Summer's Child (7 page)

Rory paused before continuing. “So, the upshot was that we did live in a very nice upper-middle-class neighborhood and Zack did attend public schools, but I had to compromise. And that compromise took the form of where we vacationed. I would have loved to have spent all our summers here in Kill Devil Hills, but Glorianne hated the beach and she didn’t like the East Coast altogether. She always wanted to travel during the summer, and said that if I was going to limit Zack in what he could be exposed to during the year, then the least we could do was take him to Europe for the summer.” Rory looked perplexed, as though he was still amazed that his simple, unassuming wife could have changed so much. “So, that’s what we’ve been doing,” he said. “Till now, anyhow.”

“This summer with you should be good for Zack.”

Rory laughed. “He doesn’t seem to think so,” he said. “At
least he’s doing a lot of complaining about it. But I do have hope. I think he’s already making some friends. He’s out on the beach right now.”

“Is that what ended your marriage?” she pried, curious. The article she’d read had claimed irreconcilable differences as the cause, and she’d always wondered. “Your disagreements over where to live and how to raise Zack?”

“And a million other things,” he said. “Actually, Polly turned out to be a big reason for the demise of my marriage,” Rory said.

That surprised her. “Why?” she asked.

“Well, after my parents died, I took Polly in. I moved her from Richmond to California to live with us. I wanted Zack to get to know her,” he said. “I wanted him to understand that people with Down’s syndrome were still lovable and valuable. And I think that really did work. Zack got along well with Polly.” Rory looked up at the darkening sky, as if searching for the words. He returned his gaze to Daria. “But having Polly there put a terrific strain on Glorianne and me,” he said. “We were already shaky enough to begin with, and Glorianne always felt as though Polly was an intruder in her family. And Polly never really adapted to living on the West Coast or to losing our mother. Plus, she had cardiac problems and needed a lot of medical care, and making sure she took her medications and running her to doctors’ appointments just wasn’t Glorianne’s thing.”

“That must have been hard on you,” Daria sympathized, moved by the way Rory talked about his sister. She was struck by the similarities between Rory’s situation with his wife, and her situation with Pete. At least Glorianne had allowed Polly to move in with them. “I know by the way you talk about Polly that you understand how I feel about Shelly,” she said. “You must understand why I want to protect her.”

He nodded. “Of course I do, Daria,” he said. “But Shelly is very different from Polly. Shelly is still able to analyze a situation and make up her own mind as to what she wants.”

He was right, though only to a degree. She sighed. “I haven’t succeeded in getting you to change your mind, have I?” she asked, standing up.

“I’ll think about what you said,” he promised, “although I think the decision is ultimately up to Shelly.” He stood up as well and followed her to the stairs. They were quiet as they walked through the cottage.

“Is there a gym around here?” he asked when they neared the front door.

“There’s a health club,” she said. “A nice one. I go there a few times a week.” She told him where it was located and suggested he check into the summer fees.

They walked onto the porch. “Do you still beach-comb every morning like you did when you were a kid?” Rory asked.

Daria laughed. “I have to be on the job early in the morning these days,” she said. “And those mornings I’m not working, I’d rather sleep in.”

She looked through the screen door at the Sea Shanty. It was Shelly who loved the beach at dawn now. Shelly who sifted through the shells and basked in the sunrise, taking her energy from the sea. Daria could not, would not, let Rory or anyone else harm her sister’s world.

R
ORY SAT ON THE PORCH OF HIS COTTAGE, LISTENING TO THE
breakers swell and collapse in a sleep-inducing rhythm as he watched for Shelly to leave the Sea Shanty. He planned to begin his research by talking with her. He felt almost as if he needed Daria’s permission to do so, especially after his conversation with her the day before, but Shelly was twenty-two years old, for heaven’s sake.

A golden retriever sat next to him on the porch, her massive head resting comfortably on Rory’s knee. Rory buried his fingers in the dog’s thick coat, scratching her neck and behind her ears. He didn’t know where the dog had come from—she had simply appeared after Rory sat down on the porch—but he was glad for her company.

