On Folly Beach (29 page)

He didn’t answer right away. “I spend a lot of time outdoors, especially at night during the summers. There’s a lot you can learn about the world and life in general just by being outside. A lot more than you can with your nose stuck in a book.”

“My nose isn’t always stuck in a book. I do other things.” She paused, her mind scrambling, knowing that going through a room of books looking for hidden messages wasn’t what he was looking for. “Like running Folly’s Finds. We’re starting a children’s reading corner, you know. And I . . .” She thought for a moment. “I walk. Sometimes I’ll walk around downtown Folly during my lunch break. But not for too long because then I’ll get too sweaty to go back to work.”

He stared at her without speaking for a long moment. “That’s pathetic. You’re so near to the beach, you should start running every morning. It clears the mind, and it’s good for your heart. You’d get to find sea glass and cockleshells before the crowds show up.”

“What’s sea glass?”

“Come running with me and I’ll show you. You can work on your tan while you’re at it.”

She turned away from him, frowning. “I like my skin a healthy white, thank you. I’ll let you know about the running—but don’t hold your breath.”

“You do that.”

They settled back into their chairs as the night glowed all around them, the background music of the ocean lulling her into an almost doze. She turned her head to face him, her curiosity erasing all filters once again. “How long have you been cancer-free?”

“Nine months, two weeks, and five days. So far so good.”

His face was turned toward her but she couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows. “Do you ever worry about it coming back?”

He didn’t hesitate before answering. “No. I think worrying is a lot like chewing gum. Eventually it runs out of taste, and you’ve got to spit it out.”

She laughed, then covered her mouth, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I just . . . Well, I can’t believe you’d compare chewing gum to cancer.”

“No, I was comparing worrying and chewing gum. I figure if I take care of myself and get my checkups like my doctors say, then I’m doing all I can to stay well. There’s nothing else I can do, and worrying won’t help. I figure each day I have is sort of like a bonus, so I might as well enjoy each one.”

The silence between them lay heavy, full of light and sand and water, threaded with loss, longing and regret. She’d once greeted each day with hope. But that Emmy was a ghost now, haunting her now with a dogged persistence, and she wasn’t sure how to exorcise her. Or what permanent part of herself she’d lose if she did.

Tilting her head back, she stared up at the sky, pulsing like a heartbeat, and she tried to remember the last time she’d examined the world around her, realizing with a start that it had been long before she’d even met Ben. Sometime when she was still a girl, when she knew her mother saw only something she could lose whenever she looked at Emmy. She’d found her books to be her refuge, and in many ways, she supposed, she still did. They would never leave her, and she took no small comfort in that.

She threw a sidelong glance at Heath, mildly irritated with him for shaking up her equilibrium and with herself for allowing him to.

“I read your note in the bottle tree.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I know. That’s why I took it out.”

“Did you expect Jolene to see it and answer it?”

Shrugging, he said, “Not really. It was Aunt Lulu’s idea. She said that when she was little, she used to leave notes for a friend who’d moved away, even though she knew the friend would never see them. She said it brought peace to her soul—like sending a prayer directly to heaven—and I figured that’s pretty much what I needed.”

Emmy shook her head. “Your aunt Lulu is like Jekyll and Hyde. She’ll give me so many reasons to dislike her, and then, wham, I hear something like that, and I can almost begin to understand why people love her enough to hug her and invite her to family gatherings.”

His soft laugh carried to her in the night air. “Don’t be so judgmental. She’s had a hard life with lots of losses. But she’s one of the strongest people I know. She’s still standing and thriving despite it all.”

Emmy threw a sharp glance at him, wondering if his words were meant to inspire her, as if he knew anything about her. She was about to let him know that she was just fine without him playing Freud when he spoke again.

“Maybe I’ll teach you how to shag.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shag. The South Carolina state dance. They call it a warm night with a cold beer and a hot date.” He winked and waggled his eyebrows. “During the forties and fifties and even part of the sixties, the Folly Beach pier was the place to be. We had all the major performers—Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, the Drifters. Big names. And where the Holiday Inn is now, there was a pavilion with an arcade and concessions, and next to that was Folly’s Playground—the real thing, not a coffee shop—which was set up every spring and had a large Ferris wheel.”

Emmy closed her eyes, seeing it all so clearly as if in a black-and-white photograph, the sound of big-band music hidden beneath the crash of waves against the shore. “What happened to it all?”

“Two fires—one in nineteen fifty-seven and the last in nineteen seventy-seven. But by then the playground was long gone, and the crowds had been staying away for a while. They rebuilt the pier and then built the hotel in nineteen eighty-five. Some even called that progress.” He smiled as he turned to her. “But they still dance on the pier in the summertime.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll just watch.”

“It’s not as much fun, trust me.”

She gave a short laugh, then tilted her head back to watch the light show, her gaze straying to the lighthouse, which stood out in relief against the glowing sky. “Have you ever been inside the lighthouse?”

“When I was a kid. You’re not supposed to, but you know how kids are. It’s pretty cool up there. You can see all the way over to Sullivan’s Island. There’s a foundation now raising money for its restoration. There’s actually a little mini-lighthouse replica near where we parked. You can pick up some information about the light’s history and the foundation on the way out.”

She nodded, focusing on the lighthouse again. “How do you get there—swim?”

“No, definitely not. These are some of the toughest currents around Folly. It’s a strict no-swimming zone, but you occasionally hear about people drowning. Either they were stupid enough to wade out into the surf, or maybe they fell off one of the large rock groins. I don’t even like taking my boat out there, and I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners.”

