Whisper Beach (20 page)

Van grinned at her. “Because then you wouldn't need me.”

Dorie laughed. “What else?”

“I've got a lot of suggestions, but we won't be able to implement them until after this weekend when I mean to watch the staff in action.”

“That makes sense.” Dorie turned on her. “You're not going to get everything discombobulated, then leave me before it's done?”

“No, of course not. We can get the major points accomplished next week. Then there are some other long-range projects you can start at your leisure, if you even want to do them.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Van said, hedging, “those of us who have been coming here forever love the ‘ambiance.' But if you were serious about staying open off-season, you'll need to appeal to a wider demographic.”

“English, please.”

“If you want some high-class diners to come here, you might want to dust the plastic flowers or even put fresh flowers on the tables.

“You can spiff things up without losing the old feel of the place. I mean, when was the last time you painted?”

“Painted?”

“That answers my question. The wood trim is fine, dark—and rich if given a good oiling, but you need to move out of the dark-doesn't-show-dirt restaurant mentality and brighten the place up at bit. Small things but a big difference. Then with the table rearrangement, there will be several clear paths to the silverware and condiment station, which you can camouflage with a decorative screen or something; that will give you a lot more space out of sight of the diners. I mean, do people really want to look at trays of mustard and ketchup while they ‘dine'?”

“Nobody's complained yet.”

“And they won't, because it's all fine, but you're the one—”

“I know that I said I wanted to save this old albatross. And you're right. I'm not going to make it on the cops coming in when they get off their shifts. Or the old regulars who come once a week if I'm lucky but usually only a couple of times a month.

“Hell, I wish there was a way to predict if it will be worth the bother.”

Van dropped her clipboard and put her hands on her hips. “What do you want?”

Dorie wrestled with a smile. “Oh, all right. I said I wanted to upgrade the joint. What else do I have to do?”

They spent the next few hours studying the restaurant from front door to kitchen. Dorie telling Van what she envisioned for the Crab, and Van making a list of ways to achieve it. They argued about several things. But they were minor, like redesigning the paper placemats or whether they could dispense with them altogether by refinishing the tables.

But Van didn't want to get too carried away or she might find herself back in Whisper Beach on weekends.
Not that it would be so awful,
she thought. Especially if Suze would be staying over the winter. Actually, it sounded sort of relaxing.

“What?” Dorie asked.

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“You wouldn't want to know.”

They finally called it a day when Suze phoned to say she was back and complaining about starvation and the absence of happy hour.

“Uncork the wine,” Van said. “We're on our way.”

“I can't find the corkscrew,” wailed Suze.

Van thought. It had been on the toaster, then Suze had used it last night and put it on the . . . “It's next to the kitchen telephone.”

“You're brilliant. Hurry up.”

Van hung up. “She's hungry and couldn't find the corkscrew.”

“Gotta love her,” Dorie said.

Van packed up her papers and put them in her carryall. “Did Suze tell you that she's thinking about staying for the winter?”

“Sure. We talked about it weeks ago. I'll be glad to have her.”

“And did the two of you plot to get me to come back for Clay's funeral?”

“My, my, you do think you're the center of our universe.” Dorie headed for the door.

Van hurried to catch up. “No, I don't. I just—”

“Stop being so prickly. I bet you dollars to donuts you don't act this skittish around your other clients.”

“You're sort of more than my client, Dorie.”

“Well, that's good to know. But no. I called her after I e-mailed you. And told her what I'd done.”

“So you coerced
her
into coming.”

“Not really; she was coming anyway, but not until after she got the grant. Come on, we can walk and talk at the same time.”

They locked up and crossed the street. There weren't many cars today. They might get a few more weekends of foot traffic, but there wasn't much else around here to draw in crowds during the off-season.

“I'm an idiot.” Van turned around and looked back toward the beach and the ocean stretching out to the horizon. “You're one of the few restaurants right on the water.”

“So?”

“Is the Crab weatherized?”

“Yeah, from back when the hotel was open three seasons.”

“Oceanside dining. It would appeal to the trendy set, I bet. I'll make a couple of calls and get a second opinion. It could stay the beach joint for the season, then streamline in the off-season to accommodate people in the know. It might work.” Van looked at Dorie. “If you think you really want to put that much work into it.”

“Can I charge higher prices off-season?”

“I bet you can; that's one of the questions I'll ask.”

“I'd need it to make a profit enough to support me. Between
you and me, Harold has spent everything. There's nothing left for our retirement money. Harold has spent it all on one scheme or another.”

“Dorie, why do you let him spend your money? Why do you let him keep coming back?”

They were walking shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk. Now Dorie slowed.

Dorie shrugged. “We're a pair like salt-and-pepper shakers, different as different, and yet we go together.”

