She swims a little farther and treads water, then lifts her arms and lowers a tentative toe. She can touch the sandy bottom only until a swell pushes in, then she’s picked up and set back down as gently as you please. The ocean is quiet today; because of the heat, more people are shopping than swimming.
To the east, the white fleck of a sailboat streams against a vibrant blue sky, while to the west, a sleepy line of gulls squabble over a ripple on the sea—probably a fish, maybe an entire
school
of fish.
A glimmer on the water grabs Sarah’s attention. Beyond the slanting line of the glassy waves, a shiny object rises and falls.
Sarah stretches out and swims. The object is a plastic container, a two-liter bottle that once held Coke or Sprite. No—Sprite comes in
green
bottles, and this one is transparent. The cap is missing, though, and in its place is a wad of some unidentifiable material.
Sarah closes the gap with one stroke, then grasps her prize. The container is nothing special; the wad is dried grass and something black—tar, maybe, or gum? A few pages of densely printed paper curl inside the mostly waterproof ride. One edge is ripped, so these must be pages torn out of a book.
She turns the bottle. She’s not much of a reader, having been forced to read too many classics over the summer while her friends were touring Europe, but a handwritten message in the margin catches her eye. The brown ink is blurred, but one word is legible:
Sarah
.
“Hey!” Sarah waves to catch the straw hat’s attention. “Hey, look!”
The woman is too engrossed in her book. Either that or she can’t hear above the steady crash of the surf.
Sarah’s mouth twists.
Good thing I’m not drowning
.
But she is a good swimmer, and umbrella woman knows it. Sarah tucks the bottle under her arm and sidestrokes toward the shore, then catches a wave and rides it until she reaches shallow water. She tugs her wet bathing suit back into place as she approaches the umbrella, then drops to her knees in the powder-soft sand.
“Look at this.” She holds the bottle horizontally between her hands. “I found it in the water, and guess what? Someone wrote my name on these pages.”
The book falls. “What—oh, gross! That’s trash, Sarah; throw it away.”
“But it’s got—”
“You don’t know
what
it has. Some nasty drunk probably pitched it off a sailboat.”
Sarah points to the message. “But that’s my name, see? Can you read the rest of what it says?”
A pair of perfectly arched brows furrow for a moment. “Ugh! That looks like dried blood.”
“But—”
“Drop it, and don’t touch it again. You don’t know where that’s been or who’s handled it. They could have HIV or AIDS, or something even worse.”
Sarah drops the bottle and wipes her hands on her bathing suit while the pale face warily regards the sun. “Look at how late it’s getting. We’d better go. When we get back I think we ought to write a letter to let someone know this beach is becoming unfit for swimming. I know they can’t stop riffraff from boating here, but there
has
to be a law against tossing trash into public waterways . . .”
Accompanied by an inexplicable sense of guilt, Sarah picks up her towel, shakes out the sand, and wraps it around her. Before following the bobbing straw hat to the house, she gives the odd bottle one last look.
ONE YEAR EARLIER
Manhattan
Karyn Hall stopped stretching long enough to glance at her watch, then slipped out of formation.
How did it get to be so late?
Sarah would be spitting mad.
“Leaving so soon?” José Velasquez, one of the fitness center’s personal trainers, caught her arm as she bent over the bench where she had stashed her bag and towel. “You didn’t even get to the cooldown.”
“I gotta run.” Karyn tapped her watch. “My daughter’s violin lesson ends at four thirty, and she doesn’t like to wait on the street. She gets nervous if I’m not there on time.”
“You are
such
a good mother.”
“Well—” She rolled her eyes. “I try.”
José leaned against the wall and raked his eyes over her body with a look that would have set off alarm bells if she didn’t know he was gay. “You are lookin’ tight. I can tell a difference since you’ve been coming here. How much weight have you lost?”
Karyn’s cheeks heated as she wrapped a skirt around her waist. “Only four pounds. But I feel good, and I got into that designer dress the studio sent over. It was a size two.”
José clicked his tongue. “I would have said you were a size zero. You know that Kelly Ripa? She was in here the other day, and you are no bigger than her.”
Karyn knew he was overdoing the flattery; he probably sweet-talked every over-forty actress on the membership roll. Still . . . who didn’t like to be affirmed?
“Thanks, José. You know how it is—after thirty-five, everything starts to go south.”
His eyes widened. “Thirty-five?
You
?”
Karyn grabbed her coat and bag, then blew him a kiss. “See you later, José. I’ve gotta run.”
She hurried toward the lobby before he could delay her, then joined the streaming mass of New Yorkers on the sidewalk outside. Professor Katsouris’s brownstone was only three blocks away, but in this crowd . . .
She shoved her oversized sunglasses onto her nose, then wrapped her scarf around her neck. Not many people recognized her on the streets of Manhattan, but you could never tell when an out-of-state tourist would stop, shriek, and point. Because Lorinda Loving, Karyn’s character on
A Thousand Tomorrows
, was one of the more flamboyant women in daytime drama, fans of the show almost always wanted an autograph and a picture.
Deep inside her leather bag, her cell phone began to play Mozart. Gritting her teeth, Karyn fumbled for it while trying not to stumble over the older woman in front of her. Walking and talking in thick pedestrian traffic could be risky, but not as risky as missing an important call.
She glanced at the caller ID before opening the phone. “I’m only a couple of blocks away, Sarah.”
“Mom, I’ve been standing here five minutes.”
“So read a book.”
“I hate reading; you know that.”
“Then do some homework.”
“Standing up?”
“Play your violin; maybe someone will drop money at your feet.”
“Very funny, Mom.”
“I’m coming.”
