Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Bottom of the Sea (23 page)

How fragile,
Rachel thought. Out of nowhere, she pictured Sledge Leary, the man with the iron hands. A powerful man who wanted nothing more than a little peace, a home away from the living dead. She paused under the old marquee, sliding her pack from her shoulders. What would Sledge Leary do? She pulled the Frangelico bottle out from her bag. After a quick swirl of its dregs and a small bow to the friar, Rachel smashed it at the foot of the Strand.

The gulls squalled at the sudden explosion. A scent of hazelnut rose in the air; the broken pieces of glass sparkled with lamplight, a minor galaxy of amber stars.

Someone will clean up this mess before dawn,
Rachel thought.
Someone will have to.
After all, this was America's number one family resort.

 

chapter eighteen

fire

The fire leapt and licked, jumped and gnawed at the amusement park; it did not burn so much as bite, eating away at Happy World.

“You know what happens now?” Leonard said. “Everyone's going to say, ‘This is our 9/11, the day Happy World burned down.' There'll be posters and T-shirts: ‘August 14, 2014. Always remember.'”

He was probably right, Rachel thought: remembering would be a collective effort. This time, commemoration wouldn't be solitary. It wouldn't be her and Betty with a sack of shells, or Ethan with a marker in his hand. This time, the whole town would not only remember, but insist on it.

Leonard squeezed her hand. “They're going to come for us,” he said, dropping his voice. “We should go. Now.”

“No,” she said. “Too suspicious.”

“What about Ethan? You think he
—
”

“No.”

“Glad you're so sure. He probably thinks it was you. You think he'll say so?” When Rachel didn't respond, he added, “They'll look for enemies.”

“Then they'll be looking the wrong way.”

He searched her face. “You know who did this?”

“Maybe,” she said, drawing her arm around him. “Sledge Leary?”

“I wish. But this ain't a comic book,” he said. “Seriously. Is it someone close to us?”

“Close to us?”

With the collapse of the Happy World fa
c
ade, the fire, as if it had run out of rage, began to dim. Rolls of black smoke replaced the flames, and the beach crowds began to disperse.

“Close to us?” Rachel said again. “Yes and no.”

It seemed awkward, reckless, and just plain stupid, but earlier in the day, Rachel had sought Diana out again. Swiping the locket from her had been a consolation prize, a little way of feeling less small at the time. But in the morning, clutching the locket in her hand, Rachel felt the weight of the thing Diana had kept with her, her secret all these months: her way of remembering.

Finding her was easy. There she was, just as Jason had described her, in the booth underneath the lonely astronaut, her face as pale as the moon. “Here,” Rachel had said without fuss, setting the locket down and letting the chain run, like silver water, into a puddle on the counter.

Strangely, Diana didn't seem surprised. “I was up half the night looking for it,” Diana said. “I turned my bedroom inside out.” But she did not pick it up. She did not touch it.

“It's all yours,” Rachel said.

“Funny,” Diana said. “My father says that all the time. Ever since I was a little girl. He'd take me by the hand and drag me to the middle of Happy World, in the middle of the crowd, and lift me up. So I could see.”

“‘Someday all this will be yours'?”

“Something like that,” Diana said. She looked at the locket. “Where did you find it?”

“I didn't find it,” Rachel said. “I stole it. Last night. You were a bit distracted.”

“The journal.”

“You read it?”

“Last night.”

“The other half of the night?” Rachel asked. “When you weren't looking for the locket?”

“You think it's a joke?” Diana said.

“No,” Rachel said. “That's why I came back. With this.” She pushed the locket forward.

Diana shook her head. Her face was in the shadows of the booth, but her eyes gleamed. With what, Rachel wondered. Tears? Rage?

“Give it to Ethan,” Diana said.

“But Jason gave it to you,” Rachel said. “It's yours.”

“This is mine,” Diana said, lifting her chin. “This booth, this boardwalk, Happy World.”

“All yours?”

“I've paid for it,” Diana said.

