Beach Girls Read online

  “Nighttime is for them,” she said. “Daytime is for us.”

  “But . . .” Stevie began.

  “Listen,” Emma said. “After dark is boy time. When the sun goes down, and the air is cool, and we get chilly, so they put their arms around us . . . And our bare feet get so cold, and their kisses are so hot . . .”

  “And driving around in their cars,” Maddie said, “listening to the radio, where every song reminds you of what you're going to do later.”

  “And makes you want to marry them,” Stevie said.

  Maddie chuckled, but Emma shrieked with laughter. Stevie stood there, turning red and trying to keep her expression steady—to look as if they hadn't just cut her to the quick. They thought she was joking. How could she explain to her two best friends that she was completely serious. She knew it was crazy, but that was how she felt.

  “Good one, Stevie,” Emma said. “You're going to marry Jon?”

  “I didn't say that,” Stevie said, knowing that her friends thought he was too shy, too serious, and not tall enough.

  “Let me just tell you something about the reality of the situation,” Emma said. “My mother's younger cousin is visiting us. She's only twenty-two—just graduated from Wellesley—so for me, it's like spending the summer in a sex seminar. I know things you don't. You have to be very careful about finding the right one. You have to choose someone who'll be your friend for life. He has to be cute enough to want to kiss forever. That's a tall order, in itself. When you find that person, then you go on the twenty-four-hour plan, all day and all night long, around the clock . . . but till then . . .”

  “We get your days,” said Madeleine, who, with an older brother, seemed to know the same thing. “And full-moon nights.”

  “Not nights,” Emma said.

  Stevie smiled, but she felt rattled inside. Was something wrong with her? Her friends seemed better equipped for the uncertainties of dating. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said songs on the radio made her dream of getting married. She wanted to feel safe forever; she wanted to know that the person she loved would never leave her, never hurt her. She wanted to get it all nailed down.

  Emma ran up to the tall grass that grew between the beach and the marsh. She looked around, came back with a long white driftwood stick, bleached by the salt and sun.

  “What are you doing?” Stevie asked.

  “Drawing a magic circle,” Emma said. “With us inside.”

  Stevie and Maddie gathered together, holding hands. Emma joined them, reaching her arm out and tracing a big “O” in the sand. She spun around and around, scoring the circle deep and sure.

  “It's like the sun and the moon,” Stevie said.

  “Heavenly bodies,” Maddie said.

  “Exactly,” Emma said. “Boys are one thing, but true friends are another. Let's never forget that, okay? No matter what happens? We can't lose each other. . . .”

  Stevie's throat tightened. Already she had felt herself being pulled away: wanting to be with Jon, instead of her best friends. She wanted summers to continue forever, with the beach girls by her side.

  There was nothing like being held in the night, by a boy whispering her name. But why couldn't Emma and Maddie fill the void instead? If she willed it, tried hard enough, she could make it so. . . . As the girls turned round and round, Emma's stick tracing the hot sand, it seemed as if a spell was being cast.

  “We can't lose each other, we won't lose each other,” Maddie chanted, getting into the spirit of the magic.

  “By the power vested in me,” Emma said, “by the power of . . .”

  “The noonday sun,” Madeleine supplied.

  “The full moon and the Pleiades,” Stevie added.

  “I now pronounce us . . . bonded for life,” Emma finished.

  Dizzy, they all collapsed on the sand. It occurred to Stevie that Emma was stating the obvious: bonded for life. Hadn't that always been so? They lay on their backs, laughing till they cried. For Stevie, lying on her back in the sun, the tears streaming down her cheeks were pure emotion, and only half laughter.

  When they got up, they ran to the most private part of the beach, behind the big rock that looked like a great white shark. Emma was the first to peel off her bathing suit. The others followed, and ran into the water after her. They formed a new circle, just offshore.

  “We should do this tonight—skinny-dip in the moonlight,” Madeleine said, treading water.

  “She doesn't listen,” Emma said with pretend sadness.

