The Beach House (12 page)

“Sounds like caffeine overload. How much coffee have you had?”

“Only a cup, and most of that was soymilk. Ten minutes ago I was fine. And now look at me.” She pulled the elastic from her ponytail and combed her fingers through her hair. “I’m totally unnerved because there is no telephone in this place!”

“There are three, hon. Three cell phones and you are welcome to use any of them. Jo would even turn hers on more than once a day for you.”

Char sipped from what was her fourth cup of coffee. Evidently her caffeine tolerance surpassed Molly’s. Only now did she begin to feel awake and ready to face the day, which appeared to be developing into a complicated one. Jo’s moodiness remained intact after twelve years. She had disappeared into her room again. Char wondered if she should check on her. Or search the room for a bottle? No way was she climbing into a car with a drunk behind the wheel.

Then there was Andie. Spunky aside, she’d always possessed an eggshell exterior and, like last night, it was shattered on a regular basis. Nothing new there—until Char found her first thing that morning wiggling into a wet suit, asking for help with the back zipper. It was as if a hard-boiled interior had emerged, a totally uncharacteristic version of the soft woman she knew. Andie was simply the last woman on earth who would surf, especially with a stranger.

And Molly was the last woman on earth who would fall apart over a telephone. Maybe it had something to do with her fortieth and that business she mentioned about Scott, something about pretending their marriage was okay.

Molly fiddled with the phone. “It’s just that I’ve never been away from the kids for such a long period of time.”

Long period—What? “Twenty-four hours?”

“Well-l-l, it will be a long time before I get home.”

“Honey, how are you and Scotty? You said something about your birthday…”

“We’re fine. We’re working on some issues. You probably know what I mean. You’ve made it to what? Fifteen, sixteen years?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen. That’s great. We were just growing apart. I was feeling—” Abruptly she stood. “Will you excuse me, please? I have to call him.” Without a backward glance, she palmed the cell, her long legs already in motion. She crossed the room and went down the hallway.

Char remained standing and drank her coffee. Molly probably wouldn’t care to hear how she and Cam had made it to seventeen years. How a couple could just ignore the inevitable growing apartness. How she could find fulfillment in school and community affairs and innumerable friends. How he could be content fixing teeth and watching television and not be concerned that one of her closest confidants was the neighbor
guy
. Why go to all the effort of working on
issues?

Oh, well. Different strokes for different folks.

Molly lay on her stomach on one of the twin beds in her room. With Char’s tiny phone pressed against her ear, she counted the rings of the church phone at the other end, her nausea increasing with each. Hadn’t he said he’d be in the office that morning? Though she had left a message yesterday, they hadn’t talked since she’d left home. Maybe something happened. He had Jo’s cell phone number, but she didn’t know if Jo had checked for messages yet. Apparently not using the thing was part of her friend’s vacation.

On the tenth ring Scott picked up. “Hope Church.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Molly,” he breathed her name as if in relief. “What can’t you do, sweetheart?”

“Be this far away from you and the kids.”

He chuckled. “That’s the most pathetic thing you’ve ever said.”

“I know. What’s even more pathetic is it’s the truth. And it makes me feel like throwing up.”

“Okay, okay. You win. You miss me more than I miss you. I have no indication my breakfast is moving upward. What did you eat, by the way?”

She followed his lead down a rabbit trail of detailed chitchat about their mornings and the children. After a time her stomach relaxed, and her mind stopped swirling.

“Scotty, seriously, this is harder than I imagined.”

“That’s the best time to practice leaning on Him.”

“I just feel so vulnerable.”

“Like an adolescent trying to figure out who she is?”

“Have I said that?”

“Once or twice. Maybe six times. Moll, I do miss you, and not because I’m doing the housework.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“Really.”

“But you’re fine?”

“I’m fine.”

“And the kids are fine?”

“The kids are great. So go be strong. Be Molly Preston, not Mrs. Scott Preston, mother of the pastor’s four wild rugrats who played hide-and-seek in the church during choir practice last night.”

“They didn’t.”

“Ready or not!” he shouted.“Here I come!”

“Scott!”

“I was on the phone. After I got off, I tied them together in a pew.”

She laughed. What a distance they’d come! Three months ago he never would have allowed them within shouting distance of the choir or his office while he worked.

“Sweetheart, why don’t you give me Char’s phone number?”

“I don’t know what it is. How do I figure it out?”

“There’s a menu. Check that.”

“Hold on.” She lowered the phone, studied the micro screen a moment, and put it back to her ear. “Gobbledygook. I’ll have to ask Char.”

“All right. Get Andie’s too. Maybe you’ll feel better knowing I have all three. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’d better go.” He rattled off his schedule, which included Bible study that night. The next two days he would do surveying work up the Elk River. Way up. Where pay phones were unheard of and the cellular kind did not function.

They had taken giant steps in their marriage. They were growing back together, balancing kids and work in a healthier way. She was off on her own, for the first time in twelve years, getting reacquainted with old friends, including someone named Molly Preston.

Life was full of God’s blessings. Why in the world did she want to cry?

The flood of tears broke loose after they said goodbye. She bawled herself to sleep right there in the cozy beach house in the middle of a sunny morning, her hand tight around Char’s phone.

