“Huh.” Ginny had read some of the local news articles her mother had sent her the links to, but hadn’t thought too deeply about it. “So, I guess that’s driving prices up a bit?”
Sheila shook her head. “Or driving locals out, depending how you look at it. People want to subdivide while they still can, and protect the value of their real estate. Now they need four acres to build, and that’s too pricey for many.”
For the New Yorkers coming into the area, it probably wasn’t an issue. But Ginny imagined for the many locals who’d been born and raised here on family farms or large parcels of land, it meant something different. “Are the old-timers upset?” Saybrook was a harmonious town, but there was no denying the polite divide between lifelong residents who could trace their family’s town history back several generations and the newcomers moving in.
“Up in arms, some of them.”
Ginny could understand it. Her mind flashed back to Wendell. She wondered where he stood on the matter. “But Feldman Agency is struggling.”
Sheila shrugged. “It’s true. The other agencies in town seem to snag the bigger listings. I guess you could say our marketing strategies are a little old-fashioned. And the three of us are, too.” She winked at Ginny. “But with you back, we’ll have some young blood.”
Ginny had long suspected her parents were a little behind the times in terms of social media and marketing, and as she looked around the office at the dated equipment and computers, she could see why. First thing, she’d need to take a look at their website and listings.
But Sheila had other matters she wanted to catch up on. “So how are you, honey? I was sorry to hear you called your engagement off.”
The mention of the broken engagement caused Ginny’s cheeks to flush, though it was nothing to be ashamed of, and it had been her decision. “I’m fine,” she said, trying to sound like she meant it. What she did not share with Sheila was that she still had trouble sleeping. That even though her new cottage was cute and cozy, it was not hers, and it was temporary. Ginny had always been a planner; she did not like when plans fell apart, even if they were for the best. “Change is good,” she lied.
Sheila wasn’t buying it. “Well, you’re finally back home, and your parents couldn’t be more thrilled. They’ve missed you, honey. We all have.”
A small wave of guilt rose up in her. For years Ginny had been too busy to come home, or so she’d said. Holidays slipped by, then whole years did. Saybrook was too far. Work was too demanding. She and Thomas had limited vacation time. The reasons were plentiful. A handful of times she’d returned home, but she’d always kept the visits short. Occasionally, her parents had flown out to Chicago to spend the odd Christmas or Thanksgiving, but it was never the same, and she knew they didn’t understand why she stayed away. After a while, Ginny forgot; but after seeing Wendell in town the other night, she was beginning to be reminded.
Ever since, she’d been unable to stop thinking about him. Wendell was a part of her past that she’d tried to keep there, but at one time he’d been the most important person in her life.
Many in Saybrook thought their years began as high school sweethearts, but they were wrong. Back then she had eyes only for Wendell’s best friend, Evan. Evan was popular and outgoing, unlike Wendell, who was just as well liked but shy.
Dating Evan was exciting at first, but about a year in, Ginny came to realize it was Wendell whom she always ended up with. At parties Evan would disappear with friends to do keg stands, leaving her to the side. On nights when she tired of Evan’s flirting with other girls, she’d find Wendell in a quiet corner and pour her heart out. He’d listen, careful not to badmouth his friend but always finding a way to switch the subject or say something to make her laugh. It was Wendell who shared her honors classes, not Evan, who skated by on charm over intellect. Once in AP chemistry, when learning about exothermic reactions using marshmallows, she overheated hers. When it blew up, covering Wendell’s face in hot marshmallow, he didn’t get upset or even embarrassed. Instead, he licked his lips and declared, “I like mine a little less toasted.” By senior year, it became clear that Wendell might have had a little crush on her. For her part, Ginny didn’t want to admit that her feelings for him were also changing.
