Beach Colors Read online

  “Still is. You have been out of touch. She moved back seven or eight years ago. Long story.” Grace looked pensive for two seconds before she was off and running again. “Oh Lord. Remember how you used to dress her up in your fashion concoctions?”

  “I remember, unfortunately. You guys were good sports to put up with me.”

  “Remember the wedding dress you made out of your grandmother’s tablecloth?”

  “How could I forget? Bri stole her mother’s negligee to use for a veil and we went outside to take pictures. Then the lifeguard laughed at her and she got all huffy and snatched the negligee off and tore the strap.”

  Grace’s face sobered.

  “What?”

  “You know the lifeguard?”

  “Yeah, skinny guy, kind of cute, and had it bad for Brianna.”

  “He died.”

  “That’s terrible. How?”

  “In one of those wars—Iraq, Afghanistan. Nobody was real clear on the details. It happened a couple of years ago. Brianna was upset. Not that she’d seen him in ten years or ever did anything more than giggle in front of him. But you know Brianna. She’s sensitive.”

  Margaux knew. Brianna could go from Little Miss Sunshine to Lady Macbeth in a heartbeat. She’d been a successful model. Then her name had dropped out of the public eye, and Margaux had lost track of her.

  “I didn’t know she’d moved back. What happened?”

  “I’ll let Bri tell you. She bought that big farmhouse near Skilling’s Ice Cream. The one that used to have horses. She’s renovating, little by little.”

  “A huge job if it’s half as bad as I remember.”

  “Huge,” Grace agreed.

  A young waitress brought their salads. Grace dug in but Margaux had lost her appetite. “I’ve been a terrible friend.”

  Grace looked over her fork of tuna. “Nah, just unmindful. We kept expecting you to come home for a visit and you never did. Then life happened. But what the hell. We’re all here now.”

  By the time the waitress cleared their plates, both salads were gone, along with two Key lime cupcakes and two skinny cappuccinos—to make up for the cupcakes—and they were chattering away like they’d never been apart.

  Grace looked at her watch. “Yikes. We’ve been here two hours. I have to be in court.” She pushed her chair back. “How long are you staying?”

  The inevitable question. Margaux hesitated. She’d made it all the way through lunch without divulging her true situation to Grace. Which was easy because they’d been reminiscing about the past.

  “Well. I’m not sure.” And suddenly she didn’t want to be keeping secrets anymore. She took a breath and plunged in. “I’m getting a divorce. My husband cleaned me out, I’ve lost my business, my studio, everything. I’m here because, dear Grace, I have no place else to go.”

  Grace sat down. “Shit. Do you have a good lawyer?”

  Margaux smiled in spite of the stinging in her eyes. “A shark, but she isn’t cheap. She’s working on spec so far.”

  “Well, I’m cheap if it comes to that.”

  “Thanks. Still doing pro bono work?”

  “Of course. I have a case this afternoon. But what are you up to Saturday? I’m pretty sure Brianna is free. We could spend the day doing something.”

  “Or nothing. Come to the beach house.”

  “Like old times?”

  “Happier times.”

  “Sounds like a plan. You want me to call Bri?”

  Margaux nodded. “Tell her to bring her swimsuit in case it stops raining.” She frowned. “I don’t suppose she’s gotten fat or anything, has she?”

  Grace laughed. “Like that was the worst thing in the world.” She patted her midsection. “But no. She’s just as thin as she ever was.”

  “Rats,” said Margaux, and they both laughed.

  “Like you can complain.”

  “I know, I’ve dropped a few pounds with all this mess.”

  “You find the beach umbrellas, we’ll bring steaks and fixings, wine . . .”

  “And cupcakes,” they said together.

  It was a full-fledged downpour when they came out of the café. The wind drove heavy sheets of rain across the street at an oblique angle. Margaux dropped Grace at her office and hurried back to her car on Main Street.

