Beach Trip Read Online Free PDF

eyes with her hand and squinting at the
Miss Behavin’.
But Lola had already seen them and was running across the deck and the gangway toward the dock. She looked like a girl, with her hair loose about her shoulders and her feet bare. She was wearing a pair of white capris, a sleeveless shirt, and dark-rimmed sunglasses.
    “My God, you look like a movie star,” Mel called to her.
    She threw her arms around Mel and then hugged each one of them, laughing. Even Annie got caught up in her exuberance and smiled shyly. “I brought deviled eggs,” she said.
    Out in the water the crowded ferry gave two sharp whistle blows, then pulled slowly away from the dock. People sat up top or below in the covered cabin, their faces pressed eagerly to the glass. Seagulls followed noisily in the wake of the huge ship.
    Lola waved at the passing ferry like she was hailing a taxi.
    “Is that yacht really yours?” Sara asked, watching as the
Miss Behavin’
rolled lightly in the ferry’s wake.
    “It’s not mine,” Lola said. “It’s Briggs’s.”
    “The eggs are in the cooler,” Annie said. “But we should probably get them into the refrigerator.”
    “Will you shut up about the damn deviled eggs?” Mel said.
    Annie ignored her. She had learned long ago to ignore Mel. She turned her head slightly and watched as the ferry moved slowly toward the open sound. “I make mine with fresh chives,” she added, getting the last word in.
    “Come on,” Lola said before Mel could reply, putting her arm around Annie and pulling her gently toward the boat. “I’ll introduce you to Captain Mike.”
    He was climbing down the steps to the deck when they boarded. “Welcome aboard,” he said, taking off a baseball cap that read, WHAT WOULD ELVIS DO? He ran his fingers through his sun-bleached hair. Mel guessed he was somewhere between thirty-five and forty, not really handsome, but attractive in a faded-athlete kind of way He called Lola
Mrs. Furman
, very proper, very correct. She called him
Captain
or just plain
Mike.
He had a self-assured air that Mel found vaguely annoying. He shook hands with everyone and then went to help April with the groceries. She smiled at him and he grinned and gave the trolley a playful tug.
So that’s how it is
, Mel thought, watching the two of them together.
    The ride to the island took only fifteen minutes. Sunlight sparkled on the choppy water of the sound. In the distance, past two narrow spits of land that curved inward like pincers, the sea was a wide blue haze. Lola, Mel, Sara, and Annie sat out on the aft deck, where it was too windy to talk, their hair whipping around their faces. April was in the galley and Captain Mike was up on the flying bridge. Mel wanted to ask Lola about him but it was hard to talk with the noise of the engines and the roar of the wind in their ears. She was pretty sure Briggs had planted Captain Mike and April to keep an eye on Lola. They were probably paid to send detailed reports to Briggs every night; after London, he wasn’t about to trust Lola with her crazy girlfriends unchaperoned.
    Mel wasn’t sure how Lola had stood it all these years, being married to Briggs Furman. He was as jealous and controlling as Lola’s mother had been, ruling Lola’s life with an iron fist. Still, Mel thought, watching the way the wind caught Lola’s hair, the way the sun slanted across her smooth, pretty face, Lola looked better than she had in years. She seemed animated and confident. She definitely looked better than she had in London a few years ago, where she had wandered about as numb and bewildered as a lost child.
    The boat sped over the blue waves, past dolphins swimming in precise formation, past a buoy that rocked and dipped with their passing. Ahead they could see the island in the distance, with its lighthouse, Old Baldy rising from the interior like a giant chess piece. A sailboat passed in front of them, its sails straining with the wind. As they approached the island,