Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  “That’s fine, as long as Abby will chaperone.”

  Quinn’s fifteen-year-old son, Sean, looked like a young Keanu Reeves. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a soon-to-be-studly build enhanced by his tanned olive skin, tousled dark hair, and deep-indigo eyes, Sean was the sort to make a young girl’s heart spin daydreams of happily ever after.

  And even though Erin was younger than Sean, she showed a promise of beauty that could turn a young man’s head. The clear retainers she wore at night had just about straightened her teeth, her long blond hair shone like spun gold in the sun, and she had developed a few curves that were emphasized by a string bikini Heather didn’t remember buying for her barely teenage daughter. Erin had probably borrowed it from a friend.

  The teens were both too beautiful, too young, and too inexperienced to be trusted alone with each other.

  “I see what you’re seeing.” Quinn patted Heather’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Abby will be with them. We won’t have a problem.”

  “You’ve got a vest for Erin on the boat?”

  “Yup.” Quinn looked back at the dock, where Erin and Sean stood next to each other, talking and laughing. “We have more than enough flotation devices on both boats. Just need to make sure the littles keep theirs on all the time.”

  “They will.”

  “Abby’s and my parents are already on the houseboat, and Mack has taken the speed boat with the propane grill and all the coolers to the floating dock. We’ll be back to fetch y’all as soon as we unload all the toys.”

  Josh ran back, panting and out of breath. Adrian knelt and showed him the timer on his watch.

  “Sorry we can’t fit everyone on the pontoon,” Quinn said with an apologetic glance all around, “but with all the toys…”

  “It’s fine,” Heather assured him. “We’ll use the time to apply sunscreen. Thanks, Quinn.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll be back for y’all in a few.” Quinn headed toward the boat, and minutes later, the pontoon took off, leaving Heather, Adrian, his parents, and Reva behind with the twins. By unspoken consent, everyone migrated to the tree-shaded picnic table at the water’s edge.

  “No fair,” Josh pouted. “I wanted to go first.”

  “What?” Adrian’s father pretended to have hurt feelings. “You don’t want to hang out here with me? I bet I know where we can find some tadpoles.”

  Josh debated with himself for a second; then his expression brightened, and he grabbed Gordon’s hand. “Show me.”

  “Mama.” Caroline tugged at Heather’s sundress, then whispered in a not-quite-quiet voice, “I need to potty.”

  “Here.” Gordon reached into the pocket of his swim shorts and gave Heather the key to his motel room. “For anybody who wants to make a pit stop before we head out. Josh and I are on a mission to find tadpoles.”

  On the way back to the picnic table after taking Caroline to the bathroom, Heather let Caroline run ahead while she paused to savor the sight of Josh and Gordon wading at the water’s edge. Her son was in hog heaven right now, doing little-boy things with a grandfatherly figure, something none of Heather’s kids had experienced because she and Dale had both been estranged from their families.

  With Gordon filling some of Josh’s bottomless need for recognition, Adrian was free to give Caroline some attention. He sat next to her on the picnic table, bending toward her to hear something she was saying. As Heather watched her twins interacting with Adrian and his dad, she allowed herself to imagine how full their lives could be as part of a larger family.

  Heather wasn’t looking to replace Dale in her children’s lives—or in hers, either. She had only just now come to terms with the idea of entering a new, independent phase of her life. Maybe she had no business even thinking of dating Adrian, much less of entertaining a dream of a deeper and more permanent relationship.

  Adrian certainly wasn’t at all the sort of guy she would have envisioned for herself or her children. He was polished, highly educated, a city sort of guy. The cozy little backwater of Magnolia Bay would hold no appeal for him. It couldn’t hold a candle to his fancy loft in New Orleans, where he could order up gourmet meals or walk out his door and find live music and fine dining in a party-all-the-time atmosphere.

  The snapshot images of Adrian talking to Caroline and of Josh wading with Adrian’s father in the shallows were compelling. But could it ever be anything more than a dream?

  She couldn’t see how.

