Seven Tears into the Sea Page 11

  She’d seen Jesse, so he must be here. I lifted the sheet in front of me and ducked under. I didn’t see him, but all the sheets were waving. He could be hiding from me.

  I moved between the rows of laundry, up and down the billowing white corridor as if I were pursuing someone. Where was he?

  Finally I stood at one end of the clothesline. Waves thundered, a truck passed on the highway, country music swelling from its radio then fading. A gull hovered overhead, scoping out the white sheets to see what all the flapping was about, but I was all alone.

  I didn’t run up the hill to the house like a scared little girl, but I didn’t dawdle. I slung the basket against my hip and went straight to the Inn. With calm precision I put the basket on its shelf in the laundry room then walked down the totally normal hall to the kitchen.

  Nana’s flyaway hair danced as she snipped dill weed into cottage cheese, making batter for her bread.

  She glanced past my right shoulder. “Didn’t you bring your friend?”

  I glanced, too.

  “There was no one there,” I told her.

  For a second her hands paused.

  “Which of you is the shy one?” she asked.

  “Nana, I was all alone.”

  “Must be getting old. I suppose it could be those wind-filled sheets had my eyes playing tricks on me.” Her tone said she believed no such thing.

  I swallowed, wanting to tell her I’d felt and heard whatever she’d seen. Even with Nana, though, I couldn’t.

  Besides, there was work to do.

  “What should I do next?” I asked.

  Nana ran through a list of things that had already been done—all the rooms made up, bathrooms freshened, and floors polished upstairs and down—and things that would have to be done Thursday, before the Midsummer guests arrived.

  “You could look through some of the costumes and see what you’ll wear,” Nana said.

  “Costumes?” Oh my gosh, this was going too far. I was a good kid, but I wasn’t playing dress-up for the tourists.

  “It’s likely you’ll be crowned Summer Queen,” Nana said as if she were saying I’d stop someplace for gas for the Volkswagen.

  I laughed, but part of me felt sort of bad when I did.

  I’d seen photographs of Nana as Summer Queen. She’d been no one’s grandmother or mother then, just a leggy girl named Elane, wearing a daisy crown, a Renaissance-looking dress, and a grin which rushed at you from the crackled surface of the black-and-white snapshot.

  But heredity didn’t mean I qualified to take her place.

  “Nana, I know you were Summer Queen, but I’m just not the type.”

  “You are exactly the type,” Thelma said, bustling through the kitchen with something destined for the compost pile.

  “Just look at yourself.” Nana towed me out of the kitchen to the parlor. Turning my shoulders, she faced me toward the mirror over the sideboard.

  The me I saw wasn’t as tidy as yesterday. Today I looked more like a beach bum, all straggling hair and sun-pinked skin.

  “Auburn hair, green eyes—”

  “Blue,” I corrected, bugging my eyes out at her. “Nana, you know I have blue eyes.”

  “Blue-green,” she allowed. “Anyway, you look a proper Celtic girl, and you will win the crown this year.”

  She gave a firm nod then walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Why this year?” I insisted as I trailed after her. “Because I was too chicken to come back before now?”

  Across the kitchen Thelma’s shoulders stiffened, but she stayed put, probably because she wanted to hear what Nana had to say.

  Nana took her time. Before she answered, she resumed whipping her batter with a wooden spoon.

  “That’s one uncharitable way to put it. But you’re not a coward.”

  “I am, believe me,” I told her. “I hate gossip and knowing it’s about me. And even when I don’t see them do it, I’m sure they can’t wait to dissect my craziness later.”

  Thelma made a muffled grunt, but I could tell she was trying to comfort, not scold me, when she said, “It never occurred to you, I suppose, that folks have more on their minds than what happened to you seven years ago.”

  “I didn’t say my feelings made sense,” I said.

  “But you’re no coward, Gwen,” Nana said without slowing her abuse of that poor helpless batter. “You faced your fear of sleepwalking. Now you’re facing people. They’re always harder. But as for becoming Summer Queen, it’s simply time.”

  The word settled there like a stone in a puddle. I swear you could feel ripples coming out from it. And that spoon kept beating round and round. It was hypnotic, which is probably why I asked her.

