A Christmas to Remember Read Online Free PDF

the photo over and checked the inscription on the back. Charlotte and Lillian. Newburyport Yacht Club. August 1955.
    Grandma had been a stunner. No doubt about it.
    Cape Light, August 1955
    L ILLIAN LED THE WAY DOWN THE SHORELINE TO AN EMPTY STRETCH of beach with a determined, long-legged stride. She carried an umbrella, a beach bag, and a cooler, which didn’t seem to slow her in the least. The others trudged behind, rolling their eyes at one another.
    “I feel like I’m marching across the Sahara,” Bess, one of Charlotte’s friends, complained.
    “Did you ever see that movie with Frank Sinatra, when he signs up for the Foreign Legion? He’s dreamy,” another named Penny replied. “I’d follow him across a desert anytime.”
    “That was Gary Cooper, you goose,” Charlotte corrected her.
    “I don’t care who it was,” Bess cut in sharply. “How far are we supposed to go? I haven’t been hiking like this since summer camp.”
    Lillian sensed a mutiny on her hands, but she wouldn’t be swayed. Crane’s Beach was the best in the area for swimming and one of the prettiest. But also, the most crowded. She rarely spent time at the shore anymore, and she wasn’t about to sit in the middle of Grand Central Station, blankets edge to edge, noisy children kicking sand at you. She wanted to see the water without peering around a forest of umbrellas and beach chairs.
    “Lily, I can’t walk another step.” Charlotte let out a long breath. Her face was glowing, the same color as her flamingo-pink sundress. “I have to sit.”
    Charlotte dropped her chair and did just that, plunking down on the sand without waiting to open it.
    “Me, too. For goodness sake. I’ve had it, girls.” Bess did the same. She wore a white turban over her hair with large dark glasses and pedal pushers over her halter-top bathing suit. Lillian suspected Bess thought she looked very glamorous, but Lillian didn’t think she had any taste at all.
    Bess quickly pulled a compact out of her straw bag and checked her lipstick. It was perfectly applied, her lips taking on an exaggerated bow shape, but she swiped an extra coat on anyway.
    Lillian hardly used cosmetics; her mother insisted it made a girl look “cheap.” She certainly didn’t wear any to the beach; it didn’tmake sense to her at all. But Charlotte and her friends seemed to think they were naked without their artfully applied layers and were always asking each other if their lipstick was still fresh.
    Lillian jabbed the bottom half of the umbrella pole into the sand, anchoring it firmly, then fit the top half in, and opened the umbrella. The others spread out blankets, undressed down to their bathing suits, and stretched out to sun themselves while they paged through the latest issue of Screen Magazine .
    They barely spoke to Lillian and she could tell she was only tolerated for Charlotte’s sake. She didn’t care. She felt the same about them. They had no serious interests or stimulating conversation. Lillian took out the book she was reading, a current bestseller, Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar . She doubted any of Charlotte’s friends had cracked open a real book since college. She wasn’t even sure Bess had gone to college. Maybe some no-name, two-year school. She was just a second-rate debutante, waiting for a rich, young man to marry her. At least Charlotte had become a teacher; that Lillian could respect.
    “How was the party at the yacht club last night? Did I miss anything?” Bess spoke without looking up from her magazine.
    “I didn’t go either.” Penny had taken out a manicure set and was industriously working on her nails. “Charlotte went—with Lillian, right?”
    Bess seemed amused. “Did you have fun, Lily?”
    Lillian didn’t know what to say. “It was interesting.”
    “Oliver Warwick cornered her out on the deck. He wouldn’t leave her alone,” Charlotte added. “He asked her to go out with him today, but she kept saying no. He’s called