Beachcombers. Part 11

She tried to get her arms around the little boy, but he was in a rage, jumping up and down and wailing. All up and down the beach people turned to gawk at him, the source of all this unpleasant noise.

"Harry, calm down." Abbie tried to speak in a calming voice.

A teenage boy with spots on his face ambled up. "Hey, dude, I didn't mean to wreck your sand castle. Sorry, man."

"I HATE YOU!" Harry screamed at the boy. "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"

"Harry." Abbie made her voice stern. "Stop that now."

To her amazement, he obeyed. But she almost wished he hadn't, because it was obvious that he was swallowing his rage, internalizing it. He trembled all over, and his mouth quivered and his bony chest heaved.

She put her arms around him. "Harry, it's almost time to go home, anyway. We'll build a new one, tomorrow, and it will be better."

"Sorry," the teenager said again, looking miserable.

"It's all right," Abbie told him.

The boy hurried away, sand spraying up from his heels as he ran. Abbie kept her arms around Harry and glared at the other sunbathers who were still studying Harry with a mix of sympathy and glee. After Harry's sobs had subsided, Abbie took his hand and gently drew him down to the beach towel. She settled him so that he would not be facing his ruined structure.

"Here, honeybun, drink some juice. You'll feel better."

He obeyed but now he had retreated into his good little robot boy self with a blank expression, and Abbie was worried. She didn't know if this sort of thing was normal. She'd babysat lots of children and never had this sort of experience. She didn't want to leave the beach now, when it would resound with negative images. She had to direct his thoughts elsewhere.

"Harry, let's go for a walk along the beach and see if we can see anything out in the water. Maybe a mermaid, maybe a whale, maybe a pirate ship."

Obediently, Harry stood up and reached for her hand. It broke her heart, that one little action, the way he reached for her hand. She held it firmly, and together they walked slowly along the beach, looking out into the ocean. She stayed just out of reach of the tide line, knowing how Harry feared the rushing waves.

19.

Emma Millicent Bracebridge seemed half-asleep in her chair, and Emma didn't blame her. The room was stifling hot and the light was dim. But Millicent didn't want the drapes drawn or the windows opened. Outside noises disturbed her, she said. Emma continued to read, imbuing the dialogue with the inflections and accents that made Mrs. Bracebridge smile. Hastings was about to kiss an acrobatic actress named Bella, and Emma was surprised. She hadn't remembered Hastings having any kind of romantic thoughts.

A loud noise coming from the front of the house startled her and made Mrs. Bracebridge wake up.

"Grams!"

A man entered the room, and for the first time since Emma had met her, Millicent Bracebridge's face broke into a luminous smile.

"Spencer." She held out her arms.

Spencer hugged his grandmother and kissed her cheeks, then knelt before her and studied her. "You look ravishing!" he told her.

And suddenly the older woman glowed.

"Emma, I'd like you to meet my grandson, Spencer Bracebridge."

Spencer rose and approached Emma, holding out his hand.

He was terribly good-looking, with black hair and ebony eyes. He wore khakis, a white b.u.t.ton-down shirt, and a turquoise tie with sailboats on it. Emma was suddenly aware of her frizzy hair and face bare of makeup.

"Nice to meet you, Emma. Mom's told me about you." He glanced at the book in Emma's hands. "Agatha Christie? Mom said you were reading Moby-d.i.c.k."

"Let your mother keep her illusions, Spencer." Millicent Bracebridge's voice was soft and full of humor. "She judges me rather harshly. I want her to think I'm still intellectually top drawer."

Spencer laughed. "She is hard to please, isn't she! Don't worry. This will be our little secret."

"Thank you, dear."

"But what are you doing," Spencer asked, "cooped up in this gloom on a day like today?"

"I prefer peace and quiet," Millicent Bracebridge began.

Her grandson interrupted. "I've got about thirty minutes free and I want to spend them with you, but not inside." He grabbed the handles of his grandmother's wheelchair. "Come on," he said to Emma. "We're going out to the garden."

"Oh, dear," his grandmother fussed. "It's such a project, getting me out there and back."

Emma followed as Spencer steered the wheelchair down the hall, through the dining room, and out the door onto a large wooden deck. The sunlight was dazzling after the dim interior.

"Listen," Spencer said. "Can you hear the birds? I'll bet that's that crabby old cardinal who used to chase all the other birds away from the feeder."

Millicent Bracebridge laughed. "I'd forgotten him."

Emma asked, "Would you like me to make some iced tea?"

"I'd love some!" Spencer said. "And if you've got any cookies, or cake, or anything, cheese and crackers. This is my lunch break. I work at the NHA and they're pretty easy, but this is such a busy season. And Emma, do me a favor. Would you open the drapes and windows and air out the living room?"

His grandmother protested, "I don't like--"

Spencer spoke over her words. "My dear old vampire bat, we will close everything up before I wheel you back in."

Emma stared, shocked at the way he spoke to her. But his grandmother was beaming.

