The Beach House (43 page)

“Oh, Mama, never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore. I didn’t come in here tonight for a row. I shouldn’t have told you. I just thought you’d like to know about the job offer, that’s all.”

Lovie wiped her eyes and sniffed in the tissue. “No, I’m glad you told me. I didn’t mean…It’s just that I’ve always believed a woman is happier being married.”

“Can you honestly tell me that you were?”

Lovie looked up, her eyes red rimmed and watery, and opened her mouth to respond. But no sound came out. She seemed to be struggling with an answer that left her mute.

“Does that mean you’ll be leaving for Chicago soon?” Toy wanted to know.

Cara turned to face Toy who was standing by the door. She looked as if she were halfway in the room and halfway out.

“I’m not going anywhere until after you have that baby!” she said, pointing her finger and interjecting a little enthusiasm into her voice. She saw relief blossom on Toy’s face. “But, after that, I’ll have to go to Chicago for a series of interviews. It should only take a few days. A week at most. I imagine you can hold the fort for that long if I bring in help. And Flo’s promised to be on call, but we all know she just wants to hold that baby. I won’t dally. I’ll hurry right back.”

Cara sat on the edge of the mattress again and took her mother’s hand. She squeezed it and said with intent, “I love you and I won’t leave you. You understand that, don’t you?”

Lovie mustered a weak smile. “Of course I do.”

In the pause Cara could almost hear the subject drop. She had never felt the role reversal so strongly as she did at that moment. The responsibility for these two lives—one about to depart life, the other about to bring a new life forth—fell squarely on her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” she asked Lovie.

Lovie nodded feebly.

“Did you eat dinner? I don’t smell any fish.”

“We just weren’t up to cleaning fish,” Toy replied apologetically. “So we ate the leftover tuna casserole from yesterday and a little fresh pea soup.”

“It was delicious, dear,” Lovie said, distracted.

“Can I get you some?” Toy asked Cara.

Cara’s stomach growled. “I didn’t eat and I’m starving. But don’t get up. I think I’ll scrounge around in the fridge after I change into something more comfortable.”

“You look quite nice in that dress,” Lovie said. She was eager to make amends.

“Sexy,” added Toy. “I can’t remember the last time I wore anything like that. Or high heels.”

“Me, neither,” she quipped as she left the room.

As she kicked off her heels and changed into jeans and a T-shirt, Cara wondered what Brett was up to. She picked up the phone and dialed his number. It rang several times but there was no answer. It was just like him to forget to turn on his answering machine. He was probably out on the dock, cooking up some shrimp. Her stomach growled again and she decided to go right over. Tying her tennis shoes, she thought how much she wanted to see his face again after staring at Richard’s.

“Mama?” she called out, grabbing her purse. “I’m going over to Brett’s. Don’t wait up.”

“Okay,” Toy called out over the television noise in Lovie’s bedroom. Before closing the door, Cara heard the weatherman announcing that the tropical storm in the Caribbean had been upgraded to a hurricane.

The hatchling swims from the dangerous, shallow water near its natal beach to the deep water of the Gulf Stream. Once there, it will hide and feed in the relative safety of enormous floats of sargassum weeds and flotsam.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

C
ara pulled into Brett’s driveway and found him in a black leather jacket standing beside a big, mean-looking black Harley motorcycle. The leather made his shoulders appear even broader and lent him a dangerous air. He turned his head toward her when she parked.

“I didn’t even know you owned a motorcycle,” she said, coming close. Her gaze was glued to the gleaming bike.

“I don’t ride it much anymore. Don’t have the time.”

She caught the crispness of his voice and looked up. There was no easy smile of welcome, no sweet kiss or arm around her shoulder.

“I’m starved,” she said. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I thought you were going out to dinner with what’s-his-face.”

“Richard? I did. Or rather, I went to the restaurant with him. But our business ended quickly and I left before I ate.”

“Business? What kind of business?”

“He offered me a job.”

