September
The familiar patchwork of vehicles already filled the cottage’s gravel circle when Russ pulled the station wagon in, many of which had likely been on the beach since morning. Clambakes were serious commitments. An hour to dig the pit in the sand and collect fresh rockweed to lay over the food, two to three to get the fire strong enough to heat the rocks, then another hour or two to cook. Nearly five years back in Harpswich, and Mitch Beckett was now, without question, the reigning clambake king.
“I can’t believe he’s squeezing one more out of the season,” Russ said.
Louise arched a brow. “I can’t believe you think this is the last.”
The breeze was warm for late September and carried with it the briny scent of baking clams. With Labor Day weeks behind them, and the crispness of fall in full view, everyone who’d come to celebrate had brought layers to fend against temperatures that didn’t drop but rather plunged this late in the season. Louise knew the beach would grow cold when the sun went down, despite the crackle and pop of the pit fire that steamed in the sand. Eventually someone would start a bonfire, the flames growing robust just in time for the last streaks of daylight to fade completely, allowing Mitch and his guests to languish well until midnight if they wanted—which they always did, growing unbearably sunbaked and sloppy, and always making a willing audience for Glory. Despite her enduring distaste for seafood, she never missed a bake.
Mitch appeared before Louise had a chance to take out her contribution from the trunk—a pan of still-warm brownies—but she unpacked it anyway. After five years of being Glory’s stand-in baker, she didn’t bother to hide her deliveries anymore.
He gripped a beer in one hand. Louise wondered how many had come before it.
“Kenny’s back from his charter,” Mitch said, slinging an arm over Russ’s shoulder. “Come see the tuna he caught.”
Louise turned toward to the house. “I’ll take these up—they need to be cut.”
“Tell Glow to come down, will you?” Mitch said, already steering Russ down to the dunes.
Louise frowned in the direction of the cottage. Glory was still up at the house? It wasn’t like her to miss an audience of fans.
The blur of Gabe dashed past them.
“It’s the Flash!” Mitch cried, lunging playfully for his barefoot, five-year-old son but too out of shape to catch him. Louise would never forget the day Glory’s agent, Dotty, passing through on her way to New York their first year here, had told Mitch he was starting to remind her of Richard Burton—and though the clarification was never made, everyone knew the comparison wasn’t based on his acting chops, but his appearance. Mitch had sulked over it for days.
“I need a hat for our sand serpent!” Gabe yelled over his shoulder.
“Wait for your Aunt Lou!” Mitch called after him.
Louise smiled. “I’ll make sure he gets in.”
Balancing the brownies, she followed Gabe up the sand-dusted stairs, marveling at the way the boy took the steps two at a time, how long and lean he’d become when they weren’t looking. By the time she caught up to him, he’d already managed to tug the slider down the tracks and dashed into the house, leaving the glass door open in his wake. Men. Louise chuckled to herself as she crossed to the kitchen, snaking around a collection of boxes that had been stacked haphazardly around the edges of the living room, labels addressed to Glory, with California or New York origins. Apparently Glory’s mercurial interest in acquiring Hollywood memorabilia had grown serious.
“Is it safe to come down?”
Glory appeared at the top of the stairs, swimming in a chunky peach sweater with pink leggings, her hair wound up in a soft bun, a small box tucked under her arm. “I could have sworn a herd of elephants just ran through.”
“No herd,” said Louise. “Just your son.”
Down, Glory crossed to the island to deliver Louise a hug, smelling heavily of her signature jasmine perfume.
Leaning back, Louise eyed her carefully. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine—I just got a little chilled.”
But Louise knew it was something more. After five winters here, Glory’s seasonal decline at the onset of autumn had become as predictable as the tides. Usually the collective energy of company buoyed her. Not today, apparently. Louise felt flickers of concern trace her spine. She reached for Glory’s hand, wanting to know more.
The whoosh of the slider cut the quiet, too hard to be Gabe.
Louise spun to see Mitch staggering in.
“We’re out of beer.”
She scanned the space behind him, hoping to see Russ following, but Mitch slung the glass door closed. Passing her in the kitchen, he slowed to take a brownie from the stack she was building and tore off a bite, casting a drowsy look in Glory’s direction as he chewed.
“Lou brought brownies.”
“And they smell amazing,” Glory said, unmoving from her side of the counter.
