Beach Girls (7 page)

“So we can just go back to the beach and forget her?”

“Yes—and that's not mean, Stevie. We'll buy her some food, and she'll be better off. And then we'll go back home.”

Stevie remembered feeling sick.
People like her:
had Emma really said that? Yet Emma's desire to help seemed real. She patted her pockets for money. Stevie looked through her purse. They had six-fifty between them.

So when they'd gotten to the graceful brick train station, sixteen-year-old Emma had picked out a pair of Coast Guard Academy cadets. The young men were standing on the siding, dressed in their white uniforms, waiting for the train. Their trousers were so clean, so sharply pressed; their shoes shined to a high polish. Overhead, pigeons cooed in the eaves. Ferry whistles sounded, and seagulls screeched from the dock pilings. Across the Thames River, just-built nuclear submarines lurked in the open bays of Electric Boat.

Emma's hair was messed up from driving in the open car. Her skin was tan, gleaming. She wore a gold necklace and bracelet. Her damp T-shirt clung to her body, and Stevie saw the men notice her even before she approached them.

“Hello,” she said to the cadets.

“Hi,” they both said at once.

“We're raising money,” she said. “My friend and I.”

The young men looked at the two girls, fresh from the beach, and tried not to laugh.

“For a really good cause,” Emma said. “There's a hungry lady, and we want to buy her some food. My friend will cry if you don't help. She honestly will.”

It took the cadets exactly thirty seconds to open their wallets. Stevie watched in amazement. She saw how Emma smiled with the strangest combination of flirtation and humility, how she had kissed them both on the cheek when they'd handed her the money, how she thanked them for keeping the coast safe for everyone.

“Easiest thing I ever did,” Emma said, walking back to Stevie.

The men had given her ten dollars each.

After Madeleine arrived, Stevie drove back to Bank Street. They went to the granite Custom House, and looked for the woman. Her cart was still there, parked in the alley, but she was gone. They drove down the street slowly, looking for her.

“We have to find her,” Stevie said.

“She's all right,” Emma said. “She probably got hot from lying in the sun and went to find some shade.”

“We have to give her the money,” Stevie said.

“She's survived without our help all these years,” Emma said. The words were harsh, but her voice was gentle. Stevie knew that Emma was trying to make her feel better, even when Emma turned toward the backseat and told Maddie how Stevie wanted to save the world by bringing street people back to Hubbard's Point.

They had waited for fifteen or twenty minutes. Emma was impatient; Stevie could tell by the way she kept flipping around the radio dial, trying to find good songs. The woman didn't come back. Stevie folded up the two tens and stuck them into a tattered blanket on the top of the loaded shopping cart.

Emma got out of the car and took one back.

“This is to feed us,” she said. “You can't take care of others and forget about yourself.”

“Emma—”

“I begged for that woman's food,” she said. “I'm a beggar now—my mother would totally kill me if she knew. So you have to let me treat you and Maddie to an ice cream.”

“You've never been hungry in your life. You wear gold jewelry to the
beach
.”

“Stevie, you need someone to tell you it's okay to be happy. It really is. We love you, Maddie and I. You want to save every person, every lost bird. Well, your friends are here to save you—how about that? Come on—let's get back to the beach, okay?”

The top was down, the sun was shining; Maddie was so glad to be back from seeing her aunt, and she wanted to hear everything that had happened at the beach in her absence. They had stopped at Paradise for sundaes, and when they'd buried their cherries in the sand, they'd done it in honor of the homeless woman. Stevie had felt guilty for wasting food. Her sundae tasted like sawdust. When Emma saw her put the dish down, she leaned over and fed Stevie with her own spoon.

“There, little birdy,” she said, gazing into Stevie's eyes, making sure she included a big taste of whipped cream as she put the plastic spoon into her mouth. “Enjoy the summer day.”

“But . . .”

“Enjoy the summer day,” Emma had repeated, with something dark in her eyes that Stevie had taken to mean that this was a lesson she had to learn. Why should happiness be so hard? Did girls who still had their mothers feel it much easier? Yet she couldn't block out the picture of Emma taking that ten-dollar bill from the shopping cart. . . .

