On Folly Beach Page 3

  The crush of people and the kerosene heaters strategically placed around the perimeter managed to warm the space and allow Cat and Maggie to remove their coats.

  Maggie’s earlier bravado faded as she spotted the girls with their brightly colored dresses and high heels, with big earrings and seam-painted legs, and she suddenly felt like a crow in a sunflower field. Uniformed men and civilians stood in groups drinking Pabst beer and eyeing the ladies under a revolving crystal ball suspended from the ceiling.

  “My treat,” said Cat as she opened her purse again and paid the cover charge.

  The tide was rolling in under them, crashing onto the sand beneath the pier as the first dancers of the evening began to crowd the dance floor. Spanish moss had been draped from the rafters, giving the entire space a magical air of whimsy. Maggie saw the heads turn as Catherine, tall and sleek like a lioness, slinked to a table and sat down, settling her skirt prettily around her crossed legs before pulling out a cigarette and a lighter.

  Maggie sat down next to her and grabbed her arm. “Cat, don’t. It makes you look cheap.”

  Cat shot her an annoyed glare. “It makes me look older. More sophisticated. That way those young guns won’t bother. I’m looking for an officer.”

  What about Jim? The words sat useless in Maggie’s mouth as she sat back in her chair. A waitress approached and they ordered two beers, although Maggie would have preferred a Coca-Cola.

  “Loosen up, Mags. We’re here to have fun. To forget about work, and the war, and all the things we can’t control.” Cat took a drag from her cigarette and kept her lips puckered as she blew out a long, sinuous string of smoke.

  Resigned, Maggie tried to relax, but left her beer untouched as she began to count to see how long it would take for the first guy to approach their table. She’d reached only twenty-five when a young man who had a broad face and sparkling eyes and wore the dark blue Crackerjack uniform of an enlisted man flipped back a third chair and straddled it backward to face Maggie and Cat.

  “Seaman William Findley, Summit, New Jersey. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, could I interest either one of you ladies in a dance?” Although he’d addressed both of them, he didn’t take his eyes off of Cat.

  Cat peered at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “I don’t dance with anybody younger than me.”

  “I turn nineteen next week. Don’t need no license to dance, neither.”

  Maggie noticed he was swaying in his seat and wondered how many beers he’d already had. She started to ask him when a large hand appeared on his shoulder. Maggie looked up to see a khaki-clad officer, his dark brown hair combed neatly down despite the wave that threatened to sweep across his forehead. His eyes were gray and sharp, but Maggie knew not to look too closely, that Cat had already claimed him for her own.

  “I think it’s time to say good night to the ladies, sailor.”

  Seaman Findley looked up to argue but stopped when he realized he was addressing an officer. With swaying reluctance, he stood and would have tripped over the chair if the officer hadn’t steadied him before sending him on his way back to his barracks.

  “I’m sorry, ladies. I hope he didn’t bother you.”

  Cat sent him a brilliant smile. “Not at all. But I’ll say he was only so I can thank you for coming to our rescue.” She indicated the seat next to her, and he sat down without missing the chair, a remarkable feat to Maggie since he never took his gaze off of Catherine.

  He introduced himself but Maggie couldn’t hear him from the noise of the band and because he was facing Cat as he spoke. She caught his first name, Robert, and that he was a second lieutenant from Savannah and stationed at the new Charleston Naval Air Station, and Maggie decided that was all she needed to know about Cat’s current distraction and stopped trying to listen. Both Cat and Maggie introduced themselves, but his eyes alighted on Maggie for only as long as it took her to get her name out before returning to Catherine.

  He ordered another round of beer as they made small talk, and Maggie tried to be as unobtrusive as a third wheel could be. Robert took a long swig of his beer and turned to Cat. “I’ve been looking for a local to tell me what kind of music this is that they’re playing. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  Catherine’s long, unvarnished fingernails were tapping on the table, the only part of her casual demeanor revealing her eagerness to dance. “I don’t know what it’s called officially, but we call it beach music. It’s sort of a mix between swing and Colored music. It makes a person want to dance, doesn’t it?”

