Dead In The Hamptons (9 page)

Barbara used her eyebrows to give me a wordless order. I took the long-handled spoon out of Jeannette’s hand and got to work.

I thought they’d start schmoozing immediately. Nope. They both headed for the refrigerator.

“Narnia isn’t in there,” I said. “And my back is getting cold.”

They each snagged a Diet Coke. Barbara closed the door with a regretful backward glance.

“How can you drink that swill?” I asked as they popped and glugged. “It’s not mostly chemicals. It’s all chemicals.”

“Better chemicals than calories,” Jeannette said.

Women. I didn’t bother pointing out that crème anglaise has calories.

“This stuff is thickening,” I said. I held the spoon upright in the thick goo of egg yolks, sugar, and cream and let it go. It subsided very slowly against the rim of the pot.

“Let’s see,” Jeannette said. “It should coat the side of the spoon.”

She came up behind me and leaned over my shoulder. Tendrils of brown hair fell over her forehead. A few wispy curls tickled my ear. I could feel the damp warmth of her body and smell a powdery floral scent. As she reached for the spoon, the shell necklace she wore around her neck swung forward against my shoulder.

“Sorry!” She flipped it back with a practiced gesture, so it snaked around the front of her neck and dangled down her back.

“Oh, that’s pretty,” Barbara said. “Let me see.”

Jeannette had taken command of the crème anglaise again. I stepped back and looked at the necklace, still around Jeannette’s neck but the shells held loosely in Barbara’s hand. It was more of a pendant, really. A very small but convoluted whitish shell hung on a gold chain so fine I had to peer closely to see the links. The shell had ridges and grooves that swirled around to a flourish at the tip. Something had lived and squirmed in there, but not recently. On either side hung a much smaller translucent half shell, one pale yellow, the other a light peach color.

“Did you make it?” Barbara asked. “It’s so delicate, I’m amazed the shells didn’t break when the holes were bored.”

“Oh, no, I got it like this— that is, I bought the chain. The shells were on the kind of filament you put beads on.”

“Is that scungilli? I live back to back with an Italian restaurant,” I explained to Jeannette.

“The big one is. It’s a whelk. They come in all sizes, I guess depending on how old they are. You can find them on the beach after a high tide, sometimes even at the bay, but it’s hard to find an unbroken one. The seagulls catch them live and drop them from way up in the air to crack them open.”

“The little pastel pearly ones are so pretty,” Barbara said.

“Jingle shells,” Jeannette said. “The bay beach is covered with them, in among the rocks.”

“Well, it’s beautiful,” Barbara said. “Did you buy it? Where can I get one?”

“N-no.” Jeannette snatched up a dish towel and dabbed at her forehead and the damp pink back of her neck. “It’s hot in here. If you want, you can get one of those bowls of strawberries out of the fridge. You can put them in dessert dishes, and we’ll pour the cream over them and maybe a little whipped cream on top.”

“I can’t get a necklace like that anywhere?”

“It was a beach thing a couple of years ago,” Jeannette said. “Well, actually, Oscar collects the shells. But I don’t think he’s making any now.” She took the bowl of strawberries from Barbara’s hands. Setting it on the table, she began to line up glass dessert bowls.

“I’d love to have one,” Barbara persisted. “I can ask him, can’t I?”

“Not a good idea,” Jeannette said.

“Why not?”

Jeannette shrugged.

What was the big deal? Barbara looked disappointed. She could string her own seashells if she wanted. But I could tell she felt Jeannette’s rebuff.

“Didn’t Clea have one too?” Barbara bounced back and took the subject up from another angle. “That first night at dinner, I noticed some of the others had them. I thought it was a house thing.”

Jeannette switched off the burner and gave the cream a final stir, frowning in concentration.

“She didn’t have it on when we found her,” I said. I could see her on the beach, her jaw lax and skin already dingy. I’d checked her neck for signs of bruising and seen only a blackish coil of seaweed and a stray tendril of wet, sandy hair. “Maybe it broke and washed away.”

“I don’t think she’d run with it,” Barbara said. She started dealing strawberries into the bowls. “We could search her room again. Maybe it fell behind the dresser or something. And if nobody wants it— I hope this doesn’t sound too awful— but maybe there’s someone who would get her jewelry. Jeannette, you’ve known her for what, three years? Did she talk about her family? Did she have any sisters?”

Jeannette’s lips tightened. She scooped up a ladle full of cream and poured it slowly over a mound of berries.

“Clea didn’t bond with women very well.”

