Whisper Beach (26 page)

“You want to know? Okay, I'll tell you. I saw you with Dana.”

“I don't get it. You didn't believe whatever she told you today. I know she tried to insinuate that something was going on, but it isn't.”

“Joe, you don't have to answer to me. Your life is your own.”

“Of course it is. But I'm a tenacious sort of bastard and just want to know. I thought we were going to spend our lives together and you caused a scene and disappeared. I figure it won't kill you to tell me why.”

“Did I cause a scene?”

“They're still talking about it down at Mike's.” He smiled. “Well, it wasn't that big a scene, but it was so out of character for you that it got everyone's attention.”

“It's hard to remember what happened. I remember things were really bad at home, and I was just kind of straddling the lunatic fringe. You know?”

“Yeah, and I didn't help.”

“You did, Joe. Never doubt that. You were my rock.”

“So why didn't you forgive me and come back?”

She shrugged. It was all so long ago, and she didn't really want to remember. “You could have come after me.”

“I did, but you had already hooked up with that pretty boy. I got pissed, then I figured you'd come back once you got bored with him or he went back to school. I'm tenacious, but I was stubborn. I was also stupid.”

“We were kids. We were supposed to be stupid.”

“You were a kid. I was almost out of college, about to take over the family business.”

“That must have been a shock, to lose the farm.”

“That they sold out from under me. Maybe you were smart to run. We wouldn't have had much of a life without the farm.”

They'd been walking slowly toward the beach, but now Van stopped him. “But you do have the farm. And you made it happen. You couldn't have learned all you learned and gone the places you did if you were stuck with a child wife at home.”

He smiled slightly. “You've become very wise since you left.”

“School of hard knocks.” She hurried on in case he thought she was complaining. “But it was worth it.”

“You've had opportunities that you wouldn't have had as a farmer's wife, that's for sure. But you still haven't told me why you left.”

They had come to the boardwalk, but instead of turning north toward the Blue Crab, they turned south, away from memory.

Of course, memory followed right along with them. Maybe it would be better just to get it all out, then they could both go into the future unfettered by regrets.

“Okay, let me lay this out as well as I can remember it, then
we'll call it done and move on from there. The truth between us. And no ties left.”

“That sounds harsh.”

“Do you want the truth or not?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I went out with pretty boy once. But I came back to you.”

He stopped again. She kept walking.

“I came back and saw you with Dana.”

“I don't even remember talking to Dana after that blowup. I pretty much told her to get lost, that she'd ruined everything. I wasn't very nice.”

Van sighed. “Men and their selective memories.”

Joe just looked at her. “I don't get it.”

This was taking forever, and she didn't think she could get through it if he kept interrupting. For even though it had happened years ago, and she'd put it behind her, now those old feelings were bubbling up again. And they hurt all over again.

“I saw you.”

“And you threw a fit, and Mike threw you out of the bar.”

“After that. Later, days later, I realized that I was being stupid and that I should have ‘claimed' you and not let Dana do that to me, but it was too late.”

“No, it wasn't.”

“Joe, I came to the restaurant and I saw you and Dana in your truck out back.”

Joe frowned. “Dana in my truck? She was never in my truck.”

“Oh, don't act so innocent, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You didn't come after me. You didn't try to get me back, and then you had sex with Dana. You cheated on me. In a truck for Chrissake.”

“Dana? Me and Dana? I never had sex with her. Never even contemplated it; she was trouble on a plate. Still is.”

“I saw you. And I just freaked. And the rest as they say is history.”

“But you were wrong. I didn't— I— Oh shit.” The color drained from his face, leaving a shadow of a tan. “It wasn't Dana.”

“Oh, come on, Joe. It doesn't matter anymore. Neither of us would be thinking about it, if you hadn't insisted.”

“It wasn't Dana.”

“I don't need to know. None of my business.”

“It was Gigi.”

He went out of focus for a second. There was a roaring in her ears. “Gigi? Gigi? You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, but nothing even happened.”

“I don't believe you. Gigi would never. No.”

“Well, she did. She seduced me. Or tried to at least. She jumped in the truck when I was leaving one night. She said she was sorry about us breaking up, and all this other stuff that I don't remember and probably didn't even hear, because she started taking off her clothes.

“She said she wanted to make me feel better. She climbed on top of me and started . . . well, at that point I wasn't unwilling. I mean you were going out with that other guy and—”

“Spare me the details; this was my story.”

“No, I won't. She tried, but it didn't work. And here's something that a guy never wants to admit. I was upset and angry and horny as hell, but I couldn't get it up. The more she tried, the limper I got.” He laughed, shook his head. “I couldn't do it. Because she wasn't you.”

