The Summer Wives: Epic page-turning romance perfect for the beach. Beatriz Williams

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      Without thinking, I turned to address the fisherman, and his face went rigid with shock at the sight of me, now unhidden by sunglasses. “An accident,” I said, touching the bruised flesh around my left eye and my cheekbone. “An automobile accident,” remembering to use the American term—accident—instead of the British one, smash. A car smash, which is an interesting difference, you know. To call it an accident implies an absence of intent, nobody’s fault, a tragic mistake. A smash is just that. Makes no judgment on how the thing happened, or why.

      “I’m sorry, ma’am.” He returned his attention to the direction of the boat. (Like I said, a stoic lot.)

      “These things happen,” I said. “I was going to ask you a question, if you don’t mind.”

      “Fire away.”

      “Do you happen to know who keeps the Fleet Rock lighthouse, these days? I used to summer on the Island, many years ago, and I was just wondering.”

      “The Fleet Rock lighthouse? Why, that would be old Mrs. Vargas,” said the fisherman, without changing expression, without turning his attention from the water before us.

      “What about Mr. Vargas?”

      “I’m afraid he’s passed on, ma’am. Just a few months ago. One winter too many, I guess.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that.”

      “He was a good man. A good lobsterman.”

      I laughed politely. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

      He laughed too. “I guess it is, ma’am. I guess it is.”

      We said nothing more, all the way into the harbor, and I gave him another five dollars to keep quiet about the woman with the black eye and the sunglasses who was asking questions about Fleet Rock lighthouse. He put the Lincoln in his pocket and asked if he could help me with my suitcase. I said no, I was just heading into the general store across the street from the marina. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, so I let him carry the suitcase anyway. Men sometimes like to make themselves useful that way, I’ve found, and you might as well humor them.

      Inside the store, I absorbed the familiar, particular odor of dust and spices, and the scent gave me another jolt of exquisite pain to the solar plexus. There’s something about the smells of your childhood, isn’t there? Even when that childhood was short and flavored by bitterness and ended in catastrophe, in a disaster of devastating proportions, you still remember those small, sublime joys with an ache of longing. Because there’s no getting it back, is there? You can’t return to a state of innocence. So I waited patiently for the old woman behind the soda fountain to hustle and bustle her way around her shelves, her cabinets, her rows of merchandise, until at last she noticed my presence and apologized.

      “It’s no trouble at all,” I said.

      At the sound of my voice, her face changed, in much the same way as the fisherman’s had. Her mouth made a perfect hole of surprise. “Deus meu! Miranda Schuyler?” she said in wonder.

      “The prodigal returns.” I removed my sunglasses.

      “Oh dear! What is this thing that has happened to your face?”

      “There was an accident. A car accident. I thought I might find someplace quiet to lick my wounds. I hope you don’t mind.”

      Her voice was soft with pity. “No, of course. Of course not.” She paused delicately. “Do they know you are coming? At Greyfriars? Your mother, she was here yesterday, and she said nothing to me.”

      “I thought I might surprise them. I don’t suppose your husband still drives his delivery van, does he?”

      “Ah, poor Manuelo, he is gone now.”

      “Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

      “But I can drive you this far. My daughter Laura will keep the store for me. Laura! You remember Laura, don’t you?”

      “Naturally I remember Laura. I remember everybody and everything. How could I forget?”

      We exchanged a look of deep, futile understanding that lasted as long as it took for Mrs. Medeiro’s daughter, Miss Laura, scatter-haired and dumpy in a floral housedress, to emerge from some back room, clasp her hands, and express her absolute astonishment that the great Miranda Schuyler had returned to the Island at last, that she stood right here in the middle of their humble store.

      “Or must we call you Miranda Thomas?” she asked, pretending not to eye the shiner that disfigured the left side of my face.

      “Just Miranda will do. I’m here unofficially, you understand.”

      “Ah, I see.” She smoothed her hair with one hand and looked at her mother, and some communication passed between them, to which Mrs. Medeiro replied with a small shrug. Miss Laura picked up a dishcloth and put it down again. I was opening my mouth to speak when she burst out, “What was it like to kiss Roger Moore?”

      “Laura!” snapped her mother.

      I slipped the sunglasses back over my eyes. “Just exactly as you might think,” I said.

      We were halfway to Greyfriars before I asked Mrs. Medeiro about her grandson, and she took her time to answer me.

      “He’s well,” she said, “the last I heard.”

      “He never did answer any of my letters. I wrote and wrote.”

      “He thought this was best. There was no hope, you see.”

      I set my elbow on the edge of the window, which was rolled down all the way to allow the May breeze inside the fish-smelling cab. I might have looked out toward the sea, which was darkening into a purple twilight, but I didn’t. I knew what was out there, the cliffs dropping away into the water, and Fleet Rock like a dream against the horizon.

      Mrs. Medeiro changed gears to thrust the old van up the slope. “You have heard the news, yes?”

      “That he escaped from prison? Yes, I heard.”

      “Is that—” She bit herself off and rattled her thumbs against the steering wheel.

      “Is that why I’ve come back, you mean? Because of Joseph escaping from prison?”

      “I’m sorry. It’s your business, why you’re here.”

      “It’s a logical question. I don’t blame you for asking. I mean, he’s bolted from his prison, and now I’ve—well, here I am, fresh from London.”

      “So you are here for him?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      “Oh.” Mrs. Medeiro glanced at me. “I just—well, the police already came, the detectives, the marshals. I mean, they searched everywhere. They could not find him.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