Brett digested that without a word. He turned back to his motorcycle and checked gauges.

Her excitement fizzled as disappointment settled in for the second time that night. She’d hoped at least for a lame question about the job, or even a polite acknowledgement.

She tried again. “I was hoping I’d find you boiling up some shrimp.”

He shook his head. “I just grabbed a frozen pizza.”

“Oh.” She was deflated. She stood for a moment trying to decide if he was angry with her for not cooking up the trout for dinner or whether he was jealous. She preferred to think the latter and tried one more time.

“Are you going out for a ride?”

“Yep,” he replied, still not looking at her. He walked into the garage and returned a minute later carrying a black helmet.

That did it. Now she was mad. She didn’t deserve this treatment. “What is your problem?” she asked angrily.

“My problem? I don’t have a problem.”

“No? Then why am I getting the cold shoulder?”

He put the helmet on the seat and stared at it for a moment. “You’re right,” he said, looking up. “You didn’t do anything to deserve this. I’m just feeling a little edgy tonight.”

“Because of Richard?”

He didn’t reply.

“Brett, I didn’t know he was coming. I certainly didn’t invite him. There’s nothing between us anymore, for heaven’s sake. At least on my side. That became perfectly clear tonight.”

He looked at her but she couldn’t decipher his thoughts in the feverishness of his pale-blue eyes. He surprised her by turning and going back into the garage again, this time emerging with another helmet. This one was smaller and white. When he approached, he handed it to her.

“Put this on.”

She exhaled with confusion, but obliged him while he put on his own helmet. Then he swung his leg around the bike and grabbed firm hold of the handlebars. He’d changed into long jeans and the heavy, sun-bleached boots she remembered seeing him wear on the shrimp boat at the beginning of summer.

“Come on, then.”

Cara was filled with curiosity about where they were headed. She swung her leg around and slid forward on the slanted seat so that her thighs and knees hugged his hips. She wrapped her arms around his waist, locked her fingers together and tucked her tennis shoes onto the pegs.

“Hold on.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“Okay.”

She felt his arm move and the powerful engine roared to life. Her heart skipped a beat and she tightened her grip around his waist. She didn’t have time to tell him that this was her first ride on a motorcycle, not counting the moped. Fear mingled with the thrill of excitement as she leaned against his back. They took off in a spray of gravel and a guttural roar out of the driveway and down Palm Boulevard. They crossed the connector as the red sun lowered into the purpling marsh and she rested her chin against Brett’s shoulder, slumped in awe. She’d traveled around the world, but nowhere on earth did the sun descend into the horizon with such panache as in the Lowcountry.

It was a great night for a ride. The moon was near full and illuminated the roads. She felt as if she were riding a bullet pushing through silken wind, and clung to Brett for dear life in an embrace more passionate than any they’d shared before. The engine vibrated beneath them, its roar filled their ears. The night smelled of leather, damp earth, green grasses and the sea. Out in the open, so close to the road, she felt the same visceral connection with the landscape that she did on the small johnboat speeding down the Intracoastal.

They crossed the bridge to James Island where the road opened up and curved along the water and under huge oaks dripping with moss. Moonlight poured through the leaves like magic through lace. They leaned to the left as they took a curve, straightened, then leaned to the right for the second, moving as one body. When the bike surged forward, they felt the force pushing against them as an invisible hand. When the engine slowed, their muscles slackened again. They had traveled for nearly an hour when they came to a winding stretch with several sharp curves. Brett slowed the motorcycle and came to a stop.

“This is it,” he said, turning off the engine.

She loosened her arms from his waist and took off her helmet, shaking her hair loose. The engine still roared in her head and the vibrations stiffened her tender inner thighs. But after she’d climbed from the bike and stood still for a few minutes, her blood seemed to slow back down and she heard the night music of insects and frogs. Brett removed his helmet and hung it from the bike, then he walked a few yards along the side of the road to where a small white cross was erected in the dirt. He came to a stop before the cross, reached inside his leather jacket, pulled out a flattened yellow rose and laid it in front of the cross. She didn’t approach him, giving him the space she sensed he needed.

