Whisper Beach (14 page)

“Gigi doesn't need for you to give her a house; she needs you to light a fire under her. Everyone else is already enabling her to do nothing.”

“I think it's too late for her to change. I'll send you some ideas for streamlining the dining room at the Crab. Should be a fairly simple fix. And tell Suze . . . well, I'll apologize to her before I leave.”

“Vanessa Moran.”

“I've loved being here with you and Suze, even seeing Joe again, but the rest of it— I thought it would be good for me, but it isn't. Don't ask me to stay. It's just too hard.”

“Okay, leave if you must. But at least go say good-bye to Joe. You left him once before; don't do it to him again.”

“I already told him it was nice to see him. We didn't make
plans to see each other again. It isn't his fault that I left. I was pissed at him and Dana. But I overreacted.” She paused to take a breath. “The only time I ever just reacted without thinking of the consequences, and look what happened. I did it to myself. My responsibility, not Joe's, not Dana's.”

In one movement, she turned and ran up the stairs. Closed the door to her room and leaned against it, no longer able to hold back the tears she'd held in for so long.

She didn't make any noise, didn't shudder or gasp. She'd learned early on not to let anyone know how much she hurt. Not her mother, not her father, and now, not even Dorie.

M
AYBE SHE WAS
getting too old for this, Dorie thought as she stood in the hallway between the three guest rooms. She had a full house again. She hadn't had one of those in years.

There had been a time when the girls and the boys would come to her for shelter in whatever particular storm they were going through. Dorie never turned them away. Even if she had to sleep some of them on the floor with a blanket and a couch pillow for their heads.

Harold took it all in stride. Of course, Harold liked having the girls around. In those days, he had a roving eye, and an occasional roving hand, but he never compromised a young woman as far as she knew. It was later that the real philandering started.

But to love Harold, you had to love the whole man. The man who built (with her help) a successful restaurant from nothing. The man who put their entire savings into shares of the hotel only to have it go belly-up a few years later. He sold his shares to the
new owners for a song. But that had been years ago, before the hotel became the favorite place to stay and before Sandy ended its reign and wrecked the foundation beyond repair.

Maybe it was working in the shadow of that hotel year after year, knowing he'd almost owned it, that he was the man who almost made it, that gave Harold wanderlust. Not just for women but for adventure.

Though his idea of adventure was sometimes just weird. Scuba diving in the Keys—surely a young thing in a bikini accompanied that one. An immersion course in Hungarian? He came back from four weeks in Budapest emaciated with walking pneumonia.

Did that stop him? No. Vegas to study poker, dealing not gambling. He could just as easily have learned in Atlantic City. Definitely picked up a woman or two in Vegas. Stupid old man. He was a good ten years older than Dorie, pushing eighty.

Still going like the Energizer bunny.

And still coming back when he got tired or ran out of money.

Dorie didn't begrudge him his travels or his women, though if they were getting any more than an arm to hang on she'd be surprised. She wasn't even jealous. Never had been.

They had three kids. All moved away and more or less successful. Dorie was alone a lot, but she didn't really mind, did she? She looked at the three closed doors. Well, she wasn't alone now.

This was all the adventure she needed. And if she helped out a few people along the way, gave them a place to be safe for a minute, well, hell, it's what she did. Let Harold go out and search for whatever he was searching for. She had everything she needed or wanted right here. She just wished she had the money to keep it going.

I
T WAS MUCH
later than Van had intended when she bumped her packed suitcase down the stairs the next morning. She could smell coffee and bacon of all things and heard the murmur of conversation coming from the kitchen.

She rolled her suitcase to the front door. She'd have to come back for her printer and laptop. She knew her eyes were puffy and not just from lack of sleep, but there was no help for it. She'd just have to brazen her way through the good-byes.

Quick and gracious, optimistic plans to keep in touch and then she'd be on her way to her vacation.

Her vacation. Maybe she should just go home to Manhattan.

She wiped her hands on the front of her new shorts and strode down the hall to the kitchen.

They were sitting around the table, Dorie, Suze still in her pajamas, and Dana, wearing what had to be Dorie's bathrobe.

Conversation stopped. Van stepped inside.

