SHE TYPED THE last two words of Philipia Bay and the Final Fateful Cruise. The end. The last installment, unless a wizened, older Philipia Bay made a dashing unexpected comeback. Which might happen. Anything might happen.
Burnt-out low-blood-sugar Mom, in the wake of the perilous sea monster attack, while battling candy withdrawal, in herself and in her children, might feel surprisingly inspired and productive. She might, with the help of Dax’s solar charger to keep her laptop running through the prolonged power outage, and despite the stifling heat and lack of ice, finish edits and sprint through the next book, the fastest she had ever written, in the star-spackled traditionally drunken hours after child bedtime, and in the minutes seized in between sandcastles, skimboarding, canoodling, and rides on the Snorlax, where they had to dodge the drifts of squidinox so no one got transported away, again.
Who was she?
She was Seaninja-mom. She was Queen of the Mermeon. She was a Sharkasaur, ready for battle, or whatever the children wanted to name her. An amalgamation of selves in the same Jenn shell. Evolved. Evolving.
The electricity came back, and she was Magnanimous. She was flexible and forgiving. Chuck could take his List of Underminstances and shove it. His list. His underminstances. His resentments to carry, if he chose that burden. She brushed her bitterness aside. She preferred sweet.
Boats came from the mainland bearing boxes containing provisions and supplies. Nuts and jerkies and cans of things, peaches, bananas, pineapples, berries. At last, the artificial packaged goods. The chips and the sandwich cookies. Gummies in every shape and flavor. Some of the boats got swarmed by squidinox and had to jettison their cargo. But other boats made it through, and the candy shop at the boardwalk reopened, briefly…until burglar-squidinox struck.
Then the kids had to board the ferry and sail back to the Land of Dad. Fifty-fifty custody, they agreed, at least until they went to court. So he could have them for part of the summer. He could give them pool days, zoo days, theme park trips, swirl cones and waterslides and toy-store shopping sprees. Every luxury a kid could want. But she would always always have more points.
She was one of them. She was Team Wave Blast.
Timmy left last, in a private jet flown to the Wilmington airport, both his sisters on board. They hugged him too long, too tight, tears dripping down their cheeks, and Timmy looked back at Jenn, with a smile, a wink, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
His suitcase was packed full of fireworks.
“See ya next summer!” he said as he boarded the plane.
“Yep,” she agreed. She would.
“Oh, I nearly forgot,” his sister said, before she boarded. “Thought you might want this.”
She gave Jenn a photo of two children. Jenni and Timmy. Their arms were linked. Their blue tongues stuck out. The perfect sea gleamed behind them.
This ending was not the end. But at least the last chapter in the last installment of Philipia Bay was done. She attached the file to her email. She hit Send. The book was the editor’s problem now.
She closed her laptop and went upstairs to get ready for her hot date. She showered, brushed her hair, blew it dry. She brushed her teeth. She spit toothpaste foam into the sink. When she rinsed it down, she saw something poke out of the drain, something squirmy and black, and she felt a cold chill in her spine.
But then the thing was gone, and she told herself she hadn’t seen anything. She had only imagined it. She was safe there, on dry land.
Her phone rang. Evie.
She answered. Both her kids appeared on the phone screen.
“How are you? What have you been doing? I miss you. Are you having fun?”
Evie asked about Timmy, and if she had seen any sign of Barry. Mason asked about the squidinox. He wanted to understand the squidinox-candy equation.
“What if all the candy in the world is gone?” he asked. “What if there’s no more soda, or ice cream, or cookies? What then?”
Evie had posted videos that went viral: one of the Tentageddon attack of the fishing boat, and one of a squidoodle stealing her brother’s ice-cream cone. She texted links to Mom.
“But I didn’t show Dad,” she said. “I won’t show him till after divorce court. I don’t want him to use them against you.”
“Thank you,” Jenn said, and she wished she could hug her daughter tight. Her loyal daughter. Her little Evie, evolved. Granting her a bounty of points.
She peppered the kids with questions. They offered the usual terse responses of disinterested children. They didn’t care about her boring questions. They had something to show her. A secret to share.
The phone screen shifted as they moved through their father’s house. She saw wall and ceiling, Mason’s chin, Evie’s hair.
