She awoke once in the night and reached for the fantasy of Mack, her consolation, only to sense the void where the dream had vanished. Sleep came dreamless and deep until her cell phone rang and she jumped. Lucy Morgan’s voice sounded soft and sleep-filled. “Hey, Maisy . . .”
“What’s up, Lucy. You okay?”
“Yeah . . . I was just hoping you might have some free time to see me today before the party. I figure you’ll be leaving first thing the day after.”
“Well, not first thing.”
“Can I see you before you go?”
“I’d love that,” she said, and meant it. A smile came to her face before she realized. “Coffee is what I need right now. A lot of coffee.”
“You want to head this way toward Bartow?”
“Why not?” Maisy stood and walked toward the closet. “I’ll get out of here before Mama wakes. It’s the best plan.”
Lucy laughed and Maisy hung up, pulled on a pair of frayed jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt she found in the bottom drawer of her childhood dresser.
The drive to Bartow proved to Maisy that life had changed here in small-town Georgia. Resort-style homes had spread into the surrounding towns like kudzu overtaking the landscape. With each passing block the beach “cottages” grew until mansions crowded the beach and corner lots. Bartow, on the other hand, hadn’t changed much. The sign made of worn wood, the letter “a” faded from the town’s name, suggested that encroaching development had so far bypassed this town.
The ancient coffee shop was situated on a corner. Lucy waited for Maisy on an iron bench. A Braves baseball cap covered her brown curls and large sunglasses hid the top half of her face. Maisy parked the pickup truck and joined her.
“Oh, Maisy.” Lucy hugged her friend. “When are you going back?”
She shrugged, placed a hand over her eyes to shield her face from the sun. “I’ve got to call . . .” she said, then stumbled over her words when she noticed the snail track of tearstains on Lucy’s face. “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
“Tucker didn’t come home last night.”
Maisy felt it again—the guilt and panic that she had carried inside for thirteen years now rising with gale force. “Oh, God. I’m sorry . . .” Maisy said, meaning more than Lucy could understand.
“It’s not your fault. . . . I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sure he just drank too much during his weekly boys’ night out and fell asleep at Bobby’s house. That’s what happened last time.” She gave a shaky smile.
“This has happened before?” Maisy asked before she could stop herself from probing. The sobbing woman of the Blonde Book Club was as clear to her as if she stood there at that very moment.
Lucy nodded, wiped at her face as if to erase all evidence of heartbreak.
“Let’s take a walk,” Maisy said, her heart somewhere near her throat, the morning sun bearing down on her.
Lucy stood, lifted her sunglasses to look at her. “I thought you needed coffee in a big way.”
“I need to talk more,” Maisy said. “If we’re going to dig up the good parts of our past, I have to unearth the bad parts, too. Come on.” She moved down the sidewalk, pretending to notice each boutique and store on the main street.
Finally Lucy put her hand on Maisy’s arm. “What is it?”
“I need to tell you something. It’s terrible and horrible, and this will probably be the last time you ever talk to me. But I have to tell you, not only because I love you and always have, but because Tucker is still . . .”
“Still what?”
“Cheating on you.”
Lucy pulled her hand from Maisy’s arm as if burned. “No. He might drink too much, and be too controlling and a jerk sometimes . . . but not that. I know he wouldn’t do that.”
“I ran off to California and missed your wedding because I’d slept with Tucker. I didn’t love him, Lucy. It wasn’t . . . that, which might make it worse. I wanted to get back at Mack for never calling, for never coming back. I was . . . drunk. We walked past Mack’s old house and went inside . . . and it just happened. God, I am so sorry. I used him to fill that empty place inside me that I never could fill. I never, ever wanted you to know, but I think he is still . . . cheating.”
Lucy bent over, put her hands on her knees to steady herself. “No . . .”
“I will never be able to make up for this. I thought I could leave behind that dreadful part of me, that terrible part that uses men to make myself feel better. But I took it with me and didn’t even know it. I know you can’t forgive me, but I need you to know anyway. He doesn’t deserve you. You are the most amazing, smart, talented woman. He is . . . sleeping with a woman in a book club at Driftwood Cottage.” Maisy made no attempt to cover her tears this time.
