“Want to try for two?” I asked.
“Twice lucky? I don’t think so.”
I grabbed a ball and raised my arm, ready to nail the target.
“Hey—hey! Wait till I get back on the bench.” He reclaimed his hat and climbed up onto the plank. “And somebody’s got to pay.”
I pulled a dollar from my shorts.
“Okay, girls and guys, let’s see if this looker is—” He swallowed the rest.
There were more cheers and shouts of “Do it again! Do it again!”
People started laying down money. I had never been surrounded by so many cute guys. I lost my nerve and backed away from the booth. “Sorry, I, uh, have to go.”
“Three in a row, three in a row!” someone shouted. Others picked up the chant.
“No, really, I have to go.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman with camera equipment turn in our direction. I can pick out a press ID tag a mile away.
“Please let me through,” I begged, but the crowd pushed forward. I glanced over at the guy standing waist deep in the water and expected him to start taunting me again.
He met my eyes, then reached for his megaphone. “I’m not getting back on that bench,” he said, “not till little Miss Lucky leaves.”
“Aw, come on,” the crowd urged.
“No way.” He set down the megaphone, then flopped on his back. With his hat resting on his stomach, he floated and sang “God Bless America.”
Two guys began to goad him. I slipped behind them, dodged three more, and made my escape, not stopping until I reached Water Street. There I leaned against a tree and silently thanked the tease for letting me off the hook.
A short block ahead of me was the glittering Sycamore River. I gazed at it for several minutes, remembering long, lazy afternoons of watching it from Aunt Jule’s porch, back when it sparkled with nothing but happy memories. A wet hand suddenly touched my shoulder.
“Remember me?”
I turned quickly and found the blond guy grinning at me, dripping on the ground around him, the corners of his hat sagging. I tried to think of something clever to say; unable to, I said nothing.
“Are you shy?” he asked.
“No, not at all, not around people I know.”
He laughed. “That’s brave of you. What’s your name?”
“Lauren.”
“Want to go out, Lauren?”
I blinked. “Jeez! No.”
He blinked back at me, as surprised by my answer as I was by his question.
I fumbled for an excuse. “I’m not going to be here very long,” I lied.
“Perfect!” he replied. “My dating policy is one date per girl. Occasionally, I go on two dates with the same girl, but that’s my absolute limit. I don’t want to get hooked. You like movies?”
“But I don’t even know you,” I argued.
“You want references? I have college recommendations. They don’t talk about my excellent ability with girls, but—”
I glanced quickly to the right. A girl was watching us, most of her hidden by an artist’s easel and the flap of a tent. All I could see were her dark eyes, eyes that were drawn together, as if in pain or anger. When she realized I saw her, she turned and disappeared.
“Hey,” the guy said, touching me on the elbow, studying my face, “don’t take me so seriously.”
I glanced back at him.
“It’s no big deal,” he went on. “I can stand rejection. I’ll just be crushed for months.”
I smiled a little. “Maybe you know Nora and Holly—”
“Ingram?” he finished quickly.
“Their mother is my godmother.”
His eyes widened. He took a step closer, peering down at me. I was very aware of the the strong line of his jaw and the curve of his mouth.
Ten, I thought, he’s definitely a ten.
“You’re Lauren Brandt,” he said. “I should have known it. You still have those chocolate-kiss eyes.”
I took a step back.
“Here.” He plunked his wet hat on my head. “Don’t go anywhere,” he told me, then turned away. When he faced me again, his eyes were crossed and his mouth stretched wide by his fingers. “Now do you recognize me?”
“Nick? Nick Hurley?” I asked, laughing.
He took back his hat. “You’ll be sorry to hear I don’t make gross faces as much as I used to. Now I’d rather smile at girls.”
“I noticed.”
He waved his hat around as if trying to dry it, his green eyes sparkling at me, as full of fun and trouble as when he was in elementary school. I relaxed. This was my old buddy. We used to fish and crab together and have slimy bait battles with chopped-up eels and raw chicken parts.
“You’ve changed,” he said. “You’re—uh—”
“Yes?”
“Taller.”
“I hope so. I was ten the last time you saw me.”
“And your hair’s really dark now-and short,” he added.
My mother had loved long hair and fussed with mine constantly. The year after she died, I cut if off and haven’t grown it since.
“Other things have changed, too,” he said, his eyes laughing again. “Where are you staying?”
“At Aunt Jule’s,” I replied. “Does your uncle Frank still live next to her?”
“Yup, and he and Jule still don’t get along, my parents still live on the other side of Oyster Creek, and Mom still teaches at the college. Things haven’t changed much around here.” His face grew more serious. “You know, I waited for you to come back the summer after your mother died. And the one after that. When the third summer came and you didn’t, I figured you never would.”
I shrugged, as if things had just turned out that way.
“So why did you finally return?” he asked bluntly.
I told him the least personal reason. “Aunt Jule said she had to see me and insisted that it be in Wisteria.”
His face broke into a sunny smile. “I’m glad she did. Listen, I have to get back. Tim is covering for me at the dunking booth.”
I nodded.
“See you around, “ he said.
