Rewrite the Stars Read online

  Claire touched Frieda’s shoulder.

  “Hi, Claire. It’s nice seeing you here. I think there’s more people than last summer.” She took her change from the girl and slipped it inside her worn purse. “I’m sorry you missed lunch and dinner today. I had your favorite—fried shrimp and garlic rolls. Just like you like them.”

  “Have any leftovers?” Claire asked, hoping she did. With each letdown in Claire’s life, it seemed she gained five pounds. Eating was the only thing she could control. She was surprised she wasn’t obese from the passing of her mother. Although, strangely, with that she had no appetite at all. She’d lost seven pounds that first month she was gone.

  “Sure do.” Frieda tucked the apple in her recyclable grocery bag. “Where’s Colin? Isn’t he with you?” She looked down the street, past where they stood.

  “He’s with his parents. Do you think I could catch a ride back home with you?”

  “Sure. Did you want to go now or look around some more?”

  “I can wait until you’re ready to leave. I’ve seen all I want.” She tried not to seem anxious and ask for the keys to sit in her car and wait.

  “We can go now. I’ve seen all I want, too. The fair is the same every year. Same people peddling their junk and same stale kettle corn. I’m ready when you are.”

  They walked to Frieda’s car, parked down the side of a residential street. Claire tried to suppress her emotional breakdown for the confines of her room, but it didn’t work. As soon as Frieda turned right to take the bridge home, Claire burst out crying.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” Frieda reached over and touched her shoulder tenderly.

  “I miss my mother so much. Sometimes it’s a pain that jams deep inside my heart, taking away all the air until I can’t breathe.” She bent forward, holding her stomach.

  “Oh, honey. I know what that pain feels like. But it’ll dull as time goes on. She was a good woman—solid and trustworthy. We had many a talks on that back porch after everyone went to bed.” She squeezed tight to the steering wheel, wiggled her butt on the seat and adjusted her rearview mirror. “Now mind you, I said it’ll dull. It won’t go away. At least not completely. But the sharpness of it will file itself down to a numbing throb.”

  Claire looked at this wise woman and wondered who she’d lost that meant so much. Aside from making her food and bed, and playing with them a bit when they were smaller, Claire didn’t really know Frieda. “Did you lose your mother?”

  “Oh, years ago. But that’s not who breaks my heart now and every time I think about him.”

  Claire momentarily forgot how miserable she was and wanted to know about Frieda’s heartbreak. Misery loves company. “Can you tell me about it?”

  “There’s only one person I ever trusted with my secret.”

  “Who?” Claire placed her fingers on the top edge of her open window to feel the wind that whipped by the car.

  “Your mother.”

  Claire bent forward dramatically. “My mother?”

  “Yes, and she took it to her grave, God rest her soul.” Frieda crossed her chest. “She said she would and she did.”

  Claire wondered why her mother never told her about Frieda. Not that she’d go back on her word to someone, but they knew everything about each other. And about everyone else in their life. Like Claire’s mom knew Jenny McCallister’s dad wasn’t deployed in the army. He was really living in California with his mistress secretary. Jenny told Claire in secrecy but Claire couldn’t help but tell her mom. They told each other everything. So why didn’t she tell Claire whatever Frieda told her?

  “Do you think I could know it? If I promised to take it to my grave?” Now that her mother was gone, it would be quite the possibility. And, anyway, her mother already knew. Claire always knew there was something locked behind Frieda’s lonesome eyes.

  “I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t think it could help you.”

  Claire’s interest piqued. What did her mother know and Frieda was hiding that could possibly help her? She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

  Frieda stared ahead, holding tight to the shabby steering wheel with both hands. She never looked away from the road while telling her story. Claire sat pensively, body hunched in the direction of Frieda, hanging on every word the older woman said.

  “You love Colin? Or is this something you’re just doing to pass time this summer? I never know with young people these days.”

  What? Claire thought she was going to hear Frieda’s secret. Instead, Frieda seemed to want to hear all about hers. “I love him. At least I thought I did.” She bit her finger and took a moment. “Yes, I love him.” As much as she wanted to erase all the feelings swelling inside her about that guy, she couldn’t.

  “Well, I kind of figured you did. I can spot that look you’ve got. I had the same look, my momma told me. You see, I fell in love once with a boy I knew would never be mine, too.”

  “What makes you think Colin can’t be mine?” She still held out hope this was a tiny setback. Thinking back to how Mr. Prescott breathed fire and Colin retreated made her angry.

  “He’s a Prescott, that’s how.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I also know Colin, and I believe in him. I know he can do anything. He just needs the courage. It’ll come. I’ve got to be patient.” It calmed her to know there was more chances for them to be together. She just had to let him work up the courage to face his father. After all, he was an intimidating man. It took Claire two summers before she could ask him to pass the salt at the dinner table.

