Moon Shell Beach: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

customers were from another galaxy. Some were older couples, the women with coiffed hair and a Queen Elizabeth kind of style, but lots of diners were in their twenties or early thirties, and these women, just a bit older than Lexi, took her breath away with their expensive clothing and casual elegance. She envied their looks, their laughter—she envied the way they
smelled.
But most of all, she envied them their experiences.
    As she attended to their every need, offering them menus, pouring more water or wine, setting plates before them, brushing crumbs away, she couldn’t help but hear them talk about their trips to Paris, or the opening of the Impressionist show at the Met, or their little jaunt over to Tuscany. They weren’t all empty-headed bimbos, either, although Lexi wished they were. Some of the most dazzling women were archaeologists, or lawyers, or art historians.
Art historian!
Lexi thought. It seemed the most splendid thing she’d ever heard of.
    The men who squired these glittering women were handsome, too, some of them, and all of them accustomed to being in command. Lexi was aware of the way the men’s eyes slid over her, taking in her long legs and sleek figure, and occasionally a guy winked at her or smiled as he met her eyes, and Lexi’s hopes would waken. But the men always returned their gaze to the women they were with, and Lexi knew—it was an old, old story on this island—that the most she could ever be to one of these men was, at best, a summer’s dalliance; at worst, an easy lay.
    She resigned herself. At least she made great tips. Yet every evening after serving people with good educations and wealthy backgrounds, she went home to a house that was becoming shabby with neglect, and she would hear her parents in the kitchen, going over the books, trying to cope with the failure of the store that had supported them all their lives.
    She didn’t want to become bitter like some of her high school friends, who made up nasty names for the women whose homes they cleaned, whose parties they catered, whose children they tended. Once or twice she managed to wrench Clare away from Jesse, and that helped. Clare wasn’t bitter. Clare was so in love with Jesse, she didn’t want any life but her own.
    But Clare also loved the island more than Lexi did, or loved it in a different way; that was becoming more and more clear to Lexi. Clare wanted to live on Nantucket after college, but Lexi wanted to travel, she wanted to see the Louvre and the Coliseum, she wanted to hear symphonies and attend theater. At least she wanted the chance to see other places and live a little before settling down to spend her life serving the wealthy.
             
    One Saturday night early in June, when they weren’t full, Lexi was surprised to see Lauren, the hostess, whip away from the front door and meet in a buzz with the other waiters and the owner/chef.
    “What’s going on?” Lexi asked Peter, a waiter who would at least speak to her in English.
    “It’s Ed Hardin,” Peter said. “Lauren doesn’t want to seat him.”
    “Ed Hardin?” Lexi peered around the corner at the group of men standing by the door. “Wow.”
    That summer the Nantucket community hated Ed Hardin. A real estate mogul, he was cunning, ruthless, and powerful. During the winter, Hardin had bought up luxuriant, unspoiled acreage between the moors and the ocean and developed it into a mini-suburb of enormous, expensive trophy mansions that drove the wildlife out of their shelter and towered arrogantly above the landscape, blocking the views of longtime residents, providing nothing good for the island and lots of money for Ed Hardin.
    “We can refuse service to anyone!” Lauren was hissing.
    “Get a grip,” Phil, the chef/owner, snapped. “If you want to be moralistic, go to divinity school. We’re here to make money, and Ed Hardin has more money than Midas, so shut up and smile.”
    Angrily, Lauren glared around at the waitstaff.