Van thought she sounded an awful lot like Dana.

“He's still looking for that pie in the sky. And if he finds it, I know he'll share it, he always did.

“Worse comes to worse I'll turn the house into rentals, or maybe I should just sell the damn thing.”

Van did a double take. “The house?”

“The Crab.”

“You'd consider selling?”

“I've gotten some pretty hefty offers.”

“And?”

“And? For one, what would I do with myself? And two, I know Harold would manage to blow it all and then where would I be?”

Van hoped that was a rhetorical question, because she didn't have a clue. For a wild second she thought,
Silent partner
. She'd been planning to expand her business into another city. But she could invest in the Crab instead. And have Harold steal her money, too?

No, Dorie would just have to do the best she could, with a little help from her friends.

When the two arrived back at Dorie's, Suze was sitting in the parlor, an open bottle of white wine on the table, and the air-conditioning going full blast.

“How was your day?” Van asked.

“Hmmph,” Suze said.

“Oh dear, not going well.”

Suze threw herself back into her chair, one hand over her forehead like a melodrama heroine. “Nothing's going well. The work is fine, but I still haven't heard from the grant people. What is so hard about returning one of my fifty calls?”

“Can we just drive over and pick up the forms? I have a car.”

“To Cincinnati? Scholars from all over the country have applied for this money. I worked my butt off to make it down to the finalists, and for what.” Suze groaned and switched hands. “But that's not the worst.”

“There's worse?” Van wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more bad news.

“My mother is having a ‘drinks' party on Sunday.”

“Oh.”

“She just never lets up. She did her down-the-nose thing at me staying here at Dorie's. Really got frosty when I told her we were having a reunion.”

“I'd hardly call it that.”

“It is sort of, and besides I was being gratuitously ornery.”

Van laughed. “I like that—‘gratuitously ornery.' I'm going to remember to use that with a few of my clients. So you had a fight?”

“One doesn't fight with my mother. She just hands down edicts. Like my attendance at the ‘drinks' party.”

“That seems a small price to pay.”

Suze rolled her eyes. Van swore they were all turning into Dorie. “She wants to take me shopping so I won't embarrass her in front of her guests.”

“She didn't say that.”

“No, she said there would be single men there and she wanted me to make a good impression.”

“Ouch. So are you going shopping?”

“No. I told her I was bringing a date.”

“Really? Who?”

Suze slumped back in the chair. “I thought maybe I'd call Jerry and see if he was available.”

She gave Van such a bland look that Van burst out laughing.

“I know. Fish out of water. Do you think he'll do it?”

“Call and see, but are you sure you want to put the poor man through one of your mother's cocktail parties?”

“I guess it wouldn't be fair, would it?”

Van shrugged. “But it would be very interesting.”

“I just might do it. I'll warn him, of course. It wouldn't be fair to let him enter the lion's den unprepared.”

“Poor Jerry.”

“The other alternative is for you to go with me.”

“Thanks, but let's try Jerry first.”

T
HE FIRST THING
V
AN DID THE NEXT MORNING WAS CALL
the office, but not to check up on them; they'd be doing fine. The good part of setting up something efficiently was that it practically ran itself. The problem with it was . . . It practically ran itself.

“I'm not calling to check up on you,” Van told Ellen before she had a chance to complain. “I need your expertise. I need the names of . . .” Van explained what she wanted.

“This does not sound like lying on the beach to me,” Ellen said.

“A friend of mine owns a restaurant here. She just needs some advice about restructuring. I thought maybe she could get in touch with somebody who has experience. What was the name of the guy in the penthouse on Sixty-Eighth? He's a restaurateur. We just restructured his second bedroom into an IT center, remember? Thought he could help my friend to restructure her restaurant.”

“First promise me that you're having a good time.”

“I am.” Now that she had something to do.

“And you're meeting hot men.”

“That too.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

“Okay, his name is Milo Duchamp. Here's his e-mail and cell.”

Van took down the information. As soon as she hung up, she called Mr. Duchamp and left a message for him to call her.

She went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. Suze and Dana were there. Dorie had gone to the Crab to wait for deliveries.

“What's on the agenda today?” she asked.

“Working and waiting for the mail,” Suze said.

“Reading the want ads,” Dana said.

“No luck yet?”

“No,” both said.

Van sat down to drink her coffee and look over her plans while she waited for Duchamp to call her back.

He did a half hour later. He remembered her very well. He loved his home office. She explained what she was doing and what she needed to know. He agreed to look over a prospectus once she had a better handle on the situation.

After they hung up, Van went online and began looking at restaurant supplies. Storage bins, tables, chairs. She made notes and took screen shots.