  “What did you see in my reading that bothered you?”

  That stopped Nana’s stirring and made Thelma head for the back door.

  “Nana, I really want to know.”

  Her hand jerked away from the wooden spoon. It fell, flipping batter onto the spotless kitchen counter.

  “Then I guess you’d better see for yourself,” Nana said.

  She didn’t clean up the counter. Instead, she slipped the mirror from her pocket and out of its pouch, then laid it before me.

  She waited.

  “I can’t see anything but a kind of oblong piece of copper.”

  “Look harder.”

  “All right. It’s bright reddish gold, mostly, but there are tarnished spots and smears.”

  “Harder.”

  My hands fisted. This was like being “taught” geometry when you had no aptitude for it. “I’m trying,” I told her.

  “Don’t try. Look beyond the surface and the smears. Let your eyelids lower. Don’t focus …”

  It was like listening to someone talk as they fell asleep. I saw nothing, but Nana did.

  “There,” she said, but she didn’t point. “The waves, the girl in the rain, and that”—Nana’s voice cracked on that, as if tears interfered—“awful, blood-begotten storm. Blood and love and loss.”

  “You’re starting to scare me,” I admitted.

  Nana shook her head and clapped her hand over the mirror. The gesture echoed the one she’d made two days ago.

  “You see what I mean?” Nana asked. Despite her frustration, her normal tone had returned. “It’s the Fisherman’s Daughter legend and not your reading at all. Except around the edges, there are flowers.”

  “Like in your garden?” I asked, trying to understand.

  “Or the crown,” she said, nodding past the kitchen walls toward her own Summer Queen crown, dried and hung over the mantle.

  “Nana, do you really believe in this? Do you think you’re getting messages from”—I broke off, and my hand spun in the air—“somewhere?”

  “Not really,” she said. “I suppose it’s all projection. Looking into the mirror, I see things I must already know on some level—forgotten memories or intuition, perhaps.”

  That made sense. Seven years ago, of course she knew I’d come back. Knowing I’d be seventeen, she might even have guessed I’d meet a guy. Although saying it would be a reunion was pretty shrewd.

  “At least that’s how it usually works.” Nana shrugged.

  “I don’t suppose the mirror is high-tech enough to be broken,” I joked.

  “No, but—are you sure you couldn’t see anything?” Nana asked. “Bringing your own insights to it could be helpful.”

  “Oh, Nana, quit!”

  Thelma slammed back into the kitchen, propped one black canvas shoe up on a kitchen chair and retied her laces. I was amazed she was flexible enough to do it.

  “I need you to do some raking,” she declared. “For the big bonfires on the beach, we’ll all contribute garden trimmings. I’ve left a rake just your size,” she nodded to me, “out there. Just gather any loose bits of brush down toward the beach. Start in front and work all the way toward the back.”

  And so I did, wondering if the bonfires I remembered as a child could really have bee
n so huge. Of course they couldn’t. Not if people had actually jumped over them.

  I thought of my auburn hair loose and a dress like the white one I’d borrowed from Nana. Both flying around me as I jumped a bonfire. How cool would that look?

  Safety-Dad would have a fit, except he wouldn’t be here. He was camping in Colorado. There was no way he could stop me.

  I’d worked my way from the front of the Inn, back to Nana’s garden. It was in pretty good shape. There weren’t many trimmings to rake up. I looked down at the sweep of white beach. They’d light the bonfires there.

  I stopped. My hands tightened on the rake. Daring the flames, diving from Mirage Point, kissing a stranger on the beach—where was all this outrageous stuff coming from?

  Would I even imagine doing those things if Jill and Mandi were here?

  I looked over the white shore, saw it meet the rolling waves and broad blue sky. On Midsummer’s Eve the sky would be black, flecked with hot red sparks.

  As we’d driven through Siena Bay we’d seen the banners for Midsummer Madness, and Jill and Mandi had promised to come back for it. After Jill got my message and talked to Mandi, I bet they would.

  But what if Jesse stayed mad? After all, I’d given him a pretty good shove and called him a liar. Not to mention he’d thought I’d told him to sit and stay, like an obedient dog.