“How do you mean?”

Before Jeannette could respond, Stephanie came in, banged open the refrigerator door, snatched up a can of Diet Coke, popped it open, and answered for her.

“She was sexually competitive.”

Jeannette kept her eyes lowered as she evened out the mounds of berries in cream.

“Don’t exaggerate, Steph.”

“Come off it, Jeannie,” Stephanie said. She tilted her chin up and poured down a slug of Coke. A little soda dribbled down her chin. She wiped it off with the palm of her hand. “As the beach got more crowded, Clea’s bikinis got skimpier and skimpier. She never joined a group of women sitting together, and she only pitched in in the kitchen when at least one of the guys was helping too. And she couldn’t leave a man and woman having a private conversation alone. She’d come strutting up and butt in.”

“She sounds narcissistic,” Barbara said.

“If that means ‘me me me,’ she was,” Stephanie said.

“Was she in therapy?” Barbara asked.

“No,” Jeannette said.

“Don’t drink and go to meetings was as far as it went with Clea,” Stephanie said.

“How long had she been sober?” Barbara asked.

“I don’t know,” Stephanie said. “Jeannie?”

“Five years.”

“No step work to cut the narcissism,” Barbara diagnosed. “‘I’m looking after me today’.”

“She had had a rough time,” Jeannette said.

“The usual, I suppose.”

I’d heard enough alcoholic women share to know she meant sexual abuse. I hoped they wouldn’t get explicit. I didn’t want to hear the R word or see the way women looked at the closest male when they used it.

“She was adopted.” Jeannette shook up a can of whipped cream and started shooting as if the dessert were men.

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” Jeannette said. She set a giant strawberry on top of each dessert.

“You should know,” Stephanie said. “Jeannette works in adoptions. She’s a social worker.”

“Really?” Barbara asked. “I’m thinking about social work school. Do you like it?”

“Most of the time I love it,” Jeannette said. It seemed to me she seized the change of topic with relief. “Most of the adoptive parents are great. Every once in a while a rotten one slips by us.”

“How did you happen to get into it?”

“My second year field placement in social work school was an adoption agency. When I graduated, they offered me a job. Actually, I thought the birth mothers didn’t get much of a break. This was years ago, and some of the workers despised them. It’s gotten better.”

“Sure, open adoption and all that,” Barbara said. “Did Clea know her birth mother?”

“I don’t know.” She picked up two bowls and started across the kitchen. “Can one of you run some water and detergent in the sink?”

“Bruce will do it,” Barbara said. “Was she a sexual compulsive?”

“I don’t know.”

“She wasn’t in recovery, that’s for sure,” Stephanie said. She picked up two bowls and crossed the kitchen in Jeannette’s wake. “She didn’t go to SCA. I heard Stewie invite her to a meeting and she turned him down. And when somebody mentioned SLAA, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, you know? Addiction to romance and intrigue? Well, Clea said romance was not her style, but she was all for intrigue.”

“She sounds like a borderline to me. Histrionic too, the whole cluster.”

“To me it sounds like she was showing off,” I said.

“That’s what I said.” Barbara ran her finger around the cooling top of the double boiler, gave the crème anglaise a farewell lick, and plunged the pot into the sink.

Barbara hitched up the straps of her backpack so the load rode slightly higher on her back and wiggled her hips to center it. She and three other women from the house were bound for a secluded cove at the foot of the cliffs near Montauk. Karen, who knew the way, had announced that the beach there was “clothing optional” and that the men were not invited. Barbara grinned as she remembered the transparent look of relief not only on Jimmy’s face, as expected, but on Bruce’s too. Stephanie had agreed to come once she heard no men would join the party. Jeannette had been coaxed with assurances that most likely they’d have the beach to themselves and that she could wear her bathing suit, even her muumuu, if she wanted. Barbara hoped she’d get to know the three women better, maybe have a chance to ask them more about their relationships with Clea. But even if she didn’t, she looked forward to getting sunlight on her bare skin.

The drive had led them past the high dunes of Hither Hills State Park and the lush landscaping of the resort hotels along Old Montauk Highway, through Montauk Village, and onto a half-hidden road past several parking lots crammed with the SUVs and pickups of surfers. They had left Karen’s car in an unmarked, unpaved lot, shouldered as much day-at-the-beach gear as they could carry, trespassed briefly on a trailer park, and descended several flights of rickety wooden stairs. Now they picked their way over a narrow strand of rocks and tide pools at the foot of the cliffs toward an untenanted stretch of paradise. Karen led the way, her tall form nearly hidden by a bulging pack and a folded lightweight lounge chair.