“Yeah, see you,” I replied, and continued to watch him as he walked away. He turned around suddenly and caught me staring, then he grinned in a self-assured way that told me he was used to girls admiring him. I could never have predicted that the round-cheeked boy whose feet were always caked with river mud would turn out like this.
I glanced at my watch. Aunt Jule would be expecting me—not that she had ever stuck to a schedule, but she knew I did. I retraced my steps, pausing for a moment at a table of handmade jewelry.
Her again—the girl I had seen before. This time she was hiding in the narrow space between two brick houses, watching me from the shadows.
Was she a friend of Nick’s? I wondered, feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps she was someone who had dated him once and never gotten over him. Why else would she be watching me?
You’re acting the way Mom used to, I chided myself; someone looks at you twice and you read into it. It’s just a coincidence.
Wanting to avoid another scene at the dunking booth, I took a detour onto Shipwrights Street and stopped to admire an herb garden in a tiny front yard. There she was again! I found it disturbing that someone with such unhappy eyes would shadow me. At the end of the block I returned to High Street, feeling safer in a crowd.
I had parked my Honda in front of the old newsstand and stopped there to pick up a local paper. As I stood at the counter inside, I remembered buying a pile of magazines and comic books after my mother’s funeral My father, hoping to comfort me, had given me a twenty to spend and waited in the car, talking to his advisers by phone. I remembered looking at the tabloids that day, reading their glaring headlines: SENATOR’S WIFE MURDERED, SENATOR STOPS INVESTIGATION.
But it wasn’t my father who kept the police at bay the night my mother died and in the weeks following. Aunt Jule had argued fiercely with the she
riff and the state police, insisting the drowning was an accident, begging them for my sake not to stir up rumors with a pointless investigation.
Aunt Jule, whose long roots in this town gave her more clout than my father, had been my protector, and the house where my mother felt haunted, my refuge. The headlines made me cringe, but I had been taught that tabloids lied. And I never stopped to wonder if my mother’s death was truly an accident or if Aunt Jule might have been protecting someone other than me.
three
I bounced my way over the potholes of Aunt Jule’s driveway, past her rusty Volvo, and thumped to a stop. From the driver’s seat I gazed up at the house, hoping it would look as I remembered. In most ways it did.
The long rectangular frame of the house was covered with gray clapboard. Its double set of porches, upper and lower, ran from end to end and a wood stairway led down from the upper porch. Along both porches there were doors rather than windows, each room having at least one exit to the outside. But unlike the pristine image I carried in my mind, the doors sagged with potbellied screens, and the paint was peeling badly. The river side of the house, which was identical to the garden side but exposed to the water, probably looked worse.
I climbed out of the car. The pungent smell of boxwood and the fragrance of roses surrounded me—just as I remembered! Between the house and myself were two big gardens, a square knot garden on the right, bristling with bushy hedges and herbs, and a flower garden on the left.
“Lauren! You’re here!” Aunt Jule cried out happily, stepping onto the lower porch. “Do you need help with your suitcase? Holly,” she called.
No matter what clothes Aunt Jule bought, she always seemed to be wearing the same outfit—a denim skirt or pants with a loose print top. Her long brown hair had streaks of gray in it now and fell in a thick braid down her back.
We met at the head of the path between the knot and flower gardens.
She threw her arms around me. “Hello, love. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” I said, hugging her tightly.
“I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve missed you.” I saw Holly emerging from the house. “But promise you won’t make a fuss over me.
When I was a little girl, my godmother would welcome me like visiting royalty and wait on me for the first few days. Holly would get so mad she wouldn’t speak to me. It was only when Nora and Nick did, and she felt left out, that she would warm up and assume her usual position of ringleader.
Holly strode toward us, taller now than both her mother and I. Her shoulder-length hair was almost black, a glorious, shimmering color that contrasted sharply with her blue eyes. She had the beautiful eyes and brows of an actress, the kind that caught your attention with their drama and careful shaping.
“You look great!” I said.
She hugged me. “You, too. Welcome back, Lauren. I was so excited when Mom said you were coming. Is there something I can carry?”
I opened the trunk of my car, took out a full-size suitcase, and handed her an overnight bag.
Aunt Jule hovered close by and touched the smaller bag’s soft leather. “How nice!” she said. “You should get one of these, Holly.”
“Right, Mom. Shall we put it on our credit card? Come inside, Lauren. You must be thirsty,” Holly said, starting up the path.
“Oh, Lord!” Aunt Jule’s hand flew up to her forehead. “I forgot to check what we have to drink. There could be—”
“Iced tea or lemonade,” Holly told me, smiling. “I made a pitcher of each. Which would you like?”
“Iced tea, please.”
My godmother and I followed Holly into the house, entering the back of a wide hall that ran from the garden side to the river side of the house. We set my bags at the foot of the stairs and turned right, into the dining room.
It looked exactly as I remembered—a collection of dark wood chairs scattered around a long table that was buried beneath mail, magazines, and baskets of Aunt Jule’s craft stuff. The mahogany table might have been a valuable antique, but it was badly scarred by years of water rings and the grind of game pieces into its surface. One reason I had loved to come here was that, unlike my parents’ elegant town house, it was almost impossible to “ruin” something.