“Hey, just wanted to say a quick good-bye before I take off.”

She got no response.

Van came farther into the room. Gave Dorie a one-armed hug and stepped away. “Thanks . . . for everything. Suze, let's get together.”

Suze frowned at her and stood up. “I'll walk you out.”

Van turned to Dana, who was looking down at an untouched cup of coffee.

Her lip was so swollen it was hard to imagine her being able to get the liquid in her mouth. Her eye was swollen, surrounded by deep purple. And something Van hadn't noticed the night before, her chin was scraped, like a child who had fallen on the sidewalk.

Van's stomach lurched; she nodded, gave Dana a tight smile.
That was the best she could do. Her emotions were pushed well back inside. She wouldn't take the chance of reacting to Dana's injuries and having her own feelings tumble out again.

“Tell Gigi I'll call her.” She headed for the door to the hall. Heard chairs scrape; she kept walking, faster now.

She reached the suitcase, pushed the handle down, and picked it up. It would be faster than rolling it across the lawn.

“No, Van.” It was Dana and she was alone. “I'll go. I had no business even coming here. I just didn't know where else to go.”

Van forced herself to look at that bruised face. “So if you left now, where would you go?”

Dana shrugged. “Back to Bud. He doesn't mean—”

“Dana, stop right there. Do not go back. You don't deserve to be treated that way.”

“I don't?”

“No. No one does. And I'm not leaving because of you.”

“Then why?”

“It's complicated.”

Suze moved forward.

Van quickly turned away, opened the front door, and walked straight into Gigi.

“Oh!” Gigi exclaimed and jumped back. She was dressed in beige cotton slacks and a pin-striped blouse. She was balanced on two-inch heels and was incongruously holding a beach bag in one hand. She held a pile of mail in the other.

Van tried to bypass her, but there was no way it was going to happen. Resigned for more tears, hopefully only on Gigi's part, Van said, “Oh, I'm glad you dropped by. I wanted to say good-bye before I head out.”

Gigi seemed to notice the suitcase for the first time. “But . . . where are you going?”

“I'm on vacation, remember? I have hotel reservations starting today, and I don't want them to think I'm not coming and give my room away.” Van smiled brightly. It was so fake that not even Gigi the naive could mistake it for a real.

“I thought— Why can't you spend your vacation here?”

Suze efficiently relieved Gigi of the mail and began rifling through the envelopes.

Momentarily distracted, Gigi asked, “Is she still waiting for those forms?”

“Yeah. And she's staying here for a while to write, so you guys can hang out together.”

“But you promised.”

Van stared at her. “Me? Promised what?”

“You said you'd stay.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yes, you did. After the funeral when we were at Mike's. I said I knew you didn't want to stay, and you said you did.”

“I meant for the day and I stayed over yesterday just to see you.”

Suze had stopped shuffling through the mail. She dropped it onto the foyer table.

“Nothing?” Van asked.

Suze shook her head.

“I thought you and Suze and I could go to the beach today. Like we did yesterday.”

“I can't.” Van leaned forward to give Gigi a quick hug.

Gigi latched on. “Please. Just for a few days. We're family.”

And family was one of the big reasons Van was in a hurry to leave.

The change in Gigi's expression was so quick and so stormy that Van stepped back, right onto Dana's foot.

Gigi's eye widened almost comically. “What's she doing here?”

Dana rested her chin on Van's shoulder. “Girls' weekend away. Too bad you missed it.”

Dana was back in Dana form; bruises and all, she was going to tough it out. Van dug her heel into Dana's toes. Dana pushed her from behind. Not strong, but enough to let her know she was a force to be reckoned with. Not that Van had any intentions of dealing with her in any manner ever again.

“This is all her fault!”

“No, Gigi, it's just my schedule.”

“No, it isn't. You said you would stay, then she came and now you're leaving.” Gigi glared at Dana. “Why don't you just go away?”

Dana crossed her arms, cocked one hip, feisty and belligerent regardless of her battered face. “Why don't you?”

Gigi's lip quivered.

Damn, Dana. She never knew when to leave things alone. Van could walk out the door now, leave the others to sort things out among themselves. She could be in Rehoboth in a few hours, lie on the beach alone, have her meals alone, drink at the bar alone, then go to bed alone— What kind of vacation was that?

