Chapter 31

y four o’clock they’d had enough of the sand and the sun and the synchronized swimming, and they headed back to the yacht. April made another batch of frozen margaritas and the four of them sat on the aft deck around a long table, watching as the sun fell slowly in the sky. Captain Mike put Jimmy Buffett on the stereo and went to help April in the galley. They could hear them from time to time in between tracks, laughing and talking.

“Is there anything more annoying?” Mel asked sullenly, lifting her drink.

“What?” Annie said, listening while Jimmy Buffett sang about changes in latitudes and changes in attitudes. She had never, until this very moment, understood what that song meant.

“Being stuck in an enclosed space with two people who can’t keep their hands off each other.”

“You wouldn’t be complaining if it was you in the galley with Captain Mike.”

“I told you. He’s not my type.”

“You told us, but no one believes you.”

Mel glanced at her but didn’t say anything. Nighthawks darted over the deserted beach like large exotic insects. The sun hung low over the horizon, catching in the branches of the distant trees, staining them crimson.

“Are you dating anyone right now?” Sara asked Mel.

“No.” She stared at the bottom of her glass. “There was an editor I was seeing, but that didn’t work out.”

Lola asked, “Do you like being alone?” and Annie said, “Lola!” as if she’d said something inappropriate. Lola blushed, but before she could respond, Mel answered, “Not really. No.”

“No one likes being alone,” Sara said.

Mel looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m agreeing with you.”

“Well, don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like, Oh, poor Mel, she’s spent her life making shitty choices and now she’s all alone”

“Look, Mel, no one’s trying to make you feel bad about your choices. It’s your life.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, forget it then.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Annie looked at Lola and rolled her eyes. Jimmy Buffett sang about Mother, Mother Ocean. Over in the corner, the elephant raised its trunk and trumpeted silently.

Annie went down to the forward stateroom to use the head, and when she came back up on deck, Sara and Lola were standing at the rail watching a school of skates swim by. “They remind me of underwater bats,” Lola said, standing with her feet on the bottom rail and leaning over excitedly. Sunlight glinted off the lenses of her dark glasses.

“I think they’re creepy,” Sara said. “They look a lot like stingrays. Can they sting you?”

“No,” Mel said. She was sitting at the table with her feet up on an empty chair. “They don’t have stingers.”

Lola crossed her arms on the railing and stared pensively at the black shapes gliding through the water. “They look like dark angels,” she said. “Like avenging spirits.” Sometimes Lola said the strangest things.

Annie joined them at the railing. They did look like bats gliding through the water, their black wings flapping. There were probably twenty of them swimming in circles between the boat and the shore, clearly visible against the sandy bottom, flitting through the water like wraiths.

“Once I was swimming and they came up to me and let me pet them,” Lola said. Her skin was the color of honey. Her nose was covered by a sprinkling of freckles. Looking at her, Annie was reminded suddenly of Agnes Grace, the girl she had met while volunteering at the Baptist Home for Children. Agnes Grace would love the skates. She would love the beach. Annie was pretty sure the child had never been any farther than Bakertown but she would love the ocean and its exotic sea life.

Sara said, “If I was swimming and I looked down and saw those things, I’d probably have a heart attack.” She pointed with her glass. “What was that?”

Annie looked where she was pointing. “What was what?”

“That dark shiny shape that just passed beneath the boat. And don’t tell me it was a skate because it wasn’t. It was long and narrow like a cigar.”

“It might have been a barracuda,” Lola said. “Did it have big teeth?” She grimaced, showing her teeth.

Mel got up and came over to the railing. “Maybe it was a shark.”

“Okay,” Sara said. “Now I’m getting chills.”

“Don’t be such a chickenshit,” Mel said.

“I don’t see you getting in the water.”

“Well, I would if I wanted to.”

“If it was a shark,” Annie said, not wanting them to get started again, “it was a small one.”

“Even small sharks have big teeth.”

“There it is!” Lola said, pointing.

“Where?”

“There!” She stood up on her toes and leaned far over the railing. “It’s a barracuda.”

“Damn it, Lola, if you fall in I’m not going in after you.”

Lola began jumping up and down. “See!” she said. Without warning, her glasses slid down her nose and plopped into the water. They sank slowly, weaving back and forth like a small frightened sea creature. “Oh, no,” Lola said.

“I hope those weren’t expensive. I have an extra pair of sunglasses in my purse,” Annie said.

“They’re not sunglasses,” Lola said, staring blindly at the water. “They’re real glasses.”

“What do you mean, real glasses?”

“You know. Prescription. They turn dark in the sun, but they’re not sunglasses.”

They stood staring at her while, behind them, Jimmy Buffett sang about cheeseburgers in paradise. Mel said, “Are you still legally blind?”

