“My son was on the phone to his dad last night, begging him to take him hang gliding,” Jill said. “See what you started?”
Rory smiled, pleased. He’d finally done something right.
“So when are you going to talk to me about what I think happened the morning Shelly was born?” Jill asked.
“How about now?” he said. “I’m waiting for a friend, but we can talk until she shows up.”
“Well, I don’t know that I can add anything new to what you’ve already heard,” Jill said. “I’ve always felt sure that Shelly was Cindy’s baby. I think the only reason we don’t know that for certain was that the police didn’t have enough evidence to examine her. But I remembered seeing her a couple of days before Shelly was born and she was wearing a loose shirt over her shorts. That wasn’t her style of dress, in case you don’t remember.”
“I remember,” Rory said. “But—” this had been gnawing at him “—Cindy spent a lot of summers down here after Shelly was born. Don’t you think it would have come out somehow? Wouldn’t she have shown some special interest in her?”
“But she did,” Jill said. “She always wanted to baby-sit for Shelly. Of course, she baby-sat for a lot of kids in the neighborhood—I think so she could have boys over, frankly. My brother was one of those boys. Do you remember Brian? He was pretty wild.”
“Your twin, right?” Brian had slept with Cindy?
“Uh-huh. He slept with her the summer before Shelly was born, and he slept with her that summer, too. I never understood how he could do that, since everyone was so sure Cindy was Shelly’s mother. But his hormones were stronger than his common sense, I guess.”
“I had no idea Brian was seeing Cindy,” Rory said, trying to think back. He could barely remember what Brian looked like.
“Well, I don’t think what he was doing with her would be described as ‘seeing her.’ He was…well, screwing her.” Jill shrugged. “That’s about it. You were a few years younger than us, so what was going on probably went right over your head.”
“True,” he said. “I was only fourteen the summer Daria found Shelly.” He saw Grace’s car turn into the cul-de-sac, and Jill followed his gaze.
“Your friend is here,” she said, standing up.
Rory was still thinking about Brian and Cindy. “Excuse the rudeness in this question,” he said, “but if Brian slept with Cindy, is there any chance he was the baby’s father?”
“I don’t think so,” Jill said. “I thought about that myself. But it would have meant that he’d been with Cindy nine months before Shelly was born. That would have been September, which was possible, but unlikely. Besides, Shelly doesn’t look a thing like anyone in our family.”
Grace had pulled her car to the side of the cul-de-sac in front of Poll-Rory. Rory walked with Jill down the front steps to greet her.
“So what is Brian up to these days?” he asked.
Jill laughed. “He’s a juvenile-court judge,” she said. “Is that ironic, or what? He’s got three teenage girls, and he’s the strictest parent I know.”
Grace got out of her car, and Rory introduced the two women, then he and Grace went back to his porch, where he had the newspaper with the movie listings. They were about to sit down to peruse them, when Grace pointed toward the beach.
“There’s Shelly,” she said.
Rory turned to see Shelly walking through the sea oats a little east of his cottage, coming up from the beach toward the cul-de-sac. He’d seen her set out for the beach many hours ago, just after lunch. Was this a different walk, or had she actually been out on the beach, walking, all afternoon?
Shelly smiled when she saw them. “Hi, Rory,” she said. “Hi, Grace.” She was wearing a pale blue tankini, cut high on her legs, the ever-present sack of shells strung loosely around her waist.
“Did you have a good walk?” Grace asked her.
“It’s always good,” Shelly said. She stopped near them. “I talked to Zack, Rory,” she said. “I think it’s so cool that you took him hang gliding.”
“It was great,” Rory said.
“We’re going to a movie,” Grace said. “Would you like to go with us?”
Rory was surprised by the invitation. He wouldn’t mind having Shelly accompany them, but he never would have thought to invite her himself. This was supposed to be a date. At least, it was a date in his mind. Perhaps it was not in Grace’s. The thing that irked him the most, though, was that if it had been Zack standing there, talking to them, Grace almost certainly wouldn’t have invited him.
