Page 13 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

I shake my head. “I don’t really know. To feel closer to her, I guess.”

Laurel lays her hand reassuringly on my forearm. “I think she’d be okay with you reading it. She loved you.”

“Maybe,” I concede. “But, for instance, I love my mom, and I still don’t want her reading my innermost thoughts.” Especially when it comes to how angry I am that she demanded space from my dad when he was at his lowest.

Laurel snorts. “Yeah, good point. I don’t keep a diary anymore, but when I was a teenager, I definitely spent a fair amount of time detailing what Spencer Collins looked like without a shirt on.” She shudders at the memories. “God, I was awkward.”

“We both were,” I reassure her.

“I think it’s par for the course for teenagers,” she says, taking a sip of her rosé. “Anyway, how old is this diary? Was Grandma Ellie a teenager when she wrote it?”

Nodding my head, I swallow the gulp of wine I just poured into my mouth. “It looks like it starts in summer 1953, so she would have been, what? About 18? Janie was 16.”

“So it’s harmless,” Laurel decides. “She was so uptight anyway, and this is back when she was practically still a girl. There can’t be anything bad in there.” Her eyes grow brighter. “Do you have it here?”

I know she wants to see it. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t brought up the diary at all. “I do,” I hedge. “But I thought you needed to get to bed?”

She snickers. “I do. But it feels like this is more important.” She downs the last of her wine. “At the very least, it’s more interesting.”

Laurel settles onto the end of my bed while I fish around in my closed suitcase for the diary, which I’d put away after reading the first entry earlier. It had been more than enough for my heart at that point. My hand finally lands on the smooth leatherbound book, and I pull it free.

“Here,” I say, handing it to her. “Take a look.”

She runs a finger tentatively down the cover. “Are you sure? I’m suddenly understanding your hesitation. This feels real now, and I’m nervous.”

“You can at least read the first entry,” I tell her. “I’ve already read that one, and it’s harmless. It’s actually about the night she met Grandpa. It’s really sweet.”

Laurel’s eyes light up. “Aw, that sounds adorable.” She flips open the cover and slides her thumb to the right-hand page as she begins to read.

“Wow,” she breathes when she’s done. “That was sweet, you’re right.”

I nod. “He was quite a catch, our grandfather.”

“But, wait,” Laurel says, a confused look descending. “Didn’t Grandma always say she knew Grandpa when he was a little boy? His parents lived here in town, or something?”

A memory tugs at the edge of my brain then, Laurel and I on either side of Grandma Ellie in the guest bed, cuddled in for stories during a sleepover. Something about a cute boy she met in a shop when they were both small.

“You’re right,” I nod, brows wrinkled together. “I vaguely recall that, now that you mention it.”

“I remember it very clearly,” Laurel says, never one to shy away from making herself seem superior if it suits the conversation. “Grandma told us the whole story of how they met.” She mimics our grandmother’s voice. “He was the cutest little tow-headed boy,” Laurel begins. “His parents owned the grocery store at the end of Shore Road, and he liked to help run the register. I went in one day to window shop; I couldn’t actually afford anything. But there he was, barely tall enough to see over the counter. And he asked me, ‘Do you like blueberries?’ I hadn’t even known you could buy berries in a store; I assumed everyone foraged them. My parents had so little back then. We wouldn’t have even been on vacation at all if we didn’t have friends we could stay with for free. But Charlie pulled a bowl of blueberries he was eating out from under the counter and offered me some. And we became friends instantly.”

I nod slowly. “You’re right. I do remember her saying that.”

“But then, who is she talking about in this diary entry?” Laurel asks the question already on my mind.

“No idea.” I shake my head. “She and Grandpa got married in 1953, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, in November.” Laurel looks as puzzled as I feel. “This guy must not have been a keeper.”

“I guess not,” I reply. It could be that she met someone that summer and things didn’t work out, and then she fell in love with my grandfather. But something about the way she described her night out with Janie, and the man who swept her off her feet, strikes me as odd. Eleanor was never one to waste words, and she made her feelings sound none too subtle.

“I’m going to head to bed. Night, love.” Laurel wraps me in a quick hug, then heads for the door of my bedroom.

“Goodnight, Laur.”

After she leaves, I’m left sitting on the end of my hard-as-a-rock mattress, wondering who the guy was, if my grandfather ever knew about him, and if the next entry in my grandmother’s diary might reveal the answer.

But it’s been a long day, and I’m exhausted. The wine is pulling me even further toward sleep, and I let myself lie back on the bed. I must drift off there, because the next thing I know, it’s pitch black, and I can see stars sparkling out the window. Rather than get up and close the shades or bother to go brush my teeth, I just roll over and pull the comforter over my street clothes and go back to sleep.