friend, my everything. I would spend nine miserable months with my father, counting the days until school was out so I could escape to the beach and hang out with Tessa. I begged my father to let me live with her year-round, but he would not allow it. I suppose you know about my mother.”
Elaine shrugged and said, “Just what’s in the records.”
“She was sent away when I was six, driven crazy by her demons and I suspect by my father as well.”
“Did your father get along with Tessa?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody in my family gets along with anybody else. He hated Tessa because she was a snob who thought my mother married badly. Herbert was a poor kid from a bad section of Memphis who made a fortune selling used cars, then new ones. Tessa’s family was old Memphis with lots of history and airs and such, but no real money. You’ve heard the old saying ‘Too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash.’ That’s the perfect description of Tessa’s family.”
“She had three children.”
“Yes. My mother, my aunt Jane, and my uncle Holstead. Who would name a kid Holstead? Tessa. It came from her family.”
“And Holstead lives in California?”
“Yes, he fled the South fifty years ago and moved into a commune. He eventually married a druggie and they have four children, all total whack jobs. Because of my mother they think we’re all crazy but they’re the real loonies. It’s a glorious family.”
“That’s pretty harsh.”
“I’m actually being kind. None of them bothered to attend Tessa’s funeral, so I haven’t seen them since I was a kid. And, believe me, there are no plans for any reunion.”
“October Rain deals with a dysfunctional family. Was it autobiographical?”
“They certainly thought so. Holstead wrote me a filthy letter that I considered framing. That was the last nail in the coffin.” She ate half a spring roll and followed it with water. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Good idea. You said you have questions.”
“And you asked why I haven’t been back to the beach cottage. It will never be the same and the memories will be hard to deal with. Think about it. I’m thirty-one years old and the happiest days of my life are behind me, in that cottage with Tessa. I’m not sure I can go back.”
“You don’t have to. We’ll rent a nice place for six months. But your cover works better if you use the cottage.”
“Assuming I can. My sister uses it for two weeks every July and there may be some other rentals. Aunt Jane takes care of it and occasionally rents it to friends. A Canadian family takes it every November. Jane winters there from January through March.”
Elaine took a bite and then a sip of her drink.
“Just curious,” Mercer said. “Have you seen it?”
“Yes. Two weeks ago. Part of the preparation.”
“How does it look?”
“Pretty. Well cared for. I’d like to stay there.”
“Still a bunch of rentals up and down the beach?”
“Sure. I doubt if much has changed in eleven years. The area has sort of an old-time vacation feel to it. The beach is beautiful and not crowded.”
“We lived on that beach. Tessa had me up with the sun, checking on the turtles, the new arrivals that made their nests during the night.”
“You wrote about that, a lovely story.”
“Thank you.”
They finished their drinks as the entrées arrived. Elaine approved of the wine and the waitress poured some in both glasses. Mercer took a bite and put down her fork. “Look, Elaine, I’m just not up to this. You’ve got the wrong person, okay? I’m a terrible liar and I’m just not good at deceiving people. I cannot wiggle my way into the lives of Bruce Cable and Noelle Bonnet and their little literary gang and come away with anything that might be valuable.”
“You’ve already said this. You’re a writer living at the beach for a few months in the family cottage. You’re hard at work on a novel. It’s the perfect story, Mercer, because it’s true. And you have the perfect personality because you’re genuine. If we needed a con artist we wouldn’t be talking right now. Are you afraid?”
“No. I don’t know. Should I be?”
“No. I’ve promised you that nothing we put before you will be illegal, and nothing will be dangerous. I’ll see you every week—”
“You’ll be there?”
“I’ll come and go, and if you need a buddy, male or female, we can arrange to have one nearby.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, and I’m not afraid of anything but failure. You’d be paying me a lot of money to do something I can’t begin to imagine, something important, and you obviously expect results. What if Cable is as smart and tough as you think he is and reveals nothing? What if I do something stupid and he gets suspicious and moves the manuscripts? I can see a lot of ways to screw this up, Elaine. I have no experience and no clue.”
“And I love your honesty. That’s why you’re perfect, Mercer. You’re direct, sincere, and transparent. You’re also very attractive and Cable will immediately like you.”
“Are we back to sex? Is that part of this job description?”
“No. Again, what you do is up to you.”
“But I have no idea what to do!” Mercer said, raising her voice and catching a glance from the nearest table. She lowered her head and said, “Sorry.” They ate for a few minutes in silence.
“You like the wine?” Elaine asked.
“It’s very good, thank you.”
“It’s one of my favorites.”
“What if I say no again? What do you do then?”
Elaine tapped her lips with her napkin and drank some water. “We have a very short list of other possible writers, none as interesting as you. To be honest, Mercer, we’re so convinced you’re the perfect person that we’ve put all of our eggs in your basket. If you say no, we’ll probably scrap the entire plan and move on to the next one.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t go into that. We’re resourceful and we’re under a lot of pressure, so we’ll move fast in another direction.”
“Is Cable the only suspect?”
