much for facing the past, himself. The past was where all his failures lived.
Well, they had that in common.
He pulled the recliner’s lever and stretched out. ‘So yeah, I’m doin’ fine. Whyn’t you bring Savannah over Sunday; we’ll have dinner in this establishment’s fine dining room. They just put in one of them self-serve ice cream machines, you know what I’m talking about? Toppings, too. Y’oughta see the old farts elbowing each other to get there first! If I’d known this place was so entertaining, I’d’ve moved Mom here. This would be her kind of place, don’t you think? Lots of biddies around to cackle with.’
‘Sure, she would’ve liked it a lot,’ Meg said. The farm had overwhelmed her mother perpetually, even after Brian and his father – officially Hamilton Savings and Loan – forgave her parents’ mortgage as promised. In the years afterward, Meg liked to take her mother out to lunch for a break and a treat; she offered her spending money (as she secretly did her sisters too), but the reply was always, ‘Oh, heavens no, Meggie. You’ve done so much as it is. Besides, you know your father.’
She did. Though cursed with a black thumb for profits, he was too proud to let her put cash in their hands. He hadn’t been too proud, though, to let her – to encourage her – to take Brian’s offer. That was different; no money changed hands. Meg hadn’t had to give up anything – Carson didn’t count. It was her choice anyway, that’s what he always said.
‘Hey – whyn’t you bring our girl over here for dinner Sunday?’ He said this as if the idea had just occurred to him.
She stood next to his chair, noting how his invitation didn’t include Brian – intentionally? ‘I’ll do that,’ she said. ‘Right now I need to get going.’
‘Okay, fine, go on, Miss Hectic Schedule. I know, you got things to do. Y’oughta enjoy the ride a little more, though. Now that you can. Don’t you think? I’m fine here, everything’s settled. I don’t know why you don’t just get on with your life.’
Now that she could? What was he talking about?
He continued, ‘You’re not happy. I’ve known that for a long time. Move forward, Meggie, while you’re still young.’
She looked at him quizzically – he didn’t always make sense, but he hated having it pointed out – and kissed him without pursuing it. ‘I’m fine, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s just been a long day.’
‘The northeast side’s where the best waves are,’ yelled Valerie Haas, over the sputtering whine of the motorbikes she and Carson McKay had rented for their excursion on St Martin. The West Indies isle, known for its split Dutch and French identity, was one of three islands they were considering for their wedding location, as well as the site of a vacation home. ‘And the nude beaches are there, too!’
‘Where’s a good bar?’ Carson yelled back, ready to be done with the noise and the hot wind and the vibration in his crotch, nude beaches or not.
He preferred riding horses to motorcycles by far, and was riding this souped-up scooter only in deference to Val. She would’ve had him on something much more powerful if it had been available to them – something worthy of a motocross track – and had been disappointed to have to settle for only 100 cc’s. She wouldn’t even consider the little Suzuki SUVs, insisting that the best views were accessible only with the bikes. He had to admit she was right; the roads up the low mountains deteriorated as they got farther from the small coastal towns, and a few times they’d taken mere trails to different points of interest. Val had wanted to locate a home rumored to have belonged to Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston several years back. Though the house wasn’t officially on the market, they were told, she thought it might be fun to buy it if possible – a surefire conversation starter, she’d called it, as if their lives weren’t already full of those. They found the house this morning, tucked into the hills of the island’s French side, but he wasn’t wild about its rocky landscape and lack of large shade trees. Val, raised in Malibu, would have gone for it anyway. Carson thought of the lushness of central Florida, the oaks and cedars and palms and twining, flowering vines, and declared that notoriety wasn’t enough to persuade him.
Now he pointed to the side of the gravel road, indicating that he was pulling over.
‘You’re not done already?’ Val said when she came to a stop next to him.
The sun pressed heavy on his forehead, forcing sweat down the sides of his neck. He wiped it away. ‘’Fraid so,’ he said.
‘We aren’t even close to finishing the tour.’
He snorted. They’d been out since seven-thirty, and it was closing in on two o’clock. Lunch had been fried plantains and some fizzy fruit soda at a roadside stand. ‘Feel free to go on, but I’m heading back to the villas.’ There was a terrific bar there, and, should he happen to consume a drink or two more than made it safe to ride, he’d already be ‘home’.
Val pushed her sunglasses up onto her shaggy white-blond hair and squinted at him. ‘Okay, I’ll go back with you – if you make it worth my while,’ she said, grinning that same provocative grin she’d used on him the night they’d met, in LA at the launch party for his latest CD. He’d seen thousands of come-hither smiles over the years, but hers was different. Confident – but not threatening, the way some women’s were. Some women were so aggressive they scared him. Val, who at twenty-two was already world famous in her own right, had enticed him with a smile that made him feel like he could reciprocate without remorse. He’d had his share of remorse over the years, and a few extra portions for good measure.
He shook his head, admiring her brilliant hair, the long, lean muscles in her thighs and arms that were products of uncountable hours of surfing and training. She’d won her first junior championship at fifteen, had her first endorsement contract a year later. ‘You’re awfully easy on me, you know.’
‘I know,’ she agreed.
‘It’s a real character flaw.’
‘I never said I was perfect.’ She pushed her sunglasses down and turned her motorbike back toward their resort, a collection of luxury villas on Nettle Bay. ‘Catch me if you can!’
Meg left her father’s apartment and stopped to admire how the setting sun glowed through the moss-draped branches of live oak trees. Spring was in full force, honeysuckle snaking its fragrant way into the trees, azaleas of fuchsia and pink and white and lavender lining the sidewalks and underlining windows. Spring was Meg’s favorite season, but Brian, with his allergies, hated spring. Messy pollen and drifting seeds, messy flower petals. He’d had their home builder clear a fifty-foot perimeter around their house when it was built. Without trees to shade the house, their electric bill was outrageous. He didn’t care; ‘That’s what money’s for,’ he’d say.
In the parking lot, as Meg dug out her keys, she noticed a strange weakness in her right arm. She struggled to raise the arm, to aim the remote at her six-year-old Volvo, feeling as though her arm had become weighted with sand. Bizarre.
A very long day, she thought, walking the remaining twenty feet to the car. That awkward twins delivery just before lunch must have strained her arm – and those damn speculums she was trying out, some new model that was supposed to work easily with one hand but was failing to live up to the product rep’s promises. Three of them had jammed open this afternoon, causing her patients discomfort and embarrassing her – and, she’d noticed at the time, making her hand ache in the effort to get them to close.
She squeezed her hand around the remote, then tried the button again. Her thumb cooperated, and the odd feeling in her arm began to pass. Once inside the car, she sat back with a heavy sigh and