* * *
But there was one winter night when she couldn’t ignore her feelings anymore. New Year’s Eve of senior year, they all went to Kerry Grove’s party. The whole school seemed to be there, and everyone was wasted. Ginny, who didn’t usually have more than one or two drinks, was handed a tall glass of spiked Hawaiian punch. She was halfway across the kitchen to go look for Evan when she felt her limbs start to go numb and her head spin. She went outside to try to sober up in the cold air. There, on the front steps, she found Jake Wilson having a smoke. When he finished his cigarette, he turned to her, staring.
“What?” she asked, gripping the railing for balance. She was starting to get nauseated and wonder where the nearest bathroom was.
“Nothing.” Then Jake smiled mischievously. “C’mere.” He reached one arm around her and tried to kiss her.
At first she thought Jake was joking; he was Evan’s friend! So she pushed him. “What’re you doing?”
But then he leaned in a second time. “Stop it,” she said. But Jake had already pushed her up against the door.
The rush of alcohol mixed with fear swept through her, and she turned her head to yell. Before she could, there was the sudden crunch of footsteps in snow and a flash up the steps. Wendell had sprinted up behind them and tackled Jake, the two of them flying off the steps and into the snowy yard. When Jake popped back up, Wendell leaped to his feet first and socked him in the jaw, sending him sprawling backward in the yard.
“Don’t you even look at her!” he shouted, standing over Jake, his fists balled. Ginny drew back against the house, watching the two face off beneath the flood of the porchlight. Puffs of cold air filled the broken space between them.
Jake’s nose streamed with blood. He put his hand to his face and staggered to his feet. “What the hell, Combs? You busted my fucking nose.”
Then he lurched away from them both and down the driveway, walking unsteadily along the line of cars toward his own.
Wendell looked up at Ginny. The snow around him was flattened, drips of red blood at his feet. He was breathing hard. “Are you okay?”
Before she could thank him, Ginny spun around and threw up in the bushes. He waited until she was done, then came to sit beside her on the step. She was mortified. “Thank you,” she said, finally able to meet his gaze. Then, “Please, don’t tell Evan.”
Wendell stared at her in disbelief. “Evan should’ve been out here with you. Jake’s an asshole.”
“He couldn’t have known Jake would do that,” Ginny said defensively.
“Well, then they’re both assholes.” Wendell shook his right hand, and it was then she saw the angry red glare of his knuckles under the porch light. Ginny reached for his hand gently, ignoring his wince of pain. She took off her scarf and filled it with snow, then wrapped it around his swollen hand. They sat on the step like that until the party broke up and people began to flood past them. When Evan eventually came out, Ginny let go of Wendell’s hand.
Evan pulled his coat up over his shoulders and laughed. “Great party.” He looked between them. “Ready to go?”
Ginny stood. “It’s late.” Wendell didn’t move.
Evan put his arm around Ginny. He didn’t notice that either of them was upset, just as he didn’t notice her red scarf tied around Wendell’s hand when he turned to him. “You coming, buddy?”
Wendell shook his head. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ll catch a ride.”
Evan tipped his head back and blew a stream of air out. “Suit yourself.” Then to Ginny, “Freezing my balls off out here. Let’s go.” Without waiting for her, he started down the driveway.
Ginny hesitated, conflicted. “Let us give you a ride.”
Wendell unwrapped her scarf f
rom his hand and handed it back to her without eye contact.
“I’ve already missed curfew,” she went on, stalling. Why wouldn’t he just come with them?
“Then you should go,” he told her.
Reluctantly, Ginny followed Evan to his car. When they pulled away, she looked back. Wendell was right where she’d left him on the stoop, a dark silhouette illuminated against the snow.
The next morning, she broke up with Evan.
Ever the gentleman, Wendell didn’t pursue her right away. Or at all, for that matter. All spring they passed in the hallway, and Ginny wondered if perhaps she’d gotten it wrong. Maybe he’d never felt about her the way she had come to feel about him.
Late that spring, her friends Kristen and Ali dragged her to a house party down by the lake. It was crowded indoors, and the music was too loud, so they found refuge outside on the patio by the water. There she found Wendell playing poker with a couple of other football players.