He stood and looked around, then glanced down at her. “It’s almost eight o’clock—we should get going. I’m sure you’ve got books to go through back at the house.”

She stood, too, and they both folded up their chairs. Heath took hers to carry, and they began walking back the way they’d come, the Perseids continuing to light the sky around them.

They were almost back to the road before Heath spoke again. “I almost forgot. I think I might have found out who your Peter is.”

She stopped to look at him and he stopped, too. “Peter—as in Lulu’s and Maggie’s friend?”

“I think so. I own the lot where Maggie’s house stood—Lulu deeded it to me some years ago, and I’m still trying to decide what to do with it. Anyway, I was going through some of my papers the other day, looking for something, and I came upon all the paperwork for the house, going back to when it was built at the beginning of the last century. While flipping through them, I found a sales transaction from May, nineteen forty-three where Maggie O’Shea sold the house to a Peter Nowak. For ten dollars.”

Emmy raised her eyebrows. “Ten dollars? I know real-estate prices were much less then, but still, that sounds like a steal.”

They began walking again toward the golf cart. “It was. It seems like it was more of a gift than anything else.”

“Sounds like maybe he might have been more than a friend. Especially considering that Maggie still lived in the house at the time of her death in nineteen eighty-nine.”

They reached the golf cart and stopped while Heath placed both chairs in the back. “I thought the same thing. Guess you have one more thing to ask Aunt Lulu.”

Hoisting herself onto the front passenger seat, she groaned. “Yep. Might as well make a list and get it all over with at one time. Maybe you could come with me.”

“Maybe,” he said noncommittally as he turned the key until the motor purred.

As they drove down the street, Emmy asked, “I need to add some bookshelves to the store to accommodate our new design-and-greeting-card section. Do you know anybody to recommend?”

He looked hurt. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“You’re an architect. I just need a carpenter I can pay at carpenter prices.”

He pulled into the driveway and stopped before switching off the motor. The night became alive with the humming of thousands of invisible insects. “I’m a carpenter at heart, and it’s what I used to do before I went to school to become an architect. I can build your shelves. I’m on a part-time status at the firm right now anyway, so I might as well be productive. I’ll even bill you at a reasonable rate if that makes you feel better, but I’d be happy to do it for free. But only on one condition.”

“What would that be?” she asked slowly.

“Tell me that watching the Perseids was one of the most wonderful things you’ve ever seen, and that you were glad you went with me tonight to see them.”

She stared at him while the sky cheered behind him. She wanted to argue, to say that he was wrong, but she couldn’t. Unable to resist smiling, she repeated, “This is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen, and I’m glad I went with you tonight to see it. There, are you satisfied?”

He nodded. “Pretty much. And now I’ll be building those shelves for you. I’ll be there tomorrow morning if that works for you.”

“Thank you. I get there at eight, so anytime after that is fine.” She exited the golf cart and was surprised to see him getting out, too.

Seeing her confusion, he explained, “A gentleman doesn’t leave a lady in her driveway but walks her to her front door. The neighbors, remember?”

“Right,” she said and began walking toward the front steps with Heath close behind. She’d enjoyed herself far more than she’d expected to and was reluctant to end the evening. As she stopped at the front door to retrieve her keys, she looked at him, half tempted to ask for his help in sorting through the books and hunt for messages. She knew that he would if she asked, but still she hesitated.

“Thank you,” she said after opening the door. When he didn’t start to leave she said, “Would you like to . . . ?”

Her words stilled in her throat as a low ribbon of light streaked across the horizon, leaving a rainbow-colored trail behind it like a memory.

Heath had turned around, too, to watch it. “An earthgrazer,” he said. “Those are the ones that get the closest, and you can see all their colors.” He faced her with a half smile on his face. “Make a wish.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you ever heard that if you make a wish on a shooting star, it will come true? And a meteor shower could be considered a storm of shooting stars.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe in that.”

He considered her for a long moment. “That’s a shame.” He began heading toward the steps. “Thanks for the company. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Emmy watched him leave, then went inside and closed the door. Crossing the house to the back door, she went outside and looked up at the sky over the marsh, the quivers of light still agitating the night. Then, closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, and for the last first time, she made a wish that didn’t include Ben.

CHAPTER 15

FOLLY BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA

April 1942

Maggie stared at the emptied shelf on the top of the rack with some satisfaction before moving her step stool around the stacks of her travel books and atlases, stopping in front of the pile of books that Peter had given her over the period of the nearly four months since she’d met him. Her mother’s books had been precious to her, but these had become more so. Which is why she’d decided to find them a place on the shelves where people wouldn’t have easy access to them or ask to borrow them. They were hers, and she would share any other book she owned, but not those.

After she’d gone into the back of the store to find a soft cloth to wipe dust off the covers, she heard the bell over the door ring, followed shortly by the sound of a nickel being dropped in the borrowing library’s can. Hurriedly walking out of the storeroom, she called out, “I’ll be right there. . . .” Her words stilled as she saw Peter staring back at her, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Hello, Margaret. I’ve brought you some more books.” His face was tight and drawn, but his eyes brimmed with an intensity meant only for her.

Forgetting about decorum or the real possibility that someone could walk into the store at any minute, she ran and threw her arms around him, almost knocking them both into the bookshelf behind him. He dropped the books he’d been holding and enveloped her in his arms so that no space separated them.