The Beach House (19 page)

Finally the bottle slowed. It landed on Cara. She lurched forward with triumph. Then she stopped, suddenly shy. Tom was blushing furiously and Emmi was uncharacteristically quiet, looking down as she drew circles in the dirt. Tom looked at Cara, wiped his mouth and then, in the manner of a condemned man, leaned on his knuckles toward her. Cara swallowed hard and inched forward on her knees toward him, aware of Emmi’s gaze on them. Right there and then, over an empty Coke bottle which later she was sure was somehow prophetic, Cara closed her eyes and received her first kiss. To this day she could feel the zing she felt then, from her lips clear down to her toes. Yes, please!

Though it was to be years before she’d do any serious kissing, she knew at that moment that kissing was right up there on her list of favorite things to do. As for Tom, on the next spin he got to kiss Emmi and he’d been kissing her ever since. They both went to Bishop England High School and dated on and off throughout. During the summers, though, they all hung around together like the Three Musketeers. Their main objectives were to get tanned, go to the movies at night and avoid being trapped into turtle duty during the day. Emmi and Tom both went to the University of South Carolina and got married right after Tom’s graduation. Cara had been a bridesmaid.

Then they lost touch as friends often do when they grow up and go their separate ways. Yet even though they never spoke or wrote much over the years, Cara learned from Christmas cards or via her mother that Emmi and Tom had moved to Atlanta where Tom was an executive at Coca-Cola. They had two children, boys, right away. Yet, unlike with other friends she’d made and lost over the years, Cara always felt with Emmi that the intangible thread between them was strong and secure.

Arriving at the beach she saw a woman sitting on a large piece of driftwood poking a stick around in the sand. She was as broad in the beam as the tree trunk she sat upon. Bits of coppery colored hair curled around the rim of her sunhat. Cara walked closer. Before she reached her, the woman turned her head and her face lit up.

“Cara!”

“Emmi!”

With a joyful laugh they closed the remaining distance and hugged tightly. In the rocking Cara felt the years peel away and they were thirteen again, pals forever. When they stood apart, Cara saw tears glistening in Emmi’s eyes as they hungrily scanned each other’s faces.

“You haven’t changed a bit. Damn you,” Emmi said, her wide mouth stretching happily across her face. On her, a smile was more than a facial expression. It was a statement.

“Neither have you.”

“Oh, go on, liar.”

Emmi had gained weight proportionately, though on her large frame she didn’t look fat so much as big. Her face was tanned and the faint freckles sprinkling her nose and cheeks gave her a youthful look. She still had that wonderful exuberance about her and her green eyes danced in welcome.

They just grinned at each other for a moment, soaking each other in. “It’s so wonderful to see you again,” Cara said with feeling. “How long has it been?”

“God,
years.
Too long.”

“It’s terrible.”

“I know. But didn’t it go by quickly?” After they chuckled Emmi said, “So, you’re still not married?”

“Uh-uh. What can I say? You stole Tom from me and after that…” She shrugged.

Emmi laughed, but there was a strain in her eyes that Cara didn’t miss.

“How is Tom? Is he around? I’d love to see him.”

“Oh boy, where is he now? Let’s see,” Emmi tapped her lips in thought. “He’s in South America, even as we speak. He’s still with Coca-Cola and he’s overseeing a new plant in Peru. He’s back and forth a lot, mostly forth. I got tired of sitting around the house and came here. We pretty much decided we wouldn’t see a whole lot of each other in the summer.” She kicked her toe in the sand. “Sort of like your mom and your dad used to be.”

Cara blinked. Her mama had come to the beach house as an escape from her husband, but Emmi didn’t know that. As close as they were growing up, Cara could never confide to Emmi the personal problems of the family. If there was one thing her mama had drummed into her head, it was to never hang the family’s dirty laundry out on the line.

“Since the boys were born we’ve come here every July and for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. The boys love it here and, of course, so do Tom and I. Then last year my parents retired to Florida and gave me the beach house. So here I am.”

“How about your boys? I’m guessing they’re surfer dudes now, bronzed and breaking hearts every week?”

