CHAPTER ONE

November 2017

The sky was gray and dismal when Tally stepped out of the terminal at Jacksonville International Airport, but it still looked beautiful to her. It had been exactly 41 days since Hurricane Maria whacked the tiny island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as a Category 5 storm that utterly ruined her life. She’d known instantly that she wouldn’t be staying on the little Caribbean paradise after everything on the island that wasn’t concrete was flattened overnight. It had taken her more than a month to get evacuated back stateside. And she was one of the lucky ones.

Once she made it back to Florida, Tally hopped on a flight from Miami to Jacksonville that boarded shortly after she arrived at the big international airport. She ran from security to her gate at full speed, determined not to miss the next important leg of her journey home. She was so close she could practically smell the salt air and the pluff mud at low tide on Jekyll Island.

Her goal was to make it to the Jekyll Island causeway before dark so she could see the marshes and appreciate the beauty of it all as she arrived. Tally had always firmly believed that arriving on the barrier island in the dark was pointless because the view on the way in was so incredible that if you missed it, you’d missed something magical.

She was startled out of her daydream when the guy behind her in line at the Avis counter tapped her on the shoulder and gestured for her to go up to the counter.

“Next!” a fresh-faced kid with a stupid-looking man bun sang out to get her attention, and she quickly shook her head free of the distracting thoughts.

Tally rented a convertible for two weeks just for shits and giggles. She felt the need to celebrate. The last six weeks had been the worst time of her life. Even worse than when her parents died in a crash when she was 12. She was sad then, but she wasn’t scared for her life like she had been on Vieques after Hurricane Maria. She put a red Mustang convertible on her well-used American Express card and figured that she could always return it early if her plans changed.

“Do you need any help loading up your car, ma’am?” the counter agent asked after he handed her the key fob to her rental car and told her where it was parked.

Tally looked at the backpack she was using as a purse and the duffle bag she had been carrying on her back and shook her head. She’d been taking care of herself for several weeks and, now that she was almost home, she felt a renewed energy she hadn’t felt since before the storm. She knew it was hope. It was that annoying eternal optimism that usually plagued her personality but had been disturbingly absent lately. And it felt good to get it back.

She found her way out to a shiny red Ford Mustang convertible that only had about 1,500 miles on it. An attendant in the parking garage stepped out of his little booth to make sure she knew how to put the top up and down. Tally left it up because the weather was yucky, but she hoped that once she crossed the Georgia line she might drive out of the rain. Something about returning to Jekyll Island gave her hope again.

The rain was coming down in sheets as she drove north on Interstate 95 but even the lightning in the distance didn’t dampen her spirits. She was just glad to be back in the place she considered home after the longest, hottest, saddest six weeks of her life. She and Eduardo hadn’t made each other any promises when she left, and Tally knew it was over. He was good looking and sort of employed, and lots of girls would show up on his doorstep as soon as they heard his gringa girlfriend was gone. She’d be willing to bet his mother had a list of eligible Puerto Rican girls waiting in the wings the whole time Tally and Eduardo were dating.

It stopped raining just as she got off Interstate 95, and Tally pulled over into a parking lot at the beginning of the Jekyll causeway to lower the top on the convertible. It had been more than two years since she’d been home to Georgia and she didn’t want to miss a thing. Pulling her long hair up into a ponytail and yanking it through the back of a grungy baseball cap that had belonged to Eduardo, she put on the big Tory Burch sunglasses, her only pair to survive the hurricane. Then she turned up the radio and pulled back onto the causeway with a smile.

She was excited to be home and hoped her aunt would be there sooner rather than later. Tally had so much to tell her. She made a little vow not to let so much time pass between visits in the future. Aunt Etah wasn’t getting any younger. Her aunt had visited Vieques once shortly after Tally moved there, and after that, the two women had met up in San Juan twice, and St. Croix once, when her aunt was in those places covering something for the wire. Tally wondered, as she took in the wildflowers along the causeway and bright signs that warned of turtle crossings, why she had waited so long to come back. She took a deep breath of the marsh air that she dearly loved and thought to herself, “low tide.” She smiled. This was home.

When she got to the entry gate about a mile before the bridge to Jekyll Island, Tally bought a parking ticket for just one day. She knew Aunt Etah’s vehicles would all be registered at the gate and figured she’d probably be returning the rental car sooner than later. There was very little traffic and Tally turned up the music as Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” started playing. It seemed more than appropriate as she watched the marsh grasses turn golden in the impending sunset. Jekyll was definitely charmed.

