Chapter 2
Hair and body wrapped in matching white towels, Merry wiped the fog from the bathroom mirror with her hand and assessed what remained of the poison ivy. She didn’t resemble the Swamp Thing now, so that was good. And she didn’t need the calamine lotion anymore as the rash was almost gone and no longer itched.
She recalled the look on the face of the man at the beach and wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t blame him for staring. Between the calamine lotion and the loose clothing that might double for a tablecloth, she knew she looked ridiculous, but she was only following the doctor’s orders. Heat, the doctor told her, would agitate the rash, so stay out of the sun. Quite a trick when one was at the beach. In her defense, she had expected cooler weather this early in December, but the daytime temps had been in the mid-eighties.
In keeping with her doctor’s orders, Merry had covered up to enjoy the ocean air first thing in the morning instead of later in the day. But inspecting herself now, she decreed the poison ivy scourge cured. Mostly. And that meant shorts and flip-flops and no more calamine lotion.
She called room service and ordered a light lunch, then settled in to check her email and respond to comments left on her last post at Merry Sunjoy’s Book-Bliss Blog for Parents Who Read to Their Kids. Yes, it was a mouthful, but Merry’s blog readers didn’t mind the lengthy title. In fact, some had shortened it to Merry Sunjoy’s BBB, which Merry considered delightful until that nasty Scurvy Rickets person turned it around. His last Twitter post had read:
Scurvy Rickets @ScurvyRickets 4h @MerrySunjoy #BookBlissBlog=#BigBunchaBaloney dissing #PukefacedPirates. I say “Stick it where book-bliss don’t shine, lady.” #Beanbottom
First, she hadn’t dissed the Pukefaced Pirates series. Well, not exactly. She had simply pointed out that there was other children’s literature available that didn’t rely on gastrointestinal upsets to bring comic relief, to which Mr. Rickets had replied via a blog comment that she lacked a sense of humor. Merry had replied that her sense of humor was good enough to know that his work wasn’t funny—a blatant lie. The Pirates were hilarious, and she knew it, but Rickets himself was such a jackass she couldn’t bring herself to admit it publicly. The next thing she knew, her Twitter notification pinged and she read his nasty tweet. She still hadn’t responded to it, wondered if ignoring it would be the best thing.
She frowned. It had already been shared over a thousand times, and that was just since breakfast.
Since she couldn’t make up her mind about whether or not to tweet him back, she had gone to the beach instead where she met the very handsome gentleman with hair the color of sun-kissed chestnuts. He’d been rather gallant, returning her errant hat, and she’d watched him from behind her sunglasses, too engrossed in the thick muscles of his chest and arms to pay any attention when he said his name. He had repeated it for her, and she still couldn’t remember it. There should be a law against a man being built like that, and she hoped she’d run into him again. It was more than three years since her divorce, she was thirty-two, and not getting any younger. She had promised herself she was ready to take chances again, ready to trust other people.
Maybe.
Possibly.
After all, not every man was a pathological liar like her ex. At least, that’s what her therapist had insisted.
Based on that notion, there had to be at least one human male in existence who knew how to tell the truth. Right? Right?
And there was something about that guy on the beach. Merry had seen him somewhere before. She was certain of it. That flash of immediate recognition had to be the reason she had yammered on like a fool. The moment she’d realized she was rambling, she worried he’d think she was being forward, which she was not. Anyway, she might be ready to take chances, but not today. What she wanted was a nice, quiet, working vacation.
Her lunch arrived, and she dove into her Cobb salad with gusto before opening her laptop to check blog comments. And there it was. The newest comment from him, in response to her assertion that his work wasn’t funny. He wrote:
My work is entertaining and significant, Ms. Sunjoy, hence the Newsome Award. When was the last time your happy-happy-joy-joy syrup earned the same? Go ahead and review. I’ll wait. ZZZzzzzz…
Merry’s ears heated and she stopped herself from growling out loud.
No one on earth could get under her skin like that odious man. She stared at the thumbnail image that accompanied his comment and shook her head. Obviously an artist’s depiction. It looked like the lovechild of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow and the horrifying doll from the Chucky movies.
Scurvy Rickets. Why would any author choose such a pen name? Which begged the question, who was he really? Probably a bitter old crank with nothing better to do than play the role of online troll when he wasn’t writing books for adolescent pre-teens obsessed with gas.
