Saratoga Woods 02 The Edge of the Water (32 page)

W
hen Jenn blew the All Island Girls’ Soccer team tryouts two days later, she knew she had only herself to blame. The coach told her, “Next year. Work harder on your school’s team, on the local rec team, and you’ll have a good chance. You’ve got the speed we need but not the dexterity in passing. That’s your target. I want to see you here next year. Hey, don’t look so glum. You’re what . . . fifteen? All is not lost.”

But it sure felt lost. Everything. Kaput. Straight down the drain. She sat on the porch steps at her parents’ house and prepared to tell them she’d flushed the toilet on herself. She stared across the property at Annie’s trailer, and she willed it to explode into bits and to take Annie Taylor with it.

Annie emerged. On the previous day, she’d starting packing her belongings for the trip back to Florida. She’d been sorting through things and throwing out things and hauling things out to the silver Honda. She looked about finished, and that was the case. She came across to Jenn and said, “So. I’m out of here today.”

Jenn looked at her. She was definitely still Annie: trendy from her spiky red hair, to her cropped yellow pants, to her manicured toenails painted dusky orange. But she wasn’t the same Annie that Jenn had so admired. A lot of water passing under the bridge had washed that Annie Taylor away.

“You look like I feel,” Annie said. “Sometimes things don’t work out, I guess.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Jenn said. “Where’re you going?”

“Home. To Beth.”

“What about Chad?”

Annie shook her head in the way that said, “You still don’t get it, do you, child?” The expression on her face made Jenn want to sock her, but she restrained herself and waited for Annie’s reply. Annie said, “Jenn . . . Look, it was just for fun.”

“I thought you were . . . you know.”

“Lesbian? I am. More or less. Most of the time.” Annie ran her hand back through her hair. It stayed just as it was, spiky and stylish. “Other times? It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? He’s just a kid.” She cocked her head. “You can have him, you know. If you want him. He’s pretty easy that way.
If
you want him. Do you? Because I’ve had a feeling about you from the day I met you.”

Jenn rose abruptly. “So long,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ll tell my parents you said good-bye.”

“Sure. But, Jenn . . .”

Jenn turned back. Annie was squinting in the sun. Squinting, she didn’t look quite the same. She looked shifty, somehow, she looked crafty, unwise.

Annie said, “If you ever want to call me . . . to talk about things you might not be ready to talk about now . . . ?”

“Right,” Jenn told her. As if, she thought. She went into the house and didn’t emerge until after Annie Taylor had driven away.

• • •

HER PARENTS DEALT
with the soccer information just fine, as things happened. Her mom talked about God’s will. Her dad talked about next year. But it sounded to Jenn as if their real feelings had to do with the relief of not having to worry about coming up with the money to pay for her soccer equipment and the extra coaching that went along with membership on the All Island team. She wanted to tell them that that had been the whole point of getting entangled with Annie Taylor in the first place. She knew her parents would never have the money she needed for that team, so working for Annie was supposed to be her way of collecting the funds required. But nothing had turned out the way it was supposed to turn out.

Becca didn’t see things that way. She said, “Hey, you got me. A
BFF
.”

“Yeah,” Jenn said without enthusiasm. “Who woulda thunk it?”
Me and the FatBroad
, she added silently.

Becca’s eyes narrowed. “I lost a bunch of weight,” she said. And just when Jenn was about to accuse her of reading her mind or something, Becca added, “That’s what I got out of it. A girlfriend plus losing weight. Pretty cool.”

“Whatever,” Jenn said. “What’re you doing anyway?”

Becca was leaving the new commons in the middle of lunch, having powered down a hard-boiled egg and a plastic bag of carrot sticks in record time. Becca told her she was heading to the library. To why, she said it was about the selkie, although she didn’t use the word
selkie
. She just said in a low voice “that seal.” She told Jenn to come with her if she wanted to. She added, “
BFF
, you know. We hate to be separated from each other.”