Or she could have the problems that hounded her here instead. But then what kind of vacation would staying here be?

Gigi smiled tentatively. “Please?”

“Yes, for crying out loud, please,” Suze said under her breath. “You really can't leave me and Dorie like this.”

“You're welcome to come with me,” Van said just as quietly.

“Ple-e-e-ease,” Suze whined in a parody of Gigi. “I promise not to mention work if you promise not to say Rehoboth.”

“Suze, don't ask—”

“I'm dying,” Dorie blurted out.

T
HE OTHER FOUR WOMEN STARED AT HER.

Then Gigi started crying.

Van put a comforting arm around her. “Dorie, if this is your idea of a joke, stop it.”

“I'm not joking. Well, I'm not dying, either. At least I hope I'm not.”

“Not funny!” Dana yelled. “Not funny, Dorie.”

“Chill. Look at you all. Suze is totally balled up over the mail. Dana, you act like you're mad at the world, when you're here with people who care about you. Van can't wait to get away. Gigi, I don't even know what to say about you. You just stopped growing somewhere along the line.”

“I'm going upstairs,” Suze said.

Van reached for her suitcase.

“Stop! All of you.”

Van stopped, Dana crossed her arms and glared at them, Suze
looked down on them like the wrath of the almighty college professor.

“Would you have stayed if you thought I was dying?”

No one answered.

“You're all so caught up in your own problems or agendas or whatever that you don't even see what's in front of you.”

“And what would that be?” Dana asked.

Dorie looked them over, long enough to make Van squirm.

“You know, life is short. Before you know it, you're looking back on it and wondering what the hell happened.

“And it's too late to fix the things you didn't fix, or really enjoy the things that you didn't even pay attention to.”

“But you're not really dying, are you?” Gigi asked, her voice trembling.

“When you get to be my age, you're always dying.”

“Oh, horse twaddle,” Suze said, coming back down the stairs.

“Okay, here's the truth. I'm not dying, but the Crab is. Harold has totally cleaned out the operating money not to mention the joint bank account, and if I don't figure out how to do things more efficiently, I'm going to lose it.”

Van narrowed her eyes at Dorie. Her confession sounded sincere, but Dorie was clever that way.

“You're serious this time?” Van asked.

“Dead serious.”

Still Van hesitated. She didn't like to be manipulated. But if Dorie needed help with the Crab, Van could turn it around. And it would be more fun than sitting on the beach by herself.

She looked at Suze and could see she was thinking the same thing. Gigi looked hopeful. Dana just looked pissed off. But then Dana only had two looks: pissed off and her version of sexy.

“And when were you going to get around to telling us this?”

“I was hoping I wouldn't have to. But . . .” Dorie shrugged. “What little was left, left with Harold this week.”

Suze cut a look toward Van.

Van hesitated.

Dana and Gigi both turned to look at her. Then Dorie.

“Oh, what the hell. I'll call the hotel and cancel my reservations. But Dorie has to make pancakes.”

Van hauled her suitcase back upstairs. When she got up to her room, she called the Rehoboth hotel and canceled her reservation. If things got too complicated, she'd just go home to Manhattan.

When she came downstairs again, Suze and Dorie were bustling about the kitchen. Gigi sat at the kitchen table across from Dana, watching her like a terrier at a rat hole. Though what she expected Dana to do was anybody's guess.

Van walked over to the stove. “Can I do anything to help?”

“You can make some more coffee.”

Van got down the coffee and filled the coffeemaker. Suze passed by with a stack of plates. Van gave her a quick look and then glanced toward the table.

Suze shrugged.

They set the table, and poured more coffee, brought butter and syrup from the fridge and still Gigi and Dana hadn't moved. Dorie brought over a towering stack of pancakes, surrounded by bacon strips, and Van and Suze took their seats.

“Mmm,” Suze and Van said together.

Dorie had always made the best pancakes, the best crab cakes, the best lasagna, the best of a lot of things. And it wasn't fair that she was having trouble with the restaurant because of Harold's low-life lifestyle.

