“You holding up okay?” Maisy asked her mother.
“I’m fine, and the party was perfect. I can’t think of the last time I had so much fun.”
“Well, considering you’ve been laid up in bed, I’d guess so.”
Mama’s rouge shone too bright on her pale face. Her lipstick had bled into the small lines around her mouth and her silk skirt had crumpled up around her knees, exposing her thin legs and swollen ankles.
“What are you thinking?” Mama asked Maisy. “I know that look on your face.”
“How I’ve missed you.” Maisy took her hand, squeezed it.
“My, aren’t you being a softy.” Mama’s voice shook, and she looked away. “I’m really tired. Where is Harriet to take me home?”
“She is loading up your heap of presents.”
“Guess opening them will give me something to do over the next few days.” Mama stared off toward the front windows for so long that Riley thought her exhaustion had caught up with her, but she must have been gathering her courage to ask the next question. Without looking at Maisy she asked, “Are you leaving now that the party is over?”
“Well, I’ll go home in a bit, but I have to help Riley clean up first.”
“No.” Mama turned back to her, met her gaze. “I meant are you going back to California now? Are you leaving . . . again?”
“I don’t know. . . . I have a job.”
“I know,” Mama said, closed her eyes. “I do know that.”
Harriet bustled in beside the two of them. “Okay, Kitsy, time to get you to bed. Doc Foster is going to kill me for allowing you to stay out so long.”
Mama looked up at Harriet, and her smile was back in place, her laughter hiding the pain Maisy had just inflicted. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, now, will it?”
Maisy stopped the wheelchair with her foot. “Is there anything you want to tell us, Mama? While we’re here together tonight?”
Riley’s eyes widened in surprise at Maisy’s obvious probe.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Mama said.
The air separated in front of Riley, leaving a blank space for Mama’s words that could change everything.
“Thank you for all your hard work,” she said, and then motioned for Harriet to wheel her out the front door.
Maisy looked at Riley with a question on her face, but not spoken. Riley slid away to hide in the quiet of the back porch, where the sounds of the sea eased her down from her party high. Maisy joined her at the railing.
“It was a great night,” Riley said. “Thank you for everything.”
“It was great, wasn’t it?”
“If you want—you can go out now. You know, with Mack or whatever you want. Adalee and I can clean all this up tomorrow when we’re closed.”
Maisy shook her head. “Mack doesn’t . . . There isn’t anything . . .” Emotion seemed finally to surge upward from a hidden place inside Maisy, but Riley couldn’t be sure since she couldn’t see her sister’s full face. “It’s not just Mack who doesn’t really want me. It’s any man I’ve ever chosen.”
“Oh, Maisy, don’t talk like that. You’re just exhausted.”
Adalee came onto the porch. “Talk like what?”
“I’m fine,” Maisy said. “Come here and let me tell you how proud I am of all you’ve done this week.”
Together the three of them stood with arms linked, staring out over the dark beach and the whispering sea. Adalee’s head dropped onto Maisy’s shoulder. “Could it be any better than this?”
Maisy’s answer was to hold on to her sisters more tightly, on to everything that seemed sure on the back porch of Driftwood Cottage. Finally she yawned. “Bed. I need my bed.”
“I’m right behind you.” Adalee took her sister’s hand and the screen door slammed after them as they bid Riley good night.
Riley entered the nearly empty bookstore, and went up the back stairs, checked on her son, then found herself in the observation tower, staring out into the night. For all the joy at the party, she was now free to acknowledge her underlying sorrow. She had to let go—and she was not very good at that.
Maybe this was the lesson she had to learn: to release what she could not control. She couldn’t make the sun rise in the morning. She hadn’t been able to make Mack love her all those years ago. She couldn’t make the store survive financially. She couldn’t force Brayden to stay hers forever.
She recalled words her father had once told her when they were fishing and Riley had cursed the sea for not offering her a fish. “There is a God, Riley, and you are not Him.”
