Destiny Lingers (23 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

I
wake up the next morning and can smell coffee brewing and bacon frying. The sun is bursting through the windows, the sky is clear, and I can hear the playful cries of seagulls as they scurry along the beach, happy to have discovered a windfall from the sea. Interesting things always wash up on the shore after a major storm has churned up the ocean. I can’t wait to get out there and scavenge along with the seagulls, but first—Mother and breakfast.

I walk into the kitchen, and Mother is setting the table.

“What’s all this?” I ask.

“Go wash up. Breakfast is almost ready. I wanted us to start this day fresh.”

Mother has no idea how beautifully my day ended. And I take a certain pride and delight in holding this secret from her. She would fall into the coffee percolator if she knew that Chase McKenzie was actually in this house and that we enjoyed a wonderful reunion right there in my doorway last night. I look in that direction, remembering yesterday, hoping to find any trace of Chase still standing there. I smile a secret smile as I remember how sweetly he looked at me and how surprised and happy we both are to have finally found each other again.

“Well, don’t just stand there with that dumb look on your face. Wake up, girl! Go wash up now. We’ll have breakfast, and then I’m going to hit the road.”

“You’re leaving?” I try not to sound too obviously happy.

She sighs. “Yes, it’s time to go. No need in prolonging your misery, dear.” She raises an eyebrow and a slight smile in my direction. “Plus, the storm has passed, the sun is out, and you seem to be back on your feet. You have plenty to eat here now, so go wash your hands.”

It amazes me how my mother still orders me around, even in what is now my own house. She rarely spent a moment here throughout my childhood, and now she just shows up, starts shopping and cooking and ordering me around as if she lives here. I bite my tongue and count to a million, longing for the moment her Louis Vuitton overnight bag is back in her car, and she’s pulling out of my driveway. I do appreciate that she is at least trying. She has prepared a wonderful breakfast of waffles and strawberries, bacon, and scrambled eggs. She has even decorated the fluffy yellow eggs with pieces of fresh green parsley
. “Presentation is everything, my dear!”
she often reminds me.

“It looks delicious, Mother,” I say as I sit across the table from her with cleaned hands.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it,” she replies over her coffee cup.

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” I say as I dig into Mother’s scrumptious peace offerings.

“So, how long do you think you’ll be here?”

“I dunno,” I reply truthfully. “Until I feel better about my life, I suppose, and in which direction I want to take it. I really don’t know right now.”

“Well, what about your job? Your father and I are very concerned about what the station might think about all of this. I mean, how in the world are you going to bring home an Emmy if you’re down here crying all the time?”

As harsh as her logic may be, I can’t argue with Mother. I have spent a lot of my days here crying from a broken and confused heart. But maybe that will change as time moves on and especially now that there’s an exciting chance to get to know Chase all over again. Suddenly, I can only feel tears of joy, as I am falling into the fantasy that fate is our friend. I desperately want to get to know my new home, my island, and my Adonis even more.

“Mother, there is so much more to life than winning an Emmy,” I try to reason.

“Like what?”

“Well, like being happy. Like taking a second.”

“You’ve taken
w
eeks
.”

“No, Mother, I mean taking a second to take a second look at your life—the decisions that you’ve made. Have you ever wondered if the life you chose was really the life for you? The life you really wanted for yourself? Or were you in some way pushed into believing that that was the life you should live?”

“Oh, Destiny, the questions you ask.”

“Mother, look—Ralph Waldo Emerson says, ‘A life not examined is not a life worth living.’ And I really need to examine my life right now and see if this is really what I want, if I am heading in the right direction.”

“Your father and I told you a long time ago that Garrett would one day lead you to all of this misery and confusion.”

“Well, Mother, if it took Garrett to get me here to Topsail again, then so be it. Maybe it’s not misery you see. Maybe it’s just regrouping, catching myself turning around, taking a second chance, and starting over.”

“Well, Destiny, I wish you luck,” Mother says as she shakes her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about or what you see on this little country island when you have the whole island of
Manhattan
at your fingertips. But you have always been a romantic thinker.”