Lucy looked up now, and although Maisy couldn’t see her eyes through the shaded glasses, she felt the hate coming from them like heat: hate she deserved. “How the hell could you know something like that? You’re trying to make him into something evil when it is you who is the cheating . . .”
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Maisy whispered. “I am. But there is a woman in the Blonde Book Club. Her name is Kelly-Anne. I don’t know her last name. She is having an affair with a married man who promised to leave his wife, but never has. She had her brother take all the tires off the car belonging to her lover’s wife.”
Lucy faced Maisy. “I hate you. All these years I missed you so badly, I thought I would be sick. I thought I did something wrong to end our friendship, when it was you. It was always you who ended everything. I hate you.”
“I know. I deserve it.” Maisy reached out to touch Lucy’s arm.
Lucy shoved at Maisy’s hand. “Get away from me. Go back to California. I will never again waste another minute missing you or your friendship.”
“I am so, so sorry.”
“Leave,” Lucy whispered.
“Please let me . . . help you or do something.”
“You’ve done enough,” Lucy said, and turned so fast she lost her balance, tripped over a root coming through the cracked sidewalk and then ran toward the corner, to disappear behind the coffee shop to the parking lot.
Maisy leaned against a light post and understood that this truth was more important than what she had thought was the comfort of hidden deceit. No more illusions. The fantasy of Mack Logan, of the perfect life was gone. It was time for reality. Time for honesty.
Driftwood Cottage was lit from within, activity evident in every window. Candles flickered in lanterns hung from wrought-iron poles leading up the walkway. A white tent had been erected to one side—donated by the local party-rental facility—where extra food and a bar had been set up to relieve the congestion inside. Two young girls from the local high school stood at the door, handing out pamphlets and greeting early arrivals. Maisy parked around back, entered through the rear door and immediately went into action.
Guests were scattered around the store, leafing through books and lounging in the newly slipcovered chairs while the caterers placed appetizers on burlap-covered tables. Maisy checked the sound system and front check-in table while Ethel and Anne scurried around not quite knowing what to do.
The rear staircase door opened and Maisy turned to see Riley and Brayden hurry through the café into the bookstore. Maisy’s hand paused in midair with a name tag dangling from her fingers—Riley’s hair fell in soft waves over her bare shoulders and a sundress, cornflower blue with an Empire waist, hugged her body. A long, multilayered beaded necklace hung from her neck.
Maisy stared at Riley as she walked through the store: there she was; there was her sister. The one who’d been hiding behind books and a son. The one who’d been her best friend and always won the race across the beach and pool. The one who’d listened to her cry in the middle of the night, who’d held her when the nightmares came and Mama was too deeply asleep to wake.
Riley caught Maisy’s eye and smiled. The thing between them—the anger or jealousy or whatever she wanted to label it—no longer seemed to matter. Her anger was not directed at this sister, who had made a life for herself above a bookstore, but at herself. The thought brought nausea and grief. Maisy had hated herself for the things she’d done and somehow she’d allowed herself to believe she hated Riley.
Riley hadn’t slept with Tucker on a hardwood floor in a vacant house. Riley hadn’t stolen Mack from her. Riley hadn’t run away from the family and hidden from her own sin. Maisy dropped into a chair.
A hand came to rest on her shoulder and Maisy gazed up into Mack’s face, lined with fatigue. For the first time, he looked older to her than the college boy she’d loved all these years. Or maybe she was finally seeing him as he really was, and not as she’d imagined him. Maisy stood. She hugged him. “How’s your dad?”
“Not good, Maisy. Not good. His blood counts are bad. . . . It’s complicated. But they’ll fly him home in the morning. He has to stabilize first.” Mack dropped into the chair next to hers. She sat too and faced him as he continued. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly last night.”
“It’s okay,” she said, placed her hand on his knee. “It really is. I understand.”
“I need to say something. . . .”
She nodded.
