An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach) Read online

  He turned back to Emma. “I forgot I agreed to do an interview after the show. I don’t mean to kick you out. You’re welcome to hang around, but I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll be on our way,” Emma said. “I know you have other obligations.”

  “None more important than you, but yeah, I’d like to get this over with, and then I want to get something to eat. And hey, it’s already after midnight.” He elbowed his mother lightly. “Past your bedtime, Mom.”

  “It is, but it was worth it.” Emma hugged her son. “So will we see you before we leave on Sunday morning? No pressure.”

  “I have to check with my manager to see what else is on the schedule, but if I can hook up with you guys before you leave, I will.” He walked them toward the door. “Tomorrow’s a big milestone for you guys, right? First tats?” He walked them to the door.

  “It is. For each of us.” Emma tucked a hand through his arm, and he squeezed it.

  “Pick something awesome,” he said as the guard opened the door and stood aside for them. “Pick something that shows who you guys are to each other.”

  And that, Maggie thought as they walked through the crowded corridor to their ride, is the whole point of the tattoo. She still wasn’t sure what it would be, but it would, in fact, be awesome.

  Chapter Seven

  GRACE

  The Christmas lights adorning the well-kept houses on Linden Circle cast a cheery glow over every porch and driveway, from the corner all the way to the end of the block where Grace’s pretty Cape Cod sat in bleak and total darkness. There’d been a time not so long ago when the sight of the neighborhood all sparkly with holiday joy had lifted her spirits, but this year every beautifully lit house seemed to mock her. She stopped at the mailbox to gather the few catalogs of last-minute gift ideas tucked among the bills and a few Christmas cards before heading to the end of the driveway, where a motion-sensor light came on to illuminate the area between the garage and the back deck. With her house keys and the mail in one hand and her handbag and her briefcase in the other, she slammed the car door with her shoulder. Up the four steps to the deck, her heels tapping across the boards, and then she unlocked the back door and went inside the silent house.

  Grace had not entered the house she’d shared with Zach without feeling like a failure since the night he had packed his belongings. She’d married him believing in their happy-ever-after and had bought this house with an unquestioned assurance of undying domestic bliss. After closing that first day, he’d carried her over the front door threshold, and they’d begun their life together under this roof. Grace had never—not even for an instant—suspected there’d ever be an end to the fairy tale of their marriage. She still didn’t understand what had happened, what had caused Zach to fall out of love with her and into love with someone else. She must have done something to make him not love her anymore. Not that it mattered now, but still, she’d like to know what it was that had made her suddenly so unlovable.

  She flicked on the light, dumped her bag and the mail on the kitchen counter, set her briefcase on the floor next to the table, and draped her coat over a nearby chair. The thought of the impending holiday exhausted her. She went into the living room and plugged in the Christmas tree, pausing to watch the blinking lights. She hadn’t planned on having a tree this year—really, she hadn’t wanted one—but her mother and sister had insisted it would cheer her up. She hadn’t been able to explain how the tree had the opposite effect on her. Every time she looked at it, with its graceful arms laden with cheery ornaments and the beautiful angel that sat on the uppermost branch, she wanted to cry because of all the memories the tree evoked. Their first Christmas, she and Zach had walked on the frozen ground of the tree farm as snow had fallen lightly. They’d examined every tree of a certain height until they’d found the perfect one. They’d fought to get the tree into the stand, laughing as the trunk wobbled and crashed not once but twice before they’d managed to secure it. Zach had carefully draped the lights while Grace sorted through the boxes of ornaments, some bought new together, some gifted by her mother or his. There’d been angels she’d made in kindergarten from pipe cleaners and crepe paper, and a print of his small hand impressed inside a plaster heart he’d made in nursery school and hung by a red satin ribbon. Even last year—well after he’d left her—she’d hung that heart on the tree, still hoping against hope that he’d get over whatever it was that had made him leave her and he’d come home. Having spent the last twelve months watching Amber lead him around by his nose—if not by another portion of his anatomy—Grace’d given up any notion of a reconciliation.

