Ivy couldn’t say the same. She’d never called Dani or talked to her about leaving. “That’s why you married Matthew?”

“We got married because of the baby. And I’m glad we did at least try for Bella’s sake. The marriage didn’t last two years, but we’ve stayed friends and have done a good job of coparenting. Matthew and I made the best of it. And I’d like us to do the same.”

Ivy rolled her head from side to side, waiting for anger to spark. However, the embers had long grown cold and couldn’t muster a puff of smoke, much less a flame.

“You did me a kindness,” Dani said. “My kid is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“But no art school.”

“No.”

“None of us ever gets everything we want,” Ivy said.

“I’m proposing a truce. No more grand expectations of each other. No pressure,” Dani said.

“Sounds simple.” Mama Leoni’s rejection still stung, and Ivy wondered if she could be as reasonable as Dani if the shoe were on the other foot.

“No fight. No drama. Though we could at least shout a few bitches at each other if it’ll make you feel better.”

Christ, why was it so hard to be mad at Dani? “We’ll drink that wine you brought some evening. Then the gloves will really come off.”

Dani regarded her and then grinned. “I think it’s best we keep the gloves on. No sense opening old wounds.”

CHAPTER FOUR

RUTH

Saturday, June 17, 1950, 11:00 a.m.

Mama was in a mood. She’d been up for the last couple of nights making sure all the rooms at the Seaside Resort were ready. Stocking the kitchen, unpacking the new order of sheets and towels, cleaning the pool one more time, and sweeping the carport in front of the registration office.

She was always nervous on the opening day of the summer tourist season. The money the hotel earned over the next three months would sustain them through the slowing days of the fall and the dead ones of winter. The hotel was booked solid for the summer, but a turn in the weather could chase away customers and cause more damage than Mama and Daddy could afford to fix. Because it could all be gone in a blink, Mama didn’t exhale until after the Labor Day weekend.

Ruth hated this time of year. She considered the tourists’ arrival a yearly trial to be endured. Strangers confiscated her quiet life, filling the hotel with too much noise and endless cackling laughter. And spare time became infinite hours in the kitchen peeling peaches and figs, shucking corn, or descaling fish to feed hungry vacationers, who, as far as Ruth was concerned, ate more than a normal person should.

For the mainlanders, opening day meant giddy excitement, beginning when they packed their suitcases, loaded automobiles, and stopped at Nettie Pearl’s on the other side of the Currituck Sound to eat their fill of dumplings and fried seafood.