Gypsy Beach Read Free Page B

Sienna
began to hum an old Gypsy hymn her Nana sang daily in that very
kitchen. She chopped the onions and peppers on her grandmother’s
old cutting board that she’d unpacked and washed. The rhythmic
chopping eased her shoulders, and before she knew it her body began
to sway to her own song as she threw the vegetables into the hot
skillet and tossed them with oregano, garlic and basil, just like
Nana had taught her. The delectable scent infused the air.
Replacing her own tune, Sienna turned on the radio and danced and
swayed her way through the preparations. Stay where the music
moves you, Sienna. She smiled as her grandmother’s voice echoed
in the song.
    A half hour later she fell onto the sofa,
still covered in a furniture blanket, and brought the pasta and
spices to her lips. The taste and heavenly aroma of the dish
brought on another round of memories of all that Gypsy Beach had
been and all that she’d lost when she’d watched her grandmother’s
ashes be spread in the Atlantic, just before the storm had robbed
her of proper time to say good-bye.
    With a resolute nod of her head, she decided
that after dinner she’d visit the sea that had been her life and
her own death. She wasn’t certain she would ever recover from the
loss of her beloved Nana. Or Ryan never coming back.
    Whoa! Where did that come from? And why did
she keep thinking of him? He was long gone. A memory. A good
memory, she allowed herself to admit. She would always love Ryan.
He hadn’t loved her, obviously, and as Nana would say, what was
meant to be would be. She and Ryan clearly were never meant to
be.
     

Three
    Ryan threw himself down on his parents’ old
sofa with the Coke he’d picked up from Bay Merchants. He’d debated
dinner at Montgomery’s, but he hadn’t quite worked up the courage
to make his presence known in town just yet. Rumors of what had
happened to his family had certainly made their way to Gypsy Beach,
and he just wasn’t certain he was ready to face them. It killed him
to think that he might somehow have disappointed a group of people
that had helped raise him, even if it had been his father’s
doing.
    With a slight headshake as his only defense,
the disaster that had been the last ten years began to play in slow
motion in his mind. That stupid Senior English class he had no
hopes of passing in high school.
    “You are not going back to Gypsy Beach by
yourself this summer, young man. You’re going to summer school to
make certain that you pass that English class so you can take your
proper place at UGA just like your Daddy has arranged for you. And
Sienna was fine for a summer fling, but you’re not giving up
college and the life that is waiting for you because of someone
like her. Her grandmother was a Gypsy of all things, Ryan McNamara!
I have no idea what you were thinking getting involved with her in
the first place!”
    The icy vindictiveness of this mother’s
lecture sliced through him like a frozen dagger once again. Not
walking out of his parent’s mansion, figuring out some way to get
back to Gypsy Beach, and telling his father and UGA that they could
go fuck themselves had been the first of a litany of mistakes that
he could never undo.
    He’d been escorted by his parents to the
University that fall. They were still wary of his decision making
skills. Humph! That’s rich! The realization infuriated him
all over again. He’d drown himself in copious amounts of cheap
liquor, sorority girls, and football games, only to wake up more
depressed with each passing day. Unfortunately, the days may’ve
been passing, but he wasn’t. High school had been impossible; how
the hell had his old man thought he’d survive college?
    His mother, and her insistence that she knew
best, landed him squarely at the door to Kappa house. His mother’s
sorority should’ve had him running for higher ground at the first
utterance of the words, “A good friend of your father’s just phoned
us. His little girl, Alexa, just