The Beach House (24 page)

Mark turned his head to the front and stared
without comprehension at the approaching cliff edge. Jenni suddenly
pulled herself together, saw how close they were to the drop off.
She fumbled for the door handle, found it without looking and
pushed herself backward as hard as she could. She dropped on the
grass, rolling away. The vehicle picked up speed, moving faster,
weaving slightly as the front wheels caught hummocks and dips in
the grass. The pickup was twenty feet from the cliff edge when the
brake lights came on.

Jenni stood, cursing. She ran at the pickup,
placed her hands against the tailgate and added her small effort to
its progress. The brake lights went out, as though Mark was still
unaware of the danger ahead, and the vehicle lost weight beneath
Jenni’s hands. She stopped, watching as the front wheel hit a small
rock on the cliff edge. The pickup jerked to one side and the right
front wheel hung out over the edge. The brake lights flared again
and the truck hesitated, rocking. The other front wheel dropped,
the pickup tilted and even if Mark had his foot hard on the brake
no wheels touched the ground now to slow him. There was a grinding
as the underside ran across granite, and then the vehicle was
gone.

Jenni stood breathing hard, heard a crunch
as the pickup hit something on the way down, then another louder
crash. She walked to the edge of the cliff. The pickup was on its
roof, lodged between two jagged spears of rock, right at the edge
of the water. The tide was dropping, but Jenni knew the sea around
the island well enough to know within three hours it would return
to cover the truck completely. It might pluck the vehicle from
between the rocks, it might not. Either way if the drop hadn’t
finished Mark off the water would. She turned and started walking
back to town, angling away from the road, taking a direct line back
toward the distant lights.

She arrived a little after nine. On the way
across the hillside she kept playing over the emotions she thought
she ought to be feeling and didn’t. She had just helped murder her
husband – no, she corrected, she
had
murdered her husband,
because he had been alive when he went over the edge. She might
have stopped it then, but too many years of his whining voice, too
many punches and slaps, too many wasted opportunities had stayed
her hand. Had she believed Mark possessed an ounce of humanity she
might have felt sorry for him, but she knew that was not the case.
All she experienced was relief. Relief and a suppressed hope.

Had Joe and Kim really meant what they said
to her?

Jenni was hungry. She scrambled eggs and ate
them standing in the kitchen, the house around her different,
silent, that tremor of fear which had inhabited it for so long
missing now. She washed her plate, smiling as she remembered what
had happened the last time she washed a plate. She went to bed and
slept without nightmares.

At eight the next morning she rang the
sheriff’s office and reported Mark had not returned home last
night. She heard skepticism in the officer’s voice. It was a small
town, a small island; they all knew Mark for the drunk he was, and
Jenni imagined the man wondering why she cared enough to report him
at all. She experienced a momentary flare of anxiety that the call
itself might be regarded as suspicious.

“Look, Jen, I’ll put word out, and when
someone finds him pulled over still drunk I’ll call you, okay?”

“Thanks, Harry. I guess he’ll turn up, same
as always.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky, Jen. Maybe this
time he won’t.”

Jenni hoped her laugh didn’t sound
forced.

Sunday was her day for washing and she
lugged the big checked bags into the back of her pickup and drove
to the laundry. She was a regular, and Annie had kept her usual
machine free. Jenni spent the next three hours wrapped in steam and
heat, folded sheets, pillowcases and towels and dragged them all
back home where she would spend the afternoon ironing.

She kept expecting the phone to ring but it
remained silent. At just after four Jenni heard a knock at the door
and when she opened it Harry Jacobs stood on the step with his hat
in his hands and the face Jenni guessed he had worn a few dozen
times before.

They found Mark’s body inside the cab of his
pickup
. People were sympathetic, but Jenni read the truth in
their eyes, read what they really thought – she was lucky to be
free, lucky Mark had finally gotten drunk enough to fuck up big
time.

Jenni was surprised how little emotion she
experienced – no, not strictly true – she had no sense of loss, no
sense of shame or guilt. What she did feel was a lightness in her
soul. Freedom.

