Текст книги "Summer Rental"

Автор книги: Mary Kay Andrews

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

48

Ellis stared moodily down at her coffee cup. No truths there. Just inky, lukewarm, bitter blackness.

For once, she was glad to have the kitchen all to herself. If she were truthful, she’d have to admit that after a month together, much as she and Dorie and Julia loved one another, they were all probably getting on each other’s nerves.

Madison was wiser than any of them. It was time, Ellis thought, to go home. She was already devising a game plan for packing up: stripping all the beds, running a last load of laundry, disposing of the refrigerator’s contents, loading the car. What she would not think about, under any circumstances, was what she would be leaving behind.

She heard the low rumble of a diesel motor coming from the front of the house and ran to see what it was. A flatbed trailer was parked in the driveway, and a handful of men were waving and directing as a bright yellow bulldozer inched its way down a steel loading ramp.

When the operator had maneuvered the dozer off the ramp, a man in an orange safety vest and a hard hat ran over, jumped into the cab, and conferred with the driver. A moment later, the hard hat guy was back in the driveway, waving and pointing at the garage—and Ty’s apartment. But there was no sign of Ty. His Bronco was gone, and the garage was empty.

Now Ellis noticed a huge jumble of stuff piled off to the side of the garage—its former contents: a three-legged ping-pong table; a stack of bald tires; a rusty barbecue grill; the skeletons of aluminum lawn chairs; even a small, wooden skiff with a rotted-out hull. And a surfboard. A faded yellow surfboard.

As she watched, the bulldozer lumbered purposefully towards the garage, aiming at the support beam that separated the two parking bays. She closed her eyes, and a moment later, she heard the sickening sound of boards snapping, beams tumbling to the ground, the garage sliding easily, effortlessly to the ground, with a thud she felt as well as heard.

She heard whistles and applause, and when she opened her eyes, a cloud of dust and sand still swirled in the air around the demolished garage.

Ellis felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Madison standing beside her.

“I saw the trucks coming from my bedroom window,” Madison said. “I came down because I had half an idea you might still be up there,” she jerked her head in the direction of where the apartment had stood, “with Ty.”

They heard the screen door open and slap shut behind them. Julia and Dorie joined them on the porch, barefoot, in their pajamas.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Julia exclaimed, gaping at the remains of the garage. “I heard that crash and I thought somebody’d dropped a bomb on the place.”

“Wow,” Dorie said. “That didn’t take long.”

“Where’s Ty?” Julia asked. “How was your last night together in the love shack?”

Ellis stuck her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “I don’t know where Ty’s gone. I didn’t spend the night. We … had a fight. Not a fight, per se, but…”

“Oh Jesus,” Julia groaned. “Don’t tell me you guys broke up. Don’t tell me you actually want to take that stupid job at that stupid bank in Seattle.”

“I told Dana I’d get back to her Monday,” Ellis said. “You wouldn’t understand, but this is just too good an offer to pass up. Ty doesn’t understand either. So probably we just weren’t meant to be.”

Dorie gave her a hug. “Oh, Ellie-Belly. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Ellis said. “He wants me to stay here, to live on love and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. It’s sweet, but it won’t work. One of us has to have a job, and benefits … and common sense.”

“Let me guess,” Julia drawled. “That someone would be you.”

“Don’t start,” Ellis warned. “I am not in the mood for relationship advice.”

*   *   *

By noon, the remains of the old garage had been scraped up and loaded onto a dump truck headed for the landfill. More lumber trucks and pickup trucks arrived, and even from the beach, the women could hear the whine of power saws and the sharp bursts of nail guns.

“One more day,” Julia said under her breath, glancing over at Ellis, who’d deliberately set up her beach chair and umbrella several yards away from Dorie, Julia, and Madison. “Our last full day at the beach, and she manages to screw it up for all of us.”

“I can’t believe she’s just going to walk away and leave Ty,” Dorie said, keeping her voice low. “He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her, and tomorrow she’s just going to get in her car and drive back to Philly—and then pick up and move across the country?”