“Oh, no thanks,” Shelly said. “I’m working on a necklace for Jackie. Only it’s a surprise from Linda, so don’t say anything.”
“Oh, we won’t,” Grace reassured her. He did not think Grace even knew who Jackie was.
Rory looked at his watch. “We’d better get going, Grace,” he said.
They said goodbye to Shelly, quickly scanned the movie listings and got into his car. Grace looked across the street at the Sea Shanty, where Shelly was sitting on the front steps, dusting the sand from her feet before going inside.
“She’s so beautiful,” Grace said. “She could be a model.”
Rory backed the car into the cul-de-sac, then headed toward the beach road. “I’ve thought the same thing about you,” he said, knowing it would be the first truly personal thing he had said to her.
“What do you mean?” Grace asked.
“That you could be a model. The way you…carry yourself. The way you walk. Not to mention that you’re beautiful.”
He thought he detected some color in Grace’s cheeks.
“No one’s told me that in quite a while,” Grace said.
“Well, it’s the truth.” He was glad he had said it. It seemed like something she needed to hear. Maybe she’d been so reticent in this relationship because she was taking her cue from him. Maybe she was wondering when he was ever going to make a move.
In the theater, he was keenly aware of her presence in the seat next to him. She seemed to contain herself carefully in her chair, however, so that their arms did not touch, and she allowed him to have the armrest between their seats. Halfway through the movie, he dared to take her hand, and she allowed it. Her fingers were cold, and he tried to warm them with his own. The movie was a comedy, light head-candy, but Grace only laughed a couple of times during the entire hour and a half, and Rory thought their taste in comedy was not quite in sync.
“Did you enjoy that?” he asked when they were back in the car.
“Very much,” Grace said, although she hadn’t seemed to. She smiled, though, and her face was so beautiful in the lights from the parking lot that he wanted to kiss her. Now.
He leaned across the console, rested one hand against her cheek and kissed her lightly. She smiled uncertainly, then turned her head before he could kiss her again.
He drew away. “I think we need to talk,” he said.
She looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Rory said. “But I do need to understand why you pull away when I try to get close.”
She looked out the window, drawing in a long breath. “I’m…not ready,” she said. “It’s just that I haven’t been out of my marriage all that long. I’m confused about my feelings these days.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“It’s understandable,” Rory said, although he felt the disappointment down to his toes. “I’d rather you be honest about your feelings than try to pretend that everything’s okay.” He remembered how he’d felt when Glorianne first left him. “Are you hoping to get back together with your husband?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly. “That’s over.”
“What happened?” He tried to sound sympathetic rather than curious.
She bit her lip. “Can’t talk about it,” she said. Even getting those four words out seemed an effort.
He squeezed her shoulder. “That’s okay,” he said, and he reached f
or the key in the ignition.
“Where shall we go to eat?” he asked as he pulled into the road. “What do you feel like?”
“I’m really not hungry, Rory,” she said. “I think I just want to go home. I’m sorry to put a damper on your evening.”
He was disappointed by the sudden change of plans, but he had the feeling she needed a good long cry and didn’t want to do that in front of him. Even Daria had cried in front of him when she told him about the plane crash. Why was it so much easier to talk about difficult topics with a friend than with a potential lover?
“It’s not a problem,” he said.
They were both quiet on the drive to Poll-Rory, and he had a sudden, jarring thought: a mastectomy. Maybe her illness had been breast cancer. That would explain the high-necked bathing suits she wore. It would explain her fear of intimacy. He glanced at her as he drove. Her face was turned away from him, toward the window, and he wished there was something he could say to ease whatever fear and pain existed inside her. But it would have to be her decision to confide in him. He could think of nothing he could do to hasten that process.
