The House on the Gulf

  “The Stuldys noticed,” I said.

  “Yeah, and you saved us on that one,” Bran said. “Acting so innocent. . .”

  I wanted to remind him that I hadn’t been acting. I had been innocent.

  “You saved me with the dishes, too,” Bran said. “The Marcuses’ furniture is so new I hadn’t worried about Mom recognizing any of it—I mean, I was here when those couches were delivered. But I hadn’t thought about Mom maybe remembering other things, like the plates and glasses, until you started going on and on about them maybe being wedding gifts. And then I had to scramble to put away everything old. Those first few days, I was terrified Mom would find some, I don’t know, some button or something else I’d missed, and say, ‘Well, look at this! We had one just like it when I was a kid.’ And then that would make her figure out everything. . . .”

  “She’s not here enough to notice anything like buttons,” I said.

  Bran didn’t seem to hear the bitterness in my voice.

  “No, she’s not,” he said cheerfully. “Or to get the mail—that really freaked me out, when I found out the Marcuses’ junk mail wouldn’t be forwarded.”

  “You still had to beat me to the mailbox,” I said resentfully.

  “Yeah,” Bran said. “But usually I could count on the mail arriving early, before you woke up, because the mailman doesn’t want to be out when it’s really hot.”

  So I would have known the truth sooner if only I’d gotten up earlier in the morning?

  “That one day you got the mail before me, I—I guess I panicked,” Bran said. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”

  He was staring at me, waiting for me to say, That’s okay. Apology accepted. But I couldn’t. He kept talking.

  “The other thing that worried me was the utilities. But I’ve been monitoring our usage, and it’s not too bad. I looked through the Marcuses’ old bills, and they do this thing called levelized billing where they pay the same amount every month, regardless of how much electricity or water they actually use. It’s supposed to be an average of what they’d expect to use. Then they get money back or pay in a little extra at the end of the year, when it’s all totaled up. So even if they do notice something strange, they won’t notice until December.”

  “When we’ll be long gone,” I said faintly.

  “Exactly,” Bran said, grinning.

  I started shaking my head, as if I could shake off everything he’d told me.

  “This is crazy,” I said. “I told Mrs. Stuldy my name. The neighbors know we’re here. What happens in September or October when they say something to the Marcuses about their ‘house-sitters’?”

  “That’s why I was so upset about your errand business,” Bran admitted. “I hadn’t worried much about the neighbors—you know we’ve never known our neighbors anywhere else we lived.”

  It was true. Back in Pennsylvania we’d had college students around us who came and went at odd hours and were too busy partying or studying to notice us. At Sunset Terrace we’d done our best to avoid our neighbors. We’d pulled our pillows over our heads so we didn’t have to hear their fights in the middle of the night.

  Bran went on.

  “That worried me for a long time. But now I think your errand business is a good thing. You can be like . . . an early warning system if something happens that would make us have to leave.” I was glad he didn’t spell out what that “something” might be. I imagined us scrambling to pack up and leave in the middle of the night, just ahead of the police.

  It was an awful image, but Bran didn’t look distressed.

  “And in the fall,” he said, lifting his chin defiantly, “if Mrs. Stuldy mentions us to the Marcuses, as soon as they hear the name Lassiter, they’ll know exactly who we are. And then they won’t do anything, because it would make them look bad.”

  He almost sounded like he wanted the Marcuses to find out we’d been here.

  I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes for a minute. I wanted to say, But what if I want to keep my errand business into the fall? What if I want to keep visiting Mrs. Stuldy? I wouldn’t be able to do that now. I’d be too afraid that Mr. or Mrs. Marcus would see me over the fence, would recognize me. And they wouldn’t call out, Oh, you must be Becky’s daughter! Oh, we’re so sorry. Oh, we’ve missed her so much. . . . They’d peer at me with narrowed eyes, angrier than ever.

  I looked up and Bran was smiling at me from the other side of the hall.

