The Brighter the Light, page 19
“Everything all right?” Mama asked.
“Sure. It’s fine.”
Annoyance flattened her lips. “Did Mr. Manchester say anything to you?”
“Just ‘Thank you, Ruth.’”
“Did he say anything else? You look flustered.”
“Just the way he said my name was kind of weird.”
“How so?”
“Like it was funny.”
Mama laid her hand on Ruth’s shoulder. “Don’t mind him.”
“You sure everything is fine, Mama?”
“As right as rain.” Whatever Mama was thinking slipped behind her welcome-day smile. “Now let’s get that breakfast served.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RUTH
Monday, June 19, 1950, 3:00 p.m.
“We should tell ghost stories tonight by the wreck,” Ruth said to Talley as they picked up the empty glasses at a poolside table.
Talley’s eyes widened as she dumped an ashtray into a bucket. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” Ruth asked. “It would be fun. I could ask Daddy to build a fire near the shipwreck, and we could roast marshmallows.”
“And if you start talking to spirits, what makes you so sure that one of them might not appear?”
“We can only hope!”
“No, you shouldn’t wish for things like that, Ruth Wheeler. You stir up trouble among the dead, and you’ll end up with a lifetime of worry.”
“How do you know that?”
Talley jutted out her chin. “I just do.”
Ruth collected the remaining glasses and wiped down the table. The more she thought about the bonfire and maybe a little spirit summoning, the more she liked it. “We’ll ask Mama. If she thinks it’s a bad idea, then we won’t do it.”
“Aunt Edna is not going to like it,” Talley said. “No one from back home is crazy enough to tempt the spirits.”
“But she’s not from there now. She’s from here. And we don’t mind the spirits as much.”
“Anyone who leaves home always carries a piece of it with them.”
Ruth hauled the tub of dirty dishes toward the kitchen while Talley dragged the trash can behind a tall utility fence. This part of the property wasn’t painted in pretty colors but was a pocket of concrete grays and rusted metal.
Ruth nudged open the kitchen’s screened back door with her foot and then kicked it open wide enough to get herself inside before the door slammed shut. She stepped inside and set her tub of dirty dishes down. When she turned, she saw Carlotta facing Mama. Neither was talking, but each had a strained expression that said neither one of them was enjoying each other’s company.
Mama was wearing an older gray work dress and over it an apron stained from cooking and damp from dish washing. Carlotta wore blue capri pants with polka dots, a white halter top, a wide-brimmed hat, and open-toed wedge shoes. Fingernails and toes were painted a bright red.
Both turned quickly as she stared at them from behind the wooden prep table.
“Ruth,” Mama said, clearing her throat. “Did you get all the dishes picked up?”
“I did, and Talley’s dumping the trash.” Ruth smiled at Carlotta. “Hey, how are you?”
“I was just returning a few dirty plates. Thank you again,” Carlotta said.
“Oh, sure,” Ruth said. “No problem.”
Mama had not grumbled about Carlotta’s lunch plates and today had even placed an extra wedge of cheese next to the sandwich. “Why don’t you take a few hours off, Ruth?” Mama asked. “Enjoy the day.”
“Don’t you want me to set up for dinner?”
“I’ll take care of that.”
Mama had been clear this morning she needed help with the dinner service. Ruth wasn’t sure why her mother had changed her mind. Mama never changed her mind.
Seeing that she appeared in more of a flexible mind right now, Ruth figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Could we have a bonfire by the shipwreck? We could roast marshmallows, and when Henry comes tonight, he could tell ghost stories.”
Mama’s eyes widened, and Ruth imagined her vetoing the idea as fast as she was rethinking what it would take to make this happen.
Carlotta remained silent but watched their exchange closely.
“People could bring their blankets.” Ruth noted the gleam in her mother’s eyes and kept selling. “And it looks like it’s going to be a real pretty night.”
Carlotta’s brow arched. “That sounds like fun. It’s going to be nearly a moonless sky tonight. And I hear,” she said, dropping her voice a notch, “that the veil between the living and the dead is thin on nights like this.”
