Christmas at the Beach (8 page)

Chapter Two

Claire Walker had barely placed one dyed-to-match silk pump on the church aisle when
she realized she was making a big mistake. Unable to find the courage to call off
the ceremony, she’d walked as slowly as she could down the aisle to Daniel Walker’s
side. When she got there she smiled and said “I do” even though she didn’t.

That was nineteen years ago and to this day she could still remember the lightning
bolt of revelation, the bitter taste of the words she couldn’t speak, and her fear
that she might gag on them as she struggled to swallow them. For a crazed moment she’d
imagined them bubbling up and spewing all over the minister, Daniel, and the two-thousand-dollar
dress that her mother, who had eloped with Claire’s father and deeply regretted not
having a church wedding, had insisted on buying her.

She still wasn’t sure how she made it through the ceremony and reception, but by the
time the limo arrived to whisk them to the airport, she could hardly refuse to go
on the island honeymoon that Daniel’s parents had given them. Nor could she maintain
the fiction of a weeklong headache, which was how she’d come home from Belize pregnant
with Hailey.

She’d tried to convince herself that love and respect weren’t absolute requirements
for a successful marriage, but three years later, holding her two-year-old daughter
in her arms, she’d done what she should have done that day at church; she apologized
for the screwup and with equal parts fear, regret, and relief sundered what should
have never been joined together.

Sixteen years of single parenthood on a shoestring had followed.

Today her life had changed again. Tonight she stood on the small balcony of the Midtown
Atlanta condo she’d spent the Labor Day weekend moving into, trying to come to terms
with that change.

She took an exploratory breath of the night air. It was thick with humidity, redolent
with the aroma of marinara from a nearby Italian restaurant, car exhaust, and possibility.
Bits of music arrived on the warm breeze, carried from one of the bars over on Crescent
Avenue. Below on Peachtree, horns sounded. A siren blared. Voices rose from the sidewalk
where despite the late hour a steady stream of people walked alone, in pairs, in groups;
all of them going somewhere to do something.

Here, dark and quiet were not synonymous.

“You are so not in suburbia anymore,” she whispered on another breath of night air.
Here, people were living the kind of life that she’d barely allowed herself to imagine.
A frisson of excitement ran through her and she leaned further out over the railing,
not wanting to miss a thing. She’d have to be very careful not to accidentally click
her heels together three times and end up back where she’d come from.

Her cell phone rang and she hurried inside. As she hunted for the instrument, a part
of her brain reveled in the fresh paint smell of her new home, the sparkle of the
tall windows that overlooked Peachtree, the gleam of the polished wood floor.

She stepped around the new gray flannel sofa and area rug from West Elm, scanned the
Crate and Barrel dining room table that would double as her office, and checked the
nightstand next to the brand-new never-before-slept-on-by-anyone queen bed, which
she’d tucked into a corner behind a tri-fold screen.

Sidestepping half-opened boxes, she searched the stand on which her new flat-screen
TV perched and the bookcases that bracketed the Murphy bed that would be her daughter
Hailey’s, when she came home from college.
College.

Claire exhaled heavily. Breathed in shakily. Out with the old life. In with the new.

She found the phone hidden behind a box on the kitchen counter—a lovely dappled granite
that she’d fallen in love with the first time she’d entered the studio apartment—and
managed to answer it before it went to voicemail.

“Hi, Mom.” Her daughter’s voice was achingly familiar and surprisingly grown up after
only two weeks in Chicago at Northwestern University.

Claire reached for a framed photo that lay on the counter and was intended for the
nightstand. It was from Hailey’s high school graduation and showed the two of them
with their arms slung around one another’s shoulder staring happily into the camera.
They were both of average height and had the same even features and wide smiles above
pointed, some might say determined, chins. Their heads were bent together in a tangle
of hair—Hailey’s long and smooth, the blond tinged with honey overtones, Claire’s
a shade that resembled dishwater and which she kept cut in short, low-maintenance
layers.

Claire listened to the hum of happiness that infused Hailey’s voice. It made her happy
just to hear it. It also made her aware of just how alone she was.

No.
Claire silently rejected the word and all its synonyms. She refused to be lonely.
No new beginning was without its bumps.

“How was the move?” Hailey asked.

“Good,” Claire replied. When you’d sold or given away 95 percent of your former life
and arranged to have most of your new life delivered, moving wasn’t particularly onerous.
She’d been able to fit the few things she couldn’t part with in her SUV.

“Have you met any of your neighbors?” Hailey asked. She had helped her search for
a rental unit before she’d left for Chicago, tramping in and out of every unit in
the geographical area Claire had outlined on her map. They’d made the choice together
over cardboard containers of pad Thai and panang chicken, just as they’d made so many
other decisions over their years of dynamic duo–dom.

“Not really. The concierge has been helpful and the other residents seem nice enough.”
There seemed to be a diverse group of owners and tenants, which was part of what had
attracted her to the building. And while Claire hadn’t seen anyone who looked like
they were counting their pennies quite as carefully as she was—no one had turned up
a nose or been unfriendly.

“Edward Parker is way hot,” Hailey said turning the conversation back to the concierge.
“That British accent is fabulous.” She giggled. “I could probably be okay with him
for a stepdad.” She said this as if it were only a matter of time before she had one;
just as she had since she turned five and began trying to picture pretty much every
man they ran into—including her soccer coach, the mailman, and her favorite elementary
school janitor—as potential husband material for her mother.

“I’ve talked to him exactly twice for about five minutes each time,” Claire pointed
out.

“But he’s cute, right?” Hailey said.