Jo stood beside her car, gulped down half a bottle of water along with four ibuprofen, and kneaded her forehead.

Not a blade of grass in sight, the single-vehicle carport more or less was the backyard. It afforded a spot of shade amid the relentless glare of sunlight. She faced the one-way, alley-sized thoroughfare and squinted. Heat waves quivered off lofty stucco walls, parked vehicles, and concrete. A tribute to the tenacity of life, plants sprouted everywhere, in pots and through cracks in the hard surfaces: jade, azalea, bougainvillea, bird of paradise, and even a palm tree. The sweet scent of alyssum wafted from somewhere.

Jo’s head throbbed, in sync with her pounding heart. What had she gotten herself into, inviting three strangers to spend a week in such close proximity? She felt like a bug under a microscope, limbs splayed and pinned down. No matter their common history, the women did not know each other. And to think she had been sober when she called them!

In an attempt to wriggle out from that feeling of being scrutinized, she scheduled activities. They could focus on things and Jo could ignore the feeling she just might pop. The ugly beach house, weird neighbor, and unaccustomed tenderness unnerved her.

The event-driven approach wasn’t working. Already the original timetable was shot to pieces. Molly was napping. Char had wandered down the boardwalk in search of a newspaper and who knew what else once she reached all those souvenir kiosks. Andie was at the front of the house, hosing down a boogie board and wet suit, the bridge of her nose scraped raw from an impact with the ocean floor. If yesterday’s hairstyle, makeup, and clothes were any indication, she was still at least an hour and a half away from being ready. When Jo walked past her on the way to the carport, Andie squirted Jo’s sandaled feet and teased, “Tag, you’re it, Zambruski!”

Jo rubbed her forehead again and closed her eyes. The sensation of pressure mounting refused to go away.

“Good morning!”

Jo looked up and saw a man walking in the narrow street. He stopped when he reached the carport, a few yards from her.

“Morning,” she said.

He smiled, a dazzling flash of white against flawless ebony skin. Black braided locks sprouted from his head every direction like a fireworks display held in suspension. A trimmed beard covered the lower half of his narrow face.

“How ya doin?” he asked.

“Just—” The word “fine” tangled with her vocal cords and didn’t make its way out. She wasn’t fine, and something in his black eyes told her he knew it.

“Oh, sister, life can be hard at times, can’t it?” The singsong cadence of his voice mesmerized.

She felt glued to the concrete. Something unearthly emanated from the stranger.

He said, “I find when I express my troubles out loud to another human being, they just sort of…” He spread his arms out like a band leader and wiggled his fingers.“Dissipate.” He laid a hand to his chest. “The heart doesn’t take on the full impact of unbearable pain.”

What was this? A Rastafarian-looking shrink in faded blue jeans and white button-down shirt with rolled up sleeves?

“My name is Zeke.” Now he held the hand out to her.

She crossed the distance between them and shook it. “I’m Jo.”

“Nice to meet you.” His eyes remained focused on hers. They were like magnets.“Your heart looks like it’s breaking with unbearable pain, Sister Jo.”

She folded her arms, locking them across her midsection. Her deep heart cried out that yes, the pain was unbearable. Unbearable and unspeakable.

Zeke shifted his stance. Expectancy was written in his posture and on his unlined face.

And then she knew he was right, to speak the anguish was somehow to bear it. She should tell her friends. They would give her sympathy and practical advice. Wasn’t that, in all honesty, the reason she had called them?

Her throat ached from its tight grip on words of confession. They would be swallowed, though. She knew that by the time she met up with Char, Molly, and Andie, she would have talked herself out of saying them. She would dredge up old things between them and shove the words back down.

Zeke, on the other hand, carried no baggage. He called her “sister.” In the twinkling of an eye he had connected with her on a deep level. Intuitively she understood he would offer something beyond sympathy and practical advice.

And he was available now even as her words clamored for release.

She said,“How much do you charge an hour?”

“Time means nothing to the good Lord.” He smiled. “I try to follow His example.”

Jo hesitated for the briefest of moments. She saw no fire in the man’s eyes, only acceptance.

“Four months ago I killed a sixteen-year-old girl and her baby.”

Midafternoon Jo strolled with her friends along a walkway in Old Town between historical white stucco buildings with red tile roofs. Eucalyptus trees cast long afternoon shadows.

Char purred a sound of delight and pointed to an open-air gift shop on their left. “Look at those wind chimes!”

Almost simultaneously Andie pointed to the right. “A hacienda! History!”

The two of them laughed.

Molly pointed straight ahead and moaned.“I’m going there to that grassy spot and sitting down. No way can I shop or sightsee. I ate one too many tortilla chips!”

“Molly, honey,” Char said, “perhaps it was the
grande
platter of tacos, enchiladas, refried beans, and rice you ate with the chips.”

She smiled.“Perhaps. Come plop with me, and then we’ll do something more tangible than digest lunch.”

Jo thought lunch a misnomer. It was after three o’clock.

They reached a vacant wooden picnic table where Char and Andie sat on the bench seat. Jo chose the ground. She slipped off her sandals and folded her legs lotus style. Molly stretched out full length on her back in the grass, crossed her feet at the ankles, hooked her hands behind her head, and eyed Jo.