Summer Rental (24 page)

“A baby,” Stephen repeated. “And you’re four months already? You couldn’t have told me sooner?”

“No,” she said simply. “I found out right around the same time we found out about your dad’s cancer. I felt guilty, giving you something else to worry about. So I kept waiting for the right time, when you weren’t so upset about your dad. And then you were acting so weird and withdrawn, and then, well, Fourth of July happened.”

“I see.”

Her palms were sweaty. She switched the phone to her right hand, which was trembling. “Well, what do you think?”

“About the baby? I don’t know. It hasn’t sunk in yet. What do
you
think? I mean, it’s not something we’d talked about. And now…”

“I’m happy,” Dorie said simply. “Despite everything that’s happened, I am so happy and excited about this baby. I’ve got a lot to figure out, but for right now, I am going to concentrate on this child I am carrying. And I am going to be a good mother. I swear, I won’t be anything like Phyllis.”

“You’re nothing like your mother. But do I get any say in any of this?” Stephen asked.

“If you want,” she said carefully. “But I think we both know the marriage is over.”

“Is it?”

She shook her head. Was he really this dense?

“Yeah. It really is over,” she said. “Stick a fork in us. We’re done.”

His breath slowed, and now she wondered if he was having a stroke instead of a heart attack. “I still love you, you know.”

She put her right hand over her belly, and wondered if the baby could hear what he’d just told her. “Do you really?”

“Yeah,” he said sadly. “It kinda sucks, doesn’t it?”

“And what about Matt?”

He sighed. “What can I tell you? You want me to lie and say there’s noth
ing there? That it was all a big mistake? I can’t tell you that, Dorie. No more lies. When my dad got sick, when I flew out there to see him that last time, I knew I probably wouldn’t see him again. And I realized it was time. Time to quit lying to myself about who I was and what I wanted.”

“It would have been good if you could have told
me
who you were and what you wanted,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t know how,” Stephen said. “I was scared. And ashamed. God help me.”

“Oh, Stephen,” Dorie said, reaching for the sheet to wipe her eyes again. By the time they were done talking, she’d have to change the bed. “What are we gonna do now?”

“I guess we better start figuring that out,” he said. “What about school? Have you told Sister? About us? Or the baby?”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t told anybody else, besides you and the girls. But I’ve got a contract, and I intend to work just as long as I can. How about you? Have you told anybody … that we’ve split up?”

“No,” Stephen said. “I thought we should talk first. Figure out the next step.”

She rolled her eyes. This was how it was going to be. Stephen was never going to be the person to take the first step. He was going to avoid the reality just as long as possible.

“Ellis’s brother Baylor has a friend who’s a divorce lawyer,” Dorie said briskly. “I’m going to talk to him about getting the paperwork started as soon as possible. We’ll have to sell the house, I think.”

“Why?” Stephen said. “You love that house.”

“But I can’t afford to live there on just my paycheck. And neither can you.” She pointedly did not ask him where he intended to live.

“Dad left me a little money,” he started.

“Enough to pay off the mortgage?”

“No, nothing like that,” he said hurriedly.

“I rest my case,” Dorie said. “Look. I’m going to talk to Baylor’s friend. I think you’d better find a lawyer too. And a real estate agent, so we can get the house listed. I’ll call you when I find out how we file the papers and everything.”

“I don’t want a lawyer,” he said dully. “You can have everything, Dorie. I want our baby to have a home. And this is all my fault. I did this to you. I hate fighting with you. And I hate the idea of a divorce.”

“I hate it too. But you don’t want to be married to me anymore. It looks like you want to be with Matt,” she reminded him. “You can’t have it both ways, Stephen. I don’t want to fight with you either, and I have no intention of taking you to the cleaners. I just want half the proceeds from the house. And I’ll need child support, of course.”

“Dorie?” Stephen sounded urgent. “About the baby. When do you think it happened? I mean, I thought you were taking precautions.”

“May,” she said, closing her eyes, trying to shut out the memory of that night. “The night before graduation. The end-of-the-year faculty party at Kristin and Bruce’s house. We’d both had too much to drink, remember? So instead of driving home, we stayed in their guest room. And … you’d been so distant, but that night, you were so being so sweet and silly. It was like when we first met. So … we ended up making a baby.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess we did. And … I guess, despite the rotten timing, I’m glad too. Are you feeling okay? Taking care of yourself?”

