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Anja Stockton was walking along the water alone about thirty feet from me. She looked upset, as if she’d been crying. I hoped nothing bad had happened, and I considered reasons she might have gone to St. John so early. Was Nelson ill? Had something happened to someone in her family?
“You okay?” I asked Grams. “You need anything?”
“I’m good. The Paris theater is having a Cary Grant weekend, and on Friday they’re playingTo Catch a Thiefin the afternoon, which is my favorite, and thenCharadeafter dinner, which is Martha’s favorite, so Martha and her sister and I are going to make a day of it.”
“That sounds like fun,” I said, and meant it. I loved classic movies. My cats were named Nick and Nora, after all. “Find out when they’re having aThin Manmarathon. I’ll go with you.”
“You bet. Now, you go have fun, understand me? I love you, pumpkin.”
“Love you too, Grams.”
I ended the call and took a picture of the ocean, then another of the pool area. I posted both and wrote a sentence about the most beautiful place on earth. Grams would definitely like the pictures.
I started for the ferry again, but noticed that Anja was now sitting on a bench only a few feet from me, on the beach side of the road. My watch told me I still had time, so I went over to her and said, “Hi, Anja, are you okay?”
She looked at me, and I couldn’t see her eyes behind large dark glasses, but her face was splotchy and damp. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and zebra-print wrap that hugged her elegant curves. Her huge diamond engagement and wedding rings sparkled when the sun hit her hand.
“Oh, Mia. I’m a mess.”
I sat down even though she didn’t invite me.
“I’m a good listener,” I said. Maybe it was rude of me to intrude, but Anja was clearly sad. I hoped it wasn’t her husband; I know, I know, married people had problems. But I loved happy endings, and they had seemed so happy together.
She smiled thinly, took off her glasses, and ran her fingers under her red, swollen eyes, then put her sunglasses back on and sighed deeply. A full minute later, when I was thinking I shouldn’t have bothered her, she said quietly, “It’s been a rough couple weeks.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, but I don’t like seeing people so sad, especially in a place like St. Claire.”
“You’re not prying. You’re kind, and I’m really tired of keeping secrets.” She paused. “I don’t fit in here. Nelson doesn’t, either, but he doesn’t care. It’s one of the reasons I love him so much. I, unfortunately, care more what people think. I’m trying not to.”
“Did someone say something to you? Was someone mean?”
“Here? No, St. Claire is lovely, even if I don’t quite feel like I belong.”
She reached into her oversized bag and pulled out a popular entertainment magazine folded open to an article in the middle. A photo of Anja dominated one of the pages, clearly a professional shot. A box in the corner showed a much younger Anja, with big hair and too much makeup, grinning ear to ear, wearing a long blue dress next to a very tall, very wide young man in a white tuxedo that was too tight on him. The backdrop screamedprom.
She pushed the magazine into my hands. “If Nelson knew the only reason I went to St. John this morning was to buy that rag, he would be furious.”
The headline blared:
Anja Benoit Stockton’s secret love child with NFL linebacker Jamal Wallace
“I don’t need to read this. I don’t follow celebrity gossip.”
But my eyes flitted over the key words and phrases and put together part of the story. Anja and Jamal had been high school sweethearts when Anja got pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption.
“Nelson and I knew the story was hitting. He did everything in his power to stop it, but when he couldn’t, he brought me here to St. Claire, to shield me from the gossip and reporters.”
“I don’t know why people feel the need to dig around in someone’s past.”
“It’s my fault.”
“It takes two to make a baby,” I said.
“Not about that.” But she smiled. “Jamal was a sweet kid. We grew up with next to nothing, but I had my looks and Jamal had football. He wanted to marry me and take care of us, but I knew our lives would be stuck forever in Zachary, Louisiana. It wasn’t a bad place to grow up, but we had dreams, and a baby wouldn’t fit into those dreams. So I told him I had a miscarriage, then went to live with my cousin in Atlanta, had the baby, and gave her up for adoption. I finished school there, ignored Jamal—kids today would say I ghosted him. I felt like a ghost for those two years.”
She stared out at the ocean. I should say something, but I didn’t know what to say. Having a child out of wedlock wasn’t a scandal anymore, and it wasn’t really a scandal twenty-five years ago, either. Yet she’d been so young.
“You know,” I said, “it’s really nobody’s business.”