A Week at the Shore Read online

  Then I see Joy, and my mood lifts. She is a rainbow of color, with a short bar apron tied around her waist, and moves from table to table with carafes of coffee in each hand, one regular, one decaf, all the while chatting and smiling and topping off cups with aplomb. She is underage. She is inexperienced. But she is adorably happy.

  My father sits alone in the front right corner of the shop. A newspaper lies open before him, and he does look to be reading, to judge from his glasses and the movement of the eyes behind them. I know that once I sit with him, all hope of anonymity is gone. But if I’d wanted to be anonymous, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?

  Besides, connecting with my father is preferable to dwelling on Jack.

  Setting my sunglasses and camera on an empty patch of the table, I slide into what must have been Joy’s chair, given the remains of a green smoothie and the uneaten half of a piece of avocado toast. “Hey, Dad.”

  He looks up in surprise and just stares at first, hitting me with the awful possibility that he won’t recognize me here. I’m about to take off the ball cap to help him out, when he removes his reading glasses, breaks into a smile, and says, “Hello, middle one.”

  I’m stunned. “Middle one,” which he had always thought a clever takeoff on “little one,” was his nickname for me in those fond moments that were so few and far between.

  I had forgotten.

  But this was a nice memory.

  More confident with him on my side, I push Jack from mind and relax. “Sorry I’m late. I meant to get here sooner, but, well, vacation and all.” No lie there, though far safer than mentioning the search for a gun or time with Jack. “How’s your wrist?”

  “Fine,” he says. But he is studying me like I’m the clue in a crossword puzzle that has him stumped.

  “My hair’s a mess,” I try, explaining the ball cap. When we were kids, hats at the table were forbidden. In a place like this, though, I’m far from the only one wearing a cap. Ocean air? Humidity? Vacation? Skimming past the other hats, I spot my daughter. “Looks like Joy is keeping busy.” The words are barely out when she heads over.

  His blue eyes actually soften. “She’s a good child,” he says, and again I hear fondness. Of all the things he doesn’t know in his current state, he should know this. Joy isn’t just a good child. She’s the best.

  Leaning in to kiss my cheek, my best child scolds in a whisper, “I was worried, Mom. Like, I was starting to think something popped, you know, burst in your head and you didn’t wake up?” She straightens with her server smile in place and asks in a server voice, “Coffee?” Before I can reply, she has righted a clean mug from an unused place setting and is filling it to the top. She knows I take it black—just as I know, with quick remorse, that she worries when I’m not where she expects me to be. I’m all she has.

  At least, I always have been. She has barely finished topping off my father’s coffee, when Anne waves her over, and she’s off—but not before bending to me and murmuring, “You need to tell your sister plastic straws are bad. I mean, where has she been? Didn’t she get the memo? She uses them like they’re air.”

  Smiling, I watch her go. Anne may be part of the family she’s always wanted, but that doesn’t mean she gets a free pass, which actually raises another issue. “Is it legal for Joy to be working?” I ask my father.

  He is frowning at the spoon in his hand. Grabbing the cream, I add some and gesture for him to stir. In the process of doing that, he seems to have forgotten the question. So I repeat it.

  “Is it legal for her to be working?”

  “Is that what she’s doing?” he asks back.

  “Well, pouring coffee.” But I have to amend that when I see her turn from the window with a plated breakfast in each hand. “And serving food. Are there liability issues for the shop since she’s underage?”

  The question hangs there, but I’m distracted watching her. She sets the plates down before a Vineyard Vines pair, and wipes her palms on her apron while they talk. From there, she turns to clear a nearby table whose occupants have left. She certainly seems to know what she’s doing.

  My father hasn’t answered.

  Again, I repeat the question. “Is liability a problem?”

  “What does Anne say?” he asks—and it strikes me that he doesn’t remember the law. Too quickly, he adds, “She’s only helping until the other one comes.”

