Beachcombers (2 page)

1

Abbie, Lily, and Emma, Sort of

SUBJECT: HELP!
FROM: Lily
DATE: June 5, 2009
TO: Abbie
Oh, Crabapple, I hate it when I can't reach you by phone. Where are you? Why isn't your cell phone on? Would you please please email me right away? We're all in a mess here and we need you to come home.

SUBJECT: But don't panic.
FROM: Lily
DATE: June 5, 2009
TO: Abbie
Disregard that last email. Well, don't disregard it completely, but no one is dead or anything. It's just that Dad's in financial trouble, plus a sexy woman's after him, and Emma lost her job AND Duncan broke off their engagement. Emma came home from Boston and just lies on her bed, crying all day long. She's so thin, I'm kind of scared for her. I'm trying to keep up with the house and everything, but my crazy busy season's started with the magazine. And I guess you'd better not call me, because you're six hours ahead or behind or whatever and I probably can't talk when you can plus I know you hate the expense of a transatlantic call. Just please, please, come home.

SUBJECT: Help
FROM: Abbie
DATE: June 5, 2009
TO: Lily
I'll email Emma today. But honey, isn't it about time Dad had a girlfriend? Mom's been gone for fifteen years. He's probably lonely. And maybe you're overestimating Dad's money problems. I mean, everyone's having trouble this year. Has he told you he's worried about money?

FROM: Abbie
DATE: June 5, 2009
TO: Emma
Hi, Emma, what's going on? Lily tells me you're back home. God, you
must
be desperate. Email me, let me know you're okay, okay?

SUBJECT: The Playhouse
FROM: Lily
DATE: June 5, 2009
TO: Abbie
Dad hasn't
said
he's worried, but he acts worried, and he's rented the Playhouse (to that woman, wait till you see her!), plus he said he might put the boat up for sale. And I know a lot of the people who'd hired him to renovate their houses have canceled. I can see with my own eyes how little work there is for him this summer. I think if you were here, he'd talk about it. I know he thinks I'm still a baby.

SUBJECT: Please
FROM: Abbie
DATE: June 7, 2009
TO: Emma
Just send me one little email, okay? You don't even have to say anything. Just hit reply!

SUBJECT: I'm coming home.
FROM: Abbie
DATE: June 8, 2009
TO: Lily
I've got a reservation on British Air. I'll be home tomorrow. Probably around three, if my connections go smoothly.

2

Marina

S
o here she was, on Nantucket. In a small rented cottage in the middle of an enchanted island. At least she hoped it was enchanted. She was waking to another day without family or love or plans for the future.

Still, she felt just a bit better.

Lying curled in her bed, she forced herself to name just five things for which she was grateful. It was an exercise Christie had advised her to perform first thing in the morning and last thing at night. If nothing else, Christie had told her, it will give you a little bit of structure, one tidy line to start the morning and end the day to make you feel enclosed and on task.

All right then.

Marina was grateful that she'd slept through the night without needing a sleeping pill. She'd been afraid she was becoming addicted to them. Over the past few months, the divorce had plunged her into a state of grief and despair that at night turned into a raging anger and a kind of burning terror--what was her life
about
? Did she mean
nothing
? But here on the island, for the past three weeks, she'd discovered that something in the sea air worked like a charm to make her fall into a deep, relaxing sleep. Christie had been right to tell her to come here to heal.

Two--well, she was grateful she'd found the cottage. It resembled a dollhouse, with wild roses rambling all over the roof and clematis and wisteria blossoming on the trellis on the outside walls. The windows were mullioned like a fairy-tale cottage. The door was bright blue. Inside, one large room served for living, dining, and kitchen areas. A ladder led up to the loft with the bed. Windows on three sides provided views of the birds nesting in an apple tree on her right, a pine tree on her left, and a hawthorn tree straight ahead.

Inside, the decor was--well, there was no decor, actually. The few furnishings had a cast-off and shabby air, but were basically sound and comfortable. No curtains hung from the windows. No paintings graced the walls. No rugs brightened the floors, but she could understand that. It was so easy to track sand into the house, and the floors were wood and felt cool and smooth to the soles of her feet.

She was grateful to be in the heart of the town. That was the third thing, and it had been on her list every morning and every night. The cottage was off an idyllic lane in the illustrious historic district. She could walk to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the post office, the library. Tucked away at the far end of a long garden, it had once been the Playhouse for the family that had grown up in the huge old house at the front. The owner and one of his daughters lived in the house. Their presence made Marina feel not so alone. She liked seeing the lights come on in different rooms of the house. The daughter, Lily, was pretty, but not very friendly. Well, she was only twenty-two. Marina must seem ancient to her.