“And thanks to dear Aunt Joy, I have a place to live and money from the generous trust she left me. I am set for quite a while, Mother. So please, don’t worry.”

“Well, take your time—but not too long. You should put the bulk of that money into a savings account for your retirement, unless, of course, you’re claiming it now.” Mother rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that I haven’t really spent time here since childhood. I want to take this summer to get to know this place again, to get to know the people here.”

Mother stops her piddling around her plate and slowly looks up at me. “What people?” she asks suspiciously.

“The island people.”

“The island people? Oh, Destiny, how do you sound? You have no intentions of getting to know these sandy country bumpkins down here. It’s that
Chase
you’re after, isn’t it?”

“Mother—”

“Ohhh, you’re not fooling me, young lady. In fact”—Mother leans back in her chair and folds her arms—”I heard a man’s voice at the door yesterday afternoon. From all of your giggling, I could tell it was somebody you liked—
a lot
. I was curious, so I looked out of the window. I saw the patrol car.”

I suddenly feel blood rush to my face, leaving me standing here blushing like a teenager caught in the backseat of the car.

“Really!” I say, but it sounds so dumb.

“The police chief,” Mother slowly articulates as if I’m deaf. “He was here yesterday, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he stopped by. He was on official storm duty. He said he was just stopping by to check things out.”

“Hmpf. I bet he’s ‘checking things out,’ all right.” Mother darts me a look. “You be careful, Dee. Leave that man alone. His family is nothing but trouble, and he has no good intentions of letting you be a part of it.”

“But Mother, Chase is not like the rest of his family. He has been nice to me and shown me nothing more than kindness and respect.”

“
Nice
to you?
Respect
?” Mother persists with an incredulous look on her face. “Destiny, he’s the
police chief
. He’s supposed to be nice and respectful to you!”

I stand here, hurt, looking at the woman who refuses to like anybody but herself.

“Okay, Mother,” I say, trying to hold back my exasperation. “Here—let me take your plate. I know you must be in a rush. Want me to help you with your bag?”

“Please.”

Mother has already packed and placed her Louis Vuitton travel bag by the door.

“Tell Daddy I love him,” I say as I help her out to the car.

“I will,” she replies with a light smile as she starts the engine. “Your father loves you very much, you know.”

“I know.” I nod.

“We both worry about you a lot, though, Dee. But we know you’re a big girl now. You can take care of yourself—I hope. You call us if you need anything, you hear? And please, Dee, your father and I want you to leave that police officer alone!”

“Police chief, Mother. Have a safe trip home.” I blow Mother a kiss and wave good-bye. She honks her horn a couple of times, signaling her grand farewell, and slowly pulls out of the driveway, back onto Highway 1, heading home.

Today is such a beautiful and clear day it’s hard to believe there was actually the threat of a dangerous storm here just last night. The gentle breeze smells as pleasant and fresh as just-cleaned laundry. Everything seems happy, from the blades of sea grass dancing on the dunes, to the sandpipers zipping down the beach. And as I check into my emotional self, I find that finally I am happy too.

I can see for miles up and down the beach and way out offshore. The ocean is frisky, but nowhere near the pouty little girl she was last night, sporting her dangerous riptides and angry waves. No, today she is simply a saint.

I walk along the shore, dreaming of days gone by when I’d take my grandmother’s hand, and we’d comb the beach for interesting keepsakes, particularly after storms like the one last night. I instinctively hunt for a sand dollar, once so plentiful along this beach that you had to hopscotch to avoid cracking them under your bare feet. They were large and small, cracked, chipped, and whole, each of them extraordinary and beautiful in its own way.

“Do you know how you can tell these are gifts from God?” my grandmother would ask me as she kneeled on the sand, speaking to me eye-to-eye. “You know how you can tell?”

“Uh-uh. How, Grandma?” I would ask, filled with a child’s wonder.