  That had been my silliest mistake. Jesse was barely civilized, let alone a pet.

  My mind veered back to the Midsummer competitions. Didn’t the jumpers go in pairs? Didn’t they hold hands?

  I felt excited, then warm and lazy, as if my blood were thickening as I thought of Jesse’s long legs and black hair, a little too shaggy. With him, I could soar over the flames.

  “Sunstroke,” Thelma said from the shade. “That’s the only excuse for smilin’ when you’re workin’ so hard. Unless you’re thinking about that boy.”

  “What boy?” I asked automatically. Then, because she’d been the one to tell me his name, after all, I said, “Oh, Jesse?”

  “That’s the one. I was sweeping the upstairs hall and looked toward Cook’s Cottage, and darned if he’s not sitting on your front step.”

  I held the rake straight up.

  “You did?” My heart beat out of control. “He is? How long ago?”

  “Pret’ near three minutes,” Thelma said. “Long as it took me to come down and say it. Do you want me to take that rake, or are you planning to dance with it?”

  I should have put the rake back in the garden shed, but if she was willing …

  “Thanks,” I told Thelma. I started off then looked back at her.

  Thelma had lied to the police about seeing me on Mirage Point, and I was beginning to wonder why. If she liked me now, she’d probably liked me then, but there were lots of reasons for lying.

  Sometimes you lie to protect people.

  SCOTCHBROOM(Cytisus scoparius)

  Attractive but deserving of its reputation as a garden bully, scotchbroom self-sows aggressively, where it’s wanted and often where it’s not. For hundreds of years it has been used for ritual witches’ brooms. Trimming back with a weed whacker may keep it in check.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Just sitting on my step Jesse took my breath away.

  His hands hung between knees canted out to the sides, and he smiled as if I’d brought Christmas.

  He wore a long-sleeve black shirt, blue jeans, and he was barefoot.

  “How’s this for wearing clothes?” he asked.

  I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d told him. Something to do with me being less edgy if he wore a shirt. “It’s great,” I said. “But you must be too warm.”

  “Clothes are too warm,” he said.

  I laughed. He might be flushed from heat, but he was trying to please me.

  “I want you to go swimming with me,” he said.

  “You didn’t have to wait,” I said. “You could have left me a note.”

  He considered his palms, then turned them down, examining both sides of his hands as if they were useless. “I can’t write.”

  Every missionary impulse I had, flared alive.

  “Or read?” I asked because they seemed to go together and because he didn’t seem embarrassed to tell me.

  “I can read a little,” he said. “Signs and colors.”

  When he pointed toward the highway, I swallowed hard. Logging trucks loaded with five-hundred-year-old redwood trees came barreling down this highway. If you didn’t read the warning signs, the trucks would surprise you. I couldn’t drown out the imagined sound of a truck horn blaring.

  “But you can’t read eyes,” he said in a pitying tone.

  Is that what he did when he seemed to be reading minds? That wasn’t possible, and yet I turned away, a little ashamed as I considered what Mandi and Jill would think of him. He wouldn’t fit in—probably anywhere. But part of me—most of me—didn’t care.

  Jesse prowled away from my step. The nest over my head was silent as I watched him stare toward the highway that led to Siena Bay. There wasn’t a car in sight so I didn’t know what he was watching.

  “Come swim with me,” he said. “Now.”

  I would have agreed if he hadn’t added now. I’d already gotten off on the wrong foot letting him kiss me as if he had a right to.

  I wouldn’t let him boss me around, but I studied Jesse and discovered I didn’t want to fight him. Or change him. Why would I want to change a guy who took my breath away?

  I liked the way he looked. I liked that he didn’t act conceited even though I couldn’t stop gawking at him. I even liked how he got his feelings hurt when I didn’t believe him. He had some kind of integrity. And he’d promised to protect me with his life! Primitive, but it packed a punch.

  With a scrape and a clang, a truck bottomed out taking a turn off the highway and onto Little Beach Road. My driveway. I saw a rooster tail of sparks where the oil pan scraped the asphalt and skidded onto the gravel.

