Summer's Child (9 page)

“S
O
,” A
NDY SAID,
“
IF YOU TAKE CARE OF THE WALL UNIT
, I’
LL
make the pantry they wanted for the kitchen. Deal?”

Daria barely heard him. She and Andy were sitting on the Sea Shanty porch, going over the designs for a house in Corolla, but her eyes were fixed on Rory. He and a woman had walked from the beach into his cottage. They’d been in there ten minutes or so, and now he was walking her to her car. He’d been bare-chested from the beach to Poll-Rory; now he wore a broadly striped white and blue short-sleeved shirt. The woman was tall and slim and had the gait of a model. Her dark bathing suit was cut high on her shoulders; her long legs probably bore no trace of cellulite.
Damn
.

“Earth to Daria,” Andy said. He stood up and slipped the drawings into his portfolio.

Daria smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Yes, I’ll do the pantry.”

“No, you’ll do the wall unit,” he said. “I knew you weren’t listening to me.”

“Was too,” she lied. “I was just teasing you.”

Rory touched the woman’s arm, and Daria felt a strangely familiar sense of loss, the same loss she’d felt when she was
eleven and he started hanging around with the older kids. She was losing him again, and she’d never even had him to begin with. She’d be the first to admit this obsession of hers was nuts.

“Do you teach your EMT class tonight?” Andy asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Wish I was in it.”

She smiled at him again. “I wish you were, too,” she said.

“See you tomorrow?” He pushed open the screen door.

“Okay.”

Rory was walking back toward his cottage now, but when he spotted Daria sitting on the screened porch, he waved and turned in her direction.

“Good luck,” Andy said to her with a grin as he closed the door behind him.

God, everybody knew she was in heat.

Rory and Andy exchanged a greeting as they passed each other in the Sea Shanty’s front yard, then Rory opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. He stopped short and smiled.

“I walked in here just like when I was a kid, without knocking first,” he said. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” Daria said, motioning toward one of the rockers. “Have a seat.” She knew he had taken a walk on the beach with Shelly a few days earlier, and she wanted to be irritated with him for it. She
should
be; he had intentionally discounted her concerns. But how could she be angry with him when he’d sent Shelly home in such excited good spirits? Shelly had talked of nothing else that night other than Rory this and Rory that and how she felt certain he could find her mother. This yearning for her birth mother was brand-new…at least to Daria. If Shelly had been feeling it, she’d kept it to herself all these years. Daria had talked with her sister about the possibility that Rory might fail to uncover anything new—a very real possiblity, since Daria was going to do her
best to make sure that was the case. Shelly had merely shrugged. “What will be, will be,” she’d said. It was an expression she’d picked up from Chloe, and Daria wondered if Shelly truly understood its meaning.

“So,” Rory asked as he sat down in the rocker, “was that someone you’re seeing?”

Daria was not certain what he meant at first. Then she understood and laughed. “No, that’s Andy. He’s a bit too young for me.” She wasn’t certain exactly how old Andy was, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or-seven. “He’s a carpenter. We work together.”

“Ah,” Rory said.

His question had given her the invitation to be equally as inquisitive. “And how about the woman you just walked to her car? Is she someone you’re seeing?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I met her on the beach. We talked for a while, and I think we hit it off. She’s recently separated from her husband and seems pretty distressed about it.” He looked in the direction the woman’s car had taken, his interest in her so apparent that Daria felt intrusive for witnessing it. “Do you think I’d be making a mistake going out with someone who’s newly separated?” he asked.

Yes
, she thought.
Big mistake, when you have me, ready and willing, living right across the street from you
.

“Depends,” she said. “Does she have a lot of emotional baggage?”

“Don’t we all?” Rory asked with a smile.

“Speak for yourself,” she said, although she knew she had a truckload all her own.

“I think she probably does,” Rory admitted with a sigh. “She seems…wounded. Like she needs to be taken care of.”

“You always were the caretaker type,” she said, annoyed at the glib tone her voice was taking.

Rory groaned. “I wish you hadn’t said that. That’s exactly what the marriage counselor told me. He said that when I met Glorianne, she seemed helpless and needy and that I felt sorry for her and wanted to rescue her. Then when Glorianne got strong, I no longer felt needed. I don’t really buy that interpretation, though. I think as she got stronger, her strength and mine clashed because our values were so different. I don’t think I’m really a caretaker.”