Daria looked up from her seat on the rocker as Rory pulled into his driveway. She and Chloe were sitting on the Sea Shanty porch, reading, but now Daria’s attention was fixed on the car across the cul-de-sac. Rory got out of the driver’s side of the car, and Grace emerged from the passenger side. There was a physical pain in Daria’s chest—a twisting, wrenching feeling. Rory rested his hand on Grace’s back as they walked toward her car at the curb. Grace got into her car, and Rory leaned close to the open window to talk to her, or to kiss her—Daria couldn’t see. Rory stood up from the car and walked into his cottage. The pain in Daria’s chest sharpened, and she knew her feelings for Rory were out of control.
“I’m worried about you.”
Daria jumped at the sound of Chloe’s voice, unaware that her sister had been watching her.
“Why?” she asked.
Chloe rested her book upside down on her knees. “Because of Rory,” she said. “Because of the way you feel about him.”
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Yes, it is. And it’s crazy, Daria. I understand. You’re still reeling from Pete. You’d been with him for six years and you thought you would have married him by now. Of course you’re vulnerable. But infatuation with Rory Taylor is not the answer. It’s got to be taking a toll on you, pining for him every day.”
“I’m not pining,” Daria said.
“You are, too. And it’s pretty obvious he’s interested in Grace. I mean, he cares about you as a friend, same as he did back when you were kids. But his romantic interest is in Grace, Daria. You can see that, can’t you?”
“Of course, I see that. That’s what hurts.”
“You don’t really know him, Daria. He’s not your type. Maybe he was your type when he was ten years old and you were seven. But now…he’s Hollywood, Daria. He’s glitzy.”
“Glitzy?” Daria laughed, but the sound was weak. “That’s not a word I’d use to describe him. He’s very down-to-earth.”
“You’re seeing him here, in Kill Devil Hills, so, of course, he seems down-to-earth. But watch the reruns of True Life Stories. Tell me then that he’s down-to-earth.”
She had watched the summer reruns, just as she’d watched the original shows during the rest of the year, and he was the most down-to-earth the host of a TV show could be. But she could see no point in arguing that with Chloe.
“I really just want a friendship with him,” Daria said, more to convince herself than Chloe.
“Bullshit,” Chloe said in her sometimes-I-just-can’t-sound-like-a-nun voice. “You’re tied up in knots over him. And even if he did give you some hint that he might be interested in you that way, he’s leaving at the end of the summer. He’s a California boy.”
Daria didn’t answer. She didn’t want to fight about this, because she was afraid she would lose and that Chloe was right. She opened her book again, and Chloe did the same, but Daria’s thoughts were still on the cottage across the cul-de-sac. She had tried not to think about the end of the summer. She couldn’t bear the thought of Poll-Rory being home again to a string of weekend renters, then finally standing cold and vacant, while she and Shelly had the winter cul-de-sac entirely to themselves once more.
25
WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO DO ABOUT RORY?
Grace drove through the darkness toward Rodanthe, that one thought blocking all others from her mind. She had never treated anyone this way before. Never used another person for her own gain. It had gotten out of hand, and she didn’t know how to fix it. She was driven to see him…but only because it put her so close to Shelly.
Shelly was stunning! She had been an ethereal vision, walking through those sea oats, golden in the early-evening light. She looked so healthy, and Grace clung to that reassuring fact. But Pamela had looked healthy, too. She wished Shelly was not constantly taking those solo walks on the beach. How quickly did she walk? How strenuously?
Shelly was tall and lithe, just like Grace had been at that age. She had the body and the presence of a model. She remembered what Rory had said: Grace looked like a model, too.
Oh, Rory, she thought, if only you knew.
She’d first heard those words when she was sixteen years old. She’d been walking alone through the shopping center where she and her best friend, Bonnie, had after-school jobs, when a man suddenly stepped in front of her. She’d had to stop short to avoid running into him. He was probably her mother’s age, maybe a little older. He had silver hair, but his face was relatively unlined and his blue eyes smiled at her. For someone his age, he was very handsome.
