Stone Cove Island (6 page)

Charlie flipped past shots of varsity stars, gothy loners, hippie Deadheads, mathletes and early adopters of grunge.

Because of the circumstances, the format of Bess’s section was slightly different from the other seniors’. Charlie handed the book to me so I could get a better look. After
the portrait page—by now I knew the doe eyes, the dust of freckles as though she was my own friend—there was a white page with a single quotation across the center:

“To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die.”—Thomas Campbell

The school portrait, I now realized, must have been from her junior year, since she had been killed before the senior year pictures would have been taken.

The third page of crowded candids was devoted to memories of all things Bess. Bess after a track meet, Bess in a Halloween costume dressed as Dorothy, as a toddler dressed in high-heeled shoes, and—this is the one that grabbed my full attention—Bess captured with her two best friends. Under this image, the caption read, “The three musketeers!” I almost dropped the yearbook. Charlie and I turned to stare at each other, stunned and unable to make sense of the picture. Grinning for the camera, arms flung around each other and heads pressed together in classic besties pose were three girls: Bess with both our mothers.

Charlie and I walked home without speaking. I barely noticed the ruined houses and rubble we passed. I was deep inside my own thoughts, wishing I had a time-travel machine so that I could go back twenty-five years and find out how it was possible that my mom had once been best friends with Cat. Best friends with Cat? Could it be that I didn’t even know my own mother? I certainly didn’t understand her, but that was hardly breaking news. Charlie was equally preoccupied. He was paying attention enough to grab my shoulder just in time to prevent me from falling into a hole where the paving had caved in, but otherwise he didn’t say a word.

When we got to my house, we stood a moment, looking at each other, and then he gave me a wry, half grin and said, “So. We’ll talk more I guess.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “It looks like there might be a lot more to talk about.”

“Are you going to ask your mom about it?”

“My dad already warned me off bringing it up. She’s … 
fragile, I guess is the nice way to put it. She can’t take too much stress. She gets really overwhelmed.” Charlie nodded. I couldn’t tell if he was being sympathetic or if he was nodding because he and everyone else on the island already knew what a mess my mom was. “So I can’t mention Bess. But I could ask about your mom. When my dad’s not there?”

“There’s no way my mom would tell me the truth,” said Charlie. “But I’m still going to ask her. We can compare notes tomorrow, if you want. Diner, nine
A.M.?
”

“Do they have power?” I asked.

“They have a generator. I was there the other day. They at least have coffee and, I don’t know, maybe dry cereal?”

“That sounds delicious. Can we make it ten?”

“We can make it any time you say, Eliza.”

I smiled yes. It suddenly seemed we had a—I didn’t know what to call it, a project?—together. It felt more like it had reached out and grabbed us than that we had chosen it. But we were in it, whether it had a hold of us or we had a hold of it, and I somehow had the feeling neither side was going to let go.

After dinner, I waited for my dad to retreat to his workshop in the shed. I offered to help with the dishes. My mom and I stood side by side at the kitchen counter while she dipped the plates in the soapy water and rubbed them until they made annoying squeaks. Then she handed them to me, dripping too-hot water onto my sleeves. We had a dishwasher, but there were a lot of things my mom refused to run through it, afraid they would be ruined. It was easier to talk like this, side by side, instead of facing each other.

“I ran into Charlie Pender at the library today,” I began.

“Oh,” she said. “He’s still here? Didn’t he graduate?”

“He was visiting. I don’t think he has a lot of choice about staying for now. Unless he has a friend with a helicopter.” My mom shrugged, like she had no idea, but if I said so she guessed it must be true. “You were in the same class as his mom, right? In high school?”

I heard the back door, my dad coming, stomping mud off his feet. I was about to be out of time, but I’d already broached the topic. It would seem weird if I brought it up again later. Mom would wonder why I was suddenly so interested in Cat Pender. So I pressed on, deciding I would make it quick before he came in.

“Were you guys friends? Did you hang out much?”

“It was so long ago, I don’t really remember. We were never that close.”

“No?” I asked.
Three musketeers!
I thought, seeing the caption in my head. “So you didn’t really know her? It’s such a small school. I mean, it was even smaller back then, wasn’t it?”

