by J A Stone
For as long as Corey had known Luke, he’d suffered from a persistent, chronic cough. When Luke had gone in for checkups, his doctor had shrugged it off as an allergic reaction to an abundance of Atlanta pine pollen and smog. After all, Luke was young and healthy. In fact, he and his doctor had been planning on running the Boston Marathon together. However, the doctor’s casual demeanor disappeared after Luke started coughing up blood. By that time, the cancer had already spread to his liver. Sitting in the doctor’s office looking at the scans, Corey had known that Luke’s condition was serious, yet she hadn’t believed he might die. How could he? She couldn’t imagine her future without him in it.
On each trip they made—to the Mayo Clinic, to Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital, to every cancer center anyone recommended—Corey thought that this was where they would find his cure. Every doctor, though, said basically the same thing: Luke had one to two years to live, depending on how well he responded to the chemotherapy treatments he’d started after his surgery at Emory Hospital. In the end, there was no miracle cure anywhere. Luke lived only one more year. Corey didn’t want to think about that last year now. She got up and took one of her sleeping pills. She had nowhere to be the next morning, so it didn’t matter how late she slept or how groggy she felt.
When she woke many hours later to bright sunlight streaming through her bedroom window, Corey realized she was hungry. She remembered the breakfast casserole Diane had left for her in the fridge, and she pulled her exhausted body downstairs to the kitchen. How could she still be this tired?
She made herself a little picnic of breakfast casserole, fruit, and cinnamon rolls on the coffee table and curled up on the sofa to snack and watch the classic Clark Gable movie It Happened One Night. Corey associated breakfast casserole with Christmas mornings, so eating it on a random Monday in early July made the day seem special to her. Curiously, she felt comfortable being alone there at the beach house, and not miserable like she did when she was alone at her condo. Here, she could almost hear her dad whistling as he repaired fishing tackle or did some other odd job. She could almost smell one of her mother’s pies baking in the kitchen, and she could almost see Diane’s angry face staring down at her after finding Corey listening through her bedroom keyhole to whatever secrets she and Fran had been hiding from her. Memories like those felt good.
She dozed on and off for the remainder of the afternoon on the sofa. Several times she awoke in a mild panic, with her heart racing, after having a dream in which she hadn’t completed some work-related task.
Late that afternoon, Diane called. “How ya doing?”
“Great.” Corey yawned. “I left the bed for the sofa and have barely moved all afternoon. I’ve been watching old movies and eating like a pig.”
“Good, just what the doctor ordered. We’ve already checked in to our rooms, and our group is heading out for a swinging dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Don’t you wish you were here?”
“Nah, not really. If I get energetic, I may open a bottle of wine, but that’s about as much swinging as I want to do. You go and have some fun now, and don’t call me anymore. I’m fine.”
The sun was getting ready to set, so Corey decided to move her party out to the sunporch. Although the house wasn’t on the beachfront, she could see the water in the distance and the sun hovering like some alien spaceship right above the horizon. She marveled at how much their sleepy beach community had grown in her absence. A brand-new yellow house had been built to the right. The contrast between the lush, green manicured lawn of the new house and the sparse brown grass surrounding Corey’s beach house was startling. When did Mexico Beach attract the type of people who cared about their lawns? Who would spend time working on their lawns when they could be out on the beach or on the water fishing?
Across the street, and on the beachfront, Corey was pleased to see that the MacKinnon house—a faded, one-story, dark-wood house on stilts—hadn’t changed one bit from how she remembered it. The tightly closed blinds let her know that no one was home, even though she couldn’t see if cars were parked beneath it because of the trees. She wondered idly what Tripp MacKinnon was up to these days. Although she hadn’t kept in touch with him over the last several years, he’d been an integral part of all her childhood summers. Diane and her friends never let Corey hang around with them too long, so unless she’d invited a friend to stay, the only other possibility for a playmate was Tripp. And if there were no other boys around for him to play with, he might just lower himself to play with her. Corey had never been able to understand why she wasn’t good enough for him. She could fish just as well as he could, and when they raced their bikes down the back beach road to get ice cream, sometimes she won. When they’d grown older, he’d kissed her for the first time underneath the pier on the Fourth of July.
