Summer at Hideaway Key Read online

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, silly things, mostly—like her being in the witness relocation program for testifying against some New York gangster. We didn’t know much about her, except that she was from New York, and was sort of famous. Back then—around here at least—New York meant two things: glamour and gangsters. My mother had her pegged as both. It didn’t help that she kept to herself so much. We’d go weeks without laying an eye on her. She used to have her groceries delivered, her liquor, too. She didn’t even try to make friends. That made folks think she was uppity.”

  “Gangsters? Seriously?”

  Rhona shrugged. “My mother had a whole scenario in her head, how your aunt was a moll for some big mob boss, that she’d run away because she’d decided to go straight. She had a vivid imagination, my mother, as I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “People didn’t really believe that, though, did they?”

  “Some did, sure. The ones who wanted to. Others had their own theories.”

  The waitress reappeared, this time with their food. Rhona went quiet while the plates were handed out, the glasses topped off.

  “What kinds of theories?” Lily prompted when they were alone again.

  “That she was a high-priced call girl. That all the talk about her being a famous model was just a cover. Or that maybe she started out that way, and then switched over.”

  “To a prostitute?”

  “Not the common sort,” Rhona assured her hastily, as if that somehow made the rumor more palatable. “She would have been one of the expensive ones, the kind who could afford to pick and choose.” She popped a fry into her mouth, then licked a dab of ketchup from her thumb. “For the record, my mother never believed that.”

  “No. She just had her pegged as a gangster’s moll.”

  “It was only because of that man showing up.”

  “What man?”

  Rhona was fiddling with her sandwich, carefully extricating the crab cake from its bun. Lily waited until she was finished.

  “Rhona, what man?”

  “Who knows? He showed up late one night in a fancy car, all black with dark windows. She let him in, then threw her arms around him and kissed him.”

  “Was this one of the nights she left the blinds open?”

  Rhona scooped up a bite of crab cake, chewing thoughtfully.

  “Rhona?”

  “Not for long. But he stayed the night because the car was still in the driveway in the morning. In fact, he stayed for several weeks. People would see them out together now and then, always arm in arm. Thick as thieves, Gran used to say. He was always dressed up in a hat and one of those suits with the stripes, always flashing around a lot of money, too—like they do in the movies.”

  “So you naturally assumed he was a gangster.”

  “Well, it was mostly my grandmother. He was a pretty thing, blond hair and nice white teeth. My mother thought he might be a movie star, though she couldn’t remember ever seeing him in a movie. But I think Gran liked the idea of him being the dangerous sort.”

  “Did you ever hear his name mentioned, or figure out who he was?”

  Rhona continued to pick at her crab cake, dissecting out bits of green onion and herding them to the edge of her plate. “No. And we never saw him again after that. My mother thought it must have been her husband.”

  Lily set down her fork and folded her hands on the edge of the table, wishing she had taken Dean’s advice more seriously. So far, all she’d heard was a mash-up of rumor and innuendo, and now the woman had conjured a husband out of thin air.

  “Rhona, my aunt never married.”

  It was Rhona’s turn to look surprised. “She most certainly did. My mother saw it in some society paper. There were pictures of her and everything. She kept up with things like that. Mama just assumed it was that golden boy with the fancy clothes, since he was the only one who ever stayed any length of time. The others . . . well, I don’t know really. I never saw any of the others. Just heard about them. Everybody did. Coming and going at all hours, they said.”

  Lily wasn’t listening. Her mother had never said a word about her sister marrying. In fact, she had suggested just the opposite, gloating in unguarded moments about Lily-Mae’s spinster status. Was it possible she had married without Caroline’s knowledge? Yes, of course it was. Caroline was hardly likely to have been on the guest list.

  “But then, you can hardly blame the men for coming around. Moths are always drawn to a lit candle.”

  Lily glanced up from her plate, realizing with an awkward start that Rhona had been talking the whole time and was now waiting for some sort of a response.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said your aunt was beautiful, and that it wasn’t her fault that men flocked to her, though, like I said, I never saw them—except for Golden Boy, of course. We all got a look at him, since he was around for most of the summer. But then he disappeared. She should have held on to him. Rich as Croesus, by the look of his car.”

  Lily’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You never saw any of them?”

  Rhona waved a hand as she folded a particularly long French fry into her mouth.

  “Not with my own eyes, no. Mama did, though. And just like that she was everybody’s friend. Everybody wanted to know the latest.”

  Lily nodded, digesting the implications, but decided to leave it alone. “What ever happened to the man with the fancy car? Does anyone know?”

  Rhona had been pulling her sandwich bun to pieces while they talked, creating a tidy pile of scraps on one side of her plate. She looked up, brushing crumbs from her fingers. “As far as I know, no one ever saw him again. The cottage was shut up for a while, though I can’t remember now if that was before or after he came. I do know your aunt disappeared for a while. Everyone wondered where she’d gone. When she finally came back she was alone.”