“So did Jason,” Rachel said. She thought,
So did Curtis and Ethan and Leonard and I.
And there were others: Betty, Chuck Waters, his wife. Anyone who had known and loved Curtis, anyone who had known and loved Jason.

Rachel had taken the locket again, this time under Diana's watchful eyes, which
—
Rachel considered in retrospect, her head pressed against the warmth of Leonard's chest
—
had gleamed with something like fire.

“I think we know who did this,” Rachel said, “but I wouldn't say we're close.”

 

chapter nineteen

going

The ceiling of the Atlantic City Bus Terminal was too low for the station's size, an anxious weight overhead that seemed to compress travelers, as if squeezing might accelerate them through their arrivals or departures. Most were departing. Arrivals came in Lincolns and Lexuses, Rachel reasoned. Departures took the bus.

Ethan was among the departing. He slouched in a fiberglass seat with a backpack in his lap, staring blankly at a television suspended from the ceiling.

“Where you headed?” she said, taking a seat next to his. The air smelled of Old Spice and disinfectant.

“New York,” Ethan said without looking up. “How'd you know I'd be here?”

“You can't drive,” Rachel said. When she and Leonard had knocked at his door that morning, a very weary Mr. Waters said he hadn't seen him all night. He assumed Ethan was with his mother, but said that he had been debating the merits of reporting him as missing, the bitch.

“Where in New York?”

Ethan shrugged. “Manhattan.”

Rachel tucked her legs beneath her. “You'll have to do better than that,” she said. “You'll need an address. You got one?”

His clothes wrinkled, his hair flopped carelessly over his eyes, Ethan looked deflated, a balloon that had lost its gas. “I'll call her when I get there.”

“She doesn't know you're coming, does she?”

Ethan didn't answer. As Rachel considered what she might say next, the local news came on the television. The big story was the same as it had been for several days: the devastating fire that had razed Happy World. Officials had found evidence of arson; in a shocking development, police were talking to “persons of interest” in the Stone family itself. Sea Town's mayor offered a brief comment, wishing to assure citizens and guests alike that Sea Town was now as it always had been, a safe place for all, a family town.

Ethan drew his backpack tighter in his arms. “They're coming after us,” he said. “Me and my dad.”

“You're not part of the Stone family,” Rachel said. “Not now. Never were.”

“That's reassuring.” He turned away from her, curling fetally in his chair, his eyes open but remote. “Where's Jason's journal? I want it back.”

“It's gone. Anyway, you don't need it. You have his heart.”

“Very funny.”

“Give me your hand,” Rachel said. “Go ahead.”

“You're not part of my family, either.”

“And that's a bad thing? Come on.”

Without force, as if charmed like a snake from a fakir's basket, Ethan's hand rose from his side, his fingers ready for Rachel's grip. But she didn't give him her hand. Instead, she turned his palm up and into it poured the locket and its long silver chain.

“What's this?”

“Jason's heart,” Rachel said. “The one he gave to Diana.”

Ethan opened the locket; he read the inscription. “How'd you get this?”

“Diana gave it to me.”

“She didn't want to keep it?”

“I think she's letting go of things,” Rachel said. She considered the sacrifice. If Diana cared enough for the locket to carry it with her, wouldn't she steal private moments to admire it? Moments when no one was looking, no one was around, when her father wasn't over her shoulder? This would be her thing, hers alone
—
and that would make it precious. Rachel pictured Diana tracing and retracing her steps, searching the floor of the Strand Mall, turning her bedroom inside out. “What are you looking for?” her parents might ask, hovering in the doorway. And Diana would have to answer, “Nothing. I'm not looking for anything,” or make up a thing that meant nothing to her at all, lies piled onto loss. Rachel pitied the girl. Right now, she could be sitting in the little room where detectives put the pieces together: Happy World. Hot fire. Cold daughter.

