A Beach Wish Read online

Eve raised her eyebrows. “Now I’m clairvoyant?” She looked at Mel.

  “It was Zoe. Ms. Bascombe.”

  “Bascombe.” Lee spat out the name.

  “Yeah,” Mel said, and bit her lip. “Why are you angry?”

  “I’m not angry. Where was she going?”

  Mel looked uncertainly at Eve.

  Oh Lord, thought Eve. Her father had his “turns,” as her grandmother called them. It came from his years of fast living. They were all used to it, but he’d never been interested in a guest before. And certainly not so aggressively.

  “Well, girl?”

  Eve bristled. “Who are you calling ‘girl’?”

  “My granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, well, you sound like some up-country redneck. She has a name.”

  Her father’s eyes locked with hers in a standoff that catapulted her back to an earlier time. A time when Lee Gordon was still doing the music circuit, when his moods were mercurial and extreme. Eve had loved him with all her heart, loved and feared him, because you never knew when he’d become the crazy man she didn’t recognize.

  “Mel, then. What’s this Zoe person doing here?”

  “She’s a guest, Dad,” Eve said. “Just a guest, here to have a nice weekend.”

  “She was going to the beach,” Mel said, her voice tentative.

  “She can get to the beach out back.”

  “She was asking about a beach called Wind Chime. I sent her down to Floret and Henry’s since you can’t get to their beach from ours.” She shot her grandfather a defiant look.

  Eve stiffened.

  But instead of his usual outburst, her father softened. “Sorry, Mellie. I’m just a grumpy old man.”

  “Probably Kelly’s sausage,” Eve said.

  “Probably,” Lee said. “Well, I’ll see you.” He turned toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I’ll be back for the early set.” He saluted Mel, nodded to Eve, and strode out the door.

  “That was weird,” Mel said as soon as he was gone.

  “It was,” Eve agreed.

  “Why do you think he was so upset? It wasn’t sausages.”

  Eve shook her head. “Granddad has a lot of . . .”

  Mel rolled her eyes. “Issues.”

  “Yes. Things set him off that don’t bother the rest of us. I’ve never been able to figure him out.”

  “Just have to love him the way he is,” Mel said.

  “How did I get such a wise daughter?” Eve knew in that split second she shouldn’t have said it. She could see Mel gearing up for battle. Eve cut her off before she could begin. “And that’s why it’s important for you to go to college. So you can continue to make wise choices.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Oh, but she did. She’d been young and headstrong once. And gotten herself pregnant at the end of her senior year. Of course there had never been a mother in the world who could convince her children that she knew exactly what they were feeling. And that it was her job to make sure her children didn’t make the same mistakes she had.

  She’d never even known her own mother.

  Would she have listened to her advice if she had? It was just one of the many things she’d never know.

  As far as her father was concerned . . . he never even tried to give advice. He’d been too busy wrestling with his own demons. She’d never known what he was thinking, and she didn’t know now. Was she wrong to be concerned?

  He wasn’t a violent man. Never had been. Not toward others. His anger and bitterness always turned inward, destroying himself and, unintentionally, those around him. She thought he’d mellowed, gotten over his disappointments in life. But she’d seen something in him just now that frightened her.

  And it had been set off by Zoe Bascombe.

  Chapter 4

  Okay, that was just weird, Zoe thought as she walked down the sidewalk away from the inn. She stopped at the corner to regroup and take a look around. The town was as charming in daylight as it had been busy the night before. A jumble of row houses and stand-alones had been built, or repurposed, as the business district. Not an empty storefront that she could see.

  Successful and busy.

  She had to wait for several cars to pass, then crossed the street. She walked past a boutique that displayed colorful beachwear. Next to it, the window mannequins were clothed in basic black and designer labels. An antiques store, a gourmet deli, a cigar store, a pub featuring live music. That was tempting—would have been tempting, under ordinary circumstances. In Manhattan, she sat in with the house band at her favorite bar at least once a week when she wasn’t traveling.