She turned to look at me, but when I met her eyes she seemed to be looking through me.
Haunted
was the word that came to mind. At the same moment, my dad walked in. He looked at my mom, took in her state of mind instantly and said, “Eliza, shouldn’t you be getting ready for school tomorrow?”

It came out rushed and harsh. I opened my mouth to answer at the same time he remembered. “Oh. Not till Tuesday. Right. Well, I’ll finish up here.” It was Saturday. I wouldn’t have had school anyway.

“Willa?” he asked. “We almost done here?” My mom nodded and didn’t say anything more. I went to my room.

Around eleven, my dad poked his head in to check on me and say good night. I was under my quilt, reading
Into the Wild
, dressed in the long underwear I usually used for skiing. Without any heat, the house was cold and damp. Salty lay at the foot of my bed, hogging the covers. He had agreed to come out of hiding, but was still on high alert for any reason to retreat to Mom’s closet.

“Eliza. You know I asked you not to bring up Bess with your mom.” He had his disappointed dad voice on.

“Dad, I didn’t.” He looked like he didn’t believe me. He was waiting for me to say more.

“I asked her about Cat. You know I’ve been hanging out with Charlie Pender a little this week?”

“Yeah.” He smiled slightly. “I had kinda noticed that.”

“So, I just realized his mom and Mom were probably in the same class. I mean, your class. I was just asking Mom if she’d known her in high school.” It was a lie, but a very white one.

“If she’d known her?” The way he said it emphasized the silliness of the question. There had probably been less than forty people in their class.

“Well, obviously she knew her,” I said. “I just wondered, I don’t know, whether they were friends, what Cat was like. She’s intimidating, don’t you think? Kind of hard to figure out.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Next time ask me. I was in the same class. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Good night, kiddo.” He started to close my door.

“Wait!” I called. “You didn’t answer my question. So, what was Cat like? Were they friends? Was she different in high school?”

He came back into the room, but looked like he didn’t want to.

“Yeah, they were—well, there was a whole gang of kids, you know, with your mom, and that girl Bess. Cat was part of it. A whole crowd of people. I can’t really remember who was close with whom. It probably switched around a lot. You’re in high school. You know how that goes.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t. I’d had one best friend since first grade. “You were friends with Bess?”

“Yeah.” His expression softened, remembering. “She was such a smart, funny girl. She had a hard time. She and her mom weren’t really from here. I don’t think Bess ever felt like she fit in. And she liked to argue. If she had her own idea about something, she wanted you to hear her out, to the end. Other kids took that the wrong way sometimes. Thought she was pushy, where she was just up for a good debate. She was a great friend for your mom that way, always made Willa stand up for herself. It was a terrible thing. Really, one of the most terrible things I’ve been through, including September eleventh.”

“What was Mom like?” I asked. More than anything, I wanted him to keep going.

He laughed, a wry laugh that sounded more like a harsh exhale. “I don’t know, Eliza. The same. People don’t change that much. You, for example, are exactly the same
impulsive, impatient little Tasmanian devil you were as a toddler.”

“Thanks,” I said. He was a skilled subject changer.

“Tasmanian devil in the best sense of the word, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “And that’s two words.”

“Oh, hey,” he said, like it was an afterthought. “One more thing. Can I have that letter you found?”

“You said you thought it was nothing.”

“I do think it’s nothing. But I still think we should give it to Officer Bailey, so she can be the one to decide it’s nothing.”

“Okay,” I said. “I almost gave it to her that day I found it at the lighthouse. But I thought she might laugh at me.”

“Well,” he said. “Now she can laugh at me. But I wouldn’t want either of us to get in trouble if it did turn out to be something. You know?”

“Yeah. That makes sense.” I hesitated. “Dad, do you mind if I find it in the morning for you? It’s in my backpack with all my books for school. I have to dig it out of a pile of stuff.”

