Summer's Child (18 page)

“M
Y CALVES ARE KILLING ME
,” K
ARA SAID AS SHE HUFFED UP
Jockey’s Ridge next to Daria.

Kara was a beautiful whiner. She was one of the prettiest girls Daria had ever seen, but she hadn’t stopped complaining since she and Daria had turned onto the beach road from the cul-de-sac. She’d studied her nails in the car and seemed quite shy; if a complaint didn’t come out of her mouth, nothing else did, either, despite Daria’s attempts to get her talking.

Rory and Zack had invited them to watch their hang-gliding lesson, and although Daria figured her invitation came as a result of Grace being unavailable, she accepted it readily. It was a Thursday, which meant she’d had to take off early from work, leaving Andy to finish a project in one of the older homes in Southern Shores, but he had encouraged her to go.

It had been a while since she’d climbed the dunes at Jockey’s Ridge. The last time had been a couple of years ago, when she’d come with Shelly and Chloe to watch the competition in which Sean Macy had prevailed. Strange how when you lived somewhere, you tended to take for granted the area’s most interesting and easily available attractions.

“There they are.” Kara pointed to a group of people surrounding a single hang glider at the crest of the dune.

Daria could pick out Rory and Zack, who stood side by side, their backs to her and Kara. They both shared that unmistakable broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build.

“Let’s get a little closer and sit down,” she said.

They hiked higher, Kara complaining with every step about the hot sand burning her feet. Daria had advised her to wear shoes, but the warning had fallen on deaf ears.

They sat down near the group. Rory spotted them and waved, and Daria thought he was probably a bit nervous. She’d taken a lesson herself, years ago, but once had been enough. For all her athletic strength and usual fearlessness, she preferred to remain earthbound whenever she could.

It was fun, watching the class. Each student took several turns running down the side of the dune, the hang glider heavy on their backs until the air lifted them into a steady glide above the sand. Some students managed longer flights than others, some went fairly high while others stayed close to the ground, and a few never made it off the dune at all, the nose of the glider catching in the sand before they’d even had a chance to take off.

Rory’s first flight was low, but the second took him high above the two instructors, who ran down the dunes beneath him.

“Go, Dad!” Zack yelled, his hands cupped to his mouth. “Whoo-hoo!”

Daria had to smile. For once, Zack didn’t seem to think his father was such a loser. Indeed, Rory’s body was in perfect alignment with the glider, and his flight was as smooth as satin. He was a quick learner.

Kara’s gaze was fastened on Zack, though, not Rory, and she wore a perpetual smile on her lips. She was clearly
enamored of him, and Daria could not blame her. Zack looked just like his father did at fifteen, with his tan, athletic body. He had Rory’s green eyes and sun-streaked hair, covered right now by a helmet. She’d
thought
she was in love with Rory when he was Zack’s age; she
knew
she was in love with him now. She’d seen many people fly hang gliders before, but this was the first time she’d been mesmerized by the pilot rather than the flight.

Okay,
she thought,
so at least you have him for a friend.
She could talk easily to him, and he certainly was open with her, although she wished he would spare her his feelings about Grace. He was the first man she’d ever met who truly understood and respected the commitment she felt to Shelly. He was perhaps misguided and single-minded in his pursuit of Shelly’s background, but at least he was being honest with Daria about it.

More honest than she was being with him.

T
HE DAY WAS PARTICULARLY HOT, THE SUN DAZZLING ON THE
glassy waves of the ocean, and Shelly reveled in the feeling of the cool salt spray against her skin as she walked along the beach. She had a destination; she usually did, although Daria and Chloe and most everyone else thought her walks were aimless and without purpose. They didn’t really know her. They thought she was one person, but she was actually another.

Although she was anxious to get where she was going, the young couple and their baby sitting on a blanket near the water were an irresistible lure. Shelly stopped next to their blanket and got down on her knees in the sand near the baby.

“She’s adorable,” Shelly said, studying the baby’s blond ringlets. “She
is
a girl, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” the young woman said. “Her name is Anna.”

“How old is she?” Shelly asked. The baby was banging a plastic shovel against a pail, and Shelly picked up a small plastic rake to help her in the game.

“Thirteen months,” said the mother. The father said nothing. His gaze shifted from Shelly, out to sea, and back to Shelly again. A lot of men were shy like that when it came to talking about their children.

