Cast Iron Alibi

by Victoria Hamilton

  Rachel, always reliable, was the one who seemed wholly on Jaymie’s wavelength. She reached over, clutched Jaymie’s arm and bounced in her seat. “I’m excited to see the Bend after all these years!”

  They shared a look; Jaymie knew then that at least Rachel, and maybe Melody, were happy to see their old stomping grounds. Gabriela and Brandi, ahead of them, were silent, but it appeared that Valetta, in the driver’s seat, and Courtney, in the passenger’s seat, were chatting amiably enough.

  “What do you want to do first?” Rachel asked of them all, twisting in her seat, trying to get the conversation started. “Shop? Beach? Lunch? All three?”

  “I want a drink,” Brandi said, yawning. She pocketed her cell phone, leaned on the armrest and appeared to doze through much of the drive, after grumbling about being woken up at the crack of dawn.

  It was on the tip of Jaymie’s tongue to say that if Brandi hadn’t been out most of the night she wouldn’t be so tired. She had thought the point of the vacation was to spend time together, to relive their youth and refresh their old bonds. But to be fair—and she did try to be fair—just because that was her idea didn’t mean they all felt the same. Her friend was a free woman, and this was her vacation. She could do whatever she wanted. Jaymie didn’t want her to feel like she was being monitored.

  Excitement welled up in Jaymie as they got to the intersection of highways 81 and 21, which was the north-south highway that followed the shore of Lake Huron past Pinery Provincial Park and finally through Grand Bend. It took her back even further than her school days to when she was a kid and her dad would take her camping to the Pinery. There was a smell and a feel that was unforgettable, of lake and sand, pine and poplar. It was somehow different from her cottage on the St. Clair River.

  “Where do you want to park?” Jaymie said as they entered Grand Bend, a bustling town of two thousand that could easily swell to fifty thousand or more on a weekend in the summer.

  “I looked it up online and there’s a little pay-and-display parking area along Main Street where we can leave the van,” Valetta said, checking in the rearview mirror. “I figured we’d mostly be walking, right? Shopping? Eating, etcetera? So . . . that’s what we’ll do.”

  They found a space, fortunately; it was already filling up. They were in the middle of a hot spell. Canadians and Americans in droves were there for the day, ready to play beach volleyball, swim, canoodle and drink their faces off. Grand Bend was good for all of that and more, a perfect venue for families and seniors all day, and students and young people all evening. They all hopped out of the van and retrieved their bags.

  “I’ve got lunch and snacks in a cooler in the back,” Jaymie said, hiking her bag on her shoulder and donning her sunhat and sunglasses. “But if anyone would prefer a restaurant, that’s okay too. There’s a great one called Sanders on the Beach . . . remember, guys?”

  “So, what first?” Rachel repeated, turning in a full circle and hopping in excitement, her blue-tipped hair jammed under a sun visor and big gold sunglasses resting on peach-blushed cheeks.

  “We’re along for the ride,” Bernie said, arm in arm with Heidi. “We’ll go with the crowd, wherever you all go!”

  “Let’s walk,” Valetta said. She snapped her sunglass add-ons on her glasses. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “Me neither. I’d like to see the town,” Courtney, dressed in conservative Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt, agreed.

  They wandered down Main Street, drawn by the view of a blue and sparkling Lake Huron at the end, but it was a longer walk than anticipated. Brandi lagged behind complaining her feet hurt and about the parking space Val had chosen; Courtney stayed with her, of course. Valetta, Heidi, Bernie, Rachel and Gabriela walked briskly on ahead as Jaymie and Melody sauntered, trying to bridge the lengthening gap between the two groups.

  “Why do I have a feeling this is going to be a disaster,” Jaymie fretted, looking behind at Brandi, who had her head together with Courtney. “I feel like Brandi is up to something.” She told Melody about her midnight discovery that Brandi had left the cottage.

  “You’ve done your best to plan a nice day, Jaymie. Stop worrying. You can’t force people to enjoy themselves.”

