She ran her hand through her paint-speckled hair, yet found nothing to say to the beautiful man standing before her like a fulfilled dream. Then he turned to Riley, and Maisy saw his face, his eyes light up in the way they had that summer thirteen years ago—before Maisy had made him look her way.
“Hey, Riley. Thanks for letting us take Brayden.”
Riley nodded. “Thanks for taking him. Sounds like he had a good time.”
Brayden interrupted. “What, are you kidding? I had the best time absolutely ever in my whole life. When I finish stupid school, I’m gonna be a deep-sea fishing captain.”
Riley laughed. “You giving up on becoming a marine biologist?”
Brayden looked to each adult. “Can you be a marine biologist and quit school?”
They all shook their heads in unison. “Then, nope. I’m gonna be a boat captain.” Brayden ran off toward the back of the house with a wave over his shoulder.
Mack grimaced. “Now I’ll get blamed for the middle-school dropout, won’t I?”
Riley laughed and even Maisy saw her beauty fill the room, lift all their spirits. Mack’s smile widened, and his eyes never left Riley as she walked toward the counter, pulled out her purse. “What do I owe you for the deep-sea fishing? I know those excursions are expensive.”
Maisy felt that weird, desperate need to have Mack move his eyes from Riley to her, and the words that came out were unintentional. “You don’t always owe everyone something. For God’s sake, Riley. Just let someone do something nice for you without making them feel guilty about it.”
Riley’s mouth opened, closed and then opened again. Mack filled the awkward moment with a laugh. “No need for payback. It was my treat. Really.”
“Thanks,” Riley said, looked down at the newly polished hardwood floors. “It means a lot to me that you took him. He would have been bored beyond tears today.”
“No boy in Palmetto Beach is ever bored in summer.” His gaze then turned to Maisy. “Did you do all this to the store?”
She nodded. “Me and Adalee.” She pointed to her sleeping sister in the lounge chair. “And I’m off to do the exact same thing she’s doing. You coming tonight?”
Mack nodded, looked across the store. “Where did Dad go?”
“He’s in the biography section.” Riley pointed at Sheppard sitting in a large lounge chair leafing through a book.
Mack’s smile was sad, lifting only at the corners, not affecting his entire face. “That was . . . the living room. He sat there for days at a time reading. In that same spot.” Then Mack laughed. “But usually he had a cold beer at his side, and sand on the bottom of his feet.”
“Good days,” Riley said.
Mack nodded. “Yes.”
Maisy moved toward Adalee, lightly shook her. Adalee’s eyes flew open; she jumped from the chair, slipped on the floor and fell on her bottom. She looked up at Riley, Maisy and Mack. “Oh, did I fall asleep?”
“A little, yes.” Riley held her hand out to help Adalee off the floor.
She rubbed her eyes. “Oh, I wanted to see your face when you saw all this. Isn’t it . . . amazing?”
Riley hugged Adalee, held her. “It is a miracle. I love it so much I can’t find the words.”
“Wow, you look great.” Adalee pulled on the ends of Riley’s hair. “You seriously look like . . . who’s that actress whose mother is famous, too?”
“Kate Hudson,” Mack said without hesitation.
Riley threw back her head and laughed. “Okay, she is about five feet tall and weighs about eighty pounds and is seriously adorable. I don’t think that is who she means.”
“That’s exactly who I mean.” Adalee looked at Maisy. “Doesn’t she?”
Maisy looked at Riley and agreed, yet turned away before she answered.
A woman whom Maisy recognized approached the counter: Mrs. Winter, who always returned the hardcover books and pretended she hadn’t read them. Her posture was bent, her gaze flickered, never resting on anything for a moment. She placed a novel on the counter and spoke to Ethel, who was rearranging the countertop. “I need to return this novel.” She set another on the counter. “And buy this one.” She tapped the book she was returning:
The Secret Life of Bees
. “I had bought this one before I realized I wanted to wait for the movie.”
“Oh.” Adalee approached the counter with a smile on her face. “Isn’t it great when they hide out in the river all night?”
Mrs. Winter’s smile lifted. “Oh, yes, can you imagine a twelve-year-old doing that?”
