Under the Boardwalk (5 page)

He grabbed a denim jacket from a peg near the back door and put it on.

"I've gotta go pick up the boys from the beach, so while we're in town we can get a pizza or something."

"The beach? Isn't it kind of cold to hang out by the ocean?"

"Summer in Pajaro Bay is always foggy. But I was talking about your new job—Pajaro Beach Amusement Park. Zac and Chris are pushing brooms there this summer to try to earn a car by their sixteenth birthday." He checked his watch. "I'd better check messages on the home phone just in case they talked Tom into giving them some overtime."

He went out into the hall. Hallie listened from the kitchen while he played back the messages on the answering machine. She heard him skip through one about the next city council meeting, another about a second cousin's baptism in Paso Robles, then a baritone voice came on: "Hi, Kyle. I'm staying over at Brandon's tonight, so don't wait up for me." The voice cracked a little, and Hallie smiled at that dead giveaway of the adolescent caller's true age. There was a mumble in the background, then, "Oh, yeah. Tell Chris to feed the horses for me—give Smoky some extra grain, too." The caller hung up abruptly.

Horses, Hallie thought. It had been years since she'd ridden.... Her girlhood obsession with horses was another one of those childish things she'd given up since her divorce. But Windy—knowing her weakness better than anybody—had been quick to point out to her that the Madrigal ranch had a motley assortment of animals just waiting for her attention.

Hallie reminded herself that this was supposed to be her summer vacation. She just needed a good night's sleep, and then she'd be ready for horseback riding and working at the amusement park and all kinds of fun. When Windy got back from her research trip they'd have the best summer ever.

The next message came on the answering machine. A different voice said: "Kyle, come get me already. It's after four. I just got off work and