  “You know, I really didn’t want to tell you all this, but now—it’s such a relief to get everything off my chest,” he said. “It’s been so hard keeping this secret alone. Now it’s like we’re . . . partners. I’m so glad you’ll be able to help me.”

  And his smile was a familiar one now: open, trusting, honest. I knew he wasn’t hiding anything from me anymore. He looked like a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  No wonder. I felt like a double-huge burden had slammed down on me.

  “Bran, I—,” I began weakly. “I still don’t think this is right. I think we should tell Mom. I think we should move.”

  His smile disappeared.

  “Haven’t you been listening?” he asked. “Where do you think we’re going to move to? How would we pay for another place? Mom took out loans to go to school this summer. She’d have to drop out if we couldn’t stay here. And she wouldn’t get that money back. We’d be worse off than ever.” He reached into his pocket and came up with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill that must have been his tips from the day from work. “This would be about all we’d have to keep us from living on the street.”

  The bill slipped from his fingers and fluttered down to the carpet.

  “I made eight dollars today running errands,” I said stupidly.

  Bran gave a snort of disgust. Then he stared straight at me, his eyes burning into mine.

  “Don’t you think I hate living here too?” he said. “I think about how Mr. and Mrs. Marcus treated Mom and I want to punch holes in the walls, I want to smash all their dishes, I want to rip their precious pictures to shreds. I didn’t know how mad it’d make me, living here. But I can take it. The best revenge is to get Mom through school. And you can’t ruin that.”

  I wanted to back away from all that anger. I wanted to run next door to Mrs. Stuldy’s cozy kitchen, where she’d feed me more oatmeal cookies and talk about forgiveness, not revenge. But I couldn’t move. I was locked in place by Bran’s burning gaze.

  “We can’t tell Mom,” he said. “Or anyone else.”

  The old Britt, the one who hadn’t spent a month and a half being suspicious of Bran, would have started crying and apologizing, wailing, “I won’t tell! I won’t tell! I promise!” Anything to get Bran to stop staring at me with such fury—as if I deserved some of that fury myself, just for disagreeing.

  But living in the Marcuses’ house had changed me as much as it’d changed Bran. I stared straight back at him.

  “You couldn’t stop me,” I said. “If I decided to tell, there’s not a single thing you could do about it.”

  His jaw dropped and his head rolled forward, as if he were too stunned to hold it upright. Then he seemed to recover a little.

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “I couldn’t stop you. But you won’t tell, will you? You wouldn’t do that to Mom. Just because you’re mad at me for keeping secrets, just because you’re mad at her for being away so much . . . that’s no reason to ruin everything.”

  I squinted back at him, suddenly confused. Was he right about my reasons? Was I just looking for revenge too?

  “I want some time to think,” I muttered. “I won’t tell Mom without talking to you first.”

  That was my concession to the old Britt, the one who was still hiding inside me, urging me to trust Bran completely. I didn’t know about loans and utilities the way he did. And I really didn’t know what the Marcuses were like. But I could still hear another voice inside my head insisting, This isn’t right. This isn’t righ
t This time Bran is wrong.

  Bran was watching me carefully.

  “Okay,” he said. “Think about it all summer long, if you want.”

  He gave me an ironic half-grin that didn’t hide any of his disappointment. I suddenly wanted his open, trusting smile back, the one that said, We’re partners, and I’m so relieved that you’re with me on this. I hated being alone.

  We were both alone now. Alone with a huge barrier between us, even though we were sitting barely three inches apart.

  Bran picked up his money and headed out to the living room. I drifted into my room. It was like neither of us could stand the sight of the other just then.

  But I couldn’t stand the sight of anything else, either. Seeing the Marcuses’ walls reminded me that Bran wanted to punch them. The dresser reminded me of the ceramic cats that Bran had taken away from me and hidden. The closet reminded me of the lock on the closet in Bran’s room.

  I collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the flat, bland ceiling. The ceiling reminded me that the Marcuses had a roof over their heads—they had two roofs, roofs to spare. And Bran and Mom and I would have none at all if I insisted on telling Mom the truth.