Jim Fox, on the other hand, was really nice. He'd brought her fresh fish several times already, and often in the evenings when he came home from work, he jumped out of his red pickup truck and sauntered down the lawn to chat with her. Did she need anything? If she did, she had only to ask, he'd be glad to help. Had she enjoyed the bluefish? Would she like some more when he went out fishing again? He was so attentive that Marina sometimes wondered if he were hitting on her. She doubted it. She was sure she wasn't giving off any sexual vibes, since her sexuality was hiding under its shell like a wounded turtle. Although she could still recognize that Jim was an awfully attractive man, tall, muscular, and comfortable enough in his powerful body to be easygoing and kind.

Fourth, she was grateful for Christie's enduring, sustaining friendship and especially for her wisdom this summer.

Odd, how things turned out.

Long ago, when she started seventh grade, Marina had teamed up with two very different best friends. Christie was her
good
friend, pretty, cheerful, popular, and smart. Dara was her
exciting
friend, always ready to try something new and outrageous, more sexy than good-looking. They remained best friends when they all started at the same gigantic university in Columbia, Missouri, but by their sophomore summer, things changed. Christie and Marina decided to go off to Nantucket to work as waitresses. They'd heard that the pay was good, the island was gorgeous, and they could party like crazy on their time off. Dara couldn't believe they were going to be waitstaff--she considered such a job way too far beneath her. She didn't need the money the way Christie and Marina did, and she went off with other college friends to backpack in Europe.

Marina and Christie had so much fun, they returned to the island for the next two summers. During the academic year, they still spent time with each other, but Dara ran with a new, fast crowd, and the trio was never the same after that. After graduation, they went their separate ways. Dara wanted money. Marina wanted to turn her love of color and design into a career. Christie just wanted her high school sweetheart, Bob.

Christie married Bob right after college--Marina was her maid of honor. A few years later, when Marina married Gerry Warren, Christie was Marina's matron of honor, lumbering down the aisle, eight months pregnant. After that, Marina had seen little of Christie. Their lives were so different, and they were so busy. Christie and Bob lived in happy chaos with their hundreds of children--really, only an eventual five--on a lake outside Kansas City.

Marina and Gerry met in college. He was handsome, with thick, straight blond hair and sapphire eyes. He was smart, too, and witty. At first she thought he was just a bit too smug and shallow, but he wanted Marina, he
pursued
Marina, and his varied and creative attempts to charm her were irresistible. Perhaps she didn't love Gerry, but she was helplessly seduced by his desire.

Their ambitions were similar, too, and that drew them together as a natural pair. He was a dynamite salesman; she was artistic and creative. Marina and Gerry started a graphic design/ad agency in the Kansas City area. They invested their own time and some start-up money borrowed from their parents, and they worked day and night. For a few years, work was the very air they breathed. They established themselves, grew a name, became successful, and paid back their parents. They bought a condo and the posh cars they displayed as ads for their success--a Jag for Gerry, a Saab convertible for Marina. But somehow, as the months and years went by, they never found time to relax. They were like a clock, their lives the two hands ticking around the face of the day and night, with never a second to stop.

As their agency grew in size and reputation, their office became a kind of battleground that they had to storm daily. Marina and Gerry worked out five days a week, keeping their bodies lean and sleek. Marina wore tight black suits and four-inch heels and kept her blond hair cut short, chic, and easy to care for. She did less creative work and spent more of her time dealing with clients, executives, lawyers, techies, and accountants. At night she and Gerry often worked late, or took clients out to dinner. She felt glamorous, accomplished, successful. She was having fun, making money, and looking fabulous.

In the meantime, sexpot Dara got married, twice. Marina was Dara's maid of honor the first time. The second time, Dara flew off with her wealthy lover to Pago Pago for their wedding and extended honeymoon. Dara's second husband owned a megabucks Kansas City real estate company. When he signed on with Warren Design & Advertising, his business and his contacts sent Marina and Gerry's company skyrocketing into the economic stratosphere.

Marina was grateful to Dara for this. Their friendship took on a new energy. Marina and Dara attended the same parties, went on shopping sprees together, and gossiped over lunch at posh restaurants. Dara was obsessed with her appearance--she got breast implants when she was thirty, and a face-lift at thirty-two--but Marina understood. After all, she was in the ad business. She appreciated the importance of presentation.

