Message in the Sand Read online

  He turned to look at her, and she could feel the weight of his gaze. “You know, my mother really liked that watercolor. I had to come up with a lie when she asked me where it was.”

  “She did?” Julia spun around to face him. “Oh, God, I feel terrible!”

  “You should. It was her favorite.”

  Julia smacked him on the arm. “I’m giving it back.”

  “Nah, she’s got plenty of them.” Sam chuckled. “I just wanted to see you squirm.”

  After that, they met almost every night. They found a large rock by the lake’s edge where they could see a blue heron’s nest in a weeping willow. When it was particularly hot, they met by the stream, where the shadows were cool and the ground mossy. Once she caught a small brown turtle with garnet-red spots on its shell that she’d never seen before. “Look at that,” she said, handing it gently to Sam.

  “I’ve never seen one like that,” he said, examining it in wonder. “It must be rare. Let’s put it back by the water.” As Julia watched him return to turtle to the mud, she couldn’t think of any other boy who would appreciate such things.

  “What do you two talk about?” Chloe demanded when Julia would call her to report back.

  “I don’t know. Nothing. Everything.”

  It was true. Sometimes they just sat and listened to the peepers. Sometimes Sam brought her a snack, like the perfectly ripe plum he once pulled out of his pocket, took a bite out of, and wordlessly handed to her. She’d never tasted anything so sweet. Sometimes they joked about school friends and gossip. Sometimes it was more serious, like a few nights ago, when they sat on their rock and he told her he had to go to Saratoga Springs soon to visit his grandfather, who was dying of cancer. “He’s my favorite relative in the whole family. I don’t know what to say to him.” Sam’s voice broke. “I’m not sure I want to remember him like this.”

  It was the first time Julia had taken his hand. She pulled it onto her lap and squeezed it in her own. Sam’s hands were softer than the buttery leather reins on Radcliffe’s bridle. It hardly sounded romantic, but as an equestrian, she found nothing more satisfying to the touch than the smooth braids of leather woven between her fingers. Until that moment when Sam looked at her and squeezed back.

  * * *

  Now, as she got ready for her parents’ stupid gala, Julia found it hard to keep Sam out of her thoughts. Hurriedly, she pulled her hair into a loose ponytail and dabbed on lip gloss. If it weren’t for the mint dress, and the freckles starting a dangerous trail across her nose, she’d almost say she looked pretty. Almost. She hurried to her walk-in closet and selected a pair of white sling backs which were tricky to walk in but made her taller. Before dashing downstairs, she grabbed her phone off her bed and sent Sam a text: “Sorry I couldn’t stay, but my parents have that thing tonight. How about after?”

  As she trotted downstairs, she could hear the house already buzzing. The patio doors had been thrown open, and notes of music trailed inside like birdsong as the jazz band warmed up. Her family was gathered in the archway between the living room and kitchen, apparently waiting for her. Her mother sounded impatient. “Where is Julia? We need to take the family photo.” Eliza stood at the ready with a camera.

  Julia groaned. Before every party, her mother went crazy with the photos.

  “I’m coming!” But no one heard. At that moment, Badger, her father’s beloved Irish setter, bounded inside with a look of wild glee on his face and a trail of muddy pawprints in his wake.

  Her mother threw up her hands. “That dog! He was supposed to be crated.”

  “He was.” Julia’s father, a crisp vision in white linen, lunged just in time and secured Badger’s leather collar. He scruffed the dog playfully, his tanned face crinkling with joy as Badger wagged against him. “How’d you escape, Houdini?”

  “Alan, your suit,” her mother protested.

  “It’s all right, honey. I’ve got him.” Somehow her father managed to steer Badger through the kitchen and into the rear mudroom without getting a speck of dirt on himself. “Come on, you mangy mutt.” Her father’s patience knew no bounds.

  Anne shook her head and turned to Eliza. “I swear, if it came down to me or that dog…” It was then that Anne noticed Julia standing in the doorway.

  Julia wasn’t sure what to expect from her mother; she’d seen the towering vases of hydrangeas lined up on the tables outside, knowing she hadn’t had a hand in a single arrangement. She deserved an earful.