  Lily set down her fork, her appetite suddenly gone. She felt stupid now, and more than a little disappointed. She’d been hoping for insight, and actual facts. Instead, she’d spent the last hour listening to the muddled memories of a woman who got her facts from the infamous Dora Shoemaker, Hideaway Key’s most notorious gossip. And she couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. The worst part was that Rhona’s memories, as fragmented as they might be, still seemed to confirm Lily-Mae’s dubious reputation.

  Rhona was busy scooping bread scraps into her napkin, careful not to leave a crumb behind. Lily watched her gnarled fingers work, folding the napkin into a tidy little bundle, then stowing it away in the pocket of her dress.

  “For the birds,” she told Lily, patting the pocket. She pointed to a sign nailed to the railing a few feet away. PLEASE DON’T FEED THE BIRDS. “I’ll go down on the beach when we’re through.”

  “Are we through? I mean, is there anything else you can tell me? Anything about how she died?”

  Rhona shook her head, sending the yellow hibiscus petals fluttering. “Can’t help you much there. Mama sold the house after I got married, so I kind of lost track. I heard she died last year, but not how or why. The money was on her drinking herself to death, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure. They found her in bed, that much I do know. They say she was a rack of bones.” Rhona slapped a hand over her mouth, as if suddenly aware that she was being indelicate. “I’m sorry. I haven’t got an ounce of tact in me. Never have.”

  A rack of bones. Lily pushed the image away, doing her best to keep her face blank. “It’s fine, really. Like I said, I never knew her.”

  Rhona smiled, a sharp, knowing smile that narrowed the corners of her eyes. “Right. Because you’re just here on a fact-finding mission.”

  Lily nodded. “Can I ask you one more thing? Last night you said something about Lily-Mae being beautiful, but sad.”

  Rhona pushed back her plate, folding leathery arms on the edge of the table. “
You could just see it in her, or at least I could. My mother didn’t notice, or Gran, either, but I could always tell that something had happened to her that left her scarred up, especially after she came back. I always felt a little bad for her. All of us poking around all the time, trying to learn her story. People have a right to their suffering.”

  Lily didn’t know what to say. The woman’s memory might be faulty, her sources less than reliable, but there was nothing wrong with her powers of observation. Lily-Mae had been through something that left her scarred up.

  “Thank you for meeting me today, Rhona, and for telling me all this.”

  She meant it, too. Rhona hadn’t painted a particularly pretty story, but at least Lily had some idea about the kind of life her aunt had lived while here. As she signaled their waitress for the check, she thought about Lily-Mae’s self-imposed exile, trying to imagine the kind of sadness that could cause a woman to shut herself away from the world. She couldn’t, not really. But if a childhood filled with horror and a town filled with gossipmongers didn’t justify a life of seclusion, she didn’t know what did.

  THIRTEEN

  Sheila was unpacking a box of sunglasses, arranging them on a tall plastic spinner, when Lily walked in. Her face brightened when she saw Lily. “Let me guess,” Sheila said, laughing. “You decided you couldn’t live without those strappy little sandals you were looking at the other day.”

  “Actually, I had to come into town, so I thought I’d pop by and say hi.”

  “Well, then, hi. How goes it at Sand Pearl Cottage? How’s Dean?”

  Lily wasn’t sure which question to answer first. She had phrased the two as if they were somehow connected. “He’s fine, I guess. You saw him last night. And the cottage is, well, the cottage.”

  “And what else?”

  Lily’s brows lifted a notch. “What else?”

  “You’ve got that look, the one that says your body’s here but your head’s somewhere else. What’s up?”

  Lily tried not to let her surprise show, wondering if Sheila wasn’t the real clairvoyant. She hadn’t come to buy anything, or even to browse. She had popped by because she wasn’t ready to go back to the cottage.

  “I had lunch with Rhona today. I just left her.”

  Sheila clucked her tongue. “And she told you things?”

  Lily nodded. “You’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. It’s why you were all trying to hush her up last night. But I needed to hear what she had to say. All my life I’ve wanted to learn more about my aunt, and now that I have I don’t know what to think.”

  Sheila laid a hand on Lily’s arm. “Oh, sugar, don’t take it to heart. Rhona’s a bit of a crackpot. She’s been known to be a little—let’s call it unreliable.”

  “Yes, I know. Dean told me. But it’s not just the things she said. I ran across some of Lily-Mae’s journals at the cottage and I’ve been reading about what she went through as a child.” She paused, closed her eyes, shook her head. “She had her reasons, Sheila. If what people said about her back then was true, she had her reasons. Maybe not good ones, but she went through some terrible things.”

  “Of course she did, honey. We all have reasons for everything we do. The good stuff and the bad. We do the best we can from where we are, with what we know. That’s life.”

  Lily managed a smile, already feeling better. “I knew I came to see you for a reason, but I didn’t know you were a Zen master.”

  Sheila rolled her eyes. “Honey, what I know you can’t learn in any monastery. You have to earn it, one scar at a time.”

  It was the second time Sheila had mentioned scars in the course of a normal conversation. “You think we learn from our scars?”

  “I do, actually. At least I know I’ve learned from mine, though God knows I fought it tooth and nail. Let me tell you, you can do a lot of thinking when you’ve hit rock bottom and you’re all alone. How’s Dean, by the way?”

