Tighter, p.16
Tighter, page 16
“Of course I hear—I’m not deaf!” But her sudden temper had thrown me, and I would have bet anything that Isa was listening from upstairs in her room. My body was shaking as I brushed past Connie to the kitchen and swiped the car keys off the hook.
“Frankly, I’m glad to be getting a break from you,” I called out. “And I’ll be notifying Miles McRae myself about this conversation. You think there might be something wrong with me, but I know there’s something wrong with you.”
It undercut my bold words that I was speaking to the closed door between the pantry and foyer, but I was glad not to have to look at Connie. Was she serious, demanding that I not go near Isa? As in, a restraining order? Because of one stupid trip? What a wildly inappropriate overreaction. And she had the nerve to say I’d lost my sense of judgment? What a joke.
She might be only bluffing about getting in touch with McRae. But I wasn’t. It was still too early to phone Hong Kong, but he’d be hearing from me later tonight. I’d be crystal clear, and I wouldn’t mince words. Isa’s dad needed to know about the real monsters in this house.
My entire body was buzzing from the confrontation. I left through the kitchen, backed the car out of the garage and blasted the sound system as I waited for Milo out front.
Take that, Funsicle.
TWENTY-FIVE
Twilight was precarious. Nothing but blind spots. I squinted. The road seemed extra twisty tonight.
“Watch it!” Milo shouted, covering my hand with his and swerving the steering wheel so that we nearly gutter-bumped. “You’re all over the place.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “But it was your idea to put me behind the wheel, remember?”
He didn’t answer, but he bolted from the car the minute I’d nosed it and then parked it cautiously among the caravan of vehicles lined up along the turnoff to the beach. I watched as he strode far ahead, ignoring my calls, and before long I’d lost complete sight of him in the thick of strolling families.
Humidity was curling up my hair and turning my skin clammy beneath my striped hoodie dress. Bad outfit choice. Heavy where it lay against my arms and back, but so short that too much of my legs were left exposed and defenseless against the cold ocean breeze.
My eyes hunted Sebastian. I was frantic to see him. Also, he hadn’t answered my text. Probably meant nothing. Still. I walked to the boardwalk and bought a funnel cake. Then I took a seat at a beachside table, where I had a good view for watching the band set up their equipment and speakers as the sun went down.
I checked my voice mail, rechecked texts, and then my voice mail again. Nope.
Aidan and Lizbeth were standing out in the surf, talking with some kids I didn’t know. Lizbeth’s hair was coppery in the reflected tiki torches that spiked the dunes. A ways apart, Emory and Noogie had snapped out a quilt. Staking a four-cornered claim that was equidistant from boardwalk, ocean and stage.
I signaled and shouted to the girls, then plunged like a kite through the crowd. On sight of me, a look passed between them. A not-entirely-positive look. Beyond that, it was hard to interpret it.
But I slowed my steps anyway.
“Jamie, what’s that mark on your cheek?” Emory touched her own. “Your blusher is totally uneven.”
I pressed my hand to my face. “I’m not wearing any makeup,” I said, though I was—but just a little. Not a Jersey Girl amount, not to draw attention.
“So where’s, um, Milo McRae?” asked Noogie. Taffy-pulling his name. By now, she and Emory had sprawled out on the quilt. Hands propped, legs stretched, toes ballerina-pointed. I decided not to take a space next to them. I wasn’t feeling nearly welcome enough.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“Sebastian told me you and Milo came together.” Emory arched her eyebrow.
“Oh, I …” I was confused. Why did she sound sarcastic? And why did they care where Milo was? I couldn’t take it personally. I hardly knew her, after all. But I’d thought we’d had a little bit of an alliance.
And now Aidan and Lizbeth had joined up with them. I fully expected the Aidan factor to be awkward, but it was more civilized, with Lizbeth kicking off her flops and dropping to sit cross-legged on the quilt. Emory didn’t seem perturbed. The bond between lifers certainly didn’t extend to me. In fact, I was the odd one out. I felt self-conscious and embarrassed without knowing exactly why. My eyes scanned for Sebastian—where was he?
