Beach Trip (5 page)

Out in the water the crowded ferry gave two sharp whistle blows, then pulled slowly away from the dock. People sat up top or below in the covered cabin, their faces pressed eagerly to the glass. Seagulls followed noisily in the wake of the huge ship.

Lola waved at the passing ferry like she was hailing a taxi.

“Is that yacht really yours?” Sara asked, watching as the
Miss Behavin’
rolled lightly in the ferry’s wake.

“It’s not mine,” Lola said. “It’s Briggs’s.”

“The eggs are in the cooler,” Annie said. “But we should probably get them into the refrigerator.”

“Will you shut up about the damn deviled eggs?” Mel said.

Annie ignored her. She had learned long ago to ignore Mel. She turned her head slightly and watched as the ferry moved slowly toward the open sound. “I make mine with fresh chives,” she added, getting the last word in.

“Come on,” Lola said before Mel could reply, putting her arm around Annie and pulling her gently toward the boat. “I’ll introduce you to Captain Mike.”

He was climbing down the steps to the deck when they boarded. “Welcome aboard,” he said, taking off a baseball cap that read,
WHAT WOULD
ELVIS DO?
He ran his fingers through his sun-bleached hair. Mel guessed he was somewhere between thirty-five and forty, not really handsome, but attractive in a faded-athlete kind of way He called Lola
Mrs. Furman
, very proper, very correct. She called him
Captain
or just plain
Mike.
He had a self-assured air that Mel found vaguely annoying. He shook hands with everyone and then went to help April with the groceries. She smiled at him and he grinned and gave the trolley a playful tug.
So that’s how it is
, Mel thought, watching the two of them together.

The ride to the island took only fifteen minutes. Sunlight sparkled on the choppy water of the sound. In the distance, past two narrow spits of land that curved inward like pincers, the sea was a wide blue haze. Lola, Mel, Sara, and Annie sat out on the aft deck, where it was too windy to talk, their hair whipping around their faces. April was in the galley and Captain Mike was up on the flying bridge. Mel wanted to ask Lola about him but it was hard to talk with the noise of the engines and the roar of the wind in their ears. She was pretty sure Briggs had planted Captain Mike and April to keep an eye on Lola. They were probably paid to send detailed reports to Briggs every night; after London, he wasn’t about to trust Lola with her crazy girlfriends unchaperoned.

Mel wasn’t sure how Lola had stood it all these years, being married to Briggs Furman. He was as jealous and controlling as Lola’s mother had been, ruling Lola’s life with an iron fist. Still, Mel thought, watching the way the wind caught Lola’s hair, the way the sun slanted across her smooth, pretty face, Lola looked better than she had in years. She seemed animated and confident. She definitely looked better than she had in London a few years ago, where she had wandered about as numb and bewildered as a lost child.

The boat sped over the blue waves, past dolphins swimming in precise formation, past a buoy that rocked and dipped with their passing. Ahead they could see the island in the distance, with its lighthouse, Old Baldy rising from the interior like a giant chess piece. A sailboat passed in front of them, its sails straining with the wind. As they approached the island, Captain Mike cut the engines, and the yacht slowed to a crawl as they entered the harbor.

The whole island had been built to resemble a sleepy New England fishing village. Tall gray-shingled cottages and storefronts clustered around the marina. Behind the village, to the north and west, the marsh glimmered between banks of tall grass, while the interior of the island surrounding
Old Baldy was covered in a maritime forest of live oak, saw palmetto, yaupon, and wax myrtle. To the south and east stretched miles and miles of uncrowded beaches. And everywhere, sitting up on the dune ridges, clustered in small enclaves beneath the spreading live oaks, and along the quiet marshes, were the weathered cedar-shingled houses, their tall roofs and mullioned windows glittering in the sun.

“Oh, my God, it’s beautiful,” Sara said.

“Yes, it is,” Lola said. “I’ve enjoyed it so much.”

There was something in her tone that made Annie ask, “Are you getting ready to sell it?” Mitchell had promised her a beach house years ago, but somehow they’d never gotten around to buying one.

“Oh, no,” Lola said quickly “It’s just, well … it is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Like something from another century,” Sara said.

“Where are all the nightclubs?” Mel said.

