Barefoot Beach (42 page)

We'd worked together. Tess knew my professional hot buttons, like the “making a big difference” appeal. But it occurred to me suddenly that I also knew hers. She couldn't have changed that much since back in the day. That kind of stuff is hardwired. I knew the lineup of her instrument panel—what turned her on, what set her off. The power surged in both directions. Two could play.

She'd given me a week and I responded that she'd hear from me by deadline. It had been more than a month since we'd met at her office, and my internal knee-jerk reaction—and now my calculated one—was
Don't rush me
, my theme song.

But time is a workaholic and it rushes. The following day I was standing with Jack in our driveway next to his car packed for the return trip to Durham. Registration at Duke started tomorrow and he wanted to get settled in.

I tossed his tennis racquet on top of a pile of clothes on the backseat. The car smelled like a bakery. The takeaway box with two pounds of baklava Emine had sent over was sitting on the front seat next to a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies Claire had dropped off yesterday on her way to freshman orientation at the University of Virginia. I hadn't been home, but she'd also left a foil-covered paper plate of them for me, with a note: “Glad we got to meet this summer, Mrs. F. Hope to see you
again next year. Bye for now.” Signed with the inevitable, endearing heart, “Claire.”

“So,” I said, wanting to postpone Jack's leaving, reaching for small talk and, if I got up the courage, big talk. “Plans to see Claire before next summer?”

“Sure. UVA isn't that far from Duke. I Mapquested the drive from Durham to Charlottesville and it's only three hours. She's a freshman. College is a big change. I think I should keep an eye on her.”

“Like a big brother? Or like a boyfriend?”

His mouth curled in an amused smile. “Wow, you really cut to the chase, don't you, Mom? Okay, not like a brother.”

“Ahhh. What about Tiffanie?”

“We'll see. I'm keeping my options open.”

“So I can do the same?” It was a leading question. I was fishing and he snapped at the bait.

“Give me a break. You have
so
shut down your options. And I'm okay with that. Not that you need my permission for who you date.”

“No, but I care what you think.”

“Well, for what it's worth, I think Scott's a good guy. He carries his weight. More than. He was freaking amazing digging Merry out. You've got to give him credit.”

“Right, but not extra credit. He doesn't want that.”

“For the leg. I get it.”

I leaned against him. “I'm going to miss you.”

“Yeah, well, I'll be back. Me and my laundry. In October. Columbus Day is a long weekend. Here, right?” He gave the house a lingering, longing look. It meant as much to him as it meant to me.

“Yes, here.”

Whatever happened, we'd still have the Surf Avenue house in October. Tuckahoe was gorgeous in the fall. Crisp air, crisp leaves, the sea a liquid bronze under a burnished sun. Nearly empty beaches for twilight
walks in lengthening shadows. Dogs were allowed on the beach off-season, so there was always lots of romping and fetching. And Jack could hang out (maybe with Scott—nice thought), eyeballing the hot rods, classics, and muscle cars down the pike at the annual Cruisin' Ocean City show.

“I'm thinking Thanksgiving in San Francisco,” my son said. “You and me and Dirk's clan?”

I sorted through the puzzle pieces. Scott would want to spend the holiday with his kids. Though maybe that was Bunny's time. Or they'd all be together. Dear God, life got tricky past thirty. I looked at Jack's face, his eyebrows raised to expectant. Tricky below thirty too.

“It's possible,” I said. “We'll see what works out.”

“If you're worried about airfare, Dirk said he'd take care of mine. Like a pre-Christmas present.”

“You told him about our financial situation?” The last thing I wanted from Dirk DeHaven was to see Jack as an obligation. Also, the Dude was still a stranger. To me, at least. He didn't need to know the state of our bank account.

“No, Mom, of course not. You haven't mentioned it lately, so I assume we're still in the toilet moneywise.”

I hadn't told Jack about Tess and the job because my decision whether to take her offer had been up in the air from the beginning. Since the downer phone call with Josh, the probability of it was plunging to crash and burn. Jack didn't need to know any of that. I wanted him to make the shift from summer to school as seamlessly as possible.

“Honey, I'm job hunting. I polished my résumé.” My tone was optimistic. “And I've had a few leads.” Not exactly a lie.

His amber eyes darkened with concern. “You know, if we get into real trouble, I can take a year off from school and get a full-time job. That way I could earn money toward the next year's tuition. Kids do it all the time.”

They did. And some grew from the experience. But many never returned to college, and if I allowed that to happen, my husband's ghost,
which seemed to have finally shuffled off its mortal coil, would descend from heaven to perch forever at the end of my bed, its finger wagging eternal outrage.
Rest in peace, Lon.
Jack would leave Duke over
my
dead body.

