Windward Secrets

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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

Cover Art:
Michelle Crocker

http://mlcdesigns4you.weebly.com/

Publisher’s Note:

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

Solstice Publishing -
www.solsticepublishing.com

Copyright 2015 K.A. Davis

Windward Secrets

By

Kathleen Andrews Davis

For

brave

women

everywhere.

A woman is like a tea bag –

you can’t tell how strong she is

until you put her in hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Chapter One

Friday

Claire

Claire McPherson turned the faceted, glass doorknob… nothing. She twisted harder and rammed her shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge. “Damn it!” Leaning her back against the door, she slid down and sat cross-legged on the floor.
Damn, damn, damn,
she thought as she banged her head gently against the door with each word.
Why would anyone lock a room in a rental house?

“Oh well, too bad, too late, I’ll worry about it when they get here,” she mused, out loud, getting to her feet.

Claire and her three best friends, Caroline Hudson, Diane Fuller, and Jill Stone, had been meeting for “girls’ get-a-ways” every few years since they graduated from college thirty years earlier. As much as they would have loved getting away every year, there were new babies, sick children, new jobs, no jobs, no vacation time or any number of reasons making it impossible. In the beginning, they could only afford weekends but, the past few years, they had taken the plunge into full weeks; real vacations. They took turns choosing the destination and this year it was Claire’s turn. She chose this big, old, Victorian cottage located on the outskirts of Haworth, a small Cape Cod town. “The Point,” as locals called the small peninsula that jutted into the Atlantic Ocean, had been her favorite vacation spot as a child. She loved Haworth, the quintessential, picture postcard town with good restaurants and village shops. Most importantly, the beaches on The Point were pristine, and the neighborhood quiet, with no two houses closer than the length of a football field. Summer had ended for the tourists with the start of school, and the foursome were among the few who preferred the off-season on Cape Cod.

Feeling responsible, since the choice of location this year had been hers; Claire had arrived early, picked up the key from the realtor, and gone grocery shopping. The cottage had four bedrooms, one for each of them, but when Claire stopped at the realtor’s office, she was informed that one of the bedrooms was not to be used. Not wanting to make a scene, and besides it was too late, Claire stated that the cottage had been falsely advertised and for their inconvenience she expected an adjustment to their bill. The realtor, avoiding eye contact, mumbled a noncommittal reply as he handed her the key.

“Wimp,” she muttered, under her breath on her way back to her car.

Unlocking the front door of the cottage, she entered a large parlor with a fireplace and comfortable looking furniture. Not fancy furniture, but certainly adequate. To the left of the parlor was a medium-size, dining room. The kitchen stretched across the back of the house.

The first thing Claire did was haul the groceries to the kitchen and call Spence, her husband, to let him know she arrived safely. The kitchen was good size; big enough to function well for a large family. There was an old, porcelain sink with an attached drain board like her grandmother’s. Claire remembered stories of being bathed in a sink like this when she was a baby. There were two casement windows over the sink with blue and white, gingham curtains. The walls were faded blue and there were white, painted cabinets along the long, inside wall. An antique, Welsh cupboard filled with a mishmash of old china flanked the end wall. The countertops were made of thick, natural-stained wood scarred from many years of use. Hazy blue, marbled linoleum covered the floor. There was a round, oak table in the middle of the room covered with an old-fashioned, oilcloth tablecloth. A gray-blue crock sat in the middle of the table filled with plastic daisies.

Opening the old Kelvinator refrigerator, that hummed incessantly, Claire put away the perishables and then placed the dry goods in the cupboard closest to the stove. Standing back, she marveled at the stove, it looked like something out of a Good Housekeeping magazine from the 1950s. “Cooking on that could be a challenge,” she said out loud. “Hmmm… no dishwasher, but at least there’s a coffeemaker.”

The back wall, facing the ocean, had a row of double hung windows that looked over the back porch and beyond to the ocean.
What a great kitchen even without modern appliances
Claire thought, as she folded the grocery bags and stuffed them into a drawer next to the refrigerator.