Madison sat cross-legged on her blanket, sipping from a cold bottle of water. “Maybe she’s just not ready for a relationship. To commit.”

“Hah!” Julia chortled. “You don’t know Ellis. Nobody was ever more ready for a relationship than Ellis. Before Ty, she hadn’t been with a man in, like, dog years.”

“Ellis got married right out of college to this totally inappropriate guy,” Dorie said, filling Madison in.

“The marriage was over before she got the wedding dress back from the dry cleaner’s,” Julia added. “Literally. Right, Dorie?”

“She was devastated,” Dorie agreed. “It stunted her emotionally. For years.”

“She buried herself in work at that damned bank, never took a vacation, and then, poof! They go and downsize her. She wakes up and realizes she’s thirty-five, single, with no prospects in sight. And then garage guy walks in, and sweeps her right out of those damned sensible shoes of hers. But because Ty doesn’t have a 401(k) and he doesn’t fit into her game plan, she refuses to consider how right they are for each other,” Julia said, glancing furtively at Ellis to make sure she couldn’t hear her life being dissected.

“Look at her, poor thing,” Dorie whispered, nodding towards Ellis, who had dozed off, facedown on her chair. “She was probably up all night crying after their big fight.”

“It’s sad,” Madison observed.

“Ellis never talks about it, but I know she’s always wanted a family,” Dorie said. “That’s what’s so heartbreaking. She could have that with Ty. I mean, he’s perfect for her.”

“And hot. Smokin’ hot,” Julia pointed out.

“They did seem pretty sweet together,” Madison said. “But she’s a grown-up, right? And she knows what will and won’t work for her.”

“Not this time,” Dorie said. She looked at Julia. “We’ve got to do something. And quick.”

Julia jumped to her feet, tiptoed over to the sleeping Ellis, grabbed her beach tote, and brought it over to her own chair. She rummaged around inside the bag, setting aside sunblock, lipblock, paperback novel, and a notepad containing Ellis’s to-do list. Finally, jubilantly, she held up Ellis’s cell phone. “Don’t worry,” she told the others. “I’m on it.”

*   *   *

The tiny print on the computer screen seemed to swim before his eyes. The agribusiness start-up he’d been following was announcing its IPO. He glanced over at the notes he’d made. The research was more than promising. The opening stock price was ridiculously low—four dollars a share? Two months ago, he’d have taken the plunge, gone all in. He had a little cushion now, with the cash from the movie people, so why couldn’t he make himself place the stock order?

Ty shook his head, got up from the wooden table he’d moved over to his new cottage, and walked out to the screened porch. The sky was crystal blue, cloudless, a slight breeze coming off the beach. He stretched and rotated his shoulders. He’d been at the computer most of the morning, deliberately avoiding Ebbtide.

He hadn’t actually planned to move over to Pelican until later in the day, but after the breakup with Ellis the night before, he hadn’t seen any point in staying in the apartment another night. He’d sat at the kitchen table, drinking half the bottle of wine, then dumping the rest down the sink before he loaded his stuff in the Bronco and moved it over to Pelican Cottage sometime after midnight.

Instead of making him sleepy, the wine had made him annoyingly hyper. So he’d spent the early morning hours burying himself in the minutiae of day trading.

It was nearly eleven now, and he knew the garage was gone, because Joe had e-mailed him a photo taken at the precise moment the rotted wooden structure collapsed into the sand. Ty had glanced at the photo and deleted it. Not a moment he wanted to celebrate.

He should have been at the house by now. He’d hired the frame carpenters and laborers needed to start the barn raising, but somehow, he just couldn’t make himself take the half-mile trip down the road to Ebbtide. He wondered if Ellis had watched the garage being torn down. She’d probably applauded its demise. Why the hell had he told her about his idiotic teenage trysts there with Kendra?

Ty went back inside the cottage and began shutting down his computer. His cell phone dinged, signaling he had a text message.

DEAR MR. CULPEPPER: WE NEED 2 TALK. MEET ME @ BEACH, MIDNIGHT, 2NITE. YR. FRIEND, ELLIS SULLIVAN.