Adalee placed her hand on top of the novel. “Mrs. Winter, you cannot return books that you have already read. You can donate them to the library, or even check books out from the library, but you can’t return them here.” Her sugar voice belied the words she said.
The woman’s face blanched. Her gaze, unsteady now, moved from Maisy to Riley, to Mack and back to Adalee. “I didn’t read this one. I realized I already had it and needed to bring this copy back. Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Oh, no,” Adalee said. “I just figured you would know if you bought a book you already owned, had read and loved as much as this one.”
“Of course,” the woman said. She tucked the book under her arm and bustled out of the store faster than she looked like she was capable of doing.
When the front door swished shut, the five of them burst into laughter, holding on to the counter and slapping Adalee on the back. “Brilliant,” Riley said. “I might get a call from her son, but hell, if she can lie to us and then lie to her son, I guess that’s her problem.”
Adalee smiled and placed her hands in a circle over her head. “Did I earn back my halo?”
“You never lost your halo. Now go to bed.” Riley pointed to the back stairs. “Both of you.”
Maisy stood still and silent, wanting to feel the joy that filled her sisters. She wanted to push past and through the loneliness that shrouded even the best moments, and at times she thought she had succeeded, but then it always returned without invitation.
She was following Adalee toward the back staircase when Anne called from behind the counter. “Maisy?”
“Hey, Anne, what’s up?” Maisy rubbed her face.
“I wanted . . . well, I wanted to give you something I made for you. I know you didn’t ask for one, but I saw you looking at the angel wings the other day and thought you might want one.”
“Oh, I’d love one. But I’ll . . . buy one.”
Anne reached under the counter and held fragile white wings across to Maisy.
She took the wings, no more than eight inches across; pure white. She flipped them over to read the one word etched into the crease: PEACE. Maisy looked up at Anne. “Thank you. These are beautiful. And I’m glad you picked this one for me.”
“I didn’t just pick it for you. I made it for you. You seem to . . . need it.”
Maisy, in her fatigue, fought the tears this truth brought. “Thank you.” She turned away from Anne and went up the back stairs to Riley’s apartment. She cupped the wings in her hand and felt sadness wash over her. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt peace. Yet she was always looking for it in someone, in something or somewhere.
Peace,
she thought.
Yes, that would be nice
. She ran her pinky finger over the delicate word.
TWENTY-TWO
RILEY
The next three days passed in the haze of busy-ness where Riley felt most comfortable when she wanted to avoid introspection. She kept her focus on the store, on getting through the week.
The Tuesday Poetry Night and the Wednesday Kids’ Corner Night went as smoothly as she could have hoped. Lodge covered every party, showed up with his camera and placed a prominent article in the living section each day. Riley suspected that Mack and Maisy had restarted their romance, but she ignored this suspicion with grim determination: she would not stop them again. Adalee bounced and chattered through the events, and then ran off to find Chad. Mama became increasingly exhausted, even canceling a few meetings with her daughters, stating she understood everything was going well.
On Thursday evening a wild sunset filled the sky as Riley stood on the beach near the cottage, her back to the sea. The day after tomorrow was the big party and she went through a mental checklist in her mind, then paused to stare at the sky before she turned to look at the moon, its light stretching like a beacon across the waves, pointing to Driftwood Cottage.
Riley moved her hand up to curl the ends of her hair around her fingertips. She was still getting used to shorter hair and often her hand fell through the air as she reached for strands that were no longer there, like reaching for a memory and finding it gone, but knowing she was better off without it.
A stooped figure moved from the water’s edge toward the cottage. Adalee came closer, sobbing. Riley ran to her. “Adalee, what’s wrong?”
She looked up, gulped in air. “I just left the Beach Club. The damn Beach Club where I got Chad a job. The damn Beach Club where I found him making out with Kenzie Marshall with the awful boob job.”
“If he’s cheating on you, then he’s not worth this angst.”
Adalee glared at her. “That’s always what people say when they catch boyfriends cheating. Always.
I’ve
said it to my friends.”
“Sounds clichéd, huh? I’m so sorry. It hurts either way.”
