The Edge of the Shadows (31 page)

FIFTY-SEVEN

B
ecca told herself that, while it had been Laurel's plan to go to Nelson, she could have found another place along the way that seemed equally safe to her. If that was the case, any day Laurel could return to Whidbey ready to whisk Becca into a brave new world that she'd created for them both. Only . . . Becca had to admit that that possibility didn't make a lot of sense.

Nelson had been her intended destination, and there had been a rock solid reason for Laurel's choosing it. Laurel hadn't revealed that reason, but she was there, all right. She just was no longer Laurel. And if she didn't read the Nelson paper, how would she know that Becca was trying to reach her?

Becca wasn't sure what to do next aside from checking up on Jeff Corrie. She found that Connor West's return had triggered all sorts of stories in the San Diego paper. Jeff was “cooperating fully” according to the paper, and this meant on the receiving end of his cooperation were the San Diego police, the IRS, the FBI, and anyone else who wanted to ask him questions about his investment firm. Before, he'd lawyered up because he believed that he was being railroaded with respect to Connor's disappearance. Now that Connor had been found and returned to San Diego, the situation was different and “If you look at the lifestyles of these two men,” his lawyer intoned, “you can see who bears most of the responsibility for what occurred at Corrie West Investments. Mr. Corrie has, however, voluntarily put his house on the market and has done the same with his second home in Mammoth Mountain Resort. He's sold his Porsche and he has placed all his stocks, bonds, and mutual funds in an escrow account. He is intent upon making financial amends in every way possible.”

What Jeff was really doing, Becca thought with a cynical smile, was trying to keep himself out of prison. The one pleasant consideration in the midst of all that was happening was that Jeff Corrie was going to be very busy in San Diego for quite a while.

As for Becca herself? She knew that she was back to waiting.

• • •

ONE STRETCH OF
waiting came to an end once the case was closed on all the arsons. Derric told her that he was ready to see Rejoice. His whispers indicated that Isis's death and her attempt to involve her brother in a string of arsons had shaken him deeply. Brothers and sisters were supposed to love each other, his whispers seemed to be saying. Becca only hoped that she was interpreting those whispers correctly this time.

She said, “That's great.”

As if she sounded too enthusiastic, he held up his hands and said, “I only want to
see
her, though.”

“Sure. See her.” She'd been carrying around the address and phone number of Broad Valley Growers since the day she'd got it. She dropped her backpack to the floor near her school locker, and she dumped it out and went through everything till she found it inside her geometry textbook. She handed it over and said, “Here you go,” and she pressed her lips together to keep herself from asking when, where, and how he was going to do whatever it was he was going to do.

He glanced at it, folded it, and put it into his wallet. He engaged her eyes in that way he had and said, “I don't need you to protect me or anything but I want you to be there when I see her.”

Becca felt a rush of pleasure. “Sure thing,” she told him. “Just tell me when you want to go.”

He said, to her surprise, “Saturday?”

“I'll make that work,” she told him.

• • •

“I MIGHT HURL,”
was how Derric described his state as they approached Broad Valley Growers at two o'clock on Saturday. They'd not phoned in advance because Derric had said he didn't have the nerve. He said that they would take their chances. If she was there, she was there. If not, they'd come back.

The place was gussied up for Thanksgiving, less than a week away. When they parked the car and got out, it was to see the porch decked out in autumn finery, gourds of every shape and color tumbling down the steps. A large sign reading
PIE ORDERS BEING TAKEN
was out by the road. The scent of them was in the air, along with hot apple cider that seemed to be floating from the trees.

As before, dogs shot out of the house. They were followed soon after by Darla Vickland. She remembered Becca by face but not by name. She said, “Hello, Whidbey Island girl. I saw you drive up.” She regarded Derric in a friendly fashion with her expression bright and curious.

Becca and Derric had agreed that Becca would do the initial talking. So she said, “It's Becca King? I was here with Seth Darrow and his dog?”

“Gus,” Darla said. “That's pretty bad. I remember the dog's name but not yours.”