“Gigi? No, Gigi wouldn't do something like that.”

Joe looked at her long and hard.

“Gigi?” Van was having a hard time believing that Gigi would ever do something like that.

“She was humiliated, and I was humiliated at first. It lasted all of two minutes. Then she started crying and hit me a couple of times before she jumped out of the truck, ran off into the night. I figured she'd tell everybody what a wimp I was. But she never said a word.

“After that, you disappeared. I went to your house, but your father threatened to kill me. I went to Dorie, but she wouldn't tell me anything.

“Then I heard you left town. But that wasn't like you, Van. You were such a fighter, a survivor. I figured it must have been me, and you were just using Dana as an excuse to get rid of me. I never even thought that you might have seen that stupid comedy in my truck. It didn't last five minutes.”

“Gigi? Damn her.”

“If you'd only said something. You didn't have to leave.”

Van shook her head. Closed her eyes. Pressed her hand to her stomach. “That's not why I left.”

“Then why?”

Van swallowed. The words were stuck somewhere inside her. She knew that she had to get them out and be done with it. She was almost at the end of her tale. Then it would be done. She would go back to Manhattan and go on with her life. And Joe would stop wondering what might have been.

“I was pregnant.”

He stopped. Stared at her. Shook his head slightly. “But we never—”

Van saw a bench up ahead and made for it.

“No. Pretty boy, God, I can't even remember his name, took me to a party. I got drunk. Something I never did, even then. But
I did that night. I was so out of it, I hardly knew or remembered what happened—until it was over.” She had to stop for a breath. “It was my first time, and I paid the price.”

Joe slipped his arm behind her, let it rest along the bench, still supportive even in this. “Van.”

“Let me finish.” She drew breath. “I went to my father, thinking he might have some pity for his only daughter. He called me a whore and threw me out.”

“Why didn't you go to Dorie?”

“I did. At first. But I couldn't tell her what happened. I was too ashamed.”

She ran her hands down her face. “All these years I've hated Dana for no reason. No wonder Gigi forced that money on me. She was feeling guilty.”

Joe sighed. “More likely she wanted you out of the picture. I don't know why she was so persistent. Why me?”

Van was beginning to think she knew. A perfect example of what jumping to conclusions got you. Something she didn't often do but had been doing ever since coming back to Whisper Beach. And something she had done at least twice with Joe.

N
EITHER OF THEM SPOKE FOR A WHILE, JUST LOOKED OUT TO
sea, together but not together. And never would be now.

“So Gigi gave you money to get away?”

Van nodded. “The money she'd saved for college. Almost two thousand dollars.”

“She never told me. I don't think she told anyone.”

Van started to say because she was loyal, but now in view of what Joe had just told her, it was probably to get Van out of the way and make sure she wouldn't be found.

“I just can't believe she did that. She never even intimated that she was interested in you.”

“I was clueless, that's for sure. But at least the money helped you get on your feet.”

“Her entire savings. I was so exhausted, mentally and emotionally wrung out, that I fell asleep on the train to Manhattan.” Van laughed at the irony of it all. “When I woke up, the money was gone.”

“Someone stole it?”

Van nodded.

“You went to the city with no money?”

“I had twenty dollars in my pocket.”

Joe closed his eyes.

Van nudged him. “It turned out all right.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“Well . . . You go raise grapes, and I go back to organizing people's lives.”

“Stop it, Van. You don't have to be strong and solitary around me.”

“Really, Joe? You think that seeing you would turn me into some weak, helpless female who can barely put on her own mascara?”

Joe flinched. “No— I— Jeez. Where did that come from? You know I don't think that. I never thought that. You're the strongest person I know.”

“Sorry. I don't know where that came from. Just too many crazy things have happened to me this week. Most of them pretty hard to swallow.”

“Including me?”

She smiled at him. “No, thank God. You seem like a really nice guy.”

Joe barked out a laugh. “Well, thanks, but I'm talking about the chemistry between us. You have to admit it's still there.”

“Do I?” She did. She felt herself moving closer to him, drawn almost without her will, and she knew that she would still fit right in that place on his shoulder. She needed Suze here to tell her that quote about going the way that caused madness. Because she would be crazy to let attraction derail her carefully built life.

“Yeah, you do. I feel it. And I'm pretty sure you do, too. That didn't change over the years. Or we wouldn't be sitting here.”

“We're sitting here because you wanted an explanation for why I left, and I thought you deserved to know.”

Joe gave her a look, the look. He didn't believe her; she wasn't even sure she believed herself.