  Chapter 15

  Adrian sat next to Caroline on the bench and watched his mom braid her long hair in a complicated plait that started as two braids and combined into one at the back of her neck. He bent down to meet the child’s eyes. “Your fancy braid is very pretty, Caroline.”

  She tucked her chin and looked pleased but also painfully shy. “Thank you,” she said so quietly he almost couldn’t hear. He’d thought he’d made progress with Caroline when he brought her up in front of him to ride Charlie. But apparently, those two steps forward had been followed by one step back. If his relationship with Heather was going to go anywhere, he would have to make friends with all three of Heather’s kids in a way that stuck.

  He had his reservations, and no doubt Heather had hers. But his quest to win over Heather’s kids had begun. Josh was so hungry for a daddy figure that befriending him was already a done deal. The girls, for different reasons, would be harder to get to know. He hoped that today, they could make a start. If he was lucky, by the end of the day, Heather would be able to see that he was trying.

  Josh screamed, and everyone looked up to see him run back to the picnic table. After a quick glance, Reva and Heather went back to chatting. Josh leaped into Adrian’s lap with high drama.

  Adrian put a calming hand on the kid’s back. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Gordon said, following more slowly. “Josh saw a little water snake.”

  “It was a water moccasin,” Josh insisted. “I saw the inside of its mouth.”

  “Whatever kind of snake you saw from fifteen feet away, it’s gone now.” Gordon chuckled. “You probably scared the poor thing to death with all your screaming.”

  “I wasn’t screaming,” Josh was quick to say. “I was yelling.” He sat still in Adrian’s lap for a half second before jumping off again. “Let’s go look for more tadpoles.”

  “We already found some,” Gordon said to Josh. He sat on the end of the bench and patted the space beside him. “Let’s sit here for a minute.”

  Though Adrian hadn’t told either of his parents that there was anything brewing between him and Heather, they were both born grandparents, so they took Heather’s twins under their wings. His dad seemed to glory in directing Josh’s high energy. His mom seemed to know that Caroline needed to be finessed into moving out from under Heather’s coattails, so she used her gentle wiles to charm the child.

  The pontoon boat came chugging into view. “They’re back,” Josh yelled. He jumped down from the bench and ran to the dock.

  “Josh, wait.” Heather grabbed up her beach tote and the Ninja Turtle life vest and went after him. “You have to put your vest on.”

  Adrian’s mom stood and jingled her room key. “Last chance for a pit stop before we leave. Any takers?” She and Reva headed toward the motel while Gordon ambled toward the dock.

  Adrian picked up the other vest and turned toward Caroline. “Will you let me help you?”

  Caroline looked at him with her mother’s big green eyes and nodded slowly.

  He pointed to the ground in front of him. “Come stand here.”

  She climbed down from the bench, as careful as her brother was bold. Standing in front of him, she held out her arms and let him slide the vest on. “It matches your bathing suit, doesn’t it?” He adjusted the straps and buckled them. “Is pink your favorite color?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her cheeks turning
as pink as the Disney Princess flotation vest.

  “I like pink too.” He realized right away that he needed to ask her a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple yes or no, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of one. He pointed out one of the princesses pictured on the vest. “This one’s Aurora, I think.”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  He pointed to a different one. “Which one is this?”

  “That’s Jasmine.” She pointed to another. “And that’s Ariel.”

  Together, they identified all the princesses while the pontoon boat slowed past the NO WAKE sign and puttered up to the dock. Adrian held out a hand to Caroline. She hesitated, then took it.

  She held his hand all the way to the pontoon boat.

  Progress.

  The large rectangular boat’s flat platform rested on two long metal cylinders that floated on top of the water. At the back, where the outboard motor hung, a wide deck with a ladder on one side allowed people to enter and exit the water easily. The rest of the platform was enclosed on all sides by a low wall with a small entry gate.

  This model—which Quinn had jokingly called Mack’s happy divorce present to himself—featured padded leather seats all the way around, with a captain’s chair and steering deck under a canopy in the center.