She disconnected the call, dropped the phone back into her bag, and made a face at the older woman’s back. Why did people always seem to dawdle when she was in a hurry? She groaned when the do-not- cross light flashed at the next intersection. This street was one of the busiest in the Upper West Side.
She blew her bangs out of her eyes and checked her watch. She was late. Sarah would be steaming.
When the light finally changed, she pressed forward and cut to the right, edging around the older woman. The phone rang again; she answered without glancing at the caller ID.
“Sarah, I told you I’m on my way.”
“Mom, I have homework. And I can’t do it standing up.”
“I’m coming.”
“I’m freezing!”
Karyn hung up again, then turned down the side street that led to Professor Katsouris’s house. Sarah was worried about her homework, which meant she’d need Karyn’s help. Which meant Karyn would have to defrost something and serve dinner in the kitchen while Sarah fretted aloud over algebra or advanced French or whatever was giving her trouble.
Which meant Karyn couldn’t go out after dinner.
She opened her phone and pressed a number programmed into speed dial. The phone rang three times, then switched her to Henry’s voice mail.
“Hi, hon.” Karyn slowed her pace as the professor’s brownstone edged into view. “Listen, I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I’d love for you to come over, but I have to help Sarah with her homework. Let me take a rain check, okay? Thanks. Ring me later if you want to.”
She dropped the phone into her bag, then stuffed her chilly hands into her pockets as she caught her daughter’s eye. Sarah stomped down the steps, book bag in one hand and violin case in the other.
“Hey,” Karyn called, coming closer. “Have a good lesson?”
“The professor,” Sarah said, staring at the sidewalk, “dismisses students promptly. I don’t think he likes us cluttering his doorstep.”
“I’m not that late.” Karyn made a point of looking at her watch, then grimaced: four forty-five. “Okay, I’ll leave class sooner next time. I’m sorry.”
Sarah slung her book bag over her shoulder and headed toward the subway. Karyn lengthened her stride to catch up.
Atlanta
In his office at Genuine Old Time Candy’s corporate headquarters, chief marketing officer Kevin Carter swiveled his chair away from the wide window of his suite as Jessica Kroner, his new administrative assistant, rattled on about the possibilities of large-print conversational candy hearts. “The boomers are the perfect market,” she said, consulting a chart in her lap. “Sixty-nine percent require glasses for reading, sixty-three percent for driving, and they’ve grown up with conversational hearts. And I’ve got the
cutest
idea for a commercial.”
Kevin lifted a brow. “Now you’re an advertising expert?”
She blushed. “I actually got the idea from a story my mother told me. On Valentine’s Day my dad went all through the house dropping little candy hearts at my mother’s favorite places—her kitchen place mat, by her toothbrush, on the table by her reading chair. Mom loves anything sweet, so once she caught on, she went through the house looking for candy. When she got to the kitchen, though, she couldn’t help noticing a half-filled bag of candy hearts in the garbage can.”
Kevin shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Wait. My mom said, ‘Why’d you throw all these away?’ And Dad said, ‘Because those didn’t say the things I wanted to say.’ At which point my mom got real quiet and said, ‘How could I read them without my glasses?’”
When Jessica looked at him with hope and humor shining in her eyes, Kevin forced himself to smile. The girl was a long way from success as an advertising copywriter, but the idea wasn’t half bad.
“Cute.” He dropped his hand to his desk. “Write it up. By the way, I need a personal favor. I want you to understand, though, you don’t have to do this.”
She tilted her head. “What do you need?”
“I need a personal shopper, and you seem to have excellent taste. Tuesday is my daughter’s fifteenth birthday, and I have no idea what to get a teenage girl. I’d like you to get her something, charge it to my credit card, and FedEx it to New York.”
“I could do that.”
“It shouldn’t take long—I imagine you know what teenage girls like.”
Her laugh seemed a bit strained. “I’m not
that
young, Kevin.”
He studied her, weighing the motives behind her comment. She was giving him a look he’d seen a hundred times from behind bars and desks and across crowded dance floors . . .
As much as he enjoyed women, he despised relationships that interfered with business.
He cleared his throat. “Sarah wears a size six, my ex-wife tells me. In juniors.”
“I’m a size six.”
“Hmm. Well. Thank you for handling that.”
“You know . . .” She crossed her impossibly long legs. “You don’t have to be afraid of shopping. I could guide you to the right things, and you could pick something out yourself. That’d be more personal, don’t you think?”
“But I don’t know what she likes.”
“We could pick up a bite of lunch or go back to my place, where I could fix you something. I’m a good cook, really.”
Kevin looked away. This was too easy. He’d never liked shooting fish in a barrel.
“Actually, Jess, I’m tied up all day tomorrow. Those reps from Hershey are coming in, remember? We’re playing golf in the morning and meeting all afternoon.”
Her eagerness vanished as something that looked like resentment settled over her features. If she were a little more sophisticated, she’d wait before asserting her willingness to ingratiate herself with the boss.
He gave her a smile. “If you have other plans or something—”
“I said I’d do it, and I will.”
“All right, then. Sarah’s address should be in the computer. I’ll get you my credit card number—”
“Don’t bother. I’ll bring you the receipt for reimbursement.”
He blew out a breath. “Sounds like a plan.”
Jessica nodded, but from the way she was staring at the crystal paperweight on his desk, he knew her thoughts had shifted to some other place. Or some other plan.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Jess, for the large-print candy idea. Write it up for me, will you? Who knows—next year, your father could be planting Genuine Old Time Candy’s large-print conversational hearts around the house.”
She caught his eye, jerked her head downward in a sharp nod, and rose from her chair, but not before stepping forward to drop a report on his desk. He closed his eyes to avoid staring at the deep V of her vibrant red sweater, but he couldn’t avoid breathing in the scent of her perfume.