She was bouncing and singing along full blast to the “doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo” part of the song and approaching the little bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway when she saw the red and blue flashing lights in her rearview mirror. Georgia state trooper, Tally thought. Shit shit shit. She hadn’t heard the siren over her music. Whoops.

Tally pulled over carefully, turned on her hazards, turned down her music, and put her hands on the steering wheel as the trooper approached, the way Aunt Etah had taught her when she got her driver’s license. The trooper took his time getting out of his car, which gave Tally an opportunity to berate herself for speeding on the Jekyll causeway. She knew better. She’d grown up here. The island had fewer than a thousand residents, but because the whole thing was technically a state park, there were 10 troopers assigned to their own barracks there. There was very little crime to speak of on the island so the troopers ran radar constantly. They also hid behind trees at stop signs, she reminded herself, as she watched a huge man get out of the police car and start toward the Mustang.

She started talking at full speed before the trooper had a chance to open his mouth.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I know better. I grew up here. I know not to speed. At all. Ever,” Tally babbled at 100 miles per hour. “I haven’t been back in years and I was so excited and then my favorite song came on and I totally spaced on the speed limit. I’m so sorry.”

“Welcome back, ma’am,” the trooper said in a deep voice. “May I see your license and registration?”

Shit, shit, shit, Tally thought to herself again as she dug out her Puerto Rican driver’s license and handed it over with the Avis rental car agreement.

Tally squinted in an effort to read his nametag – it had been a while but the island was small. Unfortunately, the sun hit the metal plate in such a way that it was unreadable and she quickly gave up.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” the trooper told her. He was polite but clearly wasn’t feeling social.

She watched in her mirrors as the trooper walked back to his car with her paperwork in his giant paw.

Tally texted Aunt Etah as she waited for the trooper to bring her a speeding ticket.

“Can you believe I’m sitting on the side of the causeway waiting for a trooper to finish writing me a ticket? I know better. Clearly, I need to visit more often,” Tally wrote and hit send.

When the trooper got back to her car a few minutes later, he was almost smiling but not quite. She grinned when she thought of all the jokes about how troopers are only superheroes when they have their hats on, and her big smile caused the trooper to actually show some teeth.

“Ma’am, I understand you’re excited to be back on Jekyll, but you’ve gotta slow it down,” he told her nicely. Then he handed her back her ID and Avis documents.

“Since you’re not wanted for anything and you have excellent taste in music, I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. But you’ve gotta slow it down while you’re here or I’m going to be seeing you again,” he warned. “Welcome back.”

Then he handed her a warning citation, turned on his heel, and walked back to his patrol car without further adieu. She watched him go and heaved a sigh of relief. While it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, a ticket wasn’t a good way to begin her fresh start. She chose not to view the close call as an omen.

Tally watched the trooper do a U-turn onto the causeway in his blue Dodge Charger and then slowly pulled the Mustang back onto the road. She turned her music back up before she crested the little bridge over the Jekyll River and slowed down even more, wanting to take it all in. She could see the historic Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s pier to her left and the framework of the island’s waterpark to her right, just above Sharktooth Beach. She giggled when she spotted the water towers – two of them, each designed to look like a golf ball sitting atop a tee – on the horizon.

She rolled slowly down the bridge, mindful of the 25 mile per hour speed limit that kicked in at the bottom, and not wanting to get stopped by the other Georgia state trooper she was sure was hiding behind a tree somewhere along her route before she even made it home. Most of the time, there were only two on duty unless it was a big festival weekend on the island, she remembered. But it had been a long time since she’d been home and things might have changed.

Tally was tempted to stop at the island’s one and only fast food restaurant – a Dairy Queen – to get a ginormous Blizzard. She’d been drinking warm water for two months and ice cream sounded heavenly. She checked to see if her rental car needed gas because the Dairy Queen was connected to the island’s only gas station, a Circle K. If she needed gas too maybe… but dammit, she didn’t. Avis had sent her out with a full tank and she was fine. So, she skipped the DQ in favor of raiding Aunt Etah’s fridge when she arrived, knowing her aunt always stocked multiple flavors of that good Talenti gelato. She needed the bathroom and a shower more than she needed ice cream. She’d eat whatever was in the house after she was clean.

Tally took Beachview Drive north along the water toward Aunt Etah’s house and admired all the little improvements and additions that had been added in the past few years. The miniature golf course had a new fence around it. And the walking and biking paths had been extended and improved in multiple places. The parking lot at Tortuga Jack’s, a waterfront tiki bar, was packed with cars as always.

