Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (6 page)

“Eggs in a frame.” River smiled at me. 

When the eggs were done, but still runny, he put them on two plates, diced a tomato into little juicy squares, and piled them on top of the bread. The tomato had been grown a few miles outside of Echo, in some peaceful person’s greenhouse, and it was red as sin and ripe as the noon sun. River sprinkled some sea salt over the tomatoes, and a little olive oil, and handed me a plate. 

I licked my lips. But not how Sunshine would do it. I did it like I meant it. I left the fork on the table, picked up the fried bread with my hand, chewed, swallowed, and laughed out loud. 

“It’s so good, River. So very, very good.Where the hell did you learn to cook?” Olive oil and tomato juice were running down my chin and I couldn’t have cared less. 

“Honestly? My mother was a chef.” River had the half smile on his crooked mouth, sly, sly, sly. “This is sort of a bruschetta, but with a fried egg. American, by way of Italy.” 

I took another bite. My mouth was singing. I swallowed, and was about to dig in again, when I remembered something. I looked at River, in a hard sort of way. 

“I thought you said your mother was an archeologist.” 

River’s lips were shiny with oil,and his eyes were laughing at me.“Did I?” 

“Yes.” 

He shrugged. “Then I must have lied. But the problem is, which time?” 

I smiled, and then laughed. River backed you into a corner and crooked-smiled at you, until you felt too stupid to keep asking him things. And then he acted like it all mattered less than nothing, and so you started to think so too. 

I realized suddenly, as I was biting into the fried egg bruschetta again, that I had only known River for a day. A
day
.That morning I had been River-ignorant, sitting on my front steps reading Hawthorne’s
Mosses From an Old Manse
and unaware of his existence. Now I was shopping for groceries with him and liking that he did it like me. And I was eating his food and licking my lips, and everything seemed smooth and happy and one-of-a-kind wonderful. 

But the truth was that I knew nothing,
nothing
about this boy at all. I wondered what Freddie would have said, about feeling so close to someone so soon . . . 

“Now let me ask
you
something,” River said, catching my eye and interrupting my thoughts. He shook his hair in the sunlight, and I saw a blond streak pop out among the dark brown. It fell back down into the side part, but stayed messy, in a good way. “How long has your brother been like that?” 

I raised my eyebrows.“Like what?” 

“The sexism, the insecurity, the drinking. Is it because your dad is gone?” 

I set down the bruschetta on the white, chipped china. “Yes. And no. Luke has always been sort of . . . aggressive.There’s more to him than this,he just doesn’t show it much. He needs something to believe in. At least, that’s what my grandma Freddie always said.” 

“Freddie sounds pretty sharp.” River wasn’t looking at me when he said this,but was gazing off into the distance, with an odd expression on his face. And by odd, I mean it wasn’t laughing and wily, but almost earnest. And sort of . . . stern. 

“She was a lot of things.” I paused, thrown by River’s strange look. He didn’t say anything, so I kept talking. “Luke’s been worse since our parents left. They were always in and out when we were growing up, busy with artist things, but there was Freddie to watch us back then. Since she died, they’ve never been gone this long. It’s like they forgot we’re still kids, technically.” 

River didn’t answer. Instead, he handed me a glass of sparkling water with ice. I took a long drink, and it tasted delicious after the salty meal. River kicked off his canvas boat shoes. He wasn’t wearing any socks, and he had nice feet,especially for a boy—strong and tan and smooth and so beautiful, you almost couldn’t call them feet anymore. He yawned, plopped down on the yellow couch in the corner, and yawned again. Then he leaned forward and grabbed my hand. 

“Look, I was driving most of last night. I think I better have a nap before we check out this movie.” 

“We don’t have to go, you know. You can skip it if you want.”I was focused on River’s fingers, covering my own. It was the first time anyone had ever held my hand. Any boy, I mean. 

He shook his head. “No, I want to see it.
Casablanca
is one of my favorites.I wasn’t just saying that to rile up your brother.” He paused, and gave my hand a squeeze. His forehead crinkled as he did it, as if he was concentrating. “Do you have to check up on Sunshine? Or do you think you could lie down here and take a nap with me?” 