Jenn rolled her eyes, but she followed Becca. She watched as her friend logged on to the Internet. She Googled
selkie
as Jenn drew up a chair. Jenn said, “What’s the point? It’s not like anyone would believe a word of it if we said what we saw.”

“I know,” Becca said. “But there’s something . . . I dunno, but don’t you get the feeling there’s part of the story missing somehow?”

“Like what? Like the part where we find out she’s really some lady who’s been swimming around in a seal costume for the last eighteen years? That makes a hell of a lot more sense than . . . than what we saw.”

“Where did Cilla come from, Jenn? And how did she know what to do the second that lady handed over the skin?”

“Where the hell d’you think she came from? We already guessed she was a selkie baby.”

“Yeah, I know. But . . .” Becca ran her finger along the screen as she read. Then she clicked to another site. Then a third and a fourth. Jenn couldn’t keep up with her and didn’t try. Instead she leaned with her back against the computer table, her legs stretched out in front of her, her elbows supporting her. She found that she was perfectly at ease with this girl she’d hated from the moment she’d first seen her. How crazy was that? Maybe anything was possible.

“Here it is,” Becca said.

“Here what is?”

“How it happens.”

“How what happens?”

“How selkies have babies.”

“Uh . . . If you need to read about how animals have babies, Becca, you need to have a chat with Rhonda Mathieson. She’ll give you the whole enchilada on that one, complete with rice and beans.
Plus
all the condoms you need just in case you want to try things out.”

“I’m serious. Listen to the story. It says they come to shore and mate with a man. Not a seal, Jenn. Not another selkie. They mate with a man.” She looked at Jenn, her eyebrows raised. “Do you see what that means?”

“It sure as hell can’t mean she had a thing for Eddie Beddoe.”

“Not Eddie Beddoe. Nope. Not him.”

“Then . . . ?” And when Jenn thought back, she saw it all herself. “You mean Ivar? You mean Cilla was his . . . his . . . his what? His daughter? His selkoid offspring?”

Becca logged off the website and said, “I don’t see how it could be anyone else.”

“Sure explains why he was so determined to keep Nera away. I mean, you said he must’ve known what she was all along or why else would he care so much about people getting close to her?”

Becca nodded. “It’s sad, though, don’t you think? He probably never even knew the selkie had a baby and that baby was his.”

“Bummer,” Jenn said. Then she slapped her forehead. “What the hell’s going to happen to Langley’s Nera festival? It’s next weekend and something serious is going to hit the fan when she doesn’t show up.”

“Want to check out what happens?” Becca asked her.

“Would not miss it,” Jenn said, and it only came to her later that she’d accepted the invitation from Becca without a second thought.

D
erric hadn’t felt particularly excited about going to the Welcome Back Nera festival in Langley, but he’d promised Josh. So they went. The day was brilliantly sunny, and he ended up moderately cheered by the general nonsense of a Langley celebration. Colorful arts and crafts booths lined First Street and Second Street, helium balloons created big arches over the entrances to the festival and over each walkway that existed between the old clapboard buildings, and a score of people were, as usual, walking around in totally insane undersea costumes.

All of this delighted Josh. His excitement brought a smile to Derric’s face. After munching their way through a bag of kettle corn, they ended up inside the old Second Street firehouse, where a glass blower had established a business. There they engaged in blowing their own Neras. Josh’s looked like a banana slug. Derric’s looked like a snake attempting to digest a giant rat. They were laughing about these outside on the sidewalk when Derric saw Becca across the street.

She was just coming out of the chocolate shop, Sweet Mona’s. She was with Jenn McDaniels and an older couple who were holding hands. The guy wore thick glasses, and a ponytail emerged from beneath his baseball cap. The woman with him wore jeans, boots, and a hoodie zipped to her chin despite the fine weather. All of them headed toward South Whidbey Commons where music was being played by a marimba band. They didn’t get far when someone shouted Jenn’s name, and Squat Cooper joined them. He began talking earnestly to Jenn.