  “I wish I could think that way. Brandi’s bad enough—I’d forgotten how she can be difficult; I don’t think she was on the last camping trip with us, so it’s been several years—but there is something going on with Gabriela. Haven’t you noticed? She hasn’t been . . . normal since she arrived. She’s worried and moody and . . . I don’t know, worried. That’s all I can say.”

  Jaymie and Mel joined Valetta and the rest on the beach. “This is nice,” Val said, turning to her friend with a smile. She had dressed in sensible shorts and a golf shirt, with Vionic orthopaedic sandals on her feet, the only kind she could wear for her foot problems. “I’m glad you invited me along, though I feel like the den mother.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “I’m not exactly the Grand Bend age, it seems like.” At fifty, she was about fifteen years older than everyone but Melody, who was somewhere in between.

  Jaymie took her arm. “My friend, there is no Grand Bend age.” She pointed to a group of seniors sitting in low umbrella-covered chairs playing euchre, and to tiny toddlers digging sand castles, throwing toys and racing after seagulls followed by frantic moms and dads.

  “Tell them that,” Val said, pointing to some shirtless guys roaming the beach, pausing to eye Heidi, Rachel and Bernie with hope in their eyes.

  “Grand Bend welcomes everyone!” Jaymie exclaimed, kicking off her flip-flops, raising her hands high in the air, turning in a full circle and running down to the waterside laughing the whole way.

  They had brought a Frisbee and badminton set, and took turns playing. Heidi, Bernie and Rachel walked down the beach, while Gabriela sat playing on her phone and moping. Mel and Val sat at the water’s edge digging their toes in the wet sand and chatting with Jaymie as she made drippy castles. Brandi and Courtney never joined them. There was no way they could get lost, so the general consensus was that they had stopped at a restaurant or bar. The friends gathered back together, got their feet wet in the lake, splashed about in the shallow water, people-watched for a while, then, as they packed up to walk back into the village, Jaymie made a bit of a detour and discovered that Sanders on the Beach, a lovely restaurant she had adored, was gone.

  They strolled up from the beach to Main Street in search of food. There were bikini shops, where Heidi bought several bathing suits, and they stopped in the sweet shop, where Jaymie bought watermelon-flavored taffy for Jocie. She’d have to bring her daughter here someday, to tell her about being a kid and shopping here with her mom and big sister. A powerful tug of longing for Jocie and Jakob clenched her heart and stomach, but she fought it. Gabriela, though, was having more trouble. She dissolved in tears in the sweet shop as she bought a mix of candies for her little girl.

  “I won’t be surprised if Gabriela goes home early,” Jaymie whispered to Valetta as her friend tried on a hat in a beach shop.

  “If she does, please don’t let it worry you,” Val said, giving her friend a side hug. “You’re doing all you can. You can’t make people have fun.”

  “That’s basically what Mel said,” Jaymie said. Her writer friend was lingering near the door, staring out with a clouded expression. “I don’t know what’s got into her today. She was fine, and now she’s turned off, like a light switch.”

  “Each person has their thing,” Val said, eyeing herself in a mirror. “I don’t think I’ll get this. It looks goofy on me. I’ll never be Heidi, who can put on anything and look stunning.”

  “Me neither, my friend. It’s a good thing she’s so sweet-natured, or I’d have to dislike her,” Jaymie said. She frowned and shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I’m trying to teach Jocie not to judge people based on their looks, and not to be hard on myself for my own averageness, but I fall into it myself sometimes. I did that when I first knew about Heid
i and Joel; I assumed because she is beautiful and slim that she was a snob and shallow, but she’s neither.”

  Together, the group passed by a bar, loud music and drunken young people spilling out of the wide-open doors onto the sidewalk in front. Above the music, though, Jaymie heard a familiar laugh. “Aha! I think I found Brandi,” she said to the group. “Let’s check it out.”

  And indeed Brandi and Courtney sat at a large table with a group of guys. Brandi was clearly having fun, doing shots, a high five for each, but Courtney looked miserable. She perked up and waved to them as they approached.

  “Figures,” Gabriela said with a sniff, dragging behind. “She would find the one place to get drunk.”

  “Oh, there is more than one place to get drunk in Grand Bend,” Melody said. “Don’t you remember? We all had our moments.”

  “I never did,” Gabriela said stiffly.