She had a week left. She knew she could turn the environment and organization of the Blue Crab around in that time. But retraining the staff would be Dorie's responsibility, and Van wanted to oversee her inauguration of that effort. Dorie ran the Crab on the laissez-faire principle. If she wanted to jump to the next level, she'd have to be more labor intensive.

A week left
. It would definitely take that long to set up a
long-range plan for the Crab. She also had to decide what to do with her house, which meant she'd have to talk to Uncle Nate.

And she wanted to see Joe again. Which was probably crazy. She should leave well enough alone. But she wanted more. But how much more? To solidify their friendship, get to know him better? For what reason? Have a chance to say good-bye and good luck?

All that and the restaurant, too? Absolutely. She was revved. This was her idea of a vacation.

She jumped when there was a knock at the door.

Suze stuck her head in. “Gigi's downstairs. I told her you were working, but you'd be right down.”

“Damn, I forgot.” She'd called and made plans last night before they went to bed. And then forgot all about them in her excitement about talking with Duchamp. “Tell her I'll be right down. Does she have her swimsuit?”

Suze nodded. “And her sunglasses. And don't look at me. I'm staying in my room until further notice.”

Van sighed. She was not looking forward to a day on the beach. It wasn't Gigi; it was the doing nothing. She changed into her bikini, slipped her notebook into a carryall, just in case she had a minute to study it, and went downstairs.

“Sorry I took so long,” Van said when she reached the foyer where Gigi was waiting. “I was just finishing up some things I need to get for reorganizing the Crab.”

Gig sighed. “You're not starting today, are you?” The disappointment on her face was pathetic.

“No. Have you had lunch? I'm kind of hungry. I can't even remember having breakfast.”

“I ate already.” And she didn't look like she wanted to wait for Van to have lunch.

“Let me just grab us some waters and a snack and we'll go.” Van needed fortification if she was going to really sit down and talk with Gigi, encourage her to get on with her life and whatever else Nate expected her to do.

She grabbed a couple of apples, some grapes, and two bottles of water. Put them in her carryall with her notes and went out to get Gigi.

“Isn't Suze coming?” Gigi asked.

“No. She has to work. It's just the two of us. Is that okay?”

Gigi shrugged.

Van tried not to feel impatient. Gigi wasn't happy when they were all together, and she didn't seem happy to have Van all to herself. Closets and kitchens—even nannies—were so much simpler to understand.

She was all too aware of the divide between Suze and her and Dana and Gigi. She didn't think she was being snobbish. Well, hell, that was absurd. But she was independent, and Suze was a respected scholar. Dana hadn't seemed to have moved past teenage flirt. Gigi was a widow with two children and still living with her parents. Well, maybe Van could help remedy at least the latter.

She just wished the idea of sitting in the sand all day didn't feel like such a chore.

At least it would give her time to let Gigi talk. Find out what was really going on in that mind of hers. Blurting out that your husband didn't love you in the middle of Main Street didn't qualify as a heart-to-heart.

And what about her children? How were they coping through all this? Gigi had barely mentioned them. Were they in school? Who was taking and picking them up? Amelia? Van hadn't even asked. Well, she'd ask about them today.

Gigi was waiting outside. She'd already gotten the beach chairs
out of the shed. She picked hers up as soon as Van reached the porch. It was like she couldn't wait to get to the beach. Or away from the others? Was Van missing some subtext that Suze had picked up on?

When they got to the beach, Gigi led the way down the steps, but instead of stopping on the sand she kept walking toward the pier, then passed underneath it. The air immediately became fetid and dense. It would have felt clammy if it had been colder, but as it was, it was just uncomfortable.

Gigi was determined to go to Whisper Beach. That was fine with Van. One small group was sitting beneath a bright beach umbrella. The rest of the beach was empty.

They set up their chairs and put on sunscreen.

As soon as she sat down, Van's mind wandered back to the day she and Joe had talked out here looking at the river. She would like to see his family. His vineyard.

She smiled thinking about the two of them sitting over the computer.

“What's so funny?” Gigi asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just happy to be out on the beach.” Van put on her sunglasses. Tried to think of something to talk about. She didn't understand why it was hard. She and Gigi had always told each other everything.

“So tell me the names of your children again.”

“Clay Junior and Amy.”

“Are they in school?”

“Clay Junior is going to kindergarten next week. Amy is only three. Mom says I should put her in day care and go back to work, but I don't know. Clay didn't want me to work. Said children needed to have their mother around to give them proper guidance.”

“Most of my clients with children either send them out or have a nanny.”

“Send them out? You make them sound like laundry.”

“Did I? I didn't mean to. I like children.”

“What happened to yours?”

“What?”

“You were pregnant when you left, remember? That's what you told me. Why you had to leave.”

Of course Van remembered. It wasn't the kind of thing a person could forget even if she tried. “I miscarried.”

“Then why didn't you come back?”

