Beach Trip

ALSO BY CATHY HOLTON

The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes
Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes

FOR MY PARENTS

Many thanks to Kate Collins, Kelli Fillingim, and all the folks at Ballantine for their editorial assistance and support; to Karen and the girls of the Thursday Night Out Club for helping to plant the seeds of this novel; to Kristin Lindstrom for her unfailing encouragement and advice; and to Mark, my truest reader and companion.

ola was engaged to Briggs Furman, so her roommates were stunned the evening she came home and told them she was in love with a boy named Lonnie. They sat around in various poses of disbelief and concern, watching Lola and Lonnie, who stood, arms entwined, in the middle of the living room. Lola had leaves in her hair. This was six weeks before they were all set to graduate from college and go their separate ways into the wide world, and no one had suspected Lola of a secret love affair. Least of all Briggs.

Mel was the first to recover. “Lola, what are you doing?” she said.

Lola laughed and reached up and kissed Lonnie on the ear. Small and pretty, she had the face of a Botticelli angel. “That’s Mel,” she said, pointing. “And that’s Sara and Anne Louise.”

Sara and Anne Louise raised their hands mechanically.

Lonnie said, “How you doing?” He was pleasant-looking enough, with blue-gray eyes and light blond hair pulled back in a ponytail; still, he did not look like the kind of boy a daughter of the former governor of Alabama might bring home.

“Briggs has called ten times looking for you,” Mel said flatly. From the first time they met freshman year, Mel had thought of Lola as the little sister she never had. There was something childlike about Lola, something fragile that made Mel want to protect her.

Lola seemed unconcerned that Briggs had called. She seemed unconcerned by anything but Lonnie, standing there and staring up at him with a look of absolute devotion on her face. She had never looked so happy, or so vulnerable. “I don’t care,” she said gaily. “I don’t care about Briggs.”

“Well, maybe you should tell him that.”

“He wouldn’t listen anyway.”

Mel stood up abruptly. “Lola, can I talk to you?”

“No,” Lola said. She dragged Lonnie off to the kitchen and a few minutes later they could hear them giggling and rummaging through the cabinets.

“Fuck,” Mel said. “Now what do we do?”

“Why do we have to do anything?” Anne Louise asked irritably. She was sitting on the sofa, bundled in a heavy blanket even though it was May. She had grown so thin her round, pretty face seemed almost skeletal, the skin pulled tightly across her jaw and cheekbones. Anne Louise had always been difficult, but over the last few weeks she had become nearly unbearable. “It’s her life. Let her marry whom she chooses.”

“Are you kidding?” Mel said. “The guy’s a high-school dropout! He’s a maintenance man. What do you think Maureen’s going to say about that?” Maureen was Lola’s widowed mother, the Dowager Empress of Alabama, and no one had any doubt what she would say. After all, she had hand-picked Briggs Furman based on his impeccable pedigree and social connections.

“Annie’s right,” Sara said, giving Mel a grave look. “Lola’s happy. Leave her alone.”

“She’s happy now, but will she be happy later when Maureen finds out? Because you know Maureen’s not about to let her only child run off with a barely employed maintenance man.”

“She won’t know about it until it’s too late to stop it.”

“But what about later? What about when she cuts Lola off without a dime? She’s used to privilege and money. Can you imagine Lola clipping coupons or living on a budget, scraping along to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary? And what about Briggs?”

No one said anything. Sara combed her long brown hair with her fingers. “What about him?” she asked finally.

“What’s he going to say? What’s he going to
do
?”

No one wanted to think about what Briggs might do. A former prep school quarterback, Briggs had wide shoulders and a violent temper.

“You heard Lola. She’s not planning on telling him anything until after graduation. Until after she and Lonnie elope.”

“And you think this elopement is a good idea?”

Sara shrugged. “It’s what she wants. She’s in love.”

Mel made a disparaging sound. “Love?” she said. “Love doesn’t put groceries on the table. It doesn’t put Pampers on the baby.” Mel had recently ended her own tragic love affair and now she was a cynic. The day after graduation, she was heading to New York to become a writer.

“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Sara said evenly.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Mel snapped. Not that a marriage to Briggs Furman would be a love match either, at least not on Lola’s part. Still, Briggs was from Lola’s social class and he would know how to take care of her. Which is what Lola needed, Mel was convinced. Someone to take care of her.

“Because it’s Lola’s life and we have to let her live it.”

“Yes, Sara, I know that.”

“Twenty years from now,” Annie said, looking thin and melancholy, “I don’t want to be sitting around regretting the past. I don’t want to be sitting around thinking about what I should have done.”

Mel gave her a heavy look. “Twenty years from now, none of us will remember any of this.”

There was a sudden sound of traffic in the street. Mel got up quickly and went to the window. In the kitchen, something crashed against the floor, followed quickly by Lola’s sharp yelp of laughter.

Mel stood at the window, her shoulders rigid against the fading light. “Oh, my God,” she said. “It’s Briggs.”