12
Something shocking happened.
My mother came to visit me and asked for advice.
One of the nice things about the houseboat was that I could see a person approaching, since they had to walk down the dock to get to me. And sure enough, Wednesday evening, as I was slicing vegetables for a stir-fry, my mother pulled off the road and came striding briskly down the dock to my door and into my kitchen. No knock.
“I’m worried about Poe,” she announced. Boomer hauled his bulk from the rug and went over to greet her, wagging his tail and knocking a coaster off the coffee table.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “Have a seat. Do you want some wine or a beer or anything?”
“Water,” she said. “Thanks.” She eyed my new digs. “Pretty fancy, aren’t you?” There it was, the little stab of disapproval.
“It’s a special place,” I said calmly. I got her a glass of water (God forbid she take something that was more than just life sustaining). “So what’s going on with Poe?”
My mother sat at the counter, stiffly, as if she’d never sat on a stool before. “Welp, her grades are abominable, and though she was a little more talkative before you got here—” pause so the guilt could sink in “—she’s clammed up. Gawt no friends that I can see. Sits there with that phone glued to the end of her nose and barely leaves her room.”
“Sounds like a typical teenager,” I said.
“Well, her mother’s in jail, Nora, in case you forgot. Hahdly typical.”
I hadn’t told my mother about Lily’s note. Nor would I.
“So maybe Poe can sleep over here Friday night,” I suggested.
“What good would that do?”
Talking to my mother was like being pecked to death by chickens.
“Change of scenery, maybe we could watch a movie, talk, eat something chocolate, do things that usually bond women.”
My mother frowned. “If you think that would help, go ahead and try. Though I don’t see how it would.”
“Is Lily still scheduled to get out in August?” I asked.
“Ayuh.”
“Then I guess the best we can do is make Poe feel loved and safe until then. Even if she doesn’t react to it, it matters, hearing someone say they love you or they’re glad to see you or that they want to spend time with you.”
“Is that what they taught you in college?”
“Yes. And in medical school and residency. I did a psych rotation. I am a doctor, let’s not forget. So how about if we practice? I’ll say something nice to you, and you can tell me if it makes you feel better.”
“I’m fine.”
“Humor me.”
“Fine.” She took a slurp of water and rolled her eyes.
“Mom,” I said, “I have always admired how calm and capable you are.”
“Well, how else am I supposed to be? Like a chicken with its head cut off?”
“Great job, Mom. And now you say something nice to me.” Sneaky of me, I know. Fishing for maternal approval.
She sighed. “Well, I think you looked better with a little meat on your bones, frankly.”
“Nope, you’ve got it wrong, Mom. Something nice.”
“That was nice.”
“So you’re saying I look too thin.”
“I’m sayin’ you were always a decent-looking girl and you didn’t have to lose weight and wear fancy clothes for a person to see it.”
She gaveth with one hand, tooketh away with the other. “Thank you, Mom. That’s very sweet of you. Now, for Poe, maybe you could say something like ‘Even though these aren’t the best circumstances, I’m so glad we get to spend this time together.’”
“Well, I’m nawt glad, Nora! My daughter’s in jail!”
“We’re lying here, Mom. Okay? Personally, I’m dead inside, but I’m faking it till I make it. See this smile? See me going through the motions of making a nutritious, pleasant dinner for one? See me enjoying life through one glass of wine per day? This is what humans do.”
She frowned. “Why are you dead inside?”
“I’m not. I’m just exaggerating.” I resumed cutting carrots. Collier Rhodes had fantastic knives, and I had to watch carefully that I didn’t slice off the tip of my finger, because I was still nervous around knives.
“You’ve been different this past year.”
“Really, Mom? How would you know?” I took a hostile drink of wine, if one could do that. “I’ll text Poe, and you make sure she gets here. Okay? Great. Thanks for stopping by.”
“You ought to be eating more meat,” my mother said. “You look pale.”
“Okay. Bye.”
It was only when she was off the dock and in her car that I chugged the rest of my wine. “I’m a gastroenterologist, Mom. How many colons have you cleaned out, huh? You think I might know a little bit more about healthy eating than you do, huh? That maybe med school wasn’t just to kill time?”
There was a knock on the door. Whoopsy. Must keep the rants to myself.
It was Audrey Fletcher, Sullivan’s daughter.
“Hi, Audrey!” I said.
