Bound for the Outer Banks (19 page)

Chapter 19

Lacey knocked on Ella’s door at two o’clock on Monday. Samoset had left earlier with his brother to set up the grill on the beach and get the ribs and Boston Butts started. It had been several years since Chief had been able to attend one of their Labor Day celebrations and Sam was thrilled to have the company.

Ella had happily agreed to help Lacey decorate for the afternoon’s and evening’s festivities. Ella opened the door wearing the Trina Turk suit underneath a mesh. The tunic, because of the necessity to pack light, doubled as a cover-up and a sexy cami over shirt with her off white skinny jeans. She carried a drawstring bag she’d found at a thrift store. Inside was a coral colored sundress, a pair of lace, boy short panties, a towel, sunscreen, a brush, lip gloss, and mascara. According to Lacey, after a day of volleyball and horseshoes, the evening would culminate in a bonfire, drinks, and enough food to feed an army.

“You ready?” asked Lacey.

“As ready as I’ll ever be to crash a Labor Day party where I don’t know anyone,” Ella answered.

“You know me, and I’m someone,” Lacey said.

“You’re going to be busy and I’m going to be like a 35
th
wheel or something,” Ella sputtered.

“I promise it’s not a pairing off. Trust me,” insisted Lacey.

Ella sighed as she locked the door behind her, “Famous last words.”

On the way to the beach Lacey described some of the people who would be attending the party to Ella. She explained that usually around forty to fifty people attended the event. That number varied with whomever was out of town that weekend, or whomever was between girlfriends or boyfriends, or spouses.

Ella gave Lacey a surprised look.

“Hey sometimes divorce can’t be avoided, like when your husband goes on a mission trip to Vietnam, but you realize he’s just there to pick up his mail order bride on the Church’s dime, or when your wife’s bill for match.com clears the bank account, or when your husband decides to rob a bank,” said Lacey, clearly defending some actual situations with which she was familiar.

Ella approved, “Excellent grounds for divorce in anyone’s opinion.” Immediately she knew that one of the folks Lacey was talking about was Mary Lynn from Sassy Sweets. She hoped Mary Lynn would attend the party this year. Ella selfishly hoped that she would bring a carrot cake or some other yummy dessert, but it would also be nice to see a familiar face.

“Tanqueray and Desiree will be there today. They’re my two Hottie’s employees. Desiree and her husband Steve should be there and Tanqueray has a new flavor of the month named Dylan.

“Tanqueray and Desiree?” Ella remarked.

“They’re twin sisters. I know. They both could strangle their mother, but they’re both smart and technically inclined. I met Desiree when she came to the house to hook up my cable TV. She was very professional and charismatic so I asked her if they paid well. Desiree rolled her eyes and told me her salary. I told her if she went to school to learn to repair air conditioners that I’d give her a seven dollar an hour raise. She did it and started working for me a year later. Her sister, Tanqueray, had come to a few of our parties and I really liked her too. She was working as a cashier at the Tom Thumb on Ananias Dare Street. Desiree was really worried about her sister’s financial future. She told me that Tanqueray was really smart. One day Desiree and I were going to a big industrial job together and we stopped by Tanqueray’s trailer so Desiree could borrow a heavier jacket. That’s one thing you’ll find out living on The Banks, Belle. The temperature can drop twenty degrees in a heartbeat with the wind gusts. Anyway, we stopped by Tanqueray’s since it was on the way. When Desiree and I walked in we smelled the most horrendous smell you could ever imagine. Desiree asked about the smell. Tanqueray said it had started three or four days earlier and she just couldn’t take it anymore. She wasn’t exactly sure where it was coming from but she intended to find out. That girl whipped out the biggest butcher knife I’ve ever seen and slid on her back under that single wide. She told us she saw a sag in the insulation. Apparently a possum had crawled up in the insulation under where the refrigerator motor was to keep warm. Tanqueray made her way over to the sagging insulation and cut a gash in it. Out fell a half decomposed possum and let me tell you it stunk to high heaven. Desiree and I were holding our jacket sleeves across our faces the smell was so unbearable. Tanqueray crawled out from under the trailer holding that big knife with a seriously satisfied look on her face. I not only offered her a job on the spot, I offered to pay her tuition.”

“Did she ever get rid of the smell?” asked Ella.

“Oh yeah, she sprinkled lime on the dead possum and the smell disappeared.” Lacey explained, “Lime is good for all kinds of stuff. It turns your hydrangeas pink, it’s used in hair removers, it keeps snakes away, and of course kills the smell of rotting carcasses -or corpses for that matter.”

Ella stared at Lacey, impressed with her bank of random knowledge. “Good to know,” Ella concluded. She wondered if Dante’s associates carried around bags of lime powder in their trunks. She wondered if her dead body would resemble an egged and floured trout one day courtesy of The Sacred Crown.

Lacey pulled past the sign at the turn that said Off Road Vehicles Only. She stopped and placed the Jeep in four wheel drive then proceeded to back down the sloped ramp. To Ella it looked as if they were backing off a cliff. She clutched the grab bar above the glove compartment and hung on clenching her eyes together. As the front of the Jeep whipped backward over the dune, Ella felt her stomach sink inside her. When she finally opened her eyes the Jeep had come to a stop parallel to Samoset’s truck which also had its tailgate facing the water.