  She came to Kelly’s Diner—presumably the same Kelly whose driveway she’d be using—wedged between a store named Babykins, Infant Couture and a beach accessories shop. At the end of the block a bookstore named Book Nook was housed in a white frame cottage.

  Usually with some time off, she’d have peered in the windows, gone inside to browse. She was always looking for little gifts for her co-workers or her family, or bargains for herself. But today she wasn’t tempted. Between her doorway confrontation with that old rocker and the duty that lay ahead of her, she had no patience for shopping.

  The day was warm—there wasn’t a breeze to temper the high-riding sun—and she stood at the curb wishing she’d stopped at the deli for a bottle of water.

  Kitty-cornered from where she stood, a quaint white clapboard church was shaded by two giant trees. A glass-covered sign welcomed all to their services. Zoe’s family had never been very religious, though there was something about the ritual of it all that appealed to Zoe. And the music. Churches might get some things wrong, but they sure knew how to do music.

  But not for her, not today anyway. Today she was looking for a beach. She crossed the street before she could change her mind. She was suddenly anxious to get this trip over with. And at the same time dreading what she might find—or not find. Please don’t make me have to go back to hand the ashes over to Errol like he had demanded before I left.

  She passed a big white house on the corner that had been converted into offices. Then another large house, also painted white. A third house was a little stone cottage with the white wishing well in front that Mel had told her about. It looked out of place next to the stately old homes.

  Beyond it was the undeveloped lot Mel called Little Woods. Zoe turned down the drive, hugging the far side, where the trees sheltered her from the sun and, to be truthful, where she could avoid any confrontations with the homeowners. The drive was paved as far as the Kellys’ garage; then the pavement gave way to cracking and heaving, before giving way to a stony, rutted car path.

  It was a pleasant walk in spite of whatever might be facing her at the end, but foremost in her mind was Don’t tell them I’m staying at the inn. Floret and Mel’s great-grandmother were adversaries. She fervently hoped she wasn’t going to be welcomed with a shotgun and the feuding Hatfields. Or would it be the McCoys?

  Still, she wasn’t prepared for the sight that met her at the end of the drive. The yard was an open space of knee-high weeds and hard dirt, with a rusted station wagon—probably left over from the hippie era—sitting idle off to one side. Straight ahead, a few straggly shrubs tangled against a sagging picket fence across the front of a three-story leaning tower of dilapidation.

  Wind Chime House. The name was painted on a white wooden sign on the gate.

  She had reached her destination.

  Eve leaned back in her desk chair and rubbed her scalp. Curiosity had driven her to the office computer. Not just curiosity, but unease. Her father’s agitation had settled in her. And she didn’t like it.

  She’d spent a childhood trying to hold him to the earth, to family, to her.

  She didn’t miss her mother, most of the time. She’d never known her, so she didn’t really see how she could miss her. Maybe it was just the idea of a mother that left a little piece of Eve always longing.
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  Being brought up at the commune, she’d lived around other kids whose parents weren’t married and some who were raising their kids on their own. Those were the days when people “hooked up,” long before the hookups of today. Strangers who passed—and made love—in the night. No one missed their other parent; some didn’t even know who they were. And didn’t care.

  Until they went to school in town.

  School had been hard. The town kids made fun of the commune kids, and the parents disapproved of their lifestyle, their clothes, their morals—their otherness. So they’d stuck together. There had been six or seven of them in the early days, but gradually they’d all moved away, except Eve.

  Eve had lived with her grandmother at the commune until she was thirteen. It was a lonely time. Her father was usually away on tour. Her grandmother was busy building her real estate empire; meetings and travel kept her away almost as often as Eve’s father. It fell on Floret and Henry to nurture Eve as best they could, though they had no children themselves.

  Eve loved them for it. Henry was a scientist who taught her about the stars and the mysteries of the universe. Floret was a mystery unto herself, but she loved plants and animals and Eve, and knew how to make hurt go away, of knees and stomachs and hearts.

