On Folly Beach Read Free

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    Maggie bit her lip but when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she said, “You’re going to get yourself killed, Cat, if you lean on the window while you open it. Why don’t we just wait so I can call somebody to get it fixed?”
    “And die of heat prostration first? I’d rather not, but thank you very much. Besides, I’ve been practicing, and I know how to do it now.” As if even mechanical things couldn’t argue with her, the window gave way at the same moment Cat leaned in to prevent herself from toppling out of the second-story window. “See?” she said, grinning as she stepped from the sill and back to the stool.
    Maggie sat on the edge of the white chenille-draped bed in front of the open window and shrugged out of her sweater. “It’s only sixty degrees, Cat. Hardly what anybody would qualify as hot and certainly not enough to warrant putting your life in danger to open a window.” A cool ocean breeze flipped the eyelet curtains into the room as if to accentuate her point. She noticed for the first time the tight white blouse and red skirt her cousin wore. “Are you going somewhere?”
    “Out. I don’t care where, just as long as I’m out. Because of all the soldiers coming in, they’re having dancing on the pier, even though it’s not summer. I swear I can hear the music, and I don’t see why I can’t have fun just like all the other girls.” Cat sent her a petulant look that only made her look more dangerous. Before her death, Cat’s mother had always hoped some Hollywood producer would discover Cat and make her a star. With blond hair, green eyes, and a body with curves in all the right places, she was sometimes mistaken for Lana Turner—a mistake Cat rarely corrected.
    Maggie bit her lip, not wanting another row. But a promise made on her own mother’s deathbed dictated that she had to try to rein Cat in, if such a thing were possible. After a deep breath she said, “It’s too soon, Cat. What will people say? We only just buried Jim, and his death deserves his widow’s respect.”
    Cat remained where she was like a golden statue, eerily silent. Lulu, sensing the upcoming battle, scooted away into a corner, hugging her knees to her chest.
    In a deep voice that didn’t even sound like hers, Cat said, “Jim’s dead, Maggie. Not me. I’m only nineteen years old, for God’s sake! I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, and I’m much too young to be buried next to a man I was only married to for three months.”
    Lulu began to cry, the sound like a whimpering puppy. She’d loved Jim as only a nine-year-old girl could. It was because of her that Jim had come into their lives. She’d fallen at the roller rink and hurt her leg, and Jim had carried her home like a knight in shining armor. Maggie had thought so, too, warming to his easy grin and gray eyes, touched by stories of his own little sister he’d left behind in Louisiana. He’d taken her dancing twice, and had kissed her once. But then he’d met Cat, and there had been no more dances or kisses.
    She stared at her cousin now, the old promise rubbing her like a new shoe. They’d been raised together, their mothers being sisters and Cat’s father having deserted his family long before Cat was even born. Maybe it was because only Maggie saw the desperation in Cat, the hunger and loneliness that dogged her as she hunted for love. And it would have bothered Cat greatly to know that most of the time Maggie only pitied her beautiful cousin.
    “You don’t mean that, Cat. I know that you don’t.”
    Cat stared out the window. “I want to live. I want to dance.” She turned around, her eyes hopeful. “Come with me, Maggie. You can be my chaperone, although it should be the other way around since you’re single and I’m the widow. It’ll be fun. Just like old times.”
    Maggie looked down at her freshly dyed black dress, and her frayed fingernails and stockingless pale legs. Going dancing with Cat was never fun. Maggie would