  “Well, well.” But her mother’s expression softened when she noted the mint-green dress. She crossed the marble tiles in no time and planted a kiss on Julia’s forehead. “Oh, honey. You look lovely.” Pippa was skipping in small circles around them, swinging an overstuffed drawstring purse, which flew out of her hand and landed with a sharp thud on the floor.

  Their mother spun around. “Pippa Mae, dare I ask what you’re hiding in that handbag?”

  Pippa snatched up her purse and pivoted away, but Eliza caught her midskip and spun Pippa around to face her mother, as if presenting a gift or a felon, Julia was not sure. “Show your mother.”

  Their mother shook her head as she emptied the contents of the purse across the island counter. “Oh, Pips. Really, now.” Julia stole a peek over her shoulder. There were two gray rocks, one that looked like a real toe-breaker if dropped. A feather from the chicken coop. An open bag of M&M’s, half melted. A leaking sparkly purple gel pen. And a miniature brass sculpture of a sailboat that their father immediately scooped up from the pile as he returned to the kitchen sans Badger. “Hey now, I’ve been looking for this for weeks.”

  “But I need all of it!” Pippa wailed, her eyes roving territorially across her loot. She was such a little hoarder.

  Julia hid her smile as her mother dumped it gently into a small pail that Eliza miraculously procured from thin air. “We’ll save it for later, honey. Your purse is a party accessory, not a backpack for a two-week excursion.”

  With everyone finally accounted for, Anne’s eyes flashed. “Picture time,” she declared. Even their father slumped a little.

  Eliza gathered the four of them in the living room by the bay window. Behind them, the afternoon light was pink and still promising, casting a rosy glow on all four Lancasters. Julia leaned in to her mother. “I’m sorry I didn’t help with the flowers,” Julia whispered. “I lost track of time.”

  Her mother regarded her with a knowing smile. She looked vibrant, her blond hair swept up elegantly, eyes twinkling. “You were out in that swamp again, weren’t you?”

  Julia stiffened. How her mother seemed to know everything confounded her.

  But if her mother knew it had anything to do with Sam Ryder, Julia was given a reprieve. “It’s all right, baby girl. Next time.”

  Julia felt her insides relax. Anne Lancaster was a rock, a force of nature. But she bent and flexed gracefully like the reeds in their wetlands, sure of her position in the family. Despite the fact that her mother sometimes drove her absolutely crazy, somewhere deep in her bones Julia ached to be just like her. Love could be so conflicting.

  Julia watched her mother’s gaze flicker toward the bay window, where suddenly, the first guests alighted on the patio in their summer whites. The women looked like cranes, stepping gingerly in their heels across the flagstones. “Hurry! Everyone smile for the camera.”

  Pippa wriggled in between them, her recovered purse repacked, and accidentally stomped Julia’s toes with one of her block heels. Julia yelped.

  “Sorry,” Pippa squeaked. At that moment Badger galloped through the kitchen, somehow sprung from his crate once again and awash with fresh mud. Upon locating his people in the formal living room, he spun on his hindquarters and thundered in, antique tables and lamps wobbling in his wake. “No!” Anne cried. “Stay down!” The family braced themselves, but it was too late.

  Badger leaped into their fold, knocking against Pippa’s tulle skirt, dragging his muddy tongue across Alan’s face. Everyone sidestepped and
shouted. The camera flashed once, then again, and Julia’s father roared heartily, “Let the party begin!”

  Three Roberta

  Roberta Blythe opened her mailbox and peered inside. “Ah! Something for both of us.” At her feet, Maisey thumped her black tail expectantly.

  Each time the UPS driver delivered a package, he left a dog biscuit in the mailbox for Maisey. Lately, Roberta had been shopping online with such frequency that the dachshund had come to expect something whenever they got the mail, which Roberta was more than a little ashamed of. She handed Maisey the biscuit and withdrew her package: the shape and weight of the hardcover book inside made her heart feel light. If a little guilty.

  Despite the fact that Roberta believed in small business and loathed the Internet, she’d recently buckled and done something she’d sworn she’d never do: she’d made peace with Amazon. It had taken her years to arrive at that commercial-giant juncture, but ultimately, it was bigmouth Jimmy, from her physical therapy class, who was responsible.