“Hi, Anna.” Shelly ran her hand gently over the baby’s fine blond curls. “My name’s Shelly.” She glanced up at the green and white umbrella above the blanket, then looked at the mother. “It’s good you have this big umbrella for her, because her skin is very fair,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

Shelly looked at the baby’s perfect little hands and feet. “Did you worry when she was born that she wouldn’t have all her fingers and toes?” she asked. “I know moms worry about that.”

“Yes,” the mother said. “But we were very lucky. She was perfect.”

She touched one of the baby’s toes, and leaned close to the little girl. “This little piggy went to market,” she said. Then she looked at the mother again. “How long did it take you to have her? I know sometimes it can take a really long time.”

“Oh, not that long.” The woman glanced at her husband, who continued to sit in silence.

“Were you scared?”

“Scared?” the mother asked.

“About the pain, I mean,” Shelly explained. “I think I’d be scared.”

“A little,” the woman said.

“Do you nurse her?” Shelly asked.

“I…at first.” The woman glanced at her husband again, as if he might know the answer to these questions.

“How old was she when you stopped nursing her?” Shelly asked.

“I think we’d better get back to the house.” The young man suddenly spoke to his wife.

“Good idea.” There was a look of relief on the wife’s face, and Shelly realized their abrupt departure was to get away from her. She had asked too many questions. Too many
personal
questions. It was a bad habit of hers.

“No, no.” She jumped to her feet. “It’s still a beautiful day. Still early. I think you all should stay here, but
I
should go.” The man and woman stared up at her, not saying a word, no doubt surprised by her sudden exit. “Bye, now.” Shelly waved. “Bye-bye, Anna.” She walked away from them quickly, a bit embarrassed over her behavior. She’d made them nervous. They probably thought she was a crazy child abuser. They had it so wrong. She could never harm a child, especially not a baby as beautiful as Anna.

She felt again that aching inside her, that longing that had been with her for quite a while now. How she wanted a baby of her own! And with any luck, she would have one soon: her period was late.

R
ORY SAT ON HIS FRONT PORCH, WAITING FOR
G
RACE
. T
HEY
were going to an early movie, then out to dinner. He’d suggested he come down to Rodanthe for this outing, but as he might have predicted, she said she would prefer to drive up to Kill Devil Hills. He finally asked her why she never wanted him to come to Rodanthe, and she sounded surprised by the question. “I don’t have anything against you coming down here,” she said. “It’s just that I love to get out. And I know you’d rather not be that far from Zack.”

He’d spent the last couple of hours on the Internet, trying to find information on those two young women who’d disappeared from North Carolina and Virginia twenty-two years ago. He tracked down some old newspaper articles, but they didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

“Hi, Rory!”

He looked next door to see Jill walking toward her car. He waved, and Jill changed direction, heading toward him. She climbed the steps to his porch and sat down.

“I heard you and Zack had a great time on the dunes,” she said, slipping her sunglasses onto her head, where her thick, silver hair held them snugly in place.

“Yeah, we did.” The afternoon had been, for want of a better term, a bonding experience. No doubt about it. Of course, there had been no time for heavy conversation, which had made life easier for Zack. Instead, there had been shared concentration on the task at hand and the pleasure of reliving every moment of the class afterward. “We might even do it again,” he said to Jill.

“My son was on the phone to his dad last night, begging him to take him hang gliding,” Jill said. “See what you started?”

Rory smiled, pleased. He’d finally done something right.

“So when are you going to talk to me about what I think happened the morning Shelly was born?” Jill asked.

“How about now?” he said. “I’m waiting for a friend, but we can talk until she shows up.”

“Well, I don’t know that I can add anything new to what you’ve already heard,” Jill said. “I’ve always felt sure that Shelly was Cindy’s baby. I think the only reason we don’t know that for certain was that the police didn’t have enough evidence to examine her. But I remembered seeing her a couple of days before Shelly was born and she was wearing a loose shirt over her shorts. That wasn’t her style of dress, in case you don’t remember.”

“I remember,” Rory said. “But—” this had been gnawing at him “—Cindy spent a lot of summers down here after Shelly was born. Don’t you think it would have come out somehow? Wouldn’t she have shown some special interest in her?”

“But she did,” Jill said. “She always wanted to baby-sit for Shelly. Of course, she baby-sat for a lot of kids in the neighborhood—I think so she could have boys over, frankly. My brother was one of those boys. Do you remember Brian? He was pretty wild.”

“Your twin, right?” Brian had slept with Cindy?

“Uh-huh. He slept with her the summer before Shelly was born, and he slept with her that summer, too. I never understood how he could do that, since everyone was so sure Cindy was Shelly’s mother. But his hormones were stronger than his common sense, I guess.”