“I shouldn’t have . . .” He took her hand, wound his fingers through hers. “Being here made me lose track of real life.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know. . . . This place does that.” She attempted to inject a levity in her voice that she couldn’t find in her heart; her smile felt as false as it probably looked to him.
“I’m not sure what happened, but I shouldn’t have brought you into my confusion.”
“You can bring me into your confusion anytime,” she said, felt the lump in the back of her throat melt.
“Oh, adorable Maisy,” he said.
“Mack, go take care of your dad.”
“I forgot to tell you,” he said, pointed to the new chair across the room. “Mother sent that as a gift. When I told her about what y’all had done here, what the place had become, she wanted to be part of it.”
“Sometimes,” Maisy said, “life comes together in the most beautiful ways.”
Mack placed his hand on her cheek. “Yes, it does.”
“Maisy?” Riley called from across the room.
“Over here,” she said.
Mack stood with her. “I can’t stay long. I just wanted to . . .”
His words halted when Riley came to their side. And it happened again—his eyes, his smile, his attention became riveted on her.
This time, Maisy didn’t feel the rise of bitterness. This time, she saw the truth: Mack wanted Riley Sheffield. Perhaps he always had. To Mack she, Maisy, was just what she’d been for Tucker and for Peter: a substitute, a stand-in. When he’d said he loved her under that lifeguard stand, it had been an adolescent desire for a connection that had probably dissipated in the heat of the morning sun.
Riley looked at him. “Mack, what’s wrong?”
Maisy took two steps back as Mack spoke to Riley about the doctor’s news and their next steps. The cottage began to fill with partygoers, the sound level rising. Maisy went to the café and turned up the music, made sure the bartender and caterer were ready in the tent. She sought out Adalee, and found her dragging the history boards from the storage room. “Let me help you,” Maisy said, and grabbed a falling board.
“Thanks.” Adalee’s smile seemed to light up her face. “I can’t wait until Mama and Riley see these. If you’ll put them on that table there, and line them up against the stand, I’ll get the other two, which go on those tables.” Adalee pointed to two more tables covered in sand and pieces of driftwood and set up catty-corner to the large table.
“Got it,” Maisy said, lining up the boards.
Adalee returned as Maisy straightened out the last board. “Ta-da,” she said, and held up a large hard-back poster board of the Sheffield family history.
“Oh,” Maisy whispered.
Adalee set the board on the table, rearranged the driftwood, seashells and sand as Maisy scanned the board from the top left to the bottom right, starting with Mama and Daddy’s wedding, followed by all three births, first school days, family vacations, proms, Christmases, homecomings, graduations. The double board told of all the significant moments in their shared history, including Daddy’s illness and death. “This is what you’ve been doing while hiding in that room? I thought you were mourning Chad.”
“He’s not worth it,” Adalee said. “Do you like it?”
Maisy hugged her. “Beautiful. Perfect. I forgot . . . about some of these times.”
“Me, too.” Adalee pointed to a Christmas picture in which Riley, Maisy and Adalee sat in a go-kart in their Santa pajamas, waving at the camera. “I don’t even remember that go-kart,” Adalee said.
“I do,” Maisy said. “You fell out a few moments later. Mama freaked and gave the cart to the Foster boys.”
“Blame it on me,” Adalee said, and laughed. “I have one more board.” She hurried back to the storage room.
Maisy continued to run her gaze over each photo, and gradually the hollow places in her body filled with love—for Mama, for Daddy, for the love, for Riley and Adalee. . . .
“Last one,” Adalee said. She plopped a board on the remaining table, then arranged it to one side. A chair was pushed up to the table, a pen and a large pile of photos ready as if for a book signing.
“What’s this?” Maisy studied this new board, not recognizing the young girl in the sepia-tinted photo standing in front of what appeared to be a much earlier version of the cottage.
“You know the lady who always thinks she wrote the books we discuss?”
Maisy nodded.
“Well, I figured out that she lived here in nineteen twenty-six when the house was still located on the river plantation. That’s why she gets so agitated when she’s here—it’s her house. She’s ninety now, but she lived here when she was ten years old. Tonight she’ll be signing photos of the house—see.” Adalee pointed to the stack of photographs.