  Melody stared at her. “Memory fades with time, I suppose.”

  “Still, she’s a wife and mother. You’d think she could hold it together for one day,” Gabriela snapped crossly. She took out a candy and chewed on it, tossing the wrapper on the floor as they approached their friend.

  They made a deal with Brandi: they’d sit and have one drink with her if she’d come with them when they were done. Jaymie ordered an iced tea and checked her phone, sighing loudly in exasperation. Brandi had been doing social media, posting pictures and tagging new (younger) friends, and it must look to the rest of the world as if their day at Grand Bend was one long drinking game.

  Rachel whispered to Jaymie that she, Bernie and Heidi were going to walk back down to the beach and grab some French fries along the way. Jaymie nodded and squeezed her friend’s hand, happy that Rach and her two newer friends had bonded. Melody kept wandering to the entrance of the bar, which was wide open to the street. She looked up and down, and frowned, then returned.

  “What are you looking for?” Jaymie asked under cover of the music, which was a loud EDM track.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” She drifted back into the shadows, but still glared out the door.

  Seven

  They finally managed to pry Brandi from the bar and strolled back down Main Street. They lingered in Archie’s Surf Shop. Jaymie bought a cute sleeveless top for herself, a gray hooded sweatshirt for the fall for Jakob with Grand Bend emblazoned on it, and a couple of stuffy toys for Jocie. They stowed their purchases in the van, then walked down to the beach again with umbrellas and towels. They spent a few hours there in the sun, talking and relaxing, some with books and some, like Gabriela and Brandi, on their phones.

  Gabriela’s husband had not texted or called her back yet, and she was fretting. “Something’s wrong,” she said, gnawing on her fingernail as she stared at the phone on her lap, shielding the screen from the sun with her free hand.

  “Is there anyone you can call to find out?” Jaymie asked.

  “His mom, maybe, or his sister.” She ripped the fingernail off with her teeth and spat it into the sand.

  “His sister?” Jaymie dug in her bag and pulled out a nail clipper, handing it to her friend to tidy up the ragged edge.

  “Tiffany, my sister-in-law,” Gabriela said, snipping the nail’s edge. “She and Logan are close.”

  “Call her,” Jaymie urged, accepting the nail clipper back and tossing it in her bag. “Tell her what’s upsetting you.”

  Gabriela nodded, her expression clearing a bit. “I’ll do it once we get back this evening. If I haven’t heard from Logan by then I’ll message Tiff.”

  “I’m going to get a soda,” Brandi said, standing and brushing the sand off her behind.

  “I’ll go with you,” Courtney said, jumping up.

  “No, stay here!” Brandi said irritably, picking up her sandals. “I’ll be right back. Jeez, you’d think I couldn’t have two minutes to myself.” She stomped off like a teen in a bad mood.

  “Someday she has to grow up,” Melody said gloomily, her gaze shifting back and forth along the beach.

  Jaymie eyed her author friend. Something had happened, but Mel wasn’t talking about it. Maybe if she left it alone her friend would confide in her.

  Of course Brandi never came back. Finally, as the sun began its descent across the lake, they had idled as much as they could. “I guess we ought to round up our things and set out to look for Brandi.”

  “Or leave her behind,” Gabriela sniffed.

  “Some of us can take the stuff back to the van and wait there, if you’d like,” Valetta said, eyeing Jaymie. “That way we won’t all be trudging along Main Street with beach towels and blankets and the cooler and umbrellas.”

  Jaymie nodded. “Why don’t all of you go and I’ll find Brandi?”

  “We can’t leave you to do that all alone,” Melody objected.

  “I’ll go with you,” Courtney said. “I think I have the best chance of prying her away from the dudes.”

  Nodding, Jaymie agreed. “That sounds like a plan.”

  “I’m going with you,” Melody said. “You might need help.”

  They parted ways and the others crossed the street, heading toward the parkette, pulling the cooler on wheels and laden with all of the towels and other beachy items. Jaymie, Courtney and Mel carried their sandals up from the beach to the road and paused to dust the sticky sand off their feet and put their footwear back on, then trudged along the sidewalk, stopping to gaze into bars. Courtney volunteered to ford the crowd at one to make sure Brandi wasn’t in the depths, drinking. Jaymie and Mel stood on the sidewalk.

