Surfside Sisters Read online

  Surfside Sisters is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Nancy Thayer

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781524798727

  Ebook ISBN 9781524798741

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Belina Huey

  Cover image: Aleksandra Kovac and Nikita Sursin/Stocksy United

  v5.4

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part Two

  Chapter Eight

  Part Three

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Nancy Thayer

  About the Author

  The JetBlue Airbus A320 hummed as it approached LaGuardia Airport. Keely Green checked that her seatbelt was fastened (it was), closed her eyes, and let her mind roam back to the moments she’d loved best on her latest book tour. She didn’t know how it could be—it had to be through the magic of books—that the women she met at her talks in libraries and halls and homes were women whom she’d met for the first time and yet seemed already to be her dear and closest friends. She could tell them everything.

  Well, almost everything.

  She didn’t tell them that she spent most of her life in isolation, joined only to her computer as she wrote and revised her books. She didn’t tell them she woke up, made a big cup of coffee, and sat at her desk for four hours every morning, never dressing or even brushing her teeth until she’d finished writing.

  She didn’t tell them that the man she loved didn’t love her.

  She didn’t tell them that she was lonely.

  She would never tell them that.

  The plane landed with a roar and a thud. Everyone in the cabin sighed in relief and began gathering their possessions. Keely was in no hurry. She’d flown first-class, because, damn it, after all her years of riding the gasoline-smelling, lurching, coughing dinosaur of a bus from Hyannis to Boston, she could afford to travel in comfort. She had only her purse and her computer with her. Making so many stops, she’d had to pack a wardrobe for various climates, so she’d checked her luggage. In a kind of fugue state, she strode down the wide corridors toward the baggage claim, waited while the conveyor belt began to roll, lifted off her suitcase, and headed for the taxi stand.

  Outside, the October weather was surprisingly mild. She stood in line, waiting for a taxi, and scrolled through her messages on her cellphone. Her agent’s assistant, Fiona, wanted Keely to attend an art opening tonight. Keely hesitated before answering. It had been a busy month, and she was dreaming of a hot bath, her soft bed, and Jamie Brenner’s new novel. But she knew it was important to be seen, both professionally and personally. She’d moved to New York last summer, when she sold her first novel. In so many ways, her life had changed completely. She’d made friends in the city, she’d even dated, but she hadn’t experienced the slightest blip of electricity with any of the men she’d met, and she was longing for one small shock, a charge that reminded her she was not just a fortunate writer, but also a real and sensual woman.

  Tonight she was too tired for any kind of shock. Tomorrow night she was going to a concert at Lincoln Center with Erica Reynaud, another transplant from Nantucket. Saturday she was having lunch with her British agent who was here for only a few days, and Saturday night she had plans to join Fiona at a party in Brooklyn.

  The area she was renting in was lovely, old brick and brownstone buildings with small gardens facing the street. She felt safe here, and she needed that, because even though Nantucket and Manhattan were more or less the same size, Nantucket had no buildings higher than three stories and no alleys or back streets she couldn’t walk through safely in the middle of the night. Manhattan was different. The pace, the lights, the voices, the horns, the sheer enormity of it all—it was a lot to take in. Did she feel at home here? Some people, like her friend Erica, knew they were at home the moment they set foot in this electric city. Keely didn’t feel that way yet.

  She sighed as she unlocked her thousand locks and let herself into her apartment. Its bland, impersonal furnishings were a relief. Everything was exactly as she’d left it…piles of pages for her new novel rising from what could serve as a dining table but worked perfectly as a desk in this two-room apartment. Breton crackers and peanut butter for dinner or breakfast and apples in the refrigerator crisper. She’d lived for days on less when she was in the heat of writing. Tomorrow she’d do a proper shopping.

  Tonight she dropped her laptop on the table, wheeled her suitcase into her room, opened it, and groaned. The weight of the last month when she’d flown from city to city settled on her. She collapsed on her bed, removed her high heels, and rubbed her aching feet. Some women had Botox shot into the soles of their feet to numb them so there would be less pain.

  Keely’s cure was a long, soaking, very hot bath. She felt her muscles melt and her mind empty. Wrapped in her silk kimono, she took a glass of sparkling Perrier water and settled on the sofa. She turned on the television. CNN’s Erin Burnett was on, so it was only the beginning of the evening. Keely spent a while thinking that if all the female anchors didn’t have each hair so exquisitely in place, they’d have more gravitas, and then she chided herself for criticizing Erin or any female reporter, and then she wondered when Anderson Cooper would come on because she had a massive crush on him even if he was gay, and then she fell asleep.

  She woke at five in the morning with the television still on, displaying an ad for Cialis. She clicked the remote control off, turned over, and went back to sleep.

