Ralph didn’t move. There was no nod of understanding, nor did he make an attempt to speak.
Becca seemed to be studying his face, though, and what she apparently read on his features wasn’t exactly what Seth wanted to hear. She rose to her feet and gestured Seth to walk away from the wheelchair with her. When they had some distance, she said to him quietly, “Losing everything like he has, Seth? I think . . . Well, it seems like he’s not making the kind of progress everyone wants him to make because . . . I think he’s waiting to die.”
“No way. He’s gonna get better if we take him home.”
13
When Seth made the turn off Newman Road and up the incline that was Ralph Darrow’s driveway, the first thing Becca saw was Derric’s Forester in the parking area. As Prynne hopped out of the car so that Becca could alight, the second thing she saw was Derric himself. He’d just climbed the path that led up from the house, circling round the small hill that kept the house out of view. He smiled that two-hundred-watt smile of his when he saw them, saying, “Hey. Where’ve you guys been?”
“Coupeville,” Seth said. “Then Freeland. Setting everything up for Grand to come home, including having an epic fight with my aunt.”
“Harsh,” Derric said.
Becca went to him. He pulled her into a bear hug and said over her head to Prynne, “Everything set up? You here permanently now?”
“I’m here,” she told him. “I got to go back for my Vespa, though.”
“That thing safe for the highway?” Derric asked as Becca put her earbud in.
“Sure. Seth says no, but if I c’n ride it around Quimper Peninsula, I c’n sure as heck ride it around here. And”—she shot an amused look at Seth—“don’t you argue, buddy. I need my wheels.”
Becca drew a sudden breath that stabbed. The sensation that came over her was unexpected, a brief rush of wind that wasn’t wind at all but something that quickly transformed in her vision to the image of driving a vehicle to the side of the road in front of a small ramshackle house. This was fronted by shrubbery long gone without pruning and a wooden archway that tilted to one side with a heavy growth of wisteria threatening to take it down. She had the sensation of walking through that archway, of seeing the house become more visible, of striding down a path that led to the corner of the building. Then—
“You okay?”
Derric’s question cut into the vision, and Becca was back with the others. Prynne and Seth were watching her curiously. The place she’d seen must have been, she thought, where Prynne lived. Her words had prompted it somehow. She said to Derric, “I’m starving. I got light in the head for a sec.”
“You guys chow down,” Seth said. “We gotta get going. I’ll let you know when everything’s a go for Grand, Beck. We’ll rock this situation.”
Becca had her doubts about that. Still, she nodded. Prynne got back into the VW, and they took off. Becca returned Seth’s wave, and then looked at Derric. “It is so good to see you,” she told him.
“I was bummed when there was no one home,” he replied. “I left you a note. Sort of a poor-me-wah-wah-wah-where-are-you-and-when’re-you-getting-a-cell-phone-for-God’s-sake.”
She smiled at the description. “Come on, I got some food in the slow cooker.” She led the way, saying over her shoulder, “Did you figure I was with Seth, trying to work on this family thing he has going on with Grand?”
“I didn’t figure anything. Just that you weren’t here and I wanted to see you.” As they walked up the new ramp onto the porch, he added, “Needed to see you is more like it.”
Becca saw his note on the door, folded into the small crack between the door and the jamb. She unfolded it, read it, and said, “I dunno. Doesn’t sound like wah-wah-wah to me. But Rejoice . . . ?” She shoved the note into her pocket as she dug for her house keys. He’d said in the note that he needed to talk to her about Rejoice. Important, he said. Disaster looming.
She opened the door and shoved her shoulder against it. It was tough to open in the winter when the damp made it swell. Derric helped her, his hands reaching above her head in a way that always reminded her how much taller he was than she.