  Maggie blushed. The way that Cat said “dance” hinted at everything else two people of the opposite sex could get into, and it was obvious from the expression on the lieutenant’s face that he was thinking the same thing.

  “Do you think you could show me how to dance to it?”

  With a voice sultry enough for Hollywood, Cat said, “It would be my pleasure. Just follow my lead.”

  He stood and pulled Cat’s chair out for her. “It’ll take some getting used to but I’m sure I can learn how.”

  Without looking back at Maggie, they walked to the dance floor with the lieutenant’s arm around Cat’s waist. Maggie sat at the deserted table staring at her untouched beer bottles until her attention was dragged back to the dance floor when the tempo of the music changed and she recognized one of her favorite dance songs, “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller. She hadn’t felt sorry for herself when Robert appeared and paid attention to Cat instead of her. She hadn’t even felt it when the two of them left her to disappear onto the dance floor. But with her favorite song playing, she felt cheated somehow, mourning a man who hadn’t been her husband and wanting nothing more than someone to dance with.

  The sound of two bottles being thumped on the table made her turn her head away from Cat and Robert. She looked up and saw a tall, light-haired man standing next to her table and scrutinizing her. He was a civilian, and wore a tan wool suit with a crisply folded pocket square.

  She’d think later that her first thought was that he wasn’t particularly handsome, but he wasn’t ugly, either. His face was long and narrow, his hair dark blond. Sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw jutted from his face like those of a sculpture of an ancient Greek warrior. But it was his eyes that saved his face from being too harsh. They were amber-colored, like a cat’s, and outlined in black, which made them almost mesmerizing. He smiled, and his teeth were even and white, but even then she couldn’t help the first word that sprung to her mind. Dangerous.

  “You’re not drinking your beer so I thought you might enjoy a Coca-Cola instead.” He sat down in Cat’s vacated chair. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  She did, but she didn’t say anything. It was in the way he looked at her, as if he knew her sadness and saw beauty there instead.

  He reached his hand out to her. “I’m Peter Nowak. My friends call me Pete.”

  She couldn’t imagine anybody calling him Pete and knew if she spent more than five minutes with him, he’d forever be a Peter to her. He spoke with an almost imperceptible accent she couldn’t place but her question died on her lips as his fingers touched hers to shake. They were soft as she imagined a poet’s would be, and almost too hot to touch. She wanted to jerk away, but he held on. “And your name must be something regal, like Anne or Elizabeth.”

  Maggie managed to pull her hand away, feeling scorched. She started to speak and was embarrassed that it took her two tries to find her voice. “It’s Margaret, Margaret O’Shea, but everyone calls me Maggie.”

  A “v” formed over his nose. “I think I’ll call you Margaret. It suits you better. To call you ‘Maggie’ would be an insult to a woman like you.”

  His flattery didn’t sound as empty as it should have. She wanted to leave, but not because she found his company unlikable. It had much more to do with the irrational way he made her thoughts jumble and her skin prickle. She stayed and fought to find her voice again.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?
” Maggie asked.

  He tilted his head. “What makes you say that?” His eyes sparkled. Maggie smiled reluctantly. “I guess it’s your accent. But mostly it’s because I’m local and know everybody here. And I own a shop on Center Street, Folly’s Finds. We sell books, but other things, too—like newspapers, magazines. Candy and some drugstore items. But just about everybody stops by at some point during the week, even newcomers, so I get to meet just about everyone.”

  “Except me.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed an elegant leg over his knee while pulling out a gold cigarette case. He offered her one before choosing one for himself and lighting it. After a deep drag, he said, “I’m most recently from Iowa, where I’ve lived since I was fifteen. Before that, my family was from Warsaw.”

  Maggie leaned forward. “Poland?”