I'd loved my son “to infinity,” I'd told him when he was a toddler, stretching my arms as wide as they could go. Now, listening to how he was trying to make things better, I loved him beyond that, and those arms drew him into a hug.

After I reluctantly released him, I said, “Honestly, Jack, we'll be fine. I'll land a job. You have my word. Everything will work out.” Which, in the moment, I believed.

“Sure, but, Mom”—he rode over my reassurances, his voice earnest—“please, please don't take something you hate just for the money. I could go to BCCC for a few semesters. Their fees are super-reasonable.”

Baltimore City Community College had a hotshot basketball program, but no lacrosse.

I glanced at my watch. “You'd better go to Duke. I mean
now
, so you'll get into Durham before the rain hits. They're expecting thunderstorms.” Of course, I'd checked the weather online.

“Yeah. I'll text you when I get there.”

“Don't forget.”

He towered over me, my son, my kid, but nobody's child anymore.
He
kissed the top of
my
head. “Take care of yourself, Mamma-mia.”

“You too, Bambino. And drive carefully.” I didn't say live carefully. I didn't think it anymore. Not for him. And, very lately, not for me. “Work hard, but have fun.”

I closed my eyes because I couldn't bear to see him turn away. When I opened them, he was behind the wheel feeding a disc into the CD player. He'd slid all the windows down and the sunroof open and the music of “Brown Eyed Girl” flooded the neighborhood. That was our traditional end-of-summer driving-back song. Lon's and mine, then, with Jack, ours. Now his and, in a week, mine.

I waved until he turned the corner, and then, already feeling the hollow of his absence, I walked down the front path with the rosy-pink Autumn Joy sedum blooming along its margins and into the house. It was too early for wine so I scooped myself a dish—okay, a bowl—of ice cream, Coneheads' butter pecan, and turned on Carly Simon's “We Just Got Here.” When the song was over, the bowl was empty. I wiped away my tears, changed into my bathing suit, and headed for the beach.

I left my flip-flops and towel on Mooncussers Rock and waded into the water. August water, warm and syrupy and healing. I flipped over to float. I'd always been good at that.

On a foggy, moonless night a week later, Margo, Em, and I gathered at the shore, the three of us dazzled like prehistoric women by newly discovered fire. Our bonfire lit a patch of beach behind my house, and its glow bathed wavelets curling against the craggy profiles of ageless rocks. A haze of sea smoke hovered above the water. It was an eerie scene that sent shivers up my spine.

“Curtain going down,” Margo said, as the sky deepened to blue-black with just a scattering of stars. “Talk about a finale.”

I tossed a piece of driftwood on the fire she'd built below the high-tide line with kindling from Home Depot and crumpled newspaper from a stack of
Coast Post
s I'd collected in my garage for the last few weeks.

Although summer would officially hang on for another three weeks, I was leaving for Baltimore the following morning, the Manolises would be gone in the afternoon, and by next week, after Labor Day, the tourist season would be over for Em at the café. For us, this was the end, and I pronounced it softly, sadly, into the smoke. “So long, summer.”

The driftwood echoed the hiss of my sibilants before catching flame and sending a flare to light up our faces. We all looked wistful.

“I feel like you just arrived,” Emine said.

“I feel like we just
sur
vived,” Margo said. We all laughed.

“Look at it positively,” Em said. “You will be back next year.”

I was about to respond when I heard Margo clear her throat, an alert that she had the next line and I'd better not step on it. I lay back in my beach chair.

She said, “I'll certainly be here. In fact, you'll see more of me than you did this summer.” She paused for effect. “Less of Pete.”

Ah, she had a tale to tell. She was just waiting for her cue.

I fed it to her. “Because?”

“Because Pete will be on the road covering the Orioles' away games. And/or back in Baltimore doing color commentary for the home games.”

That sat me up. “Oh my God. He's taken the TV job? Mazel tov!”

Em said, “Good for you. You finally made the decision.”

Margo shook her head no, splayed a hand on her chest, and said dramatically, and grammatically, “Not I.”

“Pete did?” I said. “You actually let him plan his own life?” Which was totally out of character for her.

She edged her chair nearer to the fire. “Come closer, ladies,” she said, her voice going spooky. “It's time for a ghost story.” A foghorn moaned in the distance, as if she'd ordered “creepy” from the sound man.

Em flashed me an unhappy glance and fished her necklace from under her sweater.

“Whoa,” I said. “Maybe this isn't the time or place . . .” Em was rubbing the amulet against the evil eye.