Inside, the place was cold although the air held the fragrance of a savory stew. Becca pointed out that the fire was laid in the great stone fireplace, and if Derric would light it, she’d check on what she had in the slow cooker. Lucky for her, she’d told Derric some weeks into Ralph Darrow’s hospitalization and recuperation, Grand had a freezer filled with beef, chicken, and fish, as well as a root cellar at the side of the house that held enough root veggies to last her through a nuclear holocaust. So feeding herself hadn’t been a problem, although she didn’t much like eating alone.
When she rejoined him, Becca saw that he had a decent blaze going. He was sitting on the hearth with his back to it, but he hadn’t yet removed his parka. Neither had she. The house had a heat pump, but she didn’t keep it running when she wasn’t there. It took a while to get the structure warm. In the meantime, the fire would do. She sat next to him, put her head on his shoulder, and twined her fingers with his.
“So what’s up?” she asked.
“Oh, hell, what isn’t?” Derric’s tone suggested that Rejoice had probably taken matters another step forward in her dispute with her parents about when she was going to be allowed to do what in her life.
Derric had already told Becca that the girl was pressing her mom and dad about their dating rule: no dates on her own with a boy until she was sixteen. When Derric had eaten lunch with the Vicklands on that Sunday he’d gone to La Conner on his own, she’d announced to all present that “me and Derric need some alone time. It’s only right. And it’s not like we’re gonna do anything, Mom.” She said her parents’ restrictions were “totally and absolutely unfair ’cause I can’t even be alone with a boy unless we’re, like, totally visible to you. Like sitting on the front porch in broad daylight. And then these guys make fun of me.”
“These guys” were her siblings. They were out and about with boyfriends and girlfriends and it wasn’t fair that she had to wait. “They had to wait, too” did not appease her.
Her dad told her at that Sunday lunch that if Derric wanted to visit, it was fine. If he wanted to take her some place, it was also fine. But, he’d added with a stern look that attempted to telegraph there would be no further discussion because he was tired of repeatedly laying down the law to his daughter, she could only go with Derric if someone else went along, too. “One of your sisters can go or one of your brothers,” he told her. Then he added meaningfully, “Or Derric can bring his girlfriend Becca.”
Rejoice had bristled at that and announced, “Becca is his friend, Dad, not his girlfriend,” and as Derric was about to correct her, Jeff Vickland said, “She’s a girl. She’s his friend. Ergo, she’s his girlfriend. And the topic is closed.”
Derric concluded the story with, “And now there’s this,” as he took his iPhone from his pocket. He tapped it a few times and handed it over to Becca. She saw that it was a picture of Rejoice, a selfie she’d taken with a background of one of the family’s vast tulip fields behind her, the green of the sprouting bulbs making knitted furrows that extended virtually to the horizon.
She was grinning the same grin that Derric possessed, the one that made her resemble him so much that Becca was continually amazed that Rejoice’s family hadn’t figured out he was her brother yet. Now, though, there was going to be little doubt about the matter. For Rejoice had shaved her head, like his, in the manner of the girls in the Kampala orphanage from which they had both been adopted.
“Looks like you’ve got trouble,” Becca told him.
Derric said, taking the iPhone back from her, “I guess I can’t hope that her mom and dad are like white people who say everyone black looks the same to them.”
“I guess you can’t,” Becca said.
He observed the p
icture. “At least she’s finally getting into being African,” he pointed out hopefully.
“Uh, Der . . . I don’t think that’s what she’s getting into.”
Derric was quiet for a moment. The fire popped behind them. He removed his parka. She did the same. He finally said, “Well, I’m going to pretend that’s what she’s getting into. Like ‘Hey, girl, now you’re doing it right. Ugandans rock!’ Something like that.”
“And then what?” Becca asked him.
“Get her some African scarves and clothes and whatever?”
“Okay. And then what?”
He shoved the phone into his pocket. “Absolute hell if I know,” he said.
• • •
IT WAS TWO days later when Becca went into the high school library, cutting short her lunchtime in order to log on to one of the computers there. Derric’s problem with Rejoice aside, she had her own issues. So she went first to her e-mail account to see if there was anything new from Parker Natalia. When she saw that there was, her heart did its usual loud thump that heralded hope.