  “Yes.” He raised an eyebrow at her unspoken question. “We emigrated to the United States nearly eleven years ago. My father is Christian, my mother Jewish. They decided my brother and I would be safer and have more opportunities here.”

  She nodded, intrigued. She’d never been out of the state of South Carolina, but her favorite pastime was to study the atlases in the store and pretend she might actually one day visit the places on the maps printed in bright colors with exotic and unpronounceable names. “Why are you here on Folly? You’re not in uniform.” She was looking for a reason not to like him—a reason to get up and walk away from the unsettling way he made her feel.

  “I have terrible asthma.” He held up the cigarette with a rueful smile. “I know this doesn’t help, but I can’t seem to stop.” He took another puff to prove his point. “I’ve had it since childhood and couldn’t pass the physical for the armed forces. But I do my part.”

  It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

  “My father owns a leather-goods factory back in Iowa. We make shoes, belts, boots, that sort of thing. We retooled most of the factory to supply our brave soldiers. It’s my job to visit with different military bases around the country to determine if our quality is good enough and what other needs are not being met. And to find new markets for our products.” He smiled yet Maggie wasn’t warmed by it; it made her feel like she was standing in the surf, sensing the sand being sucked away from beneath her.

  “So, Margaret, what about you?” he asked with a lopsided smile as he stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the table. “What are you doing for the war effort besides doing without nylons and collecting foil?” He sat back and rested his long fingers on the arms of the chair. “And dancing with the soldiers, of course. A beautiful woman must consider it her duty, right?”

  His trivializations made her angry, and she’d been about to excuse herself when he’d called her beautiful. She hated herself for feeling flattered, especially since she knew it was a lie. She was passable, but not beautiful. Growing up with Cat had taught her that. But this elegant man was looking at her, and not Cat, and calling her beautiful.

  Maggie stifled her unease and took a sip from her Coca-Cola bottle. “Well, I run my store. I wanted to work at the navy yard in Charleston but I’m the sole caretaker for my younger sister, Lulu.”

  “You have no other family?”

  “Just my cousin, Catherine. She’s a recent widow. She helps me sometimes at the store and with Lulu. I think it’s too soon for her to be working.”

  “How sad. And you left her at home tonight?”

  Maggie’s lips tightened. “Actually, she’s here. She . . . thought it might help if she danced.”

  “Ah,” he said, lifting his eyebrow again. “The grieving widow.”

  Maggie was unsure how to respond, recognizing his sarcasm but feeling loyal to Cat. “My cousin is very beautiful. The men enjoy being in her company. She’s the tall blonde you probably saw dancing with the lieutenant.”

  He didn’t even turn, keeping his strange eyes focused on Maggie, and something flickered in her chest. “I don’t think I noticed.”

  She turned away from his penetrating gaze, finding it hard to breathe. A familiar rhythm pounded from the stage, and she felt her feet tapping an accompaniment. Cat and Robert were in the center of a circle of spectators watching them dance, their arms and legs flying, their faces slick with sweat. They were beautiful together, like mating birds in midflight.

  Maggie thought of Jim again, and how he’d thought she was beautiful when she smiled, and she felt a longing to be free of the sadness that dogged her like a sand fly. Turning to Peter, she smiled brightly. “Do you know how to dance to beach music?”

  The elegant eyebrow lifted again, making Maggie wonder if she’d said something wrong. “I’m a fast learner.”

  Dancing was the one thing she could do as well as, if not better than, Cat. Feeling emboldened, she stood and held out her hand. “Come on, then. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  He stood and smiled, then grabbed her hand in a strong grip. “It will be my pleasure.”

  His voice covered her like a silk stocking, easing her into his arms. She glanced back at their abandoned table and spotted the two empty Coke bottles. Pulling away from him, she ran back and stuck one bottle under the table so the waitress wouldn’t throw it away. She wanted to save it for Lulu and her bottle tree.

  It didn’t occur to her until much later to wonder why she was contemplating capturing evil spirits on the same night that she was finally considering letting them go.

