The Edge of Nowhere (34 page)

HAYLEY’S BRAIN WAS
whirling once Becca left her. Seth, Derric, Diana Kinsale, Saratoga Woods, Dylan, a pair of sandals. Becca King was a girl who talked in riddles, and Hayley couldn’t work out the answer to any of them. By the time she got home, she was in a state of strung nerves. That state got immediately worse when she saw the SUV was gone.

Her stomach clenched hard. If the SUV was gone and her mom was gone, there was always the chance that something had happened with her dad.

She got out of the truck. But then she heard the sound of the rototiller’s motor. The fact that the sound of it was coming from the direction of the vegetable beds meant her dad was actually working there.

It was such a pleasure to think of her father finally back out on the land again that Hayley hurried in the direction of the massive beds. But there she saw it wasn’t her father at work at all. Rather it was Seth. Hayley looked around for Sammy, but the VW was nowhere in sight.

Seth made the turn at the end of one of the beds. He looked up and saw her. He jerked his head in hello and she waved him over. He turned off the motor of the rototiller and strode across the beds, meeting her by the deer fence.

She said, “What’re you doing here? Where’s my dad? Where’s your car?”

Seth looked startled by the onslaught of questions. He hiked up his loose jeans in that way he had and said, “Hi to you, too, Hayley.”

“
Answer
me.”

“What
ever
, Hayl. Your mom needed to take Brooke and Cassidy to the dentist. Your dad was working on the SUV so I loaned them Sammy.”

“So where’s the SUV now?”

“What’s with the third degree?”

“
Where’s
the SUV, Seth?”

“Th’ heck should I know? Your dad said he needed to get something from the gas station over in Greenbank. I don’t know what. Spark plugs maybe. Oil. He didn’t say.”

“And you just let him go?” Hayley backed off from the deer fence. “What’s
wrong
with you?”

“What’s wrong with
you
? It’s his SUV. He can do what he wants.”

“You don’t—” Hayley made herself stop. It was all
right
, she told herself. She was just scared. She wasn’t thinking straight. She was worried about Derric, she was worried about her dad, she was worried about how her mom and her sisters were going to keep the farm running, and now she was worried about a pair of sandals. Because Seth wasn’t wearing his at the moment and what did
that
mean?

She said brusquely to Seth, “Funny. You don’t even ask how he is.”

“Your dad? Hey, I was thinking there’s something wrong with him. D’you—”

“I’m not talking about my dad! I’m talking about Derric. Why don’t you even mention him? Why don’t you ask? ‘Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he still in a coma?’ Why aren’t you asking? Don’t you even want to
know
?”

Seth came the rest of the distance to the deer fence and put his hands on it. He said in a quiet voice, “Hey. What’s going on?”

“Where’re your sandals, Seth? Why aren’t you wearing them?”

He looked at his feet and then at her. He said, “Hayley, you’re all over the map. What’s the big deal if I’m not wearing those sandals?”

“You
always
wear them. You never wear anything else.”

“Wrong.”

“No. Right.”

Seth had his fedora on, as usual. He pulled on its rim in a way someone would to hide their face. He said, “What’s it to you what I have on my feet? What’s it to you if I want to walk around in my socks? What’s anything I do got to do with you, Hayley? Way I remember stuff, I’m nothing to you anyway. So quit with the questions.” He turned away from her, as if to go back to the work he’d been doing.

She cried, “What’re you
doing
here, Seth? Why’re you working on the vegetable beds? Why’d you stack all that wood? Mom told me you did it. What d’you
want
from me?”

“I’m just trying to help out, okay? I fixed the rototiller motor, too, and it seemed—”

“Oh, what could be cooler than that? You
fixed
the rototiller. How totally great. What’s
wrong
with you? Why don’t you at least wear a size of jeans that fit? Why don’t you get a decent job? Why don’t you study for the GED? Because you’re
not
doing that, are you? You haven’t even begun. D’you think you can just show up here and stack some wood and work in the garden and I’m not going to figure out what you did?”