The kitchen of the house was old, with an ancient porcelain sink built into a metal cupboard and a Frigidaire so old it had to be manually defrosted. As Emma waited for the water to boil for the tea, she searched the cupboards and found digestive biscuits and ginger snaps and Carr's wafers. She put them on a plate with a hunk of cheddar. She poured the water over some Earl Grey, filled a pitcher with ice, and put three tall gla.s.ses on a tray along with the sugar bowl and three spoons.

She carried it all out to the patio. Mrs. Bracebridge was laughing.

As Emma served the tea, she couldn't help smiling. Spencer was recounting a disastrous adventure he and his friends had had on the island when they were children.

"Oh, I'd forgotten all about that!" Mrs. Bracebridge chuckled. Her laughter made her cheeks flush rosily. "Your poor mother. How did she survive having you for a child!"

Spencer consumed every cracker and piece of cheese Emma had put out, and when it was all gone, he turned to Emma. "That was great, Emma. Thanks. I was about to starve."

"You always could eat more than anyone I ever knew," his grandmother observed affectionately.

Spencer looked at his watch, made a face, and said he had to leave. Emma hurried in to close the windows and drapes. Spencer wheeled Mrs. Bracebridge back into her spot in the living room, kissed her on each cheek, and smiled at Emma.

"Are you here often?"

"Every day from one till four," she told him.

"Great! I'll try to take my lunch hours then." And he whisked off out the door.

Smiling as they settled back in the living room, Mrs. Bracebridge said, "He always was like that. He was a happy, energetic little boy, and he's a happy, energetic man. He's working on his Ph.D. in history, you know. Specializing in Nantucket history. Wants to live here eventually. Would you like to see him as a baby? He was the cutest baby!"

"I'd love to see him as a baby," Emma said.

"My photo alb.u.ms are in the bottom shelf of the bookcase, over there behind the sofa."

Emma fetched the alb.u.ms and brought them to Mrs. Bracebridge. She pulled a chair up next to the wheelchair and helped the older woman hold the alb.u.ms close enough for her to see with the peripheral vision her macular degeneration allowed her.

Millicent Bracebridge beamed. "Oh, there I am at my engagement party! Look at my dress, wasn't it lovely!"

"And your husband was so handsome," Emma said.

"He was, wasn't he?"

The afternoon flew past. When it was time for Emma to leave, she put away the alb.u.ms and did a once-over of the room. A gla.s.s of water was on the table next to Mrs. Bracebridge, and at five someone would arrive for the evening. She had a hunch that after the excitement of seeing her grandson, Millicent Bracebridge would nap, and she was right. When she said good-bye to the older woman, she saw that Mrs. Bracebridge had already nodded off, her chin resting on her chest.

As she walked down Main Street and through the narrow, charming lanes to her father's house, her thoughts lingered on the sight of the grandmother and grandson. What love existed between the two of them, what joy they had in each other. She remembered her maternal grandparents, who lived outside Boston, and who had been just as loving, devoted, and admiring, until they both pa.s.sed away when Emma was in her teens. Her father's mother had died years ago, also, and her father's father lived in Florida now with a new wife and had little interest in his three granddaughters. At Christmas, he had sent them each a check for twenty dollars, and the three girls each sent a thank-you note, but when each one turned twenty-one, the checks stopped.

So not everyone had a warm, affectionate relationship with a grandparent. She knew that. She would love to be a grandparent someday. She would love to be as loving as Millicent Bracebridge was to Spencer.

But to be a grandparent, she had to be a parent, and who knew if that would ever happen for her?

At the moment, she didn't have a real job, she didn't have a place of her own, she didn't have a fiance or even a boyfriend. Alicia Maxwell had stolen her man. Alicia Maxwell had stolen her life.

20.

Lily Lily had been out past midnight at the benefit dance for the science museum, and when she got home, she'd still been wired, so she'd sat on her bed and typed her notes into her laptop while they were still fresh in her mind. She probably hadn't gotten to sleep until almost three a.m., and when her cell phone woke her at ten o'clock, her first instinct was to let it go to the message box. Then she opened one eye, dragged the phone to her from the bedside table, and saw that the call was from Eartha Yardley.

Instantly, Lily sat up, wide awake.

Eartha wanted Lily to come out to her house to discuss a job with her. How soon could she come? Eartha asked. Right away, Lily told her, clicked off the phone, and raced for the shower. She dressed hurriedly, grabbed the keys for the car, and raced outside.

Eartha Yardley's house sprawled between high sand dunes at Dionis. On either side of the steps to the front door, large stone dogs sat holding in their mouths stone baskets filled with fresh flowers. It was eleven o'clock in the morning when Lily knocked on the door.

From deep in the house, a little dog began to yap. As Lily waited, the dog's barking came closer, and then she saw the animal--a Shih Tzu, Lily thought--leaping up at the window, yapping and growling and throwing itself into a kind of gymnastic frenzy. But no person came to the door.

Lily knocked again. The dog's bark rose an octave. Lily peered in the window, but the light was wrong; she couldn't see whether or not anyone was coming.

