The High Tide Club

Millie found a napkin in the basket and dabbed Varina’s face with it. “Sit up,” she said gently. “You’ll feel better.”

* * *

“It’s all my fault,” Millie said after Varina made two more trips to the sand dune. “I never should have given her that champagne. She’s too young to drink. I feel awful that she feels so awful.”

Suddenly, they saw a flash of lightning on the water, followed by the low rumble of thunder in the distance. A moment later, fat, warm raindrops splashed onto the blanket.

They all looked up at the sky, where black-tinged clouds drifted across the full moon.

Josephine swatted at a mosquito feasting on her arm. “Storm coming, girls. I think we’d better go. And these darned skeeters are eating me alive.” She pointed at Varina, who was sitting with her head buried in her hands. “But we can’t take her home like this. Her father would never forgive me. He’s a teetotaling Church of God preacher.” She stood up and brushed the sand from her clothes.

“Should we take her back to Shellhaven?” Millie asked.

Josephine had a gleam in her eye. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“I hope it’s better than combining bourbon and champagne,” Ruth said.

“We’ll go to the old lighthouse. To the lighthouse keeper’s cottage.”

“What about the lighthouse keeper?” Millie asked. “Won’t he object?”

“He’s long gone. The government decommissioned the lighthouse a couple of years ago, and now the cottage is abandoned. Locked up tight.”

“So how do we get in?”

Josephine grinned impishly. “I’m not supposed to know, but Gardiner keeps a key under the floor mat of the roadster. I think he used the cottage for his secret assignations.”

“Assignations?” Ruth said with a hoot. “If it’s such a secret, how do you happen to know about it?”

“That’s easy. Like the good little girl detective I am, I followed him one night and peeped in the window.”

“You didn’t!” Millie said, shocked. But a moment later, she asked. “Who was he with?”

“Some silly little blond floozie that he met at a dance at the Cloister,” Josephine said dismissively. “You should have heard her carrying on when Gardiner took off his shirt.”

“Jo!” Millie said, shocked to her core. “You didn’t actually watch!”

“Of course not,” Josephine said. “There’s no electricity, and Gardiner blew out the candle before things got really good.” She rolled her eyes for comic effect. “But I sure could hear those old bedsprings squeaking.”

“You’re awful,” Millie said, tossing the napkin at her best friend.

“Awfully resourceful, you mean.” Josephine began gathering up the picnic hamper. Raindrops began to pelt them, and the wind picked up. “Ruth, Millie, I’ll get the blanket, and you girls had better help Varina to the car.”

“We’re going for a car ride?” Varina asked, rousing herself. “Whoopee!”

* * *

“Hold the flashlight, Millie, so I can see.” Josephine handed the flashlight to her friend while she fumbled with the old-fashioned skeleton key.

“Hurry up,” Ruth whispered, trying to crowd closer to the door. “We’re getting soaked!”

“Ta-da!” Josephine turned the rusted knob, and the heavy wooden door swung slowly inward. She stepped inside, gestured for the others to follow, and they all heard something scurry across the wooden floor.

“Rats!” Millie squealed. “I’m not staying here.”

“Probably just a possum or a raccoon,” Josephine said, putting on a brave face.

Varina made a show of holding her nose. “It stinks in here.”

“Don’t be so prissy.” Josephine took the flashlight and swept it around the room.

The beam revealed a single large room. A makeshift kitchen with a sink, a propane stove, and an ancient icebox stood against the front wall. The room was sparsely furnished with a wooden table and two chairs, a davenport with cotton stuffing erupting from its cushions, and a large brass bed haphazardly covered with a faded cotton quilt. The wooden floor had a thick coating of cobwebs, leaves, and long-dead insects.

A small brick fireplace stood opposite the bed, and its hearth was littered with twigs, leaves, and bits of sofa stuffing, indicating that an animal had made a nest in the chimney.

Josephine hurried over to the window above the sink and, with effort, managed to raise the sash. She did the same with three other windows, and a tattered curtain remnant at the kitchen window fluttered faintly in the breeze coming off the ocean.

“See? Much better.”

“Can you turn on the lights?” Millie asked, creeping closer.

“I could, but it won’t do any good. There isn’t any electricity anymore,” Josephine said.

“How about plumbing?” Ruth asked. “I really need to pee.”

“Me too,” Millie echoed.

Josephine turned on the kitchen faucet and after a moment, a thin stream of rusty water trickled into the sink. She pointed to an open doorway in the far corner of the room. “It should be okay. At least we have water. I think the bathroom’s over there.”

Ruth hurried over and gave the toilet a test flush. “Hooray!” she called. “Good thing I can’t see what this commode looks like.”

“I’m next,” Millie said.

Varina sank down onto the bed and wrapped thin arms around her abdomen. “I don’t like this place,” she whispered. “It’s spooky.”

“You don’t have to whisper,” Josephine pointed out. “It’s just us. And anyway, my papa owns this cottage, so it’s not like we’re really trespassing.” She sat down beside the younger girl and put a protective arm around her shoulder.

They heard the toilet flush again, and the rusty water pipes groaned when the faucet was turned on. Millie emerged from the bathroom carrying a damp cloth, which she placed on the back of Varina’s neck.

“Better?” she asked. She sat down beside Josephine and Varina, and the three of them laughed out loud when the bedsprings loudly protested.

“But where will we all sleep?” Ruth asked. “Is there another bed?”

“Nope. Just this one, although if you want the sofa, be my guest.”

Ruth glanced at the ripped stuffing and shuddered. “No, thanks.”

* * *

At Millie’s insistence, they stripped the sagging mattress from the bed and turned it over. Then they all took turns sponging the salt spray off themselves in the bathroom’s claw-foot bathtub.

When Josephine returned from her makeshift bath, she found that Millie had managed to find a broom, sweep the floor, and remake the bed using the coverlet as a bottom sheet and their blanket as a bedspread.

“Well, Millie, you really are going to make somebody a wonderful wife someday,” Josephine said.

“Just not that bastard Russell Strickland,” Ruth added.

The four of them crowded onto the bed, and Josephine switched off the flashlight.

“This isn’t so bad,” Millie said after a long yawn. “Remember, we used to do this all the time when we were at boarding school and I was so afraid of the thunderstorms.”

“What I remember is that Jo snores worse than my grandpa,” Ruth said drowsily.