It took her two wine coolers to get up the courage. When the guy next to Wendell folded and left the table, she plopped down in his empty chair. “I broke up with him,” she whispered.
Wendell kept his eyes on the cards as he gathered them “Yeah. A while ago,” he said.
It was ridiculous. As if they were picking up exactly where they’d left off on Kerry Grove’s front step last New Year’s Eve.
Ginny leaned in. “Think I made a mistake?” Her eyes traveled across the patio and landed on Evan’s back. No surprise, he was chatting up a freshman girl by the keg.
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Wendell said. She watched the bridge of cards flip seamlessly through his fingers as he shuffled. Wendell had strong hands. “Do you think it was a mistake?”
Wendell looked up, his gaze so intent that Ginny felt her cheeks warm. She shook her head.
Wendell kept his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear, but his message was clear. “Ginny, he’s still my best friend.”
Ginny blinked. It was not what she’d expected. The words coming out of his mouth did not match the look in his eyes.
“Got it.” Mortified, she stood up. It was no consolation that she could feel his eyes on her back as she walked away.
Bored and embarrassed, she convinced her friends to leave. “It’s early,” Kristen complained.
“I’m tired,” Ginny lied. What she was really tired of was pretending to have fun. They climbed the steep lakeside hill to the road above, where everyone had parked. They were almost to the top when she heard someone call her name. “Ginny, wait!”
It was Wendell. She stopped, letting her friends go ahead as he caught up.
“Don’t go.” He was out of breath, having sprinted all the way up the hill.
“Why not?” The sound of Kristen’s Jeep purred from up the street. Ginny had already made a fool of herself; she wasn’t going to miss her ride, too.
“I thought about what you asked,” Wendell said, standing to his full height. “If I thought you made a mistake breaking up with Evan.”
Ginny crossed her arms. “Like you said, it was a while ago.”
Wendell looked so uncomfortable that she almost caved right there. “You only made one mistake,” he said. Then he reached for her hand.
Ginny felt herself soften. “What was that?”
Instead of answering, Wendell leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. He pulled away slowly. “What took you so long?”
Up to the day they left for their respective colleges, they were inseparable. Nights they skinny-dipped in the lake at the town beach, and days they worked summer jobs, counting the hours until work ended and they could be together. Wendell’s father, who had little patience for teenagers and certainly didn’t know what to do with a teenage girl, took to Ginny right off the bat. By August, he was setting a fourth place for her at the dinner table each night. Wesley, who spent all his time on the sports fields and who’d paid zero attention to any girl Wendell previously liked, also took notice. Suddenly, Wesley was home all the time. He hung around telling bad jokes, sitting with them in the den watching movies, and trying to impress her with his basketball skills in the driveway. It got to the point where Wendell half-jokingly told Wesley to bug off and find his own girl.
Wesley punched him in the arm. “I don’t like her like that,” he said. “It’s just nice having her around. Kind of like before Mom died.”
It was true. Ginny brought something back to the Combs’ household that had been missing. Wendell only wished his mother had met Ginny; he was sure she would’ve loved her.
By the time they’d packed their suitcases for college, neither was sure what would come of the relationship. Ginny went off to study business at Providence, while Wendell attended University of Vermont for biology and environmental studies. They stayed together all four years, visiting when they could and spending holidays and summers back in Saybrook, like the old days. By the time they graduated, they didn’t just talk about a future; they talked about their future.
By then, Wesley had graduated from high school. Still wide-eyed and hungry for adventure, he couldn’t settle on a college despite his father’s insistence. He’d been a varsity-letter athlete all through school but was just as devoted to his social life. Wesley’s grades weren’t great; he partied too much. Alder Combs worried about his younger son. Unlike Wendell, Wesley always seemed restless for more. Saybrook had never seemed enough for him, a longing Alder feared he’d inherited from his mother. Perhaps it came from losing his mother at a young age. Perhaps it ran in his veins.