Then she would gently turn the sand dollar over in her delicate hand and softly brush away the white sand. There, in the middle, appeared a cross. “You see that?” Grandma would smile. “That’s how you tell.” As a curious child, I later discovered that if you break the sand dollar in half, like a cookie, a white dove also appears out of nowhere. Indeed, glorious and curious gifts from God on Topsail Island by the sea. Tranquility. I would give anything to make such a find today. I find a piece of twisted driftwood here, a barnacle-covered conch shell there, clumps of red and green seaweed strewn about, but rarely a sand dollar. Like a child, I search for them anyway.

There is so much of this island that I have yet to see. So much that has changed, while so much remains exactly the same. It is ironic that I left here to grow up and now, here I am again, to grow up in yet another way. So much of my past and now so much of my future is right here—right now.

This might have been God’s plan all along.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

N
o matter how much I feel about Chase, the fact still remains that Missy is the lady in his life. While he is for some reason still unsure about marrying her, she is clearly pushing extremely hard for at least an engagement. I am very sensitive to the damage another woman does when she falls in love with another woman’s man. I don’t want to be that girl who destroys people. But I know Missy is not the right woman for Chase. He knows it too. We want to be together. But we also want to do what’s right. I tell him Missy may get messy either way.

Maybe just the act of my going to Missy’s sister’s prewedding party will serve as a good conduit to help me deal with the harsh reality that the man I love is, once again, forbidden. But Chase is also my friend, so I will put on a proper outfit and a happy face and will force myself to accept Missy’s party invitation and with gratitude—if for no other reason than to see what this Missy is all about. No matter what, I will remain Chase’s friend, so I will attend out of respect to our friendship.

I decide to go into town to find a nice gift for the bride-to-be. I have no idea what Missy’s sister would want, much less need. I travel to the other side of the island to the small shopping strip. I see a nice beach home-furnishing store and decide to go in. The place is full of gift items, most of which are made of seashells or carry a beach theme. There are wind chimes and candleholders, tablecloths, and lamps with decorative shades, salad bowls, vases, and beautiful crystal and porcelain figurines. Any girl would love anything from this shop.

“Hi there,” the chipper voice of a preppy brunette greets me. “Can I help you find anything?”

“Oh, I’m just looking right now,” I reply with a smile.

“Well, all right, but you let me know if I can help you, okay?”

“I sure will. Thank you,” I say, deeply appreciating the woman’s southern charm.

My hungry eyes gobble up just about every beautiful and shiny piece in the store. I remember my own wedding and all the wonderful gifts we received and how much each one meant, so I want to be extra thoughtful, even in the face of doubt. I am trying to decide between a silver-plated photo album, an ornate gold letter opener, or a set of pewter salad forks with seashelled handles, when two chatty white women whisk through the door, deeply lost inside their own world and conversation.

“Lord, I told that girl her father would kill her if she backed out of this thing now. And he’s such a nice fellow too. I don’t know why she’s so smitten over that other one.”

“I don’t know why either, Clara.” The woman’s friend shakes her head. “But you know how impressionable your daughter can be. Looks like the bride wants to trade in a badge for a bank account, if you ask me.”

I really don’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they’re both so loud and shrill that I can’t help but hear them. And the more they blab, the more interesting the story gets.

“I keep telling her that cadet is about to go into service overseas. She needs a man who’s right here and in a good position. And Jesse Mae”—the woman suddenly stops in her tracks and turns to face her friend with a worried scowl over her plump, red face—”you know I would just die if my baby girl left this country and had to live around a bunch of foreigners. That’s my baby, and I would just die, I tell you.”

“Aw, Clara, it’s all gonna work out, honey. Don’t worry yourself to death.”

“Jesse Mae, now you know how Dean wants this police department connection more than he gives a crab’s ass about his own daughter’s happiness. ‘It’s good for the family business,’ he keeps telling her.”

“Ugh,” Jesse Mae shudders. “That Dean …”

“Dean’s got it in his head that having a cop in the family is going to save his ass on a lot of his construction sites, whatever that means.”

What does that mean? What cop are they talking about? Chase mentioned that Missy’s father is a contractor—Missy McKay. McKay Construction—oh
, no.