Ruth grinned. “And there’s the shipwreck. I bet you Henry has all kinds of stories about it.” She looked at her mother, summoning her most pleading expression. “What do you think? No other hotel in Nags Head is doing something like this.”
“I don’t mind the bonfire, but you’ll have to help gather the wood,” Mama said.
“I’ll get Talley to help. She was all ears when I talked about ghost stories.”
Carlotta chuckled. “I’ll bet she was. Her kin are not fond of spirits.”
“She’ll be fine,” Ruth said. “She’s been afraid of everything since she arrived, but she’s coming around.”
“I can do my show by the wreck,” Carlotta offered. “I can change the mood of my songs to fit any occasion. Even the summoning of ghosts.”
“Talk of ghosts might scare the devil out of the guests,” Mama countered. “They’ll complain.”
“They can leave,” Ruth said. “Daddy can walk anyone back to their room.”
Talley entered the back door and turned on the tap at the utility sink. She washed her hands but didn’t look up, as if her presence could be an intrusion.
“Talley, will you help me get the wood for a bonfire?” Ruth asked.
Talley rinsed her fingers and turned off the tap. She was no doubt thinking about dead spirits. “Sure.”
“Miss Carlotta is going to sing, and Mama said Henry could tell ghost stories.”
“I did not say that Henry would tell stories,” Mama said.
“You didn’t say he wouldn’t,” Ruth countered.
Carlotta chuckled. “Ruth, you might be too clever for your own good.”
Ruth saw the humor in Carlotta’s eyes. “You sound like Mama,” she said.
Carlotta nodded her head toward her. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Mama cleared her throat. “I’ll ask Henry. And if you girls can gather enough wood, then I’ll make an announcement at dinner.”
Ruth grinned. “It’ll be the talk of the beach. Just you wait and see, Mama.”
“Well, that would be very nice,” Mama said. “Anything to set the Seaside Resort apart from the competition.”
Ruth clapped her hands together. “Talley, we got work to do.”
Talley shook her head. “I’ll collect wood, but I’m not sticking around if any spirit shows up.”
“Of course you are,” Ruth said. “You sure don’t want to make them mad by just walking off.”
Ruth held the kitchen door open for Talley and glanced back toward her mother and Carlotta. Whatever tension had been simmering between them was gone, for now.
Ruth and Talley had piled enough wood for three fires, and by dinner both were starving. Daddy fed them in the kitchen and then put them to washing dishes. Just after seven, he shooed them both out of the kitchen and followed them, shovel and ax in hand, to the woodpile on the beach near the wreck.
Daddy studied the woodpile. “We won’t have to worry about running out. Good job, girls.”
“We picked up every piece we could find.” Talley always seemed a little amazed when Mama or Daddy said something nice to her.
“Can Talley and I light the fire?” Ruth asked.
“First, we’ll have to dig a pit and then lay the wood. Then we’ll see. Fire’s nothing to be fooling around with.”
“We’d be really careful,” Ruth said. “You could stand right next to us.”
Footsteps sounded on the beach behind them, and Ruth turned to see Henry moving toward them. He was freshly shaved, wearing clean khakis and a white T-shirt that showed off the navy tattoos on his arms.
He was a tall man with a lean, muscled build, and his black eye patch and rawboned, deeply tanned features created a pirate’s image.
Once when Ruth had been washing dishes with Henry in the Seaside Resort kitchen, she’d asked him how he’d lost the eye. He’d plunged a greasy pan into the sink filled with hot, soapy water. “Lost it off the coast of Italy. A rocket hit the ship. Sent shrapnel flying, and I caught some in the face.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not then. All I could think about was putting out the fire on the ship’s deck. And then I got to thinking that if I’d been three seconds faster, I’d have died, like the man in front of me.”
“He blew up?”
“He did.” His grip on the scrub brush tightened, and he dug deeper into the cooking grease still clinging to the pan.