“Is it okay if I come in?” she asked shyly.
“Sure! I’d love that. I’m just making dinner. Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”
“Do you have any Coke?”
“I don’t, honey. How about seltzer water with a slice of... Let’s see here...” I opened the fridge. “How about with a few blackberries thrown in for flavor?”
“That’d be great. Hi, Boomer! Hi, buddy!” She knelt down on the floor and loved up the dog.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked, getting her drink.
“No. A cat. He’s nice. Sooty. He’s pretty old, and a dog would be kind of hard for him to deal with.”
“Sure. So what’s new? How’s school going?”
“It’s fine.” She smiled uncertainly, and I felt a rush of kinship with her.
“I hated high school,” I said, handing her the drink, which looked sophisticated and fun, the berries bobbing around with the ice, dancing on the bubbles.
“Why did you hate it?” she asked.
I put a few carrot sticks in a bowl, sprinkled them with pepper and put them on the counter between us, taking one to chomp on. Then I resumed my chopping, moving on to the cilantro, the clean, fresh smell filling the air. “Well, I wasn’t real popular. Too smart, too much of an oddball, too clumsy. And my sister was ridiculously beautiful, so self-esteem was kind of hard to come by.”
“My mom’s really pretty,” she said wistfully. She took a sip of her water. “And my dad is super handsome.”
“That’s true,” I said, though Luke’s face was the one that flashed before me—not in the best way. “Your dad was really nice in high school.”
She brightened. “I bet. He’s the greatest.”
“Are you an only child?”
“I have a half brother. Rocco. He’s seven.” She paused. “My parents got divorced when I was three.”
“Would I know your mom?”
“Amy Beckman? She was in your class, too, I guess.”
I looked up sharply. “Huh. So they stayed together.”
“Not for very long. They were twenty when I was born, twenty-three when they divorced.”
I felt the bite of satisfaction. I’d always thought Sullivan could’ve done better than the clichéd Amy.
Then again, I also remembered seeing her skip up to the Clam Shack with a bouquet of lupines for Sully one summer afternoon, all smiles and sweetness, and I pretended not to look as he kissed her.
Everyone had two sides. Or three. Or seven.
“Do you get along with your brother?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. I love him. I mean, he lives with my mom, and I live with my dad, so he doesn’t mess up my stuff or anything. But he’s great. A real cutie.” She beamed, and I smiled back. “I make him shirts once in a while, and I stencil dinosaurs on them and stuff.”
“Wow, you can sew?”
“I’m in the fashion club in school. We make clothes and stuff, and at the end of the year, we have a show. Like on Project Runway.”
“I love that show! Do you make your own clothes, too?”
She looked down at her T-shirt and too-tight, unflattering jeans. “No. Call me Michael Kors. I create better than I dress.”
I laughed. “Poe loves fashion, too,” I said. At least, I thought she did. She looked at magazines a lot, and many of those magazines showed celebrities on the red carpet. And Poe certainly had her own look going on with the blue hair and all.
“I thought she might join the club, but...” Audrey shrugged, her cheeks coloring. Poe had turned her down, clearly.
My niece could use a nice girl as a friend. And maybe Audrey could use a badass as a friend.
“Hey, Audrey, any chance you want to sleep over on Friday? Poe is coming, and it’d be great to have you here, too.”
“Really?” Her face brightened so fast that I knew she didn’t get many invitations. Crap, it was like looking at a version of my teenage self.
Except her father was here and loved her. And her brother. And hopefully, Amy did, too.
“Yeah. Only if you’re interested, though. And obviously, I’d have to ask your parents.”
“I’ll call my dad right now!” she said, whipping out her phone. “Dad? Hi! I’m at Nora’s...Uh-huh!...No, I rode my bike here...I don’t know, I didn’t see him. Listen, can I sleep over here on Friday? Poe’s gonna be here...Her niece...Okay, hold on.”
She passed the phone to me. “Hi, Sullivan,” I said.
“Nora?”
“The one and only.” I winced. “How are you?” I tried to speak clearly without overdoing it.
“Good. I’m fine. How are you?”
“Great. Uh, my niece is sleeping over, and I thought it would be fun if Audrey was here, too. Would that be okay?”
There was a pause, and in it, all my insecurities opened their eyes and stretched. Why would I let my kid come to your house, Troll? Why would I want her being friends with your mean-ass little niece? Are you some kind of sexual predator, asking my daughter to sleep over?