“Nonsense. It's the perfect time and place. This is what you do around a fire at night. It's what we did at Camp Tikvah around the campfire.”

Camp Tikvah was Margo's childhood summer camp, where she'd learned skills her parents believed were more important than weaving lariats and playing tennis. In a peaceful lake nestled in the Catskill Mountains, the counselors taught their charges to swim underwater in case they ever had to cross a river with storm troopers firing bullets from the
shore. At Camp Tikvah, Margo had learned how to build a fire, so if what happened with Hitler ever happened again, she could at least make light and heat in her forest hideout. In spite of her parents' obsession, which never took a vacation, Margo had loved Camp Tikvah.

She was smiling now. “It's okay, Em,” she soothed in a warm voice. “This one has a happy ending. Though I admit, it's a bit odd.” A bit? Margo didn't do things by bits. “Last night my aunt came to me in a dream.”

“Tante Violet?” I asked.

“Who else would I allow into my subconscious? Not my awful aunt Yetta with the tuna-fish breath. Of course, Tante Violet.”

“She's been dead for thirty years.”

“Like the grandmother in
Fiddler on the Roof
,” Em said. She'd seen the Driftwood's production of the musical three years before.

“Yes, dear,” Margo said. “Only Tante Violet didn't wear a
sheitel
, a wig. Her hair was beautifully highlighted and she was dressed in a Versace dress with the gold earrings I should have inherited that my cousin Cindy stole from the bank vault. But that's another story.”

I hoped the firelight allowed Margo to see my eye roll.

“Tante Violet brought me a message from beyond. She told me Pete had learned his lesson, he was older and wiser, and that I needed to trust him because”—here she took a deep breath—“a tavern can't corrupt a good man, and a synagogue can't reform a bad one. It's a Yiddish expression.”

“I don't understand it even in English,” Em said.

“It means a good man is a good man no matter where he is, whatever temptations surround him. So I should trust him. And I should trust myself. And this is a direct quote. ‘You'll survive no matter what, Margala. This you should know in your heart.'”

My girlfriend shot me a look that said, yes, I'd told her the same thing, but without the Versace and the thirty years in the grave it didn't carry as much weight.

“So at breakfast I told Pete to give WJX a call and he starts there in two weeks. He'll be covering the pennant race. And next summer he'll be broadcasting his tush off from God knows where. He's so excited. He really wants this.”

“And you? You're good with it?” I asked. In fact, Margo looked more than good. She looked, in the light of the fire, radiant.

“I'll be too busy to miss him. I have plans of my own. You've heard me mention my secret project.” Em and I, relieved the ghost story was over, nodded fervently. “Secret because I never thought it would come to pass, but now I'm going for it.”

A dog barked somewhere behind us. I saw Margo's brows knit quizzically.

“Talk,” I said, trying to steer her back.

“I'm talking. Last year, I took an option on some property near Teal Duck Creek and next summer that's where I'm going to open a theater camp for kids. I'm thinking six-year-olds to sixteen-year-olds, maybe up to eighteen. We'll do all the regular camp activities, but we'll also have acting and music classes, and lessons in the behind-the-scenes arts. Makeup and props, scenery and costumes. And we'll award scholarships for any child who can't afford the fee. Also, a quarter of the profits will go to charity. Pete gets to pick which.” She stretched an arm to grasp Emine's hand. “One more thing. I'd like Merry to be on the staff. With your permission, of course. And on the condition she doesn't screw up during the school year. She keeps up her grades, she watches her step with the boys, she doesn't torment her brother, she's respectful to you and Adnan, and, most of all, she promises to never run away again. That should keep her in line.”

For a moment, there was silence. Just the crickets chirping applause. Then the dog barked again and Em came back to us. “That is so beautiful and so kind,” she said. “You are such dear friends. Not only to me but to my family. You, Nora, you saved my daughter's life during the storm.”

I waved it away. “Scott and Jack did the major—”

“Oh, please.” Margo's voice dripped sarcasm. “Let's defer to the men, why don't we? Modesty is a virtue, but false modesty is a mortal sin. Check with Sister Loretta. I heard you did more than your share of heavy lifting. Merry told me how you shouldered that bookcase.”

Scott had said as we drove through the tail end of the storm trailing the ambulance carrying Merry, “You never know how you're going to act under fire until you're tested. Well, now you know, Nora. You passed.”

“I did what had to be done,” I said now.

“You always do,” Margo fired back, with not the slightest whiff of sarcasm. That might have been the nicest thing my best friend ever said to me. It took a lot to earn praise from Margo, so when she came through, it really meant something. It meant the world to me.