Aunt Etah’s waterfront beach cottage was the last house on the last street of single-family homes along the ocean side of the island. After that, there were some townhouses and condos, and then the famous Driftwood Beach that wasn’t really driftwood. Tally had run rampant on all of it as a teenager when she was home from boarding school. She’d spent all her holidays and summer vacations on the island. Aunt Etah always let her invite friends to visit with her so she’d have somebody to hang out with when there weren’t any other kids around. There were only a few children who lived on Jekyll, where the average age of the residents was close to 70. Fortunately, lots of neighbors had grandchildren who visited on a regular basis.

Her aunt was a good sport about most things when she was growing up, but Tally wore her out. She was actually a great-aunt to the vibrant and enthusiastic teenage girl and she simply couldn’t keep up with Tally’s Energizer bunny-esque pace. The not-quite-elderly woman preferred to sit on the huge front porch of the beach house and look out at the water when she was in town. Etah frequently warned Tally not to go out too deep in the water or she’d have to call the Coast Guard. It was safer for everybody when the kids swam in groups. The island had tricky sand bars and rip currents that could be very dangerous, and there weren’t any lifeguards.

Tally slowed down a lot as she approached Tallu Fish Lane and took a right turn onto the street she’d grown up on. The driveway to the house was on a tight little bend and she paused to let a neighbor pass by before turning left into it. The neighbor waved and Tally waved back because that’s what everybody did on Jekyll Island. She couldn’t help grinning as she thought about it.

She stopped the car in front of the garage doors and put up the top before getting out. The weather along Georgia’s Golden Isles – that’s what they called the barrier islands – was unpredictable at best. Aunt Etah’s rule was that you never cancelled plans due to weather because most of the time it didn’t do what was predicted. And always have a backup plan for rain when you’re entertaining. Those were the sorts of planning basics that had gotten Tally so much further than many others in her field. Nobody had to teach her that you have to put up a tent at a wedding regardless of the forecast. If you put up the tent, it won’t rain. If you don’t put up a tent, a pop-up storm will destroy your wedding. Facts. And yet, brides and grooms still argued with their planners, insisting their outdoor Caribbean destination wedding didn’t need a tent blocking the view across the lawn.

Tally shook herself back to the present and grabbed her bags from the car. The front door was a keypad lock but she knew where a hide-a-key was always kept for emergencies if the code had changed. She bounded up the wooden steps to the back of the house – the front of the house is the part that faces the beach in oceanfront homes – and let herself in. Fortunately, the lock clicked and opened on the first try. Tally breathed a sigh of relief.

She stepped inside prepared for a blast of heat from the empty, locked-up house. Instead, she was greeted with air conditioning. Cool, wonderful air conditioning. Tally dropped her bags and spun in a circle with her arms out. It felt so good. Then she ran into the kitchen and opened a fully-stocked fridge. There was a note taped to a chilled six-pack of beer from Jekyll Island Brewing and she pulled off the note and a can in one tug.

“Welcome home Tally! Etah called and asked me to pop over and turn on the AC. Also gave me a list of your favorites from the market so I filled the fridge. Come by and see me after you’ve gotten settled. So glad you made it from that island to this island safely. We’ve been really worried. XOXO, Leigh.”

Leigh was a dear friend of her aunt’s and the owner of Jekyll Market, the only grocery store on the island. She and her husband ran it with their adult children and were important pillars of the island community. Tally would definitely pop in to see her and say thank you while she was home.

Tally walked to the big floor-to-ceiling glass windows that faced the Atlantic Ocean and tugged the curtains open. The sweeping view of the water always took her breath away. Once upon a time, Etah’s house had a path from the backyard across the dunes to the beach. But there had been some bad storms with a lot of erosion on the north end of the island and the Jekyll Island Authority was trying to build it back up. They’d installed a rock breakwater to keep the tide from stealing any more of the beach and built wooden walkways across the dunes every block or so to keep people out of them. It takes seven years for a newly-planted piece of dune grass to take hold in a manner which will help it to actually prevent erosion. Aunt Etah had drilled respect for the island and its beautiful nature into Tally from her very first visit.

They’d lucked out because there was a dune crossing constructed right next to her aunt’s house that didn’t add that many steps to their trip to the beach. However, the erosion was so bad that you could only sit on the beach right in front of the house at low tide now. So, most of the time, Tally took Aunt Etah’s golf cart a couple miles down the road to a wider beach.