  Stevie waited—she was thinking the same thing as Maddie.

  “Daytime is for us,” Emma said. “Nighttime is for them.”

  “Boys,” Maddie said.

  “Jon,” Stevie said.

  “It's how we keep them,” Emma said. “We already know we have each other . . . but even though we're not together, looking up at night, we have to just know that the girl in the moon is winking down at us. . . .”

  “The girl in the moon?” Stevie asked, delighted.

  “Yep,” Emma said. “That old man in the moon got tired, and the future was clear.”

  “It's a job for a woman,” Stevie said.

  “That's clear, all right,” Maddie said.

  “You know it,” Emma said, and they all dove laughing into the next wave.

  STEVIE DROVE home from her aunt's house that July day intending to call Madeleine that afternoon. But in the end, she didn't phone at all. She called information and got an address for Madeleine Kilvert on Benefit Street in Providence, and wrote out an invitation. Driving to the post office, to mail it, she held it in her hand. She might be making things worse; she hadn't been completely forthcoming in the note. . . .

  But the sound of Nell crying for her aunt, and the memory of three best friends on the beach, were too much for her, and Stevie did the only thing she could: dropped the envelope into the box and hoped for the best.

  ONE MORNING, while Nell was at recreation, Jack took a walk up the hill. He told himself this was all business—it had nothing to do with the dreams he'd been having, passionate, sweat-drenched dreams, during the few hours of sleep he'd had this last week. This visit was strictly because Stevie had had a childhood similar to Nell's—she'd lost her mother young. Maybe she could help him know what to do.

  He knocked at the door, feeling like one of those young boys climbing the tree outside her window—afraid of intruding, yet wanting to know what happened inside her world. His heart was beating in his throat. She walked barefoot into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a halter top.

  “Hi,” she said through the screen door.

  “I don't want to bother you,” he said. “Are you painting?”

  “That's okay—come in.” She held the door open, and as he walked past he waited for her to say something about seeing him at the beach, at dawn, but she didn't. They were both pretending it hadn't happened. Even though he had been here before, this felt all new. He wanted to seem serious, to cover up the strong attraction he felt toward her. And this was serious—he needed help with Nell. He stood in the kitchen.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “It's fine,” he began. “Well, it's not really fine. Nell . . .”

  “I'm sorry about what happened, when you were here,” she said. “I didn't mean to get her so upset.”

  He nodded. The memories of how Nell had been the last few nights surged up. He was exhausted from not sleeping. “She's really having a tough time,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not falling asleep, crying a lot. We—she—has a therapist in Boston. Dr. Galford. He's a nice guy; he was recommended by the psychiatrist she saw in Atlanta after her mother's death.”

  “That's good,” Stevie said. Her eyes were so bright. The smile was there, as warm as ever, but just not as big. It made Jack want to embrace her. He wanted to be held. That's it, he thought. He just wanted someone to put her arms around him and tell him he was doing a good job. That he wasn't screwing up
too badly. That's what Stevie's smile made him feel like. But he'd been drawn in by smiles before—and he didn't quite trust himself to know what was happening.

  “Good that she sees Dr. Galford? Or good that she saw the one in Atlanta? See, I don't know . . . about any of it. I never went to a therapist when I was a kid. Neither did my sister. We never had anything—any reason to go. We thought that only troubled kids saw shrinks.”

  “I saw one,” Stevie said.

  “You did?”

  She nodded. The smile was gone from her lips, but it was still there in her eyes. Jack leaned toward her. He wanted to lean right into her. He wanted her to know how much he wanted her to catch him. He felt so tired . . . he'd made a mess of his life with Emma. He couldn't do it again—not to Nell. He made himself stand straighter.

  “After my mother died,” she said. “I saw someone every week. I don't think I'd have survived without her.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she said, with complete resolve.

  “What did you do with her? How did she help?”