  CHAPTER 2

  NOBLESVILLE, INDIANA

  June 2009

  Emmy sat on the floor in the backroom of Paige’s Pages, the bookstore her mother had owned since Emmy was a baby, opening boxes and logging titles into the store’s computerized inventory system. It had been six months since Ben had returned in a flag-draped coffin from Afghanistan and been laid to rest next to his father and the faceless ancestors who’d loved the land they’d farmed for more than one hundred years. To Emmy, the passing of days had gone unnoticed, marked only by the flipping of a calendar page. Even the change of seasons had gone unmarked until Paige had insisted Emmy take off her winter sweaters and start wearing cotton and short sleeves.

  Her grief was a silent thing—an invisible virus that gnawed at her from the inside but somehow managed to leave the rest of her unscathed. Her reflection was a surprise each time she saw it, expecting to see something withered and gray, or a black hole where her face had once been. Grief became to her like breathing; she couldn’t rise or go to sleep without the pressing feel of it against her heart, the weight of it like a suitcase she didn’t know how to unpack. Her sleep was dreamless, yet upon waking she’d be sure she’d heard fading footsteps in her bedroom, unsure if they were returning or going away. And each dawn she’d force herself to lie in bed with her eyes closed, hoping to see Ben one last time; hoping he’d tell her which way the footsteps were leading.

  Emmy found fleeting relief in the stacks of books in her mother’s store. The silent words on the written page comforted her just as they had when she was a child, and she welcomed the forced solitude of sorting and shelving books. She left the customers and sympathy sayers to her mother, finding solace in the dusty back room office. The pain and emptiness couldn’t find her there, where she kept her mind too busy to think.

  Every once in a while, Emmy would consider resuming the life she’d planned before she met Ben. With her master’s in library science, she’d once dreamed of being a curator for a museum or university with a large manuscript and rare-book collection. Her joy of dissecting the past through the study of fading words and brittle paper had come as a surprise to many in her small town, but not to her mother. Paige had named her only daughter after the author of her favorite book, Wuthering Heights, after all.

  Following graduation, Emmy had chosen to work in her mother’s store while waiting to find a job in her field, anticipating what corner of the world she’d end up in, when Ben Hamilton had walked in one afternoon in search of a book for his niece. Emmy had been in the process of rereading Austen’s Pride and Pre
judice, and she’d been almost convinced that her Mr. Darcy had entered the shop. Newly minted from Officer Candidate School, Ben was tall and blond and in uniform. He invited her to have coffee with him, and then dinner. Within the month they were engaged, and six months later, they were married. And it never occurred to Emmy to wonder where her dreams had gone. It wasn’t that she hadn’t loved the idea of them; it was simply that she loved Ben more. Now that he was gone, those dreams were like the stuffed animals and faded corsages that still decorated her childhood bedroom; remnants of her life before Ben.

  The bell rang over the store’s front door, but she didn’t get up to see who it was. It was only seven thirty in the morning, before the store opened, and she knew it was her mother coming to argue with her again about not sleeping, or working too hard, or not eating enough. She wanted to tell Paige that as soon as she figured out the right way to grieve, she’d stop doing all those things that seemed to irritate her mother.

  “I brought you breakfast,” her mother said from the doorway.

  Emmy didn’t look up, but continued typing. “I already ate. But thank you.”

  “They’re your favorite—honey wheat bagels from Crandall’s Bakery. They’re still warm.”

  Emmy paused and looked over at her mother. “Maybe later. Just leave them behind the counter.”

  Instead of leaving, Paige stayed where she was, watching Emmy closely. For the first time in a long while, Emmy really looked at her mother, noticing the fine lines around her eyes and mouth, the way her frown seemed almost permanent. And how the sadness Emmy knew she carried with her always seemed to be closer to her skin now, showing through in small patches like a molting snake. It was as if the sadness had grown too big for her mother, finally surpassing Paige’s capacity to hold it in anymore.