ALLISON
Opal Beach was about a two-hour drive without traffic from downtown Philadelphia. It was somewhere halfway between Ocean City and Atlantic City and way less touristy. The beach always reminded me of vacations as a kid, running barefoot on hot sand, creating lopsided sand castles with plastic buckets, breaking crab legs and sucking out the meat. But there was also a sense of slowing down, of taking it all in, and I needed that now. I could feel the air change, the way it clung, coated, opened everything up. Through the car windows, the October air was shockingly cold but also reviving. The salty air had always bothered my mother and sister, who complained it was too humid and their tongues felt strange, but I loved the way it worked its fingers into my hair and curled around the tendrils. It made me feel a little wild, a little different. Untamed. Like anything could happen.
Was I really doing this? Was I really pressing on this pedal, steering, guiding these four wheels to a stranger’s beach house, where I would live for the next three months alone? It had all happened so fast. A blur, really. Annie’s friend Sharon, with that same nurse-like efficiency that Annie had, set it all up so quickly that I’d barely had time to adjust to the idea before it was actually happening.
But I was used to life messing with me now, used to tripping over a curb or forgetting to eat breakfast or chipping a nail, waking up only to discover that everything I’d known to be true was suddenly different. So in some ways this journey, the picking up and leaving behind, felt like an emerging. Like Rockefeller, the hermit crab I’d bought on our family vacation one year at a boardwalk shack, I was crawling out of a dingy shell and moving into a shinier, larger home. (Unlike Rockefeller, though, I hoped I wouldn’t die from the soap residue that was left inside the new shell when someone tried to clean it too vigorously before setting him inside the cage.)
I drove down a two-lane road just off the ocean, the main drag for all the beachfront houses. I could imagine that on a weekend in July it looked like a parking lot as families navigated in or out of town, canoes and coolers tied up on their roof racks. But now it was eerily vacant, and I had the sense I was the last woman on earth, that in my quiet drive alone the rest of humanity had vanished. I was trying to decide if that was a good thing or not when a giant orange Hummer zoomed into view behind me and passed without slowing down. “Well, so much for that. Asshole,” I said.
The houses were dramatically large and looming, blocking what otherwise would’ve been a magnificent view. You could tell which ones were just rentals—the monstrosities with thirteen bedrooms and a six-car garage that five families could rent out at once. But farther down the road, the houses had more style and character. The kind of places—lots of windows, big porches, nice landscaping—that would make your mouth water even without the lush ocean backdrop as icing on the cake.
I slowed as my GPS indicated I was getting close, but even so I almost missed the tiny driveway and its faded, weather-beaten road sign declaring my new mailing address: Piper Sand Road.
I had made it.
The long gravel drive split off halfway up, with one side leading to the Worthington house and the other side to their neighbor’s. When I’d first met the Worthingtons for my “job interview” just a few weeks before, I’d been so nervous about the whole thing that I’d taken the wrong driveway and parked in the neighbor’s lot and stared at it for a good minute before realizing the house number was wrong.
But now, pulling into the correct driveway slowly, it felt like an adventure movie soundtrack should be swelling. And our heroine finds her destiny.
I could imagine Annie’s reaction when she finally saw the house in person. It was stunning. The surrounding homes were propped up on beams, like old ladies hitching up their skirts so they wouldn’t get wet in the surf, but that just gave the Worthingtons’ house an understated effect. It stood confident and modest between them, a beach gingerbread house right out of a fairy tale, with light blue curtains and sweeping eaves.
I parked right at the porch steps and got out, wrapping my cardigan around me to stave off the whipping wind. The front porch was small but quaint, with two wooden rocking chairs and a white table with flaking paint. I ran my palm along the back of one of the tall chairs, and it creaked from my touch. The chairs seemed to be more for decoration than sitting.
Dolores, Sharon’s sister who lived in town, was supposed to be meeting me to hand over the keys. Yet it seemed I’d arrived first. I’d had to come one week sooner than planned, as Patty and John had been whisked away to her mysterious assignment in Eastern Europe a little earlier than expected. Patty had called me from the airport with the news. I’d pictured her in her white visor and tennis sneakers rushing through the terminals, bags bouncing off her lower back as she breathlessly gave me instructions.
