Authors: Cathy Holton
“Before what?”
Lola smiled. She looked better today, happy and rested. She was wearing a pair of blue silk pajamas that matched her eyes, and her corn-silk hair fell prettily about her shoulders. “I would never mix pills with alcohol. Y’all don’t have to stop drinking on my account,” she added sweetly.
“Hallelujah,” Annie said.
“Listen,” Mel said, giving Lola a quick hug. “We worry about you, that’s all.” It was hard not to hug Lola when she stood there looking sweet and contrite. “I know Briggs kind of set you off yesterday, and I’ll be happy to talk to him if he calls again.”
Lola’s eyes widened slightly. She shook her head slowly “Oh, no,” she said. “You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can.”
“If he doesn’t talk to me, he’ll just keep calling,” Lola said, her sunny demeanor clouding slightly.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Mel said brightly, steering Lola toward the breakfast bar. Lola sat down on a stool beside Annie, facing the windows. “And I’ll make you some breakfast since it appears that April is sleeping on the job.” Mel pushed a platter of fruit she had found in the refrigerator toward Lola, determined to change the subject. “I didn’t hear Captain Mike and April come in last night,” she added. “They weren’t here when we went to bed.”
Lola yawned and stared at the beach through the tall windows. “They came in late. They missed the last ferry and had to get someone to motor them over.”
“Oh,” Mel said. “Did you see them?”
Lola yawned again. “They left me a message,” she said. “On my cell phone.”
“I can make eggs,” Sara said, standing at the opened refrigerator. “And there’s bacon. Oh, sorry, turkey bacon.”
“No thanks,” Annie said. “If it’s not pork, I don’t eat it.”
Lola put her cheek in her hand and yawned again. Outside on the beach a crowd of teenagers tossed a Frisbee. A jet made its way slowly across the deep blue sky. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said.
“What should we do?” Mel asked.
“Captain Mike says he’ll take us out on the boat, if we want to go.” Lola’s cheeks were pink, and there was a faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose. “We can pack a lunch and cruise to the Isle of Pines. He knows a lot about the island.”
“I don’t know if I’m in the mood for a history lesson,” Annie said.
“Sounds lovely,” Sara said.
“I’m game,” Mel said. She shrugged and poured Lola a cup of coffee. “If no one has any better ideas.”
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Sara said. “You’d love to spend the day with Captain Mike.”
“Well, I can tell you right now, I have to stay out of the sun,” Annie said in a sullen voice. “I got burned yesterday.” She held up her nightgown so they could see her legs.
“How in the hell did you get burned?” Mel said. “You were practically wearing a burka out there.”
“It was when I lay down in the sand and fell asleep and you forgot to wake me.”
Mel tapped the counter with her fingernails and stared thoughtfully at Annie. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. A sun burka. Sold to women like Annie who are afraid of UV rays. We could make it up in a bunch of designer colors and fabrics.”
Lola was beginning to catch on. She giggled and said, “Briggs could sell it on the Home Shopping Channel.”
“That’s right,” Mel said. It was good to see Lola acting more like her old self, more like the girl Mel remembered from college. She had forgotten how exhausting it was taking care of Lola. “We’d make a fortune, assuming there are enough anal-retentive women out there like Annie who love the beach but are afraid of the sun.”
“Who you calling anal-retentive?” Annie said.
Outside the windows, the Frisbee sailed over the dunes like a flying saucer. One of the boys ran over to get it, his feet kicking up little clumps of sand.
Annie helped herself to the fruit platter. “Does anyone live on that island? What did you call it? The Isle of Pines?”
“No,” Lola said. “It’s deserted. It isn’t very big. They say pirates used to bury their treasure out there. Blackbeard and Gentleman Stede Bonnet. Before that it was home to the Waccamaws.”
“Wow, Lola. Do you watch a lot of Discovery Channel?” Sara asked.
Lola put her head back and laughed. “No,” she said. “I’m just a good listener.”
They were still sitting around the breakfast bar when Captain Mike came in to check on their afternoon schedule. “What, you’re not even dressed?” he said with mock surprise. He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt and a pair of baggy knee-length shorts.
“We were waiting for you to come and help us,” Mel said.
