The Beach House (10 page)

A young waitress appeared and pulled out a pad and pencil. She already had a fabulous tan that she was eager to show off. Cara ordered a Diet Coke and a Cajun shrimp salad. It arrived quickly and she began mining through a salad the size of a small planet. As she jabbed her fork into the greens, she got the tingly sensation that someone was watching her. Quickly turning her head, she locked with a pair of eyes exactly the color of the cerulean sky she had left outside the dark room.

The spark of attraction shot straight down to her toes. He was sitting with his elbows on the bar and looking at her intently, his head turned over broad shoulders that stretched the faded blue fabric of his shirt. His thick hair was tawny colored and windblown, there was a stubble on his cheek and long lines cut through his deep tan at the corners of his eyes. He exuded a restrained power too ripe for a boy.

He sat at the bar with his three buddies, each of them a sterling example of a good ol’ boy pulling down a beer at a favorite pub. The bearded redhead to his right leaned over to mutter something close to his ear, followed by a short laugh and a quick glance her way. She saw the tall man’s glance slide from her face down to her shoes, then a slow, easy grin lifted the left corner of his mouth like he’d just caught the punch line of a private joke. He turned his head back to the baseball game on the TV over the bar, dismissing her.

Cara’s cheeks flamed. In her mind’s eye she could see that her strappy sandals with their sparkling rhinestones, which might have looked fabulous in the city, were a joke here.

“Check, please!” she called out, flagging her waitress. The girl came bouncing over, scribbling in her pad en route. Cara whipped her credit card out of her purse before the girl even arrived. The bill was soon settled and Cara hurried from the restaurant, walking swiftly past the bar without so much as a glance.

Outside the sun was blinding and stung her tender shoulders but Cara was mad now and not to be daunted. The anger felt good, the first real emotion she’d had in days. Even better, she now had a mission. Looking from left to right, she searched the lazy street. Her gaze passed over crazy murals on whitewashed buildings, ice cream and pizza parlors, a surf shop and a new, miniature chain hotel to zero in on a small boutique where a loud, raucous African parrot whistled and called. Cara smiled and made her choice, crossing the street.

“Good job,” she said to the parrot as she entered the shop.

The salesgirl, though young, looked Cara over with an experienced eye. From the way she scurried around from behind the counter, Cara knew she had Customer In Dire Need of Help written all over her.

“What can I do for you?” the girl asked in a cheery voice.

“I need a dressing room,” Cara replied, briskly walking through the narrow aisles of neatly folded clothes. She pulled out two pairs of shorts, four T-shirts, a thin stretchy sweat suit that would be perfect for nights on the beach, two swimsuits, a thin terry cloth cover-up, a long black flowing cotton dress decorated with red Hawaiian flowers and a blue tie-dyed beach towel that she couldn’t pass by. She went into the dressing room and emerged soon after in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt with the tags hanging out. The salesgirl laughed as she snipped the tags off and carefully folded the mint silk ensemble into a bag.

“Anything else?”

“Sandals,” Cara said emphatically, looking down at the now despised ones on her feet. “I need comfortable sandals that I can walk along the beach in and not worry if they get wet. I plan to do a lot of walking.”

“You should get these,” the girl replied, lifting her own foot.

Cara looked at the clunky, wide-strapped sandals with thick rubber soles and thought they were nothing she’d have picked out on her own.

“Size nine,” she replied, slipping off the rhinestone sandals and tossing them in the trash bin.

“How about this?” the salesgirl asked with a wry smile, holding up a purple Koozie with the Isle of Palms logo. Cara laughed and shook her head, but when she saw a navy baseball cap with the South Carolina palm and crescent moon logo, she bought that, too. Placing it on her head, she handed over the straw hat to add to the burgeoning bag. Leaving the shop, she caught a glimpse of herself in a long mirror. Her neck and arms were sunburned and her long thin legs looked as pale as the underbelly of a fish.

“I scream tourist,” Cara said, but laughed, pleased to see the same jaunty look she’d admired in her mother.

“Now you fit right in.”

