroles. “I love leftovers,” her mother always said.
Once, Corey had asked her dad how he ate her mother’s dried-out meat loaf for the second day in a row with so much enthusiasm. “Do you really like it?”
Her father had winked at her conspiratorially. “To be honest, I don’t. But I love your mother, and if it makes her happy, I gue
ss I can put up with dried-out meat loaf every once in a while.” Being a typical teenager, Corey had thought that if her mother loved them, she wouldn’t ask them to eat dried-out meat loaf for the second day in a row.
Corey felt exhausted, but she always waited until midnight or later to get into bed because then she was likely to sleep for five or six uninterrupted hours. If she went to bed at ten, she was likely to wake up at two, and then she’d be unable to go back to sleep for the rest of the night. Her late-night bedtime ritual, as bizarre as it might seem, was better than taking the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for her. Those pills made her feel as if she were walking around in a haze for much of the following day.
The next few days were hectic, but by Sunday, Corey had managed to settle her affairs at work and had packed everything she could possibly think of, including the half-dead ficus tree, into her Lexus SUV. If her sister thought her strange for bringing her houseplant to the beach, she didn’t care. Corey had realized over the weekend that if she left the plant for two weeks, it would certainly be dead when she returned. Corey hoped Diane, the earth mother, could bring it back from the brink.
She stopped for a brief visit with Luke’s mother, Nancy, on her way out of town. Corey felt guilty that Nancy would probably have no visitors for the next two weeks. Nancy had sold her house in Buckhead after Luke’s death and moved into a retirement home. Peachtree Wilden was advertised as the most prestigious retirement community in Atlanta, but it was far from Nancy’s friends, and she seemed to have little interest in making new ones. When Corey arrived, Nancy held up her paper-white cheek for a kiss. She was slight, stooped, and brittle like fine china. Corey barely touched her face with her lips, afraid Nancy might bruise with any more force. Upon hearing about her vacation, Nancy seemed genuinely happy that Corey was taking some time off. “It is way past due, darling,” she said before urging Corey to get on the road so that she would arrive in Florida before dark.
The almost nonexistent traffic on Interstate 85 made the trip out of Atlanta a pleasure, and once Corey was out of the city, the road felt like a long-lost friend. Immediately some of the weight she’d been carrying seemed lighter. It was hard to believe she hadn’t made the trip home to Florida for so many years. But going back had been difficult after both of her parents died in a car accident while she was in law school. The massive coronary her father had suffered while driving had ended his life quickly. Her mother had hung on for a few more days before dying from the injuries she’d suffered in the accident. Now Corey’s sister, Diane; Diane’s husband, Jack; and their daughter, Marcy, were all the family Corey had left living in the small town of Marianna, Florida. With Corey’s work schedule, and then Luke’s illness, it had been easier for Diane and her family to come to Atlanta for holidays and visits. Nancy was right, Corey thought. This trip is way past due.
When Corey got close to her destination, she opened the car window so she could smell the salty air. The gray moss dripping from the pine trees seemed like decorations welcoming her back to the beach. She had missed all this. Every summer, she, Diane, and their mother had moved to their beach house—at Mexico Beach—an hour away from their hometown of Marianna. Her father would come down on Friday nights after work and go back on Monday mornings. A longing for her past swept over her as she approached the Overstreet Bridge, which had once been a floating bridge that was moved into or out of place by a large crane. She thought about the time she almost wet her pants while waiting for a huge boat to pass through. There was no waiting anymore. Corey cruised over the new, white-concrete bridge, made a right turn, then a left, and there she was at Mexico Beach. When she pulled up to their beach house, which had always looked exactly like a tan barn on stilts to her, she was surprised to see her sister standing on the wooden deck. Diane, with her frosted short hair blowing haphazardly in a stiff breeze, yelled down to her, “Glad you still know the way!”
Corey waved back at her as she stepped out of the car. Diane was eleven years older and had just turned forty-three. Since their parents’ deaths, Diane had been more like a mother to her than a sister. And since Luke’s death, Diane had been more like a Jewish mother, constantly worrying about Corey. Sometimes she wished her sister didn’t call her quite so much. Sometimes she just wanted to be left alone. Most of the time, however, she felt lucky to have a sister who cared so much for her.