Captain Mike smiled faintly at Lola. “We probably should plan on being on the water by two o’clock. It’ll take about an hour to get to the island.” He seemed relaxed and sure of himself in that way that Mel found especially annoying. In her youth, she’d made men nervous, and she still did some men, but Captain Mike seemed completely immune to her
charms. “I thought April and I would go ahead and load up the boat and you can follow when you’re ready,” he said. “As long as it’s before two.”
Lola leaned her chin on her palm, studying the sunlit beach, a slight smile on her lips. “Okay,” she said.
“I’m not showering,” Sara said, glancing at the wall clock.
“Thanks for the warning,” Mel said.
“I don’t have time to shower if we need to be at the boat by two.”
“We need to be on the water by two,” Captain Mike corrected her. “You need to be at the marina by one forty-five.”
Lola stood up. She yawned and raised her arms so high above her head that her belly-button ring showed, glinting in the sunlight. “I’ll be right back,” she said, padding down the hallway to her room. The door clicked shut behind her.
Captain Mike poured himself a cup of coffee and stood at the breakfast bar observing them skeptically. “Are we clear on the plans, then?” He seemed to suspect that without a little pushing, they would spend the rest of the day lounging in their pajamas.
Mel still hadn’t forgiven him for ignoring her earlier. She said, “Where’s April?”
He sipped his coffee. Steam curled around his face and his eyes, in the slanting light, were a pale blue. “She had to pick up a few supplies at the grocery store. She’s coming by to pick me up later.”
“Lola says she’s from Wilmington.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you from Wilmington?”
He set his cup down on the counter. It was apparent that he didn’t want to talk about himself. “I’ve lived there,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Among other places.”
Before she could continue with her line of questioning, the phone rang. Captain Mike picked up his cup and walked over to the long windows where he stood watching the rowdy teenagers playing Frisbee.
Annie looked at the phone, watching the caller ID display light up like a traffic controller’s screen. “It’s Briggs,” she said morosely, staring at the display. Mel and Sara exchanged glances. The phone continued to ring. “Why doesn’t Lola answer it?”
“She doesn’t answer it because she doesn’t know it’s ringing,” Mel said. “I unplugged the phone in her room last night when we got home.”
“She told you not to do that.”
“No, she told me she needed to talk to Briggs if he called. She didn’t tell me not to unplug the phone.”
“You have a rather convenient idea of right and wrong,” Sara said.
“I know. I should have been an attorney.”
“Well, someone needs to answer the phone,” Annie said flatly. She had no intention of doing so. She had probably said no more than ten words to Briggs Furman her entire life. He had always ignored her, as if she were nothing more than a worn piece of furniture, something large and unwieldy that took up space without adding much in the way of beauty or comfort.
The phone stopped ringing. In the sudden silence they could hear the coffee gurgling in the pot.
Over by the windows, Captain Mike said quietly, “He’ll just call again.” His T-shirt was torn in the back, and a strip of fabric hung down over his hip like a forlorn flag.
“I don’t know why he has to call every day,” Mel said, staring at Captain Mike, who stood, alert and waiting, as if he was listening to something no one else could hear. She sank down on the sofa and stretched her legs out, pointing at Annie with her coffee cup. “Your husband doesn’t call every day,” she said. She hesitated, bringing the cup to her lips and then resting it on her chest. “Sara’s husband doesn’t call every day.”
Sara turned abruptly and went to toast a bagel.
Annie stared at the phone. It was true; Mitchell didn’t call every day but he called often enough. He had called last night while she was taking a lukewarm bath, trying to soothe her sunburned skin.
“I miss you, honey,” he said. He was watching the History Channel; she could hear the guns of Omaha Beach going off in the background, shelling the beachhead. “This big old bed sure is cold without you here to warm it up.”
She surprised herself by blushing. “Did you remember to feed the cat?” she said.
“I mean it, honey. It’s cold as a brass monkey in a deep freeze without you here.”
She smiled suddenly. “And you’ll need to give him his hairball pills. They’re in the cabinet above the cat food.”
“Remember that little bed we used to sleep in when we were first married?”
Annie remembered it, a dark oak Victorian spindle bed passed down
from a dead great-aunt. “You’ll have to hold his mouth open and force it in,” she said.
“Remember all the fun we used to have?”