Becca smiled. “It's hard to forget Gus. Anyways, when we were here, I couldn't help noticing that all your kids were . . .” She paused because she wasn't sure how to put it.

Darla did it for her. “A real mixed bag, huh? We go to church, we look like the United Nations. And I got a feeling I know where you're heading.” She nodded at Derric and said to him, “What part of Africa?”

“Uganda,” he told her, as well as his first name. “Kampala.”

Her eyes widened. “You don't say,” was her comment.

Derric went on. “Becca told me there's a girl here who's from Africa too. You know, this sounds sort of strange I bet, but where I am out on Whidbey . . . the south part of the island . . . there's not a heck of a lot of Africans.”

“It's mostly Wonder Bread,” was how Becca put it. “So when I saw your daughter . . .”

“You're talking about our girl Rejoice,” Darla said. “She's from Kampala too. She came to us through a group at our church.”

“I thought it'd be nice for Derric to meet her,” Becca said.

Darla shot Derric a look. “She's too young to date. My girls don't step out with a young man before they're sixteen. I'm old-fashioned that way, but I don't believe in buying trouble.”

Derric said hastily, “I don't want to date her. Me and Becca? We're . . . well, we're together.”

“For a year,” Becca added.

Darla smiled at this. “I suppose I c'n let you look in on our Rejoice without worrying too much, then.”

“Is she here?” Becca asked.

“Just now, as it happens,” Darla said and nodded the way they had come. “Eye appointments this morning in La Conner for the whole crew of them. But they're just back.”

Derric and Becca swung around. A clunky old van was pulling into the farm yard. It stopped with a jerk, and while the engine was coughing, the door slid open.

Becca felt Derric take her hand. She looked at him and squeezed his fingers. She turned back to the van. The kids had tumbled out, talking and laughing. Rejoice was there among them. She wore a scarf like a turban on her head. She also had on those strange plastic sun shields that eye doctors give their patients when they've had their pupils dilated. Her brothers and sisters were wearing them as well. So was their dad. This, it seemed, was the source of their joking.

They came toward the house, but then Rejoice fell back. She paused for a moment, staring at Becca and Derric. Mostly at Derric, Becca decided. And Derric stared right back.

Becca heard him murmur so that only she could hear. “I have a sister.”

“You sure do.”

• • •

THEY STOPPED IN
Coupeville on their way home. The little Victorian town was awash with lights, its colorful houses and commercial buildings like Christmas packages against a landscape that fell to the oblong shadow of Penn Cove, where oysters and mussels gave the town its reputation. No one was there at this time of day, aside from inside the restaurants. Like Langley, Coupeville rolled up its sidewalks just after five in the afternoon. What life remained in the town was behind closed doors in its B & Bs, its single old bar called Toby's, and its eateries.

The town's pier stretched out into the cove, and near this pier Derric parked the Forester. They walked the pier's length, moving from one pool of light to the next as birds settled for the night and a sharp breeze blew at them over the water, bringing the scent of brine. Across the cove, lights blinked from the houses. A fire had been lit somewhere, and its scent was sharp in the air.

They were heading for the café at the pier's end. Neither of them was ready to go home yet. Becca had left Ralph Darrow a meal to heat up in the microwave, and Derric's mom and dad knew he had a date. They had hours before them and they wanted to talk about what had occurred at Broad Valley Growers.

After pausing in surprise at the sight of someone who, like her, was clearly from Africa, Rejoice had smiled and had come toward them in something of a rush. She passed her siblings and strode up to Derric. “The saxophone boy!” she cried. “You were in the band. You had the biggest smile ever. We loved to climb all over you. 'Specially Kianga and I. And you let us. You never pushed us away. Only . . . I can't remember your name.”

“Derric,” he said. “I remember you too.”

She laughed joyously. “Oh my God, this is so cool!” And then she took note of Becca, saying, “You were here with that dog. And the guy with the ear gauges.”