“If you'd let down all that protective shit you've thrown up around you, you'd feel it. We'll always have it no matter where you run or how long you stay away. It's there.”

Van stood. “Stop it.”

“You don't need it, Van. You're just as strong as you ever were. More so. You won't dissolve if you let your control relax just a little.”

“I let my control relax once, and I nearly died from it. I do just fine the way I am.”

“Died?”

“Didn't you wonder what happened to the baby? I miscarried. Okay? Suze barely got me to a hospital before I bled to death.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So go find yourself some nice woman—”

“Look, I haven't been pining for you all these years. I haven't even thought about you except occasionally when something specific recalls the past. And for your info, I've met a lot of nice women.”

“Good for you.”

He shrugged. “I just didn't want to marry any of them.”

“I have to go.”

Joe smiled. Then laughed. “I can see the wheels in your brain turning a mile a minute. Stop thinking, Van. Stop worrying about the past, stop holding on to everything but the present. And don't you dare run out again. This time it won't be so easy to hide.”

“Please don't make this hard.”

“I don't mean to. Just see where we go from here. It might
be our separate ways.” He laughed. “But not until after Sunday lunch. Mom expressly invited you.”

“Joe, really . . .”

“You wouldn't want to hurt her feelings. Or Dad's or Granddad's . . . would you?”

“Joe, before you start making plans, there's something else you should know.”

“Okay. You have a boyfriend? You're secretly married?”

“I can't have children. I got all messed up with the miscarriage. So— So just put that on your family tree.”

She saw his face fall. Her heart ached, it really did, and her lungs were so tight, it was hard for her to breathe. Because suddenly it mattered to her, too.

Then he smiled again, not as humorously as a few seconds before, but it was a smile.

“Sunday lunch. No strings. No expectations except the best pot roast you've had in years.”

Van had to turn away, because her mouth had twisted, and if he looked at her, she would break down. As it was, she couldn't stop a tear or two falling.

Joe brushed it away with one finger.

“They should change the name of Whisper Beach to Cry Baby Beach.”

He put his arm around her. “Lot of tears over at Dorie's?”

“Bunches. But some fun times, too. Now I better get back and report on the Dana sighting so everyone can stop worrying.”

“Yeah, I have to finish closing up Grandy's. Owen's coming to help. He's turned out to be a pretty good worker . . . and a big eater.” Joe smiled, and Van's heart hurt.

They walked back to Dorie's, Joe's fingers stretched warmly against her back. “So I'll pick you up at noon. Don't dress up.”

Van didn't answer. She suddenly wanted to see all the Enthorpes, the people who had accepted her into their family because she had no functioning family of her own. She supposed it would be rude not to see them. And Mom Enthorpe did make the best pot roast she'd ever tasted.

Joe's hand slipped down to her waist, pulling her slightly closer to him as they walked.

When they got back to Dorie's, Van stopped by his truck.

“You're not going in?” he asked.

“I don't think I'm ready to face Gigi right now. I might scratch her eyes out.”

“That's my girl.”

Van started to say
I'm not your girl,
but she wasn't sure of anything right now. Not even that.

“Get in the truck, Joe.”

“Noon.” He got in and drove away.

She watched until he got to the end of the street, then got her cell out of the car and called Suze. “Hey, where are you?”

“In my room.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. Dorie went to the Crab, and Gigi's downstairs waiting for you to come back.”

“Do you have time to take a break?”

“Yeah, actually it's turned out to be easier than I could have hoped for. What's up, where are you?”

“On the corner.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Avoiding Gigi. Can you get out of the house and meet me without her knowing it?”

“Sure, but I'm not going to climb down any fire escape. If she catches me, I'll tell her I'm going out to get some air and think.”

Suze showed up a few minutes later.

“She was watching television, doesn't even know I'm gone. Now spill.”

“First, who said that thing about the way that madness lies or something like that.”

“King Lear. That way madness lies. Why? Are you about to do something stupid?”

“When have you ever known me to do something stupid?”

Suze shrugged. “Once?”

“Yeah. I just want to make sure I'm not about to make it twice.”

“Oh Lord, let's go somewhere we can sit. I don't want to make any life-changing decisions standing on a street corner, though that would be an appropriate piece of symbolism, if a little trite.”

“Suze!”

“Sorry, you set me off with the King Lear thing.”

They started walking toward town.

“So?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“Then it's a good thing I brought my wallet,” Suze said.

It was happy hour, but they opted for ice cream on a bench instead. Already the crowds had thinned out. Day-trippers were on their way back home to beat the traffic. People never learned you just couldn't beat the traffic leaving the shore. Ever.

