“Come on in. It’s great to have the house full of kids again!” He led us into the parlor, which looked just as I remembered it: thick red drapery pooling on the dark wood floors, fat leather armchairs gathered around a marble fireplace, an enormous vase of sunflowers on the coffee table.
And there was Lucas pacing nervously in the middle of the room, his curly hair now long and sun-streaked, pulled back into a bushy ponytail. He was tanner than I’d ever seen him and more filled out too. Arms that used to hang from his shoulders like coat sleeves from a hanger were now taut with muscles. He held out a hand to Finn.
Despite his misgivings about coming, Finn smiled sincerely and said, “Good to see you, man,” and pulled Lucas into a brief hug.
“You too,” Lucas said, almost shyly. “Both of you.” I went forward for my hug and was surprised to feel the tension in Lucas’s arms as they gripped my back.
“As promised!” Simon came in from the kitchen carrying a tray. “This is my Great-Aunt Betsy’s cheesecake recipe, so please don’t tell me any of you have given up dairy.”
“Unless you want to see a grown man cry.” Billy chugged out past him to get the espresso started. Lucas’s dads seemed even more chirpy and vivacious than usual, as if they were a little bit uncomfortable around Lucas now. Maybe this beefed-up guy was not the kid they remembered either.
We were all kind of awkward and a little too giggly while Billy passed around the dessert and coffee, but finally Finn asked the questions we came to have answered. “Where did you go? Why didn’t you come back ’til now?” And I realized I was holding my breath.
Lucas busied himself forking through his cheesecake as if there was a treasure hidden in it. “My aunt got me a job at a summer camp up in New Hampshire. I wasn’t sure I’d like being a camp counselor, but actually it was great. I took the kids hiking and we camped out in the mountains a few times. I even taught archery, if you can believe it.”
“Huh.” It seemed like Finn wasn’t sure he did believe it.
Billy banged Lucas on the back. “Who says two gay men can’t raise an athletic son?”
“Nobody in this room, Dad.” Lucas rolled his eyes, but continued. “When camp ended, some of the counselors were going hiking in the White Mountains for a few weeks, and they asked me to go along. I know, it’s weird, right? I never thought of myself doing stuff like that. Tromping through the woods, sleeping in a mummy bag, the guy with the Timberland boots and the enormous backpack. Turns out I liked it. Who knew?” His smile was crooked.
“We’re glad you came home, Lucas,” I said. “We missed you.”
Lucas sipped from his tiny coffee cup, then swirled the remains in a circle. “At first I wasn’t sure I would come back,” he said quietly.
Finn’s face clouded over and his dessert plate clanged onto the coffee table. “What are you talking about? This is your home. I still don’t understand why the hell you left here to begin with. It wasn’t for some last-minute camp counselor job.”
Simon jumped up and started stacking plates. “Billy and I will go clean up the kitchen so you can talk privately. You don’t need a couple geezers listening in on everything.”
Lucas used to have to beg Simon and Billy to give us a little privacy. Now their speedy exit from the room, grabbing up napkins and teaspoons, seemed planned.
“We need to talk, and they already know what I’m going to say,” Lucas explained.
A jolt of fear zigzagged up my spine. I knew Lucas’s desertion had to have something to do with Lorna’s death. Could he have something to tell us we didn’t already know? Was this the missing piece that would answer my questions? My stomach churned the strong coffee and cheesecake into a toxic concoction.
“Does this have to do with why you left town so quickly?” I asked. “Without even talking to us?”
Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if searching for something inside himself. “I’m sorry I wimped out on you, but I couldn’t deal with it. I had to get away someplace I wasn’t reminded of it all the time.”
But he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. I sat forward, readying my body for whatever was coming. “It was hard for all of us, Lucas, but Finn and I helped each other. Why didn’t you want to be with us? How you could just leave like that without even telling us you were going?”
Finn scooted to the edge of his chair, waiting to hear the answer.
Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought if I went away I wouldn’t keep seeing that white jacket bobbing in the ocean every time I closed my eyes.”
White jacket. How could two such innocuous words cause such excruciating pain? Those three syllables cut like a whip.
“It didn’t work, though,” he went on. “You can’t force yourself to forget something like that. But while I was in the mountains, my head cleared a little bit. I started feeling kind of . . . angry, I guess, that I didn’t really know what the hell happened that night. I still couldn’t make any sense of it. And I knew I had to come back and talk to you two.”
The ache in the room was like a living thing. It was as if the three of us being together again completed a circuit that brought the pain back in all its electric splendor. It crawled out of the dark corners of my brain where I’d stuffed it away in order to walk, eat, speak, act like a more or less normal person. I glanced at Finn and I could tell that his scars had burst open too. He gasped through parted lips as if a plastic bag were wrapped around his face and he couldn’t get enough air.
“Why didn’t you at least call us, Lucas?” My voice was sharper than I’d intended it to be. “Or e-mail. You were just gone. First Lorna and then you!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was so screwed up about the whole thing.”
“So was I! So was Finn! You think you were more screwed up than we were?” A few tears threatened to fall, but I willed them away. I had no idea I was so mad at Lucas.
“No, of course not, but there were things . . . you didn’t know. Things that were driving me crazy.”
Finn was alert now. “What things we didn’t know?”
“I thought . . .” Lucas paused, and then spit out his sentence. “I thought Lorna’s death was my fault.”
Finn gave a short, dismissive laugh and jumped up from his chair.
I could feel my lips pull back from my teeth as if I were growling. “Why would it be your fault?” I barked at him. “You mean, because you couldn’t save her? None of us could!” Even though I’d never discussed it with Finn, I knew that this was a part of the story he couldn’t bear—the fact that Lucas had leaped into that cold black water in a ridiculous attempt to save Lorna, while he, her boyfriend and a much stronger swimmer, continued to stand there on the breakwater, helplessly calling out her name.
“That’s not what I mean,” Lucas said. His head dropped low between his shoulders, his voice barely audible.
“I think it’s strange that you’re claiming Lorna’s death as your fault,” I said, my voice getting louder and louder. “Why on earth would that be true? Or do you think we’re all somehow responsible? Are you blaming us?”
“No! Jackie, just listen to me for a minute. Something happened that I didn’t tell you about.”
Finn walked behind Lucas’s chair and leaned over him. “Tell us now, Lucas. Right now.”
Lucas looked him in the eyes and his face turned gray. “Lorna was pregnant.”
I jumped and let out a startled laugh. “No, she wasn’t! Where did you get a crazy idea like that?”
“From her,” he said. “She told me . . . it was mine.”
Finn’s mouth hung open. “Man, how much weed did you smoke out there in the woods?”
But Lucas stammered on. “We were only together once. I knew it was a lousy thing for me to do, but I had such a crush on Lorna—more than a crush—which she knew, and when she came on to me that night—”
Finn had turned away from Lucas, but now he wheeled back around. “She came on to you? What are you talking about
? Are you saying you slept with her?”
Lucas kept his eyes on his shoes. “I knew she was playing with me. I mean, I knew she wasn’t throwing you over for me—I’m not that dumb—so I figured sleeping with her wouldn’t be such a big deal. I mean, it wouldn’t affect your relationship with her or anything.”
My eyes could not have opened any wider. “Lucas, she was Finn’s girlfriend!”
“I know that!” Lucas stood up and plodded over to the fireplace, his shoulders slumped. “I’m not proud of it, Jackie, but you know how I felt about Lorna. I never thought for a minute that I—and all of a sudden she wanted me to sleep with her! It was like a miracle!”
Finn stumbled backward, looking for something to lean on. He stepped on the puddle of velvety drapes, slid, and caught himself on a bookcase.
“Cheating on your best friend is a miracle?” I yelled. “That’s a new one.”
Miserably, Lucas shook his head. “Lorna was the miracle. Try to see it from my point of view. I thought you’d understand this, Jackie.”