“Yes and no. They come once in a while for a weekend. James, our eldest, is an obsessive-compulsive studier. He’s in premed at Duke and refuses to waste his time coming to the island to hang out during the summer. So he stays on campus. John’s got his friends and a job. He still fiddles around with a surfboard when he visits, which is not too often. He prefers it in Atlanta. At his age the last thing he wants to do is spend time with his mother.”

“So you’re living alone here for the summer?” Cara asked.

“Yes, ma’am, and loving every minute of it. I’m as free as a bird. Whoopee!”

Cara laughed to see Emmi spread her arms and flap them like the gulls overhead. “You’re still as crazy as ever.”

Emmi dropped her hands and removed her hat to smooth her hair. Cara found it bittersweet to see the long thick red hair she’d admired cut bluntly around the chin and mingled with a few strands of gray.

“No, sadly I’m not anymore. But I’m trying to regain a little craziness in my life. Let’s not go down that road quite yet, honey. Tell me about you! I hear you’re some big muck-a-muck ad executive in Chicago. I always knew you’d amount to something, Caretta Rutledge.”

Cara sighed and moved to sit down on the long palm trunk that had washed ashore. She patted the warped wood and Emmi came to join her. They sat shoulder to shoulder and both stretched their long legs out before them as they did as kids. Cara’s legs were lean and pale beside Emmi’s tanned, thick ones.

“
Was
is the operative word,” she replied, then kicked her heel in the sand. “I got canned. Just before I came here. I went to work one day with a new client on my mind and before an hour was up I was escorted out the door by an armed guard. Now
that’s
an experience you never want to have, I can promise you.”

“What?” she asked, sounding shocked. “Did you embezzle pots of dough or bring an Uzi into the cafeteria?”

Cara laughed. “Hardly. Let’s just say it was spring-cleaning and I was a superfluous dustball. A big and expensive-to-get-rid-of bit of dust, but discarded nonetheless.”

“Cara, I’m so sorry.”

“It happens. More often in this business than you’d think. But,” she added with chagrin, “you still never think it’s going to happen to you.”

“So, how are you? I mean, are you okay or are you destitute-and-on-the-streets kind of unemployed? We used to say we’d always take each other in if we had to and my door is always open.” She paused. “Is that why you’re home?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said with a light chuckle. “At least so far. I was with the agency for a long time and the severance package was very generous. I’m far from destitute, but I wish I could tell you I’ve got a great stock portfolio or something. I figure with my costs set, I can afford to regroup this summer. A headhunter is already looking into things for me and I’m confident something will turn up. I just hope it’s sooner than later or I might take you up on that deal.”

“Any time. We’re blood sisters, remember?”

“God, do you know how lucky we are to have been kids when we were? These days it’d be crazy to share blood like that.”

“We would’ve done it anyway.”

“You think?” She kicked the sand again and her tone changed to a more philosophical note. “You know, it’s providential. I realized that when I woke up this morning. If it had happened to Mama last year, I couldn’t have stayed for the summer. But now I can.”

“Whoa, back up. You lost me. If
what
happened to your mother?”

“My mother has cancer.”

Emmi sat straight up and looked stricken. “Miss Lovie? Oh,
no.
”

“I only just found out myself. It’s lung cancer. Apparently it’s already metastasized and there’s really nothing more they can do.” Her throat constricted and she abruptly stopped speaking.

“Oh no, no, no. Not her. That’s just shitty.”

Cara nodded. “She’s asked me to stay for the summer and I’ve agreed. That’s what I meant. I have the time to stay now because I was fired, where a year ago I couldn’t have swung a whole summer off.”

“Well, you could have.”

“Not and kept my job. But that point is moot now, isn’t it? And what does losing a job compare to losing my mother?”

Emmi shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, Cara. My heart is sick. The whole island will be heartbroken, too. Why, most everyone who’s ever spent time here knows her as the Turtle Lady. We all saw our first hatchlings because of her.”

“Remember how she used to raise a flag whenever a nest was due to hatch?”

Emmi nodded, then offered a rueful smile. “But she used to help them hatch a little, too, if you know what I mean. There are strict regulations against that now.”