Mitch plucked another from the plate. “Have one.”
“Maybe later.”
“Have a damn brownie, Glow,” he said again, shoving it at her.
Glory glared at him, flushing with embarrassment. “I said I don’t want one.”
Louise stiffened, the air suddenly charged with alarm while Mitch stared hotly across the island at his wife. Outside, the watery light of dusk had dulled the harsh crimson of his complexion. Now under the fluorescents, Louise could see how fierce a red his cheeks had turned. Whether the color was a result of a day on the beach or a building discontent borne of too much alcohol, she didn’t dare guess.
“I keep telling her we can both get fat now, Lou,” he said, his gaze still trained on Glory, “but she just keeps getting skinnier.”
When Glory wouldn’t grant him a response, he stuffed the last of his brownie into his mouth and wiped his hands roughly on the sides of his shorts. Once he’d moved past her for the fridge, Louise shot Glory a tender look, seeing the blush of distress briefly color her thin cheeks, then Louise’s attention was drawn to the fireplace, where Gabe had just wrenched Glory’s prized magician’s hat off its stand. Startled, she blinked, enough that Glory turned to look.
“Gabe!” Her voice was high with panic as she dashed into the living room. “Where are you going with that?”
Nearly to the door, Gabe spun around, winded from his race down the stairs, his shaggy bangs flopping over one eye—the visible eye radiating impatience. “It’s for our sand sculpture. The serpent needs a hat.”
“Oh no, baby, that’s too special.” Glory gently eased it from his sandy hands. “Why don’t you put one of your baseball caps on him instead? I bet he’d look so handsome.”
Mitch snapped the tab on his beer, the sizzle of released air like a slap. “Jesus, Glow, it’s just a damn hat.”
“You know it’s more than that,” she said, settling the hat back safely on the mantel.
“And what about the rest of this crap?” Mitch demanded, swinging his beer at the stacks of boxes.
“It’s not crap. They’re pieces of Hollywood history and they’re important.”
“If they’re so important then why the hell are they sitting in the middle of the goddamn floor?”
Glory’s lips trembled with exasperation. Her voice grew shrill. “Because this house is too small and I can’t find a good place for them!”
“I know a great place…” Mitch’s mouth curved into a bitter smile. “We’re about to start the bonfire.”
Glory flinched as if he’d pinched her.
Louise glared at him. “That’s not funny, Mitch.”
“Yeah, well, neither is a broken toe.” He took a hard swig.
“Gabe, wait.” Glory rushed to the slider just as Gabe swung it open and dropped down beside him. “Baby, I have something for you.”
“Mom, I gotta go. Pete’s waiting for me!” He shifted impatiently on his bare feet while she dashed back to retrieve the small box she’d left on the counter.
“Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I was going to save it for your birthday but…”
Gabe tore at the tape and dug inside, filling the room with the crackle of tissue paper until he extracted a wooden stick, six inches long and beveled to resemble a crystal.
He considered it, his small brows furrowing.
“Don’t you recognize it?” Glory asked breathlessly. “It’s from Superman! It’s a crystal from his ice palace.”
Gabe eyed her warily. “But it’s wood.”
Mitch snickered. “Now see, that really is kindling.”
Louise shot him another chastising look, but he just slugged his beer, his expression flat, unrepentant as he swallowed.
“It’s wood because it’s a mock-up, baby,” Glory said, her attention still fixed fully on her son. “A tester. But it’s from the Superman set. See?” She leaned in and helped him turn the stake to where a few pen marks rode up the side. “That’s the name of the special effects director. And the date. Isn’t that fabulous?”
Gabe chewed skeptically at his lip. “But you can’t see through it.”
“I know, sweetie, but it’s still something from his ice palace.”
He turned the rough piece of wood in his fingers and looked back at Glory, his dark eyes wary. “It’s called the Fortress of Solitude, Mom.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Her smile fell briefly before she resurrected it; Louise’s breath hitched. “So … do you love it?”
Gabe’s thin shoulders rose and fell; his smile not nearly as convincing as hers. “It’s pretty neat, I guess. Thanks.” He set it down on the table and fixed a freshly expectant look on her, the gift, Louise suspected, already forgotten. “So are you gonna come down and see our serpent before the tide takes it away?”
“Sorry, kiddo.” Mitch arrived and gave Gabe’s shaggy hair a hard ruffling. “Your mom’s got to stay up here and sulk.”