Still frustrated about the locked room on the third floor, Claire let out a sigh, filled a mug with black coffee, and padded bare-footed to the front porch. Sitting down in an old, white, Shaker rocker she propped her feet up on the porch railing. With her feet extending from the frayed hems of her jeans, she stretched her toes to take full advantage of the warm sun and gentle breeze. She smiled at her newly pedicured toes, a rare treat, but worth the splurge for vacation. Taking a long sip of coffee, she watched as seagulls dropped clamshells onto the macadam road. The shells broke open and every seagull within earshot scrambled to claim the coveted clam meat. The smart seagulls simply waited by the side of the road and reaped the profits of the others’ hard work.

How does one test the IQ of a seagull?
Claire thought marveling at their ingenuity.

Tilting her mug to her lips, she surveyed her surroundings.

Windward Cottage, proclaimed by the sign on the front gate, was a three-story, weather-beaten, Victorian with wide porches surrounding the first floor and a widow’s walk on the roof. The wavy, grey, shingle siding and peeling, white paint of the gingerbread trim epitomized the long years of summer sun and winter storms off the Atlantic. Late-blooming roses gentled the grand, old lady’s façade as they spilled over the once white, picket fence that fronted the property while drifting sand greedily swallowed the fence as it ran the property lines toward the ocean. The old Victorian, almost in the middle of nowhere, was surrounded by high, sand dunes imitating beached whales. Tall pines and undergrowth contorted by the harsh, winter wind stood in mock fortification around the property.

It was quiet. Tranquil. Only the distant sound of waves colliding with the beach behind the house, the gentle rustle of the wind in the trees, and the occasional squeak of the rocker when she moved interrupted the serenity. That’s what it was: pure, sweet serenity, a comfort like she had never felt before. No work. No phones. No jarring television.

Claire liked being alone. She didn’t need to be entertained or to be entertaining. She was secure in her maturity, comfortable in her own skin. Silence was bliss. Reaching up, she pushed the tortoise shell headband farther back on her shoulder-length, brown hair.

Exiling the thought of the upcoming week to a dark corner of her brain, she closed her eyes and let the sun coax the dark pigment to the surface of her skin. Sunscreen was the furthest thing from her mind; peace and quiet were uppermost at the moment.

Diane and Jill would probably love the quaint, old Victorian; but now, with only three bedrooms, she wondered about Caroline. Caroline always chose an expensive spa when it was her turn to pick the destination. She was the prima donna of the group with her hair always perfectly coifed and makeup complete by eight o’clock. The others could give a rat’s ass. The best thing about their getaways was NOT having to rush around in the mornings making themselves presentable. Years of blow dryers, curling irons, squeezing into panty hose, packing lunches, getting kids off to school and, hopefully, themselves to work on time, had taken its toll and they were more than happy to be ponytailed and barefaced on their days off.

Caroline had married a successful businessman enabling her to be a stay-at-home mom. Not that anyone was critical or jealous. Caroline had paid her dues raising three very active, if not spoiled, boys who somehow managed to turn out okay. She might be ostentatious with her designer clothes and handbags, but she was kind and generous, and they loved her. When funds were short, Caroline would dip into her “mad money” and graciously cover any deficits.

Diane was the professional. She had built a successful, advertising firm. She had really made something of herself; she had to, her husband died young and left her with two, small children to raise. Diane was not only smart, she was savvy. She always knew what was happening in every corner of the world and could handle any crisis with finesse. When there was a disagreement among the four, she was the mediator seeing both sides of every situation and resolving it with logical reasoning.

Jill was the clown. There was never a dull moment when Jill was around. Fun-loving, sharp-witted, Miss Congeniality. She loved everyone and everyone loved her. Jill was the survivor of an abusive marriage. Claire often wondered if the Little Miss Sunshine act wasn’t a cover to hide the real Jill. She would never know because once Jill had gotten herself and her daughter out of the house, she never looked back, and never talked about it again. Jill was always the first one at your door with hot coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls when there was an emergency. More than any of them, she knew the value of friendship.