“I’ll just go for those drinks,” said Aidan. “Jamie, you want anything?” Though he hardly seemed to be listening as I told him no thanks, and he took off.
“So, I am super curious, Jamie,” said Lizbeth, with a little condescending giggle. “We all are. Where in the world did Milo go?”
“He went to see his friends,” I answered. “I mean, he’s definitely not hanging around me tonight, if you’re looking for him.”
“Oh yes. He is very, very hard to find,” said Lizbeth, nodding. “Didja hear that, Noogs?” She tapped her toe against Noogie’s ankle. “Milo’s with his friends. So now Jamie can relax. Unless she’s the designated driver?” There it was again, that smirking condescension. “Or is Milo driving?”
“Milo’s only fourteen,” I said. “He’s a kid. He can’t drive. Not on my watch, anyhow.”
“Oh, right. Milo’s fourteen. I think Isa told me that once.” Noogie barked a laugh and clapped her hands together. Her attitude toward me was an improvement over Lizbeth’s, but I wouldn’t have called it nice. “You’re sure a stickler for the facts, Jamers.”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t like how this was going at all. The static had begun again in my ears, worse than ever. I pushed my fingers against them little girl blue come blow your horn as I stared at Noogie, uncomprehending. Had I pegged her wrong? Was she a complete fake, the kind of girl who took on whatever personality was most convenient for the moment she was in? I knew girls at school like that.
Or—worse thought—Noogie and Lizbeth believed that I was some stealthy cougar girl all hot for Milo? “Hey, look, there’s nothing between Milo and me. If that’s what you’re insinuating,” I blurted. “I mean, please. I’d never hook up with a fourteen-year-old.” Did I sound like a liar? Did they know about Sean Ryan?
What did they know?
They were laughing now. Really laughing at me. What was all this attitude about? It was as if they’d all gotten together and decided I was
“Let it go, Jamers,” said Noogie. She was using her lifeguard voice, the one that usually came with a shrill, reprimanding whistle.
“Let what go?” Decided I was some kind of joke, some kind of Jersey Girl who
“You know what. You’ve got poor Connie Hubbard half out of her mind, wondering what wackadoodle thing you’ll think up next.”
Connie, of course. I was so naïve—of course Connie was the one spreading the stories. She’d already told everyone about my kidnapping Isa off to Pendleton. Now they’d rallied against me. Everyone on the island thought I was careless and irresponsible. Maybe they even knew about the pills; maybe they knew about Sean Ryan. Connie could have read my journal—come to think of it, I hadn’t seen it around in a while.
Or … or maybe Sean Ryan somehow had found out about my job here, and had contacted Miles McRae in Hong Kong, and told him that I wasn’t competent to take care of his daughter.
My thoughts weren’t lining up logically the sheep’s in the meadow the cow’s in the corn where is the girl and part of me knew that, but the ideas were shooting too fast through my head and unstoppable now, round and round the cobbler’s bench and my ears were ringing and my body felt unable to support the pressure she’s under the haystack of all the accusations.
Hold on to yourself she’s under the haystack. I stared from Noogie to Lizbeth. “Stop laughing,” I commanded them. I began to back away. I’m under the haystack fast asleep. “I mean it. Stop laughing at me.”
Noogie stopped. “Jamie,” she said. “It’s only because we’re … we can’t help …” She reached out a hand as if I were standing on a ledge.
“Help what?” I demanded. “Help how?” In answer, they gaped; nobody was going to step forward, nobody wanted to tell me the big secret when they could all stand around laughing at me. I couldn’t bear it and without another word, I turned away. Running for the sea the haystack the haystack, which suddenly looked so inviting, the rolling waves were beckoning me.
I waded out into the darkness. My ankles were sucked up in wet sand as the salt water lapped cold around my knees. I filled my lungs with deep breaths of salty air. My skin and hair turned sticky, my ears were corrosive with sound, but the promise of a calm on the horizon was so seductive fast asleep I’m fast asleep I’d just keep walking, yes, that’s what I’d do, farther and farther until I couldn’t
“Jamie?”