He apologized for disturbing her, then told her his name was Brad Chappelle and he ran a modeling agency. “I’m walking through the shopping center today, looking for girls who might be model material,” he said. “And I have to tell you that you are the most beautiful girl I’ve stumbled across in my search so far this year.”
Already shy, Grace could think of nothing to say in response to such an effusive compliment, and the man continued talking.
“You’ll have to get some photographs taken for a portfolio,” he said, “and then you’ll have to go through the training program at my agency. It will cost you some money, but you’ll easily make ten times that in your first year as a model. I can practically guarantee it.”
He wanted money. Was that what this was about? Some sort of scam?
“I really don’t have any money,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. “Well, in your case, if you can spring for the photographs, I’ll cover the training program for you,” he said. “I think you’ll be a good investment.”
He told her she would need her mother’s permission to take classes at the agency, and Grace thought that would be a major stumbling block. Her mother always seemed to view Grace as more of a liability than an asset, and she was indeed resistant to the idea—at first. Once Brad talked to her about Grace’s earning potential, though, she readily gave her permission.
Getting pictures taken for her initial portfolio turned out to be one of the most awkward afternoons of Grace’s life as she tried unsuccessfully to relax in front of the camera. The photographer was nice about it, telling her how much more confident she would feel after taking Brad’s modeling course.
She loved the classes at the agency right from the start. Since grade school, she had been teased about her height and her thin form. Now, her height, her slender body, her high cheekbones were the envy of other girls, and she found herself walking tall. She knew she was Brad’s favorite among his students, and she felt his eyes on her as she moved through the class. Admiration was in his face, and after the fourth or fifth class, he told her that she had a natural ability in addition to her beauty. Grace overheard one of the more experienced models say that Brad was grooming her for the big time.
Her first real assignment came that summer, at a fashion show at Beck’s, a
local department store. Brad invited her mother as his special guest, which told everyone who hadn’t already figured it out that Grace was his pet. It was the first time her mother had seen her model, and the show went spectacularly well. Grace’s mother could not mask her pride at seeing her daughter, a changed young woman, on the runway. Grace was no longer painfully shy; she no longer walked hunched over to mask her height.
After that show, Grace’s mother began buying fashion magazines. She’d point to pictures in the magazine and hold them out in front of Grace. “Maybe you should have your hair cut like this girl’s,” she would say. Or, “If you’d do those leg lifts, you’d get a better rear end for those clothes you have to wear.” Grace’s mother and Brad conspired to persuade her to quit high school and focus entirely on her career, but Grace refused. She loved modeling, but she was beginning to envy her classmates’ normal lives as they entered their senior year. Bonnie was still her best friend, but things had changed. Bonnie had met a boy over the summer, and she usually had a date on Saturday nights. Grace often worked on Saturdays and was too tired to go out when evening rolled around. Not that anyone was asking her out, anyway.
As she was drawn deeper into her modeling career and became aware of the life-style Brad’s more experienced models were living, Grace grew uncomfortable. Most of the other models were older and out of school. Drugs were rampant, and although she didn’t think Brad used drugs himself, he turned a blind eye to whatever his girls were doing to get themselves through their grueling schedules. There were more and more fashion shows out of town, and Grace had little choice but to skip school in order to take those jobs.
Her relationship with Brad was gradually changing. While the other models might be driven to shows in Washington or Philadelphia in a specially equipped van, Brad often asked Grace to ride with him in his car. At first, she thought this was because he knew she didn’t fit in with the other girls and that she felt awkward with them. But she began to realize that he no longer thought of her as simply one of his blossoming models. She would catch him staring at her when she was doing nothing more than putting on her makeup or eating her dinner of fish and vegetables. He hugged her often. He hugged the other girls, as well, but she knew there was something different in the way he touched her.