Beachcombers (14 page)

23

Emma

E
mma's days had developed a routine.

She spent her mornings taking dictation from a fragile woman who wanted to write her memoirs but was too afflicted with arthritis to type on a keyboard or hold a pen. Francine had been an administrative assistant for the chief financial officer of an international insurance company, and her memories were rife with tales of office politics, confrontations, and executive backstabbings that she recounted in a rambling, emotional rush of words. Emma couldn't imagine that this memoir would ever be published, but she could tell that the struggle to remember and to relate brought meaning to Francine's days.

After Francine, Emma had a free hour for an early lunch. She returned home, swooped hurriedly around the kitchen, putting together a meal in the Crock-Pot or concocting potato salad or rice salad or macaroni and cheese, something to be eaten with fresh fish if their father had some, or cold cuts. She and her sisters had made a list of the necessary chores to keep their house running smoothly. Because Abbie often worked late out at the Parkers', Emma took on the duty of organizing the family dinners. Abbie went to the grocery store twice a week, at six in the morning, before it got crowded, for in the summers it was always so crowded it was difficult to find a place to park. That left the general housework to Lily, who had agreed she'd vacuum, dust, clean the bathrooms, and mop the kitchen floor once a week, whenever she had some free time. Their plan seemed to be working, so far.

At one, Emma went to read to Millicent Bracebridge. She'd gotten into the habit of doubling the batch of homemade treats she made for her family and taking some with her to the Bracebridge house. Chocolate chip cookies. Lemon squares. Blueberry scones. She pretended they were for Millicent, and the old woman did enjoy them, but really they were for Spencer, who often stopped by for lunch.

Today a steady Noah's Ark rain drummed down. Emma stepped into the Bracebridge front hall, set her umbrella in the stand, and hung her raincoat on the antique coatrack.

"Hello!" she called, hurrying into the living room.

"Who is it?" The older woman raised her head off her chest. Her voice was rusty.

"It's me, Mrs. Bracebridge. Emma Fox. Here to read to you. And I've brought some oatmeal cookies." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. "It's cold in here today. Why don't I make a fire?"

"That would be very nice."

"Well, then, let me check to be sure the flue's open ..." Emma had gotten into the habit of enumerating her actions as she performed them, for Millicent's sake.
She
would want any relative stranger moving around her home while she was unable to see what exactly they were doing, to do the same for her. "All right, now. There's plenty of kindling in the box, but I think I'll need some old newspaper ..."

"There's a pile in the pantry for recycling," Millicent told her.

"Great. I'll go get it. And I'll put water on for tea."

As she walked down the long hall to the kitchen, Emma felt as if she were in an eccentric sort of museum on a Sunday evening. Outside the pouring rain droned down the windows, keeping all the rooms in a dim gray gloom. Portraits of long-deceased Bracebridge ancestors glowered down at Emma as she went, clearly disapproving of everything they saw. The dish towels hanging in the kitchen were old and thin and embroidered long ago by Millicent or her mother. The old Blue Willow dishes rested on an antique cupboard just as they had for decades, and even the teakettle Emma filled with water seemed ancient.

Returning to the living room, she screwed the papers up into long rolls and stuffed them under the grate, arranged the kindling in a pyramid, and lit a match. The fire flared up and caught, and Emma dropped some split logs on top.

"My, that's just what the doctor ordered," Millicent said. "Wheel me closer, would you, please?"

Emma obeyed. "You must be cold in that light dress. Let me get you a sweater or a shawl."

"I think that would be a good idea. Thank you."

Finally it was all organized, shawl, tea, fire, and cookies on a plate. Emma fetched the Agatha Christie from the bookcase.

"Spencer probably won't come today," Millicent said sadly. "Not in this rain."

"That's all right," Emma told her. "We're at a really good spot in the book, and what could be more perfect weather than this for reading Agatha Christie!"

She curled up on the sofa, opened the book to the marked page, and began to read.

"Hello!"

The front door slammed and Spencer arrived, shaking water off his raincoat and stamping his feet.

"What a day!" He dropped his coat over the back of a chair and crossed the room to kiss his grandmother. Today he wore gray slacks, a white shirt, a blue blazer. "Hello, Grams. You've got a fire. Clever girl. Hello, Emma."

"Emma has brought you oatmeal cookies today," Millicent said.

Emma blushed. "They're for you, Mrs. Bracebridge."

The older woman snorted.

"Well, if they're not for you, then I'll just eat them all," Spencer said. Reaching over, he lifted the cookies off the thin china plate his grandmother was holding. "Yum. Good."

Mrs. Bracebridge touched the plate with her fingers. "Did you take
my
cookies?"

