Summer Rental (40 page)

“I won’t,” Julia promised. “I’ve been in a holding pattern for too long, avoiding the inevitable. London was wonderful, my work was exciting, but it isn’t anymore. Hasn’t been in a long time. You’re here in the States. I want to be with you. It’s that simple. I
have
missed you, Booker.”

“Have you?” He put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him.

She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. “I do love you, you know,” she said, resting her forehead on his chest. “This month, at the beach, with everything the girls have been through, sort of forced me to stop and take stock of things. Dorie basically told me off the other day.”

“Dorie? Sweet little Dorie?”

“Not so sweet if you really get to know her,” Julia said ruefully. “And then, Madison, who barely knows me at all, said something at lunch today that kind of tipped the scale for me.”

“And what was that?” Booker inquired, running his hands up the back of the thin cotton peasant top Julia was wearing, and kissing her neck.

“She kind of called me out,” Julia said. “She said I couldn’t keep making chickenshit assumptions about marriage based on other people’s mistakes.”

“Smart girl,” Booker said, holding her closer.

“I guess…” Julia stopped and pulled away, but Booker had no intention of letting her go.

“You guess what?”

She turned, so that her back was to him. “I guess I don’t think I deserve somebody like you. Somebody as good as you. Maybe that’s why I keep trying to push you away.”

“What?” He put his hands on her shoulder and wheeled her around. “What kind of crap is that?”

Julia shrugged and swallowed hard. She took a deep breath. “There are things about me … things you don’t know.”

He chortled. “We’ve lived together for nearly ten years. Tell me one thing about you that I don’t know. Come on. I dare you.”

She bit her lip. “The thing is … I got pregnant when I was eighteen. It was an ectopic pregnancy, Book. I only have one good fallopian tube. I don’t know if I can have children.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I should have told you years ago.”

He traced the tear with the tip of his thumb. “And you think this is some kind of deal breaker for me? Julia, love. Is this the thing that’s been eating at you all this time?”

She nodded sadly, the tears flowing nonstop now. “People think I’m this perfect model
thing
. But I’m not! It’s all plastic! I’ve had my nose fixed, and my boobs done, and for all I know, I’m infertile, too.”

“Stop that,” Booker said sternly. “And listen to me. The only person who thinks you’re plastic is you. You are the warmest, realest woman I have ever met. I don’t give a damn about your nose or your fallopian tube, or your hammertoes or whatever. I fell in love with you, Julia Capelli. The whole package. And as far as I’m concerned, you are perfect. Hell, look at me. I’m pushing fifty. Maybe I’m infertile too. Yeah, I want kids. But only if you do too. So maybe we do this the modern way. Test tubes, petri dishes, adoption, I don’t care. I just want you. Have you got that?”

Julia sniffed and nodded, slowly. She rested her cheek on Booker’s shoulder, and surreptitiously rubbed her runny nose on his shirt. He rubbed her back reassuringly.

“Madison said I should just quit worrying about other people’s lives, and get on with ours.”

“I think I like that girl,” Booker said, slowly working his thumbs under the edge of Julia’s bra.

“And she reminded me that life is short, and nothing is guaranteed. Carpe diem, baby, you know?”

“Latin?” Booker said, with an exaggerated groan. “You know how turned on I get when you talk foreign.”

“Grow up,” Julia said. But she’d slipped her hands into the waistband of his shorts and was fully aware of how turned on Booker had gotten.

“I think,” Booker said solemnly, “we had better turn back to Ebbtide so you can take advantage of me. I mean, how will we ever know if we can make babies unless we actually try?”

“Mmm,” Julia said. “You’re probably right. The house would be much more civilized than the beach. Wouldn’t want to scare the seagulls.”

They made it all the way back to the stairway at Ebbtide and sat on the bottom step to brush the sand off their feet.

“I hate to break this golden moment,” Booker said finally. “But I can’t help wonder how you’re going to be with me in DC, and at the same time work in Atlanta.”

Julia kissed his nose. “With the money we’ll make from selling the London flat, I can rent something tiny and convenient in Atlanta. A pied-à-terre, if you will. I’ll live full time in this amazing house you’ve found us in Alexandria, and travel to shoots wherever I’m needed. Of course, this is all predicated on a couple of things. First off, I’ll have to persuade Annette to give me a shot at learning the business.”

