Page 59 of Surfside Sisters

Eventually Keely rose and walked home, taking little pleasure from the beauty around her. She stayed one more day, long enough to sign books at the wonderful event at Mitchell’s Book Corner.Rich Girlwas high on the bestseller lists. The publicists at Ransome & Hawkmore had arranged an extensive book tour for her. She flew to Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Charleston, and Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach. She traveled for a month, living out of a suitcase, visiting bookstores and book clubs, signing autographs, and later eating room service salads on her bed as she remembered all the women she’d met. She missed their company.

She was glad to return to her tiny apartment in Manhattan in August. She stayed there during the rest of the hot humid summer with the air conditioner on full blast. She worked on her new novel while downing gallons of iced coffee, venturing out in the early evening when the heat was not quite so brutal to buy something for dinner.

Keely enjoyed the colorful autumn, walking through Central Park, kicking the flame-colored leaves. This was a pleasure she didn’t have on Nantucket, where the gales and the salt air prevented maples from growing tall. In New York, the autumn air snapped with crispness, turning her cheeks red, filling her with expectation.

During the gorgeous fall, Keely spent hours proofreading the manuscript ofPoor Girl,even though the publisher’s proofreaders were carefully checking it. If one typographical error or misplaced question mark got through, Keely would get emails and comments on Facebook. She often met Fiona or one of that gang for drinks or a party or a concert or a reading at a bookstore. She still strolled the city streets like a kid in a candy shop.

But a strange kind of loneliness was seeping into her heart, like a tide finding a crack in a dam and slowly and inevitably breaking a barricade apart. She realized she’d been on a wild emotional high for a long time, exhilarated by her dream coming true. Now she was descending into reality. She couldn’t understand what was going on with her. She was living the dream…and she was happy, but also sad.

Work was the antidote to too much navel-gazing.

With her second novel ready for the printer, and buoyed up by the wonderful reaction of readers toRich Girl,Keely spent the dark November days focused on writing her third book,Sun Music.It was different from her first two books, more melancholy in a way, but she managed to have two women reconcile after a long embittered period of enmity, and that gave the book a rising finale. It might help her readers, and Keely as well, believe that forgiveness could happen, that jealousy could dissolve, that old friendships, old loves, could be rekindled.

She knew she was writing this book because she missed the island. She missed Isabelle’s friendship. Her new friends were brilliant, screamingly funny, and amazingly ambitious. Outside of her apartment, Keely felt she lived her life at a different speed, but that might have been because so many sights, sounds, events, opportunities, and aromas seemed to zoom toward her with roller-coaster velocity. Would she change from island girl to city woman? Could she? Did she want to?

She enticed her mother to come for the week before Christmas. They took in the latest plays and ate at the most fashionable restaurants. Keely heard all the latest Nantucket news, especially about the doctors and nurses and hospital renovations.

“I have to retire in January,” Eloise told Keely over steak frites in a chic new restaurant called La Boheme. “I’m sixty-five now.”

“Wow, really?” Keely studied her mother. “How do you feel about that?”

Eloise shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. What will I do with myself?”

“Mom, don’t be silly. You have a thousand friends. You’ve been wanting to read about a hundred books. You’ll be able to sleep late, have lunch with Brenda…”

“I suppose…I’m just not that kind of person.”

“You can change. You can relax and enjoy life. Maybe spend more time with me here in the city.”

“Maybe.” Suddenly Eloise broke down, bringing her hands up to cover her face and her tears.

“You’re so sweet to bring me here,” she told Keely. “And I’m so very proud of you, darling. I can’t imagine why you—why anyone—would want to spend time with me. I’m just a worthless old woman. You should just drag me out on an iceberg and let me float away to die in the ocean.”

Keely burst out laughing. “Could you be any more dramatic? Come on, Mom. You’re sixty-five, and lots of people retire at that age. You own your house clear and free, and that’s amazing. You’ve got savings and your pension to pay your insurance and taxes and to buy a few luxuries if you’d ever think of yourself. You have friends, you can join a book club, a lunch group, a knitting group.”

“I suppose you’re right,” her mother reluctantly agreed.

“I know you miss Dad. I know you miss me. But you’ve got so many talents of your own. I mean, have you thought about volunteering? There are only about three thousand nonprofits on the island that need help.”

“How can I help? I’ve got a bad back. I know it doesn’t show, Keely, and I wish it did, I wish it were some kind of rash breaking out all over my face, or a broken leg so I’d need a cane, something to show people I’m not just a lazy old lady.”

“Mom! No one who knows you would ever think that!” She reached across the table to take her mother’s hand. “I think you should try antidepressants.”

“You know I don’t like pills.”

“You’re a nurse. You are Pills R Us. You just think you’re better than pills, and that’s ridiculous. Everyone needs help at some point in their life. Mom, I really wish you’d see a doctor. At least a counselor.”

Eloise sagged. “All right, darling. I’ll try.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

When Eloise flew home to work on Christmas Day, Keely felt glad but guilty. Really, her mother had been hard work. Keely spent Christmas Day watching British mysteries and eating ice cream right from the Ben & Jerry’s carton.

After Christmas, she forced herself to write. She felt as if she were trudging through molasses. When Juan texted her to remind her he was taking her to a New Year’s Eve party, she almost cried with relief. She was so glad to think of something other than her plot and her own lonely inner world.

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