Moon Shell Beach: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

the door to her bedroom and hid away, phoning Clare.
    But Clare wasn’t home.
    Clare was with Jesse.
    Lexi couldn’t blame Clare for being infatuated with Jesse. It wasn’t just his blond hair, blue eyes, and easy smile, it was his entire
Jesse-ness
that made him irresistible. Still, when Clare and Jesse had hooked up in their senior year of high school, Lexi had quietly assumed they wouldn’t last. Jesse never stayed with anyone for more than a few weeks. So she had listened patiently while Clare sang Jesse’s praises and confided that they were making love—she’d said “making love,” not “having sex,” and confessed that she was madly in love with him. Lexi thought Clare was deluded, and would be hurt when Jesse dumped her for someone else, but she humored Clare and vowed to herself she would be there for Clare when things fell apart.
    But that didn’t happen. As their senior year wore on, Jesse stuck with Clare, and stopped sleeping around. They became a real couple,
the
couple in the school. Lexi found herself relegated to the background. Clare never had time to be with Lexi; she was always with Jesse. Clare stopped confiding in Lexi; she didn’t want to betray Jesse’s confidences, although she did tell Lexi that Jesse secretly wanted to be a folk singer, but everyone knew that, he was getting a band together. Lexi felt rejected by Clare, even betrayed, which made her feel inferior to Clare, and, in truth, wasn’t she inferior? Popular Jesse had plucked Clare out of the crowd. No one had chosen Lexi. Oh, she had dates, and plenty of guys tried to get in her pants, but no one was in love with her.
    While Clare and Lexi were at UMass together, Jesse stayed on the island, working as a carpenter. Clare had more time for Lexi, and their friendship had grown strong again. Then, what Lexi had half feared, half hoped would happen came about. Clare got news that Jesse was sleeping around. She came to Lexi with her tears and anger and grief, and Lexi felt a mixture of sorrow and relief. She told Clare what she truly believed—that Jesse wasn’t right for her, that he wasn’t good enough for her, that she would find real love, true love, with someone else.
    And now Clare and Lexi were home from college. Jesse had snapped his fingers, and Clare had gone to him as quickly as if he were a hypnotist and she his subject. Clare got a job working for a gourmet shop, and what free time Clare had, she spent with Jesse.
    This summer Lexi was determined not to be so lame. After all, this past year she’d gained enough confidence to have her first love affair, with a hunky UMass quarterback, and
she
’d been the one to break up with him. So she was experienced, less dependent on Clare. She had other friends on the island, after all. She stopped phoning Clare and sought them out, and when she wasn’t working, or collapsing after work, she met friends at the beach or at a bar for a drink.
    She also quit working at her parents’ store and got a job cleaning houses during the day. At night, she waitressed at a posh restaurant, La Maison. She stopped buying celebrity magazines and nail polish, and slowly her small bank account began to grow. She was determined to be optimistic.
    But in her new jobs she recognized, more than ever before, that the distance between her life and the lives of the really rich was immense—an almost unbridgeable chasm.
    The houses she cleaned were stunning, with paintings and sculptures that took her breath away. Each room was a work of art all by itself, the colors so perfectly coordinated, even the island landscape was framed by windows to appear as another masterpiece money could buy. She didn’t mind cleaning the houses—they were so flawlessly decorated, it was like playing house.
    She thought she’d enjoy working at the posh French restaurant, too, but the other waitstaff and the chef at La Maison were a chummy, tight little club who spoke French with one another and snubbed Lexi. And the