“I’m almost always right,” Parrish said. “You need to keep that in mind.”
They parked their gear on a level patch of sand. “Come on,” Parrish said, after spreading a towel on her chair. “Let’s go exploring.”
The tide was out, so they splashed through ankle-deep water, stooping occasionally to pick up shells, or stopping to marvel at a school of dolphins dipping and cutting through the waves on a path that paralleled theirs for so long the two friends joked that they were being followed.
At the far north tip of the island, where the ocean met the river, the shoreline receded into a rocky jetty. The two women clambered over boulders slick with algae, then climbed onto the seawall and gazed toward the maritime forest just ahead.
“Take a good look now,” Riley advised. “Because a year from now, this will probably be either a Howard Johnson’s or a Motel Six.”
“Stop being such a pessimist. Did Nate Milas actually buy this parcel? I thought your grandfather left it in some sort of trust.”
“He did, but Wendell was scheming to do some kind of land swap to move the sanctuary to a piece of swamp in the middle of the island—a piece without that all-important waterfront access,” Riley said. “He said that was a condition the hotel people insisted on. They claimed they’d keep the preserve, but they just wanted to pave what they called ‘access trails’—otherwise known as roads—through it.”
“And did Wendell manage to do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, before you start assuming this is all gonna turn into a HoJo, maybe you should do some research. Maybe you could actually have a discussion with Nate.”
“Not happening,” Riley said flatly.
“You’re going to have to talk to him sooner or later. He now owns a big chunk of this island. What he does is going to impact your family’s business, and vice versa.”
“Don’t remind me.” Riley pressed onward, drawn toward the wildlife sanctuary just ahead. A bronze plaque marked the entrance to the area.
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF EARLINE RILEY, WHOSE LOVE OF NATURE INSPIRED ALL SHE KNEW. Beneath the words was a silhouette of Riley’s grandmother. As always, she placed the palm of her hand on the sign. “Hi, Nanny,” she whispered.
She’d always thought the wildlife sanctuary was the most magical spot on the island, and it still held a powerful sway on her imagination. She stepped over the trunk of a sun-bleached live oak, so battered by wind that its branches were nearly parallel to the sandy soil.
The temperature dropped noticeably once she was beneath the tree canopy.
“Here,” Parrish said, catching up. “Bug spray.”
As they wandered among the live oaks, red cedars, and bay laurels, they heard a loud flapping sound and looked up to see a pair of snowy egrets rising from the top of the canopy.
“Remember when we were in Girl Scouts and Roo brought us out here to count species for our bird-watching badge?” Riley asked.
“I’d never seen a cedar waxwing before,” Parrish said. “And I’ll never forget when we climbed that tree and peeked inside that huge nest and saw all those just-hatched white ibis.”
“Remember how we’d make little fairy houses in the crooks of the live oaks?” Parrish asked, leaning against a tree trunk.
“And plan which tree we’d live in after we ran away from home,” Riley said. “And then Billy did run away when he was nine and Daddy tried to make him join the swim team, and that lasted about two hours, until he got hungry and scared when he heard a hoot owl.”
As they got deeper into the maritime forest, they pushed aside branches of holly, yaupon, and wild olive, flinching when catbrier branches scratched their bare ankles.
After thirty minutes, they emerged from the undergrowth to find themselves in a wide, sandy area.
“Son of a bitch,” Riley exclaimed. The exposed roots of bulldozed old-growth live oaks reached like ugly tentacles into the sky. Blackened tree stumps poked from the soil, and a huge stack of newly cut trees had been scraped to one side of the land like so many pickup sticks, where a bright yellow Bobcat was apparently stuck in a patch of mud.
“Oh, no,” Parrish said, looking around in dismay. “Do you think Wendell did this?”
“Who else? I’m pretty sure this is the start of the Pirate’s Point tract, where the hotel was supposed to go.” She did a quick about-face. “Let’s go back to the beach. This is too depressing.”
* * *
“Speaking of Wendell,” Parrish said, as they returned to their gear, “have you guys figured out a succession plan yet?”
“That’ll be up to Mama. You know, Wendell liked to think of himself as a one-man show. For now, Bruce Boore, who ran the office in Wilmington and handled the sales and marketing end of things, is coming down on Monday. He’s been doing the nitty-gritty stuff, dealing with the tenants in the village and fielding inquiries about lot sales and stuff. And I guess he’s been staving off our creditors. I’ve been dreading all those credit card statements we found in Wendell’s office.”
“You won’t be liable for all those debts,” Parrish said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“If I am, I am,” Riley said. “I’ve already lost my house, so what else are they gonna do to me? They can’t get blood from a turnip, right?”
She reached into the cooler bag Parrish had provided and brought out a thermos bottle, which she opened.
“Margaritas! Nice touch,” she said, pouring a stream of the chartreuse drink into an insulated plastic tumbler and offering it to her friend.
“Not for me, thanks,” Parrish said hastily. “The older I get, the more I realize I can’t drink in the heat of the day without earning myself a wicked headache.”
“I can,” Riley said, taking a swig of her cocktail. She stood up, stripped off her bathing suit cover-up, and began applying sunscreen. She glanced over at Parrish, who was uncapping a bottle of water, still dressed in her calf-length gauzy cotton caftan.
“Aren’t you hot in that getup?”
“Nope,” Parrish said, ratcheting down the back of her chaise longue and tilting her sun hat over her face. “We fair-skinned redheads have to be careful of too much exposure, you know.”
“You’re not the least bit fair skinned, and you’re not a real redhead either,” Riley said.
“Sun is very aging,” Parrish said airily. “But if you want to end up looking like a piece of beef jerky, go right ahead.”
“Aging,” Riley said with a sigh. “That again.”
Parrish tipped her sunglasses down. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve started job hunting. That’s what I was doing when you showed up at the house.”
“And?”
“And nothing. You know what a tiny market Raleigh is. There was an opening for a consumer affairs reporter at WRAL.”
“Perfect!”
“Yeah, for a twenty-four-year-old Asian bombshell two years out of Duke and a graduate degree from Columbia,” Riley said. “Jade Kang. Can you believe it? And that’s her real name. I even went so far as to call my old program director.” She shuddered. “I groveled. It wasn’t pretty. He was very nice and promised to ‘seriously consider’ me, but I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.”