  A week ago, Zach had had the nerve to ask her if she’d give him that little plaster heart for the tree he and Amber were going to put up that weekend in her apartment. Grace had promised to look for it when she got home, which she’d done. When she’d found it, she’d smashed it into dust with a meat tenderizer.

  “Sorry,” she’d told him on Monday when he’d again asked about his treasured ornament. “I guess it got lost or something.” It gave her perverse pleasure to know that he knew she was lying, but he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

  She sat on the sofa and pulled her legs up under her. She couldn’t help how sad she felt at how disappointing her life had turned out to be. Even sitting in this room she loved in the house she loved made her sad. She’d lost her heart to the house from the moment she first saw it, and she prized every piece of furniture and every work of art. Now all those lovely things she and Zach had picked out together had been left behind, just as she had been. He’d taken nothing but his clothes and a few personal items, discarding every trace of their marriage as if wanting to erase it all from his life. And yet every day he reported to work at the law firm that carried her father’s name.

  She thought about how her father would have handled a cheating son-in-law who worked for him. Then again, there’d been no cheating while Art was alive. At least, she was pretty sure there hadn’t been. Zach had been perfectly happy to be married to the boss’s daughter—until the boss died. She’d been easy enough to love when Zach thought she—and therefore, he—would be inheriting the firm. Her father’s death had changed everything.

  Her stomach rumbled, a reminder she’d skipped lunch to work on a brief, and it was now almost seven. She went into the kitchen in search of last night’s leftovers, still lamenting the turn her life had taken. She just didn’t understand why she and Zach couldn’t have had the same kind of marriage her parents had. They’d been soul mates. Perfect together. Meant to be. They were each other’s one and only. She wondered if her mother ever felt this deep bitterness when she thought about losing her husband. If she ever wondered why he’d been taken from her. Why they couldn’t have grown old together.

  There were times when Grace was angry with her father for dying, not just for the upheaval in her mother’s life, but for what it had done to hers. Had his death been the catalyst for the breakup of her marriage, or had he been the only thing keeping it together? She wasn’t sure. He’d been so proud to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day as she floated in a Vera Wang ocean of tulle. He’d been so pleased with her choice of husband. And then poof! Her father was gone, and Zach was gone, and she had nothing except this house and her job. She went into the office every day, closed her door, did her work, kept her head down, and then came home. It was killing her.

  The only thing that was keeping her sane was TheLast2No.

  She ate Thai takeout from two nights ago straight out of the container, standing at the kitchen counter while she turned on her laptop and went directly to her blog. Scanning the comment section, she found a discussion had been ongoing, apparently for the last hour.

  JK-Taurus: I’ve always been a good person. I’ve never hurt a soul in my life. But all I can think about lately is—well, doing something bad.

  BlackWido55: Like what kind of bad?

  JK-Taurus: Like, hurting him.

&nb
sp; JanieJoPa: You mean, like, physically?

  JK-Taurus: Yeah. In a really big way.

  LizzieCake_25: I can so relate. I think about smashing my ex’s knees with a big hammer.

  Grace had to jump in and remind them that any talk of violent behavior was a no-no.

  Annie Boleyn: Yow, LizzieCake_25! Remember the blog rules! No violence!

  LizzieCake_25: I didn’t say I’d do it. I just said I think about it. And I do. I thought the purpose of this blog was to be a place where we could vent and not be judged.

  Annie Boleyn: No one’s judging you, LizzieCake_25.

  LizzieCake_25: Sure sounds as if you are.

  Annie Boleyn: Just reminding you.

  BlackWido55: So JK-Taurus, what’s stopping you from putting a big hurt on the bastard?

  JK-Taurus: The thought of spending the rest of my life behind bars? Never seeing my kids again? Their jerk father gaining sole custody so he and his new wife can raise my children?

  BlackWido55: Only if you get caught, girl.

  JK-Taurus: My luck, I’d be caught. I’ve never gotten away with a damned thing in my life.