“Not a problem. You’re a very persuasive girl, in my experience.”

“And then,” Julia said, dusting the sand off her shorts and climbing onto Booker’s lap, “I’ll have to figure out how to plan a wedding before Dorie gets as big as an elephant and Ellis takes a new job God knows where. And since you’ve just started a new job, when will you be able to take some vacation time?”

“A wedding?” Booker mused. “Is somebody having a wedding?”

“We are, if you’ll have me,” Julia whispered. “Just name the date.”

“Oh, I’ll have you, my love,” Booker said. “You’ll just have to let me consult my calendar. It’s upstairs. In your room.”

42

Saturday morning, Ellis raced over to the garage apartment, bursting with the news about Booker’s friend Simon, the movie location scout. But the Bronco was already gone.

She considered calling his cell, but decided against it. He could be anyplace, and she wanted to tell him the news in person. She fished the key Ty had given her out of the pocket of her shorts, and climbed the stairs to the apartment.

He’d obviously come in late the night before. A Styrofoam takeout tray sat on the table Ty used as a desk, along with an empty Corona bottle and a crumpled newspaper. A cereal bowl with a film of milk sat in the sink, along with a spoon and an empty juice glass. The counter was cluttered with a cereal box, empty orange juice carton, and a sugar bowl with a spoon stuck in it. A single fly buzzed lazily around, batting against the wire window screen.

Ellis walked into the bedroom. The quilt and bedcovers lay in a rumpled heap at the foot of the bed, and Ty’s T-shirt and shorts were thrown on the floor, along with a still-damp towel.

She sighed happily and started to put the tiny apartment to rig
hts. She washed and rinsed the dishes, putting them away in the Hoosier cupboard, and wiped off the gummy kitchen counter. She opened the door to the deck and swept what seemed like a pound of sand out the door and through the cracks in the deck boards, just as she remembered her mother sweeping out the houses they rented at the beach at Tybee during her childhood summers.

Ellis smiled contentedly as she stripped Ty’s bed, gathering the sheets and discarded clothing into a bundle. She would wash them in the laundry room at Ebbtide, she decided, and surprise Ty when he got back from his errands.

As she was stepping out of the apartment onto the deck, a car came bumping down the Ebbtide driveway. It was a sleek dark gray Mercedes convertible, with a man at the wheel and a woman with long blond hair sitting beside him, her eyes shaded by a pale blue sun visor. The driver pulled the car directly up to the garage, as though he knew exactly where he was going.

Were these prospective renters for Ebbtide? Ellis wondered. Ty hadn’t said anything about showing the house while she and the others were still in residence, but she assumed he’d want to rent the house out again as soon as they vacated the place next Saturday.

There was that stabbing feeling in her chest again. Vacate. Saturday was only a week away.

The woman got out of the convertible and looked up at Ellis in curiosity.

The blonde was Kendra. Ty’s ex-wife. And the driver was Ryan, or as Ty referred to him, Fuckface.

“Hey there,” the blonde called, waving. “Is Ty around?”

“Nope,” Ellis said. “Haven’t seen him this morning.” She turned and went back inside the apartment. What should she do? Call Ty?

Before she had a chance to decide, she heard footsteps pounding up the wooden staircase, and a brisk knock at the door.

She opened it, and Kendra gave her a breezy smile. “Oh! It’s you.” She knit her brow, searching for the name. “Hi there, Ellen, right?”

“It’s Ellis.”

“Oh, right. So, I’m Kendra, and I guess you remember we met at Fish Food the other night. Kinda awkward, right, bumping into the ex like that?”

Ellis shrugged. “Ty’s not here,” she repeated. “I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”

Kendra’s full red lips pouted. “I’ve been calling and calling, leaving messages. He never returns any of them. That’s why we finally decided to run over here this morning, to see if we can talk to him about Ebbtide. You know, before next month.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Ellis said. “He stays pretty busy. But I can let him know you dropped by.” She gathered up the bundle of laundry and stepped outside onto the deck, locking the door behind her.

Ellis hurried down the stairs. Ryan had gotten out of the Mercedes and was walking around the outside of the garage, leaning down, poking at the boards, walking around inside the garage itself, staring up at the old rafters with the assortment of junk hanging from the beams: rusted lawn chairs, rotting hanks of rope, what looked like an old sail.