“
Did?
What the heck?”

“You pushed him, didn’t you? You were in the woods. You argued with him about me. We were kissing and so
what
, Seth, and I tried to tell you that but no way did you want to listen to me. But then you saw him and you saw your chance and—”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Seth shouted. “This is all about
Derric
?” He turned to the fence and banged his fist on it. Then he shoved his way off it. He started to walk away. He swung around and walked back. He walked away again. He kicked at the dirt. He came back to her and punched his fist on the fence post. “Great,” he said. “Wonderful. Why don’t you just call the sheriff and turn me in?”

“Do everyone a favor,” she said. “Turn yourself in.”

That said, she left him and headed for the house. Her mother rumbled into the driveway in Sammy.

THIRTY

S
eth wanted to smash his fist into the deer fence another time, just to do
something
. More than that, he wanted to follow Hayley and shake her by the shoulders until her head bounced around. But everyone was getting out of the VW, and Cassidy was crying and shouting, “It’s not fair! She
said
!” and Brooke was yelling, “I was sitting in the front seat! I couldn’t share! Mom,
tell
her!” and Mrs. Cartwright looked completely done. Cassidy went on about the dentist telling Brooke she was supposed to “share that stupid comic book with me” and Brooke continued to argue that she couldn’t share it from the front seat, so “here it is, dummy, why don’t you just
eat
it,” as she threw it at her sister and then slammed her way into the house, with Cassidy following.

Hayley had already gone into the house, too, and Mrs. Cartwright started looking around, her face confused. Seth figured that here was another person about to ask him where that stupid SUV was, so he decided to go over and let her know that Mr. Cartwright had taken it to Greenbank for spark plugs or oil or something.

When he told her this, she cried out, “
What?
When did he leave?
Greenbank?
” She said the last word as if Greenbank was Portland and not the nearest place to find a gas station and a general store. She cried, “We have to find him.
Now
,” which was something of a mystery since Seth couldn’t figure out why they had to find a man who’d gone about five miles down the road.

But he had no time to remark on this. Mrs. Cartwright threw him the keys to Sammy and said, “You drive. I’ll look,” as if Mr. Cartwright had probably crashed the SUV into a ditch.

Seth took the keys and climbed in the VW, but what he was thinking was that there was something seriously wrong around here.

In less than two miles, they saw the SUV. It was parked neatly enough along the roadside, in a pull-out beneath a patch of big-leaf maples. Mrs. Cartwright was out of the VW before it came to a full stop. She ran to the driver’s door and tried to open it. She pounded on the window, too. Seth realized she’d forgotten that the door didn’t open from the outside any longer, and he dashed over to the passenger’s door and got inside.

Mr. Cartwright was just sitting in the driver’s seat, not doing a thing, not even looking at the window where his wife was pounding. He turned his head slowly when Seth said, “Mr. Cartwright, you okay?”

“Yeah, son,” he said with a smile. “I just can’t push the damn clutch all the way down. Something’s wrong with it.”

By this time, Mrs. Cartwright had come around to Seth’s side of the car, and she started to pull on Seth’s legs to get him out of the passenger’s seat. Her reaction was so extreme that Seth was beginning to wonder if she was a little crazy. He was more than happy to vacate the car.

Mrs. Cartwright crawled inside. She said, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, honey,” to her husband, and then she turned to Seth. “I’m going to need your help getting him over the console.”

Seth wanted to ask her why she just didn’t ask Mr. Cartwright to crawl over the console himself, but she didn’t look like a lady in a state to receive that kind of question. So he said, “Sure,” and she told him to get in the backseat and help with Mr. Cartwright’s shoulders while she took his legs.

Mr. Cartwright said, “I c’n manage, Julie,” and his wife said, “Bill, let us get you into the other seat, honey.”

