Stone Cove Island (8 page)

I thought about Mr. Malloy. I had spent just one day asking a few people at school about Bess’s murder, and it had gotten right back to my teacher who had instantly warned me away. Was it because of the hurricane and everyone’s nerves being on edge, or was there something about this story that set people off?

Continuing past the club, I suddenly found myself at the side entrance to the inn. I hadn’t planned to see Charlie, but now, here I was. I wanted to get his reaction to Malloy and the kids at school. Maybe he would have a more objective take. I climbed the kitchen steps. Colleen and Charlie were sitting at the big farm table, snacking on banana bread. Colleen grinned her usual knowing grin at me and then made excuses about how busy she was. I joined Charlie at the table.

“How lucky are you that you aren’t in school anymore?” I complained.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s talent,” he said. “That combined with old age. Anyway, come January, I will be in school. Remember?” Right. He was starting at Northwestern.

“Yeah. That’s different though. College.” I said. “Hey, that doesn’t leave you much more time at the
Globe
.”

“Yeah,” he said. He looked wistful, but I wasn’t sure why. As far as I’d heard, Northwestern’s journalism school had been his big dream forever. Maybe being at a real, live newspaper had made him anxious to get out into the world and get on with things. He cut a big piece of banana bread and handed it to me on a paper towel. “Here. Colleen makes this for the inn. My mom’s recipe.”

I took the banana bread. I was starving, I realized. “It’s so good,” I said, trying to hide my full mouth with my hand. “Wow.”

“One of my mom’s many secrets,” he said. “Definitely one of my favorite secrets.”

“Listen,” I said. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

Charlie smiled. “No way. How is life back at school? It must be super weird with kids living in the building.”

I nodded. “Some showed up for class in pj’s and slippers.” He laughed. I went on. “I asked around a little about Bess. Just a few kids. And I didn’t say anything about the letter.”

“Yeah? Speaking of the letter, have you heard from Officer Bailey?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sure she’s busy with the storm cleanup.
But I think it’s weird. I sort of want to get it over with, whatever she’s going to say to me.”

“It’ll be fine.” For a second he put his hand over mine on the table. It was warm and dry. I hoped mine didn’t feel greasy or sticky from the banana bread. Then he moved it away. “Eliza, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” I said. “But somehow, every time the subject comes up, I feel like I’m trespassing or something. Like today, I brought up the murder with a couple of girls I saw in the library, Meredith, some sailing team kids and then with my chemistry lab partner. I just wanted to know if they’d ever heard about it. By the end of the day, Mr. Malloy—did you have him for English? You must have, right?” Charlie nodded.

“So, Mr. Malloy pulls me aside after class this afternoon and tells me not to start rumors and get people all upset.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Charlie said. “I think of him as one of the more easygoing teachers. What’d you find out talking to people?”

“Nothing. No one had ever heard anything about it.” I watched to see if he would react the same way I had.

“You’re kidding,” he said after it had all sunk in. He knew I wasn’t. “Wow. I don’t even know how you—how is that possible? Everyone on the island agreed not to talk about it and it’s never come up again? In twenty-five years?”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I feel so—I’m kind of freaking out.” There weren’t many boys I could confess something like that to, but at that moment with Charlie, I didn’t hesitate.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It was a long time ago. Nothing
like that has happened since. I think everyone feels stirred up by the storm, right? That’s why Malloy was weird with you. That’s why it’s getting to us more than it would normally.”

“You too?” I asked. He nodded. I sort of wished he would take my hand again. “Don’t let that get around though. I don’t want to wreck my rep. And I hear you like to spread rumors.” Now I wanted to smack him, not hold hands. I laughed.

“What rep, Charlie? Your loner, misanthrope intellectual poet rep?”

“I had one poem published—ONE—in the
Stone Cove Quarterly
in eleventh grade.” It was a joke, our school’s literary journal. There were so few of us, they basically made everyone write something to submit. But you didn’t have to write a poem. And they weren’t all chosen.

“Right,” I said. “I remember that poem. I’m sure it was way beyond me, because I was a dopey little tenth grader. But it actually did seem pretty good.”

