Diane Chamberlain - Summer's Child

He laughed. His life was open to the public.

“I guess I have no secrets,” he said.

“That must be strange,” Daria said. She sounded sympathetic. “But the news just reports the facts about a celebrity. So and so got divorced. So and so landed in a mental hospital. They don’t say how so and so feels about what happened to him.”

“Good point,” Rory said.

“Well, I can sum up my feelings about those events pretty quickly. Losing my parents was the pits—they were too young. Losing Polly was even worse, as you can imagine.”

“I bet,” Daria said.

“My divorce was… difficult, but a relief in the long run. And my son is the best thing that ever happened to me, although he hasn’t figured that out yet.”

“Who is Polly?” Shelly asked.

“My sister,” he said.

“Why did she die?” Shelly asked.

“She had Down’s syndrome,” Rory said.

“It affected her heart.”

“She was so fair,” Daria said.

“I remember she’d always burn, every summer, no matter how much lotion your mom put on her.”

“That was Polly,” Rory agreed.

“She wasn’t much of a beach person.” He looked at Chloe.

“So,” he said, “now all of you know what I’ve been up to. How about the three of you? Chloe? You were so smart. You were in college before I could even spell the word. I remember you were studying history, right? You wanted to be a teacher. Is that what you are?”

The three women laughed, and he raised his eyebrows, surprised.

“I’m wrong, I take it?” he asked.

“Well, no, you’re not wrong,” Chloe said slowly, coyly. T teach history and English at a Catholic school in Georgia during the year.

“

Shelly giggled.

“Chloe is really Sister Chloe,” she said.

“Sister Chloe?” he repeated, confused.

“I’m a nun,” Chloe said.

“Oh!” He knew he couldn’t prevent the shock from showing in his face.

Chloe Cato was a nun? He suddenly remembered that the Cato family had been very religious. Mr. Cato had gone to church early every morning, and he and his wife had been very strict, requiring Daria and Chloe and their cousin, Ellen, to come inside as soon as it got dark, while the other kids were still playing on the beach. Still, this was hard to believe.

Chloe’s head might be telling her she was a nun, but her body and beauty were doing their best to deny it. He still remembered how she looked in a bikini: those large breasts, tiny waist and narrow hips.

The boys on the beach had followed her around with their tongues hanging out. He remembered everyone ruling Chloe out as a suspect in the deserted-baby incident because, except for those breasts, she had been notoriously thin. Anorectic, almost. Yet that body was hidden now beneath long, loose shorts and a baggy T-shirt.

“I think you’ve rendered him speechless,” Daria said to Chloe with a laugh.

“I just … hadn’t expected that.” He laughed himself. That explained Chloe’s reserve in greeting him.

“So, do nuns get the summer off? Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m working at St. Esther’s, the Catholic church in Nag’s Head, for the summer,” Chloe said.

“I’ve been doing that the past few summers, running a day camp for kids.”

“Well, I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re doing, Daria,” he said.

“I’m a carpenter,” she said.

Rory laughed.

“I should have guessed,” he said.

“For real?”

“For real,” she said.

“I probably have sawdust in my hair right now.”

“I was wondering what that was,” he said.

“I thought maybe it was a new Outer Banks trend.”

“It’s just a Daria Cato trend.” Shelly grinned. “I was working on a bookshelf for a cottage in Duck when Chloe told me you were here. There’s always a lot of building going on in the Outer Banks.”

“Are you living here year-round?” he asked. Despite the fact that Shelly’s letter bore the Kill Devil Hills return address, it was hard for him to imagine anyone living here year-round. For him, the Outer Banks had always meant summer and the beach.

“Uh-huh,” Daria said.

“Shelly and I have lived here for the past ten years.”

“Wow.” He wondered what it would be like to live smack on the beach during the winter.

“Daria’s also an EMT,” Shelly said. There was pride in her voice.

“An EMT?” he asked.

“Emergency medical technician?”

“Well, I was,” Daria said.

“I’m taking some time off.”

“A lifesaver.” Rory studied her with admiration.

“You started that avocation early, didn’t you?” He looked at Shelly.

“She was only ten years old when she saved your life.”

“Eleven,” Daria corrected.

“I know,” said Shelly.

“People around here call her Supergirl.”

“I remember!” he said, flashing back to the newspaper articles that followed Shelly’s discovery on the beach.

“They still call you that after all this time?”

‘“Fraid so,” Daria said.

“I’ll be sixty and they’ll still call me Supergirl.”

“It’s because she’s kept on saving people,” Shelly said.

“She’s the local hero.”

“I’ll never forget that day.” He wondered if he should tell them now that Shelly’s letter had prompted his visit to Kill Devil Hills this summer, but he had more catching up to do first. He set his empty glass on the coffee table.

“Is there anybody else left on the cul-de-sac from the old days?” he asked.

“I noticed Cindy Trump’s cottage is gone.”

“There was a bad storm in ‘82,” Daria said.

“The ocean swallowed their cottage in one gulp. It did a lot of damage to the Sea Shanty, too, but your cottage was spared.”

“The Wheelers are still around,” Chloe said.

“Do you remember them?

They live next door. “

“Still?” He remembered a quiet older couple who often strolled on the beach in the evening, hand in hand.

“They’re still living?”

“They’re only in their seventies,” Daria said.

“Their cottage is filled with their grandchildren all summer long.” “Did he know Linda and her dogs?” Shelly asked.

“Yeah, you knew Linda, right?” Daria asked.

He narrowed his eyes in concentration, picturing a mousy young girl lying on the beach with her nose in a book.

“I think so,” he said.

“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.”