“You have to promise not to tell Dad,” Evie said.
“Okay. I won’t.” She promised, even though Evie hadn’t told her what.
“And Mason has to promise not to let it get too large.”
Too large.
“I said it wouldn’t happen again.”
Again.
A door opened. The phone screen turned bright. All trees and blue sky. The children carried the phone through a small backyard, past a curtain that hung between shed and fence.
“This is our fort,” Mason said.
“Dad’s not allowed,” said Evie.
Chuck would respect this no-Dad edict. Chuck had points of his own to win.
“This is our friend. Jellybean.”
The phone view changed. On the screen, Jenn saw a paddling pool filled with water, sand at the bottom, assorted beach toys. A luminous green squidoodle basked in the pool, limbs twirling.
“We named it Jellybean ’cause that’s its favorite candy,” Evie said.
“And it looks like a jelly bean,” Mason added.
It did, or at least its lump-part did. It had looked more jelly bean–like, they explained, when they plucked it from the ocean and dropped it into a bottle of Fizz Wizard Lime, for safe transport back to Dad’s house.
“And it survived in there?” Jenn asked.
“It got stuck,” Evie said.
“Because the soda made it grow big and strong.”
“So we had to cut the bottle off of it.”
“And it— Is it happy? I mean, being away from its kind?”
“Jellybean loves it here.”
“Jellybean can leave whenever it wants.”
Right. Space-time-travel squid.
“But it wants to stay.”
“Well,” Jenn said, “just…maybe don’t touch it. You don’t want it to transport you someplace else. And don’t let it grow too big. You don’t want your father to see it and freak out.”
Or maybe, kind of, they did.
She finished getting ready. Mascara. Blush. A touch of glitter. The doorbell rang. She went downstairs to open it.
Dax had brought flowers.
“You brought me flowers.”
“Actually,” he said, “the flowers are from my grandma.”
“Oh. That’s lovely.”
“But I brought you this.”
He handed her a small potted plant, a succulent type that didn’t need much watering. It had a bulbous green center part and three dangly leaf-tails.
“It looks like the squidinox,” Jenn said.
“I know.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned down and kissed her, lightly, on the cheek. Then the lips. Then he placed his hands on the small of her back, the nape of her neck. Drawing it out, so that when he pulled back, she was trembling.
“I better go put these in some water,” he said.
He kissed her again and then carried the flowers into the kitchen.
“How’s the house coming?” she asked. She set the succulent down on the table.
“It’s…well, it’s coming. The mold is all gone. And it’s got a roof.”
“As long as it’s ready by next summer,” she said.
“I think it was the right move, deciding to keep it.”
“Me too.”
He finished cutting the stems and arranged them in a glass. “We’ve still got a minute,” he said, “before we should leave for the concert.”
“Do you, um—”
He looked at her with his sexy eyes. He smiled. “I don’t think we have that long. At least, not before the concert. But maybe we could take a short walk on the beach.”
“That sounds great,” she said.
They walked across the deck (repaired by the contractor) down the wooden walkway (repaired by the contractor) over the dunes to the beach. The water was calm and golden blue. Gentle waves washed across the gleaming shore. Throngs of squidinox basked in the sunlit waters. Stray squidoodles waddled across the beach. She loved it here, more than she ever had in her youth. She had seen how dark the darkness could be. Every moment that it stayed at bay was a moment to savor: a reminder, evident in every feature of this sea monster–less seascape, of all she had. The child types. The mom types. The inventive and impulsive types. The sultry romance novel cover model types with their luxury manes, their rippled bounty of abs. Their hand, holding her hand.
“So what’s this band anyway?” she asked.
“Lotus,” Dax said. “A squidinox favorite. You’ll like them.”
“I can’t wait.”
They walked along the shore, where the waves rolled up over the sand. A glint in the water caught her eye. The crest of a wave in the sunlight, she thought. But then its color turned from silver to blue to green. It bubbled up, a green balloon floating in the shallow water. A shape appeared inside it, smaller than a boy. The shape pressed against the bubbled sides, then through, then down into the water below.
Then it popped up, shook itself off, and bounded toward them, tail wagging, tongue flapping, a silly smile on his canine face.
“Barry!”