She listened, arms akimbo. Becca spoke, first to Squat, then to Jenn. Squat and Jenn broke off from the others, and the older couple continued on their way to the commons. That left Becca alone and she looked around briefly, as if trying to find companionship.

Her gaze met Derric’s. Josh saw her then and yelled, “Lookit! Me and Derric just made these! Which is better? You got to decide.”

She walked across the street to them. She stood before them in a patch of sunlight and it fell on her hair and made it glow. She seemed to be glowing as well. Happy, Derric thought. She looks really happy.

“Okay, let me see,” she said. She looked them over, sucking her lip thoughtfully. She said, “Well . . . Seems to me that yours looks more realistic, Josh, and Derric’s looks more . . . artful, I guess. I mean, I’ve never really seen a yellow slug in person but—”

“It’s Nera!” Josh shouted. “It’s s’posed to be Nera!”

Her eyes got wide behind her thick-framed glasses. She said, “Whoops! Sorry! Well, in that case, it’s
definitely
you. I got confused by the color, but now I can see what she’s supposed to be.”

“We didn’t want her to be black.”

“Yesssss. Good decision. Yellow’s prettier, huh? Green is, too.” She said this last to Derric, and then to Josh, “Is your grammer here? Is Chloe?”

“They’re in Seawall Park. That’s where we’re going ’cause the Nera ceremony is happening in a couple of minutes. Every year she shows up and we want to see her.”

Becca reached out to smooth his roughed-up hair. “Would it make you sad if she didn’t come? She might not, you know.”

“Oh, she’ll come,” he said confidently. “Want to come with us and see for yourself?”

Becca glanced at Derric. He felt a bit of a rush. He thought how he’d like to talk to her the way they once had talked. He wanted there to be an opportunity to say what he needed to say to her, to explain somehow, to offer her—

“I’d like to come,” she said quickly, looking away from him to speak to Josh. “But you have to try not to feel too bad if she doesn’t show up. Seals move on sometimes. Just like people. It happens all the time.”

• • •

WHEN JOSH RAN
on ahead of them, Derric and Becca fell into pace with each other. Derric felt his heart pounding a little harder than usual. He glanced at Becca, but she was looking around, taking note of all the different people who were there.

She said a little nervously, “I didn’t think there’d be so many.”

He said, “People? They come from all over the island. From over town, too. It’s the first chance for people to get wacky after winter.”

She smiled, displaying neat white teeth. “‘Wacky after winter.’ That’s what they should call this. Not Welcome Back Nera.”

“Yeah. Not bad.” And then there didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Only, there was, but he didn’t know how to say it or where to begin.

Ahead of them, Josh was worming his way through the crowd and he yelled over his shoulder, “Come
on
, you guys,” before he was lost to view.

Derric thought Becca would pick up her pace then, but she didn’t do so. She continued to look around. Side to side and over her shoulder and beyond the shoulders of the crowd in front of them. It came to him that she was looking for someone. He pretty much figured who it was.

He said, “Down in Seawall Park,” as the music began to drift up from that direction. It was gypsy jazz on guitar, accompanied by bass and mandolin. Seth Darrow’s trio was entertaining the crowd as they waited for Nera.

Becca turned to Derric. She brushed an errant lock of sun-kissed hair from her face. She said, “I wasn’t looking for Seth.”

Then who . . . ? he wondered, because it had to be someone and it sure as heck wasn’t him. She’d stopped looking for him in November. She’d more or less run from him. He still didn’t know why.

She seemed to be gazing right into the heart of him. She said, “Derric . . . Is that why? Is that what happened with us? I don’t understand. I felt safe with you.”

He looked away, driving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hunching his shoulders. “Not safe enough,” he said.

“Huh?”

“It’s what happened, Becca.” For when she’d needed someone, she’d gone to Seth Darrow and not to him. And it was Seth Darrow, not Derric, who held her secrets close to his heart.