“Yeah. No problem. You get some sleep.” He blew a kiss from across the room, then clicked off the hall light before shutting my door and padding away down the hall. I liked it that I had the kind of dad who could install a sink or break up an old driveway, but would also blow kisses good night or rub your feet if they hurt after ice-skating. After he was gone, I switched on the reading light by my bed and pulled my math notebook out of my bag. The letter was in the drawer of my nightstand, right on top. I
took a pen and started to copy it down on a square-ruled inner page of my calculus book.

“HOW CAN A SIMPLE,
innocent question like ‘Were you friends in high school?’ inspire so much ducking and covering?” I asked Charlie the next morning over coffee at the diner.

“I know,” he said. He looked fresher today, eyes brighter, his hair still wet from the shower. “When I asked my mom, I somehow ended up with a long list of the guys she’d dated or who had wanted to date her.”

I laughed. “What did she say about my mom?”

“Nothing,” he said. “She said ‘Of course! She was a sweet girl! We were all friends, the whole gang of us. You know how small that school is.’ ”

“Did you tell her about the letter?”

“No. I was going to bring it up, but based on how well it went just asking her about someone who’s still alive, it didn’t seem like I was going to get anything asking about someone who was murdered.”

“What about your dad?”

“No way. You know him. He’s like the Stone Cove Island cruise director. He’s already trying to spin how the hurricane is going to be great for the island’s local businesses. You can’t get a straight answer out of him. He only wants to talk about good news.”

“Right,” I said. “So no one wants to talk about Bess, and no one wants to talk about anyone who was friends with Bess and no one wants us to talk about Bess to anyone else. I just think that’s bonkers.”

“Maybe our moms are embarrassed that they’re not
friends anymore. Who said don’t talk about Bess to anyone?” he asked.

“My dad.”

“No one told me not to.”

I smiled. “Tricky. What were the Hardy Boys’ names again? I’m kind of getting a Hardy Boys vibe from you right now.”

“Did they even have their own names? I was more of a Nate the Great kid.”

“Right. I read those books. We call my dad that sometimes.” I took a sip of coffee. It was good. The diner made arguably the best coffee on the island, even if the food was only okay. Outside the window, crews with scissor-lift trucks were cutting huge, half-downed trees into little pieces. There was going to be no shortage of firewood this winter, at least.

I looked across at Charlie, who was watching me, waiting for me to say more, but not in a way that was uncomfortable. It was odd, really, that it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt like we’d been doing this forever. He was funny, I thought. Much funnier than I’d ever realized when we were in school together. Weirdly, he made me feel funny too. I’d never thought of myself as funny.

“Maybe,” I agreed. “I wish there was someone else we could show the letter to. Someone who would actually talk to us.”

“There is,” said Charlie. “Jay.”

IT WAS A GOOD
idea. I had given the original letter to my dad that morning over pancakes—Dad had rigged a propane
hookup to our gas stove, so my mom was happily back on hot breakfast duty—but I had my calculus-book copy with me. I jumped up, ready to follow Charlie, then realized he was still sitting.

“We should pay first, don’t you think?”

“Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot. “Right. Yeah.” He signaled to Kelly, the waitress, who’d worked the off-season for as long as I could remember. I sat back down.

“Do you think I’ll get in trouble with Officer Bailey for not taking the letter to her when I found it? That was why my dad thought we should turn it in.”

“Do I think you’ll get in trouble with Officer Bailey?” Charlie laughed. “Didn’t she used to babysit for you?” She had, when I was in first or second grade. She hadn’t been much fun as I remembered, but she was single, available and you couldn’t really be any safer than with your own police bodyguard, right?

We walked over to the
Gazette
office. When we got there, Jay and Sparkler were working on closing a story for that afternoon’s edition. Lawrence, Jay’s proofreader, was there too, going over final copy. Jay welcomed us with a nod but stayed focused on his task. Sparkler trotted over, his nails click-clicking against the floor and kind of leaned against my knees. He was heavy and fleshy, where Salty was wiry and dense. I reached down and scratched in front of his ears. For some reason, I didn’t want to show Jay the letter in front of Lawrence. Charlie seemed to have the same instinct, because he vamped on and on about the weather radar, FEMA gossip, ferry news and complaints about insurance companies he’d been hearing around town until Lawrence was gone.