The lack of beach, however, didn’t hurt the spectacular view from Etah’s front porch. In fact, the water crashing on the steps of the dune crossover tempted Tally to grab her phone to take pictures of something she’d already seen a hundred times. Instead, she grabbed the backpack and duffle and headed for her bedroom, pausing in the hallway to drop her dirty clothes in front of the louvered doors that concealed the washer and dryer. Everything else was in her backpack and she tossed that onto the bed in her room.

Nothing in her bedroom had changed. To be fair, nothing in the house had changed since she’d last been home, from what she’d seen so far. Assuming there would be a vast supply of posh bath products in the gorgeous outdoor shower attached to her aunt’s bedroom, she stripped naked and then ran nude down the hall to the linen closet to pull out some towels. The naked dash continued to a door at the end of the hall that opened onto the back deck. She peeked her head out, looking for anyone who might be around, and saw nobody. So, she streaked from the doorway to the outside shower just a few feet away. Fortunately, the shower door wasn’t locked from the other side and Tally took refuge inside. She could have cut through her aunt’s bedroom where the other entrance to the shower opened onto Aunt Etah’s private patio, but after being gone so long, it felt a little bit like an invasion of her aunt’s privacy.

It took a minute for the water to get warm, and the number of pine needles on the plank floor told her it had been a while since her aunt had showered in the amazing outside room she’d had built a few years ago. Tally used the broom Aunt Etah kept in the corner for exactly its intended purpose and swept everything out of the shower and onto the porch. She’d worry about that mess tomorrow. She knew there was a leaf blower in the garage for such projects.

The wall of the shower that backed the house was tiled in the most beautiful green colors that looked like sea glass, although they were actually porcelain. Her aunt had collected sea glass from all over the world in beautiful jars. The containers of opaque, sea-smoothed glass were displayed all over the house. Tally had contributed quite a bit of glass to them over the years, too. Her aunt had initially chosen the sea glass tile for the backsplash when she redid her kitchen. When the contractor over-estimated how much of the pricey tile was needed, they ended up having enough to tile the outside shower with it, too. Etah called it a “happy expensive mistake.”

The fixtures in the outdoor shower were black iron and Tally had actually dreamed about the rain shower head on the incredibly hot days after Hurricane Maria. The rest of the structure was raw cedar wood and looked beautiful. There were lots of fun flamingo and turtle hooks for towels and robes and shower loofahs, and a bench so you had someplace to put your foot to shave your legs. The best part of it all was what Aunt Etah called the “peekaboo” window.

The wall of the shower had a little door in it about four feet up that was pretty much invisible from the outside of the shower. It opened inward and was about two feet by two feet – positioned directly across from where the person under the showerhead stood. Aunt Etah said that every day she was home, she showered while looking at the sea. She swore it made any bad day better and Tally wasn’t about to argue with her. She grabbed a shower puff that she was pretty sure was the same yellow one she’d left in the shower two years ago, and helped herself to some fancy bath gel from the gift shop at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, the historic hotel on the island that served as a quasi-country club to the island’s residents.

She took a deep breath and inhaled the mango and coconut scent and then started laughing. She’d been on an island where coconuts and mangos grew on the trees next to the house and she’d never smelled that during her showers there. As she watched through the peekaboo window, a pelican swooped down and snatch a fish out of the ocean. She wondered, not for the first time recently, why the hell she had ever left this place and moved to somewhere as primitive as Vieques.

Extending the shower as much as she could, Tally carefully washed her hair once with each of the three expensive shampoos that her aunt stocked in the shower. She hadn’t felt clean since the power went out during Hurricane Irma, and she was pretty sure she had been stinky most of the time since Hurricane Maria. But everybody there was gross so it was less obvious.

She turned off the water a few minutes later even though she didn’t want to. Tally had things to do, and she worked on a mental list as she wrapped a towel around her head. Once the other towel – a fluffy white one with pink embroidered flamingos on it – was secured under her arms, she unlocked the shower door and went out onto the deck to watch the sun set.

Okay fine, she wasn’t actually watching sunset because the house faced east. But when the sun was setting on the other side of the island, the light on the beach and the colors in the water were fantastic. It was her favorite time of day in the oceanfront house. And the beach was usually empty at sunset because everybody was over on the river side watching the sun set across the marsh.

She stood on the front deck watching the waves for several minutes. It made her think of Vieques and Eduardo. Tally felt sad for everything she had abruptly left behind, but she didn’t regret coming home. Vieques wasn’t the same after the storm. And neither was Eduardo.