Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze (64 page)

Cisco hunched her shoulders. “I guess. She said life is a process of losing what we love.”

“But Cisco!” Carley grasped her daughter’s hands. “That’s so sad. That’s not the way Nana thinks when she’s her normal self. Goodness! Life isn’t just about loss.”

After a moment, Cisco whispered, “Nana cried.”

“Honey, we all cry about losing Daddy.”

Cisco peeked up at her mother. “Nana lost her
son
. Her only child. She’ll never be able to replace him, just like I’ll never be able to replace my father. But
you …
”

Carley sat very still. When Cisco didn’t continue, she prompted, “Go on.”

Cisco didn’t speak.

“You mean that I’ll be able to replace my husband?”

Cisco shuddered and hugged herself tight, but couldn’t keep it in. “Isn’t that the truth? You’re young, Nana says! You’re pretty, Nana says. Men will be coming around to help you …”

“Cisco, no man will ever be able to replace your father. Gus and I had a life together for thirteen years. We
made
you. We
made
Margaret. We were a happy family. You
know
that, Cisco. Your father loved me and I loved him.”

Reaching out, she took her daughter’s foot in her hands. Cisco didn’t pull it away.

Carley continued, “Annabel and Russell could never doubt that Gus and I loved each other.”

“Nana wants me to go live with her.” Cisco chewed her lip.

“Cisco, I am fully aware they want us to live with them, but that’s not even practical. You’re too young to have to hear about all the financial aspects of owning a house, but …”

“I said,
I
should go live with her. Just me.”

Carley was appalled. “Oh, Cisco! What about Margaret?”

“She said Margaret could stay with you.”

“But it would break Margaret’s heart if you didn’t live with her, Cisco! She’s your little sister! My God, what is Annabel
thinking
!” Distraught, Carley pushed off the bed and paced the room. Anger and desperation made her voice shake. She dropped to her knees and gripped Cisco by the arms. “You are
my
daughter.
Mine
. You might not like that, but you can’t change it. Nothing can change it. I take care of you. I always have and I always will. If I want to sell this house and move to Australia with you and Margaret, that’s my right and no one can stop me!”

“Mom, you’re hurting my arms.”

“Well, you’re hurting my
heart
!” But Carley released her hold.

Cisco whispered, “I don’t want Nana to die.”

“What?” Carley moved up Cisco’s bed, sitting next to her. Cisco scooted over, making room. They sat side by side, leaning against the pillows. Carley could feel the tension in her daughter’s body. “Cisco, Nana’s not going to die, honey.”

“If Daddy had a weak heart, he might have gotten it from Nana’s side of the family. Nana’s heart …”

“Nonsense,” Carley stoutly objected. “Look how healthy Nana is. She eats well. She exercises. She’s not overweight. She takes care of herself. And she’s got Granddad to love her and watch over her. And she’s got us, but we don’t have to
live
with her for her to have us.”

Cisco wasn’t reassured. Studying her daughter, Carley thought: this isn’t about how Cisco feels about me.
It’s how she feels about her grandmother. Cisco wants to do something. She wants some control of something in a world where all control has been wrenched away
. After a moment, Carley offered, “What if you spent every Saturday night with Nana?”

“Why not more? Why not three nights a week? Nana says—”

“I couldn’t stand to have you away so often. Margaret would be miserable. And I am the official keeper of your schedule! This is your
home
.”

“What about Friday and Saturday nights?” Cisco pleaded.

“Oh, Cisco.”

“I think Nana would like that, Mom. I think it would help her.”

“Oh, Cisco. All right, then. Do you know how much I love you?”

“I know, Mom.”

Cisco leaned in to Carley’s embrace. They sat together, hugging tightly, too tired to cry.

• • • • •

Carley had had Hugo build a row of cubicles in the back hall leading into the kitchen. She was folding and carefully putting away brand-new, newly washed hand towels, bath towels, washcloths, and beach towels, stacks and stacks of them so that Maria, who was going to help her clean the rooms, would always have plenty on hand.

She stood back to admire her organization. Each room would have its own summery color—sea blue, navy blue, or leaf green. The beach towels were in stripes of all three colors. Everyone could use those. At an amazingly inexpensive outlet shop, she’d found beach bags and umbrellas covered in polka dots in similar colors, dark and light blue and green. Next, she’d take the hair dryers around to each room, and the shampoos and conditioners and the clever little radio alarm clocks—

Maud pounded on the kitchen door and then burst into the house.