Restructuring the Blue Crab would be a challenge; Van
mainly did apartments and office buildings. But she'd met enough people in the business to know who she could call for advice if she needed it.

“I'm stuffed to the gills,” Suze said, when the pancakes and every morsel of bacon were gone, and the dishwasher had been loaded.

“Which is why we're walking into town for supplies,” Van said.

“What about my work?”

“You can work this afternoon while I go over to the Crab and make some sketches.”

“You coming, Gigi?”

“Sure.”

Van steeled herself. “How about you, Dana?”

“Dana will stay here with the doors locked, so take a key,” Dorie said. “She's keeping a low profile for a while. I'm going to run down to the Crab to pick up some supplies for dinner.”

“Right. Do either of you need anything? We're just going to Main Street.”

For a moment Van thought Dana was going to make a request. But she just shook her head.

Van, Suze, and Gigi started off toward town. It was only four blocks and even though the sun was already heating the air, enough trees lined the streets to making walking bearable. Which was better than trying to find a place to park in the three-block strip of trendy stores.

“We probably should be paying to stay at Dorie's,” Suze said. “I planned to pay her rent anyway, but every time I bring it up she puts me off.”

“She won't take any money,” Gigi said. “At least she never did before.”

“Maybe we can put some toward the Crab renovation. But first
I want to make sure that Harold can't get his slimy hands on it.”

“Absolutely,” Suze said. “We would never have known she was in such trouble if you hadn't tried to leave, Van.”

“Rub it in,” Van said.

“No, I mean it; it was a good thing. And I'm sorry I bitched about Rehoboth.”

“Same for me about your work.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Gigi asked.

“A minor spat,” Van said. “I haven't been thinking straight this morning. Like I hope it's all right for you to be seen in town, Gigi. Should you have stayed at Dorie's? I just have to pick up some graph paper and pencils.”

“It's okay, I guess. It's not like . . . It's—”

They stopped on the corner, waited for a car to pass, then Van and Suze started to cross. Gigi stayed behind.

“Gigi?”

“Don't you wonder why Clay was living in a trailer at our house and not with me?”

“Uh, because he was protecting the house from looters?”

“Because he didn't want to be with me.”

Van blinked, took a quick look around. “I'm sure that isn't why.”

“Of course it is. Nothing went right for him after he married me. He bought the house with money he'd saved to open up a machine shop. But I didn't want to live with his parents or mine, so we bought that house. Then the storm came and wrecked everything, and then Clay lost his job.

“Everything we tried to do failed. And he blamed me.”

“No, I'm sure he didn't,” Suze said and shot a panicky look at Van, and they both hurried back to the curb.

Why Gigi decided to bare her soul while standing on a street corner right downtown, Van couldn't guess. She only knew she
had to stop it, before someone overheard and it got back to Gigi's mother.

But what could either she or Suze say? They had no idea what had actually transpired.

Van was acutely aware of the tears about to fall. She pulled Gigi back from the street. “Stop this. You're grieving and not seeing things clearly. Just give it time. Try to just hang in; come shopping and try not to think about it until you have some distance on things.”

Gigi nodded. “But I think he climbed up on that roof on purpose.”

“To fix some shingles, Uncle Nate told me.”

“No, to jump off.”

“What?” Van asked, nonplussed.

On the other side of Gigi, Suze looked worried.

Van took a breath. “Gigi, people don't jump off two-story roofs on purpose. At best he would break a leg or collarbone.” Only in Clay's case it had been his neck. “Besides, there are better ways to go if that's what you mean.”

“Oh, no. It worked perfectly well.” Gigi sniffed. “Is it too early for ice cream?”

Van stared at her cousin. What kind of gear switch was that? From her husband's possible suicide to ice cream.

“Yes,” Suze said. “We just finished breakfast, and I for one don't have room for more. Let's do a little shopping first; there are some great little boutiques here.”

“I can't afford boutiques,” Gigi said.

“Neither can I,” Suze said. “But we're going to window-shop and pretend.” She took Gigi by the elbow and practically dragged her across the street, shooting a look to Van over her head.