“What happened next?” Ruth asked.
The muscle in Henry’s jaw pulsed as he rinsed the now-gleaming pan. His gaze settled on her as if judging the weight of his answer. “I put the fire out. That’s all I could do.”
She took the dripping pan and set it on the drying rack. “Weren’t you afraid?”
“Fear’s a waste of time, Ruth.” And then he grinned, winked with his remaining good eye as he reached for another pot.
Later she’d asked her mother about Henry and learned he talked to Daddy often late at night, when they sat on the back porch smoking cigars, sipping whiskey, and staring out toward the ocean.
“Your daddy keeps Henry centered,” Mama said.
“Who keeps Daddy centered?” Ruth asked.
“You and I do,” she said simply.
When a storm hit the area, there was no man more fearless than Henry. Last winter, when a vessel had radioed in a distress call, he’d realized they were close, so he took his own boat out into the surf. Word was Henry fought the high waves and winds, and when he found the boat, he climbed aboard and helped six sailors onto his vessel.
Put him side by side with ten other men in a log-chopping contest, and he’d win hands down. But there were times when Henry didn’t turn up like he was supposed to. It frustrated Mama, but Daddy always defended his younger cousin. “After what the man went through, he has a right,” Daddy said.
“You were in the first war,” Mama said. “You don’t quit on me ever.”
“War hits us all differently,” he said softly.
As Henry now approached, he grinned as he took in the sight of the wreck, Ruth, Talley, and Daddy.
“Henry, you made it!” Ruth said.
He wrapped Ruth in a bear hug. “I’d have been here yesterday but for the storm.”
“Did you go out in the water?” Ruth asked.
“I did. Pulled a few men out of the drink.”
Daddy extended his hand to Henry, and they shook. “Glad to have you.”
“This is my cousin Talley,” Ruth said. “She’s here for the summer.”
Henry extended his rough hand to Talley, and she carefully took it. He gently squeezed her hand as he shook. “Pleased to meet you. Ruth running you ragged yet?”
Talley blushed. “No, sir. She’s a lot of fun.”
“There’s no ‘sirs’ here, Talley,” Henry said. “Just good working men. Call me Henry. Everyone does.”
Talley’s frown furrowed as she released his hand, as if such familiarity wasn’t common where she came from. “Okay.”
“Ruth, your mama said you were looking for some ghost stories,” Henry said.
“We are!” Ruth said. “Do you have some to tell?”
Warm laughter rumbled in his chest. “I have one or two that are itching to be told.”
“If I don’t get that bonfire set soon, Ruth is likely to set that pile of wood on fire,” Daddy said.
Henry studied the collection of wood laid in careful stacks. “They’ll see this fire burning all the way in England.”
“I wanted it to be big,” Ruth said.
“Oh, it will be.” Henry’s attention shifted to the wreck’s ink-black wood glistening with droplets from each incoming wave. “Never thought I’d see that wreck surface again. How long has it been?”
“Thirty years,” Daddy said. “Summer of 1920. I had just left the navy.”
“I was ten,” Henry said. “Spent the weeks it was aboveground climbing all over it. There’s more of it exposed this time. The storm must have hit this part of the banks directly.”
“Damn near close,” Daddy said.
“The wind sounded like it wanted to rattle the house right off the pilings,” Ruth said. “But Talley and I weren’t scared.”
“That’s good to hear,” Henry said. “Talley, you should be proud. You’ve weathered your first ocean storm.”
“Do they come often?” Talley asked.
Henry was never one to tease someone like Talley. “I’d like to think the worst of it is over for the summer.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said.
Ruth held off mentioning that the worst storms came in August and September. “What do you know about the boat?”
Henry glanced at Daddy, his lips slipping into a sly grin. “You tell her about it?”
Daddy shook his head. “Not a word. Figured I’d let you do the talking.”
“Tell me what?” Ruth asked.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Henry said.
“Do you have stories to tell about this wreck?” Talley’s gaze widened.
“I might have one or two.”