From the porch, he could see the ocean, but not the beach. He knew the beach would be crowded, though, and he knew Zack was part of the crowd. Zack was out there with his new friends. He’d had little to say when Rory questioned him about who he had met and who he was hanging out with. Zack was not about to admit that spending the summer in Kill Devil Hills might not be such a bad idea after all.

Rory thought he saw some movement on the Sea Shanty’s
front porch, but no one emerged from the cottage. Since Daria’s visit, he’d considered her concerns, wondering if he should indeed go forward with his exploration of the past. He knew his motivation was mixed. Shelly had felt strongly enough to write to him about the situation, and given his link to her and his memory of the event, he had a personal desire to pursue the story. There was no doubt that the tale of a beautiful foundling would make a great episode on
True Life Stories
. Plus, the person who left the baby on the beach might finally have to face what she had done. He often wondered about that young woman. Had she just blindly, guiltlessly, gone on with her life? He knew he had a hostile attitude toward her, perhaps too much so. He was not ordinarily a punitive sort of guy, so that feeling surprised him, but the cruelty of her actions seemed unforgivable to him. Especially now that he had met Shelly and knew how close she had come to losing her chance at life. But what if the woman was remorseful and had been able to make a normal, healthy life for herself? What right did he have to disturb that?

Despite Daria’s protestations and his own misgivings, he felt that Shelly had the right to make the final decision. He needed to make sure she understood what she was getting into, though; that’s why he wanted to talk with her today. If Shelly still wanted him to pursue the story, he hoped Daria would eventually come around. He respected Daria and treasured the remnants of the childhood bond they’d shared. He would hate to spend the summer as her enemy.

The dog spotted Shelly first. The golden retriever lifted her head and stared in the direction of the Sea Shanty, and a few seconds later, Shelly appeared in the side yard. She must have come out the rear door of the cottage, and now she was headed for the beach. Rory stepped off the porch, the dog at his heels, and walked quickly toward her. She was cresting the
low dune at the edge of the beach as he neared her. There was an otherworldly quality about her as she stood there among the sea oats, and he stopped to simply stare at her. She wore a white bikini, set off by her tan. The bikini bottom was covered by a gauzy white skirt wrapped around her waist. The breeze blew her long, pale blond hair away from her face. What a perfectly stunning creature she was.
The Foundling
. That’s what he would call the episode on
True Life Stories
.

“Shelly?” he called, taking a step closer.

She turned and smiled at him. “Hey, Rory,” she said. “I see you’ve got one of Linda’s dogs with you.”

Rory looked down at the retriever, now leaning against his leg. “She seems to have adopted me,” he said. He’d met Linda briefly on the beach the day before. She’d introduced herself to him; he would never have recognized her otherwise. She was now an attractive, big-boned woman with short blond hair and round glasses, and he could not get it through his mind that she was the cul-de-sac’s bashful bookworm from twenty-two years ago.

“Can I join you for a walk on the beach, Shelly?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “But Melissa’s not allowed. Go home, Melissa!”

The dog performed an obedient pivot and trotted off down the street.

“Which way do you want to go?” Shelly asked as Rory joined her on the beach.

He pointed south. “You must know that dog well,” he said as they started walking.

“And you must like dogs a lot, because Melissa is Linda’s unfriendliest dog.”

“I didn’t know there were any unfriendly golden retrievers,” Rory said.

“That one is. Though not to me. And not to you, either, I guess.”

They cut through a sea of blankets, beach chairs and umbrellas and began walking along the water’s edge. “I wanted to make sure of something,” he said. “I know that Daria and Chloe worry about me looking into how you came to be on the beach that morning when you were a baby. I need to know that you really want me to do this.”

“Yes, I absolutely do,” Shelly said.

“What if I uncover…if I find out something that would be very painful to you? I might find out, for example, that your real—your biological mother—doesn’t want anything to do with you. She might even wish that you had died that day. How would you feel if I learned something like that?”

