Moonstone (36 page)

The swimmers approached the wall in the last length with Lane Three again leading. A cheer sounded when the swimmer in Lane Three touched the wall first. Kelsey was between Lane Two and Three to congratulate her first- and second-place finishers and then a moment later she was up and pacing again. The next set of swimmers were fitting on goggles. It was like this each time. Race after race, Kelsey zipping from one end of the pool to the other. She was exhausted by the end of each meet and would devour dinner, excitedly recalling the details about the races that Joy always seemed to miss.

Before the next race started, Kelsey paced past the bench where Joy sat. She paused long enough to meet Joy’s gaze. One wink and she was on the move again. Joy watched her skirt along the edge of the far side of the pool. The swimmers dove in and she was hustling now.

Joy recognized one of the parents sitting on the bench below hers. The parent waved and said something about Raceda winning the match too easily. She couldn’t keep track of the parents’ names, but it didn’t seem to matter. They all knew her. Kelsey made certain to introduce her to everyone any chance she got despite Joy’s efforts to remain a bystander in the crowd. Kelsey didn’t try hiding the fact that she was gay. She didn’t offer any excuses and everyone loved her exactly as she was. It was easy to love her. And it didn’t take long before Joy got used to being introduced as the coach’s girlfriend. The fact that Kelsey fit in where Joy never had was something that she rarely thought of now. Maybe it was time or the trays of cookies that everyone wanted her to try. Or the cheering parents who eagerly sat down next to her to boast about their swimmer. Even the kids seemed to think Joy belonged and grilled her with questions if she missed a meet.
Where else would she be?

Joy took a bite of the cookie. Peanut butter chocolate chip. She tried to focus on the next race. The 100-meter backstroke. The swimmers crossed the length of the pool and Joy easily picked out one of her favorites in the lead. She eyed Kelsey. She hadn’t told her about the new offer on Moonstone yet. Denise had given her blessing to the deal—she was dating the yoga teacher at her gym and they were already thinking about trading her houseboat in for a sailboat. Retirement had come up more than once. And her mom had moved in to her new place in Terrence’s neighborhood. But Kelsey… Joy hated the thought of even bringing up the subject of a move.

Two weeks after she’d quit her sales job at Alpine, John from the marina hooked Kelsey up with a gig leading kayaking trips around the bay. Then the offer to coach Raceda High’s struggling swim team came along and Kelsey didn’t think twice about signing up for both. She’d been so depressed after the accident that Joy had worried about her constantly. Now she had a smile that never seemed to leave her face.

“I ran into Denise today,” Kelsey said. She poured hot water over the tea bags and then brought the two mugs to the table.

Barb glanced up from her writing. She was writing a letter to the pen pal she’d had for as long as Kelsey could remember. Linda Calvin. Barb had gone to grade school with Linda, and they still kept up with letters despite how much easier it would be to send an email.

“How’s Linda?”

“She’s good. Her husband’s cheating on her.” Barb paused. “I’m not pining after Denise, if that’s what you’re expecting from me.”

“She wanted me to pass on a hello. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Barb said. She cleared her throat. “How was she?”

“Good.” Kelsey hesitated. Since Denise had started with her new girlfriend, Kelsey knew that she’d stopped dropping by the house. Barb didn’t talk about it, but Kelsey guessed that she must be missing the company. Nate had filled up some of the hole. Although he was rarely up before lunchtime and only used the house as a launch pad, his clothes, bicycle, weights and backpack littered the hallway. His presence was most palpable in the form of a stubbed toe. Barb didn’t complain about the clutter however. “We didn’t talk long. She was down at the marina waiting for Tiff and I had a kayaking group to take out.”

“I get the impression that Tiff is a busy woman. Last I heard, she was taking off for a quick trip to France.”

“Well, she’s from France.” Kelsey paused. “Wait, are you jealous?”

“Maybe a little.” Barb sighed. “But only a little. Mostly I’m happy that Denise is happy. And I’m worried that she’s going to fall too hard for Tiff and get her heart broken again. That seems to be her usual plan.”

“It’s okay to be jealous.”

“Thank you.” Barb smiled. “I don’t really need your permission.”

“I know.” Kelsey scooped out the tea bags and set one of the cups in front of Barb. “Think Nate would mind if I wake him up? I haven’t seen him in weeks. Doesn’t even seem like he’s living here. Except for all of his crap.”