I whipped around. The klieg lights from the stage were lit up behind him, so Sebastian was all outline, like a paper cutout. I could have hugged him, but there was a formality in the way he held himself that stopped me. Oh no. Not Sebastian, too. Whatever they’d thought I’d done, I couldn’t begin to deal with the idea that he’d joined them, and that everyone was against me tonight.
“Oh, hi! I’m so glad you’re here,” I said anyway, blinking back the sting in my eyes. “When you didn’t text me back, I thought you were upset about Milo.”
“Confused,” he said after a pause. “I was more like confused.”
It was a warning of sorts, but I was just so relieved to see him, I ignored it. “Something’s going on, Sebastian. It’s like everyone—Noogie, Emory, Aidan, Lizbeth, even Connie are all acting so incredibly strange. As if there’s this big joke on me, and they won’t tell me why.”
His head tilted. He didn’t answer.
“You know something about it, don’t you? You have to tell me. Tell me!”
“Listen, Jamie. Mrs. Hubbard called my mom. She might have called other people, too. You know how it is around here. And she thinks you’re acting … not normal.” He stepped forward, found my hand through the dark space and sealed his own over it, as if he’d figured out my desire to break for it.
“What a witch.”
“Listen, she’s not a bad old lady. She’s worried. But Noogie and Lizbeth’s laughing at you might be partly my fault. I was with some friends when your text came in. I told them about you coming with Milo, and kids thought it was a joke, so—” A deafening screech drowned him out. Some sound check guys had arrived onstage and were fiddling with the amplifiers.
“So what’s the joke?” I shouted. “What am I not getting?” I was so confused.
“They’re concerned about you, Jamie. We all are.”
“About what?”
Now Sebastian began to walk into the surf, ankle-deep, then pushing forward as he cupped his hands and raised his voice to a shout above the racket, but I was still having trouble hearing him. “I … I tried to understand and … helping Isa and … gone way past the point of … anything for someone … you think … agrees with me … damaging.”
I seized the word. “Damaging? Me, damaging?” It was outrageous. “What are you talking about? I’ve been a good—no, I’ve been a fantastic babysitter for Isa. Which that spoiled, selfish Jessie Feathering had no idea how to be. She used her job and that house as a place to hang out and party, to invite guys over—she’d lock Isa in her room sometimes, did you know that? She hardly cared about anyone but herself, and nobody called her out on it; you were all way too intimidated. Everyone here is so snobby, they can’t even bring themselves to realize how self-centered she was—I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I’ve always got Isa in my heart, always and always.” and always and where is the girl who looks after the sheep she’s under the haystack
He’d stopped a few feet from me, and was shaking his head. “Jamie, you don’t understand. That’s not what this is about.”
“Right, I get that now. It’s not just money snobs, it’s Bly snobs. It’s like a law here. The don’t-accept-the-outsider law. But I couldn’t be the first person to realize Pete most likely brought down that plane. There’s got to be some evidence. Nobody’s saying that, though, are they? Even if it’s true, even if he confessed it, nobody here would ever want to get involved with a scandal. Oh no, no. Not on Little Bly.”
But Sebastian hadn’t even let me finish, he’d been talking right back at me, his sentences bitten and spit. I could only hear him in phrases, even as I tried to listen though the chaos of my own emotions and all the noise around us, which seemed expressly generated to confuse and disorient me.
“—and that you set plates and cups … you talk to Milo, both of you, like he’s right there, right in the room! Imagine … poor Mrs. Hubbard … you and Isa both pretending that Milo was a real person … every minute … all day. A game of … really screws up … lot of people, can’t … get it? What’s the matter with you, that you can’t get that?”
He stopped. I stared at him, openmouthed. Then another speaker shorted as an electric-guitar chord whined and died. My ears vibrated; I had to cup my hands over them. Many more people had arrived on the beach, and were congregating, and the space was becoming claustrophobic.
“You’re wrong, he’s not dangerous!” I shouted. “He was a brother for Isa. But he’s more than that now, don’t you see? He’s how Peter opened the door.”
