It’s A Plunderful Life Read online

  Okay, maybe not in a second. We’d have to do marriage counseling. And he’d have to make it up to me. We’re not talking flowers here.

  And so I answered the phone with trepidation, and anger, and not a small amount of hope. I know that makes me sound weak, but when we’re heartbroken, don’t we all just want the pain to stop?

  “Cass, hi,” Brad said. How many times had he said just those words. Cass, hi. Just calling to see if you needed me to stop by the grocery store and get milk on my way home. Or, Cass, hi. Could you pick up my suits from the dry cleaners? And, Cass, hi. Did you see that they’ve raised the deductible on our insurance?

  Ah. Wedded bliss.

  “What do you want, Brad?” I tried to walk a fine line between sounding like I was totally okay without him while also sounding like he could still win me back if he tried. I was hoping I came off as just brisk.

  Twenty plus years of marriage, and brisk was the best I could hope for.

  “My lawyer looked at the papers your lawyer sent over, and I wanted to talk to you about the ring.”

  I blinked. “The ring?”

  He cleared his throat, and I knew this wasn’t a “What have I done? Please come home” call. “The engagement ring,” he clarified like I was some kind of idiot and thought maybe he was talking about one of those rings you got out of the machines at the grocery store.

  Ichabod was staring at the phone in my hand. “Are you talking to me, madame?” he asked, floating closer. I stabbed one finger in the air to tell him to give me a second.

  “The engagement ring? Do you mean my engagement ring?”

  “Well, the thing is, it’s actually my grandmother’s ring. Since it’s a family heirloom, my lawyer says it’s only right that you return it.”

  My finger wasn’t keeping Ichabod at bay for long. He circled me, studying my face carefully. “What is this device you hold to your ear? I hear voices.” He clapped his hands to his head. “You…you hear them too, correct? I’m not going mad?”

  “Give me a minute,” I hissed. Then, to Brad, I said, “Your lawyer can talk to my lawyer about this. We’re paying them so we never have to talk to each other again.” My heart broke a little at the end, but it was the truth.

  “Cass, be reasonable. This is one thing we can settle outside of court. Just send the ring back. Please.” There was a note of desperation in his voice that made me suspicious.

  “Why do you want it that badly?” I asked, waving my hand to stop Ichabod from doing what he was doing, which was trying to grab the phone with his ghostly hand. He couldn’t actually touch it, but the feeling of his hand passing over my skin was icky.

  “It belongs in my family, Cass,” Brad said, confirming all my suspicions.

  “Your mother wants it, doesn’t she?” I could just picture that old bat wringing her hands over the whereabouts of some ugly ring. Because it really was ugly. I’d loved it because Brad had given it to me, because it had been a symbol of the beginning of our life together. I’d worn it every day because I loved him, and I loved that ring because it was an extension of him. But if we’re being blunt here, it was a hideous piece of jewelry.

  And if his mother wanted it, and Brad wanted it, I wasn’t about to let it go easily. “What are you willing to trade for it, Brad? Maybe the HSA?”

  He spluttered. He actually spluttered. “You know the ring isn’t worth that much.”

  “Tell that to your mom,” I snapped. Then, because I had finally gotten the last word, I clicked my phone off, ending the conversation while I was ahead. “That felt good,” I told Ichabod, who was peering closely at the phone in my hand.

  “You were using this device to communicate with someone who is…not here? Another ghost?”

  I barked a laugh. “I wish. No, my husband is sadly not a ghost.”

  That drew a deep frown from Ichabod. “Madame, you should not speak of or to your husband that way.”

  I tossed the phone on the counter. “Yeah, well, he’s almost my ex-husband, so I’m not too worried.” When the phone rang again and Brad’s name popped up, I hit Ignore and smiled at Ichabod. “Has anyone shown you Candy Crush yet?”

  “I do not like this new world. Women speaking to their husbands with less respect than a good woman of my day would show a donkey.” He drifted to the window. “I fear that many women of your time could do with a few hours in the branks.”