  Since her knee surgery back in February, Roberta was confronted by the likes of Jimmy Barkhausen three times a week at the orthopedic rehab center. All through the winter and spring, she’d been forced to listen to him rave about the many things he found inspiring (he was one of those expressly grateful types who thrust his good cheer on people), one of which was Amazon. According to Jimmy, it had changed his life. As with most things Jimmy said, Roberta initially tuned it out. If pressed, she supposed he was likable enough, a retired attorney, which gave them something in common, since she herself had been retired from the probate court bench for a good fourteen years now. But Jimmy talked too much and treated the rehab class like something of a social club, a place to hunker down and chew the fat. Roberta didn’t want to hunker down with anyone, let alone chew the fat. She wanted to get in and get out of there. It was no secret that many in town considered her a bit of an introvert, which suited her just fine.

  As Jimmy had railed on about the wonders of Amazon, a business so diversified that it sold everything from toilet paper to good literature, Roberta had focused instead on her rehab exercises. Her knee was healing nicely from ACL surgery. Nicely enough, she hoped, that she wouldn’t have to keep coming back to rehab three times a week to do these god-awful stretches. The few occasions Roberta left her house, her errands took her to only three places: the local IGA market, the pharmacy, and the town library. And those she visited during off-hours, so as not to have to see people.

  So when Jimmy mentioned that he didn’t even have to get in the car and drive to the mall for jeans or to the pharmacy for his favorite brand of aftershave, it captured her attention. She tipped her head slightly in his direction on the trampoline in the corner. It was what he said next that made her put down her weights altogether.

  “You ever hear of that book Where the Crawdads Sing?” Jimmy shouted. The shouting irked her more than anything. “Been on the bestseller list for weeks.” Roberta nodded. She didn’t need Jimmy Barkhausen to tell her that. She’d read it twice already, then recommended it to her sister. “Well, my wife has been trying to get it from the library for months. So, I got on the Amazon [the Amazon: further annoyance], clicked ‘add to cart,’ and surprised her with a copy the very next day. Good Lord, she loves that book.”

  Books. Books were Roberta’s one true thing. Her love, her escape, her habit, her weakness. Roberta coursed through books like caffeine addicts tossed back a triple espresso. It was how she spent her days and nights, when not cooking or walking Maisey or talking to her sister, Gina, on the phone. Roberta may have been an introvert, but she was no fool. She’d known Amazon sold books, but she was a devotee of her local library. What she couldn’t procure from the library, she treated herself to from an adorable indie bookstore two towns over, though only on special occasions. But that summer her beloved Saybrook Library was under renovation, and the bookstore was a bit of a drive to keep up with her habit. “Next-day delivery!” Jimmy shouted from across the room.

  That same afternoon Roberta logged on to her computer. It took only a moment to create an Amazon account. The array of options was staggering. Sinister, even. Who were all these merchants? Could she trust them? Before the sun set, she’d not only filled her cart, she’d compiled a bestseller wish list. She clicked the latest Hildebrand release. It was half-price and brand-new. All right, she told herself before committing altogether. This was temporary. To tide her over during the library renovation. Oh, but there was Ann Patchett’s latest release! And so it happened that Roberta Blythe came to have a book a day delivered to her mailbox. To absolve her conscience, she still drove two towns over to the indie bookstore every month. And when the library reopened in the fall, she’d drop the Amazon account like a bad habit. In the meantime, there was no use beating herself up. These were the things she told herself.

  Now, as she closed the mailbox and held the new book against her chest, the rumble of an approaching truck caught her attention. Roberta recognized the blue Ford right away: Wendell Combs. She lifted a hand in greeting.

  Wendell’s mother, Charlotte, had been a dear friend of Roberta’s right up to the end. It began as an unlikely friendship, as at first glance neither woman had anything remotely in common with the other. But that was life in a small town: no one escaped with just one glance.