“Please, I can’t talk about that. I can tell you a lot more when you’re down there, when you’re good and committed and the two of us are walking on the beach. There’s a lot to talk about, including some ideas about how you should proceed. But I won’t go into it now. It is, after all, quite confidential.”
“I get that. I can keep secrets. That’s the first lesson I learned with my family.”
Elaine smiled as if she understood, as if she trusted Mercer completely. The waitress poured more wine and they worked on their entrées. After the longest silence of the meal, Mercer swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “I have sixty-one thousand dollars in student debt that I can’t get rid of. It’s a burden that consumes every waking hour and it’s making me crazy.”
Elaine smiled again as if she knew. Mercer almost asked if she knew, but really didn’t want the answer. Elaine put down her fork and leaned on her elbows. She tapped her fingertips together softly and said, “We’ll take care of the student loans, plus the hundred grand. Fifty now, fifty in six months. Cash, check, gold bars, any way you want it. Off the books, of course.”
Lead weights suddenly lifted from Mercer’s shoulders and evaporated into the air. She stifled a gasp, put a hand to her mouth, and blinked her eyes as they quickly moistened. She tried to speak but had nothing to say. Her mouth was dry so she sipped water. Elaine watched every move, calculating as always.
Mercer was overwhelmed by the reality of instantly walking away from the bondage of student debt, a nightmare that had burdened her for eight years. She took a deep breath—was it actually easier to breathe now?—and attacked another lobster dumpling. She followed it with wine, which she really tasted for the first time. She would have to try a bottle or two in the coming days.
Elaine smelled a knockout and moved in for the kill. “H
ow soon can you be there?”
“Exams are over in two weeks. But I want to sleep on this.”
“Of course.” The waitress was hovering, and Elaine said, “I want to try the panna cotta. Mercer?”
“The same. And with a glass of dessert wine.”
6.
With little to pack, the move took only a few hours, and with her Volkswagen Beetle stuffed with her clothes, computer and printer, books, and a few pots and pans and utensils, Mercer drove away from Chapel Hill without the slightest trace of nostalgia. She was leaving behind no fond memories and only a couple of girlfriends, the kind who’d keep in touch for a few months and then be gone. She had moved and said good-bye so many times she knew which friendships would endure and which would not. She doubted she would ever see the two again.
She would head south in a couple of days, but not now. Instead, she took the interstate west, stopped in the lovely town of Asheville for lunch and a quick walk around, then chose smaller highways for a winding trip through the mountains and into Tennessee. It was dark when she finally stopped at a motel on the outskirts of Knoxville. She paid cash for a small room and walked next door to a taco franchise for dinner. She slept a proper eight hours without a single interruption, and woke up at dawn ready for another long day.
Hildy Mann had been a patient at Eastern State for the past twenty years. Mercer visited her at least once a year, sometimes twice, never more than that. There were no other visitors. Once Herbert finally realized his wife was not coming home, he quietly went about the process of a divorce. No one could blame him. Though Connie was only three hours away, she had not seen her mother in years. As the oldest, she was Hildy’s legal guardian, but much too busy for a visit.
Mercer patiently went through the bureaucratic challenge of getting checked in. She met with a doctor for fifteen minutes and got the same, dismal prognosis. The patient was the victim of a debilitating form of paranoid schizophrenia and separated from rational thought by delusions, voices, and hallucinations. She had not improved in twenty-five years and there was no possible reason for hope. She was heavily medicated, and with each visit Mercer wondered how much damage the drugs had done over the years. But there was no alternative. Hildy was a permanent ward of the mental hospital and would live there until the end.
For the occasion, the nurses had forgone the standard white pullover gown and dressed her in a baby-blue cotton sundress, one of several Mercer had brought over the years. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, barefoot, staring at the floor when Mercer walked in and kissed her on the forehead. Mercer sat beside her, patted her knee, told her how much she’d missed her.
Hildy responded only with a pleasant smile. As always, Mercer marveled at how old she looked. She was only sixty-four but could pass for eighty. She was gaunt, almost emaciated, with snow-white hair and the skin of a ghost. And why not? She never left her room. Years earlier, the nurses had walked her out to the rec yard once a day for an hour or so, but Hildy had eventually balked at that. Something out there terrified her.
Mercer went through the same monologue, rambling on about her life and work and friends and this and that, some true, some fiction, none of it apparently hitting the mark. Hildy seemed to process nothing. Her face was fixed with the same simple smile and her eyes never left the floor. Mercer told herself that Hildy recognized her voice, but she wasn’t sure. In fact, she wasn’t sure why she even bothered with the visits.
Guilt. Connie could forget about their mother but Mercer felt guilty for not visiting more often.
Five years had passed since Hildy had spoken to her. Back then, she had recognized her, uttered her name, and even thanked her for stopping by. Months later, Hildy had turned loud and angry during a visit and a nurse intervened. Mercer often wondered if the medication was now juiced a bit more when they knew she was coming.