Daria grinned at him. “Remember that kid everyone used to pick on because he never caught any fish?” she asked.

Rory groaned again.

“You stuck a bunch of your own fish in his pail,” she said. She had thought it was a typical Rory Taylor kindness at the time. Now she realized he was a pathological rescuer. A strong woman didn’t stand a chance with him, and that suddenly irritated the hell out of her.

“So?” He looked defensive. “Was that a crime?”

“And Polly. You were always rescuing Polly.”

“And you’re always rescuing Shelly.”

“Okay,” she said. “The rescuing of sisters is hereby excluded from this discussion. Back to the woman.”

“Grace,” he said.

“Grace.” She nodded. “If you go into it with your eyes open, I suppose it would be okay to go out with her. Just realize she’s probably not too rational at the moment.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” Rory asked.

“What are you implying?”

“I don’t want to bring up a sore subject,” he said, “but Shelly told me your fiancé broke up with you a couple of months ago.”

“We are discussing
you
right now, Rory, not me.” She laughed as if she was teasing him, but the fact was, she was in no mood to discuss Pete and her failed attempt at love. Rory saw through her, though.

“I have a feeling I hit a nerve,” he said, sober now, his intense green gaze on her face, and she felt herself seduced by his sympathy. The spell of the caretaker.

“Let’s talk about Grace,” she said, although Grace was the last thing she wanted to discuss. Still, Grace seemed to be Rory’s new favorite subject, and so they talked about her until Daria had to leave for her class. And as she drove away from the Sea Shanty, she knew she had drifted into a role she did not want: that of Rory’s summertime confidante.

S
HELLY BENT OVER THE LINE OF SHELLS IN THE SAND AND
picked up a piece of turquoise glass, washed smooth by the sea. She examined it, then slipped it into the fabric bag tied around her waist. Smooth glass was a find, and once she polished it, it would make a beautiful necklace or ring. She’d seen man-made tumbled glass, but it always had an unnatural look to her. The sea did a much better job.

It was very early in the morning, the sun peeking out from a purple cloud above the horizon, and she had this stretch of beach to herself. A few people and a couple of dogs were in the distance both north and south of her, but this area near the cul-de-sac was her own.
Thank you, God, for this beautiful morning
. There was never a morning on the beach that she didn’t feel close to God. How could she not? His creations were all around her.

Bending over the shells once again, she heard a voice behind her.

“Watch out, Shelly!”

Shelly turned to see a golden retriever racing toward her. The dog leaped at her joyously, nearly knocking her to the ground, and she laughed. She caught her balance and looked
up to see two more dogs bounding toward her, followed by their owner, Linda.

“Sorry,” Linda said as she walked closer to Shelly. “They saw you and just started running.”

“That’s ’cause they know I love them.” Shelly dropped to her knees to cuddle all three of the dogs.

“Are you finding some good shells this morning?” Linda asked. She was barefoot and moved closer to the water so that it rushed over her feet after each break in the waves.

“Lots of colored glass today,” Shelly said. Standing up, she reached into the bag at her waist and pulled out the turquoise glass to show her.

“Pretty color,” Linda said. She threw the red plastic bumper she was always carrying into the water, and two of the dogs chased after it. The remaining dog, the one whose name Shelly couldn’t remember, jumped up on Linda, his paws nearly to her shoulders, and she stroked its back. “You know,” she said, “Jackie’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I would love to commission you to make one of your sea-glass necklaces for her.”

“What does commission mean?” The word was familiar to her. It had something to do with the way she sold her jewelry in the shops, but she didn’t know what Linda meant, using it the way she did.

The dog jumped off Linda and ran into the ocean, where the other dogs were fighting over the bumper. “I mean, I’d love you to make a necklace that I could buy specifically for Jackie,” Linda said.

“Oh, sure, that would be easy,” Shelly said. “Come over to the Sea Shanty and pick out a piece of glass and the style of necklace you would like, and I’ll make it.”

“Great,” Linda said. Melissa dropped the bumper at her feet, and she picked it up and threw it into the waves again. “Isn’t
it amazing that Rory Taylor’s on the cul-de-sac for the summer?” Linda asked.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Shelly said. “Melissa hangs out with him sometimes.”

Linda looked at her dogs, who were jumping over the breaking waves to get to the bumper. “So that’s where she’s been,” she said.

“Daria and Chloe knew him when he was a kid,” Shelly said.