“So are puppies, but I don’t have the time or energy to housebreak one.” Even Claire
had to smile as she pictured leading the elegant Englishman to a pile of newspaper
or out to a strip of green between buildings and ordering him to “piddle.” “I’m not
here to get married, I’m here to write,” Claire reminded her daughter. Somehow in
the years filled with work and single parenting that added up to too much stress and
too little sleep, Claire had managed to write two historical romance novels and see
them published. Writing
Highland Kiss
and
Highland Hellion
had been her great escape from the often overwhelming responsibilities of her real
life; a chance to live in another time and place and to experience the kind of romantic
love and devotion that people like her could only dream about; the kind of love that
led to happily-ever-after.

“You’re there to have a life, too,” Hailey added.

“I already have a life.”

“No, you had Grandmom and Grandpop to take care of all those years before they died.
And you’ve had me and everything you had to do to take care of me,” Hailey corrected.
“That’s not a life. Now it’s your turn to just take care of you.” There was a brief
pause. “Or find someone else who will.”

“I’m going to ignore just how chauvinistic that statement was to say that raising
you has been a privilege and an honor. And I’m still here to take care of you when
you need it,” Claire said.

“I’d rather you write your breakout bestseller and find some hot men to go out with,”
Hailey replied. “And FYI, I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive.”

“God,” Claire said, feigning displeasure. “How did you turn into such a relentless
optimist?”

“I learned it from the same woman I learned everything else from,” Hailey said quietly.
“You deserve the best, Mom. I hope you’re going to go for it.”

A silence fell reminding Claire just how far away her daughter was and how completely
their life had changed. She’d sold their home, bought what she needed to start fresh,
and had exactly enough money leftover to pay the rent on this condo for one year.
That meant she had three hundred and sixty-five days to plot and write a new and hopefully
bestselling novel.

“One thing at a time,” she said falling back on the adage turned mantra that she’d
used to get over each new hurdle. To put one foot in front of the other. To take care
of increasingly infirm parents and raise her daughter alone. To keep going no matter
how tired she was or how short of cash.

Claire plugged in her earbuds and tucked her cell phone in the pocket of her jeans.
“Tell me about your classes while I make up the bed,” she said as she located the
box marked
sheets
and ripped off the packing tape. “Did you finish that paper for Sociology?”

Hailey chattered happily while Claire smoothed on the bottom and top sheets, slipped
pillowcases over the pillows, and arranged the comforter, turning one corner down
invitingly. The bed might be new, but the sheets were well worn and familiar.

Moving into the bathroom, she laid out a towel and stacked the others in the linen
closet, then arranged her toiletries on the bathroom counter. She’d do just what she
had to tonight and tackle the rest in the morning. As they talked, Claire focused
on Hailey’s voice and her obvious happiness and knew that Hailey was hearing the same
in hers. Both of them were poised to add a new and exciting chapter to their lives.

Hailey yawned midsentence and Claire glanced at the closest clock. It was getting
late.

“I think it’s time for both of us to turn in,” she said when Hailey yawned a second
time.

“Okay.” The word was followed by another yawn. “G’night, Mom. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Night-night, sweetheart,” she said automatically as she had so many times over the
years. And then despite the fact that her daughter was eighteen and too grown up and
too far away to be tucked in, she finished with the same nonsensical cliché she’d
uttered when the bedtime story was over and the lamp turned off. “Sleep tight. Don’t
let the bed bugs bite.”

The line disconnected and Claire stood alone in the center of the cluttered condo.
Hers, all hers.
A thrill of anticipation coursed through her. How in the world would she ever calm
down enough to fall asleep?

“Don’t be a goon,” she said aloud as she plugged in the Snoopy nightlight that had
always glowed in a corner of Hailey’s room and which Claire had not been able to throw
away. “You wanted a new life and you’ve got one.”

Now all she had to do was hurry up and go to sleep so that she could wake up tomorrow
morning and start making the most of it.

* * *

Claire gave herself two full days to unpack, hang her artwork and photos, and organize
the kitchen. She slept fitfully both nights, thrown off by each unfamiliar noise that
reached her from within the building and the streets below. Each time she woke she
had to remind herself where she was. Then she would look around the apartment and
consciously think the word “home,” but as excited as she was to be here, her brain
was not fooled. Home was the house on Juniper Lane with the fenced backyard and the
cul-de-sac out front that filled with kids each evening after dinner.

In between bouts of unpacking she explored the Alexander trying to make it familiar
and vowing to use the fitness room, the pool, and the clubroom with its big-screen
TV, kitchen, and bar, which was available for entertaining. Even though she didn’t
know enough people in this part of town to fill her tiny bathroom.

Late on the second afternoon she stood in the center of her new home and pronounced
it “done.” Her laptop and a yellow pad of character notes and ideas sat on the dining
room table/desk right next to the brocade-covered journal that Hailey had given her
to record her new life.

Other than her brief conversations with Hailey, a food-and-drink order on a quick
stroll up Peachtree, and a deep Dumpster discussion with Edward Parker, she hadn’t
really communicated with anyone. She cleared her throat just to make sure her vocal
chords still worked.

“Okay,” she said aloud just to confirm that everything was operational, “you’re going
to walk to Piedmont Park and find a nice shady spot where you can prime your pump
by writing in your journal.” Eager to get outside, she put on her sneakers, tucked
the journal and a pen into her cross-body bag, and left the condo. In the lobby, she
strode purposefully with her chin up and her eyes on the front door; a woman on a
mission. Which may have been why she didn’t see whatever it was that got tangled in
her feet. Or understand how she ended up on the hard marble floor with something small
and heavy on top of her and an unfamiliar woman’s voice yelling in the distance.

Wendy Wax
, a former broadcaster, is the author of nine novels. The mother of two college-age
sons, she lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and is doing her best to adjust
to the quiet of her recently emptied nest.