From Parker’s e-mail, she learned that he’d given the word about Laurel Armstrong to the cop he knew who had contacts in Canadian immigration. The cop, Parker said, would check things out. But then he added that it might come down to Becca traveling up to Nelson herself, maybe giving an interview about Laurel Armstrong to the paper or something like that.
Becca had to get him away from that idea fast. She had no passport, and although she did have a copy of Rebecca Dolores King’s birth certificate, it was only a copy and not the original. She wondered if, in these days of terrorists, a simple copy would suffice to get someone a passport. She doubted it.
She went from her e-mail to Google, and there she typed in Jeff Corrie’s name. There were no new developments, so she checked out the reporter Olivia Bolding’s progress on whatever story she might be attempting to write about the missing Hannah Armstrong.
There, her anxiety spiked when she saw that Olivia Bolding wasn’t about to let the Hannah Armstrong dog die. Since Becca had last been on the computer in Langley’s library to see what the reporter was up to, Olivia Bolding had been to Hannah Armstrong’s high school, from which she’d disappeared early in her freshman year. There, she’d interviewed Hannah’s teachers, most of whom had dutifully declared Hannah to be an exemplary student. She’d also unearthed Hannah’s freshman picture, which was several years more recent than the pictures Jeff Corrie had earlier supplied the newspapers. Becca stared at the picture and tried to see in it evidence of who she was now.
Hannah Armstrong had been fat. Chubby was only a euphemism for triple chins and thunder thighs. She’d worn her hair long but had done nothing with it, other than to fasten it with a barrette at the back of her head. It was also strawberry blond. Or strawberry blondish. It wasn’t at all what it had been altered to by the time she’d arrived on Whidbey Island as Becca King.
Becca King had come to Whidbey as fat as Hannah but, through the necessity of getting around on a bike, she had eventually become slim and athletic. Her hair had been dyed hideous Goth black, but that, too, had changed along with the shedding of the weight. Now her hair was light brown, and it capped her head. And although she still wore the same phony glasses she’d had on upon her arrival on the island, she’d backed way off on the amount of makeup she’d once used. She could, she’d decided a few months earlier, only keep up the general hideousness of her appearance so long before she couldn’t stand it any longer.
Now, she wanted to believe, and she had to believe, that she no longer resembled the Hannah Armstrong who’d disappeared from San Diego. So she decided that this was indeed the case because at the moment, what other choice did she have?
14
Jenn decided to take Becca’s advice, once she learned that Lexie Ovanov, too, had acquired an athletic scholarship. For her, it was track and field. UCLA was giving her a free ride because of her performance as a distance runner. She did her own training in the early morning out on the track and on weekends with a coach from over town. Jenn hadn’t known this. But when she saw Lexie running against the fastest boy on the track team just for fun and leaving him in the dust, she figured she should sign up for what Cynthia and Lexie were offering her. It sure as heck couldn’t hurt her, and it sure as heck might help her make the All Island team.
Neither of the girls was put out that she’d turned Cynthia down earlier. It seemed that, for them, it was one for all and all for one and who cared what had been said in the past? Lexie said she’d work with Jenn on her running and her weight training. Cynthia said she’d take on dribbling, passing, and holding on to the ball. “It’ll be good for all of us,” Cynthia concluded. “Lexie’s been getting lazy anyway.”
“As if,” was Lexie’s rejoinder. “I can take you on any day of the week.”
“And so you do,” Cynthia said with a leer. Both of them laughed. Jenn got hot in the face.
The girls both pushed her hard. Jenn found them tough but extremely helpful. Cynthia stayed in Jenn’s face whenever she tried to do anything with the ball. Lexie started her on the track, telling her that developing speed on the trails was an interesting way to look at things, but since soccer wasn’t exactly played on forest trails, it made a whole lot more sense to be on a level surface where she could build up her speed and then combine it with an ability to scramble when under pressure. Lexie was there to supply the pressure. Out on the lawn, she charged Jenn like a barbarian warrior, coming at her full speed with screams and shouts. This, naturally, attracted the attention of anyone who happened to be in the vicinity. When Jenn saw other kids looking at them, she cringed a bit.