In the kitchen Holly set four glasses on a tray and began to pour the tea.
“Where’s Nora?” I asked.
“She’ll come around sooner or later,” Aunt Jule replied casually.
Holly glanced sharply at her mother. “I assume you told Lauren about Nora.”
“Not yet. Lauren has just arrived.”
“You should have told her before.”
“I saw no point in saying anything until she came,” Aunt Jule replied coolly, then smiled at me. “Garden room or river room?”
“Garden.”
Holly picked up the tray. “Don’t forget to turn out the light, Mom.”
“Forget? How can 1, with you always reminding me?”
“I don’t know, but somehow you do.”
As we left the kitchen I peeked at Holly, wondering what I was supposed to be told about Nora. She had not been the most normal of kids.
We passed through the hall again and entered the garden room. Aunt Jule’s house was built in the early 1900s on the foundation of a much older one that had burned down. Intended as a summer home, it was designed for airiness. The dining room and kitchen lay on one side of the stairs and, together with the steps and hall, occupied a third of the space downstairs. On the other side of the hall were two long rectangular rooms, each with two sets of double porch doors, those in one room facing the garden, those in the other facing the river. Two wide doorways connected these rooms, allowing the breeze to blow through the house.
At Aunt Jule’s you never felt far from the Sycamore River. Each time I took a breath I noticed the mustiness that shore homes seem to have in their bones. And I knew I still wasn’t ready to face the dock where my mother had struck her head, or the water below it, where she had drowned.
We had just settled down in the garden room with its two lumpy sofas and assortment of stuffed chairs when Nora entered from the porch. I was startled at what I saw.
“Nora, dear, Lauren has arrived,” Aunt Jule said.
Nora stood silently and stared at me. Her thin, black hair was pulled straight back in an old plastic headband and hung in short, oily pieces. Her dark eyes were troubled. The slight frown she wore as a child had deepened into a single, vertical crease between her eyebrows, a line of anger or worry that couldn’t be erased.
“Please say hello, Nora,” Aunt Jule coaxed softly.
Nora acted as if she hadn’t heard. She crossed the room to a table on which sat a vase of roses. She began to rearrange the flowers, her mouth set in a grim line.
“Hi, Nora. It’s good to see you,” I said.
She pricked her finger on a thorn and pulled her hand away quickly.
“It’s good to see you again,” I told her.
This time she met my eyes. Locking her gaze on mine, she reached for the rose stem and pricked her finger deliberately, repeatedly.
Her strange behavior did not seem to faze anyone else. Holly leaned forward in her chair, blocking my view of Nora. “So, did my mother think to tell you I’m graduating?”
“Uh, yes,” I replied, turning my attention to her. “It’s this coming Thursday, right? She said this was Senior Week for you. Are kids getting all weepy about saying goodbye?”
Holly grimaced. “Not me. I’m editor in chief of our yearbook. And the prom’s tomorrow, my swim party Tuesday night. I’m too busy to get sentimental.”
“I can help you get ready for the party,” I offered. “Cleaning, fixing food, whatever. It’ll be fun.”
“I wish you hadn’t come,” Nora said.
I sat back in my seat, surprised, and turned to look at her.
She said nothing more, continuing to arrange the flowers with intense concentration.
“Ignore her,” said Holly.
“She’ll get used to you,” Aunt Jule added.
Used to me? I grew up with Nora.
“We had some hot days in May,” Holly went on, “so the water’s plenty warm for an evening swim party.”
“Don’t go near the water,” warned Nora.
“The whole class is coming,” Holly went on, as if her sister hadn’t spoken.
I heard Nora leave the room.
“I’m borrowing amplifiers from Frank—and torches and strings of light,” Holly added.
“I told you not to,” Aunt Jule remarked.
“And I ignored you,” Holly said, then turned to me. “You remember Frank, from next door?”
I nodded. “Yes, I saw his neph—”
I broke off at the sound of a crash in the next room. Aunt Jule and Holly glanced at each other, then the three of us rushed into the river room.
Nora was standing five feet from an end table, gazing down at a broken ceramic lamp. She seemed fascinated by it. I heard Aunt Jule take a deep breath and let it out again.
“Nora!” Holly exclaimed. “That was a good lamp.”
“I didn’t do it,” Nora replied quickly.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Holly persisted.
“But I didn’t do it.” Nora glanced around the room. “Someone else did.”
I bent down to pick up the pieces of the shattered base. The lamp’s cord had been pulled from the wall socket and was tied in a knot. When I saw it, the skin on my neck prickled. I thought about the things my mother had found knotted in her room just before she died.
A coincidence, I told myself, then untied the cord.
When I looked up, Nora was watching me, her dark eyes gleaming as if she had just solved a puzzled. “You did it,” she said.
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Then she did.”
“She?” I asked. “Who?”
“Now that you’re here, there’s no stopping her,” Nora whispered.
“I don’t understand.”
Holly dismissed our puzzling conversation with a wave of her hand. “Leave that, Lauren,” she said. “Nora broke it and Nora will clean it up. Come on, let’s take your things upstairs. I’ll help you unpack.”