Merry slapped the laptop shut and let herself fall back into the pillows. She had to think of a witty response this time because, damn him, he was right. Her books had earned more than one award, but none of her titles had ever scored a Newsome. She had never cared about that before. She had only cared that children and their parents loved the stories she wrote, and she’d hit a homerun with her Foundling Faeries series about three orphaned faeries on a mission to save their parents.
The evil leprechaun, Heroone, had used his magic potion to trick the faerie parents. He turned them, and hundreds of other victims, into shiny pebbles for his garden. Everyone told the Foundling Faeries their parents were dead, but they knew better. They knew if they looked long enough and hard enough, did good deeds, and believed with all their might, that one day they would find their parents and rescue them from Heroone. At the heart of it, the three faeries wanted what every child wants—love, acceptance, and a sense of safety and belonging.
Not that this desire had ever helped Merry and her sister Holly save their mother from her personal lifelong demons.
Merry rubbed her forehead and frowned, pushing the thought into a dark corner. She couldn’t think about her mother right now. No, what Merry needed to be concerned with was Scurvy Rickets, because she was tired of dealing with the negativity and having to always be on her toes for witty responses. Every time her phone pinged a social media notification, Merry’s heart sped and her stomach clenched as she feared Rickets had dropped another verbal bomb on her. Why the man had chosen to pick on her she didn’t understand, but it was exhausting. Her agent had sympathized and promised to reach out on her behalf, see if he could stop the nonsense. But so far all he’d done was beg her to continue with the silly back-and-forth because it had been great for sales. For reasons Merry didn’t understand, discord grabbed more attention than niceties, and thanks to that rotten old Rickets, her book sales were up.
She closed her eyes and her mind drifted back to . . . oh, fiddlesticks. What was his name? Rick. No, wait. Rick made her think of Rickets, and the sexy gentleman on the beach was certainly no Scurvy Rickets.
Nick. That was it.
She imagined him walking toward her again, the sun giving the ends of his hair a burnished glow while the muscles of his lean athlete’s body riveted her attention like a dream-come-true. After that, she couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. Hazel, glowing green and gold, and when the sun touched them—oh, my!
Yessiree, bub. The Ray-Bans came off and those thick-lashed eyes lived up to the promise delivered by the rest of him. She hoped to see those eyes again, up close next time, so she could decide if they were more green or gold and whether or not the soul behind them was genuine. Unfortunately, in her experience, men who looked like Nick were usually lying, narcissistic assholes.
Still, it was possible he was that most elusive of all creatures: an honest person who could be believed and trusted.
She emitted a mighty sigh. Yeah, right. A man like that is as fictional as the Foundling Faeries.
Her ex-husband’s face swam before her eyes. If the man had ever uttered a single whole truth, she’d not been the one to hear it. Merry’s mother had offered up nothing but a lifetime of lies also, but that was because her addictions did the talking for her.
Annoyed with her negative thoughts, Merry pushed them away. If years of therapy had taught her nothing else, she had learned that she had the power to control her own thinking.
She replayed in her mind the image of Nick walking toward her on the beach. She closed her eyes and let herself drift . . .
“Is he real?” Moonflower whispered, peeking at the creature from behind a palm frond. It was an effort to still the fluttering of her gossamer faerie wings.
“I think he’s real,” said Sunbloom, her blue eyes wide.
“I think he’s false,” Skyblossom huffed.
“Why?” said Moonflower and Sunbloom together.
“Because.” Skyblossom’s wings drooped and she lowered her eyes. “Nothing that beautiful can possibly be real.”
Merry opened her eyes and frowned. She didn’t like being bitter, and she had promised herself she was ready for a fresh start.
Merry jumped when her cell phone blared. She recognized the ringtone as her sister’s and scrambled for the phone on the bedside table. “Holly—hello!”
“Hello yourself. How’s your working vacation?”
“Fine, and cut the small talk. How’d your doctor appointment go?” Merry asked, her heart pounding like a runaway train.
“The doctor said there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s nothing but bad luck.” Holly’s harsh laugh tightened Merry’s chest. She knew when her sister was fighting tears. “He said Ben and I should wait a few months and then try to get pregnant again. Maybe third time will be a charm.”
“I’m sorry about the baby. But honey, it is great news that it’s only, you know, bad luck.” Merry gulped back tears of her own. “That sounds so lame, but it’s true. At least you know you’re healthy. And somewhere up in heaven is a little soul waiting to belong to you and Ben. Maybe he or she isn’t ready to flutter down to earth yet.”