  Gordon kept Josh from making a flying leap from the dock to the boat, taking him by the hand and guiding him over the gap instead. Once on the boat, Josh rushed over to pester Mack. Adrian held Heather’s hand as she stepped in, then Caroline allowed him to lift her into Heather’s outstretched arms. Once everyone had safely embarked, he untied the dock line, tossed it into the boat, and gave the boat a push away from the dock before he leaped in himself.

  “Everybody settle in,” Quinn said. “Here we go.”

  Reva and Adrian’s parents sat at the back of the boat, laughing and chattering to one another as if they’d been friends for ages. Heather took a corner seat at the front, with Caroline tucked close beside her. Josh was busy hopping from one seat to another.

  Conscious of what it might look like to everyone if he and Heather sat too close, Adrian took the opposite corner. “Josh,” he said. “Come here. You need to light somewhere so we can get going.”

  Josh sat next to Adrian, and Quinn guided the boat slowly past the NO WAKE sign, then pushed the throttle down. The pontoons kept the boat so stable that it felt like they were skimming over the water, while the tall, moss-draped trees on either side of the inlet zoomed past.

  Heather closed her eyes and lifted her face to the stiff breeze that flirted with her bangs and made her ponytail flap out behind her. The older folks at the back of the boat were whooping and cackling with hilarity, but the wind caught their voices and tossed them out behind the boat, so there was no telling what they found so funny.

  Clearly, though, they weren’t paying any attention to anyone else, so Adrian felt safe enough to study Heather’s blissful expression.

  He hoped that maybe he had helped put that serene, joyful smile on her lips.

  ***

  Reva put a hand on Eileen’s shoulder and leaned in close. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”

  Eileen glanced at her son and leaned back to speak into Reva’s ear—it was the only way to be heard over the wind and the sound of the boat’s outboard motor, which was just a few feet behind them. “He’s right smitten, isn’t he?”

  “I’d say so.”

  The inlet opened out onto the bay, and the water became much choppier. Quinn pulled back on the throttle when the boat rounded a small marshy island between the boat launch and the bay. On the far side of the bay, a thin strip of barrier islands met the gulf. Beach condos on the peninsula looked like tiny sandcastles shrouded in mist.

  Closer, but still some distance away, the sandy beach and the floating dock that anchored Mack’s houseboat came into view. After being dumped by his wife (who, in Reva’s opinion, had never deserved him anyway), Mack had traded the house he’d worked so hard to buy for a houseboat, a pontoon boat, and a speedboat. Now, he lived on the water, having traded his paid-off mortgage for a few rented boat slips.

  Eileen pointed at the portable floating dock Quinn and Mack had built before Mack’s divorce became final. “Is that where we’re headed?”

  “Yes. Mack towed the dock out there and dropped anchor this morning. He’s been guarding it and the beach from interlopers ever since.”

  Labor Day weekend boaters would’ve been out early, snapping up the available strips of sandy beach. Not all of the bay’s coastline was suitable for water sports and picnicking. Most, in fact, was marshy, full of water plants and lily pads and thick grassy reeds mixed with fallen logs and tree roots exposed by erosion from flooding.

  Beautiful but wild. The land beyond was, in most places, impenetrable and unfit for human habitation, but it provided a lush Eden for wildlife.

  “I’m sure Mack was glad to see Abby and the big kids show up to help,” Eileen said.

  As the pontoon boat advanced farther into the bay, other boats began to zip past, some towing skiers, others hauling huge inner tubes that bounced along while screeching kids struggled to hold on.

  Quinn slowed the pontoon boat to a putter.

  Gordon got up to stand next to the captain’s chair and pointed out something on the marshy bank. Reva looked toward the front of the boat and noticed that Heather and Adrian had scooted closer to each other. The glances that passed between them were hot enough to light a match. “What do you think about all that?”

  Eileen smiled. “I’d say it’s about time. Heather seems like a nice girl.”