“He’s not here.”

“He’s out early. It isn’t even ten.” Kelsey added a teaspoon of sugar to her tea and stirred. “Surfing?”

“I don’t think so.” Barb took a sip of tea and then added sugar. She fidgeted with the sugar spoon.

“What do you think he’s doing then?” Kelsey eyed Barb.

Barb sipped her tea and didn’t answer.

“Okay, what is it?” Whatever Nate was up to, Barb was covering.

“He might be with Sadie Padgett.” She shook her head. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Apparently it’s a big secret about him and Sadie. If anyone asks, he was here when you dropped by.”

“You’re a terrible alibi, Mom. Why didn’t you just say that he was in bed sleeping? I wouldn’t have checked.” Kelsey chuckled. “I guess it isn’t surprising that Sadie would want to keep a relationship with Nate a secret.”

“I’m not always a bad alibi.”

“So her orthopedic surgeon fiancé is out of the picture?”

Barb shook her head.

“Oh. That’s why it was a secret.”

“
Is
a secret,” Barb insisted. She sighed. “Think Denise would say yes if I asked her over for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Why?”

“To talk.” Barb shook her head. “Don’t look so surprised. I miss her.”

“Denise loves to talk,” Kelsey said. “She’ll talk to anyone. Why not the straight woman she spent a year trying to woo?”

Barb took a sip of the tea. She patted Kelsey’s hand. “Thank you for giving me a hard time about that.”

“Did I?” Kelsey sighed. “You know this girlfriend that she has now—it probably won’t last. Denise told me that she always sabotages her own love affairs.”

Barb shook her head. “I hope she doesn’t this time. She’s happy. But I think she still needs a best friend.” Barb paused. “Someone needs to keep your secrets.”

“Is that what best friends are for?” Kelsey smiled. “I thought that was why people had pets.”

Barb frowned. “I’m serious. You don’t have a best friend. You never have. Lots of friends, but no one you can call when there’s something important you need to talk about.” She sighed. “I worry about who keeps your secrets.” She tapped the envelope addressed to her pen pal. “You need a Linda.”

“Does Linda know how terrible you are at keeping secrets?”

Barb laughed. “No, and don’t tell her.”

“Well, I know not to trust you with a secret. You’ll tell the first person who asks. Nate’s gonna be pissed that you told me about Sadie.”

“Maybe. But it was Sadie who asked me to keep it a secret. She’s the one with the fiancé. No one else in the family knows.”

Not even Hannah? Kelsey wondered silently. Hannah with her bag of secrets was adept at finding everyone else’s secrets. There was little doubt in Kelsey’s mind that Hannah knew about Sadie and Nate. But Hannah wouldn’t give a damn about that. She didn’t believe in monogamy.
Hannah.
Kelsey studied her response. It had been months since she’d thought of Hannah. Only a quiver of emotion remained and it was all regret. Regret that she’d ever let herself slip down that rabbit hole. “I don’t like secrets.”

“But we all keep them. If you had a best friend, you could tell them what really happened when you went hiking that night. When you slipped off the cliff.”

Hiking. That was what she’d told everyone. Kelsey met Barb’s gaze. She smiled tightly. It wasn’t a secret. It was a lie. “My girlfriends have always taken on the role of best friend.” But it did get complicated when there was a secret. “Joy can keep a secret for me.”

“I’m sure she can.” Barb pulled her hand back and took another sip of the tea. “But can you tell her everything?”

“She doesn’t need to know everything,” Kelsey said. Barb had interrogated her countless times about the night that she’d gone missing. That was how Barb referred to it.
Missing
. It was a better description than any Kelsey could come up with for that night, but of course it left out a few important details. Maybe she wasn’t referring to that, however. Whatever Barb thought, she didn’t care. It was the fact that she’d lied to Joy that weighed on her.

“Sometimes we don’t tell anyone the truth, do we? Especially the people we love.”

“Truth is complicated.” Kelsey closed her eyes. She held the warm mug up to her lips and breathed in the steam.

“Are you in love with her?”

Kelsey nodded.

“And she loves you?”

“I think so.”

“Then tell her your secret so you can finally move past all of that.” Barb stood up. She went to the cabinet and pulled out a loaf of bread. “Toast?” She smiled brightly. “I’ve got apricot jam from the farmers market.”

