Then, after folding it carefully, she put it it into her suitcase along with the conch. When Jean arrived a few hours later, Adrienne was leaning against the railing on the back porch, looking toward the sky again.
Jean was her normal, exuberant self, happy to see Adrienne, happy to be back home, and talking incessantly about the wedding and the old hotel in Savannah where she had stayed. Adrienne let Jean go on with her stories without interruption, and after dinner, she told Jean that she wanted to take a walk on the beach. Thankfully, Jean passed on the invitation to go with her.
When she got back, Jean was unpacking in her room, and Adrienne made herself a cup of hot tea and went to sit near the fireplace. As she was rocking, she heard Jean enter the kitchen.
“Where are you?” Jean called out.
“In here,” Adrienne answered.
Jean rounded the corner a moment later. “Did I hear the teakettle whistle?”
“I just made a cup.”
“Since when do you drink tea?”
Adrienne gave a short laugh but didn’t answer.
Jean settled in the rocker beside her. Outside, the moon was rising, hard and brilliant, making the sand glow with the color of antique pots and pans.
“You’ve been kind of quiet tonight,” Jean said.
“Sorry.” Adrienne shrugged. “I’m just a little tired. I guess I’m just ready to go home.”
“I’m sure. I was counting the miles as soon as I left Savannah, but at least there wasn’t much traffic. Off-season, you know.”
Adrienne nodded.
Jean leaned back in her chair. “Did it go okay with Paul Flanner? I hope the storm didn’t ruin his stay.”
Hearing his name made Adrienne’s throat catch, but she tried to appear calm. “I don’t think the storm bothered him at all,” she said.
“Tell me about him. From his voice, I got the impression that he was kind of stuffy.”
“No, not all. He was… nice.”
“Was it strange being alone with him?”
“No. Not once I got used to it.”
Jean waited to see if Adrienne would add anything else, but she didn’t.
“Well… good,” Jean continued. “And you didn’t have any trouble boarding up the house?”
“No.”
“I’m glad. I appreciate your doing that for me. I know you were hoping for a quiet weekend, but I guess fate wasn’t on your side, huh?”
“I suppose not.”
Perhaps it was the way she said it that drew Jean’s glance, a curious expression on her face. Suddenly needing space, Adrienne finished her tea.
“I hate to do this to you, Jean,” she said, trying her best to make her voice sound natural, “but I think I’ll call it a night. I’m tired, and I’ve got a long drive tomorrow. I’m glad you had a good time at the wedding.”
Jean’s eyebrows rose slightly at her friend’s abrupt ending to the evening.
“Oh… well, thank you,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Adrienne could feel Jean’s uncertain gaze on her, even as she made her way up the stairs. After unlocking the door to the blue room, she slipped out of her clothes and crawled into the bed, naked and alone.
She could smell Paul on the pillow and on the sheets, and she absently traced her breast as she buried herself in the smell, fighting sleep until she could do so no longer. When she rose the following morning, she started a pot of coffee and took another walk on the beach.
She passed two other couples in the half hour she spent outside. A front had pushed warmer air over the island, and she knew the day would lure even more people to the water’s edge.
Paul would have arrived at the clinic by now, and she wondered what it was like. She had an image in her mind, something she might have seen on one of the nature channels—a series of hastily assembled buildings surrounded by an encroaching jungle, ruts in a curving dirt road out front, exotic birds chirping in the background—but she doubted that she was right. She wondered if he had talked to Mark yet and how the meeting had gone, and whether Paul, like she, was still reliving the weekend in his mind.
The kitchen was empty when she got back. She could see the sugar bowl open by the coffeemaker with an empty cup beside it. Upstairs, she could hear the faint sound of someone humming.
Adrienne followed the sound, and when she reached the second floor, she could see the door to the blue room cracked open. Adrienne drew nearer, pushing the door open farther, and saw Jean bending over, tucking in the final corner