Free Beach Season by Lisa Jackson Page B

dresses, too.”
    “I am so glad you love them, August. Hearing that makes me feel like yodeling.” I yodeled to lighten the moment.
    She sniffled. “You and September rock as sisters and knowing you’ll both be on the stage Buddy’s building for us will take some of my deathly fear of Ben’s family away.”
    “I’m so happy for you, August.” And I was. My marriage had been miserable but hers had all the makings of a sixty-year marriage. The groom was a winner, kind, funny, natural, and totally enraptured by August. He loved her semihysteria, her fascination with antique furniture, her food pickiness, her leather, her rockin’ band, her worries. “It’s a gift. You have a gift in Ben.”
    “I know. And you, June, are a gift to me. Okay, let’s compare Worry Journals now.”
    I rolled over to my side table and grabbed my Worry Journal.
    We go through our journals together at least once a week. It’s neurotic, we know it, and we get more neurotic together, but we’ve done it since we were little kids in the VW bus, and we do it now.
    It’s a MacKenzie sister tradition.
    “I have twenty-four things I’m most worried about, all equally worrisome, so this is not in exact order, that’s important for you to know, June,” August said. “Here they are ...”
     
    Later that afternoon I rocked in my rocking chair as I worked on a pattern for another wedding gown, this one for a bride who loved her motorcycle and would be riding off from the wedding in the gown. She wanted white lace, a black leather belt, and two midthigh slits. My French doors were open to the cool breeze wafting off the ocean, my crazy quilt covering my lap, Leoni and Estelle off to buy us hot crab sandwiches and raspberry lemonade.
    “I’m an old woman,” I muttered, pushing my reading glasses up on my head for a sec. “All I need is a cat beside me and a knitting basket.”
    I was trying not to think of my divorce. I was trying not to think about losing this blue beach cottage with its view of cliffs, surfers, and crashing waves. I was trying not to think of the reporter coming soon and whether or not she would hate or, worse, laugh at my alternative wedding dresses.
    Most of all I was trying to stop thinking about Reece because I didn’t want my mind all twisted up by a man. I would especially not think about kissing him.
    I thought about kissing him, ocean water swirling around our ankles.
    I shook my head and tried to concentrate.
    I thought about hugging him down by the tide pools.
    I stomped my foot and told myself to “reconnect” with the pattern.
    I thought about him naked, on the beach, at night ...
    “Argh!” I said, out loud. “Stop it!”
    I pictured myself taking a red wedding dress off in front of Reece down by the cliffs. I swallowed hard.
    Now this motorcycle bride needed to straddle her bike so we would need ...
    What if I straddled Reece?
    “Oh, for goodness sake!” I semishrieked out loud at myself. “Think about ... think about cats! Small cats, black cats, gold cats ...”
    I put the pattern down.
    “Dammit,” I whispered, holding my head, as a 3D image of kissing Reece, three black and gold cats purring beside us on a boat in the ocean, branded itself onto my poor brain.
    But this time, following the lust, I felt a wave of acute sorrow, then a deep, penetrating sadness, the same sadness I had fought through many times.
    It was the Grayson sadness. I must get him out of my life.

    “You never mentioned being married, Reece, so I assumed that you hadn’t been, is that right?” Reece and I sat on his deck, the sunset only beginning its magnificent display across the white crests of waves, an art form in itself.
    “No. Not married, no kids. Engaged once.” He put a plate of omelets and French toast in front of us. Breakfast for dinner. My favorite.
    “What happened?”
    “It was years ago. I was twenty-two. She’s a great woman. Our families have been friends forever, generations back. She was