Second Chances (10 page)

E
lizabeth
and I walked with William across the sand as the sun cast dark shadows across the lake. The day's heat had settled into a milky haze on the water, but a breeze was making the evening more bearable than the day. William pulled a full case of Blue from a cooler in the back seat of his Volkswagen beetle, and after we took up our position between the bonfire and the shoreline, he popped the tops of three beer bottles with an opener and handed us each a semi-cold one. I took a sip and swished the beer around in my mouth before swallowing.

Michelle and Danny were late and I kept searching for them, my eyes sliding past Elizabeth to scan up the beach. When I finally spotted the two of them coming towards us, they weren't holding hands like they usually did and were walking a little apart. I looked at Elizabeth. She'd turned and was watching them too with a little smile on her face. When they made it to our circle, William and I moved away from each other to give them some space. My brother handed them each a beer. Michelle avoided looking at Elizabeth, who was busy tossing around her hair and smiling at Danny — full-on smiling when she saw that Michelle wasn't looking. After a while, Elizabeth moved around me closer to Danny and reached for his hand. Luckily, Michelle was talking to William and turned away from them.

Nearly everyone at the beach party came up to talk to my brother. He welcomed everyone with a handshake or a hug and included them in our ever-widening circle. Ben Murdoch slung an arm around his neck. They'd been best friends at the lake as long as I could remember.

“Ben! How are you, buddy?” William asked.

“So who's the chick in Toronto? She must be really something to keep you from the lake.” Ben said.

“Not a she.” William turned and spoke into Ben's ear. I tried to listen, but the music was loud and too many people were talking. Ben kept nodding at whatever William was saying. I heard Ben say, “Right on, man. Whatever you need me to do.”

A lot of yelling behind us and we all turned to watch Tyler Livingstone swagger across the beach with his arm draped over Jane Ratherford's shoulder. Her entourage of girlfriends trailed behind them, giggling and talking loudly. By the time they made it to our group, I'd stepped back a few paces to be out of range.

“Hey, man,” Tyler said, grabbing William by the hand and pumping it up and down. “Darlene told me you were home. Great to see you, man.” He looked past William like he was searching for someone. Elizabeth stepped forward.

“Hi, Tyler. I was wondering if you'd be by tonight.”

Tyler squinted, trying to bring my cousin into focus. Jane grabbed him by the arm and whispered something into his ear. She started pulling him away from the group.

“He's drunk as a skunk,” said Michelle.

“As drunk as
I
want to be,” said Danny.

“Turn up the music!” somebody yelled from out of the darkness, and seconds later, Led Zeppelin's “Whole Lotta Love” wailed louder from the boom box on the log somewhere off to my right. I finished the beer I was drinking and reached for another. Energy was crackling in the air like electricity before a lightning storm, and I was caught up in it. I wanted to erase Tyler disappearing into the darkness with his arm around Jane Ratherford's waist. I wanted to forget it wasn't me he wanted to be with.

An hour passed. Then two more. I finished one beer and found another and then another. The music throbbed like a wildly beating heart. Hendrix's “Purple Haze,” Black Sabbath's “Evil Woman,” Melanie's “Ruby Tuesday,” the Guess Who's “American Woman,” the Rolling Stones' “Paint It Black.” A girl started dancing barefoot in the sand. Others joined in until the beach was a swaying mass of bodies and flashes of colour in the firelight. Procol Harum slowed the pace as the opening licks to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” rolled across the beach. I focused suddenly on a swirling tangle of blonde hair, gyrating hips, and a familiar red caftan that twirled like a veil, alive in the shifting light of the fire's flames. Candy had arrived, head thrown back, one hand holding a half-full glass, the other swinging sandals in the air by the straps; flashes of silver when her bracelets caught the glow of the fire.

“Look at her,” said Elizabeth into my shoulder. “She's tripping on something.”

I'd gotten tired of standing and had found a spot on the log nearest to the fire. Elizabeth had settled in beside me. She'd been dancing with Danny and her breath came in warm, shallow pants against my neck.