  Lightning cracked and thunder boomed almost simultaneously. She sprinted across the sidewalk. Another crack of lightning. She dove into the front seat as the air filled with ominous rumbling. That had been really close, already she heard sirens slicing through the downpour. She backed the car out and proceeded cautiously down Main Street.

  She’d only gone a block when she saw the reflection of red and yellow lights ahead. A cop in a yellow slicker motioned her to turn. A tree lay across the street. Wires were down. All cars were being rerouted.

  Only there didn’t seem to be any other cars. As she drove down a back street toward the shore she began to think it was downright spooky, as if she might be the last person on earth.

  The rain pelted the windshield. The Toyota shuddered in the wind. Margaux hunched over the steering wheel, but even with the defrost pumping out hot air and the wipers on high, she could barely see the road in front of her.

  It happened so fast she had no time to brake. A tiny figure darted into the street. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. She swerved to the right, hit the brakes, and slammed into the curb.

  If it doesn’t stop raining,” Dottie said, looking morosely out the diner window at the rain-swept street, “we’ll have moss growing on our butts.”

  “Hmm,” Jude said. “Why the heck doesn’t she answer the phone?”

  “Maybe she went to the mall. Hell, if you’re worried you should go over there.”

  “I don’t want to be one of those overbearing mothers that hovers and fusses and gives unwanted advice.”

  “You?” Dottie snorted. “There’s a difference between being supportive and being a buttinsky. And you have never been or ever will be the latter.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to understand that when you’re on the receiving end.”

  “There is that,” Dottie said.

  But Jude wanted to do something. She knew how it felt to be lost. When Danny died, she had kept going because Margaux and Henry needed her. But when Henry died, Margaux had Louis, and Jude had crawled into bed and stayed there until Dottie drove up to Hartford and yanked her onto her feet and back into living.

  She thought that Margaux was going through her own kind of grieving.

  “Hell, she’s better off without that conniving son of a bitch. He was never my favorite person. Who can like a man who turns up his nose at fries with gravy?”

  Jude laughed in spite of her mood. “You were right.”

  And so was Henry. He had taken an immediate dislike to Louis, but she thought it was just a father’s jealousy. It was their first Christmas without Danny. Louis was miserable the entire week—the cold, the sand, the old plumbing. And it made Henry crazy. He loved Christmas and he missed his son.

  That night as they lay side by side, he pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “I don’t think that young man’s right for our Magsy.”

  “Nor do I,” she whispered back. “But if she loves him . . .”

  “Then we’ll have to love him, too.” Then he kissed her. They snuggled under the covers, and fell asleep, encircled in each other’s arms.

  Jude ran her tongue over lips that felt suddenly dry. It had taken thirteen years, but Louis had proved them right in the end. She was just glad Henry wasn’t here to see it.

  Rain always brought a new set of problems to the shore, and three days of rain taxed Nick’s small staff to the limit. Lightning had struck a transformer, plunging a quarter of the outlying town into darkness for nearly six hours. Then there were a slew of fende
r benders, a heart attack, a flooded bridge, and several drifting boats.

  Nick didn’t have much time to eat or sleep. He had even less time to think about Margaux Sullivan, which was fine with him.

  Two evenings in a row, his mother called frantic with worry. Connor had wandered off. So Nick, instead of going home, cruised the neighborhood looking for a small boy. The first night Nick had found him standing in the rain, at the corner of his street. He told Nick he was waiting for him to come home from work.

  The second night, the fog was so thick that Nick drove past him twice even though Connor said he’d waved to him. Nick’s blood ran cold. Connor could have been killed. It didn’t soothe Nick to find him sitting at the kitchen table drinking hot cocoa when he finally returned to the house.

  Connor’s wanderings were something new. The whispering and starting at loud noises, Nick could handle; his mother was there for the nightmares, but this new thing was out of their control. What if he wandered onto the highway, got lost in the woods. Or worse, picked up by some psychopathic predator.

