The Beach House. Mary Monroe Alice
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I felt about Stratton. God rest his soul, though I hate to think where the old coot’s roasting now.”
Lovie frowned but let that pass without comment. The least response from her about Stratton would get Flo wound up like a top. She couldn’t stand the man and the feeling had been mutual. But that was all water under the bridge, as far as Lovie was concerned.
“I wanted to capture Cara in her tree and I’m glad I did,” she said, returning her attention to the photograph. “Hurricane Hugo took that oak away along with so many others. Such a pity,” she ended with a sigh and set the photo aside. “I’ll show this to her later. She’s bound to notice her tree is gone.”
“When you do, why don’t you ask her what else she remembers about that time? It’s a good way to open things up between you.”
“Oh, Flo, those days are long gone. Why stir up bad memories? This is the first time she’s come home just to visit me. I’d like to keep things cheery and positive. And who knows? You might be right and it was nothing more than teenage angst, anyway. Best to leave things lie.”
“There you go, tucking everything neatly away again.” She looked at her fingernails and said, “Speaking of which, have you talked to her about, well—” she raised her eyes “—you?”
“About me? Good heavens, no. She’s only just arrived.”
“She’s been here for days! I know you, Olivia Rutledge. You’ll keep mum and hold it all inside so as not to rock the boat.”
“No, I won’t. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in a few days. I’ve waited this long to tell her, I can wait a few days more.”
“You will tell her?”
“Of course.”
Flo’s eyes bore into hers one more time, as though to gage whether or not to believe her. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in Lovie’s eyes, she sighed deeply, slapped her palms on her thighs and rose to a stand. “I have to go check on Miranda. She caught a slight cold but at her age everything’s a worry. Oh! I almost forgot the reason I came over. There was a stranding this morning over on Sullivan’s Island.”
“Was it a loggerhead?”
Flo nodded. “A juvenile. Poor thing. Its carapace was sliced up by a propeller. Probably in the harbor. That’s the sixth dead turtle that’s washed up this season. I hate it when the dead ones outnumber the nests. What with the shrimping season getting underway, we can expect to see a lot more.”
“I hope not. It’s early. Our girls are still out in the swells and they’re just getting started. Give them time. It might be a slow start, but it’s going to be a great season. Our best.” She looked at the photograph of Cara and smiled with the brightness of hope. “I can feel it.”
The loggerhead is named for its unusually large head. She has a powerful beaklike jaw and her eardrums are covered by skin. She has a keen sense of smell and an even keener instinct for survival—one that has kept the species alive since prehistoric times.
CHAPTER FOUR
After a week of moping about the house in her pajamas, Cara decided she’d had enough wallowing. Today she would start her visit over. She waited behind the closed door of her bedroom until she heard the front door close and the footsteps of Lovie and Toy departing from the cottage. It had been another in a series of wild mornings of the telephone ringing with reports from the turtle volunteers, followed by a bustle of motion as Toy and Lovie gathered their supplies into the red bucket and headed for The Gold Bug and whatever point along the beach that turtle tracks were found.
The coast was clear, as she and Palmer used to say when their father had left for work. She showered as best she could in the pitiful stream of water that escaped through a faucet with a chokehold of lime, but the French lavender soap her mother laid out went a long way to making her feel enormously better. There were large, thirsty towels and a lovely gardenia-scented lotion to complete her bath. Back in her room, she saw that her mother had unpacked her suitcase for her. Inside the dresser drawer she found a fresh sachet.
Cara smiled, shaking her head and murmuring, “Mama…”
Her mother had always picked up her messy room during her teens. True, the room was vacuumed, the dirty dishes and laundry removed, but Cara knew it was really her mother’s clever way of keeping tabs on her rebellious offspring. One day Cara planted a package of condoms in a brown paper bag far back in the drawer beneath her bras. Oh, how the fireworks exploded that afternoon when she came home from the beach! Lovie tried both to scold Cara and defend herself for rifling through her daughter’s drawers. Cara’s hand stilled on the dresser, remembering that her mother had never told her father about the contents of that paper bag.
Hanging in the cramped closet were her dressy slacks, silk blouses and one sexy black dress. Her closet back in Chicago was bulging with lovely tropical weight wool suits, silk blouses and scarves, and fine leather boots and shoes for a professional working in a city. But she had nothing for a casual day at the beach. Her life in Chicago had not been casual.
She settled on a chic mint-green silk outfit and a pair of very dressy, strappy leather sandals studded with rhinestones that looked great on Michigan Avenue. Looking in the long mirror tacked to the back of the door, she saw a tall, sleek, dark-haired woman dressed to the nines and terribly out of place on the laid-back island. Then, because she felt a need for bolstering, she added a touch of shadow and mascara and a spritz of scent. Her dark hair, still damp, was rolled into a twist and secured with a clip.
By the time she stepped into the living room, the fog had swept out to sea and sunshine poured in from the windows. Her spirits lifted at the prospect of a lovely day as she stood for a moment just inhaling great gulps of the fresh, salty air.
She took her growling stomach as a good sign and moved into the small kitchen, neat and sparkling in the sun. She helped herself to a quick breakfast, then began to prowl, glancing out the windows, peeking in all the rooms and running her fingers through magazines on the coffee table. Before long, she felt the old restlessness stirring. She wasn’t accustomed to so much time on her hands. She had no agenda. She was anxious to do something.
She rationalized that she’d needed a long, overdue vacation. But now it was time to regroup. She’d make a few calls and develop a game plan. Perhaps set up a couple of meetings. After all, she had contacts in the business, and a solid reputation to fall back on.
Except, she didn’t have her computer with her. Or her cell phone. How could she have been so dazed as to leave them in Chicago? She’d stormed out of the city, determined to disengage. But rather than feel freer, she felt totally cut off without access to her e-mail. She was addicted to the connection. Without it she felt jittery and antsy. Marooned on some deserted island.
While she paced, her wandering gaze caught sight of a cluster of photographs on the mantel that hadn’t been there before. Her mother must have just put them up. Her curiosity pricked, she walked closer to inspect.
She was drawn first to the photograph of herself, naturally enough. In a small silver frame she saw herself as a young teen curled up in a tree reading a book. She felt a ping somewhere deep inside and raised her eyes out the rear window to search for the old oak tree that had been a dear friend to her for many years. But it wasn’t in the yard. “Poor old tree,” she said softly, mourning its loss. A flood of memories coursed through her and, instinctively, she placed the photograph back on the mantel and moved on.
The largest was a silver-framed family photograph taken on the veranda of the Charleston house. A ruddy-faced Palmer in a navy blazer with shiny brass buttons sat with his arm around a slender, erect Julia in pale linen, every hair in place. Palmer had borne the butt of many jokes about how he’d married a gal just like mom, but Cara had never laughed. She’d always found that at the root of jokes there often lay a core of truth. On either side of them sat their children, Linnea and Cooper.
She picked up