Текст книги "Summer Rental"

Автор книги: Mary Kay Andrews

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

23

Tuesday morning, Dorie rolled down the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms so that they barely rested on her pubic bone. She lay flat on the worn chenille bedspread, lifted her chin, and stared down at the soft, pale roundness of her belly. Sometime in the past ten days, when she’d been preoccupied with the future, the present caught up with her.

She closed her eyes and rested the palms of her hands lightly on the bump. Her belly. Her baby. This was really happening. She’d dog-eared her second-hand copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. And at fourteen weeks, she—and the baby—were right on track. Her boobs had grown at least a cup size, spilling out of all her bras and the last bathing suit that still fit. The nausea was gone, she was starting to regain her energy, and just the night before, she was sure—positive, really—that the flutter she’d felt was the baby stirring. Now, if only the rest of her life would get on track.

It was 10 A.M. She’d been watching the clock since waking shortly after seven. At every hour mark, she thought about Stephen. He’d always been an early riser. Should she call him at daybreak? Dorie couldn’t bear to think about her husband waking up in Matt’s bed. Or would he be alone? At eight, she forced herself to rehearse what she would say when she did call.

“Stephen? There’s something I need to tell you. I’m sorry to do this on the phone, but I just couldn’t see you before. And I didn’t know how to tell you. But now I do. And the thing is … I’m pregnant.”

She’d imagined a dozen different responses from him. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Confusion. Happiness? Could this possibly be news he’d welcome? Could he possibly feel what she’d come to feel—deep, unalloyed joy?

The joy was something else that had taken her by surprise. Not that she wasn’t still worried about the future—she was! But thinking about this baby gave her a feeling of peace, of such completeness, such absolute rightness, she was almost afraid to allow herself to dip her toe in such a fountain of happiness. The baby books said it was hormonal, but she didn’t care. Whatever else happened next, nothing could change the fact of this baby.

At nine, Dorie told herself she should wait. Just a little longer. Let Stephen settle into the day. He would be at school now, she thought, putting together lesson plans for the coming year. Or maybe he’d be in meetings with the rest of the coaches, plotting the soccer team’s upcoming season.

Thinking about school, about their colleagues there, made Dorie queasy, and not for the first time. Our Lady of Angels Academy was a small community. Six hundred girls, thirty teachers. It was a Catholic school with conservative values, ruled by the sixty-six-year-old Sister Mary Thomasine, who’d been running OLA with an iron will and a velvet voice since way before Dorie’s own school days there. What would Sister Thomasine make of Dorie and Stephen’s situation—of Stephen leaving his wife, and for another man? And what would she say about Dorie—and her pregnancy?

Stephen was such an introvert; he had friends on the faculty, but Dorie couldn’t think of anybody he might have confided in about the demise of their marriage.

At ten o’clock, she could stand it no longer. She tapped the icon on her phone for Stephen’s number, holding her breath, half afraid he would answer, half afraid he wouldn’t.

On the third ring, he picked up.

“Dorie?” he was out of breath.

“Hey, Stephen,” she said softly.

“Hi,” he said. He took a deep breath. She did the same. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Yours too,” she said, frowning. He could have called her. He hadn’t even tried.

“So,” he said finally. “You’re still in Nags Head? With the girls?”

“Yes,” she said. Stupid question. He knew perfectly well where she was.

“How’s it going?” he asked. “Is it as hot there as it is here?”

“Maybe a little cooler,” she said. “We had a big rain Sunday, and that cooled things off. How is it down there?”

This was ridiculous, Dorie thought. If she wanted a weather report, she could just look it up on the Internet. She had to quit stalling.

“You know,” Stephen said wearily. “It’s Savannah in August. Hot. Muggy. Buggy. Pretty much unbearable.”

“How’s your dad?” Dorie asked. “Any better?”

“Oh.” His voice dropped. “Oh, God, Dorie. I … you didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Dorie, I left you a message. On the house phone. I thought you knew. Dad … Oh Jesus. Dorie, we lost Dad. It’s been, what? A week? I thought you knew.”

“What?” she cried. “How would I know? I never check the house phone for messages, Stephen, you know that. Why didn’t you call my cell?”

“It all happened so fast,” Stephen said, his voice sounding defensive. “They put him in hospice care on a Thursday, and Mom thought, well, we’d still have some time. And the next morning, as soon as she got to his room, he just … his heart just stopped.”

“Stephen!” She was weeping now. “I am so, so sorry.” Sorry for the sweet man Henry had been. For Stephen’s mother, a quiet, reserved Midwesterner whom Dorie had never quite felt comfortable calling “Mom.” And yes, she was crying for Stephen, and for herself, and for this baby she was carrying, who would never know its grandfather Henry.

“Is your mom okay?”

“You know,” he said. “She’s sad, she misses him, but my mom isn’t one to talk a lot about that kind of stuff. Stoic, I guess that’s the word for her.”