She wanted not to care that Lexie was gay. But Squat’s remarks about both of the girls—Cynthia and Lexie—kept intruding. She shoved them away as best she could. Still they came back and especially so when Cynthia and Lexie were together.
At least they didn’t do anything in the showers while she was around, Jenn told herself reassuringly. She might have accidentally witnessed them messing with each other that one day, but once she joined them in training, they kept a distance from each other. No more soaping each other up, no more shampooing each other’s hair, no more kissing while naked with the water streaming around them. They still joked, slapped each other on the butt, and made comments that seemed to be private jokes between them. But that was it.
Jenn discovered almost by accident that Lexie had another girlfriend. This was on a day after training and showers when Lexie mentioned to Cynthia that Sara-Jane had found such a deal on tickets that she’d bought them at once and without asking Lexie how long she wanted to stay in Europe that summer.
Lexie’s conclusion was, “I hate it when she does that.”
“Yeah, but on the other hand,” Cynthia pointed out reasonably, “you want to go to Europe together, right?”
“Course. And I know, I’m a control freak. I want to be the one to decide things for myself. For Sara-Jane, too, I guess.”
From this Jenn understood that Lexie would be heading to Europe after graduation and she’d be traveling with someone other than Cynthia. At first she figured that Sara-Jane was a relative. Lexie’s sister, maybe, or perhaps a cousin.
But then Lexie said, “She’s also decided we have to spend time in Venice. Way too much time in Venice, if you ask me. It’ll be romantic, she says. Gondolas, locking lips while some guy pushes us through the canals, plays a mandolin, and croons about love.”
Cynthia laughed. “Sounds like she’s getting very serious. Gondolas? You go straight into engagement after that. Then it’s marriage, the family, and you’re finished for life. I told you hooking up with someone so much older was going to cause problems.”
“It’s not like I don’t love her,” Lexie said. “It’s just that I want to make a few of my own decisions.”
Jenn was intrigued when it became clear that Lexie was talking abo
ut someone with whom she was involved outside of her relationship with Cynthia. So when Cynthia glanced in her direction—jeans in one hand and yellow cashmere sweater in the other—and said, “What? You’re looking like something’s on your mind,” Jenn turned away hastily and started pulling her clothes out of her locker.
“Nope, nothing,” Jenn said.
A little silence ensued as they put their clothes on. Then Cynthia said, “Oh. Sara-Jane, right?”
“Sara who?” Jenn asked, striving for innocence.
“I bet you think Lexie’s cheating on her partner.”
Jenn didn’t want to say what she was really thinking, which was maybe things were different for lesbians since they weren’t exactly going to get each other pregnant so maybe it didn’t matter who did what and when and how. But she didn’t know what she could say in place of that. So she went with, “I guess I don’t get it.”
“Get what?” Lexie had come to Jenn’s locker and was leaning nearby. She’d bent and picked up one of Jenn’s shoes, and for a second Jenn thought she meant to threaten her with it, although she couldn’t say why Lexie would bother to do that.
Still, she did feel the other girl’s presence more acutely than usual, so she said, “I thought you guys . . . you know . . . you and Cynthia . . . I thought you were a couple.”
“Like in the Big Romance?” Lexie looked at Cynthia. They both laughed. “We’d kill each other in three days,” Lexie told her.
“Hey! Maybe we’d last a week, Lex,” Cynthia said.
“Oh.” Jenn frowned. She looked in the direction of the showers. She’d seen what she’d seen, so if Lexie and Cynthia wanted to pretend they weren’t involved, what was it to her?
“We’re just friends,” Cynthia told her.
“Right,” Jenn said.