  Well, that does make sense. It also raises an issue I want to discuss. “I met her—Lily—outside. She must be in the kitchen by now. Amazing how much she looks like Elizabeth.” When he doesn’t react, I ask, “Do you know why she’s here?” I’ve heard Jack’s thoughts. I want to know his.

  “Why do any of them come?” He grapples with the question. “She needed a job. For summer. I think she has something else for the fall.” It’s another plausible statement, but in the next instant, he looks stricken. He presses his lips together and looks at me in desperation. He is clearly trying to remember what that something else is.

  “Is her family struggling?” I ask.

  “Struggling?”

  “With money?”

  “I think. Yes.”

  “Do you know why?” When his blues sharpened, I softened the question. “What do her parents do for a living?”

  He draws back. “How would I know?”

  His voice is too loud. I drop mine even more in the hope he will take the hint. “Do you know that she is Elizabeth’s great-niece?”

  “Objection!” he bellows. “That is irrelevant to the point. The prosecution has no business raising it.”

  I grasp his cast and say a hushed, “I know. You’re right. Question withdrawn.” To my relief he lets it rest. Truth be told, I don’t care what Lily plans for the fall. I care about making this man comfortable. Opting for distraction, I gesture at the plate before me. “Is this Joy’s breakfast?”

  He regards the half-eaten avocado toast. “I believe.”

  Taking the fork, I set to finishing what my daughter has left. Between bites, aiming for light conversation, I say, “I also met Lina. She seems nice. How did you come to hire her?”

  He lifts the newspaper and, using his full right hand and the fingers of the left that are free above the cast, shakes it into its proper folds. When he has it right, he sets it aside. “Hire who?”

  “Lina. Your housekeeper?”

  “I know who Lina is,” he snaps but he doesn’t answer the question, seems to have forgotten that, too. Having settled the newspaper, his focus is on the kitchen.

  As I eat, I try to guess at his thoughts. The good thing is that his outburst didn’t draw attention. No one in the shop is paying him much heed. But that may be the bad thing, too. He is used to being noticed. He used to thrive on it. When Elizabeth disappeared, people weren’t sure what to say and gave him space, but Anne told me things are back to normal. If so, he should be the retired judge holding court right here, with a reverent audience greeting him on their way in or out.

  That isn’t happening. Only locals would recognize him, of course. Looking around to decide how many of those are here now, I spot Deanna Smith. She is sitting with a family of four, but quickly rises and weaves between tables to Dad’s.

  “Mallory.” I barely have time to set down my fork when she gives me a hug. “I heard you were here.” Addressing my father, she aims a sideways finger at me and says, “Does she look amazing, or what?” Then she’s back to me. “New York, huh? Photography, huh? Real estate, huh?” She grins at the last, seeming pleased that we finally have something in common.

  I’m not sure where she got her information, whether it is newly obtained or older. It would make sense to think she may have occasionally asked Anne about me, and there’s no reason Anne wouldn’t tell. Nor is there reason for me to be nervous that I’ve been discovered, since I knew what I was doing when I sat down with Dad. Still the past returns.

  I remember Deanna in grade school, always the head of the pack. Come middle school, she was a woman while we
were still girls. By high school, she was head cheerleader and president of the class. Around Deanna, I felt out of my element. But when I try now to conjure something she might have done to make me feel that way, I can’t—which suggests the problem was me. She loved the limelight, I avoided it. She partied, I studied. She was the one everyone wanted to be with, I was not. Sure, my father was a judge, but that could have gone either way—been a source of status or a cause for distance. Margo certainly had plenty of friends. Me, not so much. And I hadn’t minded. I didn’t want to be noticed. To be noticed was to risk criticism, and Lord knew, I had enough of that at home.

  But I don’t want to be that Mallory now. I want to be the one with a good career and a super daughter and a Facebook page followed by real friends. Sitting straighter, I say an upbeat, “Yup, real estate photography. And look at you, gorgeous, as always. Sophisticated. Successful.” I glance at her table. “Clients?”