He stared down at the text block. She wanted to talk? About what? As far as he was concerned, she’d done all the talking that was necessary the night before.

The hell with her, he told himself, typing rapidly.

NOTHING LEFT 2 SAY.

*   *   *

“Shit!” Julia exclaimed, staring down at Ty’s text. “He’s as stubborn as she is.”

“Now what?” Dorie asked, keeping an eye on the slumbering Ellis.

Julia flexed her fingers and looked towards the sky for inspiration, but found only a flock of seagulls circling overhead.

“We just have to get them together,” she muttered. “He’s crazy about her. She’s crazy about him. What’s so hard about this?”

“Talk about crazy, you two are insane if you think this is going to work,” Madison said. “We’re talking about two adults here, not a couple of sitcom characters.”

“Let’s analyze,” Dorie said. “What is it that’s keeping them apart?”

“Money,” Madison said quickly. “Lack of it.”

“Not really,” Dorie said.

“Ellis is the least materialistic person I know,” Julia agreed. “But she’s so friggin’ practical.”

“And rigid,” Dorie threw in. “If she can’t list it, chart it, or graph it, Ellis doesn’t get it. She craves security.”

“Security,” Madison with a snort. “I thought I was getting that when I married Don, and look where it got me.”

“If she knew Ty had some kind of a job, and if she had a job—one that would allow her to live here with him—I think Ellis would stay,” Julia said.

“Well, let’s get them jobs,” Dorie said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

“Doing what?” Madison asked, flopping back down to the sand. “This is hopeless.”

Julia scowled at Madison. “We can do this. I know we can. We just need to think outside the box.”

“You said she worked at a bank,” Madison said, trying to regain favor. “What kind of work did she do there?”

“Marketing,” Julia said.

“Couldn’t she do that down here?”

“If there were any really big banks here, sure, but Ellis did corporate marketing,” Dorie said kindly. “And those jobs are in big cities, like Philly or Charlotte, where she worked before, or Seattle, where she’s going to move if we don’t stop her.”

“Couldn’t she telecommute?” Madison asked. “I mean, these days, if you have a computer, a BlackBerry, and a headset, you can do just about any kind of work, anywhere.”

“No,” Julia said peevishly. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Dorie looked quizzically at Julia. “Why couldn’t it work that way? One of our math teachers at school, her husband does IT work for a company out of Boston. He flies up there one week out of every month, but the rest of the time he works from home, right there in Savannah.”

“See?” Madison said smugly. “Telecommuting. That’s the answer.”

“It could be,” Julia said slowly. “But Ellis has a job offer. You heard her. It’s the total package: pay, promotion, benefits. You know how the economy is. There just aren’t that many jobs out there.”

“Because she’s really only applied for jobs in bank marketing and on the East Coast,” Dorie pointed out. “Maybe if she sorta branched out, you know, widened her target, with the idea of telecommuting, she’d have a better shot.”

“Maybe,” Julia said. “It’s worth thinking about. Ellis is terrific at what she does, nobody’s harder working, or more creative or talented, that’s for sure.”

“And what about Ty?” Dorie said. “That’s a tough one. Ellis told us Ty said he never wants another office job, never wants to have to put on a tie or sit in a cubicle again.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Julia moaned. “This is hurting my head.”

Dorie was still watching Ellis, who’d stirred, just the slightest bit, throwing an arm over her eyes to block out the sun. “Let’s get back to business,” she whispered. “Before Ellis wakes up and catches us with her phone. What are we going to say to Ty to get him to meet her on the beach at midnight?”

“Even if you get him here, how are you going to get Ellis here?” Madison asked.

“First things first,” Julia said, typing again.

*   *   *

Ty read the text once, and then again, to make sure he’d read it right.

IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU’LL COME.

He typed rapidly, without thinking.

SEE YOU @ MIDNIGHT.

