Folly Cove by Holly Robinson

Author:Holly Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-09-14T10:42:42+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Monday, her mother called to invite Elly for late-morning coffee. “We’ve hardly spent any time together,” Sarah said. “I suppose you and Laura have been busy.”

Too busy for your own mother. That’s what Sarah was implying. Elly didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she simply said she’d be delighted to visit this morning.

She rode Kennedy’s bicycle to the inn around eleven o’clock. Kennedy was in school, Jake was at work, and Laura was mucking out stalls, so Elly was glad of a distraction. She’d checked her e-mails and jobs online and there was nothing new. Not even a text from Ryder. Well, what did she expect? She’d made it clear that she wasn’t expecting anything from him, and then she’d left for Massachusetts without even calling him to say good-bye. She had only herself to blame for feeling stupidly wistful about what might have been between them.

It didn’t help her mood when Sarah pointedly raised the subject of friends as Elly was buttering one of Rodrigo’s fresh raspberry scones and her mother was sipping black coffee. They were seated on the enclosed sunporch on white wicker chairs, a hooked rug in jewel tones at their feet, crystal vases of bright orange mums on the tables. Elly had been determined to feel relaxed, at least, if not completely happy to be here, by focusing on the warmth of the morning sun on her face and listening to the faint rhythmic growl of surf beyond the lawn and garden.

She remembered those rare mornings when the inn was empty—usually off-season, like January or March—when she and her sisters were allowed to play out here. They’d lie on the floor, on these sunlit squares of brightly colored wool, and argue over Monopoly. Or they’d gather their dolls and make a complicated neighborhood where the Barbies were always getting dressed in different sparkly outfits and marrying the sexless Ken dolls. Oh, the hours they’d spent searching for those lost tiny plastic high heels!

As they got older, Laura would bring them out here to play hairdresser. Once, they’d horrified Sarah by braiding their hair into cornrows with beads from a kit Aunt Flossie had given them. She’d brought it back from one of her group yoga retreats to Jamaica.

“I did not raise you to be hippies or Rastafarians,” Sarah had shouted. “Take those off at once and wash your hair!”

“You must miss your friends in Los Angeles,” her mother said now. “Are you seeing anyone special?”

“No, not really.” Elly pushed thoughts of Ryder aside. “It’s a nice change, being here. I love hanging out with Laura and Anne. And Kennedy’s a great kid.”

“Your friends must miss you, too.”

Elly pictured Frankie, her closest friend in Los Angeles, even though Frankie was fifty years old and a widow. Frankie lived below her in the apartment building and was one of the few besides Elly who ever sat outside on the narrow wrought-iron balconies overlooking the courtyard. They had met when Frankie called up from her balcony to

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