  The branks, the branks…That sounded familiar. Snatching up my phone, I pulled up Google. “Hey!” I said as I quickly scanned Wikipedia. “This is a torture device.” And it was also known as the scold’s bridle, which somehow made it worse.

  I might be many things, but I was not a scold.

  “Not always. It only sometimes has a spike on the tongue.”

  I shuddered, never more grateful to live in the twenty-first century than at that moment.

  “You know what, Ichabod,” I said. “I think some ghosts around here could use some time in the branks, too.”

  He turned, glowering at me, those heavy brows and dark eyes flashing. And then Toni came in and, not noticing the tension in the room, put a bag of popcorn into the microwave. As the light came on and the corn started popping, Ichabod gasped and floated over, the branks clearly forgotten.

  11

  By the next evening, I was so sick of Ichabod that I was looking forward to spending a night outside the house. He and Kurt seemed to get along well, though, so Ichabod was happy to spend an evening in the study. Plus, Ichabod was quite taken with Squashi. The cat, who was absolutely terrified of me and bolted for the hole under the bookshelf whenever I walked in, purred her neurotic head off whenever Ichabod was around, which just went to show how looney that cat was.

  My mother had big plans for him, too. “I think he can make himself invisible if he practices,” she told me as I packed for the evening. “I’ve noticed sometimes he’s more translucent than other times, and I think if he focuses he should be able to control it.”

  Yeah. You can put “training the world’s most obnoxious ghost to be invisible” as one thing I never want to have to do.

  Still, I knew it would be helpful if Ichabod could become invisible should we ever have someone walk in unexpectedly. “Good luck,” I told Mom.

  She was going to need it.

  Since the park was closed by the time Viv showed up, Mom let us take a golf cart instead of Mother Goose. “Have fun, girls,” she called as we headed into the park.

  The sun was still flirting with the horizon, and the dying rays glinted off the various exhibits. It was quite lovely, and we drove for the most part in silence, just soaking in the peace and magic of the park. I parked in front of the Pirate’s Cove cottage closest to the sea. Salt hung in the air, mingling with the scent of lilac and cordgrass and orchids.

  I wondered how much of the park’s ever-blooming flowers we owed to the magic thrumming through the Enchanted Forest.

  I’d brought a bunch of fancy grownup snacks—gourmet crackers and cheese from the special cheese section of the supermarket and olives and some cut-up veggies with creamy balsamic dip—but we ended up sitting at a little wrought-iron table behind the cottage sipping what I would guess was very expensive wine and eating Cheetos right out of the bag.

  This is the reward for getting old. You get to do whatever you darn well please.

  “I wish we hadn’t lost touch,” she said, flicking some hair over her shoulder with orange-coated fingers and leaving flecks of Cheeto dust in her hair. “I missed you.”

  A breeze rifled the tall grasses that grew between the beach and the cottage. “I can’t believe how long it’s been,” I said. “It feels like we were playing out here just a couple years ago.”

  She shot me a misty smile, and I wondered how much wine she’d had. I thought we were both on our first glasses, but maybe she’d gotten a head start somehow?

  “Remember how much time we spent down at Pirate’s Cove?” she asked. “I think that was my favorite part of the park.”
<
br />   “I was always partial to the Fairy Village.” I took a sip of my wine. “Remember that huge fairy house we built down there and it took us so long we didn’t want to leave it in case someone knocked it down? We slept out there all night.”

  She chuckled and nibbled on another Cheeto. “That was fun, too. But I think it was the sense of adventure that I liked about the cove. It felt like we might find anything in there.”

  I brushed my fingers against my shirt, under which lay the gold coin I’d bought from Vivian. I should remind her about it, ask her to tell me more about its history. She probably knew everything there was to know about it.

  But I didn’t want to talk about the coin with anyone. It was mine, and for some reason it felt like I needed to keep it hidden in order for it to stay that way. Which was so stupid, but there you go.