Those memories were in Stevie's mind as she fed the baby crow.

Her thoughts of Emma turned to Nell and Jack. The man's eyes looked bruised—as if he had been beaten up. She stroked the bird's ruffled black back. If she could save its life, help it to live, somehow she'd be honoring Emma and the daughter she'd left behind.

Or maybe there was another, better way.

Chapter 6

WHEN NELL AND HER FATHER WALKED
home from their noontime meeting at the boardwalk, they found a note stuck in their screen door. Nell saw the drawing of two birds and cried out, “It's from Stevie!”

Her father read the message: “You are cordially invited to dinner with me and Tilly, tonight, six o'clock.” It was signed “SM,” with a cat sitting on top of the letters.

“Can we go, can we go?” Nell asked.

“I have a lot of work,” her father said.

“Work, work,
work!
” she said, her hands on her hips, feeling a tidal wave of frustration. “What kind of vacation is this? I know—I'll bet Francesca is bringing papers down, and you have to have dinner with her.”

“No. As a matter of fact, I told her to fax them.” He gave a slow smile that meant Nell was going to get her way.

“Well?” Nell grinned. “Then we really have no excuse! We're goin' to Stevie's!”

AND THEY DID.
At six o'clock sharp they walked up Stevie's hill. Nell wore her best yellow sundress with white daisies embroidered around the hem. Her father was wearing chinos and a blue shirt, and Nell had seen him smoothing his too-long hair behind his ears the way he did when he wanted to look nice and realized he should have gotten a haircut. Nell held a bouquet of wildflowers she had picked at the end of the beach. Her father carried a bottle of wine.

They knocked on the screen door. Tilly was sitting right inside, and she gave an evil, toothless hiss. Nell jumped, then giggled.

“You must be Tilly,” her father said.

“Right you are,” Stevie said, letting them in. She looked really pretty, with her dark hair combed and shiny, one smooth bird's-wing curl on each cheek. Her eyes were made up, and she wore a white shirt over blue jeans. Nell beamed, wishing Peggy could see Stevie now: she looked so beautiful and bright.

“We brought you flowers!” Nell said, handing her the bouquet. “We picked them at the end of the beach! Did you used to go there with Mom and Aunt Maddie? Did you pick flowers there, too?”

“Nell, slow down!” her dad said.

But Stevie was wonderful. She knew that Nell was giving her much more than a few stalks of aster, beach heather, and Queen Anne's lace: she knew that Nell was giving her the chance to remember her two best friends. She crouched down, looked Nell right in the eyes, and nodded. “That's exactly where we used to go to pick flowers,” she said.

Nell shot her father a smile and a look of triumph.

Stevie stood up, looking at the bottle in Nell's father's hand. “Would you mind opening that while I put these in water?” she asked. “You look like maybe you could use a glass.”

JACK WAS GLAD
for something to do. Stevie handed him a corkscrew and pointed at a shelf filled with glasses. He couldn't find two alike. They were all different heights and sizes—some with stems, some short and round, some clear crystal, others colored glass. Engineers and architects tended to like things in order, matched, symmetrical. Stevie, her house, and her glasses threw him off balance. He wound up choosing two, with different length stems. She asked him to pour her a ginger ale.

Nell also had ginger ale. Jack watched her face as Stevie garnished all three drinks with slices of fresh peach: his daughter smiled so wide, you'd think it was her birthday. They all went into the living room, with a great view of the beach. Stevie put out cheese and crackers; she sat in a wicker rocker, while Jack and Nell squeezed together in a faded-chintz loveseat. The old cat curled up on the arm beside Stevie.

“How's the bird?” Jack asked.

“Oh, he's great,” Stevie said. “Eating every bug in the place.”

“I heard about the bird,” Nell said. “From my best friend's brother.”

“You have a best friend already?” Stevie asked. Jack watched her smile. She had a great, warm smile that lit up her whole face.

“I do!” Nell said, so eager to talk that she bounced on the loveseat and nearly upset the cheese and crackers. Jack touched her arm to steady her, struck by her enthusiasm. “Her name is Peggy McCabe!”

“Oh, Bay's daughter,” Stevie said. “Her brother Billy paid me a visit this morning.”

