On Folly Beach (34 page)

Maggie stood, too, being careful not to jostle the turtle eggs in her basket. She had the odd sensation that she was standing at the top of a long flight of stairs, knowing she could easily walk away or risk falling. Slowly she asked, “What did Robert do?”

“I’m warning you, Maggie. Stop asking or you’re going to regret it.” Cat wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, smearing mascara down her cheek.

Swallowing, Maggie asked again, “What did Robert do, Cat? You must tell me. Did he break it off with you?”

Cat pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and let out a groan of frustration. “Yes,” she shouted, loud enough to scare the group of skimmers and send them scattering. “Robert left me. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

Maggie marched toward Cat, ready to do battle for her cousin. “But why? It’s so obvious he loves you.”

Cat’s lips turned into a thin sneer. “Because I’m pregnant.”

Maggie stopped in her approach, surprised at Cat’s answer. Of all the scenarios that had run through her mind, she’d not even considered this one. Cat knew how to avoid pregnancy; Cat had told her that when she’d married Jim. Maggie tried to hide her relief in finding out that it was news she could put in a box, could pack up and handle neatly. There was a convent near Charleston Cat could go to until the baby was born if Robert wouldn’t reconsider. They could figure out all the details later. Right now she needed to get Cat home before anybody saw her, give her a bath, and feed her breakfast. Then they could talk about the rest.

Trying to hide her relief, Maggie said, “I’m sure it’s just the shock of the news, Cat. From what I know of Robert, I’m sure he’ll do the right thing by you. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t desert you—or his baby.”

Cat shook her head, her green eyes never leaving Maggie’s face. “He’s not the father.”

The words were delivered with such pointed accuracy that Maggie felt like she’d been shot. The sky seemed to dim, the water receding as her eyes focused on the woman in front of her in her ruined fur jacket and red heels.

“Then who . . . ?” Maggie couldn’t finish the sentence. She seemed to be falling inside a red tunnel with only the sound of the ocean and Cat’s voice as company.

“Peter.”

The words were unadorned with maliciousness, making them that much harder to bear. The starkness of Cat’s voice stripped away all the righteous anger that Maggie could conjure. Maggie stood still as her world spun out of control around her, afraid that if she moved she would break apart into sea glass. With a steady voice that surprised even her, she asked, “Does he know?”

Cat’s voice rose. “Yes. I told him yesterday when he returned. He says he won’t marry me because I’m not the woman he loves.”

Maggie let her eyelids fall shut to block out the dead eyes and the red shoes. Without opening them she stepped backward and began walking, unsure of and uncaring where she went. She tripped and fell, her basket went sprawling, the eggs inside shattering against one another, their yolks bleeding yellow into the sand. She didn’t stop but began crawling away until her legs could find the strength to stand again.

Cat ran after her, her fur jacket so incongruous on the beach that Maggie had the odd impulse to laugh, but knowing that if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“But I know something about Peter that I’m going to tell everybody if he doesn’t marry me and be a father to this baby. I told him I would shout it from the rooftops. But he said he didn’t care, that he’d rather have you and be in prison than marry me.” She was crying now, her voice near hysteria.

Maggie turned on her, unable to listen to another word. “Shut up! Do you hear me? Shut up! I don’t want to listen to any more. Go away. Leave me alone. I need to go someplace to figure this out, and I don’t want you in my sight.”

Cat stopped, swaying on her feet.

“Stay away from the house until I go to work. I don’t want to see you until I figure this out.”

Cat took a step forward, then stopped. “He has to marry me, Mags. I’m ruined if he doesn’t.”

Unable to remain in Cat’s presence for another moment, Maggie turned away and began walking down the beach, unaware of the sharp edges of shells she crushed under her bare feet or the insistent rhythm of the breathing ocean that had once given her refuge.

LULU WATCHED AS MAGGIE SLID from the bed. Lulu pretended to sleep as she listened to the sounds of Maggie dressing. She wondered how long it would take Maggie to figure out that Cat hadn’t come home the night before. Lulu had followed Cat again, the path made easier this time by the full moon and because Lulu had remembered to put on shoes.

Cat again had gone to the abandoned beach house, carrying her shoes as she waded to the steps. There’d been no flashing light this time, just the sounds of voices in the still night and of the door being shut, leaving behind just silence.

Lulu wasn’t sure how long she waited but she’d fallen asleep, then was awakened by the sound of a man and a woman arguing. They were standing on the outside porch of the house and Cat was shouting loud enough that Lulu could hear every word and what she heard filled her insides with ice. It was only then that she figured out who the man was, and the recognition made her want to cry.

Cat left first, running down the stairs and not bothering to hold up the hem of her skirt. She was moving so fast that Lulu didn’t have time to duck out of the way, not that it mattered in the end. Instead of going back down the street, Cat headed in the other direction, toward East Ashley. Lulu thought for a moment that she’d follow but then the man left the house, too, getting in a car and driving away. Lulu had hidden behind a tree until he was gone, but by then it was too late to follow Cat. Lulu figured Nancy Drew and even Sherlock Holmes sometimes failed in their missions, but in the end, that was what always made catching the bad guys so much more exciting.

When she got home, Lulu was careful to wipe any sand from her feet, knowing that the last time she’d followed Cat, Maggie had asked about the sand in the sheets. She lay awake for the rest of the night, unable to sleep with the words she’d heard jumping around in her head like a rubber ball.

As soon as she heard Maggie leave and close the door behind her, Lulu left the bed and ran to the window and watched as her sister, with a basket on her arm, walked toward the beach. Lulu’s stomach grumbled as she anticipated the turtle eggs Maggie would fry for her when she returned. At least it would give her time to figure out how much she should tell her sister, and to start making the bottle tree she knew Maggie was going to need.