“I’m not sure I’m at the right place,” Corey answered, looking up at a new wooden deck that wrapped around a glassed-in porch. “The old place looks a lot different than I remember it.”
“These are the renovations you paid for but have never seen. Remember that check you mailed to me?”
Corey remembered arguing with Luke over the money. Luke had suggested they offer Diane her interest in the beach house instead of paying her the $20,000 she’d requested.
“Seriously, Corey,” he’d said, “how often will you be able to make the six-hour drive down to Florida? It makes more sense for us to take the money and buy something at Lake Lanier that we might actually be able to use.”
It might have made more sense, but Corey wasn’t doing it. She’d taken the money from her parents’ inheritance and sent Diane the check she’d requested. It was the first time she’d ever gone against Luke’s wishes, and she was glad to finally see what she’d paid for.
“Let me look at you!” Diane squealed as she ran down the steps. “Perhaps I should send that boss of yours a thank-you present. Good grief, Corey, you’re nothing but a bag of bones.”
Corey’s excitement about being at the beach and seeing Diane evaporated instantly. Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears, which took her by surprise because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.
“It’s okay, darling.” Diane shushed her. “Let’s get your things in. What is that? Why in heaven’s name did you drag a ficus tree down here?”
Corey smiled sadly through her tears. “I wanted it to live.”
“Okeydokey, then,” Diane said in her teacher voice as she looked at Corey curiously. “Let’s leave it under the deck where it can get lots of indirect sunlight. In this heat, you’d better water it every day while I’m gone.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” Corey asked. “I thought you were going to Tampa.”
“Had to get you settled in first, didn’t I? But since we’re leaving Marianna at seven in the morning, I’ve got to go home tonight. I feel just dreadful leaving you. Won’t you please let me call Fran to come spend the night?”
“I’m a big girl,” Corey said. “You know, I do somehow manage to take care of myself in Atlanta.”
“Not very well, I might say, now that I’m looking at you. Come on.” After they’d finished carrying all of Corey’s things up to the house, Diane showed her the renovations.
“You turned the old screened porch into a sunroom! How marvelous!” Corey exclaimed. “You’ve done a really good job of modernizing the house without losing its beachiness.”
“Beachiness? Oh well, whatever, I’m glad you like it. I’ve felt like I should be paying you rent these past several years.”
“It feels so good to be here that you may not be able to get rid of me.”
“Nothing could make me happier,” Diane said. “Are you hungry? The refrigerator’s got the basics, so you should be okay for a few days. I also made some chicken salad and a breakfast casserole, which just needs to be reheated in the microwave.”
Corey was overwhelmed by Diane’s thoughtfulness. Although she wasn’t terribly hungry, she pretended she was, and surprisingly, once she’d taken a few bites of Diane’s incredible chicken salad, she found that she actually was hungry. Between bites she said, “Di, you don’t have to hang around here with me. I’m fine, really. I’d rather you start for home before it gets any later. You know you aren’t that great of a driver in the daylight.”
Diane stood up from the sofa where she’d been sitting and stretched. “Yeah, if you’re going to start insulting me, I guess I mi
ght as well leave. Call me if you have any questions about where anything is. And don’t bother walking down with me.”
After Diane’s exit, Corey looked at the clock on the microwave. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock, but she felt dead tired. She locked up downstairs and went up to her bedroom, where she heard the sound track of her childhood in the ceiling fan’s clicking noise. In spite of the air-conditioning blasting away, she opened the bedroom window a crack so that she could add the murmur of the ocean to her playlist. She closed her eyes and let the sounds take her back. Her parents were downstairs—swinging on the old screen porch swing—talking and laughing. Corey remembered lying in that old iron bed, straining to hear what they were talking about, feeling secure in the knowledge that nothing could ever harm her while they were down there. She opened her eyes. What she wouldn’t give for that feeling of security now. But it was gone—just like the scuff marks she’d made on the walls as a kid had been erased by a fresh coat of soft white paint so that everything in the room now looked shiny and new.
CHAPTER 3
Corey woke confused in the strange bed in the dark. After a few moments, she remembered where she was and saw on her cell phone that it was only three a.m. There was no television in the room, and without any mindless entertainment to occupy her, Corey’s thoughts strayed immediately to Luke. How ironic that a runner who’d never smoked a day in his life had died of lung cancer.