Chapter Five
Allie
“Hi, Miss Allie!” Declan said. He came over and wrapped his arms around my legs. It was Friday morning, and he’d greeted me this way every single day this week.
“Good morning, Declan!” I said. “How are you?”
“Good! I got up early and got to ride my bike this morning before school.”
Cole was standing behind him, still looking half-asleep. “You probably heard him whooping as he rode by, faster than the Flash.”
“I am faster than the Flash,” Declan said.
I smiled. “I didn’t hear a thing. I guess I must be a heavy sleeper. Why don’t you go hang your backpack up?”
Cole went over to the clipboard on top of the cubbies and signed Declan in. He yawned. “Nothing like a 5 a.m. bike ride to get the blood flowing,” he said.
Another of the moms had just arrived, with her daughter, a curly-haired girl named Emma. “You got up at 5 a.m. to go riding?” she asked. “My goodness, Cole, you are certainly an inspiration. I haven’t been on my bike in ages.” This mom, whose name I couldn’t remember, was tall—almost as tall as Cole—and sleek and toned and slender. She might not have been on a bike in ages, but she certainly was doing something to keep in shape. She laughed and then reached out, resting her hand on his upper arm for a second. “How are you doing?”
She turned toward him, stepping in front of me so her back was now facing me, basically creating a barrier between Cole and me. Which was fine, if not a little rude since she had barely even looked my way when she came in.
“Oh, you know, hanging in there,” Cole said. He caught my eye over her shoulder and the tiniest of smiles curved one corner of his mouth. Then his gaze went back to her. “And it wasn’t me who was up for the 5 a.m. bike ride, so don’t start singing my praises or anything—”
She laughed again, loudly this time. “Cole, you’re soooo funny!”
I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes. I went over to the sensory table, which we had filled that morning with pom poms. Several of the children were elbow-deep.
Amy came over, eyeing the doorway, where Cole was still standing talking to the woman.
“Ew,” she whispered. “Would you look at her? It is so obvious how much Lily is into Cole. She flirts with him all the time.”
Even from halfway across the room like this, I could see a huge diamond ring on Lily’s ring finger, along with another smaller band.
“She’s certainly very friendly,” I said. “At least to him.”
I had thought that the weekends might be hard, that having two whole days where I didn’t have anything to do would get boring or lonely—that my mother would be right after all—but so far, that hadn’t proven true. I knew that in part, it had to do with the fact that it was June, usually one of the nicest times of year in New England, and that I might be feeling very different if it was say, the middle of January and 10 degrees outside. But on Saturday morning, I slept in, woke up to the sound of cardinals outside my window, got up slowly, and made some coffee.
I took it outside to the backyard, which was another thing I really liked about this house. There was a generous-sized deck with teak patio furniture, and then beyond that, two Adirondack chairs amidst the grass, facing a dense pine forest. It was easy to imagine those woods going on forever; during the height of the day, the sun barely dappled the ground. I sat with my coffee and a book, and I read several chapters while I thought about just what it was that I might like to do for the rest of the day.
I didn’t come up with any concrete plans, but that was all right, because when I went back inside, I made myself a fried egg and a piece of toast, had another cup of coffee, then cleaned the kitchen up. I started a list with a few things I’d need to get from the grocery store, and then I went and got dressed. I was about to go in and brush my teeth when I heard my phone ringing from the kitchen counter. I went and glanced down at the screen. It was my mother.
“Hi there,” I said.
“Good morning!” she chirped. “Just calling to see if you were bored out of your mind yet! Are you ready to come back to the city?”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Very funny.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Nice to hear from you, too, Mom,” I said. “And I’ll have you know, that I’m actually still very much enjoying things up here, away from all the noise and the chaos. How is everything with you?”
“It’s fine,” she replied breezily. “Bill says hi.”
My stomach clenched at the sound of his name. My stepfather was movie star handsome, a successful investment banker, and very charismatic, the sort of person that most people wanted to be around; the life of the party. Up until I’d hit puberty, I really liked him, too—but once I started growing breasts, things had changed. At first, I had been flattered. He was paying more attention to me, looking at me in a way that I hadn’t remembered him looking at me before. Of course, this never happened when my mother was around, and I started to think of it as a little secret that Bill and I had between us. A little benign secret, that would never go past a look across the room, or his hand brushing my arm, his fingertips resting there for a second longer than they might have before.