Shelly looked down at the ground, where the water rose and fell over her feet with the rhythm of the waves. For a moment, he wondered if she had heard him—or understood him. Then she turned toward him, a small smile on her lips. “Well,” she said, “that would be the truth, and what I really want to know is the truth.”

“Okay,” Rory said, relieved. “But if you change your mind at any point, you just say the word, and I’ll back off, okay?” He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“Okay.”

“Well, then,” Rory said, “tell me what your life has been like.”

“Oh, I’ve had a wonderful life,” Shelly said. “I’ve—” A beach ball suddenly flew across the sand in front of them, and a little boy of about three ran after it, wailing. With a couple of long strides, Shelly grabbed the ball and returned it to the child, patting the top of his head as she sent him back up the beach to his parents. She fell into step once more with Rory.

“Isn’t he adorable?” she asked, turning back to look at the boy. “Isn’t the beach the best place?” She raised her arms out from her sides and tipped her head back to breathe in the salt
air. Then she looked at Rory. “I always want to live on the beach,” she said. “It’s where I was born and it’s where I want to die.”

“Isn’t it kind of nasty here in the winter?” Rory asked.

“Oh, I don’t mind the winter at all,” she said. “The only time I ever mind the weather here is when one of those bad storms is coming and they say we have to evacuate. I hate evacuating.” She shuddered at the thought. “I hate going to the mainland.”

“Why is that?” Rory asked.

“I don’t know why,” Shelly said. “All I know is, I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m away from here. I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I get real jumpy. Nothing’s right until I get back to Kill Devil Hills.”

He wanted to put a fatherly arm around her shoulders and give her a hug. She was indeed fragile, as Daria had said.

“It’s really windy here, though,” Shelly continued. “Especially in the winter, but really all the time. Daria doesn’t like that, because she says she has bad wind hair. I have good wind hair, though. That’s what I mean. It’s like I was designed to live here.”

He wasn’t sure what good and bad wind hair were, but he got her point.

“There’s Jill!” Shelly said.

He followed her gaze to a heavyset woman sitting on a beach chair, reading a book.

“Jill, from the cul-de-sac?” Rory asked, although the woman looked nothing like the Jill Fletcher he’d known as his next-door neighbor.

“Yes. Let’s go say hi to her.” Shelly was walking toward the woman in the beach chair before he had a chance to say a word.

“Hi, Jill,” Shelly said when they were right in front of her.

The woman looked up, shading her eyes with her hand. She smiled. “Hi, girlfriend,” she said, then looked past Shelly at Rory. Her smile broadened. “Rory Taylor,” she said. “I heard you were here for the summer.”

He wouldn’t have recognized her any more than he had Linda. She’d been a couple of years older than him and had hung around with a different crowd, but he’d seen her nearly every day during the summers of his youth. He remembered her as a little on the skinny side, with very straight, dark hair. Her hair was almost entirely silver now, and it was short and thick and very becoming on her. She was no longer skinny, however. She had to be at least forty pounds overweight, and her breasts formed a deep cleavage above the neckline of her one-piece, black bathing suit.

He leaned over to shake her hand. “Hi, Jill,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

Jill laughed. “Just don’t go telling me I haven’t changed a bit,” she said.

“You look great,” he said, and he meant it. Despite the weight, she was an attractive woman. She still had those enormous blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes.

“I’ve already met your son,” she said.

“You have?” He glanced around him at the surrounding bodies, slick with tanning lotion, wondering if Zack was nearby.

“Uh-huh. He’s about fifteen, right? Same age as my son, Jason. They met on the beach a couple of nights ago and have been hanging around together. Although I hear your son already has his eye on one of the Wheelers’ granddaughters.”

He did? Rory was definitely out of touch with Zack.

“Probably Kara,” Shelly said. “She is so cute.”

“Daria said you’re in charge of the bonfire this year,” he said.