“Yes, so did I. Although I don’t think he remembers me. I was pretty shy and quiet back then.”

“Oh, yeah, I think he remembers you,” Shelly said. “Daria and Chloe were telling him who still lived around here, and he knew who you were. I don’t think he knew you were a lesbian, though.”

Linda laughed. “Even
I
didn’t know it back then. I just knew I was different.”

“Like I know I’m different,” Shelly said. She hoped Linda didn’t think she meant that she was a lesbian. She knew for a fact that she was not. It was hard for her to understand how a woman could want to be the lover of another woman, but she liked Linda and Jackie, and if that’s what they wanted to do, that was okay with her.

“You are
wonderfully
different, Shelly,” Linda said. She called to one of her dogs, who was sniffing at the overturned shell of a horseshoe crab, and the dog trotted obediently to her side for a biscuit she had hidden in her shirt pocket.

Shelly wanted to tell Linda that Daria was madly in love with Rory, but knew her sister would not appreciate her blabbing that fact around the neighborhood. It was so wonderful, though, to see some life in Daria’s eyes again…even if Rory had not yet gotten the message that she was beautiful and available. Shelly hoped he would figure it out soon, or else she would have to bop him over the head with it. Daria had seemed almost
dead since Pete broke off their engagement and she’d stopped being an EMT, and Shelly longed to see joy in her sister’s face. She would do anything for Daria, no matter what the cost.

“Do you know what Rory is here for?” Shelly asked.

“What?”

“He’s going to try to find out who my real mother is.”

Linda took a step away from Shelly, her eyes wide behind her round glasses. “And how, pray tell, does he expect to do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but that’s what he plans to do. He wants to tell my story on
True Life Stories
. You know, about Daria finding me on the beach and all.”

Linda was quiet for a moment, doling out treats to her dogs, but not really paying much attention to them. Her lips were pursed in thought. “Do you want to know, Shelly?” she asked finally. “I always thought of you as just a member of the Cato family.”

“Yes, I want to know.” Shelly felt her eyes burn. Why did this surprise everyone? “It was my idea. I wrote to him and asked him to help me. Wouldn’t you want to know who your real mother was?”

“Yes, I guess. But what if your…real mother turns out to be a person you despise?”

“I don’t despise anyone,” Shelly said. Except maybe Ellen, she thought, and felt guilty for even thinking it.

One of the goldens relieved himself near the horseshoe-crab shell, and Linda bent over to scoop the mess up in a plastic bag.

“Well,” Linda said as she knotted the bag and set it near her feet on the sand, “what if she turns out to be someone you feel no respect for and don’t want to spend time with or have anything to do with? How would you feel then? I mean, maybe it’s best to leave things the way they are.”

“You sound just like Daria and Chloe.” Shelly was exasperated. “The only one who wants me to find out who my mother is is Rory. I’m so glad he’s here.”

“I think Daria and Chloe…and I…are just trying to protect you from being hurt.”

“Well, I’m already hurt. Somebody dumped me on the beach when I was a baby, and my brain never got as good as it should have. So, now I’d like to meet the woman who did that. I’d like to understand why she did that to me.”

“Could you ever forgive her for doing that?”

“I can forgive anyone for doing anything,” Shelly said with certainty. Father Sean always said that forgiveness was the most important quality a person could possess.

Linda shook her head, a smile on her lips. “I wish I could be a little more like you, Shelly,” she said. She whistled for her dogs, and they ran up to her. She gave them treats, then picked up the full bag. “I’ll stop over in the next couple of days to pick out a piece of glass for the necklace, okay?” she asked.

“Okay. Is it a surprise? Should I be careful what I say around Jackie?”

“Please do,” Linda said. “And…tell Rory not to make you agree to anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Shelly rolled her eyes. “Right, Linda.”

She watched as Linda and the dogs walked up the beach toward the cul-de-sac, then she continued her own slow and purposeful journey. It was hard to concentrate on the shells, though, after her conversation with Linda. She wished everyone would lighten up about her trying to find her real mother. Maybe it came as a surprise to them that she even cared. She’d always known that expressing interest in the identity of her birth mother was somehow forbidden, as if that meant she hadn’t appreciated all the Catos had done for her. But suddenly Rory was giving her the freedom to say that she
did indeed care. He was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time. If only he would be the best thing that happened to Daria, as well.