I didn't answer. My eyes did a slow search of the darkness. We weren't the only ones watching Candy dancing. Other eyes turned from beyond the rim of the fire pit. Candy didn't notice, or if she did, she didn't care. Maybe she liked all those people watching her. She spun in slow circles and wove through the other dancers who parted in her path. Her body twisted and turned, reminding me of a cobra swaying in time to a piper's flute, her arms undulating above her head in time to the music, her skirt rising and falling on her hips. Her bare feet dug into the sand as she spun and worked her way towards the edge of the group. Each step took her that much closer to the fire. She stepped neatly around a log, changing direction slightly so that she was directly in William's line of vision, just a few feet away from him.

My brother had been standing at the edge of the firelight where the shadows were licked with the glow of orange flames. He'd been standing stock still, watching Candy's slow dance across the sand. I looked past her to look into my brother's face. I glimpsed his eyes for an instant, and I was startled by their intensity. They reflected gold and amber in the firelight, and they were fixed on Candy as if nobody else existed.

She can't be the one who broke his heart. It can't be her.

Candy moved in front of him, blocking my view. Her hips kept moving in a slow circle as she reached for my brother, her hand clutching the sandals rising to the back of his head while she flung the empty glass into the sand. Her hips ground against his and he took a step back into the shadows. She followed, all writhing hips and swaying red dress, and as I watched, her lips reached up and found his mouth. They stood locked that way for what seemed a long time before they stepped back into the shadows and the darkness swallowed them up. I turned toward Elizabeth. She was leaning forward and staring into the darkness with me. Her eyes were huge in the orangey glow of the flames.

“I can't believe what I just saw,” she said. “Oh my god, she's one piece of work. A girl could take lessons.”

“I need something to drink,” I said. I stood and fell forward. Elizabeth grabbed my arm.

“Let's go home. What you actually need is to find your bed.”

“If you say so….” my words came out slurred and my stomach did a back flip. “I don't feel so good,” I said.

Elizabeth got a firmer grip around my waist. “Let's get you home, little cousin, or at least away from here. If we're sneaky enough, your father will never know you just drank enough beer to sink the
Titanic
. Count yourself lucky I've had my fill of this party too.”

“You're the best, Lizbeth,” I mumbled, and for that instant, I meant it because she was going to save my hide. “Let's get this ship on the road.”

We started stumbling away from the water into the darker part of the beach. I thought I heard someone call my name, but Elizabeth refused to stop for me to see who it was. I thought later that it was Gideon I'd seen standing near the pine trees, but Elizabeth said I was hallucinating. The night had become a blur. The last thing I remembered was bending over in the bushes to throw up while Elizabeth held me by the shirt to keep me from tumbling in after it.

When I next came to, I was lying in my bed with the walls spinning around me and Elizabeth snoring softly from across the room. I groaned and tried to close my eyes. It felt like bits of sand had ground their way into my eyelids. Maybe I'd grown a tumour in my head. If I was lucky, it would explode and the throbbing would stop. I moaned as quietly as I could and flung an arm over my eyes. I wanted to sleep, to shut off my brain, but sleep didn't come because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the picture from my mind — Candy and William fused onto each other, their mouths together, my brother's eyes closed, his face contorted in pain. Could they have started something in Toronto? Was Candy really in love with Johnny as she'd told me, or had that been a lie?

I rubbed my temples and begged for oblivion, anything to stop the pain behind my eyes. I groaned again and rolled out of bed to stagger to the bathroom to find Aspirin and a wet facecloth. I fell back into my bed after taking two pills, with the cold cloth wrapped around my forehead. I slept for a bit, but not deeply.

When I next opened my eyes and looked at the clock, it was five a.m. I rolled onto my side and stared at the moonlight streaming onto the floor through the open window. The room was still spinning, but it had settled from a nauseous whirl into a gentle roll. Elizabeth must have opened the window as wide as she could before getting into bed, and a breeze was making the curtains billow into the room. I rolled onto my side to get the cool air full in my face. I was awake enough to run the events of the night through my head. There was so much I didn't understand, but it all seemed to come down to the question that kept bouncing around my brain. Why was Candy Parsens making out with my brother like they had a history together when he'd told me he'd never met her or Johnny before?

