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ChapterOne
Hadley Masterson pulled to a stop outside the funeral home and prayed for God to strike her dead.
She didn’twantto die.But dead would be a whole lot easier than walking in that door alone.And once she was inside?She had little chance at escaping unnoticed.
Truth be told, she’d much rather take her chances with a forgiving Maker than her mother.
Was that bad?
She closed her eyes and shook her head at herself.She was a forty-five-year-old woman who quivered in fear at the thought of facing a woman once crowned the island’s Mermaid Queen.
Yeah, well, it didn’t have to be like this, did it, Haddie?Why did you wait so long?Lie?
She fisted her hands in frustration and tried to mentally find her bootstraps.
What had seemed like a good idea at the time was now a nightmare, and wishes and wants would get her nowhere.When the time was right, she had to break the news.Somehow.
Hadley got out of the car and fought the urge to dive back in and make a break for it while she could.Squealing away from the funeral home like a NASCAR driver?Her?
But what kind of granddaughter didn’t pay her respects?Especially to her namesake?
Hadley inhaled and fussed with the straps of her purse as she slowly approached the entrance.
She’d chosen her funeral clothes with the utmost care and wore a black pencil skirt and a sleeveless black top with a bit of white piping around the half-inch ruffled collar, the strand of pearls and studs she’d received from Nan on her thirteenth birthday, and paired it all with two-inch wedges because, as her mother always said, open-toes and sand just didn’t do.
Hadley paused on the sidewalk when her ears picked up the distinct sound of Calypso music.
Surely the music had to be coming from somewhere else?
She turned her head, looking up and down the street for some sign of an outdoor band or restaurant.Because Calypso music?For a funeral?
For the first time since she’d left Raleigh, Hadley smiled as a huff of a laugh left her.
Oh, Nan, youdidn’t!
Mrs.Georgia Hadley Benson had died in her sleep at the youthful age of ninety-two, a spitfire of a woman and the last of the Boardwalk Babes’ parents.
During the summers of ’58 and ’59, Georgia, along with three of her prominent Carolina Cove neighbors and friends, had given birth to a baby girl.One even had a set of twins.
The proud mothers had taken the babes for daily strolls in their prams—and the locals had nicknamed them the Boardwalk Babes—a name used to this day by the now sixty-somethings who’d gone on to have their own children.
All in all, Hadley had four pseudo aunts and ten “cousins,” seven female—with the twin Babes each having a set of twins of their own—and three male, ranging in age from Hadley’s forty-five to the youngest at thirty-two.
The funeral home’s ornate door swung open, and sure enough, Mighty Sparrow blasted from within.
Apparently Nan’s last act was to go to heaven with a good old-fashioned beach party.Haddie could only imagine her mother’s mortification, and despite her own horror at having to go inside, she smiled at her grandmother’s moxie.
She really needed to find her own.Fast.
Hadley stopped as an older man surged through the doors, the smell of Old Spice and cheap cigars drifting to her nose.He tipped an imaginary hat, his triple chins bobbing as he hurried along down the stairs.
The door shut once more, and she paused on the steps, hand gripping the white vinyl railing as though that alone would anchor her in the turbulent storm beyond.
Go in.Sign the book.Sneak out as quickly and quietly as possible.
Maybe they wouldn’t even notice?
Yeah, what were the odds of that?