  She woke again at nine, and she was starving. She made coffee, which helped, although she didn’t have any fresh milk. She fixed herself two whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and smiled, because that had been one of her favorite breakfasts when she was a kid. When she was a kid, she’d dreamed of becoming a writer. And so had her best friend, Isabelle.

  Keely missed Isabelle.

  She missed walking in sandals. She missed walking in sand.

  She missed her island, her friends, her home. She missed her mom.

  Pathetic.

  And yes, she disliked the sniveling bore living in her mind. How dare she be unhappy! She was fortunate, she knew that, almost freakishly fortunate. Her first novel, Rich Girl, had been published to an astonishing reception. Sh
e’d toured the country and everyone told her how much they loved her book. She loved her readers! She loved writing. She was wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, and she was only twenty-eight years old. Her second novel, Poor Girl, was ready for proofreading and would come out next summer. She was working on her new novel, Sun Music.

  And she was all alone in the world.

  Two different kinds of people exist: Those who wade cautiously into the shallows and those who throw themselves headlong into the roaring surf.

  At least, that was what Keely and Isabelle thought.

  As girls, Keely and Isabelle preferred Surfside to Jetties or Steps Beach, even though that meant a longer bike ride to the water. Jetties Beach was mild and shallow, perfect for children, but Surfside had, well—surf!—often dramatically breathtaking surf leaping up and smashing down with a roar and an explosion of spray that caught the sunlight and blinded their eyes with rainbows. Their parents worried when they went to Surfside. People could get caught up by the power of the water and slammed mercilessly down onto the sand. People had their ankles broken, their arms. Once, a classmate of Keely’s had broken his neck, but they’d medevaced him to Boston and eventually he was good as new. He never returned to Surfside, though.

  Keely couldn’t remember a time when Isabelle wasn’t her best friend. They met in preschool, linked up the first day, and went on like that for years. They were equally spirited and silly. They played childish pranks, using the landline to punch in a random number; if a woman answered, they whispered in what they considered sultry, sexy voices, “Tell your husband I miss him.” Usually they couldn’t keep from giggling before they disconnected. At ten, they smoked cigarettes at night in the backyard—until they realized the nicotine only made them nauseous. Once, when they were eleven, they stole lipsticks from the pharmacy, which was really stupid, since they didn’t wear lipstick.

  Isabelle lived in a huge marvelous old Victorian house in the middle of Nantucket. It had a wraparound porch and a small turret. Odd alcoves and crannies were tucked in beneath the stairs, both the formal, carpeted stairs from the front hall and the narrow, twisting back stairs from the kitchen. It was the perfect place for hide-and-seek, and on rainy days, they were allowed to rummage through old trunks and boxes in the attic, pulling on ancient dresses as soft as spiderwebs and floppy hats heavy with cloth flowers.

  The Maxwell house was rambling and mysterious, a home out of storybooks, and for Keely, the amazing Maxwell family belonged there.

  Isabelle’s father, Al Maxwell—his full first name was Aloysius, which his children used when he reprimanded them—“Yes, sir, Aloysius!”—was a lawyer, a partner with the Nantucket firm Maxwell and Dunstan. Mr. Maxwell was larger than life, tall, broad, ruddy-cheeked, and energetic. He didn’t talk, he bellowed. He didn’t drink, he gulped. He didn’t laugh, he roared. His wife, Donna, said the vertebrae of his spine spelled out EXTROVERT. When he arrived home after a day at the office, he threw off his jacket, loosened his tie, and strode out to the spacious backyard. He’d join a game of baseball or pick up Izzy or Keely, settle them on his shoulders, and chase the other children, bellowing that he was a wild and angry bull, all the time keeping tight hold on the legs of the child he carried.

  Mrs. Maxwell was movie star beautiful. Tall, blond, and buxom, she was the careful parent, the watchful one. She seldom joined in their games, probably because she was busy cooking enormous meals for her family and baking cakes and pies that sold out at church and school fundraisers. She was the mother who volunteered as chaperone on all the school trips, who helped decorate the gym for special occasions, and when her son stomped into the house with most of the high school basketball team, she was ready with hearty snacks like taco bakes and pizzas. She did everything the perfect mom would do, and still remained, somehow, cool, restrained. At least it seemed she was that way toward Keely.

  There were the two remarkable Maxwell children. The oldest was Sebastian, tall, lanky, blue-eyed Sebastian. How he managed to be so handsome and so modest at the same time was always a curiosity to Keely. She thought that it must be because he grew up in a house where everyone was gorgeous, so it seemed as normal to him as breathing. He played most of the school sports—baseball, basketball, soccer—and he was on the swim team.

  After Sebastian, two years younger, came Isabelle. Mr. Maxwell often bragged, “I hit it out of the park with her!” At which Mrs. Maxwell would respond, “Not by yourself, you didn’t.” Such casual remarks alluding to sex made the Maxwell parents urbane and superior in Keely’s eyes.