Lola laughed. “No nightclubs, I’m afraid. Everything pretty much closes down at ten o’clock.”

They pulled slowly into a slip not far from where the ferry was unloading its crowd of happy tourists. A long line of trolleys connected together and pulled by a motorized cart stood waiting to whisk them to their rented houses. Each trolley bore the name of the house where its occupants would be staying, and the porters, sweating now in the heat, hurriedly loaded the luggage from the ferry onto the appropriate trolleys. Tired parents climbed on board to wait and watch with weary smiles as their excited children pointed out boats, bicycles, turtles, and seagulls.

Captain Mike helped the women disembark, then followed them up the dock to the landing. “You go ahead and take the smaller golf cart, Mrs. Furman,” he said. “April and I will come along later with the luggage.”

Everywhere they looked there were golf carts, traveling like gypsy caravans along narrow asphalt roads, parked in front of the storefronts with their electrical cords tethered to rows of electrical outlets.

Lola’s golf cart was a custom-built unit made to resemble a Mercedes. Lola, noting their expressions, said apologetically, “It wasn’t my idea. Briggs had it specially built.” She disengaged the electrical cord and climbed in and Mel climbed in beside her. Annie and Sara sat behind them, facing backward. Lola slammed the lever into reverse and quickly pulled out into the road. She pushed the lever to the right and took off with a sudden lurching motion that caused the women to grab for the nearest canopy frame.

Briggs had also had the electric motor modified so that the cart, which normally had a cruising speed of eight mph, now clipped along at a frightening speed of twenty-five mph. Lola laughed and talked the whole time, waving her hands and turning around to talk to Annie and Sara in a way that made Mel nervous.

“Damn it, Lola, let me drive,” she said, but Lola just laughed and kept talking about Henry and his new girlfriend. They sped along a narrow winding road that led from the village to the interior of the island. There were only two major roads, Blackbeard’s Wynd, which ran down the middle of the island through the maritime forest, and Stede Bonnet’s Wynd, which ran along the beachfront.

“Most of the roads are named for pirates,” Lola called gaily as they passed a slower-moving cart. She lifted her hand and waved. The people in the cart waved back.

Ahead Mel could see the intersection where Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet split off from each other. She looked nervously at Lola. “Which way are we going?” she said. Lola showed no signs of slowing down. She was still talking about Henry’s new girlfriend, whom she adored.

“Damn it Lola, slow down,” Mel said, thumping the bottom of the cart with her foot like she was pumping an imaginary brake.

Lola said, “Her name’s Layla. Isn’t that a lovely name?” She turned around to smile at Annie and Sara. “Her dad named her after that song by—oh, what is that guy’s name?”

“Eric Clapton,” Sara said. “Watch the road, Lola.”

“I think I might be getting sick,” Annie said.

“Eric Clapton!” Lola said, turning again to smile at Sara. “I love Eric Clapton.”

“I really shouldn’t be riding backward,” Annie said.

They were almost to the intersection now and Mel clamped her foot down against the floor of the cart and put one arm out in front of her, grabbing the canopy frame with the other. At the last minute, Lola took a sharp right onto Stede Bonnet and the cart tipped up on to two wheels. Without thinking Sara swung her leg out like a rudder. Beside her, Annie hissed like a scalded cat. Lola spun the wheel and leaned against Mel, and the cart righted itself. “They’ll get married in Michigan,” she said, her face dreamy and tender with thoughts of Henry. They were out from beneath the trees now and cruising along the beach road in the bright sunlight. A strong wind buffeted the cart. To their left rose a series of terraced dunes
covered in steep-roofed houses. To their right stretched the Atlantic Ocean, its blue waters sparkling in the sun.

“She’s from Ann Arbor, Michigan,” Lola said. “Can you believe Henry’s marrying a Yankee?”

Mel slowly unclenched her fingers from the canopy frame. She took a deep breath and said, “Pull over, Lola, so I can drive before you kill us.”

“I’d really like to see my kids again, Lola, if you don’t mind,” Sara said.

“Does anyone have a Dramamine?” Annie asked.

Lola put her head back and laughed her musical little laugh. “Y’all are funny,” she said.