How could she tell Gigi that Whisper Bay held nothing for her? That she'd tried to forget living here. Tried to forget her family, and Joe and all of them. Because it was the only way she could pretend to look toward the future instead of being dragged down and strangled by her own abiding fear that she would turn out like her mother had.

That in Whisper Beach she wouldn't be strong enough to say what she wanted to be. That she couldn't be anything here. That she was afraid if she did come back she'd end up like Dana or Gigi.

She hated herself for thinking that way. Because there were some really good people here. But Dana hadn't changed. And Gigi? Gigi had done what girls from their neighborhood did, gotten married, raised a family; she'd done what everyone expected and now she was alone with two kids.

Except she had a large family to buffer her from the world. Van wouldn't have had that.

“I don't know. I just couldn't. But what about you? I know it's early days yet, but do you have an idea of what you want to do?”

“I'll have to get a job, I guess.”

“Is there something you'd like to do?”

“No.”

“You always wanted to be a nurse and help people. What if you went back to school?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It doesn't matter.”

Van twisted in her chair, tucked her legs up, and tried to read her cousin's expression. Gigi's statement had sounded totally without rancor or even sadness. Van didn't understand how she could be so apathetic.

Her husband was dead, her house was lost, and she had two young children to support. Van didn't understand why Gigi didn't do something, but maybe she was just overwhelmed.

Was that what coming to sunbathe was all about? Maybe Gigi was just trying to reconnect with something that made sense, like friendship. People you could count on. Who wouldn't let you down.

“Gi, I know you feel that way now, but—” She was about to deliver a cliché and she didn't even know if it was true. She tried a different approach. “When I left Whisper Beach, I felt like my life was over, that I had no friends—”

“But you did have friends.”

“Yes, and I am so grateful to you and Suze, but it took me a long time before I could start building a new life for myself.”

“It was Joe and Dana's fault. I don't know how you can be nice to them.”

“Me? You always saw the good in people, not me. I always expected the worse.”

“Maybe you were right.”

“No. I wasn't. It's better to be like you.”

“There's nothing worse than being me.”

This made Van sit upright, then drop to her knees next to Gigi's beach chair. “You're a great person, and you have two wonderful children and parents and siblings who love you. And friends. I know it must be so hard to lose your husband and I wish it hadn't happened. But there is still good stuff out there for you. There really is.”

“Easy for you to say.” Gigi closed her eyes. “Now, can we just lie here and pretend the world doesn't suck? Just for a little while?”

Van sat back in her chair. Gigi had effectively ended her attempt at consolation. Not that Van could blame her. She hadn't done a very good job of showing Gigi the bright side.

But she hadn't expected such lack of spirit, even in Gigi. For as much as Van could reorganize offices and bedrooms so that traffic flowed smoothly, so that everything was just a fingertip away—schedules could be tweaked that made everything fall into place . . . city life crisis management, one of her clients had called it—she didn't know anything that could help her cousin.

Van was good at her job, able to fix just about any external mess. But she couldn't begin to understand a family's dynamic; she could recommend places to find the best nannies, but she couldn't give advice about child rearing. She could pretty much tell if a person was unhappy, but outside of making her daily schedule less stressful, she was at a loss. She couldn't help a woman regain her self-esteem or tell her how to deal with a job loss or heartbreak.

And clients asked her things like that. Things they wouldn't even tell a bartender, they told Van. Came to her seeking advice about everything from which cabinet to fill with Tupperware to whether a wife should leave a husband who was having an affair.

And Van would have to tell those clients she couldn't help. Not because she didn't want to fix everything, even their personal
lives, but because she had no experience to draw from. Her childhood had mostly been a nightmare. She'd had no significant other since Joe. She watched families interact and wondered if it was a trick done with mirrors, a fake façade to keep people from seeing the dark underbelly of their lives.

She was the last person to advise Gigi. And yet here they were.

They sat quietly for a while, then Van stretched her towel out on the sand and lay down on her stomach. It was a few minutes before she realized that Gigi had changed seats and was sitting on Van's chair watching Van.

Van turned to her side and looked at her cousin's intense face.

“Take me with you when you go back.”

Van sat up. “Gi . . . you mean for a visit?”

“Take me to the city. You can help me get a job there. I can work for you. I know how to clean and stuff.”

“Gigi, I don't think you could make enough to get an apartment large enough for the three of you and hire a nanny to watch the kids when you're not there.”

“I can leave them with Mom . . . I mean, until I save up some money.”

Van was floored—afraid to say anything and afraid not to say something. Had Gigi actually suggested leaving her children to move to New York?

And why was she so shocked? Women had to do that all the time, coming to the States to work and sending money back home to support their families. Some of those women worked for Van, and every one of them spoke of her children with longing. Most of them had no choice.