Tides of the Heart (27 page)

“She doesn’t like us,” Ginny said to Dick.

“Karin? She doesn’t like anyone. She’s happiest when she’s walking on the beach, collecting that damn sea glass that she does nothing with.”

After Ginny had her fill of burgers and two free ice cream cones, Jess persuaded her to leave the picnic. “Please,” she whispered. “We’re not going to find out anything else. Melanie isn’t here.”

Ginny relented, and they trudged back up the hill where Jess had parked the car.

On the way back to the inn, Jess had a sudden need to see the water, to feel the sun against her face and hear the soothing tide.

“I want to find a beach,” she said to Ginny. “I need to look at the sea for a moment and think.”

“Great. And me without a sand pail.”

Jess smiled, then steered the car in the opposite direction from town. Soon they were surrounded by large, stately homes spaced far apart, homes that looked like they’d been there for half a century or more, houses that seemed empty now.

“They must belong to the summer mucky-mucks,” Ginny said. “The city people with the big bucks.” She turned to Jess. “Kind of looks like the sort of place you would have ‘summered’ as a kid, if your father ever talked to you.”

“Very funny,” Jess replied, glad that she could now be amused by the way that she’d been raised, that among so many other things, Ginny had taught her that life could have been much worse.

Ginny laughed. “When I was little my mother and I went to Revere Beach every summer for a week. We stayed at a
boarding house and shared a bathroom with everyone else in the damn place.”

“Except that time when you came here.”

“Yeah. That was only once, though. Then she met the asshole she married and we never went anywhere else.”

“Oh, right,” Jess said. “I remember him.”

Beside her, Ginny howled. It was good, Jess decided, that they could both accept the past.

They passed a group of tennis courts, a small, closed-up post office, and an equally deserted community hall. At the end of the road was a giant curve, a loop that continued past the huge, salt-faded houses. On the curve was a tall flagpole and two benches. Jess pulled to the side of the road and turned off the ignition.

“Let’s get out and walk down to the water,” she said.

Ginny groaned but opened her door.

The water was several feet below, its low tide lapping gently on the shore. Between them and the water was a sharp drop, covered mostly by tall sea grass, bending in the breeze.

“There’s a path over there,” Ginny said, pointing to a small road, leading off to the left. Beside the road was a sign that read,
Private Road. West Chop Association.

“We can’t go there, Ginny. It’s private.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and started toward the path.

Something caught Jess’s eye. “Ginny,” she said. “Wait.”

She looked again, and saw what it was she thought she’d seen: a swish of red on the beach below; a swish of a red sarong that ambled barefoot in the sand, bending now and then, pulling the hair back from her eyes and looking off across the sound.

“It’s Karin,” Jess said.

“God, she’s weird.”

“It’s more than that. I think she knows. I think she’s the one who sent me the letter and made the call.”

Ginny looked off to the beach. “Why would she?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.” Jess tucked her hands
inside her shirt once more, warding off the chill. “Come on, Ginny,” she said. “Let’s go back to the inn.”

A woman they had not seen before—the inn-sitter, Jess assumed—greeted them at the door.

“Nice day for the picnic,” the woman said.

“Picnic?” Ginny asked, as if to say “what picnic?” as if to pretend she’d never heard of it.

“Town picnic,” the woman replied. “Everyone goes.”

Not everyone
, Jess wanted to say. Melanie wasn’t there. Neither was her daughter,
my
granddaughter. Maybe.

Sarah.
What a beautiful name.

“Well, it’s nice that everyone goes,” Ginny said aloofly, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to take a nap, Jess. I’m tired and I’m stuffed.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” the inn-sitter added. “I hope you don’t mind. I let a guest into your room.”

Ginny looked at Jess.

“Phillip?” Jess asked.

“She said you were expecting her.”

“She?” Ginny asked.

The inn-sitter shrugged. “Like I said, I hope you don’t mind. All our other rooms are booked. I had no where else to put her.”

Ginny let out a huge sigh. “Come on, Jess. I think it’s my turn to need you now.”

Jess followed Ginny up the wide stairs and into room three, Ginny’s room. There, on the corner of the non-canopy bed, sat Lisa. And she was alone.

“Where’s Prince Charming?” Ginny asked without so much as a hello.

“Ginny …” Lisa began, her eyes wet with tears.

