The Beach Club Read Online Free

of the school year in sight, her infatuation was petering out. “Believe it or not, she’s going to graduate.”
    “And College?” Mack asked.
    “The University of Virginia. Hard enough to get into that she impressed her friends, and reasonably priced enough to impress her father. We’re thrilled.”
    “She’ll be on the front desk this summer? She’s more than capable, Therese. If she’s going to run the hotel someday she needs to learn it.”
    “Not the desk,” Therese said firmly. Mack rolled his eyes. He could think what he wanted, that Therese babied her daughter, but Cecily was still a child. She didn’t need a job that could drive even a mature, well-adjusted adult insane. “Bill hired a woman to work the day desk, someone he met at the gym in Aspen. Her name is Love.”
    “Love?”
    “Yes,” said Therese. “We need more love around here. Speaking of which, you noticed I haven’t asked about your girlfriend.”
    “I didn’t expect you to,” Mack said.
    “I can’t resist. How are things? Are you still together? Still happy?”
    “Yes.”
    “Still happy, but you’re not going to marry her?”
    “We have no plans to get married, no,” he said.
    “Wait until you see Cecily,” Therese said. “All grown up. A woman. And so gorgeous. Vibrant. Irresistible.” And headstrong, opinionated, difficult, her Cecily. Therese lifted her feet from the dusty chest and stood up. “If you marry Cecily this will all be yours. Bill would be so relieved. He loves you like a son, you know. He really does.”
    “You make it sound like we’re living in a fairy tale,” Mack said. “If I marry the fair daughter, I get the whole kingdom.”
    “You could rule the Beach Club kingdom.”
    “I’m not marrying Cecily, Therese.”
    “Well, you’re not marrying Maribel.” Therese and Mack had this same conversation every year, and she knew it irked Mack, but Therese couldn’t help herself. To her, only one course of events made any sense—Mack marrying Cecily and the two of them taking over where Bill and Therese left off. She also knew that people rarely did what made sense.
    “I haven’t decided about marriage at all yet,” Mack said. “But I can tell you, if and when I do get married, it won’t be to Cecily. And if you don’t believe me, ask her. She’d rather eat glass, direct quote.”
    “I won’t give up,” Therese said. She caught her reflection in a tarnished mirror, and then she pulled out her artist’s tools from the utility closet—vacuum, bucket, cleanser, and her feather duster—and started to work.
     
    Maribel Cox knew she was the subject of gossip—among her mother’s friends at the Christian Calendar Factory, among her colleagues at the library, among Mack’s co-workers and Bill and Therese down at the Beach Club. She knew they were all whispering, “When are Mack and Maribel going to do the right thing ? When are they going to get married ?”
    The truth of the matter was this: Maribel wanted to get married with a raging, fiery passion, but the only person who knew it was Maribel’s mother, Tina. Every Wednesday night, Maribel called Tina and every Wednesday night, Tina said, “Well?” Meaning: well, did Mack finally say those five little words, “ Maribel, will you marry me? ” Every Wednesday night, Maribel said, “Well, nothing.” And her mother said, “Keep the faith.”
    Maribel and Mack had been dating for six years, living together for three. Maribel had found a man Afraid to Commit.
    “Like mother, like daughter,” Tina said. Maribel pictured her mother: twenty pounds overweight, permed hair, smoking a cigarette as she talked on the phone. Tina herself had never been married. She met Maribel’s father at an outdoor concert, and Maribel was conceived in the woods nearby, up against a tree. Her mother never saw the man again; she’d only known him for one day.
    “If he’s anything like you,” Tina was fond of saying, “he must be a great guy.”
    Maribel