Page 38 of An Island Summer
They headed along the sidewalk toward the bright pink and yellow umbrella-clad tables of the ice cream shop. Seagulls squawked above them in a bright blue sky, the heat soaking down to Meghan’s bones as she held the pages by their corners, trying not to bend them any more than they already were or smear the ink with her hot hands.
When they arrived, Tess got Meghan’s order and told her not to read a thing until she returned. Then Meghan took Charlie to the community dog bowl at the back of the shaded outdoor dining area. She sat down at one of the tables and used the heavy salt and pepper shakers to keep the journal pages from blowing away, dying to read them.
After what seemed like forever, Tess walked toward them with two heaping ice cream cones, handing the mint chocolate chip one to her. Meghan licked it around the base to keep the melting ice cream from dripping down the cone, remembering how she and Pappy used to sit there and do the same thing.Try a new flavor, he’d always encourage her, though she inevitably got the mint chocolate chip.But this is my favorite, she’d say. As she took another crisp and icy lick of her cone, she could hear his words even now:How do you know it’s your favorite until you’ve tried them all? Just because you’re comfortable with something doesn’t always mean it’s the best.
“Sit, sit,” Meghan said, pushing the memory away, the pages calling to her. “I can’t stand the suspense anymore.”
Tess pulled a chair up beside her, the two of them huddled over the letters. The next entry read:
I’m so glad that I don’t have to make movie decisions on my own. I’d have jumped atCupid’s Goddessand it tanked on opening night. Thank heavens for good friends. Sometimes I feel like a fraud, a puppet in everyone else’s hands, but at the end of the day, I’ve proved that I can’t make my own decisions or my life would be a disaster…
“It is Hester,” Meghan said, eyes wide as she looked at her friend in awe. Meghan licked a runaway drip off her cone. “The friend who advised her against the movie has to be Rupert. It matches his story.”
Tess took a nibble of her chocolate ice cream. “Unless Rupert thinks he’s someone else.”
“But the journal entry in the coffee shop also said that she’d met someone on a bench when she was writing a postcard. Rupert knew that too.”
“It does seem awfully odd that a man who isn’t even aware of his present surroundings would be able to research that much information,” Tess agreed.
“If he did know her, and he seemed to be in love with her, what happened?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she began reading the other entries—one per page, just like the rest. Meghan moved the salt and pepper paperweights and held the flapping pages down with her hand to read more.
I’ve been so busy in production that I haven’t had time to think about my wreck of a life, which is good. I’ve made such a mess of it…
As the words made more and more sense to Meghan, she looked at Tess. But before she could say anything, the ball of ice cream fell from her cone into her lap. “Ah!” she squealed, trying to save her shorts. When she did, Tess jumped up, the pages flying in the coastal wind and landing on the other side of the picket fence between the ice cream shop and the road.
Meghan dropped her cone, grabbed Charlie’s leash and ran to the little gate, fiddling recklessly with the latch as the three papers flew upward in swirling motions, blowing across the road. Once the gate was open, they pushed past a few tourists on their way in, sprinting around the fenced-off dining area toward the road, where they had to wait for passing cars.
The pages took flight on the sea wind that carried them over the massive dune toward the ocean. Meghan scrambled across the street as soon as she could, digging her flip-flops into the fiery sand, slipping on the steep incline that sent her sliding backward while Charlie barked on the end of his leash.
Panic in her chest, she tried again, coaxing the dog, but the dune was too high to climb. Out of breath, she turned to find Tess, who was down the road, trying to get up a lower hill with not much success. The nearest public stairway was so far away that she knew the journal pages were gone by now. Even still, she ran down to them and bounded up each wooden stair as quickly as she could until she got to the top. Charlie’s tail wagged in excitement as she dropped his leash. He hopped down into the sand and ran down to the water, the leash dragging behind him. Shielding her eyes, Meghan peered down the beach in both directions, but the pages were nowhere to be found.
“Do you see them?” Tess said, her hands on her knees as she gasped for air.
“No,” Meghan replied before stepping onto the beach. She checked the seagrass on the other side of the dune, all the way to where they’d been sitting, to see if the pages had gotten caught in it, all the while scanning the beachgoers and the surf. For a second, she was sure they were floating in the water, but when she ran down to it, it was just a reflection.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Tess said, catching up to her with Charlie.
“Unbelievable.” Meghan sat down on the sand, devastated. The dog flopped down beside her.
Tess threw up her hands but then relaxed. “You know what? No harm, no foul,” she said.
“What?” Meghan looked up at her friend, shielding her eyes from the sun, baffled.
“Until an hour ago, you didn’t even know those pages existed. And it’s only luck that the old man could even find them. I doubt the rest said anything much anyway.”
“They proved that Rupert might know what he’s talking about,” Meghan said.
“But did they?” Tess countered. “I mean, would the hospital really take that as some kind of evidence? I doubt it.”
“I can tell Toby, though—with or without the pages.”
“If he’ll believe you. But, regardless, it did give you whatyouwanted to know—a definite connection between Rupert and Hester. Maybe you can get more out of him another day.”
“I guess you’re right,” Meghan said, standing up and facing the wind to let it cool her off. With a deep breath to calm her nerves, she took Charlie’s leash. “Come on, boy, let’s get you some water.”
FIFTEEN
“What do you think everyone at Zagos is doing right now?” Tess asked Meghan, leaning back on her elbows, her face pointed toward the sun as they lay on the loungers they’d dragged out to the beach, along with a jug of margaritas in the cooler.