Lulu was headed down the stairs when she heard the sound of one of the porch rockers being slid across the floorboards. Quietly, she tiptoed down the rest of the stairs and peered out the front window, not knowing she was holding her breath until she let it go in a gasp. Before she could step back, Peter had turned his head and was looking right at her. She stepped back, then ducked beneath the window, hoping he’d seen only his reflection.

They both sat within ten feet of the other for the next hour until Lulu heard the back of the rocking chair swing against the house as if Peter had stood suddenly. Peering carefully between the edge of the curtain, Lulu watched as Maggie approached the house. She didn’t have the basket anymore, which was bad, but what really surprised Lulu was that Maggie was barefoot, her big toe on her right foot bleeding through the dirt and sand. In her whole life Lulu had never seen Maggie barefoot except on the beach, and even then she managed to keep her feet clean.

Maggie stopped at the bottom step and seemed to lean to one side when she saw Peter. “Why . . . ?” she started to ask, and then she began to fall like somebody had taken all the bones out of her legs. Peter caught her before she hit the ground, but his touch seemed to bring her awake again. She pushed herself away from him.

“Is it true? About Cat’s baby?”

Lulu held her breath in puffed cheeks, waiting for the answer. But she could tell from Maggie’s face that she already knew what it was.

Peter didn’t look away, but stared Maggie in the face as he nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry, Margaret. It’s not what you—”

Before he could finish talking, she raised her hand and slapped him hard on his face.

Lulu let out a cry, then put her hand over her mouth, knowing how thin the windows and walls were. But neither Peter nor Maggie seemed to have heard. She watched as Peter turned his head back to face Maggie again, a bright red spot on his cheek. Lulu had never seen Maggie hit anyone, and had always thought that maybe she didn’t know how. Lulu wanted to look away, knowing that this would all be so much worse for Maggie if she knew Lulu was watching, but she couldn’t stop. It was like when they had pulled Jimmy Fontaine out of the ocean after he’d drowned, and laid him on the sand. She’d wanted to make sure it was the same boy who sat behind her in math, so she had pulled away from Maggie to see.

Lulu still remembered what Jimmy had looked like, with all the color from his lips and face gone like it had melted in the ocean. And Lulu knew why Maggie hadn’t wanted her to see, because Lulu still saw Jimmy’s face sometimes when she closed her eyes to sleep, just like she figured Maggie would hear Peter’s voice for a long, long time.

Peter stood staring at Maggie, and didn’t defend himself when she lifted her arm to slap him again. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but now she was shaking so hard, Lulu thought it might have gotten cold outside again. In a voice that didn’t sound like her own, Maggie said, “I’m not going to ask for any explanations because they don’t matter. The facts speak for themselves: you took advantage of a woman who is much more vulnerable than anybody could ever guess. She is weak, but you knew that. And now there’s a baby to consider as well.”

“Please, Margaret, I need to tell you—”

Maggie continued talking as if Peter hadn’t said anything. “You will marry Cat now and become a member of this family, and I will accept you in it for the baby’s sake. But that is all. There will be nothing but the most formal of relationships between us.” She stopped talking, and for a minute, Lulu thought Maggie was going to faint because her hands were at her throat and she seemed to be trying to catch her breath.

Peter put a hand on Maggie’s arm but she knocked it away, then began to walk up the porch steps.

His face was a greenish white, just like the color of an alligator’s belly. “Margaret, I love you. You must believe me. There’s so much you don’t understand. . . .”

Without turning around, she shook her head as if to chase away gnats. “There is only one thing that’s important here, Peter, and that would be that in less than nine months a baby will be born, and he will need a mother and a father to look after him.”

Now Peter acted as if he hadn’t heard what she’d said. “We can go away—just the two of us. To California. You’ve always talked about seeing Hollywood and meeting Bette Davis. And when the war is over, we could go to Paris. Or Rome. Or to any of the places we always talked about going.” He put a foot on the bottom step but didn’t go farther.

Maggie walked to the door, her back still to Peter. “I’ll take Cat to see Father Doyle tomorrow to talk about the wedding. The sooner the better for everyone involved.” Lulu watched as more tears dripped from Maggie’s cheek, spotting her dress. “Can I trust you to at least do the honorable thing by Cat and the baby?”

Peter shook his head and looked at his feet. “Don’t, Margaret, please. You must listen to me. There’s something you need to know— something much bigger than all of us. It won’t excuse my behavior, but it might help you understand why. Please listen. I love you. You must believe me.”

Maggie put her hands over her ears. “No more—do you hear me? I won’t listen to you any longer. What’s done is done. You’ve ruined everything, and I need to put the pieces of my family back together somehow.”

Lulu remembered to duck behind a chair before Maggie ran through the door, slamming it hard behind her. As Lulu listened to Maggie’s bare feet run up the wooden stairs, she peered through the window again, stifling a scream when her eyes met Peter’s through the glass. He motioned for her to come outside, and she did, her heart slamming against her chest from surprise but not from fear. She’d heard his conversation with Cat and knew a lot more than he probably wanted her to, and as she’d learned from her books, it would keep her safe.

When she reached him, he sat down and ripped off a piece of notebook paper from the small pad he always carried in his inside coat pocket, and began writing something on it. She waited a few minutes until he stopped, then watched as he rolled up the paper like a cigarette and handed it to her.

His eyes met hers, and for a little moment, she felt sorry for him. She knew he loved Maggie as much as Maggie loved him, and Lulu began to feel as if she was seeing Jimmy Fontaine’s body in the sand again, and she wished she could go back and stop herself from looking, because there are some things that will stick with you forever, whether you want them to or not.

She stuck out her palm and he placed the rolled-up note in her hand.