“Why? Because I need a miracle too?” The question came out like a spitball. And then the memory of Finn fending off my impulsive kiss bloomed in my brain. Okay, yes, I’d wanted a miracle too, but I never would have gone after it if Lorna were still alive.
Finn rumbled into the silence between Lucas and me. “If this bullshit is true, which I doubt it is, why are you suddenly confessing to us now?”
“Because I want you to know the whole story. A couple of days after we, you know, were together, Lorna came to me with a pregnancy test. It was positive. She said it had to be mine because you’d been in Florida for two weeks. I didn’t know anything about that stuff—how long anything took—and I just figured she knew what she was talking about.”
“Everything you say gets crazier and crazier!” Finn’s voice was only a notch below a shriek.
“If Lorna had been pregnant,” I said, “she would’ve told me before she told anybody else. I was her best friend.”
Lucas banged his hand on the mantelpiece. “Why would I make this up? That’s why I thought it was all my fault! For months after she died, I was totally freaked out, until finally I got up the nerve to do a little research and it turns out those tests aren’t accurate that fast. It takes a couple weeks, not just days. So, it couldn’t have been me. At least I don’t think it could.”
“So, she wasn’t actually pregnant,” I said, looking at Finn. “Unless . . .”
“We always used a condom. Every time. Besides, if Lorna had been pregnant by me, she obviously would have told me.” Finn headed for the door. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, Lucas, but—”
“Look, Finn, I don’t understand it either,” Lucas said, “but why else would she want to kill herself?”
Finn spun around so fast he knocked the vase of flowers off the table. Water and golden petals sprayed everywhere. “Kill herself?”
I stood up then too. “Lucas, that’s ridiculous. I know people are saying that, but—”
“Who’s saying that?” Finn interrupted.
“Lorna would never have killed herself, for any reason.” I stepped over the flower debris to get to Finn, but Lucas grabbed my arm. “Jackie, think about it—it never made sense that she fell off the breakwater. Lorna? She danced over those rocks.”
“I’m gonna dance over you, asshole!” Finn yelled as he came for Lucas. He grabbed him by the shirt and they stood eye to eye, but Lucas didn’t try to defend himself, didn’t blink, didn’t so much as put up a hand to deflect a punch. It almost seemed like he wanted Finn to hit him.
After a few seconds, Finn let him go, stomped to the door, and flung it open. “Tell Simon and Billy thanks for the dessert. But it’ll take more than cheesecake to get this taste out of my mouth.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucas whispered to me, but I didn’t answer. What was there to say?
I looked back at Lucas before following Finn outside. I climbed into the front seat of the Prius without asking and buckled myself in because I was pretty sure Finn wouldn’t purposely hit anything if I was in the car with him. When he pulled over in front of my house he turned off the engine and slumped forward, his head resting on the steering wheel. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Finally he turned his head to look at me.
“Lucas is right about one thing,” he said quietly. “Lorna could never have fallen off those rocks.”
I nodded. “I know.”
13.
Charlotte was shoving books into her locker while I mumbled Lucas’s revelations into her ear. “That’s insane,” she said. “Why would Lorna sleep with Lucas? Then again, why would he make it up?”
“I don’t know. None of it makes sense.”
“Lucas thinks she’d kill herself over a pregnancy? It’s not 1950, and this is Lorna we’re talking about. Wouldn’t she just get an abortion or something?”
Charlotte’s voice was getting louder and people were beginning to look at us, so I steered her toward the door, speaking as quietly as possible. “I don’t know, but even Finn agreed that Lucas was right about one thing. Lorna couldn’t have fallen off the breakwater.”
Charlotte made a slightly disgusted face. “Really? She was so perfect? She couldn’t have an accident? Even in a storm?”
I shook my head. “It’s what I thought from the very beginning, but nobody said it out loud, so I didn’t either. Because, if she didn’t fall, there was no explanation.”
“Except that she did it on purpose.”