Jess backed away. “I think I’ll leave you two alone. I’m going to walk down to the ferry in case Phillip arrives.”

•  •  •

They stood and stared at one another, not unlike the way Morticia had stared at Jess and Ginny at the picnic, with steady, not-backing-down kind of eyes.

Ginny broke the stare and walked to the bureau where she tossed her room key on the top. In that sober, awkward moment, she regretted calling Lisa’s parents from the airport; she regretted saying where she was.

“I thought you’d be glad to see me,” Lisa said.

“Glad? It all depends.”

“On whether Brad is with me?”

Ginny walked to a maple rocking chair tucked under a slanted eaves. She pulled it out and sat down, as far from Lisa as she could get, as if her daughter were contagious, as if the further she could be from her, the less she’d have to feel.

“He’s not with me, Ginny.”

Ginny cocked her head. “Do you mean he’s not with you now, in this room, or he’s not with you in the biblical sense?”

“I mean he got on a plane this morning and flew back to the Coast. He had his car shipped yesterday.”

Ginny nodded and creaked the rockers, one rock forward, one rock back. “Fine. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“It’s over between us, if that’s what you mean.”

Yes, of course, that was what she’d meant. She wondered if Lisa could see the relief flooding through her.

“I saw a lot of pictures of the two of you,” Ginny said. “In the tabloids.”

Lisa let out a pained snicker. “Every time we turned around another flashbulb popped.”

“You’re a star, Lisa. What did you expect?”

Lisa shrugged. “Brad liked it.”

“I’m sure he did.” Ginny wished she hadn’t said that, but it was too late to take it back, too late to reach into the
air between them and grab the words and take them back. She folded her hands on her lap. “So now you’re here.”

“I’m here for a reason, Ginny. We have to talk.”

It was as if an invisible cloud descended upon the room. Or maybe it just descended across Ginny’s heart. She didn’t like what Lisa was about to say, and she knew it before Lisa said the words.

“He asked for money,” Lisa said.

Ginny did not reply this time, proud of herself for holding back her tongue. She rocked again, forward, back.

“He asked for money. A lot of money. When I told him no, he got angry.”

Ginny stopped rocking, tensing from the hurt that rimmed her daughter’s eyes.

“Then he told me about you.”

She gripped the seat of the chair. Her shoulders slumped. “Me?”

“About the two of you.”

The stab was deep and slow, a long, dull saber piercing through Ginny’s breast and inching downward through her body, bumping, bruising, wounding every nerve along the way. It hurt too much for her to answer. It hurt too much for her to cry.

Across the room, Lisa wrung her hands. “I guess I wasn’t shocked. But I was disappointed that you … that Jake was still alive when you and Brad had the affair.”

Ginny closed her eyes, deciding if this wasn’t hell then at least it must be purgatory, where all her sins were going to hover for eternity.

The rockers creaked.

Two people in the room breathed.

Then Ginny heard what Lisa had just said. She opened her eyes and moved to the edge of her chair.

“The affair?” she asked. “What
affair?”

“He told me, Ginny.”

Ginny jumped up. She stomped to the corner of the bed
and shook a finger at Lisa’s face. “It was
not
an
affair
, Lisa. I did
not
have an affair with Brad Edwards.”

Lisa glared at her. “He said you shaved your pubic hair into a narrow strip.”

Ginny backed away. She was going to be sick. She just knew she was going to be sick. She clutched her stomach. The taste of grilled hamburgers and chowder and too much ice cream backed up into her throat. “I was drunk one night,” she said. “I was drunk and I let him screw me. I regretted it from the moment it happened.”

Lisa turned her head away. Ginny could almost feel the sting of her tears. “It wasn’t an affair?”

“I was drunk, Lisa. That’s not an excuse, but it’s reality.” The bile settled down.

Her daughter was silent a moment. Then she turned to Ginny. “That’s not what he’s going to tell the tabloids.”

Ginny felt herself go rigid.

“He said unless we give him half a million dollars, he’s going to tell the tabloids everything. Everything, in his words. That he had an intense affair with his stepmother … the mother of Lisa Andrews.”

Rage surged through her. “That fucking son of a bitch. He wouldn’t dare.”

“I think he will.”

“It will ruin your career.”

“Yes,” Lisa quietly replied. “I believe that’s his intent.”