As soon as the “sent” icon lit up, he closed the phone and slipped it in the pocket of his shorts. He opened his computer, rebooted, and went to his account page. The IPO offer for the agribiz seemed to be going well. Share prices were up to $4.25. He hit the “buy” button, nodded, and shut the computer down again.

He went outside, unlocked his beach cruiser, and pedaled quickly up the road to Ebbtide. It was going to be an interesting day, no matter what.

*   *   *

“Oh my God!” Dorie squealed, when Julia handed her Ellis’s phone. “It worked. It totally worked. He’s coming.” She held her hand over her heart and sighed deeply. “This is so romantic, I could die.”

“You will die, because Ellis will probably kill you two when she finds out what you’ve been up to,” Madison said. “Now, tell me, geniuses, how are you going to get Ellis down to the beach at midnight?”

“We’ll get her there,” Julia said, “doing what we do best: lying and trickery. All we have to do now is keep Ellis away from Ty until their midnight meeting. Just in case he happens to mention getting those texts.”

“That won’t be hard,” Dorie predicted. “Ellis hates confrontation. If she even sees Ty, I bet she’ll run the other way.”

“Even so, I don’t want to take any chances,” Julia said. She took the cell phone back from Dorie, and carefully cleared the texts to Ty from the memory. Then she tucked it back in the beach bag, and tiptoed over to where Ellis was just beginning to stir.

Julia plopped down onto the sand beside Ellis, at the same time dropping the bag casually beside her chair.

“Hey,” Ellis said, shading her eyes from the sun’s glare. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” Julia said innocently. “Just wanted to tell you to turn over. Your face is getting too much sun.”

“Thanks,” Ellis said, yawning. “You’re the best.”

“You don’t even know,” Julia said, handing Ellis a bottle of sunblock. “Listen, Booker left this morning, and I still need to return all that stuff I bought to HomeGoods. Dorie’s got a farewell lunch date with Connor, and Madison … well, you know Madison. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d go with me to help load and unload the stuff. Dorie says we can take the van.”

Ellis frowned. “I was kinda thinking I’d start cleaning out the fridge and packing this afternoon.”

“Madison volunteered to clean the fridge,” Julia lied. “And you’ll have plenty of time to pack this afternoon, before we head out for karaoke tonight.”

“Yeah,” Ellis said slowly. “About karaoke. I know it’s your birthday and all, but I really don’t think I’m gonna be up for a lot of partying tonight. I’ll go to dinner, but after that, I think I’ll just have a last quiet night at Ebbtide. I want to get an early start in the morning.”

“Nuh-uh,” Julia said. “You’re not weaseling out of karaoke. It’s our last night together, not to mention my birthday. Don’t make me play the guilt card, Ellis. Either we all go, or nobody goes.” She crossed her arms and glared defiantly at her friend.

“Does it have to be karaoke at Caddie’s?”

“Yes, it does,” Julia said. “Anyway, it’s Friday. Even if Ty is working tonight, he’ll be too busy slinging margaritas to see what you’re up to.”

“This isn’t about Ty,” Ellis started.

“Sure it is,” Julia said. She stood up and offered a hand to Ellis. “Now let’s get moving. I’m pretty sure you’ve drawn up a new Kaper chart back at the house, telling all of us what we’ve got to do before checkout tomorrow.”

49

“Ty,” Angie said, “I’m at my wit’s end here. Patricia’s a no-show again. It’s our last college night of the summer, and the place is already packed to the rafters. I’m begging you. Just come in ’til midnight. I’ll get Nella to close, but if I don’t get somebody behind the bar, like, right now, I may have to kill myself.”

Ty pushed his chair away from the computer. He walked out of the cottage and stared out at the sky. It was past eight and the last orange streaks of sunset were barely visible over the dunes that separated Pelican Cottage from the beach. The view wasn’t nearly as good as his own view back at the garage apartment at Ebbtide had been. He was going to miss that view, but there would be other sunsets, and in ninety days, give or take a few, he would be back home at the old house, this time for good.

“Sorry, Angie, can’t do it,” Ty said. “I’ve got something else tonight.”

