Vacations from Hell

Evan looks dismayed at being called a child. “I guess so.”



She tilts the bottle in her hand. It’s filled with a pale liquid that glows with an odd rainbow sheen in the sunlight. “It must be dull for you, being here in the off-season,” she says. “Hardly anyone around. Except me. I’m here all the time.” She smiles. “I’m Mrs. Palmer. Anne Palmer. Feel free to stop by my house if you need anything.”



Evan doesn’t look like he’s about to speak so I do. “Thanks,” I say stiffly, thinking that she doesn’t look like an Anne. Anne is a plain, friendly name. “But we have everything we need.”



Her lips curl up slightly at the corners, like burning paper. “No one has everything they need.”



I reach to touch Evan on the shoulder. “We should get back to the house.”



But he ignores me; he’s looking at Mrs. Palmer. She’s still smiling. “You know,” she says, “you look like a nice, strong boy. I could use your help. I’ve got an old car—a classic, as they say—and it usually runs like a dream, but lately I’ve been having trouble starting it. Would you take a look at it for me?”



I wait for Evan to say that he doesn’t know anything about cars. I’ve certainly never heard him mention them as a special interest. Instead he says, “Sure, I could do that.”



Mrs. Palmer tilts her head back, and the sun glints off her hair. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can’t offer you much of a reward, but I’ve got a cold drink for you if you like.” The bottle in her hand sparks rainbows.



“Great.” Evan spares me only a single glance. “Tell the ’rents where I went, okay, Violet?”



I nod, but he doesn’t even seem to notice; he’s already heading toward the pink house with Mrs. Palmer. Evan never looks back at me, but she does; pausing at the gate, she glances back over her shoulder, her eyes skating over me in a thoughtful way that—despite the heat—sends a cold shiver racing up my spine.



Sunset comes and paints the sky over the ocean in broad stripes of coral and black. Damaris and the rest of the staff are setting the table on the porch. I sit at the edge of the pool, my feet in the water. I’ve been waiting for Evan to come up the steps for hours now, but he hasn’t appeared. Mom and Phillip are still sitting in their deck chairs, though Phillip has put down his book and they appear to be arguing in hushed, intense tones. I block them out, the way I always do when they fight, trying to concentrate on the sound of the sea instead. Everyone always says it sounds like the inside of a seashell, but I think it sounds like the beat of a heart, with its regular, pounding rhythm and the soft rush of water like the rush of blood through veins.



Holding a folded set of napkins in one hand, Damaris leans over the porch and says, “Will there be four of you for dinner or only three?”



“Four.”



“I don’t see your stepbrother here,” Damaris says.



“He’s down on the beach,” I tell her. “But he’ll come back.”



Damaris says something under her breath. It sounds like, “They don’t come back.” Before I can ask her what she means, she turns back to setting the table.



Dinner is eaten in silence. No goat this time, just stuffed peppers and a lemony sort of fish. Halfway through the meal Evan joins us, sliding silently into his seat as if hoping not to be noticed.



Phillip freezes with his fork halfway to his mouth. “And where have you been?”



Evan stares at his plate. He isn’t wearing his bathing suit anymore, I notice, but a fresh pair of shorts and a worn T-shirt. He looks very…clean. “I was helping the lady next door fix her car. She said if I could get it started, she’d let us take her boat out and use it if we wanted.”



“That was very nice of you,” says Mom. She turns to Phillip. “Wasn’t it nice of him, darling?”



Phillip grunts a reply around his mouthful of fish. “I don’t know why she thought you’d know anything about getting cars to work. You’re just a kid.”



Evan flushes but says nothing, concentrating instead on forking up food from his plate.



My mother turns back to Phillip. “So I was thinking, tomorrow maybe, we could take a trip to Black River.”



“That town we drove through on our way here?” Phillip tears a chunk of bread in half. “It looked like a dump, Carol.”



“Apparently there’s a market there every weekend, with people bringing items from all around. And you can take boat trips up the river, see crocodiles in the water….” My mother’s voice trails off under Phillip’s cold stare. “I thought it might be something for us to do as a family. Something fun.”