“She lives in that same cottage with her partner, Jackie,” Chloe said.
“They raise golden retrievers. Linda is a lesbian.”
Chloe revealed that fact as easily as if she’d said that Linda was a teacher or a swim coach. Rory had had little experience with nuns, but he’d assumed that Chloe had become moralistic and judgmental. He hoped her matter- of-fact description of Linda meant that she had not. “Well, you never can tell how people are going to turn out, can you,” Rory said.
“What about your cousin? Ellen? What’s she doing?”
“She’s married,” Chloe said.
“She comes down every few weeks or so with her husband and kids.”
“Not this summer,” Daria said.
“I mean, Ellen and Ted will be here, I guess, but not her daughters. They’re traveling in Europe as part of a high-school exchange program,” she explained to Rory.
“Ellen’s a medical technician. She does mammograms all day.” Daria and Chloe laughed at that.
“I don’t know if you remember what she was like, but that job suits her perfectly.”
Rory smiled.
“She had a bit of a… sadistic streak, if I recall,” he said.
“You’ve got it,” Chloe said.
“What about the twins who lived next door to me?” Rory asked.
“Jill and… her brother. I can’t remember his name.”
“Jill and Brian Fletcher,” Daria said.
“Jill is still around.”
“The bonfire lady,” Shelly said.
“Yes.” Daria looked at Rory.
“Remember the annual bonfire we had on the beach near the end of each summer?” He had forgotten, but the memory slipped back easily. The huge, roaring fire. Great food. The sound of the ocean. Willing girls and the sheltering darkness. He nodded.
“Well, Jill has kept that tradition going,” Daria said.
“She has to get special permission each year, because bonfires are no longer allowed on the beach. She has to make the fire closer to the water, but she’s fanatical about it. She’s got a couple of teenagers, and her husband comes down on the weekends. I don’t know what happened to Brian, her brother.” Daria looked at Chloe, who shrugged.
“Haven’t seen him in years,” Chloe said.
Rory was pleased to hear that some of the old residents were still around, although he was disappointed that Cindy Trump was not one of them. He’d always thought that Cindy somehow held the key to the mystery of the foundling.
He looked at Shelly. She was a striking young woman, with large, light brown eyes, that long blond hair, a willowy body and perfect tan.
Sitting there on the floor of the living room, she was all legs and arms and gossamer hair. She’d been wearing the same ingenuous smile since his arrival, and he realized that she had a childlike way of speaking, a simplicity about her. He’d lived with Polly long enough to recognize it, and he wondered if Shelly’s rude introduction to the world had left her with some brain damage.
“How about you. Shelly?” he asked.
“What are you up to?”
“I work at St. Esther’s Church as a housekeeper,” she said proudly.
“And I design shell jewelry.”
“Shell jewelry?” he repeated.
“Uh-huh.” She stood up and walked out to the porch for a moment. Back inside, she handed him a choker, a small, gold-plated starfish set in the center of a strand of tiny shells. He was impressed. He’d expected shell jewelry to be a bit on the tacky side, but this was certainly not.
He looked up at Shelly.
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Was this a real starfish?”
“Yes,” she said, taking the choker back from him.
“I collect the shells on the beach. It’s hard to find a starfish that size, though.”
“It’s wonderful. Shelly,” he said.
“What do you do with the jewelry after you’ve finished it?”
“I sell it at the gift shop on…” She looked to Daria for help.
“Consignment,” Daria said. “Pretty cool, huh?” Shelly said, grinning at him.