  And now a tree had fallen across Main Street, bringing down several lines with it. He was standing in the rain cursing the power company for being slow to respond when his cell rang. He looked at caller ID. His mother and he knew what she was going to say.

  “Yeah, Ma. Okay, calm down. When did you see him last?” Nick cursed silently as a hundred disasters shot through his mind. A felled tree, lightning, a car, a live wire. Connor was missing; he could be lying hurt somewhere, he could be— He put Finley in charge and left the scene.

  Margaux sat clutching the steering wheel, her heart pounding. It had been a child, a child out alone in this weather. His parents should be shot. And where was he? She looked out the window but couldn’t see him. She hadn’t hit him. She was sure of that.

  But she couldn’t just drive away. She forced open the door; the wind snatched it out of her hand. The rain hit her so hard she thought it must be sleet. Leaning into the rain, she searched the asphalt to make sure no small body lay broken there. Peered across the street and saw him standing beneath a tree, as frozen as a statue.

  Lightning flashed, Margaux screamed and ran toward the boy.

  But the thunder sounded far away. Thank God, the storm was moving off.

  She knelt down beside him. “Are you hurt?” She had to yell to be heard over the rain and wind.

  His head was bowed, but he shook it, no.

  “Are you lost?”

  He nodded. And looked up.

  It was the chief’s kid. Connor Prescott. How could this be? Surely they wouldn’t let their kid out in the rain.

  “Remember me? Margaux? We met at church.”

  He looked at her with those big eyes and she saw that he was shivering.

  “I know you’re not supposed to go with strangers, but I’m not really a stranger. I’m Jude Sullivan’s little girl. Will you let me take you home?”

  He nodded and held out his hand.

  She took it. Small and cold and trembling. She hurried them across the street and into the car. But before she drove away, she reached into the backseat and grabbed her new sweatshirt. She pulled it over the boy’s head and helped him to thrust his arms into the sleeves. Then she buckled his seat belt.

  “Do you know where you live?”

  He said something.

  She leaned closer. “Where?”

  “At Nana’s.” It was a mere whisper.

  “What’s the address?”

  He shrugged.

  “Phone number?”

  He shrugged again and his bottom lip began to quiver.

  Weren’t people supposed to teach their children to know these things? Especially a police chief.

  She grabbed her cell phone and called Jude. It was hard to make herself heard with the storm blocking decent reception. But finally Jude understood, gave her the address, and said she would call Adelaide Prescott to let her know he was safe.

  The Prescotts lived just a few blocks from downtown in a neighborhood of gray-shingled capes. All the lights were on. As Margaux pulled into the driveway, the side door opened and Mrs. Prescott came out grasping an umbrella above her head.

  Margaux quickly got Connor out of his seat belt, then ran around to the passenger side and lifted him out of the car. He was cold and clammy and shaking convulsively. With Mrs. Prescott trying to hold the umbrella over them, Margaux carried him into the house.

  “He’s all right,” she said before anything else. The older woman’s pallor was ghastly. “Really. Some dry clothes and some soup and he’ll be good as new.” At least she hoped so.

  Connor was still clinging to her so she carried him down the hall to a bedroom that looked like it had belonged to a teenager. Mrs. Prescott handed Margaux a large towel and Margaux began stripping off his wet clothes while his grandmother rummaged in drawers for dry ones.

  Together they had him dry and warm and within minutes he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot chocolate.

  “Are you sure you won’t let me give you something dry to wear? At least a cup of coffee? I called Nicky.”

  “Nicky?” asked Margaux, getting a sudden sinking feeling.

  “He’s the chief of police, they had an emergency, but he’s on his way home. I’m sure he’ll want to thank you.”

  He’s on his way home. “Thanks, but I really have to go. Bye, Connor, and no more running out in the street, okay?”

  The boy looked up, a chocolate mustache framing his upper lip. He smiled and nodded his head.

