Barefoot Beach (36 page)

She pitched her towel onto the countertop. “That's it. I just made a decision. If she stays, I go. And I take both kids with me.”

“Em,” I started, but she talked over me.

“What is the saying? Women and children first. This is who I have to save. No, my mind is made up. Adnan has one week to make up his. He tells me he will consult with the imam. He says he needs advice as to how to proceed to make everyone happy. Of course such a thing can't be done. Perhaps the imam will bring him to his senses. If not, my husband will have made the choice. And if he chooses wrong, the next choice will be mine.”

Outside, I took a deep breath of the salt-tanged air to clear my head. Scott was waiting for me under the streetlamp where we'd made last-minute whispered plans to reconnoiter.

“Not good, huh? You look upset,” he said as I moved into the haloed light. “Mother-in-law problem?”

I nodded. “Bad. And it could get worse. I wish there was something I could do, but I don't see what.”

“You're there for your friend. Sometimes that's the only thing friends can do for friends, be there for them. To listen. And, though I hope it doesn't come to that, if it falls apart, to help pick up the pieces.” He took my hand and we started walking. “Now, what can I do for you?”

I knew exactly what he could do for me. I told him part of it. “I could use some of that Dom Pérignon therapy you mentioned.” The other part he didn't have to hear, the wanting to be held by him that turned into an aching need as soon as I thought it.

Later, back at his place, we moved from champagne in the living room to something even more intoxicating in the bedroom. For at least
a few hours, Scott and what we did together outblazed the crises flaring all over my life. Afterward, as I lay in his arms, my raging heat ebbed to a glowing warmth, I thought that fighting fire with fire really did work, even if it's just for the moment.

To make it last and because all the desire I had left was not to move from the spot, I sent my promised “don't worry” text to Jack, telling him all was fine but I wouldn't be home that night. He'd texted back:
K.
No rounded, generous
O
before it. Just the spiky, spindly, single
K
.

He was pissed.

I left Scott's warm bed and arms at seven thirty.

“Why so early? What's the rush?” he murmured, lassoing me back from my reluctant crawl to the far edge of the mattress. He drew me close so that our bodies spooned under the light cover. His words were cottony, his longing clear from the way his hand traced the curve of my hips. “I'll make you breakfast.”

“Right, well, I know what you want for breakfast.”

He laughed. “And lunch and dinner. Do you blame me? You're wonderful. But afterward, pancakes. Or an omelet. I flip a mean omelet. And I have farmers' market blueberries for dessert. Stay.”

“Oh, I wish I could.” I turned toward him to stroke his cheek, prickly with overnight stubble, and my heart began to pick up its beat. I tuned it out and untangled myself from his gentle grasp. “But I really need to get back. I have an appointment. People coming over.”

I didn't give him details. My face said I wasn't inviting questions. We dressed. Slugged orange juice. He drove me to my car with jazz tuned on the radio. I took a rain check for an invitation to Sunday breakfast. I reminded him that the Donor Dude was visiting over the upcoming weekend, but I was looking forward to trying the incredible omelet à la Goddard.

“When?” he asked.

“Soon,” I promised.

“Not soon enough.”

The reason for my rushing off was a call that had come in as I'd headed to class the night before. Flip Tarlow, Margo's Realtor maven, was thrilled to tell me she had a possible buyer for the place.

Yes, of course, she remembered that I hadn't made a decision to sell yet, and she was really sorry about how last-minute this all was, but some prospective buyers had just stopped in her office. It was a walk-in, a “whim-in,” she cutesily called it. A “darling young couple from Philly,” they'd been thinking, just beginning to think, about beachfront property. Something with an existing house, if possible. When Flip told them about Surf Avenue, they were verrrrry interested, they had verrrrry deep pockets, and that combination might not occur again for a loooong time. “Worst case, your beautiful home isn't right for them.”

Best case, I'd thought as I nervously chewed a hangnail. I was painfully ambivalent about showing the house.

“But at least we'll have their reaction to help us make adjustments when you
are
ready to move ahead,” Flip had pressed. She hoped a walk-through at ten tomorrow would be convenient.

“Tomorrow?” My voice had sounded hollow. The way I felt.

Yes, they were on a tight schedule. No, I didn't have to be there. She didn't
want
me there. I couldn't imagine the comments people made about other people's homes. It wasn't for the faint of heart.

Good thing Jack wasn't going to be around. Ethan was going to walk the dogs with him in the morning and then they were going out for the day on the Winslets' boat.

While Flip had yammered on, I'd wandered through the house in my head. Through my beautiful great room with the high ceilings and a view of the sea and the
shush
of the waves lulling me to nap on the white sofa.
Through the bedroom with my widow's walk and the French windows through which a gauzy Lon had drifted in. Though not lately.

I ripped the hangnail free.

Flip must have heard me bleeding because she'd crooned, “Darling, you're not committing to anything. This is a trial run, though I've personally experienced buyers making an offer on the spot. Love at first sight. That's rare, though.”

She'd emailed me a checklist for the final straightening up. Windex mirrors. Mop the tile floor in entryway. Don't worry about closets. They looked fine on last visit. As for Jack's room, just make sure all stray food is picked up. These two were probably young enough to laugh off the standard mess of a college kid. Fresh flowers on the dining room table would be a nice touch. Bathrooms, very important. Nothing on the sink, lots of pastel towels.

“Also, you could bake something chocolate in the morning. Makes a home smell homey. Or get the spray that smells like cookies in the oven.” She'd said that in an email that arrived while Scott and I were making love.