"No, I took
my
cookies." He threw himself into a chair. "Since Emma made them all for me."

"Impudent!" Mrs. Bracebridge scolded, but she smiled in spite of herself. Almost anything Spencer did pleased her.

"Is there enough tea for me, Emma?"

Emma poured him a cup. By now, she knew how he liked it, without milk or sugar. When she leaned forward to hand it to him, their fingers touched, and Spencer smiled at her. She felt herself blush again.

"Listen, Grams, I have a proposition for you. The NHA is organizing a show about sailor's valentines and other shellwork. You've got so many good pieces here. Would you consider loaning them to the museum for their exhibition?"

"I don't know." Mrs. Bracebridge shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Some of them are very valuable, you know. Very old."

"That's why we want to exhibit them. It is the NHA, Grams."

"Would they be in cases?"

"Behind glass? Probably. I'll have to check with the curator of the exhibit." He sipped his tea and continued, "Really, Grams, you ought to think about giving some of this stuff to the historical association. Especially since you can't even see it."

"I think your mother expects me to bequeath it to her. She'll want to sell it."

"Is that what Gramps would want you to do? You know how much he loved Nantucket. And come on, Mom's got plenty of money."

Mrs. Bracebridge cleared her throat. "Perhaps we should discuss family matters later."

"Sure," Spencer agreed easily. "But think about loaning us the shell work, okay?"

"Dear child, I almost always do whatever you ask, don't I?"

"You do, I know. I just wish your treasures were available for the public to see."

"You have always been entirely too enchanted by the island," Mrs. Bracebridge told him with a sniff.

"I suppose that's true." He reached over and patted her hand. "But so have you. Tell me I'm not right." When his grandmother smiled, he said, "And by the way. I'm giving a lecture at the Whaling Museum next Tuesday. Why don't you have Emma bring you?"

"Oh," Emma said, blushing. "Won't your mother want to take Mrs. Bracebridge?"

Both Spencer and his grandmother laughed as if she'd said something witty.

"The only things my mother likes about this island are the tennis and the cocktail parties," Spencer explained.

"Yes, my daughter-in-law is not a history buff," Mrs. Bracebridge said. "Funny that you're so connected to it, Spencer."

"I'm rebelling," he joked. He stood up. "I've got to get back. Emma, thanks for the cookies, they were yummy." Leaning over, he kissed his grandmother's cheek. "So, ladies, it's a date for next Tuesday, right?"

Flustered, Emma stuttered, "Well, well, I-I don't know. I'm not sure."

"Please come. There's going to be a little reception afterward."

Suddenly Mrs. Bracebridge began to tremble. "I hate being observed in my wheelchair!"

"Too bad. I want you to attend my talk."

"I won't be able to
see
you."

"You'll be able to hear me. And I want you to hear all the applause. Don't even think you're getting out of this, Grams." Grabbing up his raincoat, Spencer pulled it on and hurried out the door.

"What an impertinent young man he can be sometimes!" Mrs. Bracebridge sniffed.

"He really loves you," Emma assured her. "He wants to show off for you."

"He wants to show off for
you
," her employer said.

Truthfully, Emma objected, "Oh, I hardly think--"

"This is not the first lecture my grandson has ever given. But it's the first he's ever insisted I attend, with my companion. You're a smart young woman. Connect the dots."

Emma rose to put another log on the fire. She told herself that was what caused her burning cheeks.

Sitting back on the sofa, she picked up the book. "Shall I continue reading?"

"Of course. But first, did the wretched child really eat all the cookies, or did he leave me some?"

Emma put three cookies on her employer's plate. Then she settled in to read.

24

Lily

C
ould life get more complicated? She liked being busy, but this was ridiculous.

She'd spent all day finishing up her articles for this week's issue of the magazine. She'd told Eartha that on Saturdays she couldn't work because that was the day she had to get everything in, but even so, she'd barely made the deadline. Then she'd biked home, and that was another complication, the fact that the Old Clunker that had been basically hers for the past few years had to be shared with Abbie and Emma. Her sisters had complained about the way she cleaned the house, so she'd traded jobs with Abbie. She'd thought she'd like this better--she'd hated scrubbing the bathroom and the toilets.

But going to the grocery store was, truthfully, like parachuting straight into hell. The parking lot was full,
of course
, and she'd had to drive around waiting for a place to open up and then inside the store you couldn't move for the sea of shopping carts. And how much fun was it, lugging groceries for four adults out to the car and then into the house?