“Have they already had the funeral?” she asked, sitting up, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her bedsheet.

“Well, yeah,” Stephen said. “It was last week.”

“And you didn’t think to try to call me? To make sure I knew?” Dorie’s face grew hot as her voice rose. “How could you?”

“I just … I don’t know,” he said, his voice drifting away. “I’m sorry, Dorie. After what’s happened with us, I didn’t know if you would, you know, care.”

“So that’s it?” she cried. “You sleep with somebody else, move out, and you think that’s it, you just click your heels together and we’re done? All our history, what we had together, all that’s over because you’ve decided you don’t love me anymore?”

“Dorie!” Stephen’s voice cracked. “Don’t. You know it’s not like that.”

“No, Stephen,” she said. “I don’t know that it’s not like that. How would I? We haven’t talked all summer.”

“I tried to call you. I came by the house. You saw me. I know you did. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know about Dad. Truly. He loved you, Dorie.”

“And I loved him,” Dorie said. “Which is why it hurts that you didn’t let me know.” She was being unbelievably bitchy, unfeeling, cruel even. She sounded just like her mother had, screaming at her father, back in the bad old days. And she just couldn’t stop herself. “Let me ask you something, Stephen.”

“What?”

“Did you tell Matt about your dad’s death?”

“Stop it, Dorie,” he said.

“Just tell me. Did you?”

“Of course. He was standing right there when I got the call.”

“And did Matt go to your dad’s funeral?”

“God. No. Just stop it, Dorie. I mean, what’s the point of all this?”

“Did he go to Omaha with you? Did he?”

“I’m not discussing this with you.”

“He did, didn’t he?”

“Cut it out.”

“No. I won’t cut it out. I think I have a right to know who’s taking my place. So, I think we’ve established that Matt went to Omaha. How did you introduce him to your mother? ‘Hey Mom, Dorie’s out of the picture, meet the little mister?’ So now the next question is this: did the two of you sleep in your old room? The one with the Star Wars bedspreads and all your soccer trophies? In the same bed we slept in?”

“Fuck you, Dorie,” he said. “I’m hanging up now.”

She had never heard him use that kind of language before. But then, she’d never talked to him this way before either. “Don’t you dare hang up,” she said shakily. “Wait just a minute. There’s a reason I called you today. And I’m so glad I did, since we seem to be sharing secrets.”

“What? I’ve gotta go, Dorie. I don’t have time for your crap.”

She hesitated, feeling the bile rise in her throat. This was not how she wanted to share this news. Not this way. She did not want to float the baby news on this regrettable torrent of anger. But the toothpaste was out of the tube now, as her grandmother would say. And there was no going back.

“Congratulations, Stephen,” she said finally. “You’re going to be a father. I’m pregnant.”

“What? What did you just say?”

Not the reaction she’d been expecting from him, this sudden deafness.

Dorie took a deep breath, enunciating each syllable with care. She didn’t intend to repeat herself again. “I said … I’m pregnant.”

There was a long silence. She could hear his breathing, rapid and ragged. Maybe he’d just gotten back from a run. Or maybe her news was giving him a heart attack.

“Stephen?”

“I’m here,” he said. “Oh, God, Dorie. A baby? When?”

“February. I’m almost four months pregnant.”

“Wow. Just … I don’t know what to say, Dorie. I mean, you call me up and yell at me because I didn’t tell you about my dad, and now you just casually blurt out the news about this baby?”

Dorie tried to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. “Not so casual. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you for weeks and weeks. I even rehearsed what I’d say. Somehow, it didn’t go as well as I’d planned. I’m sorry I yelled at you. And I’m really so sorry about Henry. The sweetest, dearest man … I wish he could have known about the baby.”

“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 nothing 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 her 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 and 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.

Bikes on the Beach occupied the end slot in a small strip mall on Croatan Highway. Every slot in the parking lot was full, so she double-parked and ran into the shop. A middle-aged woman with waist-length dyed black hair sat on a stool at a counter, leafing through a catalog of bicycle parts. “Help you?” the woman asked, looking up.

“I’ve got a bike in my van with a bent wheel,” Julia said. “Is that something you can fix?”

“Sure thing,” the woman said. She eased herself off the stool and followed Julia out to the van. The woman easily hefted the bike out of the van. Inside the shop, she gave Julia an index card to fill out, with her name, address, and cell phone number. “My husband does the estimating and repairs, and he just left to deliver some beach chairs down the road. I’ll have him call you as soon as he gets a chance to look at it,” the woman said.

“How long before it’s fixed?” Julia asked, remembering Madison’s annoyance at the prospect of being without her bike.

The woman shrugged. “If we’ve got a replacement wheel, it could be done this afternoon. But if he’s got to get one sent over from a supplier, it could be a few days.”

“Great,” Julia said.

“We got plenty of rentals,” the woman said, gesturing at the front of the shop, where a couple dozen bikes of all description were parked.