  Then one day, Hannah—or Granna, as Eve called her—had returned home. There was an argument with Floret, then Granna came and told her to pack her things. They’d moved into town that very afternoon. No explanation.

  It was because of the fight. But Eve didn’t learn that until much later. And to this day she’d never learned what the fight was about.

  That was the beginning of the end for the commune. Hippies looking for a life where they could flourish in peace were replaced by yuppies looking for weekend houses where they could chill, which Hannah Gordon was happy to sell them. There hadn’t been a new kid at the commune until David Merrick returned eight years ago to raise his nephew Eli.

  A godsend for David, a rejuvenation for Floret and Henry, but the beginning of the unraveling of Eve’s plans for Mel.

  Eli was a nice boy, in love with Mel, and God knew she was nuts in love with him. But they were so young. Had seen nothing of the world. Had no way to provide for themselves except by working at the inn.

  Eve had made the inn her dream. She’d had no choice.

  But Mel and Eli had options—if only they’d take them. In another month they would both go off to their respective colleges. Problem solved. Right now, she had another possible situation on her hands.

  Eve leaned on her elbows, pressed her templed fingers to her lips, and peered at the computer screen. Zoe Bascombe had made a reservation online. Her driver’s license and credit card were on file. Her answer to the website’s “How did you hear about Solana?” was “Other.” The reply box had been left blank.

  She Googled Zoe’s name, drummed her fingers on the desk. She didn’t usually do this kind of background check on her guests, not unless their credit was questionable. This morning, however, she pushed away her sense of intrusion and refined her search. And was surprised at the number of hits that appeared. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat—the list went on.

  She clicked on Zoe’s Facebook profile. Zoe Bascombe. New York City. Great Neck. UPenn–The Wharton School. The usual young-woman social posts: party photos, beach, horseback riding, snowboarding. Loves music.

  Eve sucked in her breath. Nothing odd about that. Most young people liked music, and Zoe worked for an event firm—a firm that catered to music business clients. A good job for a young woman.

  She kept searching. Parents: George and Jennifer Bascombe. Jenny? Eve’s mother was named Jenny. Jenny Campbell. It was a common enough name.

  George Bascombe was a prominent Long Island attorney. Jennifer was a member of the Great Neck Garden Club, a string of charities.

  Eve’s fingers hovered over the computer mouse, trembling slightly. She clicked on Images.

  A head shot of George Bascombe. George shaking hands with city officials. George and his wife, Jennifer, at a hospital fund-raising ball. George and Jenny Bascombe accepting a check for the Make It Better Organization.

  Eve clicked to enlarge the grainy photo. Zeroed in on Jenny. She was turned in profile, but even so, Eve could see the resemblance to Zoe. She clicked back on Zoe’s Facebook photos, scrolled past the friends and activities and food and parties and found one of Zoe and her mother—and stopped.

  The photo was in color. The two women, mother and daughter, were strikingly similar. No mistaking them for anything but mother and daughter. The eye color was amazingly the same, and unusual. Almost a lilac blue.

  There were no photos of Eve’s own mother, but she’d seen those eyes before. On her own daughter Mel.

  But eye color didn’t mean anything. A coincidence. She kept scrolling back and back, until she came to a Throwback Thursday photo: Me getting ready for Julia’s Sweet Sixteen. Straight hair. Ha-ha. The hair was dark, had obviously just been blow-dried or flat-ironed. But it wasn’t the hair that had arrested Eve’s attention.

  It was the face.

  They could have been sisters, Zoe and Mel. It was uncanny. And it wasn’t coincidence.

  Zoe stood where she was, waiting to see a sign of life, but no one appeared to greet her. Actually, the place looked deserted.

  So now what—did she dare open the gate and walk inside?

  She took a few steps over the trampled weeds and gingerly lifted the latch. Hesitated. Hippies were peace loving, right? She opened the gate and stepped inside.

  Like Dorothy opening the door to the land of Oz.