  “We played,” Stevie said. “She had a dollhouse, toys, dolls. I would sit at her table and draw. I didn't know it then, but I was learning how to be an artist, and how to make sense of my world by telling stories about it . . . they were always about birds. Bird mommies and babies . . .”

  “Like your books,” he said.

  “Yes. It was easier to write about robins falling out of the nest, blue jays flying away and not coming back, than people. Does Dr. Galford draw with Nell?”

  “I don't know,” Jack said. “Our deal is that what goes on between them stays there.”

  “That's good,” Stevie said, the smile coming back. “My father did that. Let it be between me and Susan. That was her name—Susan.”

  “I wanted Nell to have a summer off,” Jack said. “I just wanted her to have some time to be normal . . . to not have to spend these beautiful beach days seeing a doctor.”

  “Maybe that's how she'll be able to enjoy the beach days,” Stevie said. “By seeing her doctor.”

  Jack moved his hand on the counter; his finger brushed against Stevie's. She moved her hand away—but when he looked into her eyes, he saw such emotion, again he wanted to hold her. She was rocked—maybe remembering her own painful childhood. He had to let her know how much talking to her helped. But before he could come up with the words, she spoke.

  “I sensed that being here upset Nell the other night,” she said. “Maybe it's because I remind her of Emma. Knowing that her mother and I were friends . . . or that she spent time in this house. And I think she wants to see Madeleine so badly, and she sees me as a way to make that happen.”

  “You're right about that,” Jack said, hearing Nell's weeping, ringing in his ears.

  “I've decided to stay away from her,” Stevie said. “And not invite her—or you—back. It's not that I don't want to—”

  “Stevie,” Jack began.

  But she stepped back. He could see her trembling, and now her smile was completely gone. This conversation had shaken her to the core—but what part of it? About Nell? Or Emma? Or was she looking at the circles under his eyes, the two days' growth that he needed to shave—and thinking that her father had done a much better job of holding it together?

  “I really just came to get your advice,” he said. “I shouldn't have bothered you.”

  She stepped forward, took his hand. The touch seared his heart.

  “You're not bothering me,” she whispered. “I just . . . I'm afraid I'm hurting more than I'm helping. For right now, anyway. Something about meeting me seems to have stirred Nell up. Especially since I've invited Madeleine here.”

  “You have?” Jack asked. His first reaction was joy—followed, and overridden, by panic.

  “Yes. Don't worry—I'm not going to push anything.”

  “Even though you don't agree with my decision?”

  “Even so. You seem like a wonderful father. I don't want to get in the way of that. I'll try not to, I really will. But since you seem to be leaning toward it, why don't you take Nell back to Dr. Galford?”

  “And then?”

  “See if she feels better. If she does . . .”

  We can come back, Jack thought. We can be friends. . . . He looked around: Madeleine was going to visit Stevie here. What if he just backed down—let Nell and Maddie see each other? It would make them both so happy. But the thought of seeing his sister, looking into those eyes, bringing her back into their lives . . . It was too much.

  “What Nell is going through is so terrible,” Stevie said, her voice stronger now. “It's the worst thing in a child's world. Losing a parent . . . But Nell is strong, and she has you. You're doing a great job.”

  “Even in keeping Maddie away?”

  Stevie stared at him, as if deciding how much to say. “I don't understand your reasons for that,” she said. She couldn't give him her blessing on that—wasn't even going to pretend to. She just stared into his eyes, as if she could will him to back down and change his mind.

  Jack couldn't do that.

  He hated to let go of Stevie's hand, but he knew that he had to. They were standing so close. He was so exhausted, he hardly remembered backing away, saying goodbye. But he held on to that smile. . . .

  As soon as he got home, he arranged for an emergency session with Dr. Galford. A quick drive up to the office outside Boston, after normal hours, so the doctor could fit Nell in. Jack sat in the waiting room while his child was inside, seeing her psychiatrist. Was she drawing? he wondered. Was she weaving a story about losing her mother and aunt all in the same year?