“I’ll let her know,” Julia said.

She was getting back into the van when she heard an unfamiliar noise. It sounded like a dog’s urgent bark—but it was coming from her hip. Julia reached for her pocket and brought out the cell phone. Madison’s phone. The display screen was lit up. UNKNOWN CALLER.

Julia hesitated, but then curiosity got the better of her. “Hello,” she said. “Madison’s phone.”

“Maryn?” It was a man’s voice and he didn’t sound happy. “Come off it. I know it’s you.”

Julia frowned. “Who is this?”

“Who the hell is this?” the man demanded.

“This is Julia Capelli,” Julia shot back.

“Put Maryn on.”

Swiftly, Julia disconnected. “Maryn?” she said softly. “Who the hell is Maryn?”

The phone rang again, almost immediately, and again, the display screen said UNKNOWN CALLER. This time, Julia let it ring. A moment later, the phone dinged, and she saw that the caller had left a voice mail.

She glanced around to see if anyone was watching. The shopping center was nearly a mile from Ebbtide. There was no way Madison could have walked all this way with a sprained ankle, especially not in this heat. But Julia decided not to take any chances.

She pulled the van around to the back of the shopping center and parked behind a dumpster. She touched the icon for voice mail, and the screen showed eight voice mails. Four of them were from someone named Don. She touched the icon and listened to the call that had just come in.

“Maryn, damn it, call me back.” It was the same man she’d hung up on. “Don’t do this to me. I’m going crazy here. I know you’re pissed about what happened, but I can explain. Call me back, okay? Just let me know where you are, and that you’re all right. I’m sorry, you know? I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never deliberately hurt you.”

It was easily ninety degrees inside the van, but Julia shivered despite the heat. She touched the icon for the next voice mail, and the next, each from someone named Don. In each message, Don addressed his caller as Maryn, and each time, implored her to call him, the urgency in his voice increasing with each message. It was clear to Julia, from the first time she heard Don, that he was also the unknown caller.

“Who the hell is Maryn?” Julia wondered aloud. One caller might have misdialed Madison’s phone by accident. But this caller, this Don, had repeatedly called somebody he knew as Maryn.

With her index fingertip, Julia touched the icon that would play back the phone’s voice mail message. “This is Maryn,” she heard a familiar woman’s voice say pleasantly. “Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I feel like it.” The voice was indisputably Madison’s.

“I knew it,” Julia said. “I knew that chick was a phony.”

She looked down at the phone with renewed interest. In just a few moments, she could check call history, she could check Madison’s e-mail on that phone too. Just as she was about to do so, the phone began barking again, startling Julia so much that she dropped the phone to the floor of the car. Julia looked warily at the screen. To her amazement, it was Dorie calling.

“Hello?” she said hesitantly.

“Julia, is that you?” Madison’s voice was brittle with anxiety. “So you found my phone? Thank God! Was it with my bike?”

“Uh, yeah,” Julia said, guiltily. “It fell out of the cup holder. I was just bringing it back there to you.”

“Great,” Madison said. “See you in a few.”

Julia held the phone in her right hand and considered what she’d been about to do. Madison, or Maryn, or whoever she really was, was back at Ebbtide, and she knew Julia had her cell phone. Julia was not somebody who was easily intimidated. But Madison, with her icy stare and aloof demeanor, was potentially a very scary person. As was this unknown man, Don, whoever he was, who had hurt her, and was now begging her to come back.

Gingerly, Julia set the phone down on the passenger seat and started the van’s engine. The air conditioner came on, full blast, and Julia shivered again. This time, she didn’t know if it was from the frigid air, or the realization of just exactly what she’d gotten herself into.

As soon as she pulled into the driveway at Ebbtide, Madison was out the front door, hobbling towards the van, her hand outstretched for the phone.

“Here ya go,” Julia said, handing it over. “Uh, the lady at the bike shop said she’d call me and let me know when it’s going to be ready.”

“Thanks,” Madison said. She looked at the phone, and then at Julia, who found herself going crimson with embarrassment.

“You had a couple of missed calls,” Julia offered.

“Uh huh,” Madison said. She turned without another word, and went back into the house.

Julia went inside too, and followed the sound of voices coming from the kitchen, where Ellis and Dorie were constructing bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.

“Want one?” Dorie asked, pointing to the platter of crisp bacon and tomato slices.

“Okay,” Julia said. “Well, maybe just the bacon, lettuce, and tomato. No bread.” She went out into the hallway and looked up the stairwell, and then came back in the kitchen.

“Did she go back to her room?” Julia asked, her voice soft.

“Who, Madison?” Dorie asked. “Yeah. She said she wasn’t hungry. I swear, I don’t know why she’s so shy.”

“Her name’s not Madison,” Julia said softly. “And she’s not just shy. She’s a phony.”

“What?” Dorie said, putting down her butter knife with a frown. “What are you talking about?”