  BlackWido55: There are ways if you’re smart. DM me if you want to know.

  OurMissArden: Guys! I can’t believe you’re having this conversation! I hope you’re not serious.

  BlackWido55: He ruined her life and he’s getting away with it. That POS gave her three kids and then walked off into the sunset with another woman. Why shouldn’t he be punished?

  Grace stared at the screen. Was BlackWido55 actually encouraging JK-Taurus to physically harm her ex-husband? Time to jump in again. She donned her Annie persona and began to type.

  Annie Boleyn: Guys, I started this blog as a place where we could offer support to each other. Trust me, no one was dumped more painfully than I was. But I’m going to have to shut you down if you keep talking about hurting someone.

  Grace watched as first BlackWido55 then JK-Taurus left the conversation.

  OurMissArden: Am I the only one who got a little worried there for a minute?

  LizzieCake_25: You know how BlackWido55 likes to talk tough. She always has an edge.

  Grace monitored the conversation a little longer, adding one last reminder that talks of actual violence were verboten before closing the laptop. The blog had been her saving grace—no pun—but lately a few of her followers had developed a sharper tone, suggesting if not outright advocating some sort of retaliation against their or someone’s ex that crossed the line from unpleasant to possibly criminal. She’d have to keep a closer eye on BlackWido55. If she kept it up, Grace would have to block her completely.

  She poured herself a glass of wine and tried to decide how to spend the rest of the night. She could watch a movie on TV. Wrap Christmas presents and put them under the tree. Write out those few Christmas cards she sent every year. She recalled there’d been a few cards in the stack of mail she’d brought in earlier, so she culled them from the pile and opened them to see if she needed to add anyone else to her list. Christmas was still a few weeks away, so she could still mail a few cards. There was one from a friend from college, another from a lawyer who’d left the firm and moved to Memphis right after her father had died and didn’t know that she and Zach were no longer together (“Wishing you both the merriest of holidays! Love, June”), and one from Emma Dean, the envelope of which was marked PHOTOS. DO NOT BEND. She opened the card and let the photos fall onto the counter.

  The photos were all from her mother’s Thanksgiving road trip with her friends to Charlotte. There were photos of the three women standing in the front row of the audience as other concert-goers filed in around them. A photo of Chris on stage—she paused over this one and smiled because he was so damned cute and looked so like a rock star. Next, the three women in a horse-drawn carriage. Another at the NASCAR museum. A picture in the tattoo shop—what had ever possessed her mother to go along with that? At least the tattoo was cute and was in a discreet place. Grace would have bet that had been Liddy’s idea, but her mother had said Emma had suggested it. The last one was of her mother and Chris. He had his arm around her, his hand holding a box of Junior Mints. She looked through the pictures a second time before leaving them on the counter with the realization that her mother was having more fun and a way better life than she was. Which she acknowledged was a good thing for her mother. She knew Maggie’d had a hard time since Art died.

  It occurred to Grace, not for the first time, that the Flynn women had really, really bad luck with men. Maggie’s husband had died a week before he’d have turned sixty. Grace’s own husband had left her for the office floozy. Natalie . . . well, Nat never had a husband, but her baby daddy—a term Grace would never use in the presence of her mother—had walked out on her, and whether it had bothered Nat or not, the fact remained that if her luck had been better, she’d have gotten involved with the kind of man who would have stayed, who would have wanted the child he’d made with the woman he supposedly loved. One who hadn’t turned out to be a drug addict.

  Yeah. Bad luck all around.

  She rinsed out her glass, turned off the kitchen light, and settled herself back in the living room. She wanted to take one more look at TheLast2No before she headed upstairs to get ready for bed. She clicked on her blog, scanned today’s entries, and was dismayed to find that not only had BlackWid055 reappeared, but others had joined the conversation after she’d signed off, and it was taking an ugly turn.

  LilacLadyNJ: I don’t know . . . I . . .

  BlackWido55: Girl, you need to take matters into your own hands and teach that bitch a lesson she won’t forget.