  “That’s what I thought, too. But Buddy Prescott Sr. would have nothing to do with me and my family. You see, Daddy was a fisherman by trade. And Momma, she was a housewife. It was the summer of 1954. I was fifteen, ready to turn sixteen the following month in August. The Prescott family put out word they needed a babysitter for their baby, Alexander. He had come as somewhat of a surprise to the family. Their daughter, Sally, was nineteen and already married to Bishop Campbell. She’d stopped coming with the Prescotts and began vacationing with Bishop’s family. After Sally, there was Buddy Jr. He was seventeen.” A smile spread to her face when she said his name.

  “Anyway, my family could’ve used the extra money, so Momma drove me out to the beach house and offered my services. I came with lots of references. I’d babysat for some of the other families who vacationed on the island, too, and I was hired on the spot.” She turned onto the dirt road that led to the guesthouse and parked.

  “Come on in. I’ll put on some tea and finish my story.”

  Claire followed her inside, knots turning in her stomach, thinking of when she was last here with Colin.

  Frieda turned on the little lamp by the front door. A black-and-white picture of a woman and man sat in a frame on the edge of the table. She threw her keys in a plate beside it. It was in the shape of a seashell.

  Claire followed her to the kitchen, where she sat at the table, and watched Frieda scoot around the kitchen, pulling out a teapot and cups from the cabinet. Their finish was scratched from age. She took a package of tea bags from a canister that was placed on the folding table, pushed into the corner of the room. Old newspapers were stacked on it, almost falling over from abundance. It smelled like ripening bananas and Juicy Fruit gum in the small area.

  Frieda rubbed her lips together and touched them with the tips of her fingers, seemingly going back in time to finish telling her story.

  “I stayed there most all the time while Buddy Sr. and Sarah attended parties and went on outings with the neighbors on their boats. Buddy Jr. and I got real close. So close, we fell in love.” She shook her head back and forth, heavy with a look of regret. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to go on with life if I couldn’t be with him. He was so handsome.” She sat down and smiled, touching Claire’s hand. “Just like Colin.

  “Coal-black hair, smoothed back on the sides. Blue eyes like the deep sea, and a smile that melted my insides and made me wea
k in the knees. I was complete goo around that boy.”

  “I know the feeling,” Claire said, as Frieda stood to get the whistling teapot.

  “Well, Buddy was a lot more courageous than your Colin is. He knew who he was and his daddy wasn’t going to get in the way with his plans of being an architect.” She poured the steaming water into the cups with strings dangling down the sides. “He loved buildings and how they were designed. Why, he’d take me downtown and talk up a storm about those little doo-dads etched on the wooden storefronts. Said they were different types of this and that.”

  She sat down with their cups and took a hesitant sip of hers, as if not to burn her lips. “Summer was coming to an end and the Prescotts were preparing to leave. They handed me my final payment in a white envelope and Buddy spoke up and told them I was pregnant. We had it planned—he was going to stay on the island and go to school here until college. We’d get married when he turned eighteen, then him and me would move to wherever with the baby and wait until he graduated college and became an architect.”

  Claire tried not to look completely astounded and took a sip of her warm tea. Frieda and a Prescott? And a baby? She waited for Frieda to take another drink to ask her a question.

  “What did Buddy Sr. and Sarah do? What did they say?”

  “They said no son of theirs would ever marry a fisherman’s daughter. Buddy Jr. was marked for something greater than that.”

  Claire wasn’t surprised. It went hand-in-hand with the response a Prescott would give. “What did you do?”

  “Well, they eventually came around to the idea I was gonna have that baby no matter if they liked it or not. So, I went home with them to their house in the city and waited to give birth and for Buddy to finish high school. Only they tricked me and when my baby was born, they gave him to Sally and Bishop to raise as their own.”

  “How could they do that? Why didn’t you refuse and why didn’t Buddy Jr. step in and fight for his son?” Claire was on the edge of the chair, pressing the table with her index finger, demanding justice for Frieda.

  “They forged my name on the adoption papers and sent Buddy away. We were told that if we tried to contact each other, my family would lose our home and Daddy would lose his boat and business. The Prescott arms have a long reach of destruction, my dear. I couldn’t do that to my family, and Buddy understood.”

  Claire raised her legs and rocked back and forth on her knees, hugging them. Who were these people? How many generations did their control and monopoly date back?

  “So, why are you here now, caring for them again? I’m pretty sure if you wanted to poison them, you would’ve already done it years ago. Albeit, it’s not Buddy Sr.”

  “I’d heard that Buddy Jr. and Sr. died in a plane crash about ten years after we went our separate ways.” Her gaze fell to the floor and she remained still. “I was in shock for a while, I guess. I’d always dreamed of us being together and raising our son. But it wasn’t meant to be.” She ran her finger over the cup’s rim. “Some things just aren’t mean to be.”

  She sat up and took a deep breath. “That’s when I changed my name and applied for a job to be caretaker of this place. Sarah Prescott never returned after Buddy Sr. died, but Sally and Bishop spent every summer here with their son, James.”

  Claire nearly fell off her chair. Her leg slipped down and she grabbed hold of the table. “James is your son? James Prescott?”

  “The one and only. I have no idea why they didn’t change his last name to Campbell. I guess his grandparents had something to do with that. But no matter how completely miserable and ornery that man is, he’s my son. I have to try to believe that it’s the Prescott curse that has him doing what he doesn’t want to and leaves him a bitter man.”