  So all I said was, “I think I still have jars of sea glass stashed away in Pirate’s Cove.”

  “Really? How fun! Maybe we should go look for them.” Viv set her wine glass down and brushed her fingers together, sprinkling bright orange dust all over the ground like she was Tinkerbell’s dayglo cousin. “Let’s go.”

  “What? Now?” I still had half a glass of wine, and the sun was slipping into the sea. “It’s a little dark, isn’t it? I’m not sure I even know how to turn the lights on.”

  And we would need them. The cave was big, and naturally dark, and entirely safe with the lights on. But without the lights, there were rocks you could twist an ankle on. Not to mention, you know, the ocean. As I said, it was pretty safe most of the time, but we were a long way from help should one of us slip into the water. And given that I suspected Vivian had snuck a couple glasses of wine somewhere along the way, I wasn’t sure I trusted her to play lifeguard.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” Viv said, her eyes bright. “Besides, I have my phone. That gives off some light.”

  Yes, that was just what I wanted lighting my way through a dark cave that had—if Mr. Mancuso was to be believed—once been an actual pirate’s lair. “I think—”

  I was saved by the sound of tires crunching over the shell walk in front of the cottage. “Who is that?” Viv said.

  “Not sure.” I went inside through the back door. Voices carried through the open windows at the front of the cottage. I recognized one of them immediately.

  Toni.

  Well, great.

  “—be fun,” she was saying.

  “I can think of more fun things to be doing,” another woman said.

  I pulled open the front door to find Toni and Diana grabbing overnight bags from the back of a golf cart. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Toni’s eyes were wide and innocent as she strolled up the stepping stone path to the door. “What? It’s girls’ night, right? We’re girls.”

  Something was up, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. “You actually want to hang out with us?”

  “I don’t have anything better to do, and Diana’s boyfriend is out of town helping a friend move. So we’re totally free.”

  “I’m surprised to hear hanging out with me rates higher than doing nothing.”

  Reaching the door, Toni waited for me to step aside and let her in. “Of course.” She shot me her patented feral smile. “Sis.”

  Yeah, this was bad news. Toni wanted to spend time with me about as much as I wanted to hang out with her, but I wasn’t going to get to the bottom of this standing in the doorway. I stepped back, and Toni clomped past me in her heavy hiking boots. Dropping her bag just inside the door, she turned to me. “I hope there’s wine.”

  “That makes two of us,” Diana grumbled as she followed Toni in.

  It actually made three of us, but I held my tongue as I closed the door and headed to the kitchen for a refill. Given the small, open layout of the cabin, it wasn’t much of a trek.

  Viv met me at the fridge. “What are they doing here?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure.” I held up the Riesling. “More?”

  She nodded. “Is there any way—”

  “Okay, ground rules,” Toni said, clapping her hands together. “First, no lip syncing.”

  We all stared at her. “No what?” I asked, adding more wine to my own glass.

  “Lip syncing.” When we all just continued to stare, she added, “You know. Where we put on some female power anthem and pretend our hairbrushes are microphones.”

  Diana coughed. “Um, Tone—”

  “That’s your first rule?” I asked.

  “What? I know what goes on at these sorts of things.” Toni bent down to loosen the laces on her hiking boots.

  Vivian took a long drink.

  “Who are you hanging out with that insists on lip syncing? We were just going to drink wine and eat fancy cheese.” I did my best to surreptitiously brush any remaining Cheeto dust from my fingers.

  “I wouldn’t mind doing some lip syncing. Maybe some ‘Single Ladies’? I’ll be Beyonce,” Diana said, fluffing her short dark hair.

  “You’re no Beyonce, honey,” Viv muttered into her glass.

  “Have you ever had a girls’ night before?” I asked. Surely Toni had a ton of female friends in town that she would hang out with. Right?

  But she occupied herself with tugging off her boots and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’ve seen movies,” she finally said.