Joy decided at the last minute to tag along on Kelsey’s kayaking tour. It was a busy Saturday morning and there were two separate groups to lead with six kayakers in each. The first group headed out at nine and had the benefit of a brief interlude between high and low tide. With little wind everyone beamed and jabbered on about their kayaking skills. The second group headed out at eleven. Battling the changing tide and a biting westward wind near the bridge, the chatter was kept to a minimum. Kelsey maintained a slower pace and pointed out the wildlife more with the second tour. Joy settled into the rear and helped the slower kayakers keep up or pushed kayaks out of the sandbars along the sides of the slough when anyone got stuck.

Kelsey only occasionally glanced back at her. Joy had finally gotten enough skill with her kayak that she’d begun to feel helpful on the tours. And once she’d figured out how to manage the kayak and the shifting currents, she enjoyed more of the view.

When they pulled in the last of the kayaks and locked up the storage shed, Kelsey turned to Joy and said, “You’ve been quiet all morning. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Joy said. She was lying. Everything wasn’t fine. She hadn’t brought up the contract yet. Two days had passed since she’d gotten the offer. She’d emailed the real estate agent that morning to ask for an extension until Monday. The potential buyer had grudgingly accepted the new terms, but she needed an answer first thing Monday morning.

Kelsey’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

Joy clasped Kelsey’s hand. “This morning was nice. I love spending the day out on the water. With you.”

“It
was
nice.” Kelsey paused. “And now I’m sure that you’re not telling me something.”

They walked over to Kelsey’s Jeep. The insurance company had cashed out the Audi for the full purchase price of a new Jeep. Kelsey babied the thing to no end. She took it to the car wash at least every other week and hated getting sand on the upholstery. Still, the Jeep fit her. Joy climbed in and waited for Kelsey to start the engine. After a moment, she glanced at Kelsey. Kelsey’s arms were crossed.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Kelsey said.

Joy sighed. “Sometimes I hate the fact that you seem to know what I’m thinking.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking. I only know that you’re doing too much of it.” Kelsey put the keys in the ignition and rolled down the windows. She turned down the volume of the radio but still didn’t start up the engine. She rested her hand on the clutch and eyed Joy. “Well?”

Joy stared out the windshield at the boats lined up on the pier. It was a busy afternoon and the marina gate whined every few minutes with someone coming or going. She didn’t want to have this discussion. The morning had been too nice to ruin. But the conversation wasn’t going to get any easier if she waited another day. “I got another offer on Moonstone.”

“Another one?” Kelsey tapped her finger on the stick shift, slow like a metronome on a long delay. Joy glanced over at her. She was staring out the windshield now too, but her gaze seemed unfocused. “I didn’t know you’d put it up for sale.”

“I didn’t. A realtor contacted me because she had a buyer looking in the area, a corporate client.” Joy paused. “I moved here thinking I was going to sell in six months, a year at most. But I haven’t thought about leaving in months. Four months, give or take.”

Kelsey had stopped drumming out her slow beat on the shift. She was still watching the scene on the dock. “Where would you go?”

“Maybe San Francisco. That job I turned down is still open. I don’t know. My brother wants me to check out Arizona. There’s options.”

Kelsey started up the Jeep. Her jaw was clenched.

Joy wanted to ask if Kelsey would leave Raceda. The question bounced back and forth in her head and she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Finally she said, “I didn’t want to bring this up. We were having such a nice morning.”

Kelsey pulled out of the parking lot. “It
was
nice.”

“I love watching you out on the water. You’re always the best part of the view.” Joy stared out the window. The storefronts on Raceda’s main drag blurred past. “The timing just hasn’t been right to bring up something like this.”

Kelsey didn’t say anything more until they reached the highway. “If you didn’t want to bring it up, were you planning on making the decision by yourself? And only telling me afterward?”

The anger in Kelsey’s voice caught Joy off guard. “No, of course not. I was waiting for the right moment. I wanted to talk to you about it, but…”

“You wanted the right moment to tell me that you’re thinking of leaving?” Kelsey cussed under her breath. She passed a truck in the slow lane and then swerved to pass another car before slowing down. “I hate that I didn’t see this coming. Everyone kept telling me that there was no way you were going to stay, but after a while I thought they were wrong.”