  “Yes.” She drops her voice. “I’m sorry. I’d love to talk. Actually, I want to milk your brain for ideas that can help me sell. The middle market is fine, but the high end? I’ll bet you do a lot of that. Around here, lately, it’s a tough sell,” she hitches her head to indicate her current clients and adds in a whisper, “even with unlimited money in startups. Can we talk another time?”

  “Sure,” I say, which restores her grin. I hate that I love being in her sights, but I do.

  Holding up a be-right-back finger, she returns to her table and is right back with a business card. “Do you have one?”

  Not here. Nope. Naturally, not. She is chic, and I’m sweaty. What else is new?

  But hey, I’m on vacation. I’ve earned the right to travel light. “Back at the house,” I say and, taking my father’s pen from the breast pocket of his shirt, write my phone number on a paper napkin. “Not fancy, but it’ll get you to my phone.”

  Grinning, she scrunches herself up, like she’s controlling excitement, then gives a little wave and rejoins her clients.

  I start to return Dad’s pen but pause. Taking it from his pocket had been reflex, but there was an intimacy to the gesture. And why not? He was my father. He always kept a pen there, and he never minded when we borrowed it. If we dared to walk off with it, well, that was something else.

  Gingerly, I slip it back into his pocket. “That was nice,” I say, meaning Deanna stopping by.

  But he is still focused on the kitchen, and his expression is dark. I never knew what to say when he was this way before, and I’m even more unsure now. So I sip my coffee and try not to make things worse.

  Then the darkness lifts. I know even before I turn that Lily is on her way.

  “Hey there, Judge,” she says with a big Elizabeth smile. “How’re you doing today?”

  He raises his silver brows. “Not bad. Not bad. Where you been?”

  “I overslept. Your granddaughter is adorable.”

  “Granddaughter.”

  She tosses back a glance. “Joy?”

  “Huh. Joy.”

  “She was good to fill in for me, but I’d better see who needs food.”

  “Amazing,” I say once she is gone, because the resemblance truly is. “Did you know she was coming to town?”

  “Should I?”

  “Did she call you ahead of time?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe just to let you know.”

  “Why would she do that?” he repeats, but he is growing agitated. Not wanting him to raise his voice again, I let it go.

  That is when Anne stops by. She is nearly as colorful as Joy, though her eyes are nowhere near as warm. “Everything all right here?” she asks. Always an open book, my sister, I see concern for Dad and annoyance for me.

  Ignoring it, I say a bright, “It is. I love your place.”

  She relaxes some. “So do I. So does Joy. Is it okay if she hangs around?”

  “Uh, sure. If you’re good with it.”

  “She knows how to pour coffee,” she says but apparently hears something in the kitchen and turns to leave. “You okay, Dad?”

  He waves her off with a hand.

  She is no sooner gone when two men approach. They’re Dad’s age, but while he is more formal in a pressed shirt and khakis, they wear tee shirts and shorts. I should know them, but the names won’t come, and when I glance at Dad, he’s rustling through his folded newspaper, clearly as clueless as me.

  So I grin at the men and pray. “Hello.”

  “Hi theya,” says the taller of the two with a distinctly coastal accent. Fisherman? Not at this time of day. House painters? Ditto. “Just want to welcome you back. It’s been a while.”

  “Twenty years,” I admit and wince in both apology and invitation.

  “Howard Hartley.” He hooks a thumb sideways. “My brother Don. We used to do the landscaping around your place.”

  “Ahhhhh,” I say with a relieved laugh as memory returns. “The Hartley Brothers. Used to?”

  “Our sons do the daily now.”

  “Mikey and John,” I come up with, pleased with myself.

  “They still go to your place.” He turns to my father and tips two fingers off his brow. “Morning, Judge.”

  My father sets down the paper. “Howard. Don.”

  “How’re you doing today?”

  “Couldn’t be better.” He turns to me. “Aren’t we supposed to be back at the house?”

  We aren’t. But I give him props for coming up with a plausible cause for escape. Not about to deny him, I reach for my camera. Then I have a thought. “The bluff is in rough shape. Have your sons mentioned it?”