“You always find a way to make bad stuff sound not so bad. Thanks for that, I guess.” Holly blew a sigh through the phone. “So how’s your vacation going? Any chance you can fly back here for the weekend? It’s the anniversary of Mom’s—look, I know you know the date. I thought we might go to the cemetery together and lay some flowers.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re at the beach,” Holly said, her tone dry. “I think the saltwater and sand will still be there when you get back. The only reason you chose to go down there now was so you could avoid going to the cemetery.”
Merry considered her words as the silence stretched. “I’m only here for a couple weeks. I already told you I’ll be home for Christmas and New Year’s.”
“Mom’s death was a hit to both of us. You don’t own the corner on anger or guilt here. I’m having a tough time, same as you.”
“You’ve got Ben, Holly. You don’t need me. And why do we have to make a big deal out of the anniversary anyway?”
“Because it will be symbolic. Cathartic. Ben will be there, of course, but I need my big sister, too,” Holly said. “And we aren’t making a big deal out of it. We’re going to lay flowers and help ourselves come to terms with this.”
“Holly, it isn’t only her death. She got drunk and high three days out of rehab and slammed my car into a tree. That rehab center cost us a damn fortune, in case you forgot the reason I sold my condo and moved into your guest room.”
“You know you can stay as long as you want or need to,” Holly murmured.
“That isn’t the point, and you know it. I gave up literally everything I worked hard for to help her—again. It’s fortunate she didn’t hurt anyone else. Look, I’m sorry, but I haven’t forgiven her yet.” Merry sighed and struggled for the words to explain. “I’ve spent my life dropping everything, giving things up, to take care of her. My teen years were a blur of cleaning up puke and hiding empty booze bottles at the bottom of the trash so the neighbors wouldn’t see. So you wouldn’t see.”
“I know that. But Mer—”
“And then the drugs started up. She brought heroin into my home, Holly!”
“I know,” Holly said quietly.
“Saturday is the anniversary of her death, but waiting another week or two to lay flowers isn’t going to make any difference. It’s not like it will matter to her.”
“Hey, are we sure this is my big sister Merry I’m talking to? Because Merry always looks on the bright side. Merry always finds a silver lining. Moonflower, Sunbloom, and Skyblossom are going to disown you if you don’t show your sunny side.” Holly’s attempt at humor fell short of the mark.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be my cheery self when I get back.”
“You promise?”
“Yes,” Merry said. “I’ll have my sunshine on. Love you like mad. Hugs to Ben.”
Merry ended the call and opened her laptop. She brought up her Twitter account, stared at the tweet left by Scurvy Rickets, and let her shoulders slump. She couldn’t deal with that jackass. Not right now.
She mentally replayed her conversation with Holly and said a silent prayer that the doctor was right and Holly’s two miscarriages were bad luck and nothing more. The emotional pain derived from the losses, combined with their mother’s behavior and the grim result, had taken a heavy toll on both sisters.
Guilt pressed itself against Merry’s chest. It wouldn’t kill her to take a couple of days from her beach vacation to spend time with Holly on the anniversary of their mother’s death, especially as Holly continued to grieve this second miscarriage. Merry would get through the flowers-at-the-grave thing. It was a small price to pay for the silver lining, which was to offer support to her sister and brother-in-law.
The more she thought about it, the more she knew it was the right thing to do. She could go back to Asheville tomorrow and stay with Holly and Ben through the weekend, returning on Monday to continue her beach vacation. She’d let Ben know she was coming as a surprise for Holly.
She called the front desk, pleased that they had no problem accommodating her change of plans. Then she booked her plane tickets and, satisfied with her decision, opened the file of her latest Foundling Faeries story. Pushing aside all negative thoughts, she opened her mind to her plot and characters and let the joy of them flow into her heart. No matter how dire their situation, the Faeries held hope and sunshine in their hearts.
Happy-happy-joy-joy syrup. . .
Scurvy Rickets’s dig pushed under her skin.
Merry reminded herself that readers loved her books. She imagined children smiling as they read the escapades of her Foundling Faeries. She thought of Scurvy Rickets walking the plank. Into the cold, deep ocean. Swarming with sharks. Hungry, hungry sharks.
And then she put her fingers on the keyboard and got to work.