Still, I half expected to see Patty inside as I squatted down and peered through the window. It was hard to see with the bright sun glaring at my back, but I could make out the shadowy silhouette of the large island counter in the middle of the kitchen. Beyond that room, I remembered, was the living room, with doors and stairs leading to all the many nooks of the house.
All empty now, waiting for me. A shiver curled from my spine up to my neck, unwinding inside me. Calm down, you idiot, I told myself. Not everything is a trap. Think positively, and positive things will come.
You’ll be safe here, Patty had told me that day in the kitchen, leaning up against the counter, popping a grape into her mouth and patting me on the shoulder. Her voice, otherwise booming, had been low, possibly so her husband couldn’t hear from the next room.
“Sharon told me...well, she told me you were having...she mentioned the divorce.”
“Oh, well, thank you, but—”
Patty held up a hand. “No buts here. Just ifs. I didn’t mean to say anything to you—it’s all your business. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know every situation is different. I don’t need the details. I just know that Sharon said a friend could use some escape, some time to recoup from a major life change, and this is what we want.”
A crunch of gravel brought me back to the present. I turned. A car was coming up the driveway, its headlights cutting through the thin mist of the afternoon. A small, beat-up red Toyota, music blaring. The car jerked, stopped messily behind mine, and I could see Sharon through the windshield, waving her hand at me. But no, it wasn’t Sharon. As she got out, her car door squealing in protest, I realized it was a punk version of Sharon. Her hair looked almost purple, curled in tight ringlets around her face. Her nose stud sparkled, and a tattoo peeked out from the neckline of her black sweater dress. This must be Dolores.
She gave a wave, and I left the porch to meet her.
“I’m sorry I’m late. We were just closing up at the gallery and someone walked in. Can you imagine? We get no one for days on end this time of year and the one time I’ve got somewhere to be, we get a customer.” She extended a thick hand. “I’m Dolores. You must be Allison.”
“Thanks so much for doing this,” I said. “I’m sorry to put you through the trouble.”
She made a noise in her throat and waved her hand in dismissal. “No trouble at all. Patty and John are good people, as you know. My father is an artist here. Jim Gund. Patty loves his work. They are probably our best customers.”
“I can’t wait to see the gallery.”
She slammed the car door and patted all her pockets, finally fishing out a tiny silver key, which she held up. It glinted in the sun.
“That tiny key unlocks that?” I asked, gesturing toward the house. I had the sudden urge to giggle.
“What this? No, this is my diary key.” Then Dolores did giggle, bending over herself in a fit of hut-huts, the first and only resemblance to her sister. She composed herself and glanced over at my car. “Just kidding, of course. Can I help you with anything?”
“What? Oh. No. I mean, I don’t have anything with me. Yet. My sister’s meeting me later with her truck. She couldn’t get off work in time.” Only Annie had a Ford pickup truck in the city—it was a sight to watch her try to park it on the narrow cobblestone streets of Manayunk on a weekend.
“Oh. Well, good enough. I can’t really go in their house anyway.”
“You can’t?”
Dolores shook her head. “Not rich enough.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering if I’d heard right. Then Dolores bent over again, erupting in another laugh. “You should’ve seen your face. No—” she swiped playfully at me “—no, no. I’m allergic to cats.”
It was then that I remembered Catarina. Patty and John had sprung it on me during the interview—their cat couldn’t come with them. It would cost too much, thousands of dollars just to fly her over there—and so would I mind? She was such a good cat, I’d barely even know she was there, gosh, they barely even knew she was there half the time. And so it was that I was also responsible for a living being in addition to my house duties.
“You want a tour of the town?” Dolores asked. She’d been checking her phone, but she locked the screen and slid it back in her bag. “My evening appointment just got canceled, so I’ve got some time.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to recapture the excitement I’d felt driving in the car. This is your new house, your new town. Embrace it, Allison. “I would love that.”
“Well, I could start you right here,” Dolores said, clapping her hands together and then spreading them wide like a tour guide introducing a historic property. “Here, in the middle of the 1 percent of Opal Beach. Old money, for the most part, though right next door you’ve got the Bishops.” She said the name with an exaggerated reverent hush, leaning forward. “They own the biggest seafood restaurants in the area—the ones that the mums and dads and their sunburned kiddos flock to so they can sit outside and drink cans of beer and crack their crabs with a hammer.” She made the motion with her hand. “The biggest one is right at the end of the pier.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I think I saw the sign—”
“The giant crab light?” Dolores nodded. “Can’t miss it. They say if you find the giant crab and the giant clown, then you’ve found Opal Beach.” She leaned forward again. “The Bishops are it around here. You’ll see. They could buy you an island tomorrow and have it furnished by Friday. I’m sure, being their neighbor and all, they’ll take very good care of you.”