“Can I help you?” she called sharply. Fuckface had some nerve wandering around the place like he already owned it.

“Nope,” Ryan said, immune to her tone. “Say, you have any idea how many square feet are in that apartment up there?”

“No,” Ellis said woodenly.

“But it’s got a kitchen, right, like an efficiency? And a bathroom? Is it a full or half bath? We’re trying to figure out if the apartment would work out as income property. It’s hell to get new bathrooms approved, is why I ask, so if there’s an existing full bath up there, that would be awesome.”

“Honey, I think I remember that it’s got a sink and a toilet, with the shower out on the deck,” Kendra called down.

Ellis whirled around. Kendra was not only still on the deck, she was actually peering in the glass insert in the door, her hands cupped to shut out the glare of the sunlight. “The kitchen’s small, but it’s got everything you’d need. We’d want to replace the appliances, and the linoleum would have to go right away too. New cupboards and countertops, of course. It might be worth a trip to IKEA for that stuff.”

“Hey!” Ellis called. “I don’t think Ty would appreciate having you poking around his apartment while he’s gone.”

“Okay,” Kendra said. She came bopping down the stairs and joined her husband, who’d finished inspecting the garage. Ellis noticed that Kendra’s sun visor was the exact same shade of Carolina blue as her sleek sleeveless top and running shorts. And, of course, her Carolina blue running shoes matched everything else she wore, including the scrunchy that held her long blond hair in a ponytail.

“Say, Alice…” Kendra started.

“It’s Ellis. E-L-L-I-S.”

“Right, sorry. Listen, you don’t happen to know who’s renting Ebbtide right now, do you?”

“No,” Ellis lied.

“Hmm,” Kendra said, turning to stare up at the house. A trio of damp bathing suits clipped to the clothesline stretched between the porch posts flapped in the breeze. As she watched, Booker emerged from the house with a camera slung around his neck.

“I really, really need to get a look inside the house, hon,” Kendra told her husband. “Ty’s nana was sweet, but she was really
not
much of a housekeeper, and God knows, Ty never cared about that kind of stuff. As long as the fish were biting or the surf was up, he didn’t care what the house looked like.”

She pursed her lips, still looking up at the house, thoughtfully. “Window air conditioners. And I’m sure there’s no insulation, or even a furnace. Guess I’m not surprised. I don’t think the Culpeppers ever did winterize the house.” She gave Ellis a sad smile. “Ty’s grandparents were the salt of the earth, but there was never much money there.”

“Roof looks pretty bad too, sweetness,” Ryan added. “We’d have to gut the place.”

Ellis’s stomach twinged at the word “gut.” She wanted to grab the broom she’d recently abandoned and chase these two opportunists down the driveway and off the Ebbtide property. Even though it wasn’t her place, she felt strongly that Ty would approve of such a course of action.

Before she could suggest that Kendra and Fuckface vacate the premises, she was saved by the cheery chirping of Kendra’s cell phone.

“Hi-i-i,” Kendra said, her face brightening. “No, nope. He’s not here. His
friend
says she doesn’t know where he’s gone, or when he’ll be back. What’s new about that, right? Probably off surfing with some of those lowlife buddies of his.”

Kendra’s caller talked for a while, and she listened intently. “No, we won’t give up. I’ll leave him another message, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll just check back later. I promise you, Daddy, when we hand him a check, he’ll be happy to take it and walk away. Okay? See you at lunch, then.”

She clicked disconnect and pocketed the phone. “So,” she said brightly. “You’ll be sure and tell Ty we came by?”

“As soon as I see him,” Ellis promised.

Kendra turned to her husband. “Daddy wants us to meet them at the club for lunch. That leaves us a couple hours to kill. We could run up to Duck in the meantime. Bailey and Ferris have been pestering me to drop by and see what they’ve done to their place, and then we’d have an excuse to leave.”

Ryan nodded enthusiastically, and without another word to Ellis, they jumped in the Mercedes and sped off.

Ellis watched them go, her fists clenched in rage. She marched herself back to Ebbtide, dumped her load of laundry into the washing machine, spun the dial, and punched the start button.

*   *   *

Late afternoon, and the house was eerily quiet. Booker had insisted on treating all of them, including Madison, who’d tried without success to beg off, to a late lunch at the Beach Grill.