  Had Jesse heard them coming? Had he known they were headed for my cottage before he demanded I go swimming with him?

  Raucous voices mixed with the cadence of rap, and I imagined they’d already been drinking. In fact, I imagined I heard the sound of beer cans, tossed in the truck bed from too many empty six-packs, tumbling around too.

  Some movement in Jesse’s neck and shoulders signaled a male on alert, like he was raising his hackles. He was totally focused on the guys, not on me. They had no idea how ready he was for them.

  Then I recognized the boys from the alley. Zack, Roscoe, and a guy who, as he climbed out of the truck, proved to be a really strange shape. Roscoe called him Perch, and that’s about how he was shaped. Wide, but like he’d been steamrollered. He wasn’t fat from front to back, just across.

  Thelma had said Jesse used to be part of Zack’s crew. Maybe it was seeing him that made them look at home as they started up my hill.

  But maybe there were other reasons. Like, they’d hung out here before. Isolated, without streetlights or police cruisers passing by, the cottage might appeal to them.

  I thought of the wet footprint. And the rusty razor.

  Jesse said, “Get inside.”

  His intentions were good so I didn’t bristle at the order.

  “I’m not afraid of them,” I told him.

  Jesse gave me a frustrated look, but he didn’t argue.

  It would have been too late anyway. They were already there.

  Roscoe and Perch looked surprised to see him, and a little uneasy.

  That night in the alley maybe Jesse hadn’t been hanging around with them. Maybe he’d been keeping watch over me.

  But why? I meant it when I said they didn’t scare me. Perch might hurt me if he fell on me, and Roscoe had that little-dog attitude. I like little dogs, but it’s as if they breed them down so that all of the nerves from a big dog have to be wound into a tighter bundle.

  Zack was a little scary. Partly because of what Thelma had said, because I r
emembered the little kid beating his bike with a rock and launching an arrow at a sea lion. Partly because his shirt hung open just enough to show a really creepy tattoo.

  A dagger pierced the vacant-eyed skull inked into Zack’s skin. The words below it said, CRY LATER.

  Zack must have misinterpreted my expression, because he was practically massaging me with his eyes.

  Jesse stepped a little closer to me.

  “Jesse,” Zack nodded, forgetting all about me.

  There was none of that “my man,” hand-slapping stuff like guys do when they’re glad to see each other. If they’d ever been friends, something had gone wrong.

  Jesse’s dark eyes touched each of the guys individually.

  “Hi Zack, Perch, Roscoe.” He smiled, then, as if he’d remembered that crack I’d made about manners, added, “Do you know Gwennie?”

  I cringed. He’d have to start calling me Gwen.

  “Me and Gwennie go way back,” Zack said, and slouched closer to me, insinuating we’d been more than friends.

  “We were both kids here,” I explained. Then I sat back down on my porch, hoping I could just fade out of this drama.

  “Who woulda guessed pudgy little Gwennie Cook’d turn out so nice.”

  I wanted to smack him, but that would be a bad idea. Jesse would pounce. I could see him watching me for a cue to jump all three of them.

  Though Jesse looked stronger and smarter, three against one were bad odds. And I would bet they had knives.

  I considered Roscoe’s baggy pants. He could hide an Uzi in there, and no one would notice. Jesse’s bravery would count for nothing against a gun. So I just stayed quiet, sitting on my porch, staring at nothing, as if I hadn’t even heard Zack’s leering remark.

  Perch leaned into Roscoe’s face and gave a burp. Roscoe reciprocated.

  Forget the Uzi, I told myself.

  But Zack’s eyes looked dreamy. Maybe he was stoned, but I think it was an act to make Jesse relax. It made my nerves crank up even tighter.

  “Jesse was here as a kid too, you know,” Zack said.

  This was news. I didn’t trust Zack’s sociable tone, but Jesse did. His killer stare turned friendly.

  “Yeah, we bummed on the beach, finding wallets and spare change.” Zack winked at me then his mouth turned down in a grimace. “He bought bait on the pier with his share. Anchovies, that cruddy bay shrimp, mussels, and ate ’em on our boat watchin’ Sesame Street. Can you believe that?”