  Jack didn't know. He tried not to think about his sister, how much Nell missed her. Was Maddie on her way to Hubbard's Point? Was she already there? He hung on to the picture of Stevie's smile, and to the words she had said to him: you seem like a wonderful father.

  Chapter 9

  MADELEINE KILVERT PACKED AN OVERNIGHT bag, made sure Amanda had the office covered, and kissed her husband goodbye. She drove out the driveway of their old house, down Benefit Street, onto the highway. Chris had been fine about her leaving—he was a great husband and all for anything that would cheer her up.

  Receiving Stevie's invitation had, initially, buoyed Madeleine up like nothing in recent memory. She had gotten the mail, gone through all the bills and catalogues. There was a white envelope with elusively familiar handwriting; where had Madeleine seen it before?

  The postmark—Black Hall, Connecticut—unleashed tides of memory. Summers at Hubbard's Point, a series of rented cottages—one of which had required that she share a room with her brother—the crescent beach nestled between two rocky points, the lazy days with her two best friends . . .

  Stevie—it was from Stevie Moore.

  The card had been seductively short and to the point:

  Your presence

  Is requested

  To celebrate

  The July full moon

  Regrets only . . .

  At the bottom, a pencil drawing of the backs of three young girls sitting on a jetty, holding hands, watching a full moon rise out of the sea. Moonlight shimmered, a path on the water.

  A banner overhead said, BEACH GIRLS SWOON BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. Along the bottom of the picture, Stevie had written the date, an address, and the words “Plan to stay over!”

  Madeleine had rushed to show Chris.

  “An original Stevie Moore,” she said.

  “Your famous friend,” he said. “I've heard so much about her over the years . . . great drawing.”

  “It's of the three of us. She doesn't know about Emma.”

  “How did she find your address?”

  “I have no idea,” Madeleine said, staring at the invitation.

  Stevie was her wonderful “friend who got away.” Along with Emma, they had been so close at one time. But then Emma had moved to Chicago, and the Kilverts had stopped renting at Hubbard's Point. Emma had become part of the family, f
alling in love with Jack. But once everyone headed off to college, they lost track of Stevie. She had written for a while—Madeleine recognized Stevie's handwriting and remembered being at Georgetown, getting mail from RISD.

  At one point, Stevie had shocked Madeleine by announcing that she was married. It was sudden—elopement, justice of the peace, a done deal. Madeleine had called Emma, and she remembered that they'd both felt strange—that it had happened so fast, and that Stevie hadn't considered inviting them. They'd remembered how intensely she'd gotten involved with boys at the beach—Emma would always give her a hard time about it, but Maddie had somehow realized that it had to do with the huge loneliness left by her mother's death.

  Then . . . what had happened? Madeleine had gotten engaged to Chris, Jack had married Emma . . . weddings, family holidays.

  They began to see Stevie's books at bookstores. Her career took off. Madeleine always read the “author's note” in the back of the books. In that way, she tracked Stevie's life. Some books mentioned a husband, others didn't. In light of how intensely Stevie had always fallen in love, it made Madeleine sad. “Living the life of an artist—unconventional and unstable,” Emma had said.

  Madeleine once bought one of Stevie's books—a Christmas present for Nell, when she was five. Driving down I-95, Madeleine tried to remember the story; something about swans . . . about two males fighting for the female. Emma had taken one look at the book and said, “This is obviously Stevie's life. All that drama . . .”

  “Well, swans do fight to the death,” Madeleine had said. “Remember at Hubbard's Point, seeing them go at it?”

  “Not really,” Emma had said, holding Nell on her lap. “I don't remember it, and I don't really like the idea of you-know-who reading about violence—even in the world of swans! Poor Stevie—I hope she gets it together and finds happiness.”

  “She had it tough,” Madeleine said. “Losing her mother. I always figured that that's what made her get married so quickly, in college. I wish we hadn't lost touch with her. We were all so close! How can life take people so far away from each other?”