Sorry again this was such short notice. But I couldn't afford to pass anything up, right?

Oh damn. Right.

Margo was surprised when I called to ask for refuge on my way home from Scott's. I didn't put it that way, of course. I said, “How would you like company this morning?” It was opening day of the annual Tuckahoe Outdoor Craft Show. Margo was a fan of wearable art, handmade quilts, and quirky bead-and-wire sculptures.

“
You
are the company?” She sounded properly incredulous. “It's at Weymouth Farm again, Nora. Last year, you kvetched the whole time about how you hated walking in the dirt, and when you got stung by the wasp hanging out in the macramé birdhouse, you swore you'd never go again.”

“I'll wear bug spray. I need earrings. Silver ones to go with my fuchsia dress. From that guy you know who makes the swoopy kind that look like waves?”

“John, of Long John's Silver.”

“Him. I like his stuff.”

“Since when? What fuchsia dress? What redhead wears fuchsia?”

“Meet you in front of the fried-dough stand at ten.”

I was late. I'd squeezed in a quick run to Piggly Wiggly for the cookie spray and swung back to the house to spritz the fake-bake scent around my kitchen. By the time I arrived at the fried-dough stand, Margo was tapping a sandal, raising dust. A gigantic mosquito flitted around her head but didn't land. Must have been the nontoxic insect repellent distilled from organic French lavender she'd dabbed on her neck. The bug landed on my arm and, before I could slap it off, stabbed me. “Well, we're off to a good start,” she said sarcastically.

We walked in and out of the tent-topped displays. I bought a pair of overpriced handcrafted earrings I didn't need for a fuchsia dress I didn't own. Margo stared at them dubiously. “With your ballerina's long neck, the shoulder-duster styles would be fabulous. But these are more subdued. They'll work with Scott's VFW crowd.” Then, all innocence, “How
is
the colonel? You two were awfully chummy at the beach Sunday.”

Pete was right about Margo's propensity for drawing snap—and frequently wrong—conclusions from scanty information. But after Sunday at Scott's and again last night, it was time to share. On my terms, of course, which were minus the juicy X-rated details she lusted after.

I started off blandly. “Scott's fine.” And slid to provocative. “He snores, though.”

She braked to a stop in front of a tent lined with African wood carvings and clapped a hand over her mouth. But not for long.

“Oh my God. You finally slept with him. Wait, you said snore? I assume you don't mean the two of you falling asleep on your deck holding hands. This
is
sex we're talking about, right?” I nodded, which pulled the pin on her grenade. Shrapnel flew: “Where? His place? Decent or some grungy bachelor pad? No, save the décor for later. Oh my God. You should see your eyes. Glowing like hot coals. Okay, hot. Back to the sex. How many times? Was it good? And the leg, how did you deal with that?” I ducked the most pointed questions, but the woman was relentless. She ended by asking if we'd made plans to see each other after the summer. No, we hadn't discussed that.

“Well, you should, Nora. Exactly two weeks from today you'll be on your way back to Baltimore.”

Two weeks! Too soon! Time is running out!
The same siren that went off every year mid-August when I realized the end was near. The Manolises and the Farrells always left the Wednesday before Labor Day to get ahead of the final swarm of locusts, as Margo called the holiday crowd descending on Tuckahoe.

“You don't want this to be a summer romance.” She purred a long
hmmmm
. “Doesn't Jack leave for Duke next week?”

“Wednesday.”

“So you'll have the house to yourself. But not necessarily
by
yourself. Days of hot, steamy weather predicted. Indoors, anyway. But come up for air long enough to make plans.”

Three stops later—Margo had collected a mixed-media collage and a tie-dyed kaftan while I had only a pair of unnecessary earrings tucked in my handbag—we entered the Irish tent, where weaver Kate Donnegan, whose brogue was as thick as oatmeal, greeted us. She'd taken my ballroom class a few years back, but after her husband died she didn't have the heart for it. I understood.

Kate sold garments she fashioned from wool she wove herself and also carried some pieces from a weaving co-op in Killarney. Margo tried on
sweaters and shawls, but it was only when she wrapped herself in an Irish wool cape that she broke out in a smile.

“Oh, look at you,” Kate crooned as Margo preened in a mirror propped against a tent pole. “The violet is so flattering for your coloring. And the cape is a perfect weight. It will take you right through fall.”

“Fall,” Margo repeated, slipping the cape off as she sent me a look that said,
“Plan for it.
With Scott.”
Unfortunately, my plans were stratospheric on many fronts—up in the air.

Margo handed the purple cape to Kate. “It's gorgeous. I'll take it.”

With the large green bag slung over her arm, she was on the move again, hauling me along. “Come,” she said. “There's a guy, Mark Blumenstein, who does the most amazing sculptures with cooking utensils. It would be perfect for . . .”

The kitchen I probably wouldn't have next summer. Which, if said aloud, Margo would have taken for whining, so I mumbled, “I've been thinking about your friend Philippa Tarlow. I may want to feel her out about whether the house is salable.”

Margo whirled on me, sounding the alarm. “Premature, premature! You will not have to sell the house. And if by some catastrophic turn of fate you find yourself down to your last shekel and have no alternatives, you ask me for recommendations for an agent. Definitely do not call that awful woman. I haven't spoken to her in three years since I caught her cheating at bridge. Really, if you can't trust a person at the bridge table, can you trust her with your house?”