Louise bristled. Gabe pulled free and spun out through the open slider.
Glory leapt to her feet, hurt swirling in her eyes. “Why do you have to say things like that?”
He picked up the wood model and gave it a dismissive scan. “What did you expect him to say, Glow? It’s just some junky piece of wood.”
“It’s a collectible.” She took it from him and settled the stake carefully back into the box.
“What does he care about that? He’s a kid. He wants something normal he can show his friends.”
“I thought he could show that,” she defended. “You act like I’m trying to make him some kind of freak.”
“Because you are. Just let him be normal.”
“Are you saying I’m not?”
“I’m saying we don’t live with all that shit anymore. We live here.”
Her wide eyes filled. “Is it so wrong that I miss our life?”
“This is our life.” Mitch jabbed his finger toward the beach. “Those are the people who care about me. Who care about us.”
“They care, all right,” Glory said, her trembling voice steadying, hardening bitterly. “They care that you invite them over for bottomless buckets of clams and crabs and endless kegs of beer. You honestly think they’d care if you stopped showering them with gifts?”
“Everything okay up here?” Russ stepped through the slider, closing it behind him. “I could hear you from the dunes.”
Mitch retreated, burying his scowl into his beer. Glory sank into the couch.
Russ looked at Louise, his eyes radiating concern, and Louise flushed with gratitude at his rescue.
“We ran out of plates,” he said simply.
Louise stepped forward. “I’ll get more.”
When she’d returned from the pantry, Russ gave her hand a gentle squeeze as he took the stack of plates. He crossed to Mitch and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “People are asking for you, pal.”
Mitch muttered something as Russ steered him toward the slider, guiding him outside.
Louise tugged the glass door closed behind them, relief falling over her like a chill.
She turned back to find Glory with her face buried in her hands.
“Don’t listen to him,” Louise said, sliding beside her on the couch. “He’s had too much to drink.”
Glory lowered her hands to her lap and stared out at the slider. “He’s right.” The thinness of her voice was unsettling. “I don’t know how to be a mother. Not to a boy like that.”
“That’s absurd,” Louise said, leaning in. “Of course you do.”
But Glory’s gaze remained fixed on the glass doors—a woman walking calmly toward the edge of a cliff, resigned to the fall. “I try to show him I love him and he looks at me like I’m just a fool.” She sniffed, using the edge of her index finger to gingerly wipe the bottom of her lids. “I only want to share something of myself with him. Mitch does it a thousand times a day. He doesn’t even have to try…” Her voice sank with defeat. “If I can’t make him happy at five, what hope is there for me when he’s fifteen? Or thirty?”
Louise touched her arm carefully, as if any kind of contact might spook her. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she said, disliking the sound of her advice as soon as it was out of her mouth. As if she had any business being so confident about what it took to be a good mother. As if she ever would know.
“I never thought it would be this hard. That I wouldn’t know how to be this person—this wife, this mother. Someone who could do this…” Glory’s arms swept the room, as if to suggest it was just the room she couldn’t manage, when Louise knew this was a state far larger than this house.
“It’s understandable. You thought it would just be a year.”
He lied to you. Louise stopped short of saying the words, though when she met Glory’s misty eyes and saw the pain flashing back at her, she knew she didn’t have to.
The room hushed, swelling with strain, and Louise’s own need to soothe it.
“You could still go back,” she said gently.
Glory searched Louise’s face. “Mitch didn’t tell you?”
Louise shook her head.
“Dotty dropped me. She called this morning. Mitch practically kicked up his heels.” Glory sniffed. “I’m surprised he didn’t rent a plane to write it across the goddamn sky.”
“Oh Glory…” Louise reached for her hand and squeezed it, her chest tightening with disappointment. No wonder she’d refused to join the party. And Mitch had accused her of sulking? Louise glared in the direction of the water, as if her angry stare might pierce the glass and travel down to the beach to find its target. How cruel could one man be?
Glory buried her face in her hands and crumpled forward again, her thin frame shaking with muffled sobs. Louise crossed back to the kitchen in search of a tissue but had to resort to a hot-pink cocktail napkin.
“Thanks.” Glory took the napkin and wiped roughly at her nose. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Louise.”
“Probably find something softer,” Louise said, wanting to lighten the heavy air but failing miserably. They both knew this wasn’t about a tissue.