“What?” she demanded. “Look, I told you I’m desperate. Just tell me what it’ll take to get you here, right now, and I’ll pay it.”

He considered Angie’s offer. She was over a barrel, and he knew it.

“A hundred bucks an hour,” he said promptly. “Cash. Plus tip out.”

“Shit!” Angie groaned. “I could get five bartenders for that.”

“So get ’em.”

“No, damn it. I need you and you know it. Get over here now.”

“Sure,” he said. “But there’s just one more thing. I can’t stay ’til midnight. I gotta be out of there by eleven thirty. Sharp.”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” she said.

“I mean it, Angie. I don’t care if every damn college kid on the Outer Banks is in there tonight. I’m walking at eleven thirty. No matter what. Understand?”

“Just get here,” Angie snapped.

*   *   *

Julia sauntered into Ellis’s room just as she was zipping herself into the pink Lilly Pulitzer sundress.

“Don’t start,” Ellis warned, when she saw Julia’s disapproving frown. “I’ve already packed everything else except what I’m wearing in the morning. And I am not borrowing any more of your clothes tonight. This is who I am. I’m not Julia Capelli. I don’t wear spike heels or black lace bras as tops. I am Ellis Sullivan. Boring, predictable, safe Ellis Sullivan. So deal with it!”

“I was just gonna ask if I could borrow your silver hoop earrings,” Julia said, seating herself on the edge of the bed. “But if you’re gonna go all postal on me, never mind.”

“Earrings? That’s all you want?”

“Yeah. What did you think I wanted?”

Ellis reached into the pink satin jewelry roll that sat on top of her dresser and fished out the silver hoops. “You didn’t come in here to try and get me all skanked up tonight before we go to Caddie’s?”

“Nope,” Julia said.

“And you’re not gonna try and talk me out of leaving tomorrow? Instead of staying here, with Ty?”

“Nope,” Julia said. She held out her hand. “Just a pair of earrings. That’s all I need. Oh yeah, Dorie asked me to come up here and tell you she needs you down in the laundry room. She can’t figure out which towels are yours and which ones stay in the house.”

“The fugly gray and maroon towels stay here,” Ellis said, turning back to the mirror.

“Yeah, but she said there’s some other laundry, she can’t figure out who it belongs to. Extra sheets and pillowcases. You know Dorie, she gets flustered by the least little thing.”

“Oh all right,” Ellis said, running a brush through her dark hair. “I’ll go.”

“Great.”

Julia followed Ellis to the stairway. She waited until Ellis was halfway down the stairs before she darted back to her room. She picked up Ellis’s purse, fished out her cell phone and car keys and pocketed them quickly, before heading back to her own bedroom.

*   *   *

He had his back to the bar while he poured tequila into the blender, but Ellis knew that muscled back. She knew those wide shoulders, the narrow hips. She caught her breath and took a step backwards, but Dorie grabbed her arm.

“Come on, Ellis,” Dorie said. “You don’t even have to talk to him. We’ll find a table in the far corner.”

“You guys,” Ellis pleaded. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Do what?” Madison said, hooking her hand through Ellis’s elbow. “Come on, Ellis. It’s ladies’ night. Our last night. You don’t want to spoil Julia’s birthday, do you?”

“Anyway, this place is jammed,” Julia pointed out as they maneuvered through the crowd. “He’ll never even know you’re here.”

“I’ll know,” Ellis said darkly, but she allowed herself to be towed to a table near the tiny stage, and then, reluctantly, to be talked into a lemontini. And then another. The music got louder, and then the karaoke mistress stood up and began taking requests.

First up were a pair of leather-clad biker dudes, one short and round, the other a foot taller, with an impressive beer belly and an even more impressive handlebar mustache.

“‘Hotel California,’” Julia predicted. “I guarantee.” And when the two launched into the Eagles classic, the women shared high-fives all around.

A pudgy brunette in too-tight white jeans, her breasts spilling out of a white tube top, clambered to the stage next, and shocked the crowd by singing a rendition of “Crazy” so pitch perfect, the women all swore she was Patsy Cline come back to life.