  I rolled over and buried my face in my pillow. But the flowered pillowcase made me think that probably the Marcuses had bought this bedding with Little Girl Marcus in mind.

  How could they love their other grandchildren but not care at all about Bran and me?

  I cried then, dripping tears onto the Marcuses’ pillows.

  I heard Mom come in the front door, and that scared me out of crying. She couldn’t see me like this. She’d know.

  “Where’s Brittany?” I heard her ask Bran.

  “I think she’s taking a nap,” he said. “She was acting really tired—let’s not wake her up until dinner’s ready.”

  I felt a surge of gratitude. Even though I’d disagreed with him, he was still covering for me, protecting me. Just like always.

  Except—who was he really protecting? Me or Mom? Or himself?

  I got up and dried my eyes. I forced myself to walk out into the living room.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  She put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a big hug. I wanted to lean into that hug, to keep clinging to her, but I made myself pull back before she did.

  “I thought Bran said you were sleeping,” she said. She studied my face. “You look a little peaked. You’re not getting sick, are you?”

  “Naw,” I said. “I’m holding off on all illnesses until I can have Dr. Becky Lassiter treat me.”

  My voice sounded awfully fake to me, but Mom laughed.

  “Good,” she said. “Because we won’t be able to afford any medical care until then!”

  Bran shot me a look, like See? We can’t even afford to get sick right now. And you think we’re magically going to be able to afford rent?

  Somehow I got through dinner that night. I did it mainly by focusing on the spaghetti on my plate. Our spaghetti, our plates. That dinner had nothing to do with the Marcuses.

  But after dinner, when Mom had settled down at the kitchen table to study, the walls started closing in on me again. It seemed like everything the Marcuses owned was trying to talk to me. The heavy wooden table, which I’d admired before, now said, See me? The Marcuses go for solid and old-fashioned. That’s why they hated your father so much. The dried flower arrangement on the coffee table said, Mrs. Marcus dusted me every day. She’s very exacting. Even with straight As, your mom could never measure up. And neither can you.

  I even imagined I could hear the voice of Little Girl Marcus, calling from the box of pictures in Bran’s closet: My grandparents love me. They’ll hate you if they find out you’re here.

  But if I told Mom, if we moved out, would there ever be a chance that they’d love us then?

  My imaginary Little Girl Marcus wouldn’t answer that question.

  “Brittany, what’s wrong?” Mom asked, looking up from her embryology books with great concern.

  Wonderful. I’d wanted to talk to her so badly a few weeks ago, and now she was ready to listen. Now that I didn’t know what to say.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “Why?”

  “You’ve sighed five times in the past five minutes. And you’re pale as a ghost.”

  “I’m just bored,” I said. “Maybe I’ll go for a walk.”

  Amazing how lies could grow. Every nerve in my body was jangling—I’d never been so unbored in my life. And I’d walked so much already that day that my feet hurt. But I had to get out of the Marcuses’ house.

  “Want me to go with you?” Bran asked, pushing aside the checkbook he was balancing for Mom.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said.

  Normally he would have persisted. Normally I would have wanted him to come with me. But normal had ended this afternoon.

  “Make sure you stay where there are streetlights,” Bran cautioned. But he didn’t stand up to come along. I think he understood that I needed to be alone. Or he was afraid of crossing me now. I didn’t like the thought that I might have some power over him—power because I could still decide to tell Mom his secret. Bran was supposed to be the one in control. I wasn’t supposed to be keeping his secrets; he was supposed to be keeping mine. Once, back in Pennsylvania, I’d broken a glass on a day when Mom had a tough final, and Bran had carefully swept up all the pieces, hidden the evidence at the bottom of the trash, and biked down to Wal-Mart to get a replacement glass with his own money before Mom got home.

  But living in someone else’s house without permission wasn’t exactly breaking a glass. It was . . . breaking and entering.