She leaned against the peeling banister surrounding the tower and stared out to where someone stood up from the sand and stretched. He must have fallen asleep on the beach after one too many. He walked toward the street, slow in gait. Riley felt her insides loosen as though a knot were untying without her permission. Maybe this was what letting go felt like.
The man looked up as if Riley had called his name. She took in a sweet breath: Mack.
“Riley?” he called in a soft voice from directly underneath the tower. “What are you doing?”
“Wait there,” she said, and ran through the house barefoot, down the back stairs, through the store and out onto the porch before she could stop herself.
Mack stood in the sand, still staring up at the tower. She startled him when she appeared at his side and whispered his name.
He looked at her, and she saw his sorrow. Her insides quivered. He looked like the boy she’d known all along.
He spoke softly. “Hey, guess I fell asleep on the beach. A little embarrassing.”
She laughed. “I can’t count the times . . .”
“Riley, I’m headed home in the morning. It was nice to pretend I wouldn’t have to go—but . . .”
“Ignoring the worst never stops it from happening, does it?”
He held out his arms and she laid her head on his chest, wrapped her arms around him: a place of rest. His hand ran through her hair, his fingers catching in the curls. “I hate that I have to leave, but I do.”
He released her and smiled down, took her hands and lifted them to his lips, kissed the palms.
She stepped back from him, released him—let go—as she should have done all those years ago.
He touched her cheek. “You look like a girl.”
“That’s because I am one,” she said.
“Yes, you are.” He hesitated before he said, “I’m hoping I can come visit you again. I don’t know when it will be. . . . Maybe in the next weeks or so. I have to see how Dad is doing. . . .”
“Mack.” His name slipped past her lips.
“That sounded like a no,” he said.
“Oh, that’s not it. I want to see you. I’d love to see you. Come here anytime you want. But not for . . . me.”
“Why not?” He stepped back in the dark. “I thought maybe . . .”
“No,” Riley whispered, placed her finger over his lips. “You didn’t, not really.”
“You don’t know that. . . .”
“I know where you are, Mack, because I’m there, too. Mom is sick. I’m losing the store. Life is changing and it’s easy to grab on to something familiar and warm, something innocent and blameless . . . like the past. But it won’t get us anywhere. Won’t do us any good. Won’t keep us safe or change reality.”
“Damn, Minnow. Do you have an answer for everything?”
“No.” She laughed. “I don’t have answers for much of anything, but I want you to understand that it’s okay by me to stay best friends. It’s enough for me now. It’s okay. All is well. Mack, I have a son; life is different now. So different.”
“Brayden,” he said. “He’s a great kid.”
Riley nodded, and the truth rose from the darkness inside her, from this sweet moment with her old best friend. “This was a hard week for me in many ways, but one of them was because his grandparents were here . . . and they don’t know about Brayden . . . and Brayden doesn’t know about them.”
Mack held out his hand, took hers and pulled her close again. “Riley, you don’t have to keep everything so close, so secret and tight.”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice shook.
He placed his hand on the back of her head, drew her in to rest again on his chest before he spoke. “It’s Sheldon, isn’t it? He’s Brayden’s father.”
Riley nodded her head under Mack’s hand. He held her for long moments; she heard his heartbeat, smelled the aroma of sea mixed with sweat and sleep. She shivered even in the heat of the summer night and held tighter to Mack until her breath evened out, until he released her. Telling him had unknotted something tangled in her soul. She looked at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. I’ve never told anyone.”
“Yes, you should have told me. Didn’t you just say it—best friends, right? We can tell each other anything.”
She nodded. “I did, and it’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Minnow. Enough.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay . . .” she said.
He walked off into the dark and Riley whispered again into the night, “It’s enough.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAISY
Maisy lay on her back in bed and let the emotions of the party wash over her once again. Watching her sisters give to others, Mama with her daughters, Mack coming to say goodbye—a real goodbye this time, one without empty promises. How would she incorporate all of these events into her life?