“Come on,” he’d pleaded. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like?”
At eleven years old, Corey hadn’t really cared. Finally, curiosity got the better of her.
“Have you ever done it before?” she asked innocently.
“Of course,” Tripp said smugly. “How would I know what to do if I hadn’t?” He approached her clumsily and stuck his tongue in her mouth.
“Ugh!” she said, pulling away immediately and wiping her mouth. “That’s gross!”
“Yeah—with you, it is,” he said angrily. “I never should have tried it with a kid.”
Lost in her memories, Corey realized she’d missed the sunset. Oh well, there will be another sunset tomorrow. Of that one thing she felt reasonably sure.
Surprisingly, she was still sleepy after lazing around for most of the day. She decided to go to bed early again, but this time she slept like a baby all night. Unfortunately, she also woke up like a baby around six a.m. Corey stretched contentedly and realized she didn’t feel tired anymore. Perhaps all she’d needed was twenty-four hours of sleep to begin to feel more like herself.
Today she’d get out. She’d go for a run and then spend the day on the beach. She felt excited, like a kid, and couldn’t wait to get the day going. She enjoyed a few more bites of breakfast casserole and then dressed in her gym shorts, T-shirt, and Nikes. Sadness began to simmer as she tied her laces. She hadn’t been running in a long time. Luke had been addicted to running, and they’d usually done it together. Corey shook off her memories and headed out toward the marina down the back beach road.
An hour later she returned, very sweaty in spite of the fact that she’d been forced to stop and catch her breath several times. Not so long ago, she and Luke had been able to run six miles without even thinking about it. Now, being unable to run only a couple of miles without stopping to rest, she realized how horribly out of shape she was.
Corey changed into her swimsuit and grabbed all the paraphernalia she’d need for a day on the beach. She found a small Igloo cooler just the right size for an apple, a turkey sandwich, and two bottles of water. She found an assortment of sunscreen tubes (no Coppertone), including one with an SPF of ninety-five. Corey hadn’t even known they made sunscreen with that level of protection. She said a silent prayer of thanks to Diane for having it, because with her skin color right now, she would probably burn with anything less. A towel, an umbrella, a chair—she finally had everything she needed for the beach. It was difficult making her way, and about halfway down, she began to wish she hadn’t brought so much junk. Pausing for a few minutes to rest by the MacKinnon house, Corey saw that she’d been right. There was no evidence that anyone was home.
Finally, she made it to the beach and looked around for a place to sit. A large tent was over to the left, where two grandparents sat watching a toddler playing in the sand. To the right, a man and a woman sat in folding beach chairs. Corey didn’t think she recognized any of them, but her memory wasn’t so good after being away from the area for such a long time. She smiled and waved just in case. A Frisbee landed right next to her feet.
“Sorry, lady,” a young boy of probably ten yelled. “Will you throw i
t back?”
“Sure.” She threw it, but a gust of wind took it out into the water. The boy looked disgustedly at her and then headed into the water to fetch it.
“I didn’t mean to!” Corey shouted. But he didn’t look back. She marveled at the emerald-green water, so clear that the boy easily found the Frisbee within seconds.
After setting up her umbrella and chair, she opened the mystery novel she’d found on one of the shelves in the beach house. Unfortunately, the romantic interlude at the beginning wasn’t the sort of entertainment she’d been looking for, so she ate her sandwich and engaged in people-watching instead. An elderly man and woman plodding slowly down the beach holding hands brought unexpected tears yet again to her eyes. How wonderful to still be in love at their age.