Cara didn’t know or care about regulations. All she knew was that her mother would not be here next summer when the loggerheads returned. “It’s so unthinkable to imagine that she’s really dying. It’s hard to accept. When I see her I think, ‘okay, she’s sick.’ But I still can’t imagine her life coming to an end. It’s odd, but in some ways the summer looms so long. Yet, when I think this will be her last summer, then it seems frighteningly short.”

“Imagine how it must feel to her.”

“That’s what’s so amazing. She doesn’t seem the least bit afraid.”

“What is she do—”

Emmi was interrupted by the high-pitched hello of a woman approaching up the beach. Emmi raised her arm and waved back. “Hey there!” To Cara she said, “There’s Florence. You remember Florence Prescott, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Cara watched the woman approach. Flo had been like an aunt to her growing up. Yet, she was ageless, too, her brilliant white hair a stark contrast to her very tanned skin. She wore a green T-shirt with a picture of a loggerhead and the words Turtle Team across the front.

Flo shook her head as she drew near and called out, “As I live and breathe, it’s Caretta Rutledge in the flesh. How are you doing, darlin’?”

Cara stood to embrace the woman with the same ease she had for years when Flo walked right into their kitchen for a morning cup of coffee. “I’m fine. You look great! Oh, it’s so good to see you again.”

“You’re looking pretty good, too,” Flo said, removing her sunglasses and giving Cara the once-over with blue eyes shining like searchlights. “For someone on death’s doorstep. Lovie told me you’d been under the weather since you arrived.”

“I was, but I’m better now.”

“The island makes you feel better. You should come home more often.”

Cara heard the scold beneath the smile and nodded. “I’m here for the summer now, Flo.”

Flo’s expression changed quickly to become serious and her eyes flashed in understanding. “So, she’s finally told you?”

Cara nodded, tightening her lips.

“Good. I’m glad. She needed to tell you as much as you needed to hear it. Lovie needs you now, Cara. She’s missed you something fierce.”

Flo’s voice was full of conviction and Cara shifted her weight. She’d never thought her mother needed her, much less missed her.

“It’s going to be hard on all of us,” Flo continued, “but we can’t let on. We need to keep upbeat.”

“I was thinking,” Emmi broke in. “We’ll have to figure out how to cover for Lovie over the summer if she can’t keep up with her schedule.”

“You won’t be able to take it away from her,” Flo replied in her matter-of-fact manner. “The turtles are her life.”

“No, they’re not,” Cara said. “She needs to think about other things this summer and she may not be up to the task. The turtles have taken my mother away for long enough.”

Flo studied her face, then spoke slowly. “You never understood about your mother and the loggerheads. And I guess there are parts of the story you never can. But trust me on this, Caretta. If you take those turtles away from her, you’ll kill her faster than any cancer will. She’s been doing this for as long as you’ve been alive and it means the world to her. Not just the turtles, but also the feeling of renewal they give her. It’s a special connectedness to God, to the earth, to the best part of herself. She’s earned that small bit of peace—and you know what I’m talking about.”

Cara didn’t reply.

“Why, you know how much she looks forward to the turtle season every year. She lives for it. Finding and marking the nests, waking early to find tracks or staying up late to sit with eggs till they’ve hatched. She keeps all the records, writes the newsletter, gives lectures, instructs the children, welcomes the tourists and who knows what else? She’s like a mama hen worrying about each and every one of those hatchlings.

“And on top of all that, people with causes live longer, age slower, stay sharper and are just damn more agreeable.” She released a quick smile that set her eyes glittering like topaz. “Even if they are a bit single-minded. Take the turtles away from Lovie and what’s she got left? Just her illness, that’s what. Dry rot will set in and she’ll be waiting to die. I’ve seen it happen too often. Why, the very notion boils my blood. I say she needs to feel a part of this team now more than ever. Olivia Rutledge
is
the Turtle Team.”

Emmi nodded her head in staunch agreement.

Cara, who had remained silent during Flo’s fiery defense, ran her hand through her hair. “What do you recommend we do?”

Flo heard the deference and exhaled a long breath. Chewing the end of her sunglasses, she regarded Cara shrewdly. “You should get involved.”

“With the Turtle Team? Me?”

“Exactly.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Thanks for the offer, but I’m not the Turtle Team type.”

Flo brought back her shoulders. “I’m not sure there is a
type.
”