“This year and every year,” Jill said. “Those bonfires have always been my fondest memory of the summer.”

“They were great,” he agreed.

Shelly suddenly unwrapped her gauzy skirt and dropped it on the sand. “I’m going to take a quick swim,” she said to Rory. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go on without me!”

“I’ll wait.”

“Isn’t she something?” Jill asked as they watched Shelly run toward the water. She offered him a towel to sit on, and he accepted, lowering himself to the sand. “She’s out here every day, walking along the beach like a breath of fresh air.” She looked at him. “I heard you’re planning to feature her on your show,” she said, and he tried unsuccessfully to read the tone of her voice.

“Well, she’s asked me to do a little digging into how she came to be abandoned on the beach when she was a baby,” he said.

Jill kept her gaze on Shelly, who was swimming straight away from shore with long, easy strokes. “I hope she doesn’t come to regret asking you,” she said. “I’ve watched her grow up, summer after summer, and she is a dear, dear soul. Her mother used to call her a gift from the sea.”

“You can’t blame Shelly for wanting to know the truth,” Rory said. “I just need to be sure she’s ready to hear whatever I might uncover.”

“Right,” Jill said. “I’m never sure exactly how much she understands about any given topic.” Jill changed the subject to his sister, and they were still talking about Polly when Shelly returned to the beach, her hair slick over her shoulders. Jill tried to hand her a towel, but Shelly waved it away. “I’m fine,” she said, lifting her skirt from the sand and tying it around her waist. “The sun will dry me off.” She turned to Rory. “Ready to walk some more?” she asked.

“Sure.” He stood up, his knee a bit stiffer than when he’d sat down.

They said goodbye to Jill and began strolling along the water’s edge again. Shelly stopped to speak to a woman who was hesitantly dipping her toes into the chilly water. “It will feel warm and wonderful once you’re in,” Shelly said.

For the first time, Rory understood, and maybe even shared, some of Daria’s concern for her sister. Shelly was open to everyone, friend and stranger alike, and that could indeed leave her vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

“Did you hurt your leg?” Shelly asked when they started walking again.

“I hurt my knee a long time ago, when I played football,” he said.

“Is it very painful?”

“Not too much,” he said. “It’s a chronic pain, so I’m used to it.”

“What does chronic mean?”

“It means ongoing. Not like banging your toe into a table leg. That’s a bad pain, but it’s over in a few minutes, usually. Chronic means it goes on and on.”

“Yuck,” Shelly said, and he laughed.

Shelly reached down to pick up a shell. She examined it, then dropped it on the beach again. “I have a secret friend,” she said abruptly.

“Who might that be?” he asked.

“I’ll never tell,” she teased. Her gaze was still riveted on the sand in front of her. “Daria’s been pretty sad lately,” she said in another rapid change of topic. The way she flitted from subject to subject with no thought of censoring herself reminded him of Polly.

“She has?” he asked. “Why is that?”

“Because Pete—he was her fiancé—broke off their engagement.”

“Oh.”

“I never liked him very much,” Shelly said. “He was one of those he-man types, you know what I mean?”

Rory laughed. “I think so. You mean, sort of macho?”

“Right. He had tattoos on his arms, one of a sea horse.” She wrinkled her nose. “But Daria loved him, and she was really, really upset when he said he wouldn’t marry her. They’d gone out together for six years. He moved away to Raleigh.”

“Do you know why they broke up?” He felt a little uncomfortable, as though this might be information Daria would not want him to know.

“Daria would never tell me,” she said. “She said it was personal, so I figure it must have something to do with sex.”

Rory laughed again. “There are personal issues that don’t have anything to do with sex,” he said.

Shelly looked at him coyly. “Daria likes you,” she said.

“Well, I like Daria, too.” He hoped Shelly was not implying that there might be a romantic relationship between Daria and himself. “She was a good friend when we were little kids,” he said. “I’d like us to be good friends again.”

“You know what, Rory?” Shelly said. She raised her gaze from the beach to look at him.