“Carley, Toby’s going to leave Vanessa!” Maud’s eyes were shining. She’d never looked so glorious.

Quickly, Carley took stock. Margaret was in her room, playing with a neighborhood friend. Cisco was out with Polo. And there went Maud’s boys, kicking a soccer ball around the yard.

“I told the boys to stay in the backyard.” Maud hugged herself, grinning from ear to ear. “Toby’s going to do it. He’s telling Vanessa tonight.”

Carley’s fists clenched. “Maud, come on! You can’t do that to Vanessa. It’s so wrong! You should be ashamed of yourself for even—”

“
Ashamed
? There’s nothing shameful about love. When have you become so frigid?”

Carley stared at Maud, inarticulate with anger and misery. Maud glared back, determined.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Maud.” Carley let her voice go soft as she sank into a chair. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” She felt ill. “My God, Maud. This will change everything.”

“Well,
duh
! I’m
dreading
it.” Maud paced around the kitchen table. “But it will be all right, Carley, really it will! I mean everyone on the island adores Vanessa. Toby won’t be out of the house two seconds before half the men on the island show up to take care of her!”

“I hope you’re right.” Carley put her head in her hands. She could think of no way out of this.

Maud was irrepressible. “Carley. Toby loves me and I love him.”

“And Vanessa?”

“Toby will take care of Vanessa financially.”

“Oh, good. Because money’s all that matters.”

“I’m not saying that. But it is important. Vanessa will be fine, Carley. To start with, she’s totally beautiful. She’s a strong woman, and she’s so active on all those boards. She won’t even realize Toby’s gone.” Seeing Carley’s face, Maud sagged. “Oh, Carley, of course I’m concerned about Vanessa. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But it’s possible, isn’t it, that after all the dust settles, Vanessa could be happier?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like it’s her choice.”

“Come on, Carley. Her marriage with Toby is
over
, it was over before he and I started sleeping together, we wouldn’t have gotten involved if there had still been even a
spark
between him and Vanessa. You have to trust that Toby and I care about Vanessa. We’ve gone over and over this, looking at it from every possible angle.”

“Especially from lying on the bed,” Carley shot back.

“All right, yes, and what’s so terrible about that? Life is short. Life is fragile. Life is hard. Toby and I are
passionately
in love, and it just seems right for us to be together.”

Looking at her friend’s shining face, Carley sighed. She knew she couldn’t change anything. Perhaps she should have done something when Maud first told her, but she hadn’t, and things had gone so far, it was too late now.

“Okay, Maud. Talk it through for me.”

“Okay. First, my boys will not have to go through any major upheaval. Of course they already think Toby’s cool; he’s their doctor. I’ll need to introduce them to the idea of Toby being in my house and in my life. Second, Toby’s going to talk with Vanessa tonight.” She shivered with happiness. “He’s going to come to my house tonight. He’s going to spend the night.”

“Who’s going to be with Vanessa?” Carley asked.

“Don’t be so judgmental.”

“I’m just asking the question. If Toby leaves her, she’ll be all alone. It seems only decent to arrange for a friend to be on call.”

“Fine. You can be on call.”

Carley spit out the word.
“Fine.”

Maud put her hand on Carley’s arm. “Please don’t be angry with me. I’ve been so lonely for so long, Carley. You’ve lost your husband, you should understand the kind of loneliness I’ve gone through, except I’ve been going through it for
years
. John left me when Percy was just a baby.” Tears flooded her round blue eyes. “Carley,
now
my boys will have a father living with them! Vanessa doesn’t have any children, so we won’t be hurting any, don’t you see?”

“Yes,” Carley agreed, reluctantly. “Yes, I do see that. Of course it’s been hard for you, raising the boys alone. But you’ve done a good job, Maud, remember that.”

“Thanks for saying that, but I do worry. Sometimes the boys seem so wild. And as hard as I try, I can’t show them how to hit a ball or catch a Frisbee.”

“That’s true,” Carley agreed; Maud was spectacularly uncoordinated.

“But that’s not why I’m in love with Toby,” Maud insisted. “Give me a break, if I’d just wanted to get a father for my boys, I could have found
someone
.”