  Isabelle was a beauty like her mother, only willowy instead of voluptuous. Unlike Sebastian, she was aware of the power of her looks, and she was a friendly girl, but deep down inside not really a team player. She liked secrets, liked sharing them with Keely and no one else. She liked plotting and disobeying and sneaking and hiding. She liked mischief. She was often in trouble with the school or her parents, but she was also almost genius smart, so she got good grades and she knew when to rein in her wild side.

  The Maxwell house was always crowded with kids of all ages, playing Ping-Pong in the basement, doing crafts at the dining room table while Donna baked cookies, or giggling in Isabelle’s room while trying on clothes. Fido, their slightly dense yellow Lab, roamed the house looking for dropped food. He always found something. Salt and Pepper, their long-haired cats, gave the evil eye to any humans that tried to remove them from whatever soft nest they’d made, but if they were in the right mood, they’d accept gentle stroking and reward the human with a tranquilizing purr.

  Keely was fiercely, but secretly, jealous of the entire family. It wasn’t that her parents weren’t rich like the Maxwells—well, it wasn’t only that. It wasn’t that the Green house was a small ranch outside town. It wasn’t that Keely had longed for a brother or sister and had remained an only-lonely. It wasn’t even that her parents were allergic to animals, so she never had a kitten or puppy. She never even had a damn hamster!

  But she wouldn’t have traded her parents for anyone. Her father was a car mechanic who taught her how to change a tire and make window washer fluid. Her mother was a nurse who taught her how to use a butterfly bandage and stop a nosebleed. Mr. and Mrs. Green were well-liked in the community, and they loved Keely with all their hearts. Her father taught her to surf cast and bodyboard. He showed her where the prickly pear cactus grew on Coatue and where the sweetest wild blueberries grew on the moors. He told her why the Red Sox and the Patriots were the best teams anywhere, ever. He gave her books by Jack London and Jules Verne so she wouldn’t read only what he called “girly books.” Her mother adored him. She made delicious jams and jellies from the fruits they picked. She dressed and grilled the fish they caught and brought home. When she could, she went with them in late autumn, during islander scalloping time. The three of them drove to Great Point in the winter to see all the seals, and the first “book” Keely wrote was about an orphaned seal adopted by a family just like hers.

  Isabelle loved hanging out at Keely’s house because she could escape her noisy family, and Keely loved being at Isabelle’s house because she loved being around that noisy family. Plus, secretly, Keely had a crush on Sebastian.

  Sebastian was two years older than Keely. She was ten, he was twelve. The end.

  She hid her hopeless childish love from Isabelle, who had sharp edges when it came to her brother. Isabelle was constantly confiding to Keely about how Sebastian was so perfect she felt she could never measure up. She carried a massive inferiority complex on her slender shoulders. It didn’t help that half the girls in town, older and younger, sucked up to Isabelle, acting all sweetie pie–best friends only because they wanted to get into the Maxwell house and flirt with Sebastian.

  That wasn’t the case with Keely. She had chosen Isabelle first, and knew they would always be best friends. She couldn’t even imagine life without Isabelle. And often, she felt as if she were a small but re
al part of the Maxwell family. When they went to the fair in the summer or a Theatre Workshop play in the winter or out in the Maxwells’ Rhodes 19 sailboat for a day at Tuckernuck, Keely was often invited along. They even kept a life jacket just for Keely hanging on the hook in their back hall. The fifth chair at the dining room table was called “Keely’s chair,” no matter who sat in it. Mr. Maxwell made Keely feel bigger, better, more worthy of simply being on the planet. Keely adored him, but she kept this to herself as much as she hid her infatuation with Sebastian. She was an only child, good at keeping her own confidences.

  “My parents are boring,” Keely confessed one day when she and Isabelle were idly dangling on the complicated swing set in the Maxwells’ backyard. They were ten, too old to play on the swings, young enough to enjoy their joke: “hanging out.”

  “You’re nuts!” Isabelle said. “I’d give anything to live your life. No big brother flicking my ear and forcing me to play catch. I could lie in my quiet room reading and reading.”

  “Or writing and writing,” Keely said.

  In fifth grade, they confessed to each other they wanted to become writers. They were already best friends, but this shared, slightly eccentric hope bonded the two girls like superglue. They spent long summer hours writing scenes and stories, reading and discussing them with each other. They’d phone constantly to suggest new plot ideas, to mention a cool new word (quixotic, ethereal) they’d learned. They planned their glamorous new lives. They’d have their novels published at the same time. They’d have apartments across from each other in New York. On the island, Isabelle would drive a Porsche convertible. Keely decided on a Mercedes SUV so she’d have room for all her children.