“Sure,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Great! She can come over before dinner, how’s that?”
“That’s great. Can she bring anything?”
“No, but thank you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll drop her off around five, then.”
I handed the phone back to Audrey, who said she’d be home soon. She hung up and beamed at me.
“Listen,” I said, “Poe isn’t the... Well, she’s having a hard time these days. I really appreciate you saying yes to this.”
“Are you kidding? I’m never invited anywhere.” She cringed, then clamped her mouth shut, her face going red.
“I was the same way, Audrey. So let’s be outcasts together, us three,” I said, smiling, and relief blossomed over her face. Someday, though she’d never believe me now, Audrey Fletcher was going to be striking. Not pretty—she looked too much like her dad for pretty—but the kind of looks that lasted for decades, not just senior year of high school.
* * *
On Friday night, I was ready. I had a marathon of Project Runway on the DVR, some healthy food, some not terribly unhealthy food, four shades of nail polish and a mud mask allegedly made with products from the Dead Sea (or La Mer Morte, as the package said). I’d taken the ferry to Portland and hit Target to stock up, bought the latest teen apocalypse movie and a few board games (old-school, I knew, but it was going to be hard to get Poe to engage in actual conversation).
I’d also gone to some effort to make her room welcoming. I picked flowers and put them in the bathroom and on her night table along with my own copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (read so many times I couldn’t count).
Audrey would sleep in the loft under the peaked roof. I put flowers up there, too.
At five o’clock, my niece came through the door.
“Hey, honey!” I said, going to hug her. She turned her shoulder away.
“Why am I here? Am I being punished?” she asked.
“Rewarded, actually, by spending time with your fun and adoring aunt,” I said.
“I’d rather be home.”
“With Gran?”
“Anywhere but here.”
I was twenty years older than Poe, I reminded myself, but the urge to ask “Why are you so mean to me?” and burst into tears was strong.
“Why are you so mean to me?” I asked (not bursting into tears, yay for me).
“Why are you pretending to care?” she said. “I know you’re only here for the summer.”
“So should I ignore you for the entire summer, then?”
“Yeah.” She made it into a three-syllable rejection, and I sighed. Boomer, blissfully ignorant to teenagers and their leaden moods, nudged Poe’s skinny thigh with his nose.
“Well,” I said, “just another thought...maybe we could hang out, do things together, get to know each other, act like relatives.” I shrugged, eyes wide.
“From what I’ve heard, our relatives just up and leave and you never see them again,” she said. “Dog, get away from me.”
“I take it you’re referring to my father.” Good! Finally! We could talk about it. “What did Lily tell you?”
“Can I have some wine?” Poe asked, sliding onto the counter stool, her posture shrimp-like.
“No. What do you know?”
Poe sighed. “Like, he was great, and Gran was a total bitch all the time, and he had this book, but she totally resented his talent, and she kicked him out, and life got even shittier after that.”
“It did get shitty, but that’s not quite the whole story.” Not that I knew the whole story. “Life was pretty fantastic before he left.” Stupid of me, still defending my absentee father.
Poe’s eyes flickered, not quite meeting mine. Aha. Interest. “That’s not what my mother says.”
“Really. Well, maybe I could show you some of the things we did, and you can decide for yourself.”
Her eyes went back to the counter. “Maybe,” she muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe.”
“As in, yes, why not, there’s nothing else to do here?”
I swear, she almost smiled. “Maybe,” she repeated.
“Hi! Am I too early? Or late?” Audrey was here, standing at the half door. Her father stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, Audrey! No, this is perfect.” I kicked my niece’s leg.
“Hi, Audrey. Wanna play Barbies?” she said.
Audrey smiled uncertainly.
“Come on in,” I said. “Hey, Sully.”
He nodded.
“Any food allergies, medication, anything I should know about?” I asked him. I tried not to look at his hearing aid.
“No,” he said. “You’ll be alone here tonight?”
“Do you mean, is she entertaining gentlemen callers?” Poe said.
“Ayuh. That’s what I meant.” One corner of his mouth pulled up.
“It’ll just be us girls,” I said. “Hey, got a second?”
He was looking at Audrey, who was petting Boomer.