Lola laughed and put her hands on the railing to steady herself. “Yes,” she said.

“Do you want me to go down to the stateroom and get your other pair?”

Lola stopped laughing. “Other pair?” she said vaguely. She swiveled her head in Mel’s direction. “The other pair’s back in Birmingham.”

Annie groaned. Mel stared at Lola. “Okay,” she said patiently, as if she was speaking to an afflicted child. “What about your contacts?”

Lola bit her lower lip. Annie was reminded again of the child at the Baptist Home, Agnes Grace, after she’d done something wrong and been found out, and was trying to charm her way out of trouble. “My contacts are back at the beach house,” Lola said. “But that’s okay,” she said, squinting and holding one hand out in front of her. “I’ll be okay.”

“What’re we going to do?” Sara said to Mel. “We can’t leave her wandering around the boat, not without a Seeing Eye dog, anyway, or a cane.”

Lola giggled. “Seeing Eye dog,” she said, “that’s funny.”

Mel stared despondently at the spot where the glasses had disappeared. “All right, well, one of us will have to go in after them. The water can’t be much deeper than twenty feet.”

“Are you crazy? There’s a barracuda down there.”

“So what? It won’t hurt you.”

“Fine. You go in then.”

They both looked at Annie. “Count me out,” she said, tapping the side of her head as if she were trying to dislodge something. “I have an inner ear problem. I can’t dive much deeper than five feet.”

Mel thought about it a moment, and then turned to face the galley doors. “Oh, Captain Mike!” she shouted. When he appeared in the doorway she crooked her finger, beckoning for him to come on deck. “We need you,” she said sweetly.

It took him about twenty minutes of diving in thirty feet of water to find the glasses. When he surfaced, holding them above his head, they all cheered. He climbed aboard, and handed the glasses to Lola with a little flourish. She couldn’t see a thing, of course, but Sara helped her grasp them and watched while she slid them on to her face.

“I can see! I can see!” Lola said, and for some reason they all laughed, more with relief than anything else because now they wouldn’t have to motor home early. Everyone was happy again, resettling themselves in the deck chairs as the sun sank finally beyond the horizon and evening came on.

April came on deck carrying a T-shirt and a towel that she draped across Captain Mike’s broad shoulders. He dried himself and snapped the towel at her playfully, and she squealed and ran back through the sliding doors into the galley. He was in a good mood. The closer it got to the end of the week, the more jovial he became. Mel wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that they’d all be leaving soon and he and April could get back to the private life they lived when no one was around.

“Join us,” Mel said to him, lifting her margarita glass. She knew it was useless. He was in love with one woman, and nothing else mattered. J.T. had been like that.

“No,” he said, his eyes reflecting the slate-blue color of the sea. “The captain of the ship has to keep his wits about him.” His hair dripped steadily onto his clean T-shirt. It showed a shamrock and read, in big green letters across the front, WHO’S YOUR PADDY? “If you ladies don’t need me, I think I’ll go in and help April with supper.” He stopped at the door and turned around again, grinning. A dimple appeared deep in his left cheek.

“Try not to drop anything else in the water until I get back,” he said to Lola. “Try not to do anything stupid.”

Mel knew suddenly what it was that she wanted. She wanted a man just like him. Someone she could have dinner with, bounce ideas off of, someone who would be there for her when the chips were down, when she was at her most unlovable, when she was old, sick, and out of print.

Jimmy Buffett posed the question “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw)?” Twilight fell. Pewter-colored clouds massed in the sky, and a faint smattering of stars appeared on the horizon. The island was a dull glimmering shape now, a band of white beach bordered on one side by the black water and on the other by a dark fringe of forest.

Captain Mike came out to light the lanterns. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes,” he said. He was whistling. Here on the water, he was very much a man in his element. A man tempered, but not broken, by adversity, Mel thought, noting his profile in the lamplight. She remembered the dead wife, the life he’d had to pack up and stow away like an old suitcase. J.T. Radford would look much the same, Mel imagined, trying suddenly to picture him as he must look today.

She finished her drink and set the glass down on the table, determined not to go down that road. Life was too short; it was useless to spend it wallowing in misery. She had learned that years ago.

It did no good to remember what she had once had, and lost.

They ate dinner on the aft deck, a wonderful meal of grilled ahi with an espresso glacé, while darkness closed around them like a curtain and ghost crabs scurried along the beach in the moonlight. Captain Mike and April joined them, and it was one big party (except that Captain Mike drank tea). He was charming and sweet, getting up to make them fresh drinks, and clearing the plates when they’d eaten their fill. Sometime during the long afternoon and evening he had acquired a certain swagger that suited him well. He had the jaunty, rolling gait of a man of the sea, and it wasn’t too hard to imagine him as a pirate with a plumed hat and a cutlass strapped to his waist. He sat at one end of the table between Lola and April. Mel was pretty sure if she dropped her head beneath the tablecloth and looked, she’d find his hand plunged deep into April’s girlish lap. He had the smug, self-satisfied look of a man who thinks he’s being clever, secretly running his hand over his lover’s thigh. Mel knew that look. She’d seen it often enough.