She rose from bed and stretched. She should be going home now, back to Laguna Beach, but now Mama was sick. “Home.” She said the word out loud, but it sounded hollow.
Where was home? If it wasn’t here in the place she’d left, or there in the place she’d been living, where the hell was it? She sat on the edge of the bed, dropped her head into her hands. She attempted to see her life in Laguna—her white condo, her beautiful store, the long, wide beach, the sunsets on the opposite shore.
When she’d originally left Palmetto Beach she’d believed that Mack Logan was the answer to all her heartache, all her emptiness. Over the years, she realized now, he’d become a fantasy that changed with her need, with the time and season, his image filling the vacant or hurting places. His adolescent adoration had once been enough and she’d attempted to make it last forever. But she’d only been fooling herself.
After taking a hot shower and getting dressed, Maisy stood outside the drawing room about to go in and hear if all this work had paid off, saved the store.
Riley came up behind her. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just exhausted. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I want you to know that I couldn’t have gotten through the week without you. I am so glad you came home—I hope it meant a lot of good things for you, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you had fun. That you saw old friends. That you enjoyed being here.”
Maisy turned away from her sister, away from the memory of Lucy walking away. Riley opened the French doors and went to their mama, who was propped up in bed in full makeup.
Maisy entered the room, sat in the corner chair. Adalee came running into the room, out of breath, flushed, her hair flying in curls around her face. “Sorry I’m late.”
Riley laughed. “You’re not late.”
“I had so much fun yesterday.” She plopped down in a large club chair, her feet on the ottoman.
“Did you get back together with Chad or something?” Maisy asked.
“Ooooh, no. My older sister taught me that I am too good for him.” Adalee laughed. “Right?”
“Right.” Maisy wondered how she could offer such good advice, but never take it herself.
“So how are my girls?” Mama asked. “I thought you’d sleep all day, considering how hard you worked all week.”
Positive affirmations overlapped; they were all fine.
Mama clapped her hands together. “Okay, girls. I have something to say amidst all this hoopla.” Mama exhaled through pursed lips. “You all did such an amazing job that I don’t even know how to thank you.” She turned to Riley. “I’ll get straight to the point. Did we make enough money to save the store?”
Riley looked from her sisters to her mother. “Not enough, Mama. I’m so sorry. We can repay some of our debts, but not all of them and still make the payroll and mortgage.” Riley dropped her gaze to the floor in defeat.
Mama closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the pillow. “Oh, Riley, I was really hoping we could save the store, but we just can’t keep wishing, hoping and praying for some miracle. Hoping never made anything happen. We have to face the facts, don’t we? We’ll have to sell.”
Maisy was shocked by the resignation in Mama’s voice. It was so unlike her.
Adalee jumped to her feet. “No way. We can’t lose Driftwood Cottage Bookstore. It means too much to this town. There has to be a way to save it.”
Maisy stood also. “I agree with Adalee. We have to try harder to find a solution.”
Mama cleared her throat. “There is no way to keep it. If we can’t balance the books, or pay our employees, we can’t keep it, period. You won’t even be here to know anything about it. . . . You’ll be back to your nice California life.”
Anger flared in Maisy, burst and then simmered. “We’ll figure something out. And I’m staying. Now I’m staying . . . for a while anyway.”
Riley shook her head. “Maisy, of course I’d love it if you stayed, but it can’t be with the crazy idea that you or anyone else can save Driftwood Cottage. This bookstore has been mine to run. I’ve tried for twelve years, and we are too far down the hole to make it work. You can’t ask Mama to support Brayden and me. That is not her job. That is not her responsibility. And it’s not yours either.”
Adalee sat down in defeat. She spoke quietly. “I was gonna ask you if I could eventually open a design shop in the extra storage room.”
Riley went to her, squatted next to her chair. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I was going to wait until the party was over. I mean, I graduate in two semesters. . . . I thought, well, I thought . . . we could work together and . . .”