“Sullivan?” I said, laying a hand on his arm. His eyes jerked back to mine. Brown eyes, calm and deep. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
We went out on the deck, able to see Poe not talking to Audrey, and Audrey pretending not to care by rubbing Boomer’s belly.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I saw Luke the other day,” I said.
He waited.
“He wouldn’t do anything, right?”
“No. He’s just...” Sullivan shrugged. “He’s just a little bitter. Especially now, with you back, living here—” he jerked his chin at the boat “—making friends with Audrey and such.”
“Is he still using?”
“No. He drinks too much once in a while, but he doesn’t drive anymore. Lost his license.”
I nodded.
“Heard you ran into Amy,” Sullivan said.
“Yep.”
“She doesn’t know Audrey’s here. I have custody.”
“So Audrey said.” There was a story there, I was sure.
“If Amy knew,” Sully said in a softer voice, “she would’ve asked Audrey to stay over at her place, and Audrey would’ve said yes, because she loves her mother and Amy doesn’t spend a lot of...well. Audrey would’ve said yes.”
“Ah.”
“So I didn’t mention it, because I think it’d be nice if my kid had a friend, and Poe seems like a good kid.”
“She does?”
He shrugged. “She doesn’t seem horrible.”
“No. Not horrible.”
He smiled a little, and something pulled in my chest. “Thank you for having Audrey over. Call if you need anything.” He handed me a piece of paper. “My cell.”
We went back inside, and Sullivan said, “I’m leaving, sweetheart. You have fun, okay?”
She hauled herself to her feet—fifty or so pounds overweight, and I remembered that difficulty, that envy at the girls who could stand from a cross-legged position as gracefully as an egret. “Bye, Daddy,” she said, hugging him and kissing his cheek.
Another tug in my chest.
“Bye, honey. Love you.” He jerked his chin at Poe. “Have fun, Poe.”
“Thanks,” she said, not looking at him.
Sullivan left, and a momentary silence fell over the three of us. “Well, I thought we’d make homemade pizza for dinner. I have some games, and Project Runway is booted up, and, uh...we could go for a canoe ride, if you want.”
“A canoe ride?” Poe said. “Are you serious? I’ll pass.”
“Um, me, too,” Audrey said. “Maybe another time. The mosquitoes are fierce this time of day.”
“Good point,” I said. “Well, who likes what on pizza?”
“Pizza’s too fattening,” Poe said, dropping her eyes to her phone to text her mysterious friends from Seattle.
Great. There was no way Audrey would eat pizza if Poe the Gazelle had just deemed it fattening. My jaw tightened with anger at my niece.
“I like tomatoes and sausage,” Audrey said, and my head whipped around at her.
“Great!” I said. “Me, too. How do you feel about mushrooms?”
“Love them.”
“Poe, why don’t you make a salad?”
“No, thanks.”
“Let me rephrase. Poe, please make the salad. Everything’s in the fridge.”
With a martyred sigh and a long, long pause, Poe stood up, shrugged out of her leather jacket to reveal her tank top and delicate shoulder blades. There was a fresh tattoo on her back—angel wings, the perfect skin still red from the needle.
I wanted to hug her, wash her face and send her to bed.
“What can I do?” Audrey asked, and I gave her plates to set the table.
She chattered sweetly as we worked, talking about her job at the boatyard, how she loved to fish, what she might do this summer. “My dad said we could go somewhere for a long weekend,” she said. “I kind of want to go to a big city, since I’ve only been to Boston a few times. Maybe New York. Or, um, Seattle? I’ve heard it’s cool out there.”
We both waited for Poe to respond. She didn’t, just cut up scallions as if the knife weighed forty pounds.
“Seattle’s beautiful,” I said.
“Oh, are you an expert because you’ve been there three times?” Poe asked.
“Five, and yes. Audrey, the Space Needle is—”
“For idiot tourists,” Poe said.
“—weird looking from the outside, but you can eat up in the high part, and the view is fantastic. The food there is great. I mean, I’ve never had a bad meal in Seattle. Salmon and crab in everything, fresh seafood, I mean, not that we don’t have that here. But—”
“Can we change the subject?” Poe asked.
“Sure,” Audrey said. “What would you like to talk about?” She smiled at my niece, who returned with a pained look.
“I don’t know, Audrey,” Poe said. “How about Girl Scouts? You must be a Girl Scout, right?”