According to Tessa, as a young teenager Hildy had loved the poetry of Emily Dickinson. So Tessa, who visited her daughter often during the early years of her commitment, had always read poetry to her. Back then Hildy would listen and react, but over the years her condition had deteriorated.
“How about some poetry, Mom?” Mercer asked as she pulled out a thick, worn copy of Collected Poems. It was the same book Tessa had brought to Eastern State for years. Mercer pulled over a rocking chair and sat close to the bed.
Hildy smiled as she read and said nothing.
7.
In Memphis, Mercer met her father for lunch at a midtown restaurant. Herbert lived somewhere in Texas, and with a new wife whom Mercer had no interest in either meeting or discussing. When he’d sold cars he talked about nothing but cars, and now that he scouted for the Orioles he talked of nothing but baseball. Mercer wasn’t sure which subject held less interest, but she gamely hung on and tried to make lunch enjoyable. She saw her father once a year, and after only thirty minutes remembered why. He was in town supposedly checking on some “business interests,” but she doubted it. His businesses had flamed out in spectacular fashion after her first year in college, leaving her to the mercy of student lenders.
She still pinched herself to make sure it was true. The debts were gone!
Herbert moved back to baseball and rambled on about this high school prospect and that one, never once inquiring about her latest book or project. If he had read anything she had published, he never said so.
After a long hour, Mercer was almost missing the visits to Eastern State. Unable to speak, her poor mother was not nearly as boring as her windy and self-absorbed father. But they said good-bye with a hug and a kiss and the usual promises to get together more often. She said she’d be at the beach for the next few months finishing a novel, but he was already reaching for his cell phone.
After lunch, she drove to Rosewood Cemetery and put roses on Tessa’s grave. She sat with her back against the headstone and had a good cry. Tessa was seventy-four when she died, but youthful in so many ways. She would be eighty-five now, no doubt as fit as ever and busy roaming the beach, collecting shells, guarding the turtle eggs, sweating in her gardens, and waiting for her beloved granddaughter to come play.
It was time to go back, to hear Tessa’s voice, to touch her things, to retrace their steps. It would hurt at first, but Mercer had known for eleven years that the day would come.
She had dinner with an old high school friend, slept in her guest room, and said good-bye early the following morning. Camino Island was fifteen hours away.
8.
She spent the night in a motel near Tallahassee and arrived at the cottage, as planned, around noon. Not much had changed, though it was now painted white and not the soft yellow Tessa had preferred. The narrow drive of oyster shells was lined with neatly trimmed Bermuda grass. According to Aunt Jane, Larry the yard guy was still taking care of the place, and he would stop by later to say hello. The front door was not far from Fernando Street, and for privacy Tessa had lined her boundaries with dwarf palmettos and elderberry shrubs, now so thick and tall that the neighbors’ homes could not be seen. The flower beds where Tessa had spent the mornings away from the sun were filled with begonias, catmint, and lavender. The porch columns were covered with ever-creeping wisteria. A sweet gum tree had grown considerably and shaded most of the small front lawn. Jane and Larry were doing a nice job of landscaping. Tessa would be pleased, though she would certainly find ways to improve things.
The key worked but the door was jammed. Mercer shoved it hard with a shoulder and it finally opened. She stepped into the great room, a long wide space filled with an old sofa and chairs in one corner, facing a television, then a rustic dining table that Mercer did not recognize. Behind it was the kitchen area, surrounded by a wall of tall windows with a view of the ocean two hundred feet away, beyond the dunes. All of the furniture was different, as well as the paintings on the walls and the rugs on the floors. It felt more like a rental than a home, but Mercer was prepared for this. Tessa had lived there year-round for almost twenty years and kept it immaculate
. Now it was a vacation place and needed a good dusting. Mercer walked through the kitchen and went outside, onto the wide deck filled with aging wicker furniture and surrounded by palm trees and crape myrtles. She brushed dirt and cobwebs off a rocker and sat down, gazing at the dunes and the Atlantic, listening to the waves gently rolling in. She had promised herself she would not cry, so she didn’t.
Children were laughing and playing on the beach. She could hear but not see them; the dunes blocked the view of the surf. Gulls and fish crows cawed as they darted high and low above the dunes and the water.
Memories were everywhere, golden and precious thoughts of another life. Tessa had practically adopted her when she became motherless and moved her to the beach, at least for three months each year. For the other nine months Mercer had longed to be at this very spot, sitting in these rockers in the late afternoon as the sun finally faded behind them. Dusk had been their favorite time of the day. The glaring heat was over; the beach was empty. They would walk a mile to the South Pier and back, looking for shells, splashing in the surf, chatting with Tessa’s friends, other residents who came out late in the day.
Those friends were now gone too, either dead or sent away to assisted living.
Mercer rocked for a long time, then got up. She walked through the rest of the house and found little that reminded her of Tessa. And this was a good thing, she decided. There was not a single photo of her grandmother to be found; only a few framed snapshots of Jane and her family in a bedroom. After the funeral, Jane had sent Mercer a box of photos and