When Wendell and Ginny graduated, they returned for the summer but planned to move to Boston together at summer’s end. Wendell had a contact at an environmental law firm and wanted to save money for law school. Ginny had a degree in business and wanted to try her hand at corporate real estate. But that summer they noticed Wesley was in trouble. He’d deferred college a year earlier and was home pumping gas at the local station. Wendell gave him a hard time about the late hours he kept, partying like he was still in high school, the kinds of company he was keeping. “They’re losers,” Wendell confided in Ginny after he bailed Wesley out of a bar fight one night and picked him up from a DUI another night. “Wesley’s going nowhere if he sticks around much longer. He’s going to hurt someone. Or himself.” It was true. Wesley seemed depressed, a washed-out version of his bright and funny old self. The final straw came when he lost his job and Alder kicked him out of the house. It took Wendell two frantic weeks to track his little brother down; he was living in someone’s basement, drinking through the days. Though she loved him, Ginny worried. Wesley’s problems were becoming theirs.
But everything came to a halt the day Wendell shared Wesley’s big news. He’d come back home, and he’d sworn off drinking. It seemed too good to be true, but Wesley insisted he had a plan. He was not going to college. Nor was he going to A.A., which they all thought he needed. Wesley had enlisted in the National Guard.
No one was more surprised than Ginny. But it was what Wendell told her next that came as a bigger surprise: “I have to go with him.”
“Are you crazy?” Ginny asked. Wesley was starry-eyed and silly. He couldn’t possibly understand the kind of commitment the Guard was. He’d never left Saybrook for so much as a week away at Scout camp. He was too sheltered to grasp it. But Wendell? He knew better!
“I know,” he said, his voice already full of regret. “But Wesley is a loose cannon. He needs help and he needs structure. If I go, too, I can keep an eye on him.”
“And what? Protect him? You can’t protect him from himself, let alone from combat.” Then, “Oh my God, Wendell. What if you two get sent overseas?”
“No, Ginny, it’s nothing like that. It’s just a two-year commitment,” he reassured her. “We’ll do basic training and probably never leave the Midwest.”
“But why?” she pleaded. “We have plans together.”
“We still do! As soon as I get back, we’ll go to Boston. And this will help me pay f
or law school. Besides, I feel like I sort of left Wesley behind when Mom died. I wasn’t there for him. Now I can be.”
None if it made any sense to her. Wendell had never shown any interest in the military beyond respect for those who enlisted and served. This was Wesley’s doing. This was Wendell’s guilt. And this drastic change in plans would keep them from starting the future they’d talked so much about.
“It’ll go by so fast,” Wendell promised her. “I’ll be home for breaks. We’ll write and call. This doesn’t change anything between us.”
With a heavy heart and no small amount of worry, she said goodbye to both brothers later that summer. The Boston apartment they’d been looking at was still available, so she found someone to share it and went ahead without Wendell. Wendell had promised.
Wendell had been wrong about all of it. Near the end of their service, both brothers were called for active duty: Wesley to Iraq and Wendell to Afghanistan. Nothing would ever be the same.
Ginny had been doomed from the beginning. She’d had the misfortune of finding her soul mate at a young age. The man who’d promised he’d come back to her kept his word; but he was not the same man who returned.
Wendell
He still could not wrap his brain around the fact the Lancasters were gone. He’d just seen them at the gala.
The details of the accident were minimal. They’d apparently gone for a moonlight drive. That part didn’t surprise Wendell too much. Alan was as romantic about his wife as he was about White Pines. And he loved taking out that old car.
Since Alan wasn’t known for recklessness, and since there were tire marks before the car left the road, the findings suggested a deer had simply run across the street, causing them to swerve. It was certainly a common occurrence in their area. But in the end, none of it changed the outcome. Finding out the details wouldn’t change the facts, Wendell tried to tell himself. He would not see them again, a fact that pained him more deeply than he thought possible. In the last fifteen years, Wendell had buried every member of his family; though he’d never admit it to anyone, Alan and Anne had become the closest thing he had to one since.
Message in the Sand Page 9