I didn’t answer. I didn’t even think. I just slid myself onto the couch, pressed my back into River’s torso, and let his arms wrap around me. I breathed in the warm, boy smell of him, the smell of leaves and autumn air and midnight and tomatoes and olive oil. His face nestled into my hair, and the last thought I had before I fell asleep was that I’d known River all of one day and yet it felt like years and years. 

I 
awoke with the sun on my toes. I had fallen asleep with it tickling my fingertips,so God only knows how much time had passed. I squeezed out of River’s warm
 
arms and got to my feet. 

“What time is it?” I said, and rubbed my eyes. “We’re 
going to miss the movie.” 

River’s eyelids fluttered, then opened.“Aw . . . why did 
you leave? Come back.” He patted the spot next to him. I turned to look at the old clunky metal clock above the 

kitchen table. It was late.“I need go over to Sunshine’s. I 
have to see how she’s doing,and if she wants to watch this 
movie with us.” I paused. “There’s a picnic basket in the 
cabinet by the fridge. Do you think you can pack it while 
I’m gone?” 

River stretched. He wiggled his toes in the fading sun, 
and smiled. “Violet, Violet. You curl up next to me, nap, 
and leave. What is this, some sort of one-nap stand?”He 
smiled. “Screw the movie. Get back over here.” 

I laughed. “You said you wanted to go. You said
Casablanca
was one of your favorite films.” 

“I was sleeptalking when I said that.It’s like sleepwalking, except you do it with your mouth.” 

I laughed again.“Pack the basket. I’ll be back in a bit.” I walked over to Sunshine’s.The sun glowed behind the 
Citizen now,and the house cast its shadow over the dirty 
fountain girls. It was almost twilight. 

The road that ran by Citizen Kane ended in a tangle 
of blackberry bushes that bordered the woods. I turned 
around at the end of Sunshine’s driveway and stared at the 
trees. Sometimes, at dusk, I felt like they were edging in, 
slowly, slowly, so as not to be noticed, and suddenly, one 
day, I would look up and find myself, and my house, back 
in the middle of the forest. 

Sunshine was sitting out on her porch, as usual, doing 
nothing. Her color had come back and she looked healthy 
and lazy,her face shining in the rust-colored slants of the 
late evening sun. I didn’t know how she could sit there, 
with nothing to do, as the day waned. Like it or not, I 
had my parents’artistic temperament,and if left to themselves, my thoughts started to pace and circle and snarl. 

Things in Sunshine’s head must be different. Maybe her 
idle thoughts were more like a trickling little brook. A 
trickling brook that ran by tweeting meadowlarks and 
pink teacups and talking squirrels and thatched cottages. I was envious of her, all of a sudden. 

“Hey,” I said. “Do you want to come to
Casablanca
with 
me and River? It’s starting in an hour.” 

Sunshine picked up a half-eaten tomato sandwich 
from the plate by her feet and took a bite. The tomato had 
been plucked from the vines by the porch minutes ago, no 
doubt.I’d noticed one of the big red ones missing when I 
walked up the steps. 

“Is Luke going?” she asked. 

“Yeah,but Maddy will be there too.So don’t expect him 
to give you much attention.He’s stealing some vodka and 
hoping to get to second base, whatever that means anymore.” 

Sunshine lifted her hand and waved it across her breasts. 

“I believe it generally refers to these girls. But maybe that 
was a hundred years ago,when our parents were kids.For 
all I know, second base now means reciting poetry together 
on a rooftop, naked from the waist up.” 

I raised my eyebrows. 

Sunshine swallowed another bite from her sandwich while shaking her head.“No,Violet,I don’t actually know what the kids are doing these days. Haven’t you noticed that I spend most of my time sitting on my porch or fol 
lowing you and Luke around?” 

Sunshine kind of smiled at me, and I kind of smiled 
back. She drank the last sip of her iced tea, and set it on 
the nearby porch railing. “So what have you found out 
about the stranger living in your guesthouse?” 

“I haven’t asked to see his ID, and I won’t, because it’ll 
sound stupid now. And he’s terrible at answering questions, so I know almost less than I did before. Are you still 
planning to get him drunk and steal his wallet?” Sunshine leaned back in the swing and looked at me. 