Lola’s house sat by itself on top of a long sandy ridge that overlooked the sea. A weathered sign beside the gatepost read,
WILD DUNES.
The house had been built to look like it had stood for a hundred and fifty years, like a Newport palace, but with all the modern amenities, tall windows that faced the sea, soaring ceilings, an open floor plan, and hardwood floors. They walked around the house in awe, exclaiming over its elaborate features. “There are five bedrooms upstairs with their own baths, so help yourselves to whichever one suits you,” Lola said. “My bedroom is down here on the main floor.” She took them through the master suite that ran across the back of the house, complete with a wet bar, built-in flat-screen TV, and French doors opening onto a private deck facing the sea. The house was angled slightly on top of the dune, so that most rooms had a view of the ocean.

“Where do Captain Mike and April sleep?” Mel said. They were standing in Lola’s bedroom in front of the massive king-size bed.

“Out back in the two-bedroom crofter,” Lola said.

“Crofter?”

“It’s kind of like a guesthouse.”

“Oh.”

They looked through the French doors and saw a tall-roofed shed covered in weathered siding. It was about fifty feet beyond Lola’s private deck, connected to the main house by a boardwalk. A small deck stretched across the front of the crofter, its rails covered in some kind of twisting vine. Two white rocking chairs sat at one end, facing out to sea.

“Together?” Mel said.

“What?” Lola asked, her smile fading.

“Captain Mike and April. Do they sleep together?”

Lola stared through the French doors at the crofter and the distant rim of blue sea. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said.

They decided to skip dinner that first night in favor of appetizers and mojitos. They sat on the porch at a table overlooking the ocean, watching as the sun sank slowly behind the clouds and the water deepened to a dark metallic gray. The evening was soft and balmy, with a constant breeze blowing in from the sea. In the middle of the table, a thick candle sputtered beneath a hurricane glass. Scattered around it were half-eaten trays of crab dip, shrimp toast, baked brie, and Annie’s deviled eggs. White-capped waves glimmered in the moonlight, and overhead in the great dark dome of the sky, stars flickered and fell.

“Annie, tell us a Mitchell story,” Mel said. There was a slight shuffling of chairs as the women settled back to make themselves comfortable. It hadn’t taken them long to fall back into their routine of friendship.

Annie hesitated, looking out at the moonlit sea. She shook her head slowly. “That man,” she said finally, which is the way she began every Mitchell story. Over the years, Mel had collected Mitchell stories and had even used a few in her novels, which was perplexing to Annie. It was as if Mel thought being married to her made Mitchell some kind of martyr. In London she’d made the mistake of telling Mel about a beach trip that she and Mitchell had taken several years ago with some business acquaintances. Mitchell had complained steadily of a pain in his abdomen and Annie had insisted it was nothing more than a bad case of indigestion. On the third day, while she was out walking the beach, one of the other wives had driven Mitchell to the emergency room. Even then, Annie had refused to admit that it was anything more than a case of bad oysters, right up to the moment they wheeled Mitchell into the operating room for an emergency appendectomy.

“You know he’s home recovering from a kidney stone,” Annie said.

“Another one?”

“My God, how many does that make?”

“Five.”

“Poor thing,” Lola said.

Annie looked at her darkly. “Well, the other day I came home from the grocery store and he was standing in my kitchen looking pretty proud of himself. He was holding something in his hands and when I asked him what it was he held up this container and said, “My kidney stone. They
saved it for me.” That’s when I noticed that he had it in one of my Tupper-ware containers.”

“Oh, no.”

“Please tell me you didn’t bring the deviled eggs in a Tupperware container.”

“No,” Annie said. “I threw it out. I’ll never buy Tupperware again.”

A long line of white-capped waves thundered in from the sea, crashing against the beach. One of the French doors opened and April came out carrying another shaker of mojitos. Light spilled across the porch from the opened door.

“If you don’t need me anymore tonight,” she said to Lola. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Yes, yes, go ahead,” Lola said, rising to hug her. A moth the size of a hummingbird hovered around the candle.

“What time will you want breakfast?”

Lola looked around the table as if waiting for the others to answer. She seemed uncomfortable giving directions to Briggs’s servants.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mel said. She looked at April and shrugged. “How about noon?”

“I’ll be up by ten,” Sara said. “I like to walk the beach before it gets too hot.”