A Wedding on the Beach Read online

  Bess got out of her car, pushed her wavy light brown hair from her face, and smiled up at the house. It was certainly large enough to accommodate her friends comfortably. Mike and Marta were due to arrive first, followed by Allison, and then by Chuck, Dean, and baby Thomas. He would be the only child in Driftwood House until the day of the wedding when Bess’s nieces and nephews, all seven of them, would make their boisterous appearance. Though it would embarrass Bess to admit this, it always took her a moment to recall the children’s names and to remember which child belonged to which of her two sisters. Dennis, Alan, and Gus Jr. belonged to Mae and her husband. Lily, Tildy, Jacob, and Little Owen belonged to Ann and Walt. Bess kept meaning to come up with a trick to help her keep straight her family members, but she never got around to it.

  Bess had included Marta’s three kids in her invitation to the wedding, but Marta had told Bess that she could use a vacation from her brood. It was the first time Bess had ever heard Marta say such a thing. In fact, imagining Marta without her children gathered around her was almost impossible to do. But everyone needed a bit of a break from responsibility, even a Super Mom.

  The car unloaded, Bess brought her travel bags inside and stowed them in the largest of the three bedrooms on the second floor. Then she returned to the car and began hauling the boxes she had packed at her office into the den, the room she had designated as her command center. A laptop and printer; charges for both of her cell phones; notebooks and pens; a framed photo of Nathan taken on the first long weekend they had spent together. In this pleasant room, the wedding of the year would take its final form.

  Bess was no stranger to the fact that an outdoor wedding was a fairly big risk—even in the summer bad weather could be an issue—but she was prepared for all eventualities. Her backup plans had backup plans, and she had taken out insurance against every imaginable disaster that might disturb the perfection of her big day. She had even hired a children’s performer to help keep her sisters’ offspring occupied. Bored children could mean trouble.

  Bess opened one of the boxes she had brought to the den and removed a handcrafted leather folio, a gift from an admiring colleague who would be out of the country at the time of the wedding. Indeed, many of the vendors and clients with whom Bess worked had sent her incredible gifts. The owner of a high-end boutique in Ogunquit had given her a gorgeous John Hardy bracelet. A new corporate client in Portland had sent a large cut crystal dish from Tiffany’s. There seemed no end to the arrival of baskets filled with caviar, pâtés, and cheeses, or those crammed with cookies, candies, and jams. One vendor who had been working with Bess for years had given her two tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Bess had passed them on to Kara, who loved classical music. She had, however, kept the gift certificate for dinner at The White Barn Inn right here in Kennebunkport; Nathan had never been to the venerable Maine institution and was sure to love it. Everyone did.

  Bess’s phone alerted her to a call from her fiancé. She smiled as she heard Nathan’s familiar voice greet her. The proverbial “everyone” said that the initial excitement of a romantic relationship wore off, but Bess didn’t believe that it had to. Ten, twenty, even thirty years from now she fully expected to find a smile on her face when she heard Nathan’s voice on the other end of the line. Romance didn’t have to fade and die. It just didn’t.

  “So, does the house measure up to your impossible standards?” he asked when Bess got through telling him how much she loved him and he had returned the sentiment.

  “Pretty much,” Bess admitted. “Though I haven’t made a full inspection yet.”

  “You know your friends will love it, flaws and all.”

  “I know but . . .”

  Nathan laughed. “But you won’t be happy unless every tiny detail is perfect. Well, just be careful not to lift anything too heavy. I’ll be there before you know it.”

  “And you’re Mr. Universe!”

  Nathan, while fit, was in fact fifty-three years old. He laughed. “No, but I do own a monster of a hand truck and a pretty heavy-duty dolly.”

  “Good. And be sure to bring bungee cords, too. And a screwdriver. Never go anywhere without a screwdriver. My father told me that once and he was right.”

  Nathan promised to bring a screwdriver and with another protestation of love he signed off.