“How do you know which one it is?” she asked.
“I know.”
“Are the stories scary?” Ruth pressed.
“Depends on what you think is scary,” Henry said.
Talley shifted from foot to foot. “Are there ghosts in this story?”
Henry seemed to be enjoying his audience. “Do you want ghosts in the story?”
“No!” Talley said.
“Yes!” Ruth said.
“Why don’t we see how the evening goes,” Henry said.
Henry liked to tell stories. Not about the war but all kinds of tales about the Outer Banks. Last year he’d spent several nights by the pool entertaining guests with his tales of pirates and lost treasures. A few of the boys had spent the rest of the week digging holes on the beach in search of lost gold. It had been amusing until one of the moms had stepped in a hole and sprained her ankle.
“Fair enough,” Ruth said. “Have you met Carlotta?”
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Henry glanced toward Daddy, who’d dropped his gaze back toward the woodpile.
“She’s the singer this summer,” Ruth said. “She’s going to sing by the bonfire tonight.”
“Sounds like this is going to be a real party,” Henry said.
Daddy surveyed the shipwreck, looked back at the dunes, and calculated the direction of the wind before he found a spot downwind from the wooden ruin. He handed Henry a shovel and set about digging a deep firepit. “If you’re not going to eat, you can dig.”
“Be glad to.”
With the two of them working, it was done in no time flat, and then Henry went about laying the wood.
“Let’s start with the kindling first,” he said. “You girls set the thinnest pieces in the middle of the hole.”
Henry picked up the largest log, which had demanded Ruth and Talley’s combined strength to drag here, and he easily carried it over to the pit. Using the ax Daddy had brought, he chopped it into smaller pieces. Within a half hour, the wood had been arranged by size and the fire laid.
Ruth and Talley returned to the hotel and picked up the stack of quilts for guests who forgot their blankets. (Someone always forgot something.)
A few guests, including the Manchester family, appeared at the top of the dune. Pete Jr. ran ahead and came straight to the firepit, glancing quickly at Ruth before ducking his head and hurrying toward the unlighted wood. Bonnie and her friends Jessie and Dora moved more slowly, as if they were worried about looking as childish as Pete. So they sauntered, pausing to whisper something to the others as they looked toward Ruth.
Mr. and Mrs. Manchester picked up one of the blankets and spread it out next to the Osborns and sat down. Each had a drink in hand, and Mrs. Manchester’s face was flushed. Safe bet it was the booze or a fight with her husband.
Bonnie, Dora, and Jessie laughed, looked toward Ruth, and then went back to whispering.
It set her teeth on edge when they acted like they knew better than everyone else. They’d been doing it a lot this week, and she was finding it harder to brush off the hurt feelings.
Talley leaned close to Ruth’s ear. “We should find something to whisper about them too.”
Ruth looked up at Talley, surprised to see the determination in her eyes. “Like what?”
“Maybe Bonnie has big feet. Maybe Jessie’s face is too wide. And Dora’s a little too tall.”
When Ruth looked at the girls again, her gaze moved from Jessie’s face to Bonnie’s feet to Dora’s legs. She giggled.
“Melons, bushels of cornstalks, and beanpoles,” Talley said.
“That’s mean,” Ruth said.
“Where I come from, family sticks together, no matter what.”
Ruth laughed, seeing more grit in Talley’s expression. “I think you might be the toughest of us all.”
“No, that’s you, Ruth. Hands down.”
Henry’s gaze looked past Ruth, and for a moment his jaw dropped before he snapped it closed. Ruth turned and saw Carlotta wearing an emerald-green dress that hugged her curves. She wasn’t wearing shoes, but wedge sandals dangled from her manicured fingers.
She moved slow and steady, knowing as she approached that several of the fathers had shifted their gazes to her. She never sneaked into a room. She always made sure everyone not only saw her coming but had a moment to pause and admire her as they stole second looks.
Carlotta approached Ruth and Talley, smiling. “Evening, ladies. Looks like you’ve built a very fine fire.”
