“But you just—you gave those to him?” Blythe says, her mind struggling to catch up with what she sees.
“There’re two sets,” Nadine says. “But he doesn’t know that.” A little smile crosses her face. “One thing about Tommy. If he gets bored and sits still long enough, especially after he’s been drinking, he’ll pass out. And when he does, he sleeps hard. If that happens, I can quietly go to the door, turn the lock, and we canrun.” She raises her eyebrows for confirmation. They all nod just as Tommy hollers in to ask what’s taking so long.
Nadine calls out that they’re just finishing up, promising they’ll be right out. “When I make a move, you guys be ready.” They all nod again, absorbing this bit of hope. It might be a flimsy plan, but it’s more than they’ve had before.
When they exit the bathroom, Tommy is zipping up his fly and tucking in his shirt. “I had to go too,” he tells them and grins as he juts his chin in the direction of a potted ficus near the entryway.
“That poor tree,” Morrow mumbles as they make their way back into the post office.
When they get inside, Tommy makes a big show of locking the door. With his back turned, they exchange cautious, brief smiles. Tommy moves to the center of their circle and jingles thekeys at them like some sort of threat. He is their captor, their jailer, he thinks. But not for long.
The besieged women return to the stools and resume their seats as Tommy checks on the scene outside the windows, still keeping his distance. Blythe sees him casting about for something to do, nervous energy wafting off him. He is jittery, vibrating. He wanders over to the counter and paces the length of it, then goes behind it and walks the length of the other side. Then he just stands there, pawing around with his hands along the counter, agitated and purposeless.
Tommy’s restlessness reminds her of Bryan, the guy she was texting this morning, who is the reason she is here. He’d been restless too, never able to relax. If he sat down, he’d only last a few minutes before popping back up and roaming around, looking for what that next thing might be. One day he’d up and decided the next thing would be law school. And then he’d gone without her.
He’d broken her heart, leaving her to wonder what she’d done wrong. They’d talked of marriage. They’d even gotten Murphy together, a rescue they’d both adored. That he’d left Murphy behind as well was a small consolation. After he was gone, she’d cried many tears into Murphy’s fur, stroking the velvety softness of his ear as she posed questions aloud for which there were no answers.
She doesn’t know how she would’ve gotten through that time without Murphy. And without her gran, who’d invited her here to Sunset Beach to live. “Change your view, change your life,” her gran had said. Blythe had done both, and her gran had been right. She thinks again of the question her mother posed last night: “Do you ever hear from Bryan?” She should’ve said no, not let on to her about the messages between them on Instagram that had quickly led to texting. But the wine had done its work,loosening her lips and making her hope that her mother could be the mother she needed rather than the mother she has always been.
It was no secret that Bryan had been her mother’s pick for her daughter. When marriage was mentioned, she’d taken them both out to dinner and promised them the wedding of their dreams. “No holds barred,” she’d said. “Anything you guys want.” In hindsight, it was probably that dinner that sent Bryan running off to law school, but she would never say that to her mother. Though Blythe had eventually moved on—hence the engagement dinner at Aaron’s house the night before—her mother never got over the breakup with Bryan. Last night was proof she still held out hope that they would get back together, that Blythe would marry someone more “suitable.”
Blythe sees Tommy suddenly squat behind the counter, his face disappearing into the area where her package dropped. She hears a sharp inhalation of breath and looks over to see concern on Nadine’s face. She has hidden his liquor in that spot, Blythe realizes, and he is dangerously close to discovering it. Someone needs to throw him off.
Should she ask him to get her package for her? Tell him she’s decided not to send it after all? That would deter him. But then he’d probably want to know why. She looks around at the women she is trapped with. She’d have to explain it to them all, and that’s not something she wants to explain to anyone. She’s still trying to figure it out for herself. Blythe glances down at her engagement ring, the one her mother frowned at, just as Nadine speaks up.
“Tommy,” Nadine hollers. “Get out of there. That’s federal mail. You shouldn’t be poking around in there. That’s people’s private business.”
Tommy stands to his feet, puts his hands on his hips. “I don’t care,” he says.
“Well, you should,” Nadine retorts. “Would you want someone reading something you wrote? Something personal that’s not for anyone else to see?”
Now everyone is looking at Nadine. But she had to do something to get Tommy away from that spot. She thinks of the envelope they fought over, of his gun jabbing at it as he demanded she tear it up. There was part of her that wanted to tear it to bits, and that is the truth. She never wanted any of this. She wanted more beach days together.
Defiant, Tommy stoops down again, reaching into the cart where the packages are deposited. He keeps his eyes focused on Nadine as he gropes around without looking, then he randomly extricates one, grinning like a man who’s pulled a winning ticket from a hat. He looks at what he’s grabbed, squints as he pulls it closer, shakes his head, and tosses the envelope on the counter.
He drops his head, his eyes still on the envelope. The room is silent as they all watch Tommy, who can feel their eyes upon him.
“What is it?” Nadine asks him.
Tommy shakes his head as he continues to look at the envelope. It is nothing really, just a magazine renewal. But Tommy can’t help but stare at the familiar logo of the hunting magazine his father subscribed to for as long as he can remember. When Tommy was little and bored, he’d page through whatever recent issue was around. He’d look at the full-color photographs and make up stories about the people in the pictures, the fathers and sons and dogs featured prominently. They all looked happy in the pictures; even the dogs seemed to smile. In his stories the little boys lived with their daddies all the time instead of only seeing them every other weekend, and they had lots of fun adventures together. Remembering all that, Tommy hits upon something he can do, if only to buy himself more time.
“It’s nothing,” he says, wondering as he says it why of all themail he had to pull from in that box, this was the one he chose. He has to think it means something. He picks up the envelope and pointedly drops it back into the mix where it came from, then looks to Sylvie. “I want to talk to that woman,” he says.
Sylvie’s eyes get larger behind her glasses. “Okay, we can do that. But... why?”
“I figured out what I want,” he says. “I know what I’m going to ask for.” He glances down into the cart where the envelope disappeared. “I want to talk to my dad.”
“Tommy, you can’t do that,” Nadine pipes up. “You—”
Sylvie cuts her off. “Sure you can,” Sylvie says. “This is what they want. For you to tell them whatyouwant. If you don’t, there can’t be a negotiation. The sooner they can get you what you want, the sooner they can get this all resolved.” She gives Nadine a look. It is a look that says, “For now it’s best just to keep quiet.”
“Well,” Tommy says, “then that’s what I want.” He nods, agreeing with himself. “I want to talk to my dad.”
“Okay, I’ll get Hope on the phone.” Sylvie starts to rise but pauses, raising her eyebrows at him. She is bone-weary, yet she feels a rush of adrenaline. “But they’re going to need to hear from you this time. They’re not going to want to hear whatyouwant from me.”
Tommy nods, and there is a broken look about him. Sylvie wonders what envelope he extracted from the cart full of mail that made him decide so quickly that he wanted to talk to his dad, but she doesn’t dare ask. Instead, she stands, goes to the phone, and picks it up. She knows that out there in the land of the living the authorities have done something to make it so no other phone calls are coming in or going out of this line. It is a direct line, Sylvie hopes, to freedom. It is a direct line to Hope.
Chapter 21
