Wendy Wax - The House on Mermaid Point

* * *

Madeline Singer had barely left the island before Will had the feeling that someone had hung a cartoon bubble over his head that said, Ream this man a new asshole.

Avery stomped up to him that same day and accosted him where he lay in the hammock, telling him that Maddie had only been doing what she’d been told. And that everything they did on this island, no matter how inconvenient, was for his benefit.

Nicole had sat a table away from him during an extravagant four-course meal Deirdre served one night in the pavilion and told Kyra—just loud enough for Will to hear—that some men couldn’t see the island for the palm trees. And that they rarely thought with the right part of their anatomies.

A couple days later when he stopped to build a sand castle with Dustin, Kyra informed him that her mother was not a woman who should be taken lightly; that she wasn’t someone to be “dallied with”—a phrase they both winced at. And that she deserved way more respect than Will had shown her.

Dustin looked at him through huge brown unblinking eyes and Will had the distinct impression that if Dustin could have strung more than two or three words together, he would have given him a mouthful for hurting his beloved Geema.

Even Roberto, who’d been stoned for close to four decades, had bopped over and told him that he’d seriously fucked things up with Maddie.

Will, who normally liked his fishing quiet, railed all the way out into Florida Bay about Maddie sticking her nose into his business and complained about the slap-downs everyone had given him on her behalf. Hud barely said a word, which of course, spoke volumes. And when he did finally speak all he said was, “You’re a moron. Stop your bitching and moaning and think about what she said to you.” Because of course his island was no longer private and the argument he’d had with Maddie had clearly been overheard.

Between the army of subcontractors and the continued lack of a pool, it really sucked on Mermaid Point in Madeline’s absence. Dinnertime fell apart without her there to make them follow the chart. There was an unspoken understanding that they’d all pretend they’d followed it when she got back, but in the meantime they made sandwiches and microwaved frozen dinners and snacks. To Will, Madeline Singer felt even more present in her absence. He wanted to tell them all that they didn’t need to protect her. At least not from him. That she’d spoken far more eloquently on her own behalf than pretty much any woman he’d ever known.

Still, it was almost a relief when the last of them came and told him off. He assumed Deirdre was the last, anyway—unless some random people were planning to appear to read him the riot act. She came and sat down in the Adirondack chair beside his one morning after he’d settled in to watch the sun vault up into the sky.

“Maddie asked me to give this to you. She’d like you to read it.” Deirdre placed a magazine in his hands.

“She wants me to read People magazine?” He looked down at the cover. He’d never been a particular fan of Matthew Perry.

“No, she wants you to read this article.” Deirdre reached over, flipped the pages to the right spot, and placed it back in his hands.

“Yeah, I’ll get to it as soon as I can.” He set it on the Adirondack’s flat arm and turned back to the sky, which was threaded in pinks and blues.

“No. I promised her I’d make sure you read it.” Deirdre placed it back in his hands. “It’s not all that long. Go ahead.” She picked up a cup of coffee that she’d set on the sand. “I’ve got all the time in the world. I can wait.”

Will read the article not as surprised as he might once have been that he and Madeline Singer had found themselves on the same wavelength. In fact, he read it twice. Just in case one of them showed up with a test that Maddie had left for him to take afterward.

* * *

Maddie had no idea how they’d accomplished it, but by late afternoon the day before the closing their life had been pared down, divided up, and packed into boxes that now resided in side-by-side storage units. She was physically exhausted, though that was something she’d become used to. Her heart hurt, too, thudding dully as she walked through the house one last time, her footsteps echoing loudly on the hardwood floors. The sound was as hollow as her chest now that the time had truly come to let go.

The closing was a business transaction with no room for emotion, just signing and initialing. The buyers’ side of the table appeared far happier than hers. The new owners were young, the wife pregnant with their first child. Their faces shone with happiness and anticipation for the future.

She ate lunch with Steve at a restaurant in the Brookhaven area not far from the MARTA station. He’d offered her a ride to the airport but she’d had just the one bag and had opted to take the train, which would deliver her right into the terminal.

Maddie picked at her food, still thinking about the door that had closed behind her and unsure what door or window might open in its place. There was enough money between her share from the sale of Bella Flora and the house here to relocate. She had no idea whether this season of Do Over had done well enough to justify another and if it did it was anybody’s guess where they’d end up next and under what kind of circumstances. Maddie enjoyed working with Avery, Deirdre, and Nicole, but television and film had been Kyra’s dream not hers. Did Kyra want to live with or near her so that she could help with Dustin? She didn’t have to stay in Atlanta. Theoretically she could go anywhere, do anything. She was spoiled by the daily contact with her daughter and her grandson and couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like to live without them.

She’d tuned Steve out while she contemplated her options and reminded herself yet again that she didn’t have to decide anything today. She needed to go back to Mermaid Point and help see the renovation through and then, well, then she’d regroup and see what made the most sense.

“Did you hear what I said, Mad?”

“Hm?” She looked up and saw Steve watching her. His gray eyes were serious; his face intent. “Sorry. No.”

“I was saying I wish we could give it another go. That maybe we could start over. You know, try again.”

“What?”