They leaned into one another, the cries of activity from the beach floating through the screens, the sharp, fresh smell of bonfire smoke filtering in with it.
“You must think I’m a horrible person,” Glory whispered.
“Why in the world would I think that?”
“How fortunate I am, all that I have, my beautiful son, and I still feel lost…” Glory’s gaze drifted toward the slider, glassy with numbness. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. I need something that’s just mine. I had that once and I need it back…” Her voice was thin and faraway. “Mitch doesn’t understand, Louise. That I need something that’s still mine. That I still need me in all this.” She looked over, her eyes welling. “Please don’t hate me.”
“Never,” said Louise, shaking her head. Not out of kindness, or out of charity, but with understanding.
Because she agreed. Because she knew.
“Then you have to find something that’s just yours again,” she whispered firmly. As if she had any idea. As if she hadn’t herself been searching for the same thing her whole life.
“The Stardust Film Festival.”
Glory made the announcement as soon as she and Louise had slid into their favorite booth at Petite’s. A week after the disastrous clambake, Louise had allowed herself to forget the painful scene, including her impassioned plea to Glory to find her own purpose again.
Glory, clearly, had not.
Louise frowned at her, confused. “Is that an event?”
“Not yet—but it will be.” Glory set her palms down on either side of her coffee, her newly manicured nails nearly the same shade of scarlet as the checkered tablecloth beneath her fingers. “If I can’t go back to Hollywood, then I’ll simply bring Hollywood here,” she said firmly. “We’ll screen all of our movies, auction off memorabilia, host parties. It’ll be named after our first movie together.” Glory blinked at her expectantly. “What do you think?”
Louise sat back, still taking it all in. What wasn’t to like?
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “I’m sure the town would be thrilled for the revenue.”
Glory’s face, frozen for a moment with anticipation, broke into a relieved smile. “Oh, I’m so glad you think so. Because I don’t know the first thing about running a huge event like that, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
Their waitress arrived with their coffees.
Louise sugared her coffee and sank her spoon into her cup. “I’m sure there are plenty of people you can call on to help you.”
“I know there are.” Glory leaned in, her eyes sparkling with resolve. “I’m looking at one right now.”
Louise stopped stirring. “Me?”
“Who better?” Glory said, adding a splash of cream to her coffee and stirring it briskly. “You’ve been spearheading boards and committees for years here.”
“Sure, for garden tours,” Louise said, already feeling prickles of panic skitter up her spine. “For library auctions. I don’t know a thing about running a film festival!”
“You love movies, don’t you?” Glory raised her cup, her lips curling into one of her irresistible smiles behind the rim. “And you love me, right?”
Louise sank back with a defeated laugh. “Yes—and yes.”
“Then it’s settled.” Glory took a quick sip and set down her cup. “Now I’m not thinking anything too grand to start. A daylong event, maybe two. If we get enough sponsors, we can keep prices low, maybe some things can even be free. Down the road, of course, we can expand. Maybe more like a week—”
“A week?” Louise’s voice hitched. She took a quick sip of her coffee and swallowed hard, growing dizzy. “And Mitch is on board with this?”
The inspiration that had been twinkling in Glory’s green eyes dimmed in an instant. She looked down at her coffee.
“He’s fine with it,” she said with a loose shrug and a smile that was far too quick.
The same man who couldn’t even bear to keep props from their old films in plain sight?
Louise leaned forward, dubious. “Glory…?”
“All right, maybe I haven’t mentioned it.” Glory looked up, her eyes flashing defensively. “Louise, we both know he won’t want me doing it.”
“You don’t know that.”
But she did. They both did.
But did it matter?
This would be about Glory, something of hers alone. And maybe, just maybe, it could be something of Louise’s, too.
She looked up to find Glory smiling at her.
“I told you we’d make a good team, Louise Chandler.”
And so she had. That muggy spring day when Glory Cartwright had first landed in Harpswich, trotting across their driveway in those ridiculous cork-heeled wedges. And Louise had been such a foolish combination of starstruck and wary, sure she could never find something to talk about with someone like Glory Cartwright for five minutes, let alone a whole lunch. And now, friends.
More than friends. Partners.
Louise sipped her coffee, letting the possibility continue to float through her thoughts as their waitress arrived to take their order, a flutter of pride rising like steam.