Reunion Beach by Elin Hilderbrand (best ebook reader under 100 .TXT) 📗

He’s right, as always: the bubbles cheer her. It’s an unusually warm evening, so they drink with their feet dangling in the pool, the bottle in an ice bucket between them.

Kate’s thoughts wander. Where is Exalta now? Anywhere? It seems impossible that she’s gone and yet, that’s what happens to all of us, eventually. It’s a reminder to live while we can and take care with the legacy we’re leaving behind. Kate feels proud of this house, this property, the decision she made ten years ago to move out here to the wilds of Madaket, to build a summer retreat where she can shelter her entire family. It had seemed radical at the time, Kate remembers.

“Do you want to go out to dinner?” David asks. “The Mad Hatter? DeMarco’s?”

“It’s too late,” Kate says. “Everyone stops serving at nine.”

“We could still order a pizza from Vincent’s,” David says. “Or skip dinner and get ice cream.”

Kate says, “Let’s do something crazy.”

She can tell from the way his face brightens that he thinks she means sex there in the pool—or scouring Kirby’s bedroom for a joint to smoke.

“I’m game,” he says.

“Let’s crash the party,” Kate says. “We’ll pick up Bill and take him with us.”

It feels like a joy ride, even in David’s staid lawyer car, the Cadillac. They have the windows down, Elvis on the radio, and Bill Crimmins—who Kate thought might be hesitant to join them—relaxing in the backseat, enjoying the fine leather.

“I’m so glad you called,” Bill says. “The house feels too big now that she’s gone.”

“But now Pick is staying with you,” Kate says. She finds she’s relieved that Pick has shown up—as long as Lorraine is safely on the West Coast—so that there’s someone to keep an eye on Bill.

They rumble down Barrett Farm Road through the open landscape until they come upon a line of parked cars and Kate hears music. She climbs out of the Cadillac in her bare feet. She’s wearing a paisley beach cover-up, which is the only thing in her closet that looks even vaguely exotic. If Kate travels back a hundred years—okay, forty—she’s a teenager being naughty, sneaking out of All’s Fair while her parents sleep and hopping in the back of Trip Belknap’s Studebaker, heading to a fire just like this one, populated with boys who do not yet know they’ll soon be heading off to war.

Tonight, instead of defying her parents, Kate is defying her children.

Young people only. Bah!

KATE IS NEARLY TO the beach when she sees a young couple huddled together, obviously trying to make a clandestine escape.

“Blair?” Kate says. Blair is with . . . Joey Whalen. Surprise, surprise.

“Mom?” Blair says. Her face has always been easy to read and her expression now is one of sheer horror. She’s been caught. With Joey.

Joey doesn’t look caught, however. Joey is too smooth to ever look caught. “Hey Mrs. Levin, Mr. Levin, Mr. Crimmins,” he says. He spins around and flings his arm open like a game-show host, as though the beach and the fire and the assembled crowd and even the ocean beyond are their grand prize. “Welcome!”

Blair and Joey, together—is that such a bad thing? Kate wonders. Joey Whalen is much better suited to Blair’s temperament than Angus ever was.

Joey and Blair dutifully escort the old people with their brittle bones down onto the sand.

Blair takes Kate’s elbow. “What are you doing here, Mom?”

Kate wants to say, You are hardly one to be asking questions. But instead, she smiles. “I came to party,” she says, and this sounds so absurd, they both laugh. “Would you fetch me a drink, please, dear, and let your brother and sisters know I’m here.”

“There’s nothing to drink except keg beer,” Blair says.

“That’s fine,” Kate says. “I’ll have a beer.”

“You will?”

“I will.”

Blair returns with a foamy beer in a plastic cup and clearly she has also made the announcement because soon, Kate is surrounded by her children—Tiger and Magee, who look happier and more relaxed than Kate has seen them in years; Kirby, who Kate expects to be angry but who instead, throws her arms around her mother in what appears to be glee; Jessie and an incredibly handsome, upright young man whom Kate recognizes as Pick Crimmins.

The song changes and a cry goes up. The kids form a circle and start dancing. This, Kate knows, is her cue to exit, but suddenly David is on one side of her and Bill Crimmins is on the other and they, too, are part of the circle.

The lyrics announce the obvious: We are family!

Kirby dances in the middle of the circle and everyone cheers her on. She is replaced by Jessie and Jessie is replaced by Magee.

Magee can really dance. How did Kate not know this?

Magee heads straight for Kate with her arms outstretched.

“Your turn, darling,” David says, placing an encouraging hand on her back.

My turn? Kate thinks. Surely not. Exalta would never in a million years have been caught in the middle of a circle dancing to a disco song.

It takes only a second for Kate to realize that she isn’t Exalta. She is Kate Nichols Foley Levin, the new matriarch of this gathered family. She is in charge now and she will make her own decisions.

Kate passes off her cup to David and dances through the sand to the center of the circle. Her family cheers.

That’s right, she thinks. She may be old, but she still has some surprises left.

About Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand by Nina Subin

ELIN HILDERBRAND lives on Nantucket, has three children, and is the author of twenty-seven novels, including Summer of ’69.

Elin met Dottie in the spring of 2017 at the annual Post and Courier luncheon in Charleston and Elin says, “It was love at first sight.” The two authors proceeded to meet on Nantucket every chance they got and they texted and emailed nonstop. They dreamed of doing a joint cooking show called “Cook the Books,” where they would invite a third author on to make