Her eyes were sharp and honest—a rare expression for her. 

“River doesn’t like me. And his liking me was a vital part 
of that plan.” She paused. “Did you ask him if he saw the 
guy with the furry teeth too?” 

I nodded. 

“And?” 

“He said that he didn’t see anything.” 

“I figured. It doesn’t matter. I know what I saw.” Sunshine was quiet for a moment.“Look,you two go ahead to 
the movie.I’m going to stay here.Maybe a mysterious new 
guy will pull up and want to move into
my
guesthouse.” 

≈≈≈
 

River had the picnic basket ready to go when I got back to the Citizen.We took the path into town for the third time in the last eight hours. 

The park was packed with people, and the sky was smoky and getting dark fast. We were late. The front spots were all taken, but the movie screen was big enough to see from the back of the square.We walked by a bunch of kids from school, but they didn’t really acknowledge me, and I didn’t really acknowledge them. It wasn’t that any of us hated each other. There wasn’t enough passion on either side for that. Everyone knew that our parents had been gone for a long time, but they didn’t know whether to feel sorry for us parentless ex-rich kids or be envious of our freedom or make fun of us for having weird, artisticparent problems. So people left us alone. I guess they thought we were snobs, like Daniel Leap. 

Luke did better than me, socially. He was more attractive and a lot less sensitive. But that was all right. The only person I was ever easy talking to was Freddie, anyway. 

And River, I realized. I was easy enough with River. I threw the quilt I grabbed from the house onto the ground, far away from my classmates. I caught sight of Gianni among the group. He was tall, and dark, and he had mischief in his deep Italian eyes, which I liked. He worked at the café sometimes with his parents, when he wasn’t working at their pizzeria, and he liked to talk to me about fair trade beans,and flat whites,and the perfect foam on a cappuccino. He tended to lose his temper over requests for artificial syrup flavors, like white chocolate, and it was pretty charming. 

Gianni caught me looking at him, waved, and smiled. I smiled back. 

On our right was a group of laughing little kids—they were playing with a bunch of red yo-yos and having the kind of wholehearted fun only kids can have. I wondered what they were doing at
Casablanca.
I supposed their parents kicked them out of the house after supper and they just headed toward the action at the center of town. I wondered if they would stay for the film,and chatter all the way through it. But then I decided I didn’t really care. 

River and I dug into the olives and the cheese and the baguette and watched the kids while we ate. There were six boys, all with yo-yos, and one girl with a hula hoop. I recognized one of the boys. He was maybe eleven, with dark red-brown hair, and pale, freckled skin. I’d seen him around town a lot and had been struck by how grave he seemed, for a kid. Sometimes he had a pack of boys with him, and sometimes not. Mostly he was just all on his own.He’d started coming into the café sometimes,drinking coffee too young, like me. 

After a few minutes, an older kid crawled out of the dark beyond the town square and started bugging my yo-yo boys. He had shaggy dark hair and a mean look in his eyes, like a wild, half-starved dog. He was fourteen at most. He made fun of my boys for a while, but when they ignored him, he started pushing them around, taking their toys and holding them out of reach. 

River popped the last juicy Kalamata into his mouth and then got to his feet. He went over to the shaggyhaired kid and grabbed his skinny white wrist in one hand. The bully dropped the yo-yo he was holding. River said something to him, and, just like that, the kid ran off into the night without another word. 

River stuck around, and began to show the boys how to make their toys work. He was good with them, easy and natural,as if he’d shown millions of boys how to play with a yo-yo and could do it with his eyes closed. The kids were listening to what he was saying, so closely that some of them actually leaned toward him as if to hear better. 

I stayed sitting where I was, watching River, and idly wondering what he was telling the kids, when the girl came over and handed me her hula hoop. She was a laughing little thing, with brown eyes and black curly hair. She held out her hula hoop to me with a grin, and I took it, smiling back at her. I got inside it and spun it around my hips, moving my torso a little this way, and a little that, until my body began to remember that hula-hoop feeling and the thing took off on its own.