Over the years, Dara lost interest in their domesticated friend, but every few months Marina made time to visit Christie. In the midst of her pack of children, dogs, and cats, Christie was a calm, contented center, moving slowly, in no rush to finish any project and be somewhere else. She was right where she wanted to be. Marina admired the pace, the depth, the comfort of Christie's life. Marina felt like she was always straining, rushing, pushing, to get somewhere else.

And as the years passed and Marina grew older, she discovered that she was beginning to envy Christie, too.

One sultry July afternoon, she confessed a deep and powerful secret to Christie. She told Christie before she told Dara. She told Christie even before she told Gerry. The words felt so odd in her mouth.

"Christie, I want a baby. Actually, I've gotten kind of obsessed with it. I don't want five kids like you have, I couldn't do that. But I do want a child of my own."

"Well, honey," Christie replied, laughing, "that's one thing you can get without wearing those killer tight suits."

Christie gave her the courage to confide in Gerry. He seemed amused, but he liked the idea. So in the middle of the hurricane that was their life, Marina and Gerry tried to make a baby.

But the baby wouldn't come.

They were both shocked. Their history together was one of achievement and success, not failure.

They tried everything. Tests. Charts. Positions. Herbal and hormonal supplements. Nothing worked. They saw several doctors, who all pronounced Marina and Gerry healthy and perfectly capable of reproduction. Yet still nothing happened.

She confided in Dara, and Dara said, "Oh, honey, consider it a blessing. A baby would ruin your figure."

Marina couldn't understand it. She tried to be relaxed about it all, but when she saw another woman with a baby, she burned with envy. She dreamed of babies at night and longed for one every waking hour. As each month passed in failure and sorrow, she began to hate herself.

One afternoon she sat in her slick chrome-and-glass office, staring at her computer screen, thinking over and over again in a relentless circle of pain: Why couldn't she get pregnant, what was wrong with her? She felt something wet on her hand. It wouldn't be tears. She didn't allow herself to cry in the office. She glanced down to discover that she had been stabbing the palm of her hand with the tip of her silver letter opener. She gasped and tossed the letter opener onto the desk. She pressed tissues against her hand, grabbed up her purse, and raced from her office. She didn't even stop to tell her assistant where she was going. She didn't even know where she was going--she just needed to be away from the pain.

Once in her car, she understood exactly where she wanted to be, and she drove out to Christie's house. It was January and a new snow had blanketed the roadsides and rooftops with the pure sparkling white of confectioners' sugar. The sun was out in a high blue sky and the air was sharp and tangy.

Christie had a fire going in the rec room. Her children were all in school. She was knitting a sweater and listening to music--in the middle of the day! Marina couldn't imagine living such a life.

Christie told Marina to kick off her shoes and curl up on the sofa. She brought her hot chocolate and cookies, as if Marina were one of her children. She listened to Marina, and she cried with her--how grateful Marina was for that, to have her friend genuinely share her loss.

"I'm so angry, Christie," Marina cried. "I'm so
hurt.
Why me? What's wrong with me? I know Gerry thinks I'm at fault, even though the doctors say we're both physically fine. But it's turning our marriage inside out. And I'm getting obsessed and bitter and angry; I'm turning into a person I don't like being. I don't know what to do!"

Christie was quiet, knitting a row as she thought. "You could stop trying," she suggested. "You could stop hoping. You could give up. You could adopt."

"Gerry doesn't want to adopt."

"Then let it go." Christie reached over and put her hand on Marina's. "Just let it go. You have so much, Marina. You have work you enjoy, you have a husband you love. You're gorgeous, you're free. You should love your life."

"I want a family. I want your life," Marina insisted. "I want your children."

Christie burst out laughing. "Are you kidding me? I tell you what, you stay here for the weekend with my bunch. Bob and I will go off on a little jaunt together and leave you in charge." She saw the alarm on Marina's face and laughed even harder.

Marina laughed, too. She felt better already, and as she drove back home in the winter twilight, she decided she would tell Gerry that if she wasn't pregnant by her fortieth birthday, she was going to stop trying. They would have to move on. And she told him, and he accepted her decision.

Perhaps Marina had secretly hoped that her ultimatum to herself--to Fate or Destiny or whoever gave women babies--would make her body sit up, take notice, and get to work. Get pregnant.

Then her fortieth birthday arrived.

And everything changed.

Now Marina reminded herself:
No wallowing! Move on!
She sat up in bed, planted her feet on the cool wood floor, and surveyed her funny little loft bedroom.