  Inside the sagging fence were no trampled weeds, no dried-out grass or hard-packed dirt. Just color. The house, unpainted eyesore that it was, was surrounded by flowers. Reds, blues, yellows, oranges, and lavenders not laid out by design, but growing randomly, as if someone had cast handfuls of seed into the wind. Above them, giant yellow sunflowers swayed on their stems like drunken sentinels.

  Jenny Bascombe might have been appalled at the craziness of the planting, but she would have loved the color.

  And the scent. One whiff dissolved into another against a pervasive smell of lavender . . . blue, dilly dilly. A lullaby her mother used to sing.

  “Hello?” she called tentatively. Getting no response, she walked down the flagstone path toward the house. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  Someone was there. From behind her they let out a frightening “Ma-a-a-a-a-a.” The voice didn’t sound human.

  And it wasn’t.

  It was a beast, a little beast, galloping toward her.

  Zoe looked wildly around. She was cut off from retreat. Her only hope was the house. She sprinted up the walk, took the wooden steps to the porch two at a time, and banged on the door.

  “Hello!” she called, her voice rising in panic.

  “I’m out here.”

  She turned around, looking for the source of the voice and keeping a wary eye on the animal that had stopped at the bottom of the steps and was eyeing her curiously.

  It wasn’t a dog, she realized with relief. It was a . . . goat? Must be—goats were the new “cute” pets. This was definitely a goat, brown flecked with white hairs. An old goat? She chuckled in spite of her racing pulse. “You old goat.”

  The goat lifted a hoof onto the front step.

  Zoe backed up. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean it. You’re a lovely goat.”

  “Dulcie! You cut that out.” The voice, high and lilting, came not from inside the house but from behind a large vegetable garden fenced in with chicken wire. The goat turned toward the voice and so did Zoe.

  A large sun hat appeared from behind a row of tall bean plants. A floral gardening glove waved. “Over here. Now, Dulcie, you let the lady come on down.”

  After a beady-eyed look toward Zoe, the goat trotted over to the garden.

  Zoe slowly went down the steps to the yard. But she didn’t venture farther. The gardener’s hat was bobbing along behind the top o
f the staked plants toward the end of the row where Dulcie waited outside the mesh fence.

  The gardener came out into the open, reached back to close the gate, and putting a protective or perhaps controlling hand on the goat, she came to meet her.

  Zoe guessed the gardener was a she from her high voice and diminutive size. Her face was completely hidden by the floppy, wide brim of her hat, revealing only a long gray braid that draped over one shoulder. Baggy overalls were rolled to just below the knee. The shoes were old, scuffed leather work boots.

  She stopped when she was several feet away from Zoe and pushed the hat back, revealing a sun-wrinkled face and a welcoming smile.

  The smile broadened. “My sweet Lord. You’ve come back—”

  Dulcie butted her side, and she staggered several steps.

  “Oh,” the gardener said, and righted herself. Her head tilted one way then the other. “You’re not . . . Oh my . . .”

  Oh dear, thought Zoe. “I’m just visiting,” she said, smiling reassuringly to show that she wasn’t trespassing.

  “Well . . . So glad you’ve come . . . .” The woman started forward. Stopped again. Frowned at Zoe and shook her head before resuming her trajectory, the goat trotting placidly by her side.

  Zoe braced herself for another run to the porch.

  “You have a beautiful garden,” she said, keeping one eye on the goat.

  The woman turned her head to look. “Yes,” she said dreamily.

  Well, thought Zoe. Mel had said this had once been a hippie commune. Maybe the old folks were still getting high.

  “I came to see your beach,” Zoe prompted.

  “Ah.” The woman turned and looked over her other shoulder.

  Zoe followed her gaze beyond the vegetable garden to a grassy half-mowed lawn that sloped down to a white beach and the sea. Farther to the right, she could see the back of the Solana Inn and Spa and the patio where she’d just breakfasted. The inn’s perfectly manicured vibrant green lawn sloped down to a longer white beach. The two beaches met at a rock jetty that sliced through the stretch of sand.

  Dividing one from the other.