As far as Seth could tell, Mr. Cartwright couldn’t manage a thing. He was dead weight, and getting him out of the driver’s seat, across the console, and into the passenger’s seat was no easy feat. Seth didn’t see what good this was going to do anyway because of the SUV itself, and he said to Mrs. Cartwright, “He says there’s something wrong with the clutch. Maybe we should leave the car here so—”

“There’s nothing wrong with the clutch.” She strapped the seat belt around her husband. He lolled to one side, and she cried, “Bill! Bill!”

Mr. Cartwright said, “I’m okay. That darn clutch . . .”

Seth could see that something was seriously wrong, and it didn’t have anything to do with the car. He said, “D’you think we should take him up to the hospital?”

“He
said
it was the clutch!”

“But you just said—”

“Seth, stop it. Please.”

Seth could see she was near tears. He said quickly, “Okay. I’ll drive this car, you take Sammy.”

She said, “I’ll drive him home,” but Seth pointed out that it was going to be easier for him just to climb over the backseat and into the driver’s seat than it was going to be for her to crawl over her husband, and if there
was
something wrong with the clutch, it was better to let him deal with it.

She agreed to this. She swiped at her cheeks and said, “Bill? Seth’s going to drive you home. I’ll be right behind. You just close your eyes.”

Mr. Cartwright murmured, “Couldn’t push that clutch in,” and Mrs. Cartwright told him that everything was going to be okay.

But Seth knew one thing above everything else. It wasn’t going to be okay at all.

THERE WAS NO
question about it as far as Seth was concerned: He needed to tell his grandfather. When he arrived at the property on Newman Road, the lights were on in Ralph’s shop behind the house. He made his way over and looked through the window. There he witnessed a miracle of sorts, and it cheered him up at once. For Gus was sitting on an old army blanket about five feet from where Ralph perched on a stool in front of his workbench. The Lab’s eyes were fixed on Seth’s grandfather in a manner that might have suggested utter devotion had there not been a small pile of dog kibbles next to the project Ralph was working on. As Seth watched, he heard Ralph say, “Good stay, Gus,” and then “Come. Sit,” which the dog did obediently. Ralph said, “Good,” and gave him one tiny kibble. He didn’t look at the dog as he did this. Instead his attention was on what he was doing, which was fiddling with something that lay in pieces on the workbench. Without a glance at the dog, Ralph said, “Bed,” and Gus returned to the army blanket. “Stay,” Ralph told him, and he stayed. “Down,” and down he went and there he remained. It was, Seth thought, the eighth wonder of the world.

He figured things would change when he opened the door and entered the shop, but when he did this, Gus merely raised his head, wagged his tail, and lifted his ears slightly. Ralph looked over his shoulder and, seeing Seth, said to Gus, “Okay,” and to Seth, “He jumps, you turn your back. I don’t care how much you want to love him. You do like I say. We’re
going
to train that dog.”

It took three tries, but Gus finally stopped jumping to greet Seth with typical Lab enthusiasm. Seth was able to pat his head and rub his ears, and when his grandfather handed him two kibbles, Seth said, “Good dog, Gus. Good, good,
good
!”

“Last thing he needs is to be a victim of too much positive reinforcement, grandson,” was Ralph’s growled comment. His back was turned, as he continued his work. “One ‘good’ is enough. Now tell him bed.”

Seth did so. Gus looked as surprised as a Lab could look, receiving a command from someone who previously was considered his number one playmate. But the dog cooperated, heard himself pronounced good, and received one kibble for this feat of greatness.

Seth joined his grandfather at the workbench. He saw that Ralph had taken apart the hearing box that belonged to Becca King. He said, “Where’d you get that, Grand?” And he added, “What is it?” to hide his own knowledge of its ownership.

“Diana brought it by.”

“Mrs. Kinsale?”

“You know another Diana?” Ralph was separating the wires and frowning down at them.