“It was a little rocky at first, but the nausea’s finally subsided and I’m feeling great now,” Dorie said, smiling for the first time. “The girls are totally pampering me.”

“Good,” Stephen said. “Look, I really have to go now. Will you call me as soon as you get back to town? I really need to see you.”

“I will,” she promised. “But I’m warning you, I’ll be a blimp. See you then.”

24

It was the first hot, sunny day in nearly a week. Right after breakfast Julia had set up their camp—the quilt, the chairs, the cooler—on their favorite stretch of beach. Then she’d gone for a jog. Julia hated running, but with all the eating and drinking she’d indulged in since arriving in Nags Head, her inner disciplinarian had finally kicked in. Despite what she’d told Booker, eventually, when this month was over, she’d have to find work again. And nobody was going to hire her for a modeling assignment if she showed up looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy. She’d even reverted to he
r old regime: black coffee and a hard-boiled egg—without the yolk—for breakfast.

And now she was pounding down Virginia Dare Trail when she spotted a familiar figure on a silver beach cruiser pedaling along in front of her. Julia sped up until she came up beside the bicyclist.

“Madison, hi,” she called.

Madison looked over, startled. The bike swerved off the pavement and onto the shoulder of the road, and the cool blonde tumbled headfirst over the handlebars.

“Oof.” She was sprawled out on her back, in a patch of sandspurs.

“Oh my God,” Julia cried. She ran over and squatted down beside the fallen woman. “Are you all right?”

Sand clung to Madison’s arms and bare legs and the right side of her face. Blood oozed from a scrape on her elbow.

“Fine,” she said, glaring at Julia. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” Julia said, offering her a hand up and looking away from the blood, the sight of which was already making her feel light-headed.

Reluctantly, Madison took the hand and hauled herself to a standing position. She looked down at the bike, which had landed hard on the pavement. The front wheel rim was bent. “Damn it,” she muttered.

She picked the bike up and grabbed the rim, grimacing as she tried, ineffectively, to straighten it out. Then she set the bike upright and tried to wheel it away, but it wobbled crazily.

“Well, that’s all screwed up,” Madison said, slamming the bike back onto the pavement.

“I really am sorry,” Julia said, taken aback by Madison’s burst of anger. “Look, I’ll go get Dorie’s van. We can load it in there and take it to the bicycle repair shop. There’s one just up the road, I noticed it on my run.”

“Whatever,” Madison said, stony-faced.

Julia touched the other woman’s elbow gingerly and looked away quickly. “You’re bleeding. Come on, we’re just a block from home. Ellis has a first aid kit. We’ll get you cleaned up and then come back for the bike. Nobody’s going to steal it while it looks like that.”

Madison looked back at the bike and sighed. “All right.”

Julia was soaked in sweat, her orange nylon running shorts and white tank top clung to her tanned body, and her hair was held back with a white visor. She looked over at Madison, dressed in cheap black capris, a pale blue T-shirt, and no-name sneakers, limping along beside her.

“Did you do something to your ankle?” she asked sympathetically.

“I think maybe I twisted it,” Madison grimaced.

“I really am sorry,” Julia repeated. “I’ll pay to have the bike fixed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Madison snapped. “It’s a piece of junk. Not a big deal.” Despite her injured ankle, she sped up.

Julia sped up too, until she was alongside the other woman again. “Have I done something else to offend you?” she asked. “Have the rest of us—Dorie and Ellis—done something to piss you off?”

“No,” Madison said. “What makes you think that?”

Julia shrugged. “Every time we see you, every time we ask you to come down and eat with us, or join us on the beach, you act like we want to poison you or something. Dorie says you’re just shy, but I think there’s something else. Maybe you just plain don’t like us?”

Madison kept walking. “I don’t have anything against any of you. You all seem like perfectly nice girls. It’s just … I’m not one of you. Okay? And that’s fine with me. I don’t want to pledge your little sorority or be your BFF. I just want to pay for my room, and eat my meals, and ride my bike in peace.”

“O-kaaaay,” Julia said, stung by the outburst. “Fair enough. I’ll let the others know. We’ll keep our distance, if that’s what you want.”

They walked on in silence. When they reached Ebbtide, Ellis was on the porch, sweeping off the night’s sand deposit.