Charlie hesitated, his lips parted, like he was working up a snappy comeback. Then instead of speaking, he reached across the table and kissed me. I was so startled, I froze. You know how they say when you’re about to die your life flashes in front of you? A similar jumble of confused images played a montage in front of my eyes. The experience was much more pleasant than dying, obviously. It felt like it went on a long time, but it was probably a second. I didn’t breathe. I saw moments of the past week, moments of Charlie as a child, all the time we’d spent together then with no significance, so much a premonition of now. I
felt my own confusion. Was I here right now by accident or my own unconscious plan? All this wondering about Bess, the research in the library, coffee in the diner—was it all just an excuse to kiss Charlie? And if I did kiss Charlie, if that’s what I’d wanted but had not known that I wanted, what would that mean now? Would we stay friends if things didn’t work out? Would it make the short time he had left on the island fraught with pressure and dread? Would I spend the rest of my senior year pining in my room and wishing I’d never run into him? I did not know the answer to any of these questions.

“Eliza. You all right?” He was looking at me with concern, I saw, waiting for me to say something. Before I could think of how to respond, I leaned across the table and kissed him back. And then his mother walked in.

I don’t know if Cat Pender was standing in the door watching us for a long time or if she came in that second. All I knew was, one minute I was lost in warm, soft, wool-and-sandalwood soap-scented Charlieland, the next my eyes were wide open and we were both sitting as far away from each other as possible, staring at his mother in horror.

“Oh, Eliza,” Cat fumbled. “I didn’t see you there. Anyway, Charlie, I do need your help this afternoon, as we planned.” She looked at me as she said this, not Charlie. I believe “pointedly” is the expression? It was clear I was expected to go. Charlie and I exchanged twin, embarrassed grins and I backed my way out of the kitchen, making excuses about homework and complimenting the banana bread. That earned me a tight smile, as Cat waited for me to leave.

I didn’t walk home so much as bounce. I felt jitters, both inside and outside of my body. Why had I kissed him? Is that what I’d had in mind when I’d gone to the inn? What was Charlie thinking now? What was I thinking now? I needed Charlie, I thought, as an ally. He was the only person I could talk to about this crazy Bess business. He was the only person who understood my growing obsession with it and the questions it raised about my mother, his mother, both of our parents in fact. But I was also attracted to him. Clearly.

If we became involved, and things went badly, I would have no one to confide in. I would have Meredith, but she wasn’t involved in the same way. If we got together, it would have to end badly, I realized. He would go back to Boston soon. He would leave for Northwestern soon after that and probably never come back.
Slow down
, I told myself. It was just a kiss. An impulse. Two people acting crazy during a crazy time. This sort of thing happened. I remember my dad telling stories about seeing strangers hooking up in the aftermath of September 11th, about how the air was charged with what he called “apocalyptic energy.” Besides, a kiss was not a marriage proposal.

My skin felt hot, but my fingers and toes felt cold. Was I going to faint? No. Absolutely not.

I stopped and sat down on a rock. I needed some perspective. I was getting way ahead of myself. I needed to just calm down and wait and see how things played out—exactly the thing I was worst at.

I sat in my room alone and forced myself to focus on homework instead of the crazy afternoon. My phone sat on my desk next to my chemistry notebook, punishing me with its silence. My parents had gone out. Dad volunteered as a coach of the high school swim team, and he had a team dinner. Mom had gone with him. She never went to things like that. I chose to take it as a good sign.

The electricity had gone out again. Dad had rigged battery-powered work lanterns around the house before he’d gone, but it meant I couldn’t use my computer and my cell phone’s battery would be dead soon. It also meant no hot water. It was almost more demoralizing for the power to go out again now that it had been restored, but I was getting the idea that this was how it was going to be for a while, everything on and off. That was certainly how it was with food in the grocery store these days. The transport schedule was cut severely by the loss of the ferry, and the big ships couldn’t come all the way into the harbor, so the fresh fruits and vegetables looked sad and less than plentiful.