He stood there for a long time, his head bent. The night grew chilly. Several cars sped past them, the beams of light flashing over Brett’s features like the bright searchlights of a prison. At length, he turned and waved her over.

The gravel crunched beneath her feet along the road, then the ground turned soft as she crossed the earth to his side at the foot of the cross. She drew near and was comforted when he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

“Her name was Ashley Carter,” he said. “We met freshman year in an intro to fisheries and wildlife class, and dated on and off through college. She was real smart and not a party girl. Kinda like you were. She wanted to be a forester. Her idea of a date was going out to take samples from the marshes.” He laughed without humor then paused, lost in his own thoughts again. Cara waited without speaking.

“You didn’t know me back then,” he continued. “I wasn’t so much a bad kid as I was dangerous. I took risks, pushed things to the limit. I didn’t think twice about jumping off a bridge. I didn’t give a damn if I flooded my truck or wrapped it around some tree while mudding, as long as it was fun. It’s what gave me the edge in sports. I drove my boat too fast and too close to those monster ships than was smart—even for a bullheaded teenage boy. I could’ve gotten sucked into the wake in the front or caught in a whirlpool in the back any number of times. My dad got word of my antics from one of the harbor pilots who spotted me. That was the only time he ever laid a hand to me. And I deserved it. I wasn’t alone in that boat.

“But I wasn’t always lucky. Broke a leg once. An arm twice. A couple of toes and fingers. But did that stop me? No. It only made me feel more invincible. I thought I was immortal. I don’t know how I survived high school, but by the time I got to college, I was drunk most nights. I honestly believed I was
good
at driving drunk. Thought I had a skill for it. That kind of crazy ego scares the shit out of me now that I’m older.

“But Ashley never saw that part of me. When I was with her, I was different. The irony of it all is that I wasn’t drinking the day of the accident. We were coming home from a field session at the DNR labs. It was broad daylight and I wasn’t in any kind of hurry. I took the turn at an easy pace, but a truck coming the other way took the curve too wide and came right for us. I swerved to avoid it and spilled. The wheels slid out from under me and I got dragged along with the bike into the grass. But Ashley got thrown off.

“If she’d just landed on the ground, she would have been hurt, but alive. Except fate turned the deck on us that day. She was thrown against that big old oak over there. I’m told she died on the spot.”

“I’m so sorry, Brett.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, then looked off at the oak. His jaw moved as if he were grinding his teeth.

“You can’t blame yourself. It was an accident. You said yourself you weren’t drinking.”

“Easy to say. I blamed myself for a long time, figured I’d just used up my quota of luck. I’d pressed the limit so many times and escaped that, this time, no matter what, I had to pay. Only I didn’t pay. Ashley did. I know I’m damn lucky to have a life at all, but I know my day is marked just as surely as Ashley’s was marked for September 2, 1984.”

“That’s today.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I wasn’t so bothered by that Richard guy showing up. But he showed up
today.
I felt threatened. Not by him, but by fate. I thought I was going to lose again someone—” he stopped, exhaling long and hard “—someone I cared about.”

Cara reached up to unzip his leather jacket, then she slipped her arms around his neck and held him, pressing herself as close as she could against him so he could feel her living, breathing warmth. His big arms reached up to encircle her and squeezed so tight that she felt they were merged again into one body, one heart. He buried his face in her hair. She tasted salt on his cheeks.

A car zoomed by, whisking her hair and crunching gravel. Against the noise, she thought she heard the words, “I love you.”

He took her back to the Isle of Palms. They changed into their swimsuits and went for a swim in the ocean, then spread out on towels in the sand. She lay in the crook of his arm with one leg lying across his and her fingers toying with the hairs on his chest. They heard the scritch-scritch of ghost crabs scurrying along the sands and the rattling of sea grasses in the wind.