“What a gorgeous day!” Barbara said. “I’m so glad I came, and we aren’t even there yet.”

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Jeannette panted. “We could have enjoyed the gorgeous day at Dedhampton, and I wouldn’t be about to have a heart attack.”

“Wait up a minute,” Stephanie called. “Jeannette, you lost a towel.”

“Can you pick it up? I don’t bend that far.” Jeannette clanked to a halt. “In fact, mop the back of my neck for me and then tuck it in there somewhere.”

“Let’s take a break,” Karen said. She pulled a plastic water bottle from the utility belt slung around her hips. Raising it to her lips, she swigged, sloshed, and spat the first mouthful before taking a gulp and passing the bottle to Barbara. “Don’t drink too much.”

“Were you a Girl Scout, Karen?” Barbara said. Her own patchy outdoor lore came from long-ago scouting experiences.

“No, just a dedicated hiker. Lewis and I have done about half the Appalachian Trail.”

“So this is just a stroll in the park for you.” Jeannette eyed a large rock. “The question is, if I sit, can I get up again?”

“Better not,” Karen said. “It’ll only make it harder to go on.”

“Now, that I can believe.”

“Oh, wow, look!” Stephanie pointed out to sea. “Dolphins!”

The others picked their way over the rocks to join her at the water’s edge. A pair of sleek gray dolphins flowed past them parallel to the shore in synchronized perfection. Their half-moon dorsal fins cut through the water. As the women watched, they arched and leaped out of the water, landing smoothly to continue on their way.

“That’s what I call jumping for joy,” Barbara said. “C’mon, Jeannette, admit you’re glad you came.”

“Ask me when I’m safely back at the house.”

“Break’s over, ladies,” Karen said. “We need to move before our muscles start to lock up.” She forged ahead and disappeared around a bend in the shaggy, eroded cliff. Her voice floated back.

“You’re almost there. We’ve got it all to ourselves!”

Barbara increased her pace, rounded the bend, and stopped short. The cove nestled in the curve of the towering cliff between two headlands. The far end shimmered in a veil of haze. In the foreground, sea and virgin sand sparkled, every glint, grain, and droplet crisply delineated. Surf crashed intermittently on a broad border of flat, hard-packed beach the color of coffee cream. The lacy edge of the breakers formed a single rim with an unbroken line of high rollers behind it.

Karen dropped her gear on the ocean side of a magnificent weathered driftwood log as long as a telephone pole. Standing on one foot, she stripped to the buff without ceremony.

“I’m going right in! Come on, you must be sweltering. We can set up afterward.” With a shrill whoop, she galloped down the beach and splashed into the water. Her tanned body flashed as she arched and dove through a breaker almost as gracefully as the dolphins.

“Woohoo!” she yelped, waving.

“Is it cold?” Barbara called.

“Exhilarating!”

“I know what that means,” Barbara said as the others drew up beside her. “Icy.”

“Look, I’m standing.” Karen waved her arms above her head, then let them fall to rest on the bright skin of a soaring roller. Her head bobbed up as she sailed over the wave, which broke with a crash against the shore.

“It looks like she’s floating,” Jeannette said.

“No, it’s an illusion,” Barbara said. “She jumped. I love jumping the rollers. For a moment, you defy gravity.”

“That is an incentive,” Jeannette said. “I’ve been fighting a losing battle with gravity my whole life.”

“I’m a lot shorter than Karen,” Stephanie said. “The water comes up to her boobs out where she is. I’d be submerged.”

“If you can’t get out that far, you can jump through the breakers,” Barbara said.

“That’s okay,” Stephanie said. “I can body surf.”

“Why are you standing there with forty pounds of paraphernalia on your backs?” Karen sailed over another wave and fell back into a float, shaking out her long hair like a mermaid and wiggling her toes just above the surface.

“Good question,” Barbara said. She freed herself from the heavy pack with a quick twist of her shoulders. Kicking off her shoes, she hopped on one foot while she stripped off socks and shorts. She pulled a stretchy tank top over her head, laughing at the shock of cool air on her bare breasts. She slung her thumbs into the elastic that held up abbreviated panties and snapped them a couple of times. “Okay, I’m in.” She drew her thumbs downward along her thighs, stepped out of the panties, and tossed them over her shoulder as she ran down the beach. With a triumphant howl, she dove through a breaking wave the color of celery crowned with a froth of foam.