Rachel had put it together on the beach, huddled with Leonard for warmth, watching the flames. He was more precious to her than anything she could imagine, more than any shell could be to Curtis, any boyfriend could be to Betty. More than a father could be to Diana? Rachel had hugged Leonard as if she could swallow him whole and said yes, they knew who set the fire and no, it was not someone close. Yes, because they knew her. No, because it wasn't possible for Diana to stand with them.

Jason had left her a locket; her father was going to leave Diana a world
—
it probably began to burn the minute she sat alone with the journal, the flames rising with the voice that came alive on each page.

Rachel could see Diana in the dark with a match and a memory she wanted to leave behind. The more Rachel tried to scratch the picture from her mind, the more solid it became. “Careful who you disturb,” Diana once said. Maybe she had said it again to her father. She was almost certainly saying it to herself.

“Thanks,” Ethan said, pocketing the jewelry. “My mom will be surprised.” Color returned to his face. “You want to come with me?”

“It's tempting.” Rachel looked around. Even at seven in the morning, there was a sizeable crowd getting ready to leave. They looked wretched, beaten
—
and probably were, in the sense that they had lost much of what they had. Winning gamblers didn't go home by bus. They returned with the cars they had arrived in. Or they hired a car. Or flew. Losers scraped up what they could to take the bus. In fact, the terminal was one of the last places in the city with pay phones. So many of the calls were the same: “I'm stuck in AC,” they would say, amazed by their inexplicable circumstances. “Can you buy me a ticket?” But no matter how desperate the situation, they were always washed. They may have lost everything, and many were still dizzily drunk, yet they had managed to clean up. Their hair was almost always wet, and when you came close to them, the alcohol on their breath was masked by the apple scent of shampoo.

“My mom's not coming back,” Ethan said flatly, as if the only wonder was that it had taken him so long to see it.

“I'm sorry,” Rachel said. “My mom's going to move in with her boyfriend.”

“What about you?”

“Mrs. K has a room for me. I'm welcome to it
—
as long as I take classes.”

“College?”

“Atlantic Cape Community,” Rachel said. “Close enough.”

Ethan nodded his head. “My mom says she wants to go back to school.”

“To find herself.”

“How'd you know?”

“That's what people say,” Rachel said, stretching her legs out, “when they're getting lost.” The news had moved on to the next segment, two anchors sipping coffee, sharing a gentle chuckle over the most amusing personal interest story ever
—
at least since yesterday. “What time's your bus?”

Ethan pulled a ticket from his pocket. “Seven forty-five,” he said.

“Want to get a bite to eat? Leonard's waiting in the car. We were thinking maybe Rose's for cheesecake.”

“Cheesecake?”

“And coffee.”

“I've never had a cup of coffee,” Ethan said. “I always thought it was one of those things adults like because they're supposed to, not because it's good.”

“No,” Rachel said, “coffee's good.” Across the floor of the terminal, waiting ticket holders slouched on benches or lounged under television screens. A classic rock station played over the PA
—
somebody was going to break somebody's heart tonight. Few people spoke. Who was in the mood? But once they were on the bus with a cup of coffee in them, Rachel guessed, they would open up. Strangers would turn to strangers, and while they wouldn't be specific, they would talk about their losses. Strangers understood without explanations. They would share tips about point spreads and twenty-one, about where the loose slots were and which casinos gave the most generous comps. They would talk about Blue Men and white tigers and Cirque du Soleil, about the best shows and the great, the truly greatest entertainers
—
the best were dead and gone, they'd agree, leaving memories more brilliantly lit than anything they'd see again in their lives. The Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike would race outside their windows, and time would accelerate even faster. On a bus among strangers, sitting still and moving on were one and the same.

“Coffee's the thing,” said Rachel. “I've grown to like it. Really.” She got up from her seat. “Join us?”

“Is there time?” Ethan asked, examining his ticket. “Will I make my bus?”

“Probably not,” Rachel said, offering her hand. “Let me take your bag for you.”

For a moment, Ethan seemed as frozen in space as the television hanging above them, flickering. Then he stirred, returning the ticket to his pocket. “I'll need a lot of milk and sugar,” he said.