“One of the hooligans?” Jack asked.

“The what?” Nell asked.

Stevie laughed. “They do it every year—a whole different age group. The story got started, so long ago now, that I'm a witch. I guess it's a rite of passage for Hubbard's Point boys to look in my windows and try to catch me—I don't know—stirring a cauldron, I guess.”

“They're just dumb,” Nell said. “They don't know you.”

“Thank you, Nell,” she said.

“Can we see the bird?”

“Nell—” Jack warned.

“Sure,” Stevie said. “Do you want to come, Jack?”

Her smile was radiant. He did want to go. But even more, he wanted Nell to have a minute with her—that was obviously what Nell wanted. “That's okay,” he said. “I'll keep Tilly company.”

Nell gave him an approving look and tore up the stairs after Stevie. Jack sipped his wine and tried to figure out why he felt so uncomfortable. This wasn't a date or anything. It was dinner with an old friend of his wife's. That's all. He didn't even know Stevie—he was doing this for Nell.

Jack didn't want Nell getting hurt. He was sure Stevie wouldn't intentionally do anything, but he felt protective anyway. Nell was one way with company, another way when she went to bed at night. Her mother's death had left her totally traumatized, and Jack knew that she was latching onto Stevie because she was a link to Emma. But he had to admit, it felt good to see her so happy.

Their voices drifted down from upstairs—he loved hearing Nell laughing. He heard the bird chirping, Nell's voice trying to imitate the sound. After a few minutes, they came back down—Nell holding Stevie's hand.

“Dad! You should see her studio! She has an easel in her bedroom! There are paints all over, and paintings and drawings of all these birds, and Dad—there's one of me! I'm a baby wren in it.”

“Wow,” Jack said, watching his daughter's face glowing. He felt a knife edge—worrying that she was counting on too much from a woman they barely knew.

“I inspired her,” Nell said. “Mommy and I did. . . .”

“Really?” Jack said. He raised his eyes to meet Stevie's. Behind her smile, he saw the sadness he'd spotted that morning, looking like a lost soul in her too-big bathrobe. He had a distant almost-forgotten memory of Emma reading one of her books—about swans, he thought. She had disapproved of the way Stevie depicted violence in the bird world.

“Yes,” she said.

“Her mother died when she was little, too,” Nell said.

“Oh,” Jack said, and sipped his wine because he was momentarily tongue-tied. How was it that women and girls could get so much said so quickly? Had Stevie managed to tell Nell that upstairs, just now? How had she done it without anyone crying? Both Stevie and Nell were gleaming—he hadn't seen Nell happier in . . . he couldn't remember how long.

“I'm sorry,” Jack said, finally.

“She was okay,” Nell said. “She had a great dad, too. He was like you.”

“He was,” Stevie said, nodding.

“She's going to give me a book about emperor penguins,” Nell said. “She wrote it! It was about her father and her, but it could also be about you and me!”

“Wow,” Jack said, for the second time in two minutes. They had really gotten a lot said on that visit upstairs. He looked up at Stevie and saw her violet eyes looking incredibly dramatic in the light coming through the west-facing windows. Again, he recalled Emma's disapproval of her books.

He reached for his wine, knocking it over.

WITHOUT KIDS
of her own, Stevie was never too sure what to serve for dinner. She had a beloved aunt, her father's sister Aida, who had married a man with a very young son. Raising Henry, Aida had learned that she could never go wrong with steak, salad, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake for dessert. So, hoping for the best, Stevie served Aunt Aida's menu.

“I love mashed potatoes,” Nell said. “Dad, how come we never have them except on Thanksgiving?”

“I don't know,” Jack said. “I guess because I thought you liked frozen fries.”

“Is the steak done enough?” Stevie asked.

“It's good,” Nell said.

“Great,” Jack said.

The sun was setting, casting a golden glow throughout the room. Stevie loved this time of day, and often used this last hour of light to do her best work. Having friends for dinner felt unfamiliar. It had been
so long . . .

She wanted everything to be right for Emma's family. She had caught the way he'd looked taken aback when Nell had mentioned the wren pictures. Should Stevie have kept them to herself? Motherless children seemed to be everywhere, reminding Stevie of her own life, of Emma and Nell.