She felt certain that, given the opportunity, she and Luke could have been like that little old man and little old woman holding hands, walking down the beach. Well, maybe not. Since Luke hadn’t liked the beach, they probably would have been walking and holding hands along a street somewhere. Still, she ached for that lifetime of love and togetherness those people had shared and that she would never have with Luke. Life just isn’t fair! The day that had begun with such excitement seemed dull and ordinary now. It was just another day, like so many other days, that she had to get through.
After a while, she began to feel drowsy from the cool breeze and the food she’d eaten. She spread her beach towel out on the sand and lay down. Coated in sunscreen, and under the umbrella, Corey let the sound of the surf lull her to sleep. She must have slept for a while, because when she opened her eyes, the families on both sides of her were gone, and thunder was crackling in the distance. She hadn’t brought her cell phone to the beach, so she didn’t know how long she’d slept, but either the sky had darkened because of the storm, or it had been a long while. If she didn’t start hustling, she was going to be caught in the rain.
“Damn it!” Corey exclaimed as the umbrella suddenly blew ten feet or so down the beach. Quickly she gathered everything else together into a pile and went to chase the umbrella. Each time she got close, another gust of wind caught it and moved it a bit farther down the beach. This is getting ridiculous. Why not just go buy another umbrella tomorrow?
“Need some help?” a deep voice said behind her.
Corey whipped around to see Tripp MacKinnon standing on the beach in a business suit but with no shoes on. Thunder boomed again, seeming much closer this time.
He smiled in that boyishly familiar way. “Let’s get your stuff up now, and we’ll rescue the umbrella after the storm.”
“Sounds good,” Corey agreed. They didn’t engage in any small talk but just grabbed her stuff and headed toward the path. Still, they were only halfway up the beach path when the raindrops started falling heavy and hard. They dashed under the MacKinnon house as lightning flashed close by.
“Drop your stuff here,” Tripp commanded. “Let’s get inside before we’re electrocuted.”
Corey nodded in a daze. She’d forgotten how intense these sudden afternoon thunderstorms could be at the beach. Quickly, she followed Tripp up the stairs and into his house. The cold air and her wet clothes made her start shivering uncontrollably. Tripp walked to the back of the house and came back with a large towel. Gratefully, she wrapped it around her body and felt some of the cold subside.
“I hope your suit isn’t ruined,” Corey said apologetically.
“I don’t think a little rainwater will hurt it. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to go take it off and let it start drying. You want some dry clothes? I can probably find a robe or something for you to put on.”
“Save your suit. I’m fine.” Corey watched Tripp disappear down the hall and then looked around at the house. It was like stepping back in time to her childhood, as nothing had changed—still the same pale-wood paneling, avocado-colored appliances, and brown shag carpet. She hated to think of how much sand might be in that carpet after all these years.
Tripp breezed back into the room. He’d donned a pair of well-worn khaki shorts and a faded blue T-shirt with pink-and-turquoise fish on the back. Corey thought Tripp was like the room: not much had changed in his appearance since the last time she’d seen him either. Well, he might be a bit heavier, and he might have a bit less blond hair on top, but those sleepy brown eyes set in his deeply tanned face looked exactly the same.
“Did you recognize me down on the beach? Or were you just playing Boy Scout and doing your good deed for the day?” she asked.
“I recognized you, all right. How could I not remember that tall, skinny body of yours?” Tripp paused for dramatic effect. “Of course, it did help that Diane called a couple of days ago to tell me you were coming.”
Corey felt her face flush. Of course Diane had called him. “It’s been a while,” she finally managed to say.
“Yeah . . . uh, and . . . I was real sorry to hear about your husband.”
Corey felt the blood in her face drain away. For maybe ten or fifteen minutes, she’d been another Corey—not Corey the widow. With Tripp’s few words, her reality snapped back into place. “Thanks,” she said softly.
Tripp self-consciously tapped his fingers against the breakfast bar. “You want something to drink? A beer, or a cup of coffee, perhaps, to warm up?”
“Coffee would be nice if you’ve got it.” Corey walked over to the bar. She felt dry enough to sit down on a bar stool across from him.