  Bess sighed in contentment. She felt so very lucky to have finally found The One. Even her family liked Nathan and they had never liked anyone she had dated, not that they had ever said as much. They were far too reticent a bunch to speak freely about tricky things like emotions. Bess had grown up in rural Green Lakes, Maine, as had generations of Culpeppers before her. Introducing the cosmopolitan Nathan to Owen Culpepper, a man who had never traveled farther north than the paper mill town of Madawaska on the Canadian border or farther south than the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach, and to Matilda (née Wade) Culpepper, a woman who had dropped out of high school in her junior year to help care for the first of several elderly relatives she was to care for in her life, was bound to be tricky. But Nathan had very quickly won over Bess’s parents with his sincerity and good humor. Even Bess’s sisters and their husbands had given him the thumbs-up.

  The raucous caws of a seagull caused Bess to frown. She went out to the back porch and eyed with suspicion the giant bird staring at her from the lawn. Hmm. How to keep seagulls from swooping in on the food at the reception? It was a problem she hadn’t considered. Maybe she could enlist her brothers-in-law to be on seagull patrol. They could shout and wave their arms when one of the birds came too close for comfort. But that could prove dangerous. What if the bird was made angry by loud noise and vigorous movement?

  Still, the image of Gus and Walt shouting and waving made Bess smile as she turned back into the house. Both were good men, though decidedly lacking in anything remotely akin to glamour. Like Bess’s sisters, Ann and Mae, neither had gone to college. Neither earned much money in spite of working long and arduous hours. Gus could not afford to replace two front teeth he had lost in a hockey accident back when he was a teen. Walt suffered from a degenerative disc issue that caused almost constant pain. But as far as Bess knew, neither man had ever expressed dissatisfaction with his life; neither man allowed personal hardship to get in the way of his being a dutiful husband and father. And not once had either Ann or Mae complained to their big sister about her husband; both women seemed full of genuine affection for their spouses. But would Bess’s sisters, each other’s BFFs, ever confide in her about anything vital? That was a question that possibly muddied the waters when looking for a clear vision of Mae’s and Ann’s married lives. Even assuming that neither of Bess’s sisters were lying about their happiness, and taking into consideration all of the stellar qualities Bess’s brothers-in-law exhibited, Bess still had never been able to identify the passion or romance in her sisters’ marriages. Unlike the passion and romance at the heart of what was going to be her special marriage.

  But Mae’s and Ann’s domestic bliss or lack thereof was of little concern at the moment. No doubt about it, there was a layer of dust on the living room’s baseboards. Kara had ensured that the house was stocked with cleaning supplies; Bess located a duster and briskly went about the task of chasing dust. Not one little thing was allowed to mar what Bess was sure would be the best wedding ever.

  Chapter 2

  “Remember not to use this outlet by the toaster,” Marta called in the direction of her two older children. They were in the front hall, arms folded, leaning against the wall, just barely tolerating their mother’s last-minute fussing.

  “How can we forget?” twelve-year-old Leo called back dryly. “You put a layer of duct tape approximately three inches thick over the broken plate.”

  Marta came from the kitchen into the hall and looked from Leo to his sister. “It doesn’t hurt to be sure,” she pointed out.

  Sam, Marta’s seventeen-year-old daughter, exchanged a weary look with her brother before pushing herself off the wall
and heaving a dramatic sigh.

  “Your grandmother will be here in half an hour. Are you all packed?” Even as she asked the question Marta realized that she had asked it at least twice within the past several minutes.

  “Yes!” Sam and Leo intoned.

  “You don’t want to get to your grandparents’ house and realize you forgot to bring something you need,” she went on. Marta’s mother, Estelle Kennedy, was only in her early sixties and still had the vigor of a much younger woman. Still, Marta thought, there was no need to tax either of her parents unnecessarily.

  Sam rolled her eyes. “Mom, we’ll be fine and if we did forget something vital, it’s only, like, a twenty-minute drive back to the house from Grandma’s. Relax!”

  “You should be checking your own stuff,” Leo said. “If you forgot something important one of us would have to send it to you overnight delivery and that would be expensive and you know how careful you are with money. And it would be kind of annoying for us by the way.”