  “Okay, well, I don’t think you’re in any danger of an impromptu lip sync with us,” I said.

  “I just wouldn’t put anything past you,” she said, standing up and moving to the cabinet that held the wine glasses.

  I waved one hand. “Don’t mind Toni,” I told Vivian. “She’s still mad over the bridesmaid dress I made her wear in my wedding.”

  “It was orange,” Toni said without heat.

  “It was a perfectly lovely shade of apricot,” I insisted. I had loved it, although in retrospect it hadn’t been a great color on my stepsister. But I’d been in my twenties and deeply in love, and it hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps what I wanted wasn’t what worked for Toni. She’d thrown a fit at the time, although my mother and Kurt had gotten her calmed down enough that she was able to walk the aisle when the big day came. But our relationship had never been the same.

  Which was a stupid thing to get in the way of a sisterly relationship, but that’s how things happen sometimes.

  “I saw pictures of your wedding,” Viv said, and I heard the wistfulness in her voice. She’d moved away by the time I got married, and we’d lost touch by then. If she’d stayed in town, maybe she would have been one of my bridesmaids, too. Apricot would have looked amazing on her. “You looked fantastic.”

  “Yeah. A lot of good it did me.”

  Her face grew dark, and I knew she was thinking about her own failed marriage. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I did everything right.”

  “I know. I did too.”

  “Not your bridesmaid dresses,” Toni muttered, and I shot her a look. She poured herself a glass of wine and tried to look innocent.

  “What are we doing?” Viv said, suddenly brightening. “Why are we letting those idiots have any more of our headspace than they’ve already taken from us? We’re going to have a wonderful evening and we’re not going to talk about them again until we have to give their eulogies.”

  Well, that was a bit darker than I might have gone, but I felt the vibe. “Agreed,” I said, raising my glass and clinking it against hers.

  “To karma,” she said, her smile tight.

  Toni winced and turned away.

  “So that’s a no to the lip syncing, then?” Diana asked.

  I sighed. It was going to be a long night.

  Later, after we had finished off the wine and Toni and Diana had turned in and Viv and I had brushed our teeth and were bundled in the back bedroom under a big window overlooking the dunes, she squinted out at where the sea lay. “Remember, Cass? Remember when we found the
coin?”

  “Mmhmm.” I was so sleepy, and Vivian had been talking almost nonstop about our childhood. I understood, though. Wasn’t that why I had come home? When you lose everything you thought you could count on, wasn’t it normal to cling to something that felt stable? For me, that was home. For Viv, it was her childhood. Like me, she’d been suddenly unmoored, and this was what comforted her.

  I reached out and patted her hand. “Goodnight, Viv,” I said.

  As I fell asleep, I thought I heard her say the word once more. Remember?

  12

  The next morning, Vivian and I got up early and walked down to Pirate’s Cove. It was just as I remembered it, the replica of a pirate ship sitting low in the water, the cave walls lit up with flickering torches that came to life each morning promptly at seven. Pebbles and sea glass crunched beneath our feet. The cave smelled damp, with traces of rum and gunpowder, and all around us was the sea air, thick with salt and danger.

  We weren’t the only ones there, despite waking up early. A family of four had already clambered up the gangplank of the ship, and a tow-headed kid of about six was playing with the great ship’s wheel. Behind him, one of the sails snapped as if a gust of wind had filled it. He squealed with sheer delight, and I sighed. This was what the park offered people, this tiny slice of magic.

  Vivian wasn’t thrilled to have company. I understood that too. I’m sure there were often guests in the cave while we played there as children, but in my memories we usually had the place to ourselves.

  “It’s almost exactly as I remember it,” she said, nudging one of the treasure chests with the toe of her shoe.

  I rubbed the coin through my shirt and nodded, but there was something different about the cave. Something…electric. Alive. I wondered if it had anything to do with the young family on the ship, if being in the cave with other people changed everything.