Tighter (18 page)

He nodded in mock seriousness. “Ahem. For what it’s worth, here’s my essay: ‘What’s So Great about Another Day, by some dude named Sebastian Brooks.’ Take today. Did you have any idea that the sky could really be this blue?” He pointed up.

“Thanks. Sometimes I forget where the sky is.”

“Hide behind your sarcasm all you want, Miss Atkinson. But this color is like a whole new fresh coat of sky made just for us.”

“Summer skies are always pretty,” I said.

“Or how about Isa’s lemonade? That’s worth living for. Sweet and sour, with all that lemon pulp and mint like a salad at the bottom? Oh yeah, baby.” He picked up a glass and shook it, then drained it.

“It’s not bad,” I concurred.

“Or what about that tiny chip in your front top tooth that I love to look at?”

I closed my mouth, my tongue searching for the chip. Its sandpaper edge. “I’m getting it filed next dentist’s appointment,” I told him.

“Don’t. It’s perfect. Just like the sky and the lemonade and this crystal-blue, arctic-cold pool water. So many things have conspired to make this day great. And it’s not even lunchtime.”

“Either you’re the most optimistic person I’ve ever met in my life, or you’re a truly accomplished actor.”

Sebastian wriggled his eyebrows. “We’ll have to hang out more, so you can decide.” He snapped his T-shirt off the lounge chair and yanked it down over his head. “But now I gotta get moving. I’m doing deliveries today.” Lacing his fingers through mine, he squeezed our hands into a single fist. “It’s been brief, but real.”

“I’m bummed about the brief part.” And I was. I wished he could stay with me all day. Sebastian Brooks was the sanest thing in my life, probably.

Instead, I walked him out front, where the Sunrise Dry Cleaners minivan was parked. I whistled low.

“These are some pretty fierce wheels,” he acknowledged. Then he quickly kissed me at the nape of my neck, catching me by surprise. My eyes moved to the kitchen, then to the upstairs window.

“Mrs. Hubbard is definitely spying,” said Sebastian, reading my thoughts, his lips warm and pressed against my neck. “That’s a crab apple old lady’s duty. But it’s not like we’re up to anything taboo out here.”

Which reminded me. “Did that sound strange to you, what Isa said, earlier? About Peter and Jessie?” I asked. “That whole pulling-down-the-top thing.”

Sebastian slipped a few strands of my hair behind my ear. “Naw. Half of what Pete and Jess did, they did for show. And those kids weren’t angels.” Sebastian pulled his keys from his pocket and jingled them. He wasn’t moving to climb inside the minivan, but he wasn’t moving in for another kiss, either.

“Spill it,” I told him. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Okay, listen, Jamie—I don’t think you should let Isa’s world dominate so big. Before you came down, she and I were hanging out poolside for a while, and I’m all for dramatic improv, but her imagination can spin her out pretty far.”

“Sure,” I agreed out loud, though I didn’t agree, not at all.

“I don’t want to get you defensive.” He opened the van door and slid inside, lowering the music so that we could keep talking. “Everyone’s protective of Isa. We’ve all known her since she was a baby. So when I see her playing those games, I can’t help feeling like you need to reel her in a little.”

“She’s got strong memories of last summer,” I said. “Nightmares that she doesn’t want to talk about. Jessie’s presence was complicated, and Jessie’s absence is still complicated. So no, I don’t agree with you. Because I prefer to let Isa be a kid, if that’s what makes her feel safe.”

His eyes seemed to gauge me. “Jess and Pete weren’t what I’d call an impeccable influence. But you’re different, Jamie. You understand that little girl’s world. That’s why I feel like you could do more than just accept that she’s lost inside it. Isa needs to outgrow being that same child Jessie took care of. She needs to step out of her past.”

Sebastian wanted me to agree with him so much that I tried to meet him halfway. “I’ll … think about that.” And while I’d been considering telling him my agenda for today, now I mentally nixed that idea. No way would he approve.

Instead, we firmed up the plans for Finley Beach. Sebastian would pick me up at eight, we’d go to the concert, grab a bite to eat on the boardwalk and meet up with the whole gang at the Rickrack later.

“Looking forward to it,” he said. “But be warned, I know all the lyrics to all their songs, and I’m not afraid to belt ’em out.”

“You can’t scare me.”

“So don’t go running to Aidan with your hands over your ears.”

“Very funny.”