  Don answers. “Sure have. The state mentions it, too. You got those letters, didn’t you, Judge?”

  If something came in the mail, my father doesn’t remember. Nor does he care to discuss it, says the irked look on his face. While we watch, he pushes out of the chair and strides off.

  “Sorry,” I mouth to the men, but I’m thinking I need to follow him. He shouldn’t be out there alone. Seeming to understand, the pair melt away.

  I gather my things, then pause. Do we pay? Do we not? Do we tip or not? The table looks bare without something.

  “Go,” Anne murmurs. Her hands come around to remove our plates. “He’s my father. I don’t charge him. Take his glasses. He leaves them here every time.”

  “Can he walk home, or should I take your car?”

  “Walk. He needs the exercise. And if you want to put in plantings on the bluff, there are people who’ll do it cheaper than Mikey and John. I’m on top of this, Mallory.”

  “You’ve talked with someone?”

  “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “Okay.” I can’t argue with that. “What about Joy?” She is on the far side of the room, again with a carafe in each hand.

  “If she gets bored, I’ll send her home.”

  Nodding, I slip the glasses into my pocket and hurry after my father. At first I don’t see him and feel a mild panic as I look from the square to the road. And then there’s the ocean, which could be dangerous for a man who may or may not remember its dangers, which doesn’t speak well for said man living a single staircase away from the ocean and possibly being able to wander there in the middle of the night. I’m wondering if Anne has taken precautions against that—if she has the doors alarmed in a way that would alert her to one opening in the wee hours—when he appears on the far end of the parking lot, apparently having taken the pergola route around.

  “Dad!” I call, running to catch up. “Wait.”

  He actually slows down and lets me catch up. “Thought you’d never get here,” he says in a crusty voice that makes me smile. It’s a memory-waker, that voice. And while not all the memories are good, the straight shot back to my childhood is impossible to avoid in this place.

  “They’re nice guys,” I say as I fall into step beside him.

  He clicks his tongue. “They charge too much. They charge me more because of who I am.”

  “Really? But they
keep the grounds around the house looking good,” I say in an attempt to appease. “And we do need to do something about the erosion problem.”

  “It’s called bluff retreat,” he lectures. “The waves come in higher each storm. When they retreat, they take more of the bluff with them. Bluff retreat,” he repeats in a shout, then waves a dismissive hand. “The state sends letters about beach restitution, but I’m not hauling sand to my beach. All we need is a little vegetation to dry out the bluff soil and hold it in place.”

  I am astounded by the coherence of his speech. It’s the most he’s said at one time since I arrived, and other than restitution where restoration should be, it makes sense.

  “Then we should put some in. I’ll bet—” I was about to say that I’d bet Jack could advise us on it, since the Sabathian side of the bluff, with its plantings, was faring far better than ours. But mentioning the Sabathian name might set him off.

  “Bet what?” he asks, sending me a sharp look. He knows what I was going to say. The man is astute that way, and that’s the good and bad of it. He knows what you want. But then he does what he wants.

  I revise my thought, deleting the Sabathian name. “I’ll bet it wouldn’t cost much to have the Hartleys do it.”

  “We can do it. Nothing to it. You buy a plant, dig a hole, drop it in. Unless you’re afraid of physical labor.”

  I think of the miles I clock walking from our condo to the market to Joy’s school, the hours I spend in the gym, and the vacuum I push, the sheets I change, the dozens of shelves I wipe down to remove every last crumb each and every time Joy sees a single cockroach. Afraid of physical labor?

  “I am not. I’d be happy to plant whatever needs to be planted while I’m here, and Joy would be glad to help. What you need to do is to make sure Anne is on board.”

  He looks at me in surprise. I’m not usually as assertive with him. In this case, though, assertive is also practical, so I don’t take it back. And then, just as his eyes return to the road, my phone chimes. Joy would text, so I know it’s not her. Same with close friends. The realtors I work with know I’m away, unless it’s a new contact, which I wouldn’t want to miss. Lifting my phone, I shade the screen with a hand.