Sebastian sliced his arm through the air as if to amputate my words. He was angry, but I pushed on, I had to. “Listen, please, it’s true, I swear it. Peter’s too close to me. What he did, it haunts him, and he knows I’m receptive, you can’t feel him, not you with your perfect skies and your happy little—”
“Jamie, stop! Please! Stop!” Sebastian placed his hand up to my mouth without touching it. His other arm reached to grip my shoulder. “You need help—you really do, Jamie. And I want to help you.”
“Help me? I can’t even trust you, the way you’re looking at me. Like I’m some kind of maniac.” I wrenched away. “You people are all so suspicious, you’ve been watching me like a pack of weasels since the minute I came here. I don’t know why I thought you were so different. You’re just the same as all of them. Worse, even, because you tried so hard to trick me into liking you.”
“Jamie!” he called, but I was running now, as fast as I could to get away from him, dodging through the crowd, looping the long way so he wouldn’t catch me, then doubling back to where the car was parked.
They’d never believe me. None of them. Nobody would ever believe me. I’d always be alone. There was no point in explaining it. There was no point in sticking around.
TWENTY-SIX
The island had too many deer. You could see them rib-thin and mangy, wet warm eyes peering, frightened as Confederate soldiers searching for a route back home. I drove in the dark and I willed them back, back and I tried not to listen to the sounds in my ears, the sounds of static, of phones ringing for me bring, brring the sounds of dogs barking at me rough, rough the sounds that nobody else could hear.
Which way out of this noise?
I imagined myself, breathless as the moon, looking over this world but cradled safe in my dream of it. I imagined myself at peace from imagining, in the place where nothing needed to be compared or considered or valued. Crushed into the infinitesimal thing that I was before I was made to be me. I could get back there. Because I was not caught in the lights. I knew the path, even if I’d never felt so alone going down it.
At some point, I’d messed up the car—not sure how—and I’d punctured a tire. The hill was too steep to attempt with a flat. I wouldn’t be able to manage it, and so I left the car at the bottom of the drive.
Got out and staggered uphill by foot the rest of the way.
The house loomed. I’d never hated it as much as tonight, and I ached with homesickness. I saw myself with the twins, shining flashlights from our backyard tent. There was Mom clapping her hands when I finally braved the slide at the playground. And Dad inventing the lyrics to a holiday carol as we added gumdrops to a kitchen-table gingerbread house.
Those days seemed very far away, and not entirely mine.
Isa was sleeping. Probably Connie, too. Milo was nowhere. I opened the door to his room. The same unused bedroom I’d discovered that first day.
The yellow room, Isa had called it. A nondescript guest room, neat as a pin and minus a guest, and yet Milo did live here, in his own way. He’d been real enough, a terrifyingly intimidating boy who spoke to all my own fears of what those Little Blyers were “really” like. Milo had made perfect sense to me. He’d been easy to control.
Until he had stopped being Milo.
I continued down the hall to my room, where I fell sideways across my bed. Shaking off my shoes, listening to them drop plop, plop.
How long did I sleep? An hour? I swallowed the last of my own pills and then tiptoed downstairs to Connie’s bathroom. I could hear her coughing through the wall. I scooped handfuls of her drugstore meds and swallowed them dry.
In the study, I closed the door. In another version of tomorrow, there would be a scene. It was unavoidable. The phone call from Miles McRae. Followed by one from Mom and Dad. The indignant thpeeth from Connie. A quick decision, an online ticket, a silent drive to the ferry. I didn’t care. I was so past caring and I didn’t want tomorrow.
So I’d forged another tomorrow. And now I stretched out on the couch, dozing easily, and when I woke up, Peter was waiting for me in a haze and ripple of burning gasoline. I could feel the oil slick on his skin and soaking his clothes. I breathed myself inside his moment, when he’d crashed from one world into another.
Up close, Peter’s pale eyes weren’t particularly kind. But he hadn’t been a particularly kind person. Nor frail and combustive like Hank, nor too frightened of this world, like Uncle Jim. Who were also here, in a sense, though it was only Peter’s presence that counted tonight, as real and true as the moment he’d shifted into the negative, imagined space that had contained Milo.