Tripp fiddled with putting the coffeemaker together. Finally, when he opened the refrigerator to pull out a container of coffee, Corey noticed that it was about as empty as her fridge in Atlanta now was, except that the bottom shelf of his was full of beer.
“Let’s see. When was the last time we saw each other?” Tripp asked.
“I think it was at my parents’ funeral, so I guess it’s been a little more than seven years.” Corey bit her lip, as she hated having to bring up yet another morbid topic. She had a sudden memory of Tripp and his now former wife, Martha Anne, in the receiving line at the funeral home that night.
“Yeah, that’s right. Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Just Coffee-mate, or something like that, if you’ve got it.” The coffee began to drip, and Corey savored the aroma. “Smells good.”
Tripp placed two cups on the counter and turned to rummage through a cabinet behind him. He finally pulled a can of evaporated milk out of the cabinet. “I knew it had to be here somewhere.” He opened the can, put it and a spoon next to Corey, and then poured them each a cup of coffee.
After she fixed her coffee, Corey turned her attention back to Tripp. “And what are you doing at the beach during the middle of the week anyway? Are you playing hooky from work to go fishing, like you used to skip school?”
Tripp smiled and shrugged. “I have grown up a little bit since high school. My territory with the bank stretches all over northwest Florida. When I have to be in Panama City or Port Saint Joe for meetings, I often spend the night here.”
“I guess I’ll give you a pass, then.” Corey raised her cup and took several long sips of coffee, then held it in her hands, enjoying its warmth.
“It’s good to see you at the beach again,” Tripp said, still standing across the bar from her.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed this place until I got here.” Corey finished off her coffee, cocked her head, and listened for a moment. “I think the storm has blown over. It’s looking a lot lighter outside, and I haven’t heard any thunder in a while.”
Tripp went to the sliding glass doors and looked out over the water. “You’re right. It has stopped.”
“I guess I’ll go take a shower and put on some dry clothes. Thanks for the towel and the coffee.” Corey put the towel on the bar and started walking toward the door. Without the towel, she was very conscious of Tripp’s eyes on her and of the fact that her pool cover-up really didn’t cover up very much. She stopped at the door to say good-bye. When she turned to look back at him, his inscrutable bro
wn eyes met hers. Corey was the first to glance away.
“You wanna drive over to Port Saint Joe and eat at the Sunset Grill in a little while?” Tripp asked casually. “I don’t have anything in the house, and I’m starving.”
Corey thought of the refrigerator full of food Diane had left for her. She should invite him to come over and eat with her. But she was afraid it might be awkward, as their conversation already seemed stilted and sparse. A crowded restaurant would naturally provide topics for conversation. Plus, it would be fun to get away from the beach house for a while.
“I don’t know what the Sunset Grill is, but sure, I’m game.”
“Great. I’ll go look for the umbrella and bring it when I pick you up. Will an hour be long enough?”
CHAPTER 4
While she showered and dressed, Corey reminded herself that she was just having dinner with an old friend. This was no big deal. The fact that the old friend was divorced—and that Corey had had a crush on him in high school and her freshman year in college—didn’t really matter, did it?
Dothan, Alabama, where Tripp lived when not at the beach, was only forty miles from her hometown of Marianna. In high school, whenever one of them had an event and didn’t have a date, the other would fill in. She’d gone to his junior prom, and he’d gone to both her junior and senior proms. They both liked to dance, so they were perfect partners for those kinds of events. When Tripp went to Auburn University and pledged the Kappa Alpha (KA) fraternity, Corey had gone to a couple of the football games with him his freshman year because pledges were required to have a date. Tripp’s relationship with her was always playful and casual except when he’d drunk too many Jim Beams at the games. On those occasions, he’d wrapped her in his arms, kissed her sloppily, and told her she was his girl. Corey had been surprised by how much she’d enjoyed those kisses, and by how sad she’d felt, after he sobered up, when he seemed not to remember what had taken place.