Ella grabbed her bag from the floorboard, but before she could open the door Samoset Montauk had opened it for her. He extended his hand to help her out of the vehicle and on to the unstable, shifting sand. “You must be Belle. It’s nice to meet the cultured fashionista my wife’s been talking about. We don’t get many fashion journalists out here, maybe because we don’t really dress up for much. It’s pretty much just shorts and flip flops year round so don’t judge us too harshly.”

Ella laughed extending her hand to Sam’s. “Well it’s your lucky day because I left my writing utensils at home. To be honest, I could get used to wearing flip flops year round. It’s nice to meet you Sam.”

Ella and Sam rounded the back of the Jeep to find Lacey standing beside a man who looked a lot like Sam but who was about two inches taller, and whose coarse black hair touched his shoulders. He had on a black T-shirt with a white silhouette of a soldier carrying a wounded comrade in a fireman’s carry, the logo for the Wounded Warrior Project.

“Belle, this is Sam’s brother Chief,” said Lacey. “Chief, this is Belle Butler, Manteo’s newest resident.”

Chief reached out to shake Ella’s hand. She paused taking in his exotic good looks, and then firmly shook his hand like BeBe had taught her. “Don’t be a limp fish when you shake anyone’s hand,” she’d say. “Let them immediately know you’re a strong woman.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Ella. Damn nice, she thought.

“Likewise, Belle,” Chief replied. Ella waited for the obligatory comment about her name, but Chief just smiled.

Chief made his way back over to the pit he was digging in the sand for the clambake. Lacey and Ella began unloading the back of the Jeep. Lacey had brought Frisbees, horseshoes, a ladder ball game, and a volleyball and net. In addition, the Jeep was packed with coolers full of beverages. In the bed of Samoset’s truck were the beach chairs, umbrellas, decorative fringed wind sails, pillows, blankets, and three large, white-washed, square coffee tables.

Lacey grabbed a drill with an extra-long bit from the tool box on Sam’s truck. She tossed a tape measure to Ella. You measure. I’ll drill the holes. After Lacey explained the task to Ella, they began creating a semi-circle perimeter to designate the party area. Chief continued to dig the clam pit and line it with stones. Sam was manning the grill, squirting the flames with water from a bottle if there was a flare up.

Lacey and Ella exchanged few words while measuring and drilling the holes. Once finished, they returned to the truck and each grabbed an armful of wind sails. The fringed, blue ombre flags were attached to PVC poles and were extremely light weight. They worked assembly line fashion, first placing the rods in the pre-drilled holes and then returning to fill and tamp each hole with sand to secure the wind sails.

Ella looked at the long strands on the edge of the sails undulating in the breeze. The colors slowly graduated from light aqua to electric blue. When Ella was in college, the students were asked to pick two colors each student thought looked hideous together. Ella’s first thought was pink and red but she assumed everyone would pick those colors. She chose aqua and true blue thinking the hues clashed almost as much as her first choice. The professor then instructed the class to paint a picture incorporating the two colors chosen. Ella ended up painting a finely detailed butterfly in the two colors. It turned out the two colors together looked beautiful. As far as she knew the painting was still hanging in the Biloxi bungalow.

After the wind sails were positioned, Lacey and Ella measured and drilled holes for the six beach umbrellas. Afterwards Lacey informed Sam that he was on. Sam yelled to Chief and they both began removing the oversized beach umbrellas from the truck. They were the size of the jumbo resort umbrellas around the pool at The Hard Rock Hotel. Patterned in a sky blue hypnotic swirl with a crisp white background, the umbrellas closed the party perimeter beautifully. When Sam and Chief returned to the truck to fetch the first stack of beach chairs, both peeled off their T-shirts because of the exertion mixed with the summer heat.

Lacey saw Ella staring at Chief’s eight pack abs. Sam was also lean and mean but Chief’s body was sculpted just like Michelangelo’s Vitruvian Man, proportionally perfect.

“I know,” Lacey giggled. “He’s hot. He still does his Daily Seven and he runs every morning.”

Ella gave Lacey a vacant look, “Daily Seven?”

“It’s some kind of military workout,” Lacey explained.

Ella couldn’t resist asking a few questions about Sam’s hunky brother, “Is he home on leave?”

“I guess you could say that, but not from the military, from the FBI,” Lacey stated.

Ella felt her face flush. She stared at Lacey wondering if she knew who she really was and if she knew that Belle Butler, the fashion writer and newest resident of The Outer Banks was a complete farce. Ella stood stock still and waited for Lacey to call her out.

Lacey looked down at the sand. “I’m not sure if he’d want me to tell you this but his best friend was shot and killed during a surveillance thing. He was the closest friend Chief had besides Sam. The FBI sent him home for a while. We all know he was pissed about it, but between Iraq, Afghanistan, and now this, we all think it’s good for him.”

Ella continued to stare at Lacey, her mind darting in a hundred directions, but she managed to say, “That’s awful. I’m sure coming home to you guys is the best medicine right now.” Ella’s gaze went past Lacey and onto Chief who was raking his shiny, coarse hair back with his fingers. He lifted the remaining umbrellas and proceeded to the next pre-drilled hole. Sam followed behind him and packed the sand tightly around the teak pole of the umbrella. Then Sam would lift the umbrella to its full span, creating several square feet of shade. This time when kicking the loose sand down around the tent pole, he playfully kicked the sand toward Chief and it rained down on him. Chief then kicked a larger drift of sand on Sam. This continued until finally Chief grabbed his brother and dragged him toward the waves. Each brother was trying to get the upper hand until finally Chief used some snazzy move to immobilize Sam and push him into the water. Chief dove in to the next wave and swam with Sam for a while.