The benign-ness of it all changed when I turned 15, though.
I didn’t like to think about it.
“That’s nice,” I said, my voice tight.
“I’ll tell him you said hello. We were thinking of maybe driving up there to see you at some point.”
“You were just up here,” I said. “I mean, not that I don’t want to see you, but it’s a drive and everything, and I’m sure that you guys are probably pretty busy.”
“Well, of course we are, but that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t be able to set aside some time to come up there. I’m sure you’re probably getting bored. Hey, how’s it been going with that neighbor of yours? I suppose you couldn’t get that bored, living next to someone like him.”
I decided not to mention that he had been my doctor; she would want every single last detail and then probably call and make an appointment with him for herself.
“He’s nice,” I finally said. “But I’ve been pretty busy with work and stuff. That’s going well, in case you were interested.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear it,” my mother said, though I could hear the distraction in her voice. She had never been able to understand why I’d gone to school and gotten a degree in early childhood education; didn’t I want to do something a little more... meaningful with my life? Yes, she really did ask me that. Of course, she was someone who equated meaning with money. She was right that there certainly wasn’t a lot of money in early childhood education, but I was getting paid decently enough at the Learning Center, and getting to be around 3- and 4-year-olds all day as opposed to adults like her was far better in my book, anyway.
“Bill just got back from his run,” my mom said. “I’m going to put him on to say hi.”
He must’ve been standing right there, because before I even had a chance to say anything, I heard his deep voice.
“Allie,” he said. “How is it going up there?”
I felt frozen, like a deer trapped in the headlights, while at the same time a wave of nausea roiled through me. I gripped the phone so tight my knuckles turned white.
“Things are fine,” I managed to say, trying to keep my voice sounding as normal as possible. Since that night almost 10 years ago, I had had as little to do with him as possible, yet I did not want him to know how traumatized I still felt by it. I had a feeling he would sense it as a weakness, and that would incentivize him, like some sort of predator going in for the kill.
“Did your mother mention that we’d like to come up there for a visit? I know she’s already been up there once, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the place for myself. Maybe this summer.”
“I’m pretty busy,” I said. “In fact, I’ve got to run—will you tell Mom I’ll talk to her later? Thanks, bye!”
I ended the call before he could say anything and put the phone back down on the counter, my palms clammy, my heart racing, and not in a good way.
Thanks a lot, I thought. Thanks for ruining this nice morning that I’d been having. I hated that Bill had the ability to do that, even though I’d moved away, even though almost 10 years had passed since that night he’d tried to come into my bedroom.
I wasn’t going to think about it.
I pushed the thought from my mind and instead went to the hall closet and got the vacuum out. The floors in the cottage were wood, but there were several large braided rugs—one in the living room, one in the small dining room, and another long, thin one in the hallway. I vacuumed the rugs, hearing the little granules of sand as they pinged up the hose. When I was finished, I felt better, and after I put the vacuum away, I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was no longer that skinny 15-year-old that Bill had tried to climb in bed with one night when my mother had been out to dinner with a couple of her girlfriends. Between my sophomore and senior years of high school, I grew almost half a foot, my height finally plateauing at a surprising 5-foot-9 (my mother was short and sprite-like, a mere 5-foot-2, though she was very fond of shoes with four-inch heels or higher). Supposedly, my father had been tall, so I guess that’s where it came from, though I didn’t remember him. He had taken off when I was 18 months old; my mother had just turned 20.
I was brushing my teeth when I heard a knock at the side door.
“Just a sec!” I yelled, my words a little garbled. I spit the toothpaste out in the sink, rinsed my mouth out, and then went to see who was at the door.
It was Declan.
“Hi there, Declan,” I said. Some people might have been annoyed to see a student show up on their doorstep on a Saturday, but I wasn’t.
“Hi, Miss Allie,” he said. “I was just out riding my bike, and I thought I’d come say hi. Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, holding the door open with one hand and taking a step back so he could come in. “Does your dad know that you’re over here?”