They reached the back steps and sat down together. Adalee rested her head on Riley’s shoulder. “How come I always pick the biggest loser known to man?”
“If we could only make them love us as much as we love them,” Riley said.
Adalee looked up at her. “Exactly.”
Riley shrugged. “Not always possible.”
Adalee leaned into her again. She sniffled, rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “We—I mean me, you and Maisy—don’t have very good luck with men, do we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you—well, you won’t even tell us who Brayden’s dad is, so I don’t really know about him. Maisy, well, she just picks guys who won’t stay. And me, I always end up with the life of the party. Unfortunately he’s always everyone’s life of the party, if you know what I mean.” Adalee sat up now, smoothed her face with both hands. “I will not cry over this. I will not.”
Riley looked up at the sky. “I’m not sure if we have bad luck. That might be a stretch. Maybe we just make bad . . . choices.”
“Don’t get all lecturey on me.”
“There is no such word as lecturey. But don’t worry. I’m not up for a lecture. Too tired. I’m sorry about Chad. But I did see that cute artist making eyes at you at the party Tuesday night.”
“Really?” Adalee’s face brightened, then fell again. “Oh, never mind. Only three more nights of this and then we’re free for the rest of the summer, right? Because I swear Chad cheated on me because I’ve been locked up like a prisoner. . . . This is all Mama’s fault.”
“Chad being a cheating scumbag is Mama’s fault?” Riley stood up as her sister did, and laughed. “I can think of some things to blame Mama for, but not Chad’s tendency to find the biggest boobs in the room.”
They both turned when Maisy opened the back door, slammed the screen and held her hands out wide. “Am I missing out on something?”
“Loser Chad made out with Kenzie Marshall and I caught them,” Adalee said.
“Oh.” Maisy shook her head. “What is wrong with him?”
Together the three sisters shook their heads. “Men!”
They broke into laughter, and Riley felt it—the sweetness of sisters together, laughing and speaking in unison, in accord. Maisy glanced at Riley and she smiled. When Maisy smiled back, a small spot of past hurt was healed.
They walked into the bookstore to begin another night of festivities. Riley stopped short when she saw a new lounge chair set up in the Book Club Corner. “Oh, where did that come from?”
Maisy shrugged. “I have no idea. I thought you added it.”
“No, you?” She turned to Adalee.
“No, Edith told me that a delivery truck dropped it off without any explanation.”
“Oh, if I get a bill for this, Mama will kill me,” Riley said.
“This is your store. Why do you get so worked up about what she thinks about every little thing?”
“Because the cottage is . . . well, hers.”
“Either she gave it to you to run, or she didn’t.”
“It’s not that simple, Maisy.” Riley walked toward the front desk, smoothing her hand in automatic motions over the bookshelves, eyeing the counter for bookmarks and flyers. “Nothing is ever that simple. I don’t want to upset her.”
Maisy went over and put her hand on Riley’s arm to stop her. “Why isn’t it that simple? Because you made one mistake, you are indebted to Mama forever?”
“What mistake would that be?” Riley felt her hurt, just soothed, return as raw-nerved energy.
Maisy held up her hand. “Forget it.” She walked away, then turned sharply on her heels and motioned to Riley’s office. Riley hesitated, then followed her in, and Maisy shut the door. “What the hell is going on here? Why are you so desperate to protect Mama? Do you need her money? Do you want to be free of her, yet you want her store? So you appease her . . . say what she wants when she wants. You can’t have it both ways, Riley. This store is killing Mama. I see it every day.”
“It is not the financial worries that are killing her. The store saves her.” Riley’s voice was a mere whisper.
“Then what is it that drains her like this? The years of martinis? Missing Daddy? The boredom?”
“How would you know? You haven’t been here.”
“You probably don’t need to remind me of that again. I think all of you have made the point just fine. Why don’t you just sell the damn store? Then I could go back to my life.”
“The store is all we have—me, Mama and Brayden.”
“That is pitiful.”
Riley’s words turned cold. “Haven’t you ever once thought about the bigger picture? About something other than you and the next guy you want? If we’re forced to close the store, Edith and Anne will be out of jobs, and our town will lose far more than just a store.”