Getting Somewhere (27 page)

Lauren asks, “Why? Is something going on?”

“That's what we were going to ask you. Obviously, something
is
going on. Ellie is not acting normal, and Donna hardly said a word during supper either. Did you hear them talking about anything?”

Lauren shrugs. She says, “Why would I hear anything?” but has a sudden tremendous desire to tell them, to be the one who does actually know something. She wishes she knew more just so she could tease them with it. She shrugs again.

“I don't know. They got something in the mail today that seemed to shake them up. I couldn't see what it was.”

Jenna and Sarah exchange glances, and Cassie starts picking at the bedspread, her eyes wide and worried. Sarah turns to Lauren.

“What did they say about it?”

“Nothing really. Just that they didn't have enough information to come to any conclusions. That Ellie is supposed to call somebody tomorrow.”

“You're sure you didn't see who it was from?”

Lauren considers lying, but she can't think who she would say the letter is from since she doesn't actually know the truth. Would it be from her father? Her attorney? It's just too much speculation and she can't quite put it together quickly enough.

She just answers, “No, I didn't.”

“What were you doing downstairs?”

Lauren is starting to get uncomfortable now. She feels like they are ganging up on her, using her instead of the other way around, and she's said too much already, given them all the information she has.

“Nothing! I was just reading. Is that against some other rule I haven't heard about?”

Sarah reaches for the deck of cards. “Let's just play. There's nothing we can do right now anyway.”

Lauren stands up, ready to leave, waits for just a second to see if they will invite her to stay, walks to the open door and waits just a second longer, but nobody says any more to her so she goes out, shutting the door rather hard behind her.

A
FTER
L
AUREN IS
gone, Cassie gets up and opens the door, looks out, and closes it again. The card game is put aside.

“I think we should just ask Ellie,” Cassie says, crawling up farther onto the bed and tucking her legs underneath her.

“And say what? Tell her we know there was a letter and want to know what it's about? Maybe it's something private, something that doesn't have anything to do with us.”

Cassie nods at Jenna's words, but Sarah knows better. She can't be sure what's in the letter either, but she couldn't be more convinced that it has something to do with Lauren, that this is the first symptom of the disease, some virulent rash or contagious pox that has been lying dormant, just ready to erupt. Sarah doesn't know what she expected it to feel like when it happened but this isn't it, not this sense of total loss, and not this uncomfortable awareness of how reliant they have all become on the women and their constant attention and positive attitudes. She is amazed to discover how hurt she feels, paralyzed by the internal battle between selfish fear of what is going to happen and how it might affect her personally and the nameless and elusive suspicion that she has never really deserved what she has been getting.

Sarah's muddled thoughts are interrupted by Cassie's quiet voice. “I think the thing Ellie, and Donna, too, is most concerned about is how things are affecting us. So, if it is something we need to know about, they'll tell us. But”—and Cassie hesitates, traces her index finger over the design on the back of the playing card—“we could maybe show concern the way she would for us. Like, ask if she's okay, offer to listen if she has something she needs to talk about. I mean, whatever is going on for them does concern us, not only if it has something to do with the program, but because we . . . because we care about them.” Cassie has raised her head and is looking at Jenna. For a moment, their eyes connect and then Jenna's expression softens, a slight smile forming on her lips, and she nods.

“Should we go now? It's not that late.”

Cassie looks tremendously relieved.

“Let's wait until tomorrow. Maybe everything will be okay already, or maybe she'll tell us on her own. I don't think we should be too pushy about it.”

Sarah keeps her gaze down, watches her hands as they reach for the cards, absently shuffle them and lay them down again. She wishes she had Jenna's and Cassie's confidence, could snap her fingers and magic the tension and fear away as they seem to be doing. She glances first at Cassie, then at Jenna, envisions a great looming wall suddenly rising high and impenetrable around her, dividing her from the other girls, from the women, from the farm. She has never, in all her life, felt so alone.

FRIDAY, JULY 20

JENNA HAS KEPT HER EYE ON THE HOUSE EVER SINCE
breakfast, waiting for Ellie to come out. She heard Ellie tell Grace she'd be out as soon as she's done making a phone call. That was several hours ago. Jenna's been tempted to go in and see if Ellie is still on the phone, but so far she has held herself back. She is willing Ellie to come out, to tell Donna or Grace what she has learned so that Jenna can see her face, watch her expression, know if everything is all right.