By the time I made my way downstairs the next morning, breakfast was over and nobody was around. I drank a big glass of water, then poured a bowl of Cheerios and loaded it up with sugar and milk before going into the store to find my mother. She wasn't behind the counter but I found her sitting on the front steps reading Elizabeth's copy of
Love Story
. She smiled sheepishly when I sat down beside her as she closed the book.

“I'm not sure why I'm reading this fluff, except it was lying on the counter in the kitchen and I happened to pick it up.”

“No need to explain,” I said as I tried to push Cheerios down into the milk with the back of my spoon. They didn't want to stay down. They were doing the same thing in my stomach. “I'm surprised Elizabeth let it out of her sight. She's got a thing about that book. Where is she, by the way?” I looked around.

“Out for a walk with Danny somewhere and said she'd be back soon. She seems to be making friends.”

Making
out
with my friend more like. “Yeah, she's doing okay.” I hesitated. “Mom, do you think Johnny and Candy Parsons fit in here at Cedar Lake?” It wasn't what I wanted to ask, but it was all I could think of. The thought of Candy and my brother gnawed away at me, a worry bead I couldn't put my finger on. My mother and Johnny had earned a worry bead of their own, but that was harder to ask about.

Mom looked at me. “Why do you ask that? I don't know Candy at all. Johnny used to live here a long time ago ….” her voice drifted away as if she didn't have the energy to finish what she was saying. Her eyes slid away from mine and focused on something in the distance.

I repositioned my knees sideways so they were resting against her leg. “Last night, at the beach, Candy seemed to know William. I don't know where or how, but they seemed to know each other pretty well. I couldn't figure it out.”

“Candy and William?” Mom frowned. “He never mentioned anything to me about knowing Candy. I thought it was just Johnny.” She clamped her mouth shut.

“Where is William today?” I asked, looking around the yard as if I might find him hiding behind a tree.

“He's driven with your dad to Campbellford to pick up some supplies. They should be back mid-afternoon.”

“And I know you've been seeing Johnny,” I blurted out. I immediately felt miserable. I lowered my head so that my hair fell across my eyes.

Mom was silent for a moment. “Johnny just needs somebody to talk to, that's all it is. You can't go reading too much into things, Darlene.” Her voice held a warning and a hint of fear, or perhaps I was imagining that too.

“I just don't know why they're here.” I was grumpy. I wanted answers and I was getting none. The secrets were starting to weigh on me.

Mom rested her warm hand against my cheek. “You are too impatient, my girl.” She lowered her hand to her lap. Her voice was wistful. “I remember what it was like to be your age waiting for my life to begin. I wanted it all. I thought I had all the answers and that I could control my life.” She paused and her smile was gentle. “Just be careful not to jump in too fast. Everything will unfold in time, Darlene. Enjoy your summer and don't fret about things that aren't your concern.”

I felt Mom's leg pull away from mine and heard the screen door snap back into place after she'd gone into the store. I stared up through the branches of the trees and watched the flickers of sunlight all shimmery and golden on the top side of the leaves with the bottoms shaded and dark. Perhaps the answers were somewhere up there, waiting to sift through the foliage. What was my mother trying to tell me? To trust her? To turn the other way when I saw her with Johnny? If only it were that easy. I couldn't get past Johnny's eyes as he'd searched for my mother in the store and the disappointment when he'd found me instead.

I spent the morning typing in my room. After lunch, I biked over to Gideon's. He was sitting at his typewriter, a freshly brewed pot of tea, a jug of milk, and two mugs waiting on the coffee table, as if he knew I'd be there in time to join him. After I poured us each a cup, I plopped myself down on the couch and Gideon swung his chair around to face me.

“So what's up, Little Fin? You look like something has upset you.”

“I'm fine. Just fine. What're you working on?” I asked.