A few more kisses—to hell with the Funsicle—and then the minivan was rattling down the drive. And even after Sebastian was gone, his good spirits stayed with me. A night out listening to music with people my age, away from Skylark, with no Milo, no Isa, no Connie and definitely no pills to mess me up. If I could just hold on to the hope of this weekend, I could push through this next thing that I had to do.

TWENTY-TWO

“Isa,” I called as I came back around the house to find that she’d returned to the pool with a fresh pitcher of lemonade, and now, glass in hand, was sunning herself on the lounge chair. “What’re you up to today?”

She cocked her head. “Milo said he’d hang out with me when he gets home from golf.”

I sat, swinging my legs over the edge of the pool. “Or—how about come with me off the island to visit someone?”

“Off Bly? Connie won’t like that. Not at all.” She stood, stretched and knelt by the pool to drag in the raft. Then she belly-flopped onto it, holding me captive waiting for her answer as she flipped over and used her foot to push off the side and spin herself in a languid circle. “She was always accusing Jessie of taking me off the island.” Isa raised an eyebrow at me, letting me be the judge of what she wasn’t admitting.

“Right. I was hoping we could keep this private.” I looked up at the house.
Mrs. Hubbard is definitely spying
, Sebastian had said. And now that Sebastian was gone, this fact got under my skin. “So how about I’ll just tell her we’re going to Green Hill? Sound good?”

Isa considered this. “I’ll wear my jean skirt that Connie says is too short, okay?”

“You drive a hard bargain. Deal.”

“Deal.” Isa had slipped her heart-shaped pink sunglasses back over her eyes, but I didn’t need to peer into them to feel confident that she wouldn’t sabotage me. And Connie could be relentless. Poking for specifics, and then she’d want me to do this favor and pick up that thing, and her lisping requests would be a nagging footnote to the trip.

Isa beat me into the house. She was dressed and ready in minutes.

No meds today, obviously. I couldn’t drive the precious cargo of Isa with so much as a single antihistamine washing through my blood. Even though the muscles of my lower back cricked and my heart was beating so fast that at every mile marker, I had to actively resist the urge to wheel the car around and beat a full retreat.

I wasn’t even sure I’d do it until the last minute, the final turnoff for the ferry.

“Weeee!” Isa shouted into the breeze.

“We,” I agreed, less enthused.

It was expensive to transport the car on the ferry, so I’d brought all my money with me. Once we’d crossed, I used some of it to settle my doubts, taking Isa to a family-style restaurant with laminated menus and a juice glass of crayons on the table. Loading her up on chicken fingers and fries and hinting that maybe we’d make another stop at the Dairy Queen after Pendleton.

“Who’re we visiting, again?” Isa asked as she used a fry to wipe up the bloody dregs from her ketchup puddle.

“A friend of my mom’s, who’s sick. She’s staying in a kind of a nursing-home situation,” I answered, working through my story out loud.

“An old lady?”

“I guess so.”

“Some old ladies are sweet, but a lot of old ladies are mean and boring.”

“It’s a quick visit. Cross my heart.”

“If she’s the second category, I’ll put my finger on my nose, which is code for don’t make me talk to her.”

“I’m not even sure she’s there.”

“Like this.”

“I get the signal, Isa. Loud and clear.”

We climbed back into the car. Isa slept, mouth wide open and peaceful—nice to see, considering all her fitful nights at Skylark. She didn’t stir until we’d turned off at the exit and the outlying sweep of fields came into view.

There was nothing strange or scary about Pendleton. Nothing institutional or even like a British boarding school. But as soon as we pulled in through the harp-shaped gates and I began to follow the signs to parking, Isa snapped awake as if something had stuck her. “Oh no.” She began to shake her head.

“Oh no, what?” My heart skipped a beat.

“Oh no, we’re not stopping here, are we?” Worriedly, she jerked around her seat. “This is the loony bin.”

“I don’t think so. It’s more of a health facility.”

“You’re wrong—it’s where the crazies live. I don’t get it. Pete’s mom is your mom’s friend?”

Here it was. First confirmation that a Katherine Quint was in residence here. I just hadn’t figured on it coming from Isa. I attempted to sound relaxed. “So I take it you’ve been to Pendleton before?”

“A couple of times, with Pete and Jess. But, Jamie, you don’t want to go anywhere near here. You really don’t.” Isa’s hand was clenched around the door handle.