  The words came to me from some old police show I’d watched once. I wished I’d never heard them. Breaking and entering was a crime—a bad one. It was what thieves did. But we weren’t stealing anything. Were we?

  I thought of the electricity that powered our lights, the hot water I used every time I took a shower. I thought of the cooled air I was breathing. All that cost money, even if the Marcuses never noticed.

  Maybe Bran can pay them back somehow, I told myself. If we stay. He could send them money anonymously. . . .

  Could I bargain with Bran—you promise to pay the Marcuses, I won’t tell Mom?

  I didn’t want to bargain. I wanted to tell Mom. I wanted to leave.

  No—I wanted the Marcuses to love us and want us here.

  I pushed open the front door and stepped outside. It was such a relief to breathe air that didn’t belong to the Marcuses. The breeze lifted the hair off my forehead, and I closed my eyes and leaned into it. But I was still holding on to the porch railing. The Marcuses’ porch railing.

  “You shouldn’t be out on the front porch. . . . It makes a place look trashy,” Bran had said to me, back before I knew the truth. But it hadn’t been the Marcuses’ orders; it’d been Bran’s frantic attempt to keep our presence secret.

  I stepped off the porch and walked down to the sidewalk, the public sidewalk, which belonged to all of Gulfstone, not just the Marcuses. I walked past the Stuldys’ and saw the glow of the TV in their front window. Just passing their house made my heart pound. What if Mrs. Stuldy found out we weren’t supposed to be here? What if I accidentally gave away our secret?

  I wasn’t sure what scared me most: the thought that she might tell the Marcuses, or the fear that she’d hate me then, that she’d think Bran and Mom and I were a bunch of liars and cheats.

  We are, I thought. As long as we live in the Marcuses’ house we’re lying and cheating. Bran and me, anyway. Mom’s innocent as long as she doesn’t know.

  I wished suddenly that I’d never solved the mystery, that I’d never found out anything. Then I could have stayed innocent too.

  Except—in spite of everything, I kind of liked knowing that the Marcuses were my grandparents. I liked the way they looked in the pictures. Wasn’t there still some way to have them love us?

  “You don’t know what the Marcuses are like,” Bran had told me. And
they didn’t sound like very nice people from what he and Mom had told me. But that was all from years and years and years ago. Maybe they’d changed.

  I walked on, lost in some fantasy of Mom and Bran and me magically melded into the pictures I’d pored over, Mr. Marcus showing me how to swing a bat, Mrs. Marcus cutting flowers with Mom. Bran and me holding up Easter egg baskets with the other five grandchildren—our cousins. The three of us sitting under the Christmas tree with everyone else.

  I was so distracted that it’s a wonder my feet didn’t automatically carry me to Eckerd’s or Winn-Dixie. But somehow I ended up on the beach. Sand slid into my tennis shoes, so I took them off and went barefoot. The last glow of sunset hung over the water, and a breeze ruffled the palms behind me. I sat down on one of the swings that were scattered along the edge of the beach. They weren’t little kids’ swings—they were more like porch swings suspended from metal rods. They were meant for old people. But it was still pleasant to dig my toes in the sand and push, gently, to make the swing sway. I could imagine sitting here with my grandparents, Little Girl Marcus pushing behind us.

  I’d told Bran that I wanted time to think, but that wasn’t really what I was doing. I was just daydreaming. I couldn’t see any path from where I was now—living in the Marcuses’ house secretly, illegally—to the happy ending I longed for, with smiles and hugs and kisses all around.

  I drew my knees up to my chest and let the swing slow down. I stared off into the distance. At the other end of the beach I could see the lights of the senior center. They were having some sort of dance out on the patio, and the old people were holding on to each other, spinning and turning and sliding with amazing agility. I couldn’t have said what kind of a dance they were doing—I’d heard of the jitterbug and the Charleston, from decades ago, but I wouldn’t have recognized either one of them. Then the music floating across the water changed, and the old people held their partners tighter. They swayed slowly together, each pair as graceful as the palm trees in the breeze.