Van followed, speechless and beginning to really worry. Is
this what made Gigi seem so fragile? She thought her husband killed himself because of her? And yet, how could she talk about suicide in one breath and want ice cream in the next? It didn't make any sense. They stopped at the window of an antiques store.

“You have lots of money,” Gigi said to Suze.

“My parents have lots of money. I am living on a professor's salary.”

“Professors don't make a lot of money?”

“In a word, no.”

“Then why don't you get something that pays better?”

“Because I like what I do.”

They moved on to the next store, a dress boutique.

“Aren't you married?”

“No.”

“Do you want to get married?”

“This looks interesting. Shall we go in?”

“Sure.” Van opened the door, and Suze walked in but not before cutting her a look that begged her to help out.

“Well, do you?” Gigi continued, following them in.

“Gigi, that's enough. Let's look at the earrings.”

They managed to distract Gigi for a few minutes while Van bought a pair of seagull earrings for Dorie.

“They're really expensive,” Gigi said as they returned to the sidewalk.

“Well, maybe a little. Is Untermeyer's still here? I need to pick up some graph paper.”

They crossed the street to Untermeyer's Five and Dime, a relic from before Van was born that had managed to stay alive by adding upscale skin products, high-end beach toys, curios and jewelry to the cards, candy bars, and sundries.

Van felt a momentary pang. She'd once sold her sea glass paintings here. Right in the display case over there, now filled with handcrafted curios with price tags that would have made her rich back in the day.

She wandered to the back of the store past the cards to the office supplies, picked up a few things. Most of her work she did on computer, but she liked to get a hands-on sense of the space she was working with.

She took her things to the counter where an older woman rang up her purchases. “Why, Gigi Daly. Is that you?”

Gigi jerked around. “Mrs. Untermeyer. How are you?”

“I'm just fine, but I should be asking you how you are? Though it looks as if you're doing fine, too.”

Van caught the undercurrent of disapproval in her voice. “Gigi was very kind to keep me company while I picked up a few things I needed,” Van said. She leaned over and said confidentially, “And Amelia wanted us to get her out of the house. So sad.”

“Yes, it is.” Mrs. Untermeyer studied her curiously. “You look familiar. But I'm afraid I can't place you.”

Van smiled. Considered. Decided what the hell. “I haven't been back in a while. I'm Vanessa Moran.”

It took a few seconds for Mrs. Untermeyer to assimilate the information. “Oh my goodness, and here we were all thinking you were dead.”

“Rumors of her death have been greatly exaggerated,” Suze quoted.

Van shot her a quelling look.

“Well, I'm so glad they weren't true. Are you here for the art festival this weekend?”

Van had noticed the posters in the stores they passed and hadn't thought much about them.

“Uh, no, just here for Gigi. I don't paint anymore. Not since I left.” Her artwork belonged in the past with all the other things that hadn't worked out.

“Oh, that's too bad. Well, you still might enjoy the festival. So nice to see you.”

Van paid for her purchases, and they said good-bye to Mrs. Untermeyer.

“I forgot you sold your glass art at Untermeyer's,” Suze said when they were back on the street.

“So had I. Okay, let's get ice cream and get back to Dorie's.”

They walked three abreast past a real estate office and an art gallery.

“Hey, look,” Gigi said. “That's a picture of the Blue Crab.”

Van had to look twice. A large oil painting was displayed in the window. It was definitely the Crab, but in former days, just as funky but more colorful. The painter had managed to catch the spirit of the old hangout. “Maybe we should see how expensive it is; it would look great in the entrance, wouldn't it?”

But when they went to the door, a sign read
CLOSED FOR INSTALLATION
.

“Oh, well, we can come back Saturday,” Suze said.

“Why Saturday?”

“The art festival.” She pointed to the blue-and-white poster in the window. “Saturday, nine to six. Sounds like fun,” Suze said. “Maybe we'll find some paintings on velvet.”

Van laughed. “Do they even make those anymore?”

“Sure they do,” Gigi said. “I have one of the sunset, and it's so pretty.”

Suze shook her head. “Oh, Gigi.”

“What? It's one of the few things I saved from the hurricane.”

They came to the ice cream shop, another throwback to a simpler
time, but like Untermeyer's, it had upgraded—to the six-dollar scoop with designer flavors.