“Okay, start,” Suze said, lifting a spoonful of butter pecan to her mouth.

“I'll just tell it in the order it happened.”

Suze nodded and kept eating.

“I went looking for Dana, thought she might have gone to Joe's. And of course she had. Joe was in the shower, or so she said, and she insinuated they were an item and she was staying with him.”

“That is such a lie. He would never.”

“I know, but I sort of had a knee-jerk reaction and left. When I got back here and saw Gigi's car, well, I just didn't feel like talking so I went for a walk.”

“And I was upstairs oblivious to everything but my own problems. Sorry.”

“No. I called you, and you dropped everything to come down, didn't you?”

“I guess. So go on.”

“When I got back, Joe's truck was here, and Joe was in it. We went for another walk and I told him everything about what happened and getting pregnant and seeing him and Dana in his truck.”

Suze stopped with her spoon halfway to her mouth. Ice cream dripped down the front of her shirt. Van moved her hand, so that it dripped back into the cup.

“I know, I know, but you shouldn't hit me with this stuff when I'm eating. But don't you dare stop now.”

“It wasn't Dana.”

Suze looked up, pushed her spoon into the ice cream, and gave Van her full attention.

“It was Gigi.”

“Whaaa?”

“It was Gigi. He has no reason to lie about something like that. I guess she had come to assuage his—”

Suze snorted.

“You've got a dirty mind. His wounded feelings. When I saw them, it was getting dark; I just saw naked skin and jumped to the wrong conclusion. But I guess she didn't manage to assuage his feelings or anything else.”

“You mean they ended up not doing anything?”

Van shook her head. “Evidently. Unfortunately, in my hurry to get away, I missed that part.”

“Oh Lord. So all that followed was for nothing.”

“Well, I did get a new life out of it.”

“Of course. I didn't mean that.”

“I know what you meant. No, the question is . . .”

“What do we do about Gigi? Are you just going to pretend you don't know or call her on it?”

Van shrugged. “I don't see that it matters anymore. But with Dana it might. Because now I'm wondering if Dana really did take your grant application.”

“You think Gigi set her up?”

“It's hard to believe, but Dana seemed genuinely surprised.”

“Or surprised that she was caught.”

“Or wanted to be caught. Who steals something then puts it somewhere it could be easily found?”

“Maybe she thought no one would look. It was in her underwear drawer.”

“There is that. I don't know. Suddenly things are not making sense. Gigi tried to seduce my boyfriend twelve years ago, but she didn't succeed.” Van leaned into Suze. “He couldn't get it up.”

Suze's eyes widened. “You lie.”

“No, but don't spread it around.”

“I'm guessing he doesn't have that problem now?”

“I wouldn't know. I'm pretty sure he doesn't, but how humiliating for him.”

“And for Gigi,” Suze added. “She steals her best friend's boyfriend and he doesn't even want her. That's the stuff of black comedy. Do you think Gigi is still acting in reaction to that?”

“I don't know. I think I should talk to Uncle Nate. There's something not quite— I don't know.”

“Not quite stable about Gigi,” Suze finished.

“And I'd like to talk to Dana first.”

“Even though she tried to make you think Joe was boffing her?”

“I think she did that because she was hurt. Like we were all getting to be friends again, then wham. We were all ganging up against her.”

“But that initial getting close might have been enough motive for Gigi to steal my grant papers out of the mailbox and implicate Dana. I'd have to go back to Princeton, Dana would become persona non gratis, and Gigi would have you all to herself.” Suze sighed.

“Except that I'll be going back to Manhattan, too.” Though Gigi had begged Van to take her with her. God, she had been so dense.

“I guess we weren't very sympathetic. Her life is falling apart and we were trying to have fun.”

“I think her life fell apart way before Clay died; that's another reason I want to talk to Nate. See if lending her my house will help or make it worse. I know having her and the kids living with them is taking its toll on Amelia and Nate, both. But I'm not sure Gigi can take care of her family without help.”

“You'd still let her live in your house after all she's done? Well, we only know that she tried to seduce Joe, bless him. But we'll have to ask her about the other. She can't get away with those kind of things.

“Excuse me if I don't feel any sympathy for her. She may have just killed my chances of getting that grant.”

“What do you have to do for it?”

“Write several analyses of texts. Fortunately I've done something similar already for other situations, so I lucked out. But I'll still have to spend the weekend working.”

“Except for your mother's party.”

“Except for that. And Monday I'll send it off and hope for the best. So what do you want to do?”

“Talk to Dana.”

“Is she still at Joe's?”

“He dropped her at the Crab.”

“And Dorie's going to take her back?”