She smiled again, picturing him in his faded robe and slippers with his dear little bald spot gleaming under the lights. “Or better yet,” she said, “roll it up in a little piece of lunch meat and feed it to him.”
Outside the windows the bright orange Frisbee sailed over the dunes. Captain Mike finished his coffee. “If you girls don’t need me, I’ll go get the boat ready,” he said, but he seemed in no hurry to go, standing at the window staring pensively down at the wide beach. “I guess there’s plenty,” he began, but was interrupted by the sudden chirping of a cell phone.
Sara said, “That’ll be Briggs trying to reach Lola on her cell.”
“Shit.” Mel stood up and looked around. “Where’s the phone?”
Annie pointed at one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. “In her purse. Over there.”
It took Mel a while to find the purse and even longer to find the phone, fumbling around inside the cavernous bag. By the time she’d found it, the phone had stopped ringing.
“You ought to let Mrs. Furman know he called,” Captain Mike said, turning his head so they could see his profile.
“I’ll handle it,” Mel said flatly, thinking suddenly that he really wasn’t that attractive, not in profile anyway, not without the full effect of those blue-gray eyes.
“I think you should let Mrs. Furman handle it.”
“Captain Mike is right,” Sara said. “Let Lola handle it.”
They all irritated her. They seemed to imply that she didn’t know what she was doing, especially Captain Mike with his stern, self-assured manner, the hint of disapproval in his voice. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t protected Lola before. She knew what she was doing. Mel ignored the other two and said to Annie, “If he calls again, I’ll talk to him.”
She hadn’t gotten where she was in life by letting other people tell her what to do. She had learned long ago to trust her instincts. They weren’t always right, initially, but they always steered her clear of shoals in the long run. Sara and Annie acted as if their lives were so tough, so complicated, but what did either of them really know about hard work and sacrifice?
Annie poured cream into her coffee and stirred it slowly. “What do you think Briggs said to her yesterday that made her cry?”
“Who knows?” Mel said. “Who knows what goes on between two people
behind closed doors.” Whatever was wrong with her now had nothing to do with her choice of how to live her life. She would never have been happy with Annie’s narrow, restrictive life. And despite her fabulous husband, she wouldn’t have wanted Sara’s life either, with its constant distractions and detours and myriad small sacrifices.
She had chosen to be a writer. She had made the commitment and never wavered. Her life had turned out the way she had planned it, so why did it feel sometimes as if her career was less like the Holy Grail and more like a blindfold tied across her eyes?
“All I know is he’s called every day,” she said.
As if on cue, the house phone began to ring again. Mel jumped up and answered it. “Briggs,” she said curtly. “How are you?”
“Where’s my wife?” He sounded furious.
“She’s sleeping,” she said, lying easily, too easily. She was gripped by a slight sensation of sadness, passing through her belly like a cramp.
“Well, wake her up. I need to talk to her.”
“No, I won’t wake her. She’s tired. Talking to you yesterday made her tired.” She stared at Captain Mike, who stood watching the beach with a kind of rapt attention.
Briggs was quiet for a moment. “Don’t interfere, Mel. It’s none of your business.”
“Yes, it is my business. She’s my friend.”
“She’s my wife.”
“Look, Briggs, we’re on vacation. We’re on a
girls’
trip. We’ve got three days left, and then you’ll have Lola all to yourself. We haven’t been together in twenty-three years, not all of us anyway, so give us some space. Okay? We’ll send her back to you safe and sound in three days, I promise.”
“Tell her to call me when she wakes up,” he said, and hung up.
Mel clicked off and tossed the phone on the counter. “Asshole,” she said. She couldn’t believe she and Briggs Furman had ever been allies. This thought brought another slight cramping sensation in her stomach. The guy was a total and indisputable prick. Neither of her husbands had been that bad. Except for Booker’s inability to handle misfortune that didn’t involve him, except for Richard’s cloying need to be Ward Cleaver, her husbands hadn’t been bad at all. Most women she knew would have been happy with either one. This knowledge should have cheered her, but instead it only added to the small knot of despondency she felt growing steadily larger in her chest.
Lola walked into the room wearing a white lace minidress and a large floppy hat, looking adorable and happy. “I can’t wait to show you the Isle of Pines,” she said, her eyes darting over their faces. “It’s one of my favorite places.”