Three days after the news broke Jenni had
Mark’s remains interred in the small island cemetery, strictly
reserved for those who had been born on the island. The minister
asked in hushed tones if Jenni wanted to reserve a plot beside Mark
for her own use, not that she was going to need it for years yet,
of course, but one had to think about these things in advance.
Jenni suppressed an almost overpowering urge to laugh out loud,
trembling as she kept everything buttoned up. The minister, taking
her set face and the tremor in her hands for grief patted her knee.
Jenni was wearing a short dress and the minister’s hand remained a
moment too long on her leg.

No, Jenni said, finally able to speak, no
need to reserve a plot, telling him she was unsure she was staying
around.

When Jenni next went to the beach the
Bradford house was all closed up, but a note had been pushed under
the door of Kate and Tim’s place. Jenni opened the sealed cream
envelope, found a note from Kim telling her she had taken Joe back
to New York. He was fine, but she wanted a doctor to check out his
shoulder. Kim had listed their New York address and three telephone
numbers, a landline and two cell phones, as well as an email
address. The note finished with a short statement:
We love you.
We all love you. Come when you are ready.

Jenni folded the note back into the envelope
and pushed it in the back pocket of her jeans, stripped her clothes
off and stood naked in the living room where she had fucked Paul
and stared out at the beach. The sand lay deserted in both
directions, the day ending, and behind the dunes the sun had
already set. Darkness gathered and flowed toward the land over the
water. Jenni turned, looked at her mismatched bikini sitting on the
chair. She smiled, walked out the door without picking it up and
ran down to the surf. The cold water was good against her body,
against her breasts, and she stroked out far beyond the breakers,
pushing herself hard until she ached deep inside and then she
floated on her back and laughed.

When she returned full dark had crept over
the beach. Jenni showered and dried, returned to the shadowed
living room and lay naked on the couch and made herself come, using
her fingers to tease herself, touching her breasts and nipples,
stroking her hand along her belly and thighs, eventually pushing
four fingers deep between her legs, thinking of Kim and Joe when
she finally climaxed, shuddering and crying out.

Days passed and became weeks. Jenni returned
to the beach every day as September edged into October, always at
the end of the day as dark fell, and on every day but one the beach
was deserted and she swam naked, reveling in the water against her
skin, and when she came out she repeated the pleasuring of herself,
returning home content. Not happy yet, because she was still
working out what she was going to do, still working out what
happiness meant to her. Although a certainty was starting to grow
inside.

One of Mark’s buddies, Pete Simpson,
surprised her one day by calling and asking if he could take over
the repair shop. He could pay a little every month if Jenni was
happy with the arrangement. Three weeks after the funeral and Jenni
thought he considered it a long enough interval to raise the topic.
He also made sure she knew he was available if she wanted someone
to share her bed. Pete was married, and Jenni liked his wife. She
told him he could have the business, made it clear that was all he
could have.

The year dipped into those gray, dark
mid-winter days. Jenni spent Thanksgiving and Christmas alone even
though her brother had invited her to the west coast for the
celebrations. On New Year day she lugged a suitcase out her front
door and locked the house, took her rusty old pickup into town and
stopped on the main street, walked into Mary Andrews realty
shop.

“Hey, Jen, you’ve been a stranger.”

“I want you to put the house on the market.”
Jenni sat on the soft leather chair across from Mary’s desk,
dropped the bunch of keys on the polished surface.

Mary stared at her. They had been good
friends once, a long time ago, before Mark started deciding who
Jenni could be friends with. Mary was three years older than Jenni,
married with two kids and a husband who was devoted to them
all.

“Where you going?” Mary not attempting to
talk her out of anything.

“Not sure yet. Away.”

“I don’t know how much you’ll get for the
place. Is there anything outstanding?”

“Free and clear. The insurance paid
everything off. And I don’t mind what you get. I don’t want to live
here anymore.”

Mary steepled her fingers, elbows on the
desktop, and Jenni wondered what she was seeing. Not a grieving
widow, for sure.

“You want coffee while we work this out?”