  Holy moly. This was the kind of information that could rock the Prescott family. Claire took a drink of her tea and found herself a member by association of this disillusioned family. Her fate was cast when she fell in love with Colin Prescott. Now it was up to her to either fight for the man she loved or fade into the background like poor Frieda.

  Chapter Nine

  Mr. Prescott’s Surprise for Colin

  Claire heard her bedroom door open that night. She waited until she could see Colin’s silhouette. No matter how hard she tried, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Frieda had taken her back to the beach house and she’d gone upstairs and showered. She waited on her bed to see the lights from the car pull into the driveway. It had taken longer than she thought for him to return home. The others must’ve stayed longer for the dance.

  “Claire,” he said quite loudly. He gave no consideration that her room was dark and by now someone else could be in that part of the house.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Where the hell have you been? And why don’t you answer your phone?” His tone was unmistakable. She shielded her eyes when he switched on her light.

  “What do you mean? I’ve been here. Frieda brought me back. And I don’t exactly check my phone every minute. It’s not like I get a million calls a day.” Pam was the only one who called her, usually. And she was working double shifts this week.

  “It would’ve been nice to have known that. I ran into Mallory and she said your eyes looked weird and she didn’t know where you’d gone.” He sat on the edge of the bed. His brows were two jagged lines. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to be worried. I just couldn’t take being around you with your dad. It seems like when he’s with you, you freeze and become a different person.” She sat up and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Anyway, it took you a long enough time to finally come home.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you were still there or not, and someone had my car parked in.” Colin buried his head in his hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Claire. I should’ve said something to Dad. I just couldn’t. The man scares me for some reason. And when I think I don’t care and have enough courage to tell him where to go, I think about Mom and how it’ll kill her to have us at odds with each other. We had a pretty big fight once while I was in high school and she came into my room, bawling her eyes out, begging me never to upset her like that again. I know how it can get with them, and I don’t want to be the cause of it. Mom went in the hospital once after they had a fight. They told me she had the flu, but I saw the pill bottles when she came home. They were for anxiety and depression.”

  Claire had empathy for him. Everything inside her wanted to hold him and soothe away his fear and frustration. To tell him it’d all be fine. But after hearing Frieda’s secret, she wasn’t sure she had what it took to empower him enough to change the hierarchy in the Prescott family. Maybe all it did was make her want to run away, screaming. Could her and Colin’s love for each other be stronger than Frieda’s and Buddy’s? Would it be enough to set them both free from his father and his plan for Colin’s life? The one that she wasn’t included in? She sat still and pulled at her fingers atop the floral bedspread.

  “My inability to tell my father about us has nothing to do with how I feel about you, Claire. I do love you. You do believe that, don’t you?” He waited until she looked at him.

  “I know.” She pulled him by the waistband to come nearer. Then she rose up and kissed his forehead.

  “The last thing I want is to disappoint you, or for you to ever think I’m ashamed of us.” He stared at her intensely.

  She felt his grip on her skin.

  “I believe you.” Claire started undoing his shirt buttons, sliding it off his shoulders. “Come sleep next to me tonight. Everything will be better in the morning.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Colin woke up before Claire began to stir and snuck back to his room. He took a shower and dressed. This was the day he’d tell his dad everything—he felt the courage bubbling up inside him. Claire was right; he could do it. He’d just tell his dad they were in love and he was not going to run the company. Find someone
else, James Prescott.

  He wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at himself. Dread and misery stared back. Acid ate at the lining of his stomach. The courage he felt earlier must’ve slipped down the drainpipe. Why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t he and Claire just run away in the night and send a text when they got out of the country? He had contacts in London. They could pool their resources and find a way to survive. It was that or face the lion. He pulled on his shirt and postponed the thought. Until after breakfast, he thought.

  His dad seemed chipper that morning, sitting at the head of the table. He wore a casual polo shirt and whistled a show tune from a Broadway play. Even his fingers drummed on the table as he chewed pieces of his fruit cocktail.

  Colin walked Claire to her chair and pulled it out for her to sit. He saw a candy apple at his dad’s plate.

  “Mal, could you pass the eggs?”

  “Colin, I have a surprise for you.” His dad took a piece of toast from his wife she’d buttered for him.

  Colin exchanged looks with Claire before answering. Mallory held the plate of eggs, waiting for him to take them.

  “What kind of surprise?” His dad? A surprise?

  “I called Dale Hamilton this morning and invited him for a few days to the beach house.”

  Colin’s stomach dropped to his knees. The spoon to the eggs fell and clashed against his plate. “Why would you go and do that, Dad?”

  His dad reared back. “What are you talking about? We said over Christmas that we were going to get together this summer. It shouldn’t shock you. And watch how you talk to me. I have every right to invite anyone I so choose.” He bent forward and took a bite of his bread. Obviously immune to the damage he’d just done with one phone call. “He said he’s got nothing going on right now, and he’s catching a flight this afternoon. He should be here sometime after lunch. Of course, he’ll be bringing his wife and Emily along with him.”