“What happened?” Ellis asked when she saw Madison, limp and bleeding.

“I fell,” Madison said.

“Come on inside, and I’ll get the first aid kit,” Ellis said.

Dorie was sitting at the table finishing her breakfast when the two women walked in. “Good Lord,” she said.

“I fell off my bike,” Madison repeated. “It’s no big thing.”

Ellis got Madison to sit at the table while she gently washed the sand off her scraped elbow, dabbed the abrasion with antiseptic cream, and bandaged it. “What about your ankle?” she asked, lightly touching Madison’s ankle, which was already swollen and discolored. “Do you think maybe it’s sprained?”

Madison flinched. “It’s just a twist,” she said, determined to avoid further contact. “It’ll be fine.”

Dorie jumped up, went to the freezer, and scooped up a handful of ice cubes. “I’ll put these in a ziploc bag and we’ll fix you up an ice pack to get the swelling down.” She looked over at Ellis. “Do you have some aspirin or ibuprofen in that kit?”

Ellis shook a couple of tablets from a bottle and handed them to Madison, who rolled her eyes but swallowed them without water.

Julia came into the kitchen then. “I’m going to take the van and go get your bike and take it to the repair shop,” she announced, brushing aside Madison’s protests. “You probably don’t need to be walking on that ankle.”

“She doesn’t,” Ellis agreed.

“I’m fine,” Madison repeated. “I’m just going to go up to my room and wash off all this sand.”

“You shouldn’t be going up stairs on that ankle,” Ellis said, but Madison grabbed the ice pack, pretended not to hear, and kept walking out of the room and up the stairs.

“Geez,” Ellis said, watching her go. “What the hell did you do to her, Julia?”

“Nothing! I was jogging back towards the house, and she was in front of me on her bike, so I ran along beside her and said ‘Hi!’ and she just freaked out and fell off,” Julia insisted. “I apologized, I offered to pay for the bike, I totally groveled, but she acts like I did it on purpose.”

“She’s so prickly,” Ellis said, shaking her head. “I totally don’t get her.”

“I even asked her if we’d done something to offend her.”

“What did she say?” Dorie asked.

“She basically told me she doesn’t want to play in our sandbox,” Julia said, laughing uneasily. “I’m telling you, Ellis, there’s something going on with that woman. And I intend to find out what it is.”

“Julia,” Ellis said, a note of warning in her voice, “leave her alone. You are not Nancy Drew.”

“That’s what you think,” Julia said. “Dorie, I’m gonna take the van and pick up her precious bike and take it to get it fixed. Be back in a few.”

*   *   *

Julia pulled the minivan onto the shoulder of the road, directly beside Madison’s mangled bike. It was nearly noon and the sun blazed white hot overhead. Her running shoes sank into the soft sand as she stood over the bike, and a bead of perspiration trickled down her cheek. Impatiently, she yanked her top over her head and tossed it inside the car. Dressed in her bright orange running shorts and hot pink sports bra, she bent over an
d grasped the bike’s handlebars with one hand and the rear wheel with the other. As she was transferring the bike into the back of the van she heard a soft clunk. A cell phone had fallen from a purple-and-black foam cup holder bolted to the bike’s handlebars.

She knew at a glance whose cell phone it was. The few times Madison had deigned to join the other girls, she had that cell phone clutched tightly in her hand, and Julia had never seen her without it.

She picked it up, and just as she did so, a car’s horn blared, and there was a chorus of loud wolf whistles. A battered black Land Cruiser full of shirtless, sunburnt college boys pulled up alongside her. “Hey baby,” the driver called. “You need a hand?”

She flashed them what Booker always called her “money smile,” the one she’d perfected in her early days of modeling, after studying Farrah Fawcett’s iconic red-bathing suit poster. Julia raised her chin, tilted her head slightly to the side, and shook her long hair back over her shoulders. “Fuck off,” she said sweetly. She shoved the phone into the pocket of her running shorts, slammed down the van’s hatch, and got back in the driver’s seat.

The Land Cruiser’s driver treated her to another blast of his horn, and then peeled away, leaving a trail of oily black exhaust. “Assholes,” Julia muttered. But she was secretly pleased that at thirty-five she still had the looks—and the power—to stop a carload of randy college boys and drive them just a little bit nuts.