  Marta looked at her middle child. His eyes were his father’s, as was his dark brown hair, but his tendency to direct others and point out the obvious flaws in their thinking had come from his mother. There was no point in denying it.

  Sam, however, while she had inherited her mother’s medium stature, dark blue eyes, and auburn hair, had not inherited her mother’s clear and decisive habits of thought. She had complained about being sent to her grandparents’ house, insisting that she was old enough to stay alone in the house while her parents were vacationing in Kennebunkport, but Marta had not relented. Sam wasn’t a bad kid, but she could be a bit flighty and needed to be reminded that the world didn’t revolve around her. “And remember,” Marta had warned when alone with her daughter, “no sneaking back here with Adam. I mean it, Sam.” Adam was Sam’s boyfriend of five months. Sam had taken offense at this and accused her mother of not trusting her. There had been times enough when Marta had been right not to trust her daughter but in truth, never when it came to boys. Sam was too much a part of the current generation of “woke” young people to be ignorant about the dangers of casual sex and of overt as well as subtle manipulation by men. At least, Marta hoped that she was.

  When Leo was given the news that he and his siblings were being shipped off to their grandparents’ house for two weeks he was unmoved; he was an expert at rolling with the punches, and before long in any new situation he was somehow in charge of it. Besides, he would still be attending a day camp for young technology geeks.

  Troy, his grandparents’ darling, was thrilled to be staying where he knew he would be pampered and get to play with Roger, his grandfather’s Dachshund, who was notoriously fond only of Troy Sr. and his youngest grandchild. But a seven-year-old was still a baby in some ways and Marta expected a few teary moments once her youngest child was tucked into his bed at Grandma and Grandpa’s that night and truly realized that he wouldn’t see his parents for days and days. Marta and Mike had never left the kids alone for two weeks at a time, but this occasion—the long-awaited wedding of their friend Bess Culpepper—was special.

  Suddenly Marta realized she couldn’t remember where she had put the pen she had been using only a few moments earlier. She patted the pockets of her cargo pants. There was something in the pocket on her right thigh. Marta reached in and out came the stylus she used to text. It fell to the floor. “Damn it!” Marta bent to retrieve the stylus. It was unlike her to be clumsy. It was unlike her to forget something so trivial as where she had stashed a pen. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Does ‘damn it’ qualify as a swear?” Leo wondered. “I’m not sure we ever clarified that point. If it does qualify, you need to put a quarter in the swear jar before you go. Otherwise, you might forget. I’d remind you, of course, upon your return, but it would be much easier for you to pay your dues right away.”

  Marta frowned. Could you legitimately complain about your child being a reasonable and logical thinker? Probably not. Too bad. Marta fished in another pocket and found a quarter. “Here,” she said, handing it to Leo, “put it in for me.”

  Sam frowned. “Are you okay, Mom? You seem kind of nervous. I mean, more than you usually are when you leave us on our own. Which is, like, hardly ever, because you’re such a helicopter parent.”

  “I’m not a helicopter parent and I’m not nervous,” Marta snapped. “I’m just . . . I’m fine.” Were hormones already playing their nasty tricks on her? It had been only weeks since she had verified her pregnancy, only weeks since she had unwittingly conceived this fourth child. Entirely without design.

  Marta liked babies. She wasn’t opposed to them in fact or in theory. She was looking forward to meeting Thomas, Chuck and Dean’s six-month-old adopted son. And babies that weren’t your own were the best kind of all. Parents usually didn’t expect another adult to handle the messier aspects of caretaking; no one would dream of asking Bess, for example, to change a diaper. Marta frowned. But they would ask Marta to change a diaper and to wipe away spit-up and to soothe a screaming infant because that’s who Marta was. A mother. A mother of three, before long to be a mother of four.

  Sam and Leo didn’t seem to have noticed her sudden silence, or the fact that she was frowning. When the front door opened behind them, they turned to see their father coming into the house, hand in hand with Troy. They had been packing the car with the travel bags, a cooler, beach chairs, and other necessities for two weeks of fun in the sun.