I nodded slowly, looking up at their gigantic home. “Well, I wouldn’t turn down an island.”
Dolores chattered away while we drove. I let her talk. I felt thrown off guard and was trying to figure out why. Then it hit me: I wasn’t used to people treating me like a normal person. For the past ten months, everyone seemed to act as though I was going to snap angrily at any moment or burst into tears and never stop, tiptoeing around any subjects that might remind me of my marriage or the wreck of it. But Dolores—she didn’t know. Any of it. She didn’t know about Duke, about the fallout from everything. It was a glorious feeling, to be freed of baggage. To not feel that I was being judged.
I felt myself calming as we approached downtown. Opal Beach seemed mellow, I took that much in. It was smaller in scale and tackiness than Ocean City. The central downtown area was cross-sectioned by a pier that stretched out into the ocean with the famed Bishop restaurant at the end and a giant Ferris wheel and all kinds of French fry joints, arcades, bars and gift shops that I’m sure were packed full of tourists during the height of the season. The main drag—Atlantic Avenue—had a post office, a movie theater (“They show the classics on the last Thursday of every month,” Dolores noted, and seemed pleased when I expressed my appreciation for that), a couple of coffee shops and restaurants, and a library that looked more like a shack. Since it was the middle of the week, there weren’t many people milling about, but enough to get the general idea of what the place was like. Low-key, friendly, casual.
“Always plenty of parking in the off-season,” Dolores said. “You’ll have no trouble skipping down here for a nip or whatever.” Despite her quirks, Dolores had a cool factor about her. A style and a confidence that went beyond the tattoos and the nose ring. I realized I wanted her to like me.
“So you’re from here?” I asked.
“Oh yes. My mom moved to Delaware years ago after the divorce, and Sharon, of course, moved to the big ole city to be a fancy nurse, but Dad and I have stayed. Probably always will. It has its flaws, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a great place to be, especially in the off-season.” She glanced sideways at me, and each time she did, she also turned the steering wheel, causing the old car to veer off the road. I clutched the door handle a bit tighter.
“So you don’t get lonely after everyone packs up and leaves for the summer?” I said, only half-joking.
Dolores laughed. “It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. But we locals, we like it when it’s quiet. When you don’t have to worry about idiot frat boys shimmying up the light poles or pissing in your flowerpots.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
“But you know, when that wind howls in the winter...it can freak you out, that’s for sure.” Once again, the car swerved. “Sharon and I used to scare the pants off one another when we were kids, reading all those terrible ghost story books you find in the local bookstores.”
“Ghosts, huh?” I asked. “I suppose every beach town has to have some.”
We drove off the main street, turned away from the ocean onto a larger two-lane road where the sand dunes got higher and the buildings got farther apart. “You can probably tell, we’re entering a different section of town now.” At the end of that road, another layer of shops appeared, more modern and fancy than the main drag.
“This is Parkins Plaza,” Dolores said breezily, with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s a new development. You’ll find your designer clothes—Lilly Pulitzer and the like—” at this her nose crinkled in disgust “—and organic food stores. They just built it a year or two ago. It’s clearly for the ritzier class, if you know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes, tucking her curls fruitlessly behind her ears where they had slid forward again across her chin.
Dolores circled around the shopping center and headed back toward the house. We drove in silence for a while, and I took in the scenery, trying to make a mental map of the area. My new home.
When we passed a field of thick reeds I thought I recognized, Dolores slammed on the brakes, jerking us both forward. “Sorry,” she said, flustered, backing up the car on the two-lane highway. I looked back to make sure that no cars were coming fast around the corner. “For whatever reason, no matter how often I get up here, I always miss the turn.”
I’d missed it, too. The faded road sign: Piper Sand Road. We headed up the long driveway to find Annie’s pickup truck parked behind my car, and Annie sitting on the porch steps chattering away on her cell phone. She waved as we approached.
“Home sweet home,” Dolores proclaimed.