Carley nodded. This was true. Not only was Maud lovely to look at, she could be staggeringly funny and great fun to be with. She was often almost eerily insightful about people. She’d predicted that the high school principal’s son would join the military, that the Grossfelds would get divorced, that Sonya Elliston would go to New York and make it in the theater. When Vanessa and Carley asked Maud how she got to be so psychic, Maud had replied simply that she just looked and listened, and she did have an innate talent for paying attention. She worked hard on her books, which were favorites in children’s libraries and bookstores across the country, but she was modest about her success, never flashing herself around like a star.

Carley looked hopelessly at Maud. “But how can I wish you happiness when I’m sure it’s going to cause Vanessa misery?”

“Because it’s not.” Maud drew herself up straight. “Do this: remember all the times Vanessa complained about Toby.”

“I complained about Gus just as much,” Carley retorted dryly.

“Yes, and that’s something you ought to think about, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about Vanessa and Toby. She thought he was boring sexually, right?”

Carley ducked her head. A kind of sadness slid through her, like the guilt of a child who tattled on her sibling, or stole someone’s doll. An intimate, deep, even primitive regret settled in her heart and fogged her mind. She
had
loved Gus, but never passionately. She’d never told her friends that. She probably never would. It seemed wrong, now that he was gone.

“Do you agree?” Maud prompted. “Vanessa found Toby boring?”

Quietly Carley agreed, “Yes. Of course I remember.” Lifting her head, she met Maud’s bright gaze. “Maudie, to be honest, I think I’m sad for myself, too.”

“Because I found someone and you’re alone?”

“No. Not that. No, because our threesome has been so important to me. It’s held me together, in a way. I’ll miss it.”

“Look, you can still be my friend. And Vanessa’s friend, too.”

“But not the three of us together. Las Tres Enchiladas! Won’t you miss that?”

“Of course I will. I love Vanessa. I know how remarkable our threesome was, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t everything.” Maud stood up. “Carley, the whole wide world is before each of us. Maybe
now
Vanessa will meet a man who really rings her chimes. Maybe in a year she’ll be in love and the three of us will be back in our trio again.”

“Maybe pigs will fly.”

“Don’t be so negative!”

“I’m not trying to be negative, I’m just trying to think this through. Look, Maud, be sensible. I can’t be your friend and Vanessa’s, too. In divorces people always have to make choices, and this is really hard, because I love you both. But someone has to be on Vanessa’s side. Someone has to help her through the next few months.”

“Well, you’ll have to see me sometime because our kids play together.”

“It’s almost summer. Margaret will be at day camp.”

“So will Percy and Spenser!”

“So they can see one another then.”

“Fine.” Maud turned to leave, then stopped and faced Carley. “I love you, Carley.”

“I love you, too.”

“I love Vanessa, too.”

“Strange way of showing it.”

“I’m happy for the first time in my life. Can’t you be glad for me?”

“Honestly, Maud, it’s a challenge.”

“Well, I think you’re being a pill.”

“Well, I think you’re being selfish, greedy, and spoiled, wanting everything your way immediately.”

Maud opened her mouth, then shut it. After a moment, she shrugged and grinned ruefully. “You know, Carley, perhaps you’re
right. I apologize. But I won’t stop being happy.” She went out the door, into the yard, calling her boys.

That evening as she prepared dinner and ate it with her daughters, discussing the day, Carley was tense with anticipation, expecting the phone to ring at any moment, expecting to hear Vanessa in tears. But the phone was silent.

She got the girls tucked into bed and finished cleaning the kitchen, then went into her office and spent some time organizing her B&B files and tax-deductible expenses—the amenities she’d bought at the Cape the day before. The phone didn’t ring.

By eleven, she decided Vanessa wasn’t going to phone her for help and consolation. Despair and self-anger plunged through her. What kind of friend had she been to Vanessa? Both Vanessa and Maud had been so good to her when Gus died, bringing over dinners, taking the girls out for a fun afternoon, helping with the myriad details of the funeral, and most of all listening endlessly while Carley wept and ranted. They had both wept with her. They had spent hours sharing their special memories of Gus, how blissed-out he’d been when his daughters were born, how many people loved him because he’d coached Little League baseball, what dazzling hours they’d enjoyed when he took them sailing. Their friendship, their words, their embraces, and most of all, their
listening
had woven a kind of cocoon around Carley, a soft protected world in which she could curl up and mourn, and eventually recover and reenter the real world.