Her cell phone rang. Lily reached into her bag and opened it.

"Lily, don't stand there like Lot's wife, come in. The door's not locked. Don't be afraid of G.o.dzy, he won't bite." Eartha clicked off the phone before Lily could reply.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The little dog danced backward, as if Lily were a seven-headed monster. She knelt down. "h.e.l.lo, G.o.dzy."

But the animal was not to be won over so easily. It continued to bark so pa.s.sionately it bounced.

The enormous room was so not Nantucket-style. Instead of blue, white, and simple, it was multicolored and crowded with antiques, paintings, art gla.s.s, tapestries, rugs, and deep, comfortable furniture more suited to a winter in the city than summer on the island.

The little dog raced down a hall and through a door. Lily followed. The bedroom had one wall that was entirely gla.s.s, and facing it was a queen-sized bed with a quilted headboard glittering with gla.s.s and colored beads. Lily had never seen anything like it.

In the middle of the bed, among crimson silk sheets, lay Eartha Yardley. Her blond hair, backcombed and sprayed into a stiff helmet, was dented on one side.

"G.o.d, I hate morning," she croaked. "Not thrilled by afternoon, either. Get me some water, not tap, that mineral stuff from the refrigerator."

"Sure. I'll be right back." Lily hurried from the room, through the living room, and out to the kitchen. All the appliances were state-of-the-art stainless steel, shining and new. She found a gla.s.s, poured the water, and returned to Eartha's bedroom.

"Thanks, dear." Eartha was sitting up in bed now, with G.o.dzy in her lap. She sipped the water, shuddering. "Don't stand there gawking at me. I know exactly what an old horror I am in the morning. Walk around the room. Acquaint yourself with my closet. Sit down at my vanity over there and check out my jewelry. Not just the stuff that's out, open the drawers."

Lily obeyed, feeling like Alice in Wonderland Goes to Heaven. The room was a tumult of discarded clothing, shoes, handbags, and underwear. The floor of the walk-in closet was a sea of silk and satin. She sat down at the handsome vanity, made of light wood and inlaid ivory, a kind of 1930s look. Jewelry was strewn and jumbled across the top as carelessly as sh.e.l.ls tossed on the beach by the tide.

"You have so many beautiful things," Lily said.

"Yeah, well, don't get any bright ideas about taking something. I may act like an old fool but I know exactly what I have." Eartha struggled out of bed and went into her bathroom.

Lily opened the drawers on either side of the kneehole. The drawers were all lined with lots of slots and nests with velvet pockets holding rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, brooches. One drawer for pearls. One for sapphires. One for rubies. One for emeralds. Two for diamonds. She started sorting the heap of jewelry on top, matching pieces, and replacing them in their little nests.

Eartha came out of the bathroom. She wore a wildly printed caftan and she'd squashed her hair back into place. "Don't do that, honey." She came across the room, walking with the careful steps of someone with a hangover. She leaned one hand on the vanity. "Here." She pointed to a leather book on the floor. "We need to record everything." She crept around to a white silk chaise and collapsed on it. "I keep a record of what I wear to which events. Don't like to duplicate anything, you see, and I attend too many functions to just remember it all, presupposing I have any memory left in the first place."

Lily opened the book. It was a standard diary, one page for each day of the year. She read the last entry: Luncheon. Kay's. Red silk. Gold chain. Gold bracelets.

c.o.c.ktails. Henry's. Paisley swirl skirt. White tunic. Turquoise and silver.

"So my last girl quit," Eartha announced as she lifted a cigarette from a silver case and stuck it in her mouth. "She'd been with me for a while, but she got engaged this winter, when I was down in my Key Biscayne place, and she just missed her fiance too much and took off. Stupid girl. I pay well, and this is hardly coal mining."

As Eartha talked, her little dog timidly approached Lily. Lily held out her hand for G.o.dzy to sniff. G.o.dzy sniffed and jumped back as if singed, but gathered his courage and came back. After a few more moments, Lily was able to pick the little dog up and hold him in her lap.

"G.o.dzy likes you," Eartha said. "That's a good sign. And you're pretty. I can't bear anyone unattractive. So what do you say? Six mornings a week, just two or three hours, helping me keep things organized."

"I'd love to do it." Lily couldn't believe she was going to be paid. This would be like playing in a fairy tale. "And it fits in very nicely with the little business my sisters and I have started. We call it Nantucket Mermaids, and we do all sorts of odd jobs."

"Cute," Eartha said dryly. "Just tell me who to make the checks to."

As she drove back to her house, Lily yawned until her jaw cracked. Tonight she had to attend a huge fund-raiser, and she needed to wash her hair and set it on rollers, so it would fall in a long relaxed wave like Angelina Jolie often wore hers. Eartha would be at the fund-raiser. Lily knew what Eartha was wearing but still hadn't figured out what she'd wear herself.

The house was empty and hot with late afternoon sun. She dug a protein bar out of her bag and absentmindedly chewed away at it as she went up the stairs, checked her answering machine, and double-checked her calendar. Good. Plenty of time for a little nap.