She'd been in such a hurry, putting the groceries away, that she'd broken open the bag of pasta and it scattered all over the floor. No one was around to help her, and she'd cried as she'd swept it all up, then cried in the shower because she didn't have anything new to wear to the evening's events. Then she'd realized she'd have puffy eyes if she didn't stop crying, so she stopped.

Her first event was an opening at a gallery on Main Street. That went pretty well. The artist was local, so Lily knew a lot of the people and snapped a lot of brilliant photos. But the second stop, a cocktail party fund-raiser for a local museum, brought her down. Everyone there was wealthy, and friends with everyone else, and they flicked their eyes at Lily with her camera as dismissively as if she were a homeless kid holding out a tin cup. The men, and many of them were young, in their thirties, looked at Lily without
seeing
her. Obviously she was so clearly not part of the group that counted that they didn't even notice that she was pretty.

She found the bathroom, locked the door, and scribbled down the names to the photos she'd taken. She scrutinized herself in the mirror. She looked good. Not wealthy, but
good.

And she had a date with Jason--she couldn't forget that! He wasn't at all the man for her long-range plans, but he was a really good guy, and so sexy. For tonight, he'd be just fine.

She left the party without saying good-bye--no one would notice she was gone--and hurriedly walked along the streets and lanes to the Quaker cemetery on Madaket Road. Jason was waiting for her there, leaning against the fence.

"It's a perfect night for stargazing," he told her. "Come on."

She followed him, slipping between the rails and onto the soft green grass. The cemetery was a large open plot of rolling land without trees or headstones--the Quakers had not believed in grave markers.

"Wait a minute," she told Jason. "I need to take off my shoes." She put her hand on his arm to balance herself. It was a natural, easy thing to do. She was surprised at how her senses bloomed when her skin touched his. Jason hadn't paid any attention to her when they were in high school. He was two years older and always had a girlfriend. Lily couldn't wait to tell Carrie she'd had a date with Jason.

It was just far enough out of town that the night sky could be viewed without interference from shop- and streetlights. They walked into the middle of the grassy open space. Jason brought a blanket out of his backpack and spread it on the ground, and they lay down, looking up at the sky.

They saw a million stars.

"Wow," Lily breathed.

"Sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" Jason said.

"We used to come out here when we were kids," Lily told him. "I haven't been here for years."

"We saw skies like this in Iraq," Jason told her. "Even more sky, and many more stars."

Lily asked carefully, "How was Iraq?"

He was quiet for a moment, then answered, "It was okay. I guess you could say I was lucky. But I don't want to go back."

"What
do
you want, Jason?"

"Well, that's the good thing about having been in Iraq. Over there, I used to dream that being back here would be heaven on earth, and now it kind of seems like it is. My construction business is doing really well even with the slowdown in the economy. I'm piling up some savings, and I've got a crew working for me, good guys that I can trust, and now and then I have free time to sail or fish. It's a pretty good life."

Lily sighed. "Maybe I need to get sent to Iraq. I just become so resentful in the summer. All the wealthy people who trample all over the island. They make me feel so poor. And it's as if they're taking something away from me."

"I can sympathize. But it's an unreal world here in the summer, Lily. You know that. It's not balanced. We're not seeing the millions of people who are just like us, struggling to get along. That's how most people are, really. And being normal, well, there are a lot of nice things about that. Plus, being normal on this island can be great."

"Hey, look. A shooting star." Lily pointed and they watched as the bright spot of light flared across the sky, down to the horizon, and vanished. The night was warm, the air was fragrant with salt and roses, and Lily's senses were on fire.

Jason was attracted to her. She knew that. She was attracted to him. But he needed to know who she really was, what she really wanted. "I've never wanted to be normal," Lily confessed.

He reached over and took her hand. "You've never had the chance to be. Not with looks like yours."

She smiled. "Like you ever noticed me in high school."

"Sure I did." He turned on his side and rose up on one elbow, facing Lily. "Anyway, I'm noticing you now."

He leaned down and kissed her. Lily reached up and put her arms around him, loving the width of his shoulders. She pulled him closer. They kissed for a long time, and Jason moved closer, so that he was almost lying on Lily.

Suddenly he groaned and sat up. "We're in the wrong place right now."

Lily agreed breathlessly. "You're right. Where can we go?"

"Your house?"

"My father might be there, or my sisters."

"I'm living with my parents." He laughed. "We might as well be teenagers."

"Where's your truck?" Lily asked.

"Just over there." He stood up. "Come on."

Quickly they grabbed up the blanket. Jason stuffed it into his backpack. He held her hand as they hurried across the cemetery to the side street. When they got to his truck, Jason tossed the backpack into the rear, took Lily by her shoulders, and maneuvered her so she was leaning against the truck and he was leaning against her as he kissed her. She put her hands on his back, pressing him into her.