“I had no idea Brian was seeing Cindy,” Rory said, trying to think back. He could barely remember what Brian looked like.

“Well, I don’t think what he was doing with her would be described as ‘seeing her.’ He was…well, screwing her.” Jill shrugged. “That’s about it. You were a few years younger than us, so what was going on probably went right over your head.”

“True,” he said. “I was only fourteen the summer Daria found Shelly.” He saw Grace’s car turn into the cul-de-sac, and Jill followed his gaze.

“Your friend is here,” she said, standing up.

Rory was still thinking about Brian and Cindy. “Excuse the rudeness in this question,” he said, “but if Brian slept with Cindy, is there any chance he was the baby’s father?”

“I don’t think so,” Jill said. “I thought about that myself. But it would have meant that he’d been with Cindy nine months before Shelly was born. That would have been September, which was possible, but unlikely. Besides, Shelly doesn’t look a thing like anyone in our family.”

Grace had pulled her car to the side of the cul-de-sac in front of Poll-Rory. Rory walked with Jill down the front steps to greet her.

“So what is Brian up to these days?” he asked.

Jill laughed. “He’s a juvenile-court judge,” she said. “Is that ironic, or what? He’s got three teenage girls, and he’s the strictest parent I know.”

Grace got out of her car, and Rory introduced the two
women, then he and Grace went back to his porch, where he had the newspaper with the movie listings. They were about to sit down to peruse them, when Grace pointed toward the beach.

“There’s Shelly,” she said.

Rory turned to see Shelly walking through the sea oats a little east of his cottage, coming up from the beach toward the cul-de-sac. He’d seen her set out for the beach many hours ago, just after lunch. Was this a different walk, or had she actually been out on the beach, walking, all afternoon?

Shelly smiled when she saw them. “Hi, Rory,” she said. “Hi, Grace.” She was wearing a pale blue tankini, cut high on her legs, the ever-present sack of shells strung loosely around her waist.

“Did you have a good walk?” Grace asked her.

“It’s always good,” Shelly said. She stopped near them. “I talked to Zack, Rory,” she said. “I think it’s so cool that you took him hang gliding.”

“It was great,” Rory said.

“We’re going to a movie,” Grace said. “Would you like to go with us?”

Rory was surprised by the invitation. He wouldn’t mind having Shelly accompany them, but he never would have thought to invite her himself. This was supposed to be a
date
. At least, it was a date in his mind. Perhaps it was not in Grace’s. The thing that irked him the most, though, was that if it had been Zack standing there, talking to them, Grace almost certainly wouldn’t have invited him.

“Oh, no thanks,” Shelly said. “I’m working on a necklace for Jackie. Only it’s a surprise from Linda, so don’t say anything.”

“Oh, we won’t,” Grace reassured her. He did not think Grace even knew who Jackie was.

Rory looked at his watch. “We’d better get going, Grace,” he said.

They said goodbye to Shelly, quickly scanned the movie listings and got into his car. Grace looked across the street at the Sea Shanty, where Shelly was sitting on the front steps, dusting the sand from her feet before going inside.

“She’s so beautiful,” Grace said. “She could be a model.”

Rory backed the car into the cul-de-sac, then headed toward the beach road. “I’ve thought the same thing about you,” he said, knowing it would be the first truly personal thing he had said to her.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked.

“That you could be a model. The way you…carry yourself. The way you walk. Not to mention that you’re beautiful.”

He thought he detected some color in Grace’s cheeks.

“No one’s told me that in quite a while,” Grace said.

“Well, it’s the truth.” He was glad he had said it. It seemed like something she needed to hear. Maybe she’d been so reticent in this relationship because she was taking her cue from him. Maybe
she
was wondering when he was ever going to make a move.

In the theater, he was keenly aware of her presence in the seat next to him. She seemed to contain herself carefully in her chair, however, so that their arms did not touch, and she allowed him to have the armrest between their seats. Halfway through the movie, he dared to take her hand, and she allowed it. Her fingers were cold, and he tried to warm them with his own. The movie was a comedy, light head-candy, but Grace only laughed a couple of times during the entire hour and a half, and Rory thought their taste in comedy was not quite in sync.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asked when they were back in the car.

“Very much,” Grace said, although she hadn’t seemed to. She smiled, though, and her face was so beautiful in the lights from the parking lot that he wanted to kiss her.
Now
.

He leaned across the console, rested one hand against her cheek and kissed her lightly. She smiled uncertainly, then turned her head before he could kiss her again.

He drew away. “I think we need to talk,” he said.

She looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Rory said. “But I do need to understand why you pull away when I try to get close.”

She looked out the window, drawing in a long breath. “I’m…not ready,” she said. “It’s just that I haven’t been out of my marriage all that long. I’m confused about my feelings these days.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“It’s understandable,” Rory said, although he felt the disappointment down to his toes. “I’d rather you be honest about your feelings than try to pretend that everything’s okay.” He remembered how he’d felt when Glorianne first left him. “Are you hoping to get back together with your husband?” he asked.

“No,” she said firmly. “That’s over.”

“What happened?” He tried to sound sympathetic rather than curious.

She bit her lip. “Can’t talk about it,” she said. Even getting those four words out seemed an effort.

He squeezed her shoulder. “That’s okay,” he said, and he reached for the key in the ignition.

“Where shall we go to eat?” he asked as he pulled into the road. “What do you feel like?”

“I’m really not hungry, Rory,” she said. “I think I just want to go home. I’m sorry to put a damper on your evening.”

He was disappointed by the sudden change of plans, but he had the feeling she needed a good long cry and didn’t want to
do that in front of him. Even Daria had cried in front of him when she told him about the plane crash. Why was it so much easier to talk about difficult topics with a friend than with a potential lover?

“It’s not a problem,” he said.

They were both quiet on the drive to Poll-Rory, and he had a sudden, jarring thought:
a mastectomy
. Maybe her illness had been breast cancer. That would explain the high-necked bathing suits she wore. It would explain her fear of intimacy. He glanced at her as he drove. Her face was turned away from him, toward the window, and he wished there was something he could say to ease whatever fear and pain existed inside her. But it would have to be her decision to confide in him. He could think of nothing he could do to hasten that process.

Daria looked up from her seat on the rocker as Rory pulled into his driveway. She and Chloe were sitting on the Sea Shanty porch, reading, but now Daria’s attention was fixed on the car across the cul-de-sac. Rory got out of the driver’s side of the car, and Grace emerged from the passenger side. There was a physical pain in Daria’s chest—a twisting, wrenching feeling. Rory rested his hand on Grace’s back as they walked toward her car at the curb. Grace got into her car, and Rory leaned close to the open window to talk to her, or to kiss her—Daria couldn’t see. Rory stood up from the car and walked into his cottage. The pain in Daria’s chest sharpened, and she knew her feelings for Rory were out of control.

“I’m worried about you.”

Daria jumped at the sound of Chloe’s voice, unaware that her sister had been watching her.

“Why?” she asked.

Chloe rested her book upside down on her knees. “Because of Rory,” she said. “Because of the way you feel about him.”

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Yes, it is. And it’s crazy, Daria. I understand. You’re still reeling from Pete. You’d been with him for six years and you thought you would have married him by now. Of course you’re vulnerable. But infatuation with Rory Taylor is
not
the answer. It’s got to be taking a toll on you, pining for him every day.”

“I’m not pining,” Daria said.

“You are, too. And it’s pretty obvious he’s interested in Grace. I mean, he cares about you as a friend, same as he did back when you were kids. But his
romantic
interest is in Grace, Daria. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Of course, I see that. That’s what hurts.”

“You don’t really know him, Daria. He’s not your type. Maybe he was your type when he was ten years old and you were seven. But now…he’s Hollywood, Daria. He’s glitzy.”

“Glitzy?” Daria laughed, but the sound was weak. “That’s not a word I’d use to describe him. He’s very down-to-earth.”

“You’re seeing him here, in Kill Devil Hills, so, of course, he seems down-to-earth. But watch the reruns of
True Life Stories
. Tell me then that he’s down-to-earth.”

She
had
watched the summer reruns, just as she’d watched the original shows during the rest of the year, and he was the most down-to-earth the host of a TV show could be. But she could see no point in arguing that with Chloe.

“I really just want a friendship with him,” Daria said, more to convince herself than Chloe.

“Bullshit,” Chloe said in her sometimes-I-just-can’t-sound-like-a-nun voice. “You’re tied up in knots over him. And even if he did give you some hint that he might be interested in you that way, he’s leaving at the end of the summer. He’s a California boy.”

Daria didn’t answer. She didn’t want to fight about this,
because she was afraid she would lose and that Chloe was right. She opened her book again, and Chloe did the same, but Daria’s thoughts were still on the cottage across the cul-de-sac. She had tried not to think about the end of the summer. She couldn’t bear the thought of Poll-Rory being home again to a string of weekend renters, then finally standing cold and vacant, while she and Shelly had the winter cul-de-sac entirely to themselves once more.