“Becca King,” Becca said. “When I saw you, I could tell you were from Africa and I thought Derric'd like to meet you.”

“The coolest
ever
,” Rejoice exclaimed. “Mom, did you know . . . ?”

Darla Vickland shook her head. “These two just showed up.”

Her husband said, “This calls for pie, I think.”

One of the other kids said, “Dad says everything calls for pie.”

They all laughed. Darla invited Derric and Becca into the house, and Rejoice locked arms with the boy she didn't know was her brother. She said, “Wow. I hope Kianga shows up someday too.”

Now, on the end of the pier in Coupeville, Derric and Becca entered the café. They hadn't talked much on the drive. There was a lot to say, but Becca knew it could wait. They ordered burgers, sweet potato fries, and Cokes when the waitress came. When she went to get their drinks, Derric looked long at Becca.

He said to her, “You feel closer to me than I ever expected anyone to be.”

“That's a good thing, isn't it?”

“It's good. And I want this—what we have—never to end. Problem is that I screw up a lot.”

“We'll both screw up now and then, don't you think?”

“I want there to be no secrets between us, Becca. Not after today. If it hadn't been for you and everything you've tried to do and tried to make
me
do, I'd never have found her. But I did, only because of you.”

He looked so earnest. He was so loving. Becca thought how good it would be for him to know everything about her from A to Z. Only, how could she tell him the A to Z when it began with whispers, when it coursed through the major screwup of her life, and when she had no idea where her story was likely to end? What else would she discover about herself? The whispers had been in place for years. The memory pictures were something new. And then there was the quickening. How could she explain that?

So she said, “Stuff just unfolds, don't you think? And we need to be there—like, to be present—for the unfolding.”

Derric nodded. Still, he gazed at her. She had the feeling he was looking into her soul, and she wished like anything she wasn't using the AUD box. But a promise to herself was a promise to herself, and she'd promised herself that Derric would have the privacy he needed to sort through his thoughts.

He said, “I got to tell you something. It's about Courtney Baker. You know. When we were together last year? When you and I were broken up?”

Becca said, “You don't need to tell me. And anyway, I think I already know.”

He was silent. He looked beyond her, to the windows through which the town lights made a string like a necklace along the main street at the land end of the pier. He seemed to be getting his courage up about something and Becca wanted to tell him that enough had been said. But then he went on with, “I just wish it'd been you. It was s'posed to be you but I was too dumb to know it at the time.”

“It'll be me eventually.”

He turned back to her. “When?”

“I guess when I'm not so scared that it'll change things between us.” She thought of her mom, of her many stepfathers, of what Laurel's passion for men and her need to be taken care of by a man had done to their lives. “'Cause that's what sex does,” she continued. “It changes things, Derric.”

“It doesn't have to.”

“How can it not? Nothing stays the same, and this . . . you and me and sex . . . It's something important. At least, that's how I want it to be. Not like you and me in the backseat of the Forester or whatever. And not like you and me unprepared for the consequences. But you and me making a decision. We decide. I get on the pill. We act like rational human beings who want to take the next step.”

He thought about this. For a moment Becca thought he was going to say that he couldn't wait, that for God's sake he was seventeen and did she have any idea what it meant to be seventeen and male? But he surprised her. He said, “It was only one time with Courtney. After we did it, I felt . . . It was like being empty. Nothing was planned. We'd gone to this Bible group and I figured we were going to talk about
not
doing it. Only, I wanted to do it anyway and I guess she did too. But after . . . We broke up a couple of days later. She thought it was because I'd gotten what I wanted, but that wasn't it at all.”

Becca found that his words didn't hurt as much as she'd expected them to. She nodded and was only thankful that he didn't feel it was necessary for her to talk at that point.

Then he said, “I guess you're right. It does change things.” Then he smiled that Derric smile of his, the same one his sister, Rejoice, had smiled when she'd first seen the saxophone boy standing in her family's farm yard. “You know, you're pretty smart for a girl,” he said. “I'd like to hang with you for a while if that's okay.”