Em nodded. Then she said, “And you, Margo, with the theater and the camp, taking Merry under your wings. You also are saving my child. You have such a good heart.”

“Along with my big mouth,” Margo cracked, but she was reaching into her pocket for a tissue.

“How can I ever thank you both?”

I suddenly noticed Margo wasn't wearing her usual three layers of mascara. She'd planned to cry along with Em, and cry they did. Me too.

After we mopped up, I said to Margo, “Paulette and Bernie would be proud of you, sweetheart. You're doing a . . . ? What do you call a good deed?”

“A mitzvah,” Em answered. “It's called a mitzvah. Each one changes the entire world. Margo taught me.”

We three had never been closer.

“Just one favor, Em,” Margo said, as she delicately wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Let your mother-in-law know about the camp and Merry's part in it. I would have told the
kaltak
myself before
she left yesterday, but I was afraid if she heard I was in the picture, she'd cancel her flight.” Margo checked her watch. “She should be back in Istanbul by now. Write about it in your next email to her.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Em said. “I can't tell you how much pleasure.”

“Good news needs to be celebrated,” I announced. I'd brought along a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and a few chocolate bars.

“S'mores,” Margo burbled, as excited as a kid. “Just like Camp Tikvah.” She passed out twigs from the pile of kindling. We toasted marshmallows and made sweet sandwiches. We dished about the fall TV schedule and the fashions at the most recent awards show, junk food chatter, marshmallow light.

We were debating
People
magazine's choices of the world's most beautiful when a ruffle of loud woofs detonated in the still air. We looked toward the sound.

“That's a big dog's bark,” Margo said. “And really close. He wouldn't happen to be attached to a certain handsome lieutenant colonel who's been known to frequent your premises?”

Dog's out of the bag,
I thought. Good timing.

“Yes, that's probably Sarge,” I said. “He likes being out on the deck.”

“Sarge stays over?” Margo asked slyly.

“In his crate in the mudroom.”

“Well, at least he's not stretched out at the end of the bed, watching you two . . .” She caught herself. “So you and Scott are into sleepovers now, are you?”

I had to laugh. This time I had enough answers to satisfy my personal Grand Inquisitor, the woman I thought of as Torquemada in Prada. I'd made more life-changing decisions in the last week than I had in the previous eight years. Maybe the vitamin D in the summer sun had strengthened my bones. I felt stronger yet lighter.

“With Jack back at school, Scott and I go with the flow. I've stayed over with him twice. He does make a mean cheese omelet for breakfast. Tonight it's already late.” It was almost ten. “By the time he and I finish . . . uh . . . talking, he'll probably want to stay.”

“Uh, talking. Right.” Margo was blowing the flame on a toasted marshmallow. “So the summer is over, but the . . . you know . . . isn't?”

“The ‘you know'”—and I knew as much as anyone could after less than three months—“continues.”

“Long-distance is difficult,” Em said. “When I lived in Marmaris on the Turquoise Coast and Adnan was in Istanbul, it was so hard to keep the feelings going.”

“It won't be that much of a stretch for us,” I said. Even the crickets had gone quiet, listening. I talked about Scott's new job in Bethesda. His buying a condo there. My upcoming job with National Care and Rehab.

Margo's mouth was plugged with marshmallow or Em could never have raced past her to the finish line. She said, “You took the job with the awful boss? I thought you didn't want to work for her.”

Margo swallowed the marshmallow and broke into poetry. “Gaffigan, Gaffigan, will Nora ever laugh again?” No alcoholic beverages were permitted on the beach, but the bonfire and the s'mores had worked their pixilating magic. She'd been transformed into a twelve-year-old on a sugar high.

I laughed, to prove I could. But also because I was happy, a new feeling for me on the last summer night in Tuckahoe.

“Working for Tess will be a challenge,” I said. “Or maybe not. She could surprise me. But whatever, I'll handle it. Josh Zimmerman thinks I can.” Josh had done his bit, reshaping the schedule so my commute would work before and after I'd relocated. “And even if it sucks, he believes that what doesn't kill you makes you more alive.”

Margo curled her lip dismissively. “Whatever. And Jack. What does he say?”

“I called him right before I phoned in my yes to Tess. He told me to go for it. Absolutely.” I preempted the next question. “Scott too. He'd given me a Bravo Zulu for action during the storm and he's convinced if Tess and I ever put on the gloves, I could take her in the first round.” I flexed a biceps. “What really sold him is the job's location. He and I will be working only five miles apart and living even closer.”