Declan nodded. “Yes,” he said. “He wanted me to come over here, I think. I heard him and my uncle Ben talking the other night. I was in bed, but I woke up when my uncle got there because he’s really loud, even when he’s says he’s not. Well, he’s not really my uncle, but I still call him that. They were making a bet. What’s a bet, anyway?”
“Um... a bet is kind of like a dare that you give to someone. Like if I were to say, Declan, I bet you one chocolate chip cookie that you can’t do a somersault.”
He looked miffed. “I can do a somersault.”
I smiled. “I know you can. Maybe that was a bad example. But let’s just say that I didn’t know that you could do a somersault, and I made that bet with you. And then you showed me how you could do one—” He took two big steps and then hurled himself onto the ground, rolling over not once, but twice. “—If you did that, then I would owe you whatever I bet you, which in this case, would be a chocolate chip cookie.”
His eyes lit up. “I get it!” he said. “Do I really get a cookie?”
I looked at the stove clock. It was 11:30, close enough to lunch that having a cookie wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. “Sure.”
I went over to the bag and opened it, pulling out the last of the cookies.
“Thank you,” he said. “I know,” he continued through a mouthful of cookie, “my dad is going to win this bet.”
“That’s nice you believe in him. Sometimes that’s all someone needs—is for someone to believe in them.”
Declan smiled, a smear of chocolate on the corner of his mouth. “It’s just really easy,” he said, laughing. “It’s easier than doing a somersault. I heard Uncle Ben say he bet my dad couldn’t sleep with you. Isn’t that funny? Because sleeping with someone’s so easy—you just climb right up into bed next to them! Do you still take naps? I do sometimes.”
“Wait a second,” I said, certain that I must have misunderstood, “you heard your father saying what?”
“He was making a bet. Or no—Uncle Ben was making a bet, and it was about you! Isn’t that funny?”
“Yeah, that is pretty funny,” I said. “Hilarious, actually. How’s that cookie?”
Declan grinned. “Awesome.”
And then there was a knock at the side door, and there was Cole, looking as handsome as ever, wholesome, too, and it seemed a little hard to believe that this guy had been making bets with his friend over whether or not he could sleep with me. I glanced at Declan. Typical of most 4-year-olds, he had quite the imagination, so wasn’t it possible that he was just making this whole thing up? Part of me just wanted to believe that because it would be easier than thinking that his dad was the sort of creep who would bet his friend about sleeping with someone, like having sex was no more of a big deal than a poker game. But there was no way that Declan just imagined a scenario like that—not if he hadn’t happened to overhear something.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” Cole asked as he came in.
“I just shared one of my cookies with him,” I said quickly, hoping that Declan wouldn’t get into the whole story and let on that he’d mentioned anything about this bet Cole and Ben had.
“It’s chocolate chip!” Declan exclaimed.
Cole smiled. “Your favorite.”
“It was my last one,” I said, “otherwise, I’d offer you one, too.”
Cole went over to Declan and wiped the chocolate from the corner of his mouth. “Your last one, huh?” he said. “It’s probably not good manners to take someone’s last cookie, now, is it? Maybe we should remedy that and all head down to the bakery.”
It’s probably not good manners to make a bet about sleeping with someone, either, I thought, but only smiled brightly. “Sure,” I said. “I have to go into town and do a couple errands, anyway, and I certainly wouldn’t mind picking up some more cookies.”
Chapin’s downtown consisted of a post office, a library, a church, the town hall with an open space with benches called the Village Green, the Brown Bag Bakery, and a market/general store. All of this was clustered around the one set of traffic lights in Chapin, at the intersection of Main St. and Route 42.
At the market, I got a basket and threw in some floss, a box of dryer sheets, and a package of steel wool. I paused at the wall display of seed packets. I was pretty much a novice when it came to gardening, but even I knew that it was getting to be late in the season to do any planting, so if I was hoping to have any success with that, I’d need to get started sooner rather than later.
“Are you having a garden?” Declan asked as he walked over and stood next to me, tilting his head back so he could take in the whole wall of seeds.
“I’m thinking about it,” I said. “I’m not that experienced when it comes to gardening, though.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “You just have to try; that’s the most important part.”
I smiled. “You’re right.”