“Not anymore,” Audrey said. “But it was pretty fun while it lasted.”
Touché, Poe. Audrey would not let her good mood fade, and God bless her for it.
So the evening went. Audrey, lovely but a little nervous, as if I’d send her home if she were anything but Little Miss Perky. Poe, on the other hand, stayed determinedly miserable. We played Apples to Apples, watched Project Runway, ate food. Well, Audrey and I did, though I noticed Audrey kept looking at the pizza after eating her one slice. Poe chewed a piece of spinach from the salad and left everything else on her plate.
By the time I announced it was bedtime (11:30 p.m., a respectably late enough hour, I thought), I was exhausted. I showed them to their rooms and told them to sleep well. Poe closed her door immediately.
“Sorry about her,” I whispered.
“I heard that,” Poe said.
“She speaks!” I said. “Sleep well, honey.” No response. “You, too, Audrey.”
“Thank you so much for having me,” she said. “I’ve never slept on a houseboat before.” She gave me an impulsive hug, then, blushing, went up to her loft.
I felt guilty for liking her a hundred times more than I liked Poe. “Come on, Boomerang,” I said to my dog. “One more pee, and you can come to bed.”
I let my dog out and walked down the dock a few paces as Boomer loped into the woods to sniff and do his business.
The stars were a glittering swipe over the cove tonight. No wind, the slight, almost-unnoticeable bob of the dock as the tide slipped in. The pine trees were silhouetted in black against the dark plum of the sky, and I breathed in deeply, imagining the island air scrubbing my city lungs clean. Though I loved Boston, it did have some pretty nasty smells—the exhaust of belching trucks on the Mass Pike and the swampy, human-excrement smell from the Back Bay; the Orange Line, which always smelled like urine; the sulfuric smell of North Station in winter.
Here, the air was so pure you could feel your lungs turning pink.
“Come on, Boomer,” I called softly, in case the girls were already sleeping. My dog loped obediently onto the dock. “Good boy,” I said, scratching his head. “Thank you, good boy.”
Just as I turned to open the door, I saw something.
A tiny light from the woods glowed orange, then faded.
Someone was out there, smoking a cigarette. As soon as I thought it, I could smell the smoke. The orange glowed again as the person took another drag.
Boomer growled.
I didn’t own this land. This wasn’t my property, so I couldn’t call for trespassing. I did, however, go inside, then locked the doors and closed all the windows and pulled all the shades. Checked on the girls, who were both asleep.
I texted Sullivan. Someone is smoking in the woods on the north side of my dock.
The phone screen showed three dots waving reassuringly. He was awake and he was answering.
Lock the doors.
Me: Already done.
Sullivan: I’ll call my brother right now.
Then I went to my room and took out my Smith & Wesson 1911, went back to the living room and waited, staring at the door.
If someone came in—if Luke Fletcher came in—would I shoot him? Kill him with his niece upstairs? Could I actually pull the trigger? Would it be enough that I was here with a big dog and a gun, or would I have to fire? I could shoot him in the leg. I didn’t want to kill him.
The other guy—my personal terrorist—yeah. I might kill him. But he didn’t know I was here. There was no public record that had me moving here to Scupper. Was there? My rental agreement? Was that public information?
A second later, my phone rang, and I jumped like I’d been stabbed. “Hello?”
“It’s Sullivan.”
“Hi.”
“Luke said he was taking a walk in the woods. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I took a breath, aware that my heart was thudding. “Right.”
“I told him to leave you alone and go back to the boatyard.”
My shoulders dropped four inches with relief. “Thanks, Sully.”
“Excuse me?”
“Thank you.”
There was a pause. “You want me to swing by?”
I did.
But I also remembered lying on the street, the Beantown Bug Killers mascot looming over me, thinking I wasn’t the person I wanted to be, and now my chance was over.
I cleared my throat. “No, I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. Hey, I have to take the ferry to Boston...why don’t I drop Audrey home on my way?”
Another pause that made me wonder if he heard me clearly. “No, she can walk to the boatyard,” he said. “She’s working there tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay.” I bit my lip. “Well. Sorry to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
I pictured him, home alone (or maybe not alone), sitting on the edge of his bed.
He had a good face, Sullivan Fletcher did. A calm, reassuring face. Just thinking of it made me feel safer.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” I echoed.
And I went to bed. Me, my dog and my pistol, just in case.