  The abrupt change of subject was jarring. “I already told you. He’s fine.”

  “He’s a good guy. He’s got some issues, but who doesn’t? You should make a move in that direction if he’s your type.”

  “I just met him!”

  “Yeah, well, life is short. Trust me, if you don’t go after what you want you’ll wind up alone and empty-handed.”

  She’d said it with such gravity, such knowing. “That sounds like experience talking.”

  “Breast cancer,” Sheila said simply. “Five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” Without meaning to, her eyes slid to Sheila’s chest.

  “Both,” Sheila said without blinking. “No reconstruction, but they make great bras nowadays.”

  Lily glanced at the stack of folded pink shopping bags on the counter beside the napping Sir Galahad. Suddenly, a light went on. “Sassy Rack?”

  Sheila smiled slyly. “You guessed it. I was still in my defiant phase when I came up with the name. It was kind of an in-your-face choice, which is pretty much how I was after it was all over.”

  “And now . . .”

  “So far so good. Which is why I said what I said about life being short. You never know, honey. So don’t pass up things you might regret later—like Dean.”

  “I’m only here for three weeks. There’s no point—”

  “You’ve never heard of a summer romance?”

  “I don’t have time for a summer romance. Besides, I’m not interested.”

  Sheila arched one slim brown brow. “You have seen him, right—the tall, dark, handsome architect who lives in that big blue beach house next to your aunt’s cottage?”

  “It’s not him. Well, maybe it’s a little bit him. But the real reason is I’m not looking for anything right now. I’ve got my hands full with the cottage, and then I’m off to Milan.”

  “What’s in Milan?”

  “A job at a very prestigious design house. I design clothes.”

  Sheila’s eyes went wide. “Get out of here! Seriously?”

  “I’ve been in Paris, working for Sergé Leroux, but then this offer came up. Like I said, it’s a really prestigious house. A dream job, really. I couldn’t turn it down.”

  “Was someone holding a gun to your head?”

  Lily shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Maybe you did. Sometimes we say what we mean without meaning to. I know it’s none of my business, but for a girl who just got offered a dream job you don’t sound very excited.”

  “Everything’s just happening so fast. My father, the cottage, and now Lily-Mae. I haven’t had time to catch my breath.”

  Sheila’s look said she wasn’t buying it. “You know, a minute ago I warned you about passing up things you might regret later. But I forgot to tell you that it works the other way, too. You should never do something you’re not over the moon about.”

  “More experience?”

  “Maybe. My point is, we only get one life. It’s up to us to fill it up with things we love. That goes for people, too.”

  “If this is about Dean—”

  “It’s about whoever. And whatever. When I got sick, I got stupid. There was a man—we’d been together for years. He was a great guy, so great I couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing me sick and all scarred up. So I ran him off. Not all at once, but it didn’t take long. Then came the chemo and radiation. It was so awful, and I was so sick and alone. Everywhere I went there were all these women. Women with breasts. Woman with hair. Women who didn’t look like walking mummies. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, and hide. But there was nowhere to go. I almost quit. I didn’t want to go on with it. I just wanted everything to be over. One of the chemo nurses must have sensed it. She gave me a card for a survivors’ group. I went, and that night I got smart again. I realized what an idiot I’d been, and how much I had thrown away. It was too late to fix a lot of it, but I coul
d get on with my life, and I did—on my terms. You get me, sugar?”

  Lily blinked at her. She didn’t, actually.

  Sheila’s smile was kind, but a little sad, too, as she began gathering up the small plastic bags the sunglasses had come in. “Life is precious. That’s what I’m saying. And you shouldn’t throw away a single minute of it. Especially not on a job you don’t want—even if that job is in Milan.”

  Lily shrugged, feeling more adrift than ever. “I’ve always wanted to do something big, something that really matters. Maybe this job is finally it.”

  “I agree with every word of that, honey. What you do with your life does have to matter—but only to you. Nothing else is important. You get to decide what’s big. You, and only you.”

  Lily smiled, a sad smile that made the center of her chest ache. “You sound like my father. He was always telling me to listen to my heart, to follow my own North Star.”

  “Sounds like a wise man.”

  “He was,” Lily said quietly. “Thanks for sharing. I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories.”

  Sheila waved off the apology. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve moved on. Sometimes things happen and you think it’s the end of the world. You rail at fate and you curse the gods. And then one day you’re all raged out, and you realize everything is just the way it’s supposed to be, that life is just one long chain of lessons and there aren’t any accidents. Things—lessons—come into our lives for a reason.”

  Sheila’s words continued to echo in Lily’s head long after she left the shop. Was it true? Was everything the way it was supposed to be? If she let herself believe that, it meant that Hideaway Key was where she was supposed to be, at least for now, and that inheriting Sand Pearl Cottage had been no accident.

  FOURTEEN

  Lily felt a pleasant sense of accomplishment as she gathered up the armload of grimy paper towels and stood back to survey her handiwork. It had taken half a roll of Bounty and thirty minutes of elbow grease, but the glass doors finally sparkled.