Her eyes grew wide, as if she suddenly understood everything in an instant. She said, “Oh no. You’ve thought
Seth
was more important to me than you, didn’t you? Because he helped me last November. Because he knew of a place that I could go when I had to leave the motel. Because I wouldn’t tell you, when all along Seth knew and you thought that meant . . .” She put her hand on his arm. He felt the warmth of her as he’d felt it from the very first: that very odd-looking girl who’d come to the island and had spoken to him in a way that no one else ever could.

Around them, the crowd surged toward the water, and they were carried along with it although they were suddenly no longer a part of it. “You trusted him when you didn’t trust me.”

“I was trying to
protect
you.”

He shook his head bleakly. He felt so small. He said, “Do I look like I need protection? I fell down a bluff, Becca. I broke my leg. I hit my head. Does that mean I couldn’t take care of you if you needed taken care of?”

“No,” she said, as bleakly as he felt. “
No
.”

“Then why wouldn’t you—”

A shout went up from the crowd. The final notes of music played, and suddenly they were swept along. They moved past the old, abandoned Dog House Tavern, and descended to Seawall Park below it. Seth and his trio were taking their bows to appreciative applause as the mayor of Langley mounted a purpose-built stage. He was wearing a top hat with a stuffed black seal leaping dolphinlike across its brim.

He didn’t have a chance to say a word into the microphone. Someone shouted, “Look!” and the black seal was there. She was not fifty yards from shore where a Zodiac floated and two seal spotters waited as they did every year, with fishy treats for their guest. But this time, Nera didn’t stop for a treat. She lifted her black head and observed them but she didn’t bark. Instead she circled the Zodiac five times. She lifted her head once more. Then she dove. And was gone.

“I think that was good-bye,” Becca murmured.

Derric thought so, too. It struck him with sorrow for some reason. He said, “That’s not something I want to do.”

“What?” Becca turned from the water, and when her gaze met his, he saw a faint blush wash across her cheeks.

“Say good-bye. To you. I thought I did. I thought, I don’t need this . . . this whatever it is between us because I seriously don’t know what to call it. But without you, Becca . . .” He ran his hand over his hair and it came to him that he wanted to shave it off, that being the way he’d been before, being
of
Kampala and
from
Kampala was who he wished to be again. Only now he wanted to be the real Derric, not an imitation, but the boy who’d made one promise that he’d failed to keep. He said, “Someone gave the letters to my dad. He found them, some artist who needed the beanbag stuffing. He figured out the rest. I mean, he figured who they belonged to. Dad saw her name.”

“Rejoice’s?”

“He thinks she’s someone in Kampala. I mean, a girlfriend. He doesn’t know she’s my sister.”

Becca nodded, gazed at him deeply. “What’re you going to do?”

His lips curved in a very brief smile. “Thank you for asking.”

“Huh?”

“Instead of telling. You always used to
tell
me what I was supposed to.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sort of working on that. On not doing it, I mean.”

“Me, too. I’m sorry, too. The other stuff . . . Courtney and . . . and whatever . . .” He wondered if he could tell Becca about that, most especially about what he’d learned about himself in those feverish moments with Courtney hidden away in the trees. He’d spoken to her since. He’d said how messed up he’d been, how messed up he’d felt, how sorry sorry
sorry
he was that things had gone the direction they’d gone, which was way too far, but even then—

“It’s okay, it’s
okay
,” Becca said, and she looked as if she wished to cover her ears. When he said nothing more, she seemed to relax. She said, “There’s personal stuff, you know? Like you and Rejoice are personal stuff that you’ve got to take care of someday but it’s not my business and I get that now. It’s just that sometimes . . . It’s hard, you know? Knowing where to fit everything in. It’s hard, huh?”

“Part of it is. But there’s other parts.” He hesitated. He didn’t know how he would manage to say it, but it was now or never, so he went on. “I want to fit you back into my life. Becca, I want to do that now.”

She smiled, then. It was, he thought, a most radiant smile. She said, “I want that, too. Really. Just like you.”

The relief was enormous. It felt to Derric like coming home. It felt like coming to a place he’d always belonged, and when he drew her to him and kissed her, he understood that the destination had been worth the journey he’d taken to get there.