“I’ve missed you and the life we had.” His voice rang with sincerity. “We could scale down together. Maybe take a condo in Buckhead or in Midtown. We could even just rent for a while and be, I don’t know, kind of footloose and fancy-free.”

“Why would we do that?” She looked more closely and saw the twitch in one eye, the trouble he was having keeping his hands still. “What’s happened to Kelly?”

“Oh, nothing. That relationship just kind of, I don’t know, ran its course.”

Their divorce had been mostly amicable. It had been clear to Maddie, at least, that their relationship had been far too damaged by everything that had happened to do anything but limp along. She had thought that being alone was preferable to being part of something so broken. She’d thought Steve had felt the same.

“So, let me see if I understand this,” Maddie said. “You were okay without me when you had a job and a girlfriend. But now that you don’t have either . . .”

“It’s not that easy to be single and alone, Maddie. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you will.”

“It’s different all right.” But making her own decisions and charting her own path? That might be frightening, but it was also exciting. With each new experience she felt stronger and a step closer to becoming the person she’d never even dreamed she might be. “But being single isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” What they’d lived through and her loss of respect for him had been far worse.

“Pfft.” Steve waved his hand dismissively. “What kind of life do you think you’re going to have alone?” He honestly seemed to believe she couldn’t be happy without him.

“I’m not alone,” she said, glancing at her watch then signaling to their waitress for the check. “I have the children. And good friends that I know I can count on.” Lord knew, Avery, Nicole, and Deirdre had turned out to be the silver lining—and even the rainbow—that had come with the thunderstorm of Malcolm Dyer’s Ponzi scheme.

At Maddie’s continued protests Steve’s expression turned petulant; never a good look for him. They made the short drive to the MARTA station in silence. There she thanked him for the ride, wished him luck, and reached for the door handle.

“You know, the world’s not exactly sitting there waiting for you.”

“I’m sorry?” She turned in the seat but didn’t let go of the handle.

“I said the world’s not waiting for you, Madeline Singer. The world is not your oyster. You’re fifty-one years old. And you’ve spent your entire adult life driving carpools and serving snacks after Little League games. Who do you think’s going to even look at you, let alone want you?”

In her former life she might have turned the other cheek. Or at least gotten out of the car without even symbolically slapping his. But the taunting tone and accompanying smirk on his face were too much for her.

“Well, I wasn’t going to mention it but William Hightower did.” She smiled what she hoped was a Mona Lisa smile filled with mystery and sexual knowledge then got out of the car and retrieved her bag from the backseat. She leaned her head in the open passenger-side door. “I guess you’ve been too busy to watch the show or surf the Internet. Let’s just say I now know exactly why they call him ‘Wild Will.’”

His mouth was still open in shock when she slammed the car door shut and walked away.

When Maddie arrived at the Mermaid Point dock, the boathouse and the upstairs suites were already a bright tropical green with white trim. She’d seen Will’s skiff in the boathouse cradle and immediately braced for the moment she might run into him. She dropped her suitcase off on the houseboat, passed the newly refinished pool and palm-tree-edged deck, amazed at how much had been accomplished on the island in her absence.

Avery walked her through the main house like a proud mother showing off an especially talented child, stopping every minute or two to share a story or give an explanation. In the kitchen Roberto hung the upper cabinets while Fred Strahlendorf, back with a shiny new pencil protector, connected the new appliances. With the new glass composite countertops completed, a plumbing crew set toilets, hooked up faucets, and put in showerheads in the four guest suites. “They’ll finish all the bathrooms today then come back to hook up the dishwasher and kitchen sink once the zinc countertops go in. The refrigerator and icemaker under the stairs are operational as of about ten minutes ago,” Avery explained.

Nicole and Deirdre stood on tall ladders in front of the fireplace pressing shells, rocks, and chunks of barnacles and coral into the still-soft concrete that ran up the wall to the ceiling.

“Wow, that looks great!” Maddie moved closer to get a better look.

“Thanks.” Deirdre smiled. “Fortunately our technique seems to be improving. We did a smaller version in the garage guesthouse and found out the hard way that it works a lot better if you work your way up in sections.”

Maddie turned slowly, trying to take in the whole space. The plank floors shone under a light gloss of polyurethane. The acid-washed pecky cypress lightened the entire space, and the glass accordion doors that now stretched across the ocean side of the house maximized the view and allowed the sunshine to stream through unchecked.

“You just fold them open and push them to the wall when the weather’s good, and voila—it’s all outdoor space,” Avery enthused. “Just wait ’til you see how they open up the master suite.”

Maddie smiled gamely, still braced for the first encounter with Will. Though surely whatever William’s reaction might be to her, it was hard to imagine anyone could have a complaint with the renovation. The kitchen cabinetry was clean lined and the new commercial appliances fit perfectly with the Wolf range’s huge stainless steel hood. A railing had been run down the new stair and a collection of wooden boat paddles of various shapes, sizes, and colors stood nearby. Avery held one up to demonstrate how they’d be screwed in to serve as spindles.

“Those are going to look fabulous,” Maddie said. “Although I was kind of hoping never to see one again after we had to paddle back that morning.”