  “Oh, she is.” Reva told Eileen about the loss Heather and her kids had endured. “She’s due for a little happiness. It would be sweet to see something blossom between her and Adrian. But…would you mind the fact that she has three kids?”

  “No, not at all… Oh, look at that.” Eileen pointed out a bald eagle sitting at the top of a dead-looking cypress tree. “I think a ready-made family would be good for Adrian. Settle him down a bit. He… We…”

  Eileen bit her lip and gave Reva a look that revealed the depth of what she was about to say. “Adrian lost a lot because of Hurricane Katrina. He spent his senior year in high school away from his friends and the rest of the family—we all had to relocate to Houston for nearly a year.”

  Reva nodded, encouraging Eileen to continue.

  “I stayed with my sister and the younger kids, while Gordon went back to New Orleans and basically camped out to help with the cleanup and to rebuild the house. Adrian, being older, stayed with his cousin who was already in college. We didn’t realize it at the time because we were all just doing the best we could in a bad situation, but Adrian felt very isolated, very…lost.”

  Reva put a hand on Eileen’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  Eileen nodded. “I think that, in a way, everything that happened—and the way it happened—damaged Adrian’s ability to connect with others. Not just people, but animals too. We lost the family cat, Buster, because he hid somewhere as a result of all the commotion, and we couldn’t find him before we had to evacuate. We managed to get the horse on a rescue transport up north, but we didn’t have a place to keep him after the storm went through, so we allowed him to be adopted by a family who wanted him.”

  Reva shook her head. “So many people and animals suffered in that storm.”

  “And afterward. Most of us are still scarred in some way. Adrian lost his ability to trust in the sweetness of life.”

  “I think Heather has lost some of that ability too,” Reva said. “Her husband’s death was so tragic, so sudden. And very upsetting, the way it happened. He died right in front of Heather and the kids.”

  Eileen made a tsking sound, then glanced toward the front of the boat. “But look…”

  Adrian’s arm was stretched across the back of the
seat, just close enough to touch Heather’s shoulder with his fingertips. Caroline and Josh sat between them with their heads down, both immersed in whatever game they were playing on someone’s phone. Adrian and Heather weren’t speaking, but they were looking at each other with small, secret smiles on their faces.

  “Maybe they’re beginning to heal each other,” Eileen said.

  Reva smiled. “I hope so.”

  ***

  Heather stretched out on a beach blanket next to Abby.

  “Adrian sure is good with Caroline,” Abby commented. He stood in waist-deep water, holding Caroline up while she dog-paddled toward Eileen. When they got within a couple feet of Eileen, he gave Caroline a little push through the water so she could paddle on her own the rest of the way. “I haven’t seen her look so relaxed and happy since…well, since ever.”

  “He’s pretty good all the way around,” Heather agreed, wondering every other minute whether she should ’fess up and tell everyone that she was falling in love—not just with Adrian, it turned out, but with his parents too. Eileen had taken Caroline under her wing. Gordon had kept Josh busy all day, hunting for minnows with a dip net in the shallow water—a surprisingly interesting activity given that they never caught a thing. “Adrian’s parents are great too.”

  “They’d make wonderful grandparents for someone’s kids,” Abby said in a la-de-dah tone.

  “I’m sure they would,” Heather said, refusing to rise to the bait. “In fact, I think they already are. Don’t Adrian’s sisters have kids?”

  Abby sat up and rooted through the cooler. “Yeah, but they live too far away. Gordon and Eileen need grandkids who live closer so they can do weekend sleepovers and such.” She handed Heather a wine cooler. “Don’t you think?”

  Heather took the beverage but again refused to take the bait. “Maybe.”

  Quinn plopped down beside them, totally ruining the girlfriend vibe, so after a few minutes of polite conversation, Heather finished her watermelon cooler and waded out into the water toward the ongoing swimming lesson. She hoped her presence didn’t ruin things—when Heather had tried to teach Caroline to swim, the child refused to budge off Heather’s hip—but Adrian’s laughter across the water pulled her like a magnet. “Look who’s swimming,” Heather praised. “Somebody’s got the magic touch.”