Lola laughed suddenly, her tinkling laugh like music, like coins jangling in a pocket. She stood up and knocked over a glass.

“Careful!” April called out, watching as she made her way to the galley door. “Do you need someone to go with you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Mel said.

“Why is the boat moving?” Lola said.

“The boat’s not moving, silly.”

Captain Mike stood up and went to help her.

Later, they moved up to the flybridge, where they had an unobstructed view of the stars. They sat at the horseshoe-shaped banquette with their drinks resting on the table in front of them. Behind them the dinghy rested in its cradle, covered by a bright blue tarpaulin. A yellow moon rose over the water. The great vault of the sky stretched above them, an endless dome of sparkling lights.

“Don’t climb down these without me here to help,” Captain Mike said, pointing to the steps to the aft deck. “They’re too steep and you’re too drunk.” The deck lights illuminated the chiseled line of his jaw, the heavy browridge above the strong straight nose.

“Who’re you calling drunk?” Mel said belligerently.

“If we call you, will you carry us down?” Lola asked, her sharp little laugh ringing out like a bell.

“Yes,” he shouted, disappearing down the steps. They could hear April below, clearing up the supper dishes.

Mel had a sudden memory of J.T the first night they met him, carrying her up the ridge in the moonlight while Sara stood waiting, her face rigid with anger and envy. “Do you remember the first time we met J.T? That night at the bonfire?”

“No,” Sara said flatly, lifting her glass.

“You didn’t want to go,” Mel said, shaking her head, her eyes shining in the lamplight.

A ship passed slowly out to sea, its lights twinkling in the darkness. Sara’s expression was composed, polite. “How’s your father?” she asked Mel. “How’s Leland?”

“He’s—old.” The image of Leland as she’d last seen him filled Mel with a strange sadness. She sipped her drink and looked around the table at their faces, pale and lucid as the moon. Moonchildren. Moon girls.

“I remember your daddy,” Lola said, wiping her upper lip with a dainty finger. “He was sweet.”

“Sweet? Leland?” Mel looked at Sara, who smiled faintly. “You must be thinking of somebody else.” She didn’t want to talk about Leland any more than Sara wanted to talk about J.T. Leland was an old man; his days were numbered. It didn’t seem right talking about him now. It didn’t seem right blaming him. Even in her inebriated state she knew that. He probably thought he’d been a good husband and father. He’d provided financially for his family, made sure no one ever went hungry or without. His bullying had been his way of toughening them up for the hardships of life. Mel doubted he’d ever spent one minute wrestling with his conscience, wondering if he’d done the right thing by Juanita or Junior. He probably thought Junior had died of a congenital weakness of character. He probably thought Juanita had died of agoraphobia. Besides, he had one child who’d managed to survive childhood. Mel was his proof that he’d done things right.

“I don’t think I ever met your dad,” Annie said.

“You’d remember him if you had.”

“It’s great that you’re a writer and you can write him off,” Sara said. She frowned slightly and tilted her head, as if something had just occurred to her. “Is that where the saying comes from?”

Mel drank steadily. She set her glass down on the table and wiped the back of her mouth with one hand. “What are you rambling on about?”

“Your character. Flynn Mendez. She has a problem with male authority figures.”

“So you have read my books!”

“I’ve read a few. Enough to know what I’m talking about. Enough to know that Flynn Mendez bears a striking resemblance to you. Every time she sticks a stiletto into a villain I imagine you metaphorically sticking a stiletto into Leland.”

Mel snorted derisively and put her head back, striving to keep her tone indifferent. “It’s fiction. It’s all fiction. Besides, I let go of that shit with Leland years ago. That’s what therapy’s for.”

She was a big talker. She wasn’t fooling anyone; she could see it in their faces. What was it Leland used to say? Big hat, no cattle. All suds, no beer. She’d dreamed for years of confronting him, and then when the moment finally presented itself, she’d chickened out. How do you confront a dried-up husk of a man? A man who’s cried over you and supported you through cancer. A man who was still there when all the others were gone. How do you confront a man like that, how do you tell him your trust issues, your broken relationships, your inability to love completely are all based on his piss-poor parenting skills?

The answer, of course, is that you don’t. The time for confrontation was long past; Mel had been through enough therapy to know that.

All that was left now was forgiveness.