As long as we still had a supply of propane, our stove was our most reliable appliance, so Mom had been compulsively baking: applesauce bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread (sad zucchini worked fine for this). Normally at this time of year she obsessively made soup, so I was glad she’d found another outlet during our current situation. Things are always much better when she’s kept busy. Maybe I could get her Cat Pender’s banana bread recipe.

Instead of algebra II or chemistry, I was thinking about Charlie. Or, more precisely, I was wondering what Charlie was thinking of me. How premeditated had that kiss been for either of us? Had I missed some undercurrent all these hours we’d been hanging out? Now that it had happened, I couldn’t stop dwelling on it, of course. It felt weird that I had left so abruptly before we could a) do it some more, or b) at least talk about it. He hadn’t texted me. I checked my phone for the hundredth time. Seventeen percent battery left until who knew when the electricity would be restored. Did I have to wait to hear from him? I didn’t, right? I tapped a quick text onto the screen and hit
SEND
before I could reconsider.
hiya. sorry i had to run. so weird with your mom! you ok?
I reread it. The exclamation point looked dorky. Too late.

I set the phone back down and watched it. Nothing happened. I went to the kitchen and took a couple of graham crackers from a glass jar. They were a little stale, but I didn’t really mind. Then I went back to my room to recheck the still-blank screen on my text messages.
Come on, Charlie!
What was he doing? I flopped onto my bed with my phone in hand. Salty jumped up and curled up behind
my knees. Thirteen percent. I closed my eyes just as the phone buzzed. A text from Charlie.
yeah. sorry about that.
Sorry about what? I shook the phone. I stared at it, waiting for more. Sorry about his mom walking in? Sorry about kissing me? I wrote,
maybe jay or library aft. school tom.?
He wrote back,
don’t think i can. told dad would help here. sorry.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. What was he so sorry about suddenly? Hadn’t he kissed me first? I waited for another text that never came. I changed for bed. I took a halfhearted stab at my problem set. Then I heard my parents come in. My mom was speaking to my dad in a quiet, urgent whisper. I couldn’t make out anything she said. He shushed her and the house fell silent a moment before he called out to me.

“Eliza? It’s almost eleven.”

“Okay, Dad.” I climbed into bed and clicked off the lantern. My cell phone had run down completely. I was tired of circling around inside my head. Maybe I would figure it all out tomorrow.

In the morning, the house was deserted. Dad hadn’t made coffee, which was unusual, but maybe he had to be on the job site extra early. He was working on replacing the roof at the Anchor Club. The job was proving to be a pain, he’d told me, because of all the landmark preservation rules that went along with that building. Jimmy Pender was head of the historic preservation committee for the island and he treated it like a religion. I felt a little hurt that Dad hadn’t waited for me. I tended to get up early and we usually had coffee together in the morning (Mom, a late riser and a tea drinker, did not join us). But okay, I would get dressed, twist up my hair into something
that could pass as a hairstyle instead of a dirty-hair cover-up—which was the reality—and get coffee at the Picnic Basket before school. If I couldn’t find out more about Bess at school, my best bet was to seek out the island’s biggest talkers.

I biked to town, since that detour would add extra time to my trip to school. The air was misty and humid and thick with ocean. I could feel it forming a cool, salty film on my skin. In the harbor, there were huge, orange dredging machines of a kind I had never seen before. Almost every store along Water Street was still closed, but most were now boarded up and safe from the weather. That was good, I thought. At the moment we were having weird, semitropical weather, but in my experience, that could turn quickly to dry, bitter cold. I parked my bike outside the Picnic Basket. In the off-season especially, there was no reason to lock anything up.

It was early. Nancy was still arranging pastries on the counter, and Greg was filling the coffee urns. No one else was in the shop yet. I was glad to have caught them alone.

“Hi, dear,” said Greg. “Coffee’ll be finished in two minutes.”

“You guys must be so busy these days,” I said, picking up a raisin twist in a piece of wax paper and showing Nancy, so she could ring it up. “You’re, like, the only game in town.”

“Just about,” said Nancy. “I wake up every day and thank the stars we made it through. It just hurts to see how everybody’s suffering, doesn’t it?” I nodded.