While they all stood, giving the Patsy wannabe a standing ovation, Ellis glanced over at the bar. Ty was clapping, whistling. In a split second, his eyes caught hers. He nodded, smiled, as though nothing had happened. Ellis felt her face flush, and she looked away.

Two songs later, Dorie stood and announced, “I’m taking a potty break. Anybody need anything?”

“Potty break and a Connor break, right?” Julia teased. “You think we didn’t see you watching the door to see if he was working tonight?”

“I have to pee every thirty minutes,” Dorie said. “Can I help it if the ladies’ room is right by the bouncer’s booth?”

Twenty minutes later, she was back, a tray of drinks in hand, with the karaoke catalog tucked under her arm.

“Ty sent these over,” she announced, distributing the cups. “He saw me talking to Connor, and insisted that he wanted to buy us all a round of drinks since tomorrow’s our last day. He says we’re the best tenants he’s ever had. Isn’t that so sweet?”

“Adorable!” Julia said, staring at Ellis, who nodded mutely, and then knocked her drink back in one long guzzle.

Dorie and Julia exchanged a worried glance.

“Hey, slow it down,” Julia said. “You don’t wanna be driving with a hangover tomorrow, do you?”

Ellis tossed her hair. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

“So. What are we gonna sing?” Dorie asked, flipping the catalog open.

“We? There is no we,” Madison said.

“I thought we’d do a group number,” Dorie said, looking around at the others. “What’ll it be?”

“How ’bout ‘It’s Raining Men’?” Julia asked.

“Or what about ‘Love Shack,’ you know, since the B-52s are from Georgia, like us,” Dorie suggested. “What do you think, Madison?”

Madison glanced down at the book, turned the page. “I don’t do karaoke, as I think I mentioned previously,” she said. “But if I did, I’d have to say we should do ‘I Will Survive.’”

“Oooh, good one,” Ellis had to admit. “I think that could be the theme song for all of us, right?”

Dorie nodded absentmindedly, still turning the pages of the book. “No. I got it. This is it. The one.” She pointed at Julia, Ellis, and Madison. “And we are all gonna sing it. Together. Every single one of us. Because it’s Julia’s birthday. Right, Julia?”

Julia craned her neck to see what song Dorie had chosen. “Right. I’m the birthday princess and you all have to do what I say. So, what are we singing?”

“You’ll see,” Dorie said, slamming the book shut. “When it’s our turn.”

*   *   *

He’d found the house with little difficulty, thanks to the faded EBBTIDE sign by the mailbox. He’d cruised past half a dozen times during the day, but there was a surprising amount of activity, some kind of construction project going on, with cars and trucks coming and going. At one point, he’d even ventured down the driveway, simply following a caravan of pickup trucks full of workers. He’d spotted Maryn’s Volvo, parked off to the side of the house, and smiled to himself. She was still here.

After six, when the workers left for the day, it was easy to pull into the lot next door, and hide his vehicle behind the foundation of a burnt-out old house.

It had been ungodly hot, waiting, but finally, darkness fell, and he could see silhouettes of the women moving around inside the house. So far, he hadn’t spotted Maryn, but it didn’t matter. She was there, he knew that. And he could afford to be patient.

Finally, close to nine o’clock, he saw the lights in the house being switched off, one by one. He got out of his vehicle, crept to the edge of the stack of lumber that had been unloaded only hours earlier, and watched while the women filed out of the decrepit old house and piled into a red van. The other three women were dressed stylishly, as if for a night out, but not her. He smiled, seeing Maryn dressed incongruously in cheap jeans and an oversized T-shirt, with her hair tucked up beneath a long-billed baseball cap. As though that would make her unrecognizable to anybody who knew the real Maryn.