  “It’s nice of Courtney to take care of Brandi like that. It was rude of Bran to abandon her friend with virtual strangers. I don’t know why Courtney is her friend. She seems like a nice girl, and Brandi’s been a witch to her all day.”

  “Can’t you guess why Courtney is so caring of Brandi?” Melody said with a quizzical side smile.

  Jaymie stared into her eyes and caught on. “Do you think she feels that way about Brandi? I never got that idea.”

  Melody shrugged. “It seems like it to me. Maybe I can’t see any other explanation for why any woman would put up with so much crap. I could be wrong.”

  “If you’re right, Brandi doesn’t deserve her,” Jaymie groused.

  Courtney came out and shook her head, and they continued. As they strolled they found out more about the woman. She was older than Brandi. They had met at a bar and become fast friends, but she admitted they fought often. She was a hospital equipment salesperson and single, though she had been married. She was a smoker and drinker, and considered Brandi to be the sister she never had.

  As they passed by one place they had already checked, though they hadn’t gone inside, they heard voices raised in an argument. “That’s Brandi!” Courtney said and led the way inside.

  Brandi was indeed in the dim interior, and she was face-to-face arguing with a guy Jaymie knew slightly; it was Brandi’s ex-husband, Terry. Both were red-faced and furious, arguing at the top of their lungs as a bouncer, muscles straining the sleeves of a bar T-shirt, came toward them. “Take it outside, folks!” he said, clutching both of their shoulders. “This is a fun place. No fighting allowed.”

  Terry took a swing, missed, and the bouncer easily doubled his arm behind his back and marched him outside, followed by Brandi, Courtney, Jaymie and Melody.

  Jaymie’s face was hot with embarrassment as they emerged, watched by the barflies; they were all too old to be thrown out of a bar. But Terry wasn’t done, nor was Brandi. Once on the sidewalk, with the bouncer retreating, the two kept fighting about his behavior (stalkerish) and her behavior (childish), calling each other names.

  Terry, a balding, slightly overweight fellow in belted shorts and a golf course T-shirt, was red-faced and spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth. He called her a string of terrible names, then said, jabbing his finger in her face, “You’re fooling around with guys, getting drunk all day, and left me with three kids to look after. What kind of a mother are you?”
>
  “The kind who needs a vacation,” she shrieked. “What the frick are you doing here? I’m gonna get a restraining order against you the minute we get home.”

  “Go ahead. Then I’ll tell the court how you dump the kids on me every chance you get and go out drinking with your bony-butt friend,” he said, flipping one hand at Courtney. “You’ve been gone one day and you’re sleeping with some random dude. Don’t try to deny it, Brandi! I know you.”

  “Get out of here,” Brandi said, her cheeks flaming and tears streaming down her face. She was tipsy, but not so drunk that she couldn’t walk, and she followed Jaymie and the other two along the sidewalk. “Leave me alone, Terry! There’s a reason I’m divorcing you, and you know what it is!”

  “Go, leave,” he yelled. At least he didn’t follow them as the group of women retreated toward the parkette. “Go ahead and bed every guy you find,” he shouted. “But don’t come home to me with some new disease of the month.”

  On their way to the van Brandi broke down weeping and Courtney held her arm close to her and tugged her along, murmuring to her the whole time. Jaymie and Melody exchanged looks but stayed silent. They reached the van, where the others were all packed and ready to go.

  “Let’s go home,” Jaymie said, exhausted and near tears herself. The plan had been to stop along the way for ice cream, but stopping anywhere seemed like a bad idea. “Next time we won’t go to the Bend, we’ll go to Bayfield,” she muttered, naming the town some miles north that was more quiet restaurants and jewelry stores than bars and surf shops.

  After a day of sun, sand, booze and drama, the car filled with the aroma of tuna fish sandwiches and suntan oil, weariness led to quiet. They returned to Johnsonville and caught the ferry over to the island, cleared customs, then Heidi and Bernie hugged Jaymie, but stayed on the ferry.