She hates picking cucumbers, hates the way they prickle her fingers, the tiny thorny hairs raising tiny welts on the insides of her wrists. Jenna has a passing temptation to throw a couple into the basket from where she stands several feet away but, instead, gathers them in a pouch she makes with her shirt so she can pick all she sees from this spot without moving her feet. She pauses for a second with her arms loaded, waits for the little surge of irritation to subside, realizes she's not mad at the cucumbers, or certainly at Grace, though she does wonder a bit why Grace herself hasn't gone up to check on Ellie.

Breakfast was no better than supper last night. Ellie was nervous, pushing her food around, seeming to want to catch Grace's eye but having no success. Grace is different now, too. She has given them all their assignments but has gone off to do her own thing, Jenna isn't sure what. Jenna doesn't want to acknowledge how severely unsettled she is by the sudden distance, by Grace's complete failure to notice her, invite her to help with whatever she is doing, include her in the plans for the day. Jenna tells herself that it's Friday. Grace is always distracted on Friday. She is willing to be convinced, momentarily, that it's not a sign of anything, not a symptom of something Jenna has done wrong.

E
VERYTHING IS OFF
balance, out of kilter, her movements clumsy, her steps awkward, nearly clownish. It's as if the coordination center in her brain has become scrambled, and when Jenna looks around her, the place she has spent months getting to know looks vaguely unfamiliar, the faces around her strange and even threatening. She keeps telling herself it's just a letter, that people can be momentarily upset about something and then everything can return to normal, but she doesn't believe it.

Last night's concern for Ellie had felt noble, enlarging, and she had fallen asleep with a confidence in this newfound maturity, this ability to put her own anxieties aside for someone else. But this morning, with Grace's attention so severely diverted, Jenna has started to unravel. All of her old suspicions have been awakened like temporarily out-of-favor courtiers, whispering among themselves, conniving to reestablish dominance over Jenna's attention. Even her heart, which has not bothered her for weeks, seems to be pounding a little harder, a twinge of pain around the edges. She turns toward the back field to see if she can make out Grace's head above the giant ragweed and tall stalks of goldenrod that line the creek but sees nothing, bends wearily to lift the basket of cucumbers and carry them to the shed.

Jenna has struggled a few steps with her heavy load when Sarah leaps over the bean row she is working on and grabs one side of the basket to help. Jenna tries to smile at her, but Sarah's expression is serious, concerned.

“Um, are you okay?”

“Sure, why do you ask?”

“Are we going to do something?”

Jenna lowers her side of the basket and together, they set it gently back on the ground.

“Yeah, I've been wondering that. What do you think?”

“I don't know. I'm still not sure this is a good idea.”

Jenna looks curiously at Sarah but doesn't seem to hear what she is saying.

“I think we should go find Ellie. Where's Cassie?”

“She's with Lauren in the tomatoes.”

“Why don't I take this to the cooler and you go get Cassie?”

Sarah starts to move away, turns back. “What if Lauren wants to go?”

Jenna shrugs. “I don't care.” And then Jenna thinks her knees are going to buckle under her.
Lauren
. It has suddenly hit her. This all has something to do with Lauren, with the letter she sent.

Jenna's mind is a whirl. Her chest is really hurting now, and she's not sure if she'll be able to lift the basket at all. She quickly reviews the conversation they had last night in Cassie's room, trying to determine if Lauren knows more than she told them. She doesn't think so, figuring Lauren would want to brag about it if she did.
Not enough information to come to a conclusion
—that's what Lauren had said. The words mean nothing and everything to Jenna. She's been bounced around enough times to know when something is going sour. This is no different.

As she bends slowly to grasp the two wire handles of the bushel basket and heaves it up to rest on her thighs, straightens painfully and begins to carry the cucumbers to the shed, she repeats those words in her head.
This is no different.
Just like all the other times. But no matter how many times she says them to herself, she will know that they are not true.

“W
HERE ARE YOU
guys going?”

“Donna wants us at the house.” Sarah hadn't planned the lie, doesn't even know where it came from.

“But Donna's right over there.” Sarah looks to where Lauren is pointing, sees Donna bending over the green pepper row almost within hearing. Sarah answers quietly.