Ginny laughed a sick, disgusted laugh. “He’ll get more than that, too. He’ll also get revenge on me for getting Jake’s estate.” She clutched her hand against her stomach and wondered when—or if—her pain would ever end, and what the hell she’d ever done to deserve this kind of life.

On the way down to the ferry, Jess stopped at the Tisbury Inn. Luckily, they had a vacancy. She reserved a room for Phillip; he had not said how long he’d stay, so she booked it for two nights.

The late afternoon sun was being threatened by a slate-colored sky and a hint of fog. She stopped at the Black Dog Bakery and bought a corn muffin and a cup of tea, deciding that she must be hungry, though she didn’t really feel it. Walking across to the ferry pier, she passed the lines of cars awaiting the next boat, sat down in a small gazebo by the water, and tried to figure out what she was feeling.

Despair, maybe. Emptiness. Confusion. And a hapless, hopeless sense that she would never know her daughter, the baby she gave up.

The baby who now had a baby of her own.

If Melanie was hers.

Opening the small white bag, Jess broke off a piece of muffin and slowly chewed. She washed it down with a swallow of tea, then stared out across the water toward Cape Cod on the horizon, toward the town of Falmouth, where Miss Taylor had once lived, and wondered why she couldn’t leave well enough alone.

From the way Richard’s father sounded, Melanie was happy. A young mother with a career she loved. What right did Jess have to step in and shake that up?

And then she thought of Ginny. And Lisa. And how the two of them had back-and-forth problems not unlike the ones Jess and Maura had. Not unlike the way the real world worked. And yet the bond between them hadn’t yet unraveled.

A seagull landed on the floor of the gazebo, his black eyes shifting from the small white bag to Jess then back again, as though his X-ray vision knew that there was food inside. Just as she began to open the bag to feed the gull, a little bird landed on the bench across from her, and looked at her with pleading eyes.

She tossed a piece of muffin toward the little bird. The gull flapped its wings and flew up to the bench, startling the bird, scaring it away. It gobbled the morsel, then returned to the floor at Jess’s feet.

“Scavenger,” she said. “Couldn’t you save some for the
little bird?” Angrily, she closed the bag. The seagull would get nothing else. She stared down at the beady black eyes that stared back at her. It struck her that the bilge-colored creature was only doing what it needed, that it was only fighting for survival. She thought of Maura and her need to fight with Jess about finding her other daughter. Maybe it was Maura’s way of fighting for survival, struggling to retain her place within her mother’s heart, fearful that she would be dislodged. Tears formed at the corners of Jess’s eyes. She reached back into the bag, broke up the crumbs of muffin, and tossed them at her feet.

The blast of a ferry horn sounded. Jess looked up to see the massive iron beast pull into the dock. She rose and started to walk toward it just as the little bird returned. Quickly, she bent and scooped up some crumbs, and set them on the bench. The little bird descended. The gull did not seem to notice. Now both were fed, and both were satisfied.

Jess wiped her eyes and hurried to greet the boat.

The ride on the ferry had been queerly similar to Manhattan rush hour on the subway, the crowd of eager people jockeying for the best position while the vehicle lurched and lumbered its way toward their destination.

Phillip discreetly held his stomach as the boat bumped against the pier and wondered how anyone could possibly feel seasick on a forty-five minute trek across the water that wasn’t even open ocean, more like a large lake with a tide. He stood in line, waiting for the chain to be removed from across the gangplank or whatever it was called, gripping the handle of his small bag that held only clean underwear, a different shirt, and running shorts in case he had the time. His mission, after all, would be quick: He would simply confront this Mr. Bradley, the way he had confronted William Larribee. They would learn the truth once and for all, and Jess could get on with her life. And he with his. If there
was much of one remaining, now that Nicole apparently would not be in it.

A deckhand dressed in jeans removed the chain; the crowd jostled forward, Phillip among them, wedged between an Asian family with several cameras around their necks and a yuppie-looking couple with a black Labrador retriever on a bright red leash. As they herded down the walkway, he kept his gaze fixed on the yuppie woman, khaki shorts pressed neatly, a white T-shirt clean and neat, a visor cap set atop her blunt-cropped, blond-streaked hair. He watched her walk and tried not to envy the yuppie man, but could not help himself. He imagined their home, with light oak woodwork and gleaming floors and fat earthen jars holding clusters of tall flowers. It only made him seasick again.