“Which is also impossible.”
“Well, unless we’re living in the Twilight Zone, those are the only two options. She fell or she jumped. Unless somebody pushed her.”
I stopped walking. “Are you kidding? You think Finn pushed her? Or Lucas? Or me?”
“Of course not, but something happened to her because she ended up in the water. And when you look at all the options, falling is the most likely. Isn’t it?”
I sighed. “I guess. I’m so tired of thinking about it. Am I going to spend my whole life trying to figure this out?”
“Seems like it. Here’s a new topic: Did I tell you Lucas is in my Spanish class?”
“He is? Did you talk to him?”
“No, but I will. He looks different. He looks good.”
“Yeah.”
“But, you know, sad. Lonely.”
“Well, that’s his problem. He screwed over his friends.”
“Jackie, if Lorna slept with him, it wasn’t only his fault. In fact—”
“I can’t believe that happened. I would have known.”
We’d reached Bradford Street and I turned left toward JSAC. But Charlotte got in a final word before she headed for the West End. “Maybe Lorna had a few secrets she didn’t share with you, Jackie. Just sayin’.”
• • •
Elsie was in her office when I got to the Center. I figured Finn wouldn’t have told her anything about the night before and I didn’t intend to either.
“Hey, Jackie.” Elsie was unpacking boxes of lavender T-shirts that said “Jasper Street Art Center” in small red letters across the front. “These just arrived. What size are you? Medium?” She tossed me a shirt.
“Thanks.” I held it up to my chest. “These are gorgeous.”
“Aren’t they? Cooper helped me pick the colors.”
Cooper. He didn’t seem to be around at the moment, which was good. I had enough confusing stuff to think about.
“Can I use your computer to work on some photos?” I asked Elsie.
“Sure. Use the new program. I have to go pick up Tess at Emma’s house in a few minutes, so I won’t be in your way.”
I downloaded the pictures I’d shot the afternoon before and brought one of them up in Elsie’s new program. Just to try it out, I intensified the contrast and played with the color saturation a little. I hadn’t realized a small piece of driftwood was in the corner of the shot—I cropped it out. The photograph was more interesting now, but it didn??
?t present the actual truth anymore, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Did truth matter more than beauty—or did enhancing the image bring out a new kind of truth? After all, every time I framed a shot, I chose what reality to show and what to leave outside the borders. Wasn’t that how art worked? You made choices and found your own truth.
Elsie leaned over my shoulder to take a look. “That one’s amazing! Look at those clouds—print that out.”
“I’m thinking I might take four or five of the cloud photos and line them up in a row all together to make one long picture, and then collage on top of it.”
“I love that idea,” Elsie said. She hopped up to sit on the desk. “By the way, before I forget, I want to apologize for Friday night. I was so annoyed with Carolyn for acting like she couldn’t be bothered to talk to you.”
“It’s okay. She’s a superstar. I didn’t expect her to have a big conversation with me.”
Elsie twirled a turquoise ring around her finger. “Well, it’s her loss. Becoming self-centered can be an occupational hazard for artists.”
“Finn would agree with you,” I said, “but it’s not true for everybody. You aren’t self-centered.”
“I’m not good enough to have a big ego,” she said, sliding off the desk. I’d never heard Elsie put herself down like that before, and I was at a loss what to say. But she wasn’t waiting for a response. “Off to pick up Tess,” she said. “If you see Cooper, tell him—Oh, wait. There he is. Coop! Come and see the T-shirts!”
I raised my hand in a brief wave as he came into the room. After all that flirting on Friday night, I didn’t know how to act around Cooper anymore. I’d almost kissed him, hadn’t I? Or did I just imagine that? He smiled at me, same as always, and I decided he’d probably already forgotten about it, his world obviously not rocked by standing outside in the dark with a teenager for fifteen minutes.
He and Elsie discussed where to sell the T-shirts until she looked at her watch and groaned. “Late again.” She grabbed her purse and took off out the door.