  She turned to leave. Her fingers made it to the doorknob before the door flew open, pushing her back into the room, and she came face-to-face with Nick Prescott.

  He was dressed in a gray rain slicker, his hair was dripping into his face. He stopped dead as he recognized her.

  “He’s fine,” she said, and eased around him to the door for a quick getaway.

  Nick rushed toward the table but pulled up when Connor shot Margaux a frightened look.

  “Easy, he’s okay,” she said quietly, hoping to make her point. All that intensity was scaring the boy, even if it was because Nick was scared.

  Nick stopped, walked more slowly toward Connor’s chair, and knelt down beside it. “Hey, buddy, you can’t—” He pushed a curl from Connor’s forehead. “I was worried about you.”

  “Margaux found me,” Connor whispered, and wrapped his arms around Nick’s neck.

  Margaux didn’t wait to hear more, but slipped out the door into the rain.

  She made it to her car before the kitchen door opened and Nick ran out.

  She braced herself while the rain pelted her shoulders and face and drenched her already drenched clothes.

  He came to a stop in front of her. “Thank you. Just . . . thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  “I don’t know what I’d— Jesus, what am I thinking? You’re all wet.”

  Margaux laughed, whether from pent-up nerves or from the irony of his statement.

  “I didn’t mean— I meant—”

  “I hope you meant I should get out of the rain.”

  He looked up as if he just became aware that it was pouring. “Right.” He grabbed her door and yanked it open. She got into the driver’s seat.

  He looked in after her, then shut her door. He stood in the driveway while she backed out, then shot both hands through his dripping hair and walked slowly into the house.

  Six

  Margaux opened her eyes to a sunny morning. Thank you thank you thank you. A new day, the sun was out, her friends were coming tomorrow. Surely life was looking up. She pushed back the covers and opened the window. Crisp and cool but not a cloud to be seen.

  She spent the morning cleaning house, something she hadn’t done in years. She scrubbed counters and polished furniture, ra
n the vacuum. While she was busy, she hardly thought about the uncertain future that loomed ahead of her. She knew she should make calls, take a job with one of the big designers, and slowly climb back to the top.

  But even now, pride kept her from picking up the phone. She’d paid her dues, worked unceasingly to attain her dream, only to have it brought down by a man she trusted and thought she loved. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Whenever the underlying panic erupted and threatened to drown her, she thought of her friends coming tomorrow and she felt better.

  When the house was clean, she wandered to the front porch rail. There were several intrepid sunbathers on the beach getting an early jump on summer. A few doors away, beach towels were draped over the rail of the Doyles’ front porch. Mr. Doyle stood on the steps smoking a cigar and looking out over the water. Two doors down, Sarah Thompson was planting zinnias along the front of her house.

  Life at the shore.

  Her life for now, and it was time she embraced it. She went inside and called Jude.

  “The grill? Probably in the shed.”

  The shed’s hinges were a little rusty—everything rusted in the salt air—but the door opened easily enough. The inside was filled with mountains of tarp-covered shapes. Things hung from racks on the wall and from the ceiling, but there was no grill in sight.

  Margaux stood in the opening, stymied. Normally at this point, she would have given up the search, gotten in the car, and driven to the nearest hardware store to buy a new one. But those days were over. She wasn’t even sure she had enough gas to get to town, much less the money to buy a grill.

  She ducked under a cloud of cobwebs and went inside.

  Beneath the first tarp, she found a wicker chair and dragged it into the yard. It was painted white with a rounded back and blue-striped cushions; it looked so comfortable, evoked so many memories, that she was tempted to sit down. She pushed it aside and went back into the shed.

  She heard the beep-beep of Jude’s Citroën. She stuck her head out of the shed; this time she forgot to duck and got a face full of spiderweb.

  Jude got out of the car.

  “Hi, Mom,” Margaux said, picking the gossamer spiderweb from her face. “You didn’t have to come.”