Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze (51 page)

For example, my sister, Martha, is now my best friend. She is nine years younger than I, so she is the baby of the family. I have brown hair and hazel eyes, while Martha is a blond with gorgeous blue eyes. She was always adored by everyone, no matter what she did. Once, for example, she ruined my lipsticks. I yelled at her. She cried. My mother always just went gooey over Martha. “Oh, when you cry, your eyes turn turquoise! Nancy how can you be mean to her?” Martha looked like my father, so of course she was the favorite. She didn’t have to do chores. She had a canopy bed. Of course, I’m not saying she was spoiled.… Wait! Am I getting off track?

RHRC:
I love the scene where Marina and Sheila go to Madaket Mall to find treasures. Have you ever found any surprising treasures in an unlikely place like Madaket Mall?

NT:
Oh, yes. At the end of the summer, and this is true, many of the exceptionally wealthy women who vacation here for a month or two weeks have their maids bring their clothes to the dump because they wouldn’t dream of wearing them next summer, which will be a different season. Many of the clothes still have price tags on them.

I haven’t gotten clothing there, but I have friends who have. What I do get, although I hesitate to share this information, is British mysteries and British novels. There’s a book section in the Madaket Mall, and someone comes here in the summer and leaves brand-new British fiction behind. Bless them.

The thing to remember is that this is an island. The ferries and planes bring supplies over, but on this small island, it makes sense to recycle, and people did it here at the Madaket Mall before it became politically correct. Need a new door? New window frame? New dress? A mirror? Some pretty mismatched china for your rented summer cottage? It’s there. It may not fit perfectly, but it’s free.

RHRC:
Why did you choose that specific line from e. e. cummings’s “Maggie and Milly and Molly and May”?

NT:
This book begins with loss of all kinds. Sometimes we do lose ourselves right in the midst of a busy life. I think nature is a miraculous restorative. We can walk by the ocean, or hike up a mountain, or swim in a lake. We can weed our backyard garden. When we’re out in nature, our minds drift away from the little gerbil-wheel revolving endlessly in our mind. We take deep breaths—of new air, fresh air, different air. We watch the sun sparkle on water. Nature gives us back to ourselves, refreshed. It is ourselves we find in the sea.

RHRC:
Do you agree with Danielle’s beliefs that the universe is always speaking to us?

NT:
Yes. But it’s not like a two-way conversation on a cell phone. The universe is not going to solve our problems. I think the universe sends us hints to pay attention, be alive, look around.

Here’s an example: Yesterday my daughter, Sam, phoned in tears. She has three little children, she’s breastfeeding her baby, and she had two blocked milk ducts. She was in terrible pain and developing a fever. Her husband works and couldn’t come home to help. After her call, I was so worried, I went for a walk up and down the wharves, looking at the water, trying to decide what to do. Should I pack, take a ferry, drive three hours, and help her? Should I stay home and work? I was frantic. I kept thinking: two ducts! Two ducts! I turned the corner and there in the water were two ducks. It made me laugh out loud. I realized the problem was not terrible. When I got home, she phoned to say her husband had brought home antibiotics and she felt better. I think the universe sends us hints, clues, puns, and always amazing beauty to remind us where we are. Interpretation is up to us.

RHRC:
Where did you get the idea for the Beachcombers Club?

NT:
Perhaps deep in all our hearts lies a primitive soul who loves the idea of finding “treasure.” Certainly in twenty-seven years, everyone I’ve ever walked with on the beach has suddenly bent down and picked up a rock or a shell, studied it, and tucked it into his/her pocket. If you go into Nantucket houses, you’ll see shells on shelves, under glass, on windowsills, on the sides of the bathtubs. Out of zillions of pebbles and shells on the beach, everyone seems to discover something. “Now here is an interesting rock,” they say. Everyone becomes a beachcomber on Nantucket. The idea of a club came from walking with my children on the beach when they were smaller and I needed to find a way to discard some of our finds. (Although I wasn’t as peculiar a mother as Danielle was.)