“Cake, anyone?” she asked, clearing the table.

“Sure,” Jack said, helping her.

“Can I visit the bird again?” Nell asked.

“If it's okay with your dad,” Stevie said, and Jack nodded. Nell clapped her hands and went running upstairs.

Stevie put coffee on, and she and Jack went into the living room to wait for it to perk. The worry lines in his brow reminded her of her father. She wanted to ask about Emma, but she didn't want to upset him. It all seemed so difficult to navigate. He cleared his throat and, as if he'd read her mind, spoke in a voice too low for Nell to hear.

“It was a car crash,” he said. “In Georgia, on her way home from a weekend away.”

“Oh, Emma,” Stevie said, her hand going to her mouth.

“Nell was eight. Last year. It was Emma's first time away, without us, since Nell was born.”

“Was she alone?”

Jack shook his head. He started to speak, then closed his mouth. In that space—in whatever lay between Stevie's question and the answer he'd been about to give—there was great anger. She could see it in the set of his eyes and mouth. He looked at the beach, at the flowers he and Nell had brought, and then at Stevie. “She was with my sister,” he said.

“Madeleine?”

Jack nodded.

“Maddie—was she—?” Stevie asked, barely able to ask.

“She was hurt,” Jack said. “But she's fine now.”

“I'm sorry, Jack,” Stevie said.

He nodded, as if there was nothing more to say. Stevie tried to imagine what it might be like, to lose a wife and have a sister hurt in the same accident. They were silent for a minute, listening to Nell talk to the bird upstairs.

“How about you, Stevie?” he asked. “Do you have kids? You're great with Nell.”

“No,” she said, feeling strangely hollow as she told what felt like a partial truth. “I don't.”

“Were you ever married?”

She hesitated. This was not fun. “Three times,” she said.

“Oh.” He smiled—was it her imagination, or did he already know? She was embarrassed about some of the press she'd gotten: “Some birds mate for life, but not beloved children's book author Stevie Moore.”

“Guess I'm not the married type,” she said, trying to make a joke, just as at other times she'd called herself “the Elizabeth Taylor of southeastern New England.”

“Hmm,” he said, not laughing, as if he couldn't even pretend it was funny. His reaction, oddly, made her feel good.

The sun dipped lower, throwing butterscotch light over the beach and bay. Jack stared at her, and she saw kindness in his eyes. He didn't find her situation funny, as other people sometimes did. Stevie had friends in New York who introduced her as “the much-married Stevie Moore.” She had once jokingly, drunkenly, back when drinking still worked, referred to herself as a “serial marry-er.”

“Why do you think . . .” he began after another minute.

“That I got married three times?”

He nodded. The coffee had finished perking, but neither of them moved. Stevie found herself staring at the empty wine bottle, wishing there was a little more left. She remembered her Aunt Aida telling her that her old Irish grandmother had warned her to never drink the “last drops,” or she'd die an old maid.
If only
, Stevie thought now.

“Well,” Stevie said, “the first time, it was a boy I'd met in art school. The second time, it was a man who took me to Antarctica to see the emperor penguins. And the last time, I married a man who . . .” She paused, trying to think of a way to describe what Sven had meant to her. “Took my breath away,” was the only way she could possibly put it.

“And why didn't they work?”

“I wish I knew,” Stevie said.

Jack was polite and didn't tease, but he also seemed to know that she wasn't giving a straight answer. He waited.

“Have you ever heard of ‘geographics'?” she asked, using a word she'd heard in recovery. “When a person is really uncomfortable with herself, and she decides that moving would solve everything? So she picks up and transplants herself to another city, or another state, or another country, hoping that everything will be different and better there? She leaves what's familiar and pulls a ‘geographic.'”

Was it Stevie's imagination, or the sunset, or was Jack turning red?

“I've heard of that,” he said quietly.

“Well, I pulled ‘matrimonials.' Left one unhappy marriage, or relationship, hoping the next one would be better.” She clasped her hands, feeling the shame she always felt about it. The sound of waves hitting the shore came through the open window. Why was she telling this to Jack? She supposed it was because they went back so far—beach acquaintances, if not actual friends.