Ebbtide was a ramshackle old wreck of a house, with thick beams, walls of cedar planks, and solid wooden doors. The locks, however, were a different matter. He’d easily jimmied the rusted lock on the kitchen door at the back of the house. Once inside, he’d quickly moved through all the bedrooms to ascertain which one was Maryn’s. He’d cursed silently when he discovered that she, alone among the women, had locked her bedroom door. Not that it had slowed him down much. He’d seen the open window from the beach side of the house, and the old-fashioned catwalk that led to it from another third-floor door. It had been easy enough to find the door to the attic, and the corresponding window. And somebody, it appeared, had recently taken that same route to Maryn’s room, judging by the fresh-looking splinters on the attic access door.

And how convenient, he marveled, that he’d been provided such a neat and convenient escape route—the steel spiral staircase leading directly from Maryn’s room to the ground floor, and the burnt-out skeleton of the house next to Ebbtide, where his vehicle awaited, behind a clump of shrubbery.

From the looks of things, his timing was impeccable. Their departure was imminent. Maryn’s duffle bag was packed. It took him only a moment to find the laptop case, shoved to the back of the shelf in the closet. He sat down on the room’s only chair to wait. He had all the time in the world.

*   *   *

Eleven o’clock came and went. Julia caught Dorie’s eye and glanced meaningfully at her watch. “Hey, Dorie,” she said. “How much longer before our number comes up?”

“Oh,” Dorie said, catching the meaning. “Uh, well, there were a bunch of requests in front of mine.”

Ellis picked up Julia’s drink and took a sip. “What’s the hurry? The party’s just getting started.”

Julia reached over and put her hand to Ellis’s forehead. “Are you hallucinating? I can’t believe you’re not champing at the bit to get home and finish packing. You didn’t even want to come tonight.”

Ellis pushed her hand away. “I changed my mind. Is that a crime?” She turned to Dorie. “Hey, pass me that karaoke thing.”

Dorie rolled her eyes. “Really? You? You’re going to do karaoke? By yourself?”

But Ellis was flipping through the pages of the catalog, pausing only when she came to the next to the last page. She looked up and glanced over at the bar, and she was sure Ty looked away.

“Yep, this is the one,” she said, getting to her feet. She grabbed a wad of bills from her pocketbook and pushed her way through the crowd towards the karaoke mistress.

“Is she drunk?” Madison asked, looking from Dorie to Julia.

“Drunk or in love. Either way, this ain’t the Ellis we know,” Julia said grimly, and Dorie nodded in agreement.

When Ellis got back to the table, she had another drink. As soon as she wasn’t looking, Julia dumped most of the contents of Ellis’s cup into her own.

Two songs later, the emcee called out, “Ellis. Ellis, baby, where you at?”

A moment later, an Ellis they’d never seen before was prancing around the vest-pocket-sized stage, doing her best to channel Cyndi Lauper singing the anthem that had been theirs in parochial school, when they’d prance around Julia’s princess pink bedroom in their Our Lady of Angels Peter Pan blouses and blue-plaid jumpers, pretend microphones in hand, warbling about how “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

Despite dissolving into a fit of nervous hysterical laughter halfway through the first verse when she forgot the words, Ellis’s enthusiasm and confidence grew with every beat, so that by the end of the song, seemingly every woman in the club was on her feet, snaking around the dance floor in an impromptu conga line, chanting over and over, “they just wanna, they just wanna-uh-uh-uh…”

Stuck behind the bar, Ty had to scramble on top of an empty bar stool to catch a glimpse of her. When he did, the slow grin spread across his face again. “Attagirl,” he said softly, to nobody in particular.

When Ellis made it back to their table, pink faced and sweat drenched, the three women stood and applauded. Ellis collapsed into her chair. “I did it!”

“You sure did,” Julia agreed, glancing at her watch. “Now we really probably need to get you home.”

“No!” Dorie cried. “We are not leaving here tonight until we all do our group number.” She gave Julia an accusatory look. “You promised.”

“Fine,” Julia said. She plucked a ten-dollar bill from her pocketbook and strode towards the karaoke mistress.

“Think you could move Dorie and friends in the lineup?” she asked, cupping her hands to the woman’s ear. “One of the girls is pregnant, and we need to get her home pretty soon. And it’s our last night at the beach. Our swan song, you might say.”