RHRC:
What are you working on at the moment?

NT:
Heat Wave
, which comes out in hardcover in summer, is about a young woman, Carley Winsted, who has two daughters and a wonderful life when suddenly she is widowed. In addition, the lives of her two best friends become inextricably tangled, and Carley must choose between them. She discovers she doesn’t, and perhaps can’t, always do the “right” thing. It’s the sort of lesson that’s hard for some of us to learn, especially good-hearted Carley. I hope readers will enjoy Carley’s company as much as I have.

1. Do brothers and sisters fight less and have more easygoing relationships than sisters? Why are the relationships between sisters so complicated?

2. Which of the four women did you most identify with?

3. Given Lily’s desire to visit glamorous places and have fancy things, why is she the only sister who comes back home to Nantucket after college?

4. Was Marina running away from her problems by going to Nantucket, or did she need time by herself to heal?

5. Danielle battles her depression in front of her girls, while Sydney is very strict with Harry and is often away from her family. Are either of them intrinsically bad mothers, or are they trying the best they can with the situations they have?

6. If Emma and Marina did not get caught red-handed, would Emma’s decision to remain discrete regarding her suspicions about the stolen light baskets seem more admirable, or should Emma have just gone straight to Spencer with her concerns?

7. Were Abbie, Emma, and Jim wrong to shelter and spoil Lily after Danielle’s death?

8. If you were in Emma’s shoes, would you encourage Abbie to continue her relationship with Howell, given what you know of Howell and Sydney’s relationship?

9. Should a couple who is not in love with each other stay together for the sake of their child?

10. Jim says that mothers are the centers of their kid’s lives; do you think this is true? Where does that leave fathers, especially single fathers like Jim?

11. As a twenty-two-year-old who has yet to experience the world, is Lily wrong to want as much as she can get?

12. Do you think that being a grandmother figure to Emma’s child will be enough to satisfy Marina’s longing for a baby?

—Edith H. West

Master - Table of Contents

• • • • •

Some days recently, Carley Winsted had experienced moments of actual happiness, when her heart gave her a break. She’d forget Gus’s death and focus on the sight of her daughters or the sparkle of sunlight on the ocean—and lightning-fast, guilt zapped her. How could she be happy even for a moment?

She
had
to be happy, because she needed to be a role model for her daughters. She wanted to show them how to get through the dark times, to relish the good in each and every day.

Today she just needed not to be a coward.

It was the end of December, the end of the year. The end of the worst year in Carley’s life. High on a cliff overlooking the deep blue waters of Nantucket Sound, Carley stood in her bedroom, her heart racing with anxiety.

Thank heavens her girls were with friends this morning. She couldn’t let them see her like this. They had enough to deal with. Their beloved father, Carley’s dear Gus, had died a month ago. His death had been unexpected, unpredictable,
wrong
, caused by an un-diagnosed heart defect that had been lying stealthily in wait for years. Gus had been only thirty-seven. Carley was only thirty-two.

Cisco was twelve.

Margaret was five.

It was unbearable. Yet it had to be borne.

She’d been doing pretty well, she thought, but this morning her
grief was overridden by a gripping panic, which was ridiculous, really.

After all, it wasn’t as if she were a peasant being thrown into the lion’s den. She was only going to her father-in-law’s office to discuss finances with him. Okay, fine, finances had never been her strong suit. She’d gotten married at twenty, she’d never had a real job, Gus had handled the money, she had taken care of the house, the children, food and clothing, their lives. But she was not a financial
idiot
, and Gus knew that. Gus had left this house entirely to her. It had no mortgage. It was completely, legally, hers.

So why had Russell asked her to come to the law office to meet with him? Such a cold, businesslike place—why hadn’t he come to her house to talk with her in the living room as he always had? True, Carley had not always been on the same page as Annabel and Russell. They were different in so many ways, and the truth was, her in-laws were difficult to please. But they shared a mutual love for their son, her husband, Gus, and for his and Carley’s daughters, Cisco and Margaret.