  Annie Boleyn: I think that’s enough for tonight, ladies. I’m shutting this down for a while.

  LilacLadyNJ: Oh, but Annie, this is my only place where I feel like I can say what I think and what I feel about what happened to me.

  Annie Boleyn: I understand that, I really do. But there’s a tone here tonight that is setting off all kinds of alarms, and I need to clear the air.

  BlackWido55: She’s talking about me. And by clear the air, she means she wants to shut me up.

  Annie Boleyn: Not shut you up as much as tone you down. We’re supposed to be supportive here, help each other vent so we can move on eventually.

  BlackWido55: Oh, really? How close are you to moving on, Annie? I bet if you had the chance, you’d deep-six that little hottie that stole your man.

  Annie Boleyn: I’d like her out of my life, yes. Or more accurately, out of his life, but not literally. I mean, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

  BlackWido55: Sure you would. If you could get away with it, there’s any number of things you’d do to her. And to him. Want to know what I’m going to do to my ex?

  Annie Boleyn: No. And that’s it for tonight, ladies. I’ll be here by 8 on Friday for happy hour if you’re free and want some company.

  With shaking hands, Grace closed and locked the blog’s comments for the night, effectively shutting everyone out, and signed off. BlackWido55 always seemed to take things right to the edge. Her story was a familiar one: she was happily married to the love of her life until her ex fell in love with her yoga instructor and left her. She’d quipped that she’d lost not only her man but the best yoga teacher she’d ever had. She’d vented hard, but all Grace’s followers did that, especially in the beginning. It was why they came to TheLast2No, to bitch and whine and put curses on their exes—hence the relatively new feature on the blog, the Ex Hex, where those curses could be spelled out. Once in a while someone got a little carried away with their revenge fantasies, but that was all they were. Fantasies. God knew Grace had had plenty of those herself, none of which she’d shared, but she wasn’t going to judge someone else for having them. And for most of her followers, just putting those fantasies out there had been enough to banish them from subsequent conversations. But BlackWido55 seemed unable to drop the baggage, and her aggressive rhetoric seemed to increase as time
went on.

  One way or another, Grace was going to have to rein her in. The last thing she wanted was for someone in her space encouraging others to acts of violence. Maybe something had set her off earlier in the day, and maybe by Friday she’d be over it. If not, Grace was going to have to block BlackWido55 from the site. Grace was a lawyer, for God’s sake. She couldn’t have anyone on her blog openly encouraging others to commit criminal acts.

  Someone could get hurt. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the blog being discovered in an investigation. And if the blog was traced back to her, no one had more to lose than Grace.

  Chapter Eight

  NATALIE

  “Hey, Natalie. Wait up.”

  Natalie glanced over her shoulder at the sound of her name. She’d been about to open the door to the room into which her freshman remedial English students would soon be filing. Glenn Patton, the second-year creative writing professor at the community college where Natalie taught, closed the gap between them in four quick strides of his long legs.

  “Just wanted to give you an update on Ava Beech.” He was a little out of breath. It made her wonder how long he’d been trying to catch up with her.

  “Is there a problem?” Natalie opened the door and leaned in to turn on the overhead lights. “Last I heard, she was doing really well in your class. In all her classes, actually.”

  “She’s doing fine. More than fine. Her classwork isn’t the problem.” He ran a hand through hair the color of very dark tea. “I asked her if she was going to be taking my class next semester, because I didn’t see her name on the roster that came out yesterday. She said she wasn’t able to come back. Out of funds. Already has two jobs.” He followed Natalie into the room. “I hate to see her quit school. She’s a gem of a student, and she has tremendous talent. She—”

  Natalie held up a hand to halt his concerned rush. “You don’t have to sell me on Ava’s ability. She is exactly the type of student my program hopes to help. She had all the talent in the world, but she just needed a little boost to get her where she should be. I love the kid and I totally agree. She shouldn’t even be thinking of quitting school. A girl like her . . .” Natalie shook her head.