•  •  •

Later, Annie drank so much that she did her impersonation of Dolly Parton having sex with Porter Wagoner. (Naw, Porter, you cain’t put it there. What kind of girl do you think I am?) Lola and Mel rolled around on the banquette thumping each other on the back. Sara laughed so hard she wet herself.

Captain Mike came up on the flybridge to check on them. “I was going to offer you girls another drink, but I think maybe you’ve had enough.”

“Who are you, the Booze Nazi?” Mel took off her shoes and pitched them at him. One landed on the deck but the other one sailed over the railing into the water. “Now look what you made me do,” she said.

He turned and called down to April to make a pot of coffee and bring it up.

“You know that’s an urban legend,” Mel said. “Coffee does not sober you up.”

“Who says we have to sober up?” Annie said.

“Captain Mike.”

“Just one more,” Annie pleaded. “Come on, Admiral Mike, we’re on vacation.”

“Nice,” Mel said.

“Shut up,” Annie said. “I know what I’m doing.”

He walked past them and over to the helm to check the instruments. He peered at the dark floating shape of the island. “I’m cutting you off for your own good.”

Mel made a face at his wide back. She nudged Lola with her toe. “Hey, who’s the employer here and who’s the employee?” she asked in a loud voice.

He turned around and gave her a fierce look. “Who’s the captain and who’s the passenger?” he said. He kept his eyes on Mel long enough for her to know that he was serious. “It’s late,” he added, more reasonably, turning back around. “As soon as April brings the coffee, we’ll shove off.” He went back to checking his instruments and getting the yacht ready for departure. Behind his shoulder, the moon shone like a lantern. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians sang “What I Am.”

Annie put her head back to look at the stars. The alcoholic haze in her head had settled down to a pleasant buzz, a feeling of light-headedness and euphoria. She wished she could feel this way always, as light and airy as a thistle floating on a breeze, weightless and lucid and empty of all emotion, even regret. Even guilt.

A pair of deer glided across the moonlit beach. Far off in the forest, a fox barked.

“This place is kind of creepy when the sun goes down,” Sara said, looking at the shadowy island.

“You can feel the dead everywhere,” Lola said, resting her cheek on her hand. In the moonlight, she had the beatific look of a martyred saint. “So lonely.”

Sara touched her lightly on the arm, as if to reassure her.

“Sometimes I get sad,” Lola said.

“We all do,” Sara said.

“That’s part of life.”

“As long as you’re not sad all the time.”

“I’m not.”

Mel sat up suddenly and pushed her coffee away. “It doesn’t help that Briggs has you on all that medication.”

Lola smiled sadly and stared at the moonlit beach. “He does it because he loves me.”

“He has a funny way of showing it.”

“He doesn’t want me to feel my unhappiness,” Lola said. “He doesn’t want me to suffer. It’s kind of like euthanasia, only slower.”

Captain Mike flicked on the running lights. A wisp of melancholy floated on the warm night air, settling over the deck and its occupants.

“Slow euthanasia,” Mel said. “That sounds like a tropical drink.”

“Everything sounds like a drink to you.”

“Let’s make one up. What do you think? Vodka and absinthe? Rum and absinthe?”

“I’m pretty sure absinthe is illegal.”

“Let’s see if we can get some. I bet Captain Mike can get us some.”

Captain Mike ran his fingers over the instrument panel, flicking switches and checking gauges. “Sorry girls, you’ll have to get your own illegal substances,” he said.

Lola’s face in the moonlight was pale and raw, a wounded face, lost in painful memories. She seemed imbued with sadness, lit from within by a flickering, indistinct light. But then a strange thing happened. She put her head back and stared at the sky, and her face cleared and she was suddenly soft and pink-cheeked as a child, and you could see the woman Lola might have been had time and circumstance not conspired against her. “Look at all those stars,” she said dreamily. “Look at that sky.”

April brought their coffee, which was strong and heavy with warm, sweet cream. They sat in companionable silence, drinking and watching Captain Mike get the boat ready. The starry night stretched above them. A sudden gust of wind from the east brought with it the scent of rain. After a while, Sara stirred and said, “Do you know what I was afraid of when I agreed to come on this trip?”

“Alcohol poisoning?” Mel said.

“I was afraid I’d be bored.” She picked up her coffee cup, and held it in front of her in both hands. “I was afraid after all these years apart, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about. But the funny thing is, the minute I saw you all it felt like we were eighteen again. We’re different, but the friendship’s still there, it’s intact, and it makes me feel—I don’t know, safe. Y’all are the sisters I never had. I can tell you anything.” She glanced around the table, suddenly shy. “There’s nothing we can’t talk about,” she finished weakly.

Everyone was quiet. They stared at their coffee cups, too polite to disagree with her. Over in the corner, the elephant closed his eyes and went to sleep. There were some things no one was ready to talk about.

At least, not yet.

Beach Trip
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