“So now, Jess, you have to promise me that you will help me convince her to try to marry the
chief
, not the cadet.”

No
way!

“I’ll do my best, Clara,” the other woman promises with a deep sigh. “Well, one thing’s for sure: Missy loves men in uniform.”

This cannot be happe
ning.

“Aw, Jesse Mae. It would just kill that poor man.” Clara shakes her head again.

“Yes, it would.” Her friend shakes hers. “Chase is a very nice fellow.”

“No, I mean my husband, Dean!”

“Uh!” The woman rolls her eyes in disgust. “Yes, of course,
Dean
.”

They cannot be talking about Missy and Chase. My ears must be deceiving me. What am I hearing here? The man I love is being set up to marry a woman who’s more interested in helping her father’s business than being in love with him? I am stuck, stunned, and frozen right here behind a rack of lacy place mats as I listen to this woman, who is apparently Mrs. Clara McKay.

“Well, it is Missy’s decision,” Clara says, as if she is still trying to convince herself that Missy will make the right one.

“Hmpf!” scoffs Jesse Mae. “Sounds to me like it’s
Dean’s
decision.”

“Well, let’s just get that cake cutter and get on out of here.” Clara glances down at her watch. “Man alive, it’s getting late. Sissy’s engagement party starts at four, and I need to get there early to make sure those darkies at the country club got everything right—
for once
. I tell you, they make me so mad I could—”

But before the woman can say another word about “darkies at the country club,” I step out from behind the rack, my dark self slap-dab in the woman’s view. She takes one look at me and almost chokes.

“Excuse me,” I say with a sly smile. I brush past her wide body and make my way up to the counter, where a very red-faced saleslady awaits. She takes my choice of the pewter salad forks with the seashell handles and fusses with the price tag.

She tries to remain chipper. “Did you find everything okay?”

The two old hens, quiet now, shuffle their way to the back of the store.

“Yes, I did, thank you,” I say. “I found even more than I was looking for.”

“Would you like these nice forks wrapped?”

I take a second and think. While my natural instinct is to throw these gift forks across the room, refusing to even attend the racist witch’s daughter’s party, I decide to attend it anyway. Suddenly, forks seem to be an appropriate gift. Plus, my journalistic curiosity is getting the best of me. I want to do a little background research on this devious McKay family and their plans to marry off their daughters, seemingly for more position, power, and protection in the construction industry. Why would they need a police chief in the family? Sounds as if there may be more a lot more to Daddy McKay’s story than just building. As Mother would say, “Best way to know thy enemies? Go to their parties.”

“Yes,” I reply. “Please wrap them. That would be nice.”

“By the way …” The saleslady leans in, cautiously checking the back of the store. “I apologize for that lady. She’s said a lot of crazy things lately. Her daughter’s getting married, and sometimes all that pressure can bring out the worst in people. Please don’t hold it against our store. Please come back and see us again.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I will. Next time I may choose the knives.”

The woman giggles.

My heart goes out to Chase. Now I understand why he looks so sad and confused when he speaks of Missy. He knows in his heart and soul that it would be a disaster to go any further with her. He deserves another chance at love too.

The nice saleslady hands me the exquisitely wrapped salad forks that I would, quite frankly, rather stick into Missy’s mom right now. How dare Missy be in love with another man, while selfishly using the man I love and keeping him away from me? Why?

And who is this other man, the “bank account cadet”? The one who wants to sweep Missy out of the country? I don’t know whether to shame the suitor or kiss him on the mouth for his timely intrusion. Chase said something was missing. It’s called love.

On the way home, the radio DJ is rocking beach music, until he suddenly interrupts the program with a special weather bulletin, warning of a huge hurricane, packing super-high winds and possibly heading our way as it barrels out of the Caribbean. Looking out the car window with the brilliant sun shining in my eyes and the warm summer breeze in my hair, it’s hard to believe that a storm could possibly be coming our way. It’s too beautiful a day. In fact, it’s a perfect day for a party.