  “Come on, Marta,” Mike said. “Let’s get this show on the road. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

  He lifted Troy in his arms and gave him a big kiss on the forehead. Troy giggled and then squirmed to be let down; Marta scooped him up. Leo stuck out a hand and gave his father a manly nod. Mike stuck out his own hand and grimly shook. Sam slipped her arm through her father’s and whispered in his ear. Marta hid a frown. What request was Sam making of her father that she didn’t want her mother to hear? Use of the house for a party while her parents were gone? An extra hundred dollars to spend at the mall?

  In spite of Sam’s claim to be a feminist, a claim she backed up by attending the yearly Women’s March and by supporting the #MeToo movement and every other related cause that popped up on social media, she was also a spoiled daddy’s girl. Marta had done what she could to counter Mike’s preferential treatment of his female child. Sometimes she wondered if she had gone too far in the direction of the harsh parent. A girl needed her mother’s indulgence, too. It was a constant struggle; Marta suspected she was doing a better job raising her sons than she was raising her daughter. She wondered how often that was the case. Her relationship with her own mother was sometimes tense, but not half as tense as it had been before Marta had married and had her kids. Maybe one day she and Sam would be friends of a sort, the earlier power struggles forgotten, common ground discovered in the trials of adulthood. Maybe.

  “Ready?” Mike asked with a smile.

  Marta nodded, kissed Troy on each chubby cheek, told him to be good for his grandparents, and handed him off to Sam. Mike strode down to the car, a bounce in his step. Marta followed more slowly. She wasn’t really looking forward to this two-week venture, though she was acutely aware that it was Allison who would have the truly difficult time. At least Chris wouldn’t be present, though not for lack of Bess’s urging him to come. Harassing might be a more accurate word than urging, Marta thought now. Luckily, she had managed to convince Bess to leave Chris alone, if not for his sake then for Allison’s.

  What had happened between Allison and Chris to cause a rift deep enough to compel Chris to seek a divorce? Marta wondered if either would ever share the truth with their college friends. She, for one, didn’t feel the same way about the others as she had felt back when they were in school. It wasn’t that her love for them had diminished as much as it had altered so that now, she was less inclined to turn to Bess or to Allison when something important was on her mind, and more inclined to turn to one of her newer friends, women whose children we
nt to school with her own, whose husbands knew one another, whose daily lives were less of a mystery to Marta. She wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case with every other member of the old gang with the notable exception of Bess. Bess’s need for her college besties seemed, as far as Marta could tell, just as intense as it had been all those years ago when they had been cramming for finals, rooting for the home team, and bingeing on pints of double-fudge ice cream while watching eighties rom-coms until late into the night.

  Marta was almost at the end of the driveway when suddenly she whirled around. Only Sam stood at the door now. “I almost forgot to remind you—” Marta called, taking a step back up the drive.

  “Go!” Sam commanded with a shout. And then she shut the door firmly against her mother.

  Marta shrugged. She would send Sam a text reminding her to lock the basement windows before they left the house with their grandmother. She turned back toward the car. Mike sat behind the wheel. Two long weeks with her dearest friends lay waiting for her. Now to muster a mask of enthusiasm.

  Chapter 3

  “Flight attendants, prepare for arrival.”

  Allison automatically felt for her seat belt; it was fastened low and tight as it was supposed to be. Her tray table was stowed and her seat was in the full upright position. Allison liked to play by the rules. Not that she believed a stowed tray or a fastened seat belt was going to save her life should the plane decide to dive into Boston Harbor rather than land safely at Logan Airport. Still.

  In spite of Bess’s generous offer to pick her up, Allison had rented a car for the drive to Kennebunkport. She didn’t want to be without her own means of transportation—i.e., escape—once in Maine. She suspected that being in the presence of her oldest and dearest friends for the first time since Chuck’s wedding almost two years ago might at times be difficult. It was so soon after that happy occasion that everything had fallen apart so horribly. Two years. At moments Allison felt it had been more like a lifetime since she had last looked at herself in the mirror and seen the face of a happily married person, a person who knew without a doubt who she was, a person so sure of the love and devotion of the man she had married twenty years earlier that life seemed almost too good.