  Roberta had been in the IGA market scouring the produce section when she heard a shriek. At the end of the aisle, by the dairy case, stood Charlotte Combs. Roberta followed the young mother’s gaze to a lone shopping cart with two boys. Standing up in the cart was the younger one, whom Roberta guessed was about two years old. In his clutch was an empty egg carton, and below, on the linoleum floor, the remnants of the entire dozen. But that was far less concerning than what he did next: still standing in the cart, he threw his hands up overhead and wobbled precariously.

  To Roberta’s horror, the toddler lurched over the edge at the same time the mother screamed, “Wendell!”

  Quickly, the big brother spun around and threw out his arms. In that instant the little one fell into them, and the two flopped to the floor. There was a terrible thunk as the older boy’s head fell back against the linoleum, followed by crying.

  Charlotte reached her boys first, scooping up the little one, then falling to her knees beside his big brother. “Darling, are you all right?”

  Roberta had reached them by then, and Charlotte looked up at her. “Here!” Before she could say a word, Charlotte thrust the younger boy into her arms. He paused in his tears to regard this stranger and then howled louder.

  Charlotte ran her hands over her older son’s head, inspected his hair, fretting. “Wendell, you brave, brave boy.”

  Roberta watched Wendell’s mother help him up. He put a hand to the back of his head. “I’m okay, Mama. It doesn’t really hurt.”

  Charlotte turned to Roberta and exhaled with relief. Roberta was taken aback momentarily by her glow; she was quite beautiful. “Thank you so much,” she said, relieving Roberta of the boy. “This is Wesley.” She blinked at the messy floor in dismay. “The egg breaker.”

  The two had exchanged brief introductions as Roberta waved over the deli boy and sent him to fetch a mop.

  “It’s my fault,” Charlotte said, swiping a lock of blond hair back into her ponytail. “I never should’ve stepped away from the cart.”

  Roberta regarded her sympathetically. So many parents came through her courtroom with less regret over far bigger issues. “It happens to the best of mothers,” she reassured her.

  The deli boy returned with a mop and bucket on wheels. “Oh no, I can’t allow you to,” Charlotte said. “This is our mess.” Without warning, she thrust Wesley back at Roberta; he eyed her warily but, thankfully, this time did not howl. To everyone’s surprise, Charlotte relieved the boy of the mop. As she mopped the floor with brisk, efficient sweeps, Roberta got a good look at both boys. They had large cornflower-blue eyes like their mother’s and thick brown hair that must have come from their fat
her.

  “Thank you again for your help,” Charlotte said when she was done. She eyed Roberta’s tailored suit and white blouse. “I hope Wesley didn’t get any egg on you.”

  “No, no. It was no trouble at all,” Roberta said, stooping to pick up her small basket of vegetables. It looked lonely compared to the teeming cart Charlotte strapped Wesley into and took hold of.

  As she made her way down the aisle away from the little family, Roberta heard her name. She turned.

  There was that smile again. “Are you free this Thursday night?”

  Roberta fumbled with her basket. “Free?”

  Charlotte pushed her cart closer. “I host a bridge game. You must come.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly.”

  Charlotte grinned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  If anyone had taken the time to actually notice Roberta, they might have called her several things. But “ridiculous” was not one of them.

  Charlotte was not taking no for an answer. “We start at seven. Do you play?”

  She did not, but from then on Roberta spent every Thursday evening at Charlotte’s dining room table with a group of eight women who seemed to like being there. Roberta had learned there was no denying Charlotte Combs.

  But Roberta was a quick study, and she found herself almost enjoying the group, despite how vastly different they were from her. All were married and mothers. Janice Garvey was a high school English teacher, and Marie Dennis worked at the town clerk’s office, but the rest stayed at home with their young broods. It was exactly the kind of group that normally would have set up the hair on the back of Roberta’s neck. Roberta preferred her own company. She held zero interest in the exchange of Crock-Pot recipes and found idle chitchat migraine-inducing. Nor did she have a spouse to complain about, something many in the group approached like a sport. In fact, as far as Roberta could tell, the others behaved as if they’d been sprung from some domestic prison for the night. There was spiked punch and finger food and always some kind of baked-good contribution. Roberta did not bake. But she allowed herself to partake in the offerings. It was the eighties and the entertaining was easy, if completely foreign to Roberta.