And then there was Claire. Who was Claire? She often asked herself this question. Claire always felt like she was on the outside looking in, never quite sure where she belonged. To this day, she was still amazed she had been included in this small cluster of remarkable women. She felt her education had been a waste because she never used it. Instead, she had taken any job she could get to help keep her family of four afloat. They weren’t poor, just barely middle class, living in a depressed area where you were lucky to have a job, any job. However, of the classmates, Claire thought she was the luckiest. She had a great husband and two wonderful daughters but, somehow, she never felt complete; always waiting for something, but never knowing what.

The edges of her mouth curled into a smile when Claire thought of Spence. He was aging well, and still made her heart skip a beat when he looked at her. He was a loving husband and a wonderful father. Spence still surprised her with bouquets of wildflowers picked from the field beside their house, and caressed her cheek when he kissed her good night. Spence was an auto mechanic and, when he wasn’t at his regular job he worked on cars, in their garage, on the side. He had the proverbial heart of gold, never charging enough for his services and even bartering if the car’s owner was short on cash. Spence once took a broken down, tandem bicycle in trade from an elderly couple who desperately needed their car fixed. He worked hours restoring that old bike. It was his gift to Claire for their tenth wedding anniversary. Sure, her friends were going on cruises and getting diamond bracelets, but she and Spence still rode that bike almost every evening after supper. She preferred the years of happiness pedaling behind her husband to any overpriced piece of jewelry or being forced to sit at a dinner table with pompous bores on a cruise ship. Shaking her head slightly she didn’t know how they managed to get the girls through school. There were a few grants, college loans of course, but they still had to pay part of the tuition and living expenses. Claire knew Spence sacrificed a lot to get them through the roughest years and, even now, he helped her save money for her getaways. Who could ask for anything more?

Hearing a vehicle approach, Claire opened her eyes to see if it was one of the others arriving but it was just a beat-up, red, pickup truck rattling slowly past the cottage. Claire took another sip of coffee before setting the mug on the porch floor and leaning back in the chair again. Closing her eyes she fell asleep.

***

Caroline

Tears of frustration ran down Caroline’s face as she pulled her suitcase down the curving staircase of the pseudo-antebellum mini-mansion located on the outskirts of Atlanta.             

“There’s never anyone around when I need them!” she exclaimed, bumping the suitcase down another step.

“Thelma, are you here?” Caroline yelled, at the top of her voice. When the housekeeper didn’t answer she sat down on a step bracing the suitcase behind her. Pulling a tissue from the pocket of her beige linen slacks, she laid it over her face so she wouldn’t destroy the makeup she had spent forty minutes applying, and then wept into her hands.

After a full five minutes of self-pity, Caroline took a deep breath, dabbed gently at her eyes, and ferociously grabbed the handle of the suitcase. “I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. I don’t need him.” And, with that, she yanked the suitcase down the remaining stairs and onto the tile floor of the entry hall. Glancing in the full-length, antique, pier mirror she surveyed her appearance. Thankfully, her makeup only needed minor repairs. Flipping open her compact she covered the tear streaks with powder and then touched up her lipstick. Looking closer she saw the earlier application of under-eye concealer had not hidden the dark circles that had gathered like storm clouds around her eyes from months of unhappiness; she gave them a little extra pat of powder and snapped the compact closed. Then she tucked a stray strand of chin-length, auburn hair behind her ear and straightened her pink, silk blouse. Checking her watch, she had two hours to get to the airport and check-in for her flight to Hyannis; plenty of time for the puffiness from crying to disappear.

Reaching into her handbag she pulled out the envelope with Bill’s name on it. She wasn’t going to tell him where she was going, let him guess. The message inside the envelope was short.

GOING AWAY WITH THE GIRLS.

Leaning the envelope against the vase of flowers, on the round table in the middle of the foyer, she turned, extended the handle on the suitcase; and rolled it out the front door.

Words she didn’t allow spoken in her house spewed from her mouth as she reached her boiling point wrestling the heavy suitcase into the trunk of the car. Slamming the trunk closed made her feel better and, with a skyward glance, she apologized for swearing. Seated behind the steering wheel of her new convertible, the annual upgrade from one of her husband’s dealerships, she shifted into drive and pressed the gas pedal. She watched her lovely home shrink slowly in the rearview mirror as she drove away.