“I know. But she said for us to go up at eleven, and it's after that now. Come on, Cassie, we need to go.”

“Am I supposed to come?”

“No, she just said for me and Cassie.” Sarah is getting more and more anxious. Donna will stand up in just a second and see them, or she'll hear them talking and look over. Sarah is hoping that maybe some aunt of Ellie's has died or her bank account is overdrawn or something like that. She is anxious to find her, talk to her, get the story.

Before Lauren can protest, Sarah says, “Don't worry. I'm sure she plans to send someone over here to help you. We'll probably be right back.”

Lauren is standing with her hands on her hips. “What?”

Sarah takes Cassie's arm, waves to Lauren. “Just keep working. Help is on the way.” She giggles into her hand as she and Cassie start trotting toward the bridge.

E
LLIE ISN'T IN
her room, the office, or in the kitchen. Jenna, Sarah, and Cassie stand at the back door for a few moments and then begin to head up into the spruce grove on the hillside at the back of the house. Sarah is leading the way—she discovered this path to the marsh behind the house one afternoon while Jenna and Cassie were swimming, anxious to find her own little retreat. She doesn't know if Ellie likes to go back here but she just has a feeling.

They have to bend under some of lowest hanging branches, which circle the straight trunks like a troupe of graceful dancers bowing in reverence. The sharp needles brush their arms as they pass, years of shed ones carpeting the ground in a tawny mat that compresses like a foam mattress with each step. They can hear blue jays shrieking and flapping high above them. They emerge from the trees to the bright light reflecting off the marsh and have to shade their eyes with their palms to clearly see the waving grasses, arrowhead plants, and water lilies, the river moving stolidly beyond.

Sarah is still in the lead and nearly has her hand on the back of the wooden bench that Grace said her grandfather placed here two decades ago when she notices Ellie lying on it, her head resting on her elbow, her legs bent at the knees, dangling awkwardly over the edge. Sarah moves around to the front and sees that Ellie's eyes are closed, her breathing shallow but steady.

Nobody knows what to do. The three of them stand silently, arranged in a half circle around the bench. A pair of mallard ducks cruises the hummocks of marsh grasses just yards away. There is a constant din of guttural bullfrog voices vibrating the air and, every so often, the loud rat-tat-tatting of a pileated woodpecker.

Just as Sarah is thinking maybe they should leave Ellie to rest, Ellie slowly lifts her head and stiffly rises to a sitting position, opening her eyes wide as if surprised at where she finds herself. She sees only Sarah at first, asks, “How long have you been standing there?”

“About a minute.” Ellie squints up to see Cassie behind her, then Jenna at the other end of the bench.

“What are you guys doing back here? Aren't you supposed to be helping in the garden?”

Sarah is so surprised by the tone of Ellie's voice that the words barely sink in.

Before she can say anything, Ellie adds, “Does Grace know where you are? Don't you think she's going to be kind of concerned if all of you just disappear?”

This is not at all what Sarah expected. Things must be even worse than she thought.

“Um, we're sorry. We just . . . well, we were concerned about
you
.”

Ellie opens her mouth to speak, clamps it shut again, her angry frown momentarily frozen, then crumbling away, replaced by a look of humbled distress.

“Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

“Take what out on us?”

Ellie raises her head but doesn't look at any of the girls, just stares out across the marsh.

After a long, uncomfortable moment, she says carefully, “I wasn't trying to hide anything, though I clearly wouldn't have been very good at that anyway.” She snorts humorlessly.

“I just wanted to understand what was going on before I talked about it, before I got everybody all worried. I really am sorry. Not the best plan, I guess.”

“Worried about what?”

Ellie turns to look at Sarah, nods, seems to be considering. “I think what I want to do is talk to everyone at once. It's not that I don't want to tell you. I just think it makes more sense if we all sit down to talk about it together. Let's go finish in the garden, get everything done, and then we'll be able to spend as much time talking as we need to. Grace has got to be wondering what happened to you guys.”

The girls are nodding, disappointed but unable to argue against Ellie's reasoning.

“It was nice, though, I mean, being concerned, finding me. I promise, I'll tell you what's going on. But let's get everything else out of the way first, okay?”

They nod again, wait for Ellie to stand, follow as she leads them back to the garden. Sarah is coming, too, but she wishes she wasn't. For the first time in a long while, she wishes she was anywhere but here.