"Get in the truck," Jason said, his voice husky.

She climbed in on the driver's side and sat close to him as he drove away from town, toward the center of the island and the bumpy dirt roads of the moors. No streetlights rose here to disturb the natural darkness. Sometimes island kids had parties out here, but as they spun deep into the wilderness, they saw no other cars. He parked the truck in the shelter of a grove of evergreen trees. She had kept her hand on his thigh as he drove, and now he turned toward her with an intensity that made her heart race.

He kissed her, pulling at her clothing. They managed to continue kissing while she removed her skirt and top. She felt like some kind of goddess or spirit in only her bare skin and multistoned necklace, and as soon as Jason had pulled his trousers down, she lifted herself over him, one knee on each side. Now they could take their time. She put her hands in his hair and kissed him furiously. He ran his hands all over her body, on her breasts, her hips, between her legs. She moaned with desire, and he entered her.

She had never felt less normal in all her life.

It was after midnight when Jason dropped her off at her house. All the lights were out but the doors weren't locked, they never were. She carried her shoes in one hand as she ascended the stairs. The house was quiet. And that was fine. She didn't want to tell anyone where she'd been. She was confused; she was wildly euphoric and terrified and angry at herself. What was she doing with Jason? He was a
contractor.
He'd never make real money. He'd never leave the island. She couldn't be in love with him! She
wouldn't
be!

But as she fell, fully clothed, onto her bed, it was Jason she thought of, his mouth, his body, his breath, and it was Jason she dreamed of when she fell asleep.

Sunday morning Lily allowed herself to sleep late. The rush of getting her column in to the magazine was over for the week. She'd start again this evening, of course, collecting more photos and stuff, but for this one morning, she could be lazy. Eartha didn't want her coming in on Sundays, either.

So she lay in bed for a long time, remembering the night before, remembering Jason. She would see him again tonight. And she didn't have any jobs during the day. Bliss. She would be as lazy as a cat in the sun.

Pulling on her shorts and a tee shirt, she padded downstairs and into the kitchen. Her sisters were sitting there, drinking coffee. They both smiled when they saw her, and they damn well should. She had done her damned duty. The kitchen was completely stocked and they wouldn't run out of toilet paper for the rest of the summer.

"Where's Dad?" she asked.

"Fishing," Emma told her.

Lily poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. "Sunday morning. Heaven."

Abbie had a lined yellow tablet and a pen on the table next to her. "I've taken seven more phone calls for Nantucket Mermaids."

Emma said, "Seven! Wow."

Abbie studied the list. "Mostly they're people here for a week or so who need a sitter for an evening or two."

"I'll take as many as I can get," Emma told her. "I need the money and my evenings certainly are empty."

"I might be able to do an afternoon," Lily offered tentatively. She really didn't want another job, but she loved being part of the company.

"No afternoons so far," Abbie said, consulting the list. She laughed. "Did I tell you about the family I babysat for Thursday night? The mother was freaked out because there was some sand on the bathroom floor and the cleaning ladies weren't scheduled until the next morning. While I was in the kitchen, helping her children finish their dinners, she was
raving
on and on about the sand, she couldn't stand it in the house, she'd stepped out of the shower and her bare foot had touched
the sand
! And her husband came in and told me he'd pay me
fifty
dollars extra if I could sweep it up and be sure the bathroom floor was clean."

Emma snickered. "I had a woman last week who told me that after the kids were asleep, I had to arrange the items in the refrigerator in neat rows. She couldn't abide a messy house, she said."

As her sisters laughed, Lily searched her memories for something to share. With a shriek of joy, she remembered. "Oh! I was at a cocktail party benefit at the Lemerceirs last week, and Donna Sefton, she was catering, told me to sneak in and check out the master bathroom and I did. There was a refrigerator in the bathroom! A little one, hidden behind a cupboard door. It was full of champagne and gallons of milk. Mrs. Lemerceir takes a bath every night in milk, says it's good for her skin, and while she's bathing, she drinks champagne."

"What does her skin look like?" Abbie asked.

Lily thought about it. "Actually, she's got good skin. Very pale, though." Her sisters yelped with laughter--she hadn't meant to be funny, only factual. Lily glowed and giggled, pleased with herself.

"No one gets brown anymore," Emma said. "Everyone's too worried about skin cancer."

"Some people do," Lily argued. "Sailors. Tennis fiends. A nice bit of tan gives your skin a good glow."

Emma looked at Lily. "You got in pretty late last night, didn't you?"

Lily smiled. "Yep."

"Well, come on!" Abbie urged. "What happened? Did you meet another star?"