“Sure.”

An hour later Jenni parked the pickup at the
harbor and sat outside waiting for the ferry. Ten minutes before
five. She wouldn’t have long to wait and she watched the gulls
fight over scraps from the fishing boats, the odor of rotting fish
drifting over her but she hardly noticed; the smell defined this
side the island and she had grown used to it.

At a quarter after five she stood at the rail
as the ferry pulled out. Jenni looked ahead toward the mainland.
She didn’t glance back once at what she was leaving.

***

Jenni knew she should have called first, but had
been too scared. As she stepped from the cab in front of the
apartment block across from Central Park a surge of nerves ran
through her. Before she could change her mind she paid the cab and
lugged her small suitcase to the wide glass doors. A doorman nodded
and opened the door for her. Inside Jenni was directed to the
twentieth floor. The elevator opened on a small entrance lobby with
a single door. Jenni pressed the buzzer and waited. She waited a
minute then pressed the buzzer again.

Should have called, she thought once
more.

She tried a third time, the nerves replaced
by uncertainty. She was turning away when the door swung wide and
Kim came out and hugged her.

“Fuck Jen, you sure took your time girl.” Kim
kissed her, not the kiss of a friend meeting up after an absence,
but the kiss of a lover promising more.

“I wasn’t sure whether to call.”

“You look gorgeous. Come in.”

Jenni followed Kim into a wide hallway. At
the far end a dark oak door stood open to a large living room, tall
windows facing out over the park.

“Drop your bag, babe, and come through. This
deserves a drink.”

“You’re drinking?” Jenni asked.

Kim laughed. “I tried to keep going as long
as I could, but in the end Ami wanted more than I could
supply.”

As they entered the airy room Jenni saw Ami
standing inside a wooden playpen, standing with her fists gripping
the bars. When she caught sight of Jenni her face broke into a huge
grin.

“Ah-ah-ahh!” she shouted.

“She’s missed you,” Kim said.

“I’ve missed her too. Missed you all,” Jenni
said, getting it out before her courage deserted her. “How’s Joe
now?”

“Joe’s good. But he’s not here. He’s on that
book tour.”

“He’s well enough for that?”

“So he says. You know he never listens to
anything I saw to him. I wanted him to cry off but she said he had
to go. And they fixed his shoulder up fine, so there was no reason
to postpone.” While she spoke Kim poured a glass of white wine for
them both, handed one to Jenni.

When Kim’s eyes locked onto hers Jenni knew
it was going to be okay and her shoulders relaxed.

“Ah-ahh-ah!” Ami shouted, still waiting to be
picked up. She rattled the bars of her playpen.

Kim touched Jenni’s arm, closing her fingers
around her wrist. “Come here a minute.”

Jenni put her wine glass down on the glass
table and followed Kim back into the hallway, down a side corridor.
Kim stopped and turned to her. Jenni stood in front of Kim,
close.

“I didn’t want to do this in front of Ami,”
Kim said, and pulled Jenni close and kissed her, pulling her face
down onto hers, one hand sliding down to cup Jenni’s ass.

Kim’s small breasts pressed against her own,
Jenni’s nipples instantly hardening to sharp peaks and wetness
flooded between her legs. She breathed in the scent of the woman
she had thought of ten times a day for the last four months, tasted
the sweetness of her lips, fought with her tongue as they both
tried to invade each other’s mouth and Jenni placed her hand over
Kim’s breast and felt her arousal too. They ground their hips
against each other. Kim kissed her neck, grasped her breasts and
lowered her face to them.

“I’ve missed you, Jen.” Kim was breathing
hard as she stepped back. She had cut her hair shorter, showing the
lobes of her ears. It suited her, Jenni thought, showing more of
her face.

“Not as much as I’ve missed you all.”

“Yeah?” Kim grinned.

“Yeah.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“You staying?”

“Can I?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Then I’m staying.”

Kim kissed her again, briefly ran the flat of
her hand down from Jenni’s neck, over her breasts, along her belly
and finally between her legs. Jenni responded, pressing onto the
hand.