“Please, Isa? It’s just for a few minutes.”

“You lied, didn’t you? Pete’s mom isn’t friends with your mom. She’s a loony. She’s not friends with anybody. Why do you want to see her, Jamie? Why, really?”

“Because she has something I need. Isa, stop looking at me like that. Give me twenty minutes, and then I’ll do anything—I’ll buy you two Blizzards from Dairy Queen, both your picks, and you can give me the one you don’t like as much.”

“Ten minutes,” said Isa, wary but resigned.

We parked around back and got out of the car. Isa glared at the building. “Connie would be mad if she knew you were taking me here. She got really angry at Jessie about it. It makes my stomach hurt, doing all these same things with you that I did with her.”

“I’m sorry, Isa. Like I said, we’ll be quick.” Though my own mind was a whirligig as we began to walk toward the glass lobby doors. “You’re very chill to put up with me.” But I felt terrible, even as I had to ask her, “And would you please, please, please not tell Connie about this trip?”

“You better hope I don’t. Connie says this is no place to bring a young person.” But then on impulse she clutched my hand, an assuring squeeze and drop. “Okay,” she said softly. “I won’t tell.” Then her voice lowered to a whisper. “Don’t let her talk to me. She’s a witch, Jamie. That’s why she’s locked up here. You can see how wrong she is just by her eyes, how they twitch all around.”

“You don’t even have to look at her, and I definitely won’t ask you to talk to her.” My mind reeled. But I couldn’t stop now, I was so close, I had to keep chasing it. Whatever her mental state, Katherine Quint had seen Peter right at the end. She had to have noticed something, witnessed something.

In the main entrance of rubbery palms, its floor-through carpet vast and beige as a desert, I stopped at a security desk, where I showed my driver’s license and got directions that landed us two floors up, at a half-moon-shaped nurses’ station.

“I’m here to see Katherine Quint,” I said to a nurse whose face was dominated by an intense pair of black-framed glasses. “I’m a family friend.”

She entered the name and shook her head, displeased. “You’re not on my log.”

I steeled her in my eye, giving her my best Jessie. “I’ve visited a couple of times before, last year,” I pressed. “Or maybe you recognize her?” As I pointed out Isa, who was aimlessly jiggling the knob of a vending machine down by the elevators.

The nurse looked from me to Isa and back again. Her stare softened. “You do look familiar. So does that pretty little girl. What are your names?”

“Isa McRae.” I went for it. “And Jessie Feathering.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Good to see you again. One minute.” She pulled on her cardigan and left her station, crossing to use a red wall phone on the other side of the room. It seemed like a lifetime of waiting until she nodded.

“Go on up,” she said. “Katherine says she knows you both. You’ll meet in the common room. Once I buzz you through, it’s down the hall to the second sign-in desk.”

We walked through. Isa dragging, me terrified but brisk.

Although I’d never seen her before, I recognized Katherine Quint immediately. She had Pete’s broadly sloped shoulders and pale eyes, only hers were watery and watched me from under half-mast, crepe-y lids. Motionless in her armchair, one of the few stray pieces of furniture in the bare-bones recreation room, empty save one old man dozing in his wheelchair by the window, she did not appear at all surprised to see me. Cautiously, I came to stand a few feet away from her, nearer to the ladder-back chair that she did not invite me to sit in.

Isa held back.

“You brought the girl,” she said. Her voice was reedy and childish; it didn’t seem to have aged along with the rest of her. “That wasn’t your best idea,
Jessie.
She’s a very susceptible child. High-strung, I remember, when the three of them came to visit.”

“I had to take her. I’m her babysitter. I couldn’t just leave her. And she helped me—she was a way in.”

“Now all you’ll need to do is figure a way to get out.” The way Katherine said this was excessively hammy and theatrical, like a character in one of those early Hitchcock movies from the 1940s. If she meant it to be amusing, it only emphasized that she seemed off-key and off-kilter, a person sealed from modern technologies and preoccupations.

But I smiled, tight-lipped, anyway. It was not as if she could help living here. We studied each other, trying to make sense of the other’s presence
round and round the cobbler’s bench a monkey chased a weasel the monkey thought t’was all in fun

“Hi, Mrs. Quint,” said Isa, approaching to halt briefly at my side, just long enough to make a performance of touching her nose before she veered off to sort through a pile of old magazines strewn over a coffee table.