Though the mother loggerhead is tired and hungry, her work is just beginning. She will nest an average of four times during this season, resting two weeks between each nest.

CHAPTER FIVE

L
ovie sat slump shouldered on the hard examining table while her shaky fingers buttoned up her blouse. These radiation therapy sessions leached the energy right out of her. If only it was as efficient with the cancer, she thought. But cancer wasn’t about
if onlys.
Cancer was about what was, and the plain fact was, the radiation wasn’t doing much. She’d only continued this long in hopes of prolonging her life by a few months. After such a full, active life, Lovie didn’t want to spend her last days as an invalid.

Her hands stilled on her blouse as she considered again whether or not now was the time to tell her children about the cancer. When the tumor was discovered last December she’d felt shocked. Numb with fear. The tumor was already large and inoperable and the prognosis was dim. She had weighed the decision carefully, then drawn on years of experience in keeping unpleasantness from her children. So she’d kept her illness private.

Besides, Palmer would have made such a fuss. He was very attached to her and there would have been lots of his useless hand-wringing and wild declarations on how he was going to call in the experts and holler that she’d get the best damn treatment possible. Then Julia would have been pressed upon to be her primary caregiver and Lovie knew that her daughter-in-law wasn’t up to the task. She was a good girl, but she would fret and worry and generally fall apart at the seams, more about how the illness was affecting
her own
schedule and life rather than Lovie’s. The resulting chaos would have been too disruptive to the children. Not to mention, Palmer never would have allowed her to leave the house in Charleston and come out to the beach house to live if he knew.

And Cara…Lovie finished the row of buttons, then let her hands fall to her lap. She didn’t know how her daughter would have reacted to the news. She might have taken time from work, flown in and demanded to take charge of the medical treatment in her efficient manner. Or she might simply have sent flowers.

Oh, she’d heard stories from other cancer patients. Heartbreaking tales of children who didn’t visit their sick parents, of old friends who didn’t even pick up the phone to chat, of brothers and sisters who pretended the cancer wasn’t real or that, if ignored, it would simply go away. Did they think cancer was contagious? Were they so self-absorbed that they didn’t want the inconvenience of sickness to interrupt their lives? Or were they so afraid of the very idea of death that they preferred to look the other way? It was no wonder so many of the terminally ill felt so alone.

Lovie shivered on the examining table, staring blankly at the green-tiled walls. The chill of the room went straight through her thin skin to her bones. She was so very tired, she felt like weeping, and the radiation always made her stomach queasy. All she wanted was to go home to her beach house, sit in her favorite rocker on the windward porch and listen to the comforting murmur of the sea.

A brisk knock on the door brought her head up in time to see the door swing open and Dr. Pittman walk in, his long white coat billowing behind him. He always seemed to be in a hurry and when he spoke he shot out the words to get to the point as quickly as humanly possible. She found it unnerving and attributed it to him being both so smart his mouth couldn’t keep up with his brain and to him being from somewhere in the North, Harvard or Yale or some such place. He was said to be the best, but nonetheless Lovie thought he seemed very young to have so many degrees.

“Good morning, Mrs. Rutledge,” he boomed, his eyes still on the chart.

Lovie murmured a polite response and gathered her blouse closer around her neck.

Toy followed quietly, her eyes wide with anxiety. Bless her heart, Lovie thought. That child had been through the mill these past months, driving her to the therapy and endless doctor’s appointments, waiting for hours at a time, all without a whisper of complaint. Providing transportation was important, but it was the least of Toy’s caregiving efforts. She did most of the shopping, did all the housekeeping chores and even went to church with Lovie on Sundays. Most of all, Toy talked to her. When they came home from the therapy and Lovie felt more dead than alive, it was a simple pleasure to just sit back and listen to her upbeat prattle, so full of life, about whatever flitted through her young mind.

Lovie didn’t know what she would have done without the girl. Toy Sooner was more than a companion. She was a godsend.

Lovie reached out her hand to the girl and Toy hurried forward to grasp it, squeezing it with encouragement and relief. Her face, however, was pale with fatigue, revealing a smattering of freckles across her nose. She didn’t look old enough to be having a child.

“The Lord said to care for the sick,” she said, patting Toy’s slightly callused hand. “But you’ve taken it to the nth degree today.”

“Hey, no problem,” she replied, brushing away the concern with a flip of her hand.

“You’ll get your reward in Heaven,” she said, smiling. Then, more seriously, “I had no idea it would take so long.”

“I was just sitting out there watching TV and reading. By the way, Doctor, the hospital could sure use some new magazines. The latest one is four months old. It’s, like, really sad.”

The doctor absently nodded as he read Lovie’s chart.

“Are you tired?” Toy asked, looking closer at her face. “You look real tired. We might could stop for a milkshake or something on the way home?”

“Not for me. My stomach is still doing flip-flops. We can stop for you, though. It’d be good for the baby.”

“I’d like to see you eat more,” the doctor added to Lovie. “You’re still losing weight.”

“I’ll try,” Lovie replied in a lackluster tone, more to make the doctor happy. Privately, she couldn’t see much point in it. She was going to die anyway. But she didn’t express this so as not to alarm Toy. The girl seemed intent on keeping Lovie alive forever.

“Is there anything bothering you lately?” the doctor asked, looking up from the chart to skewer her with his dark eyes. “Any pain?”

Oh, yes, there was a great deal bothering her, Lovie thought. But the doctor knew he couldn’t cure her and seemed to have lost interest in her case, eager to finish the chart and file it.

“I’m handling the pain very nicely with the pills you gave me, thank you.”

“You’ll call me if at any time the pills don’t cover it anymore, okay?” He glanced at Toy for confirmation. She nodded dutifully. He closed the chart and rested his hand on it, shaking his thinning head of hair. “Well, that’s it then. I have to say I’m not happy that you’ve canceled the treatment, Mrs. Rutledge. I’d rather you continued on through the summer.”

Lovie closed her eyes and sighed.

“You stopped the treatment?” Toy asked, her eyes round with alarm.

“Yes, dear,” she replied, then faced the doctor. “If I continue throughout the summer, as you recommend, will I be cured?”

“No,” he replied cautiously. “Radiation was never the cure. But we discussed that, Mrs. Rutledge. Right?” He seemed unsettled that she should think otherwise.

“We did,” she replied firmly. “I understand that completely. And I also understand that I’m not expected to last much beyond the summer, if that. Right?”

He had the grace to smile.

She felt Toy squeeze her hand, nervously.

“So tell me, Doctor, if you had one summer left of your life, would you spend it in radiation therapy?”

“I might. If it took me into fall.”

Lovie shrugged slightly. “Summer’s enough for me. If it’s a good summer.”

“But Miss Lovie, you don’t know!” Toy was revving up and Lovie knew she could go on for a long time if not checked. “You can beat this!”

“Hush now, dear. I’ve made up my mind.” Then more softly, “Time is too precious for wishful thinking. I want to enjoy every minute the Good Lord gives me. And I can’t do that if I’m sick and exhausted. Why would I want to spend what little time I have left just waiting for death? Not when there’s still life in me. I’m firm, Doctor. No more radiation.”

Toy was silenced and her eyes filled.

The doctor nodded in understanding. “Very well,” he replied, pulling a prescription pad out from the pocket of his long white jacket. “Though our time here at the hospital is finished, Mrs. Rutledge, I do want to keep up with your progress. And, of course, I’ll be in touch with your regular doctor should there be any change. But there are immediate concerns you’ll have to discuss with your family about your care. We don’t know the time frame of the cancer spreading. Hopefully, this last series of treatments will keep it at bay for a while. The time will come when you will need more assistance than Miss Sooner is able to provide. You’ll need to gather a support system. Or you may want to consider moving into nursing care.”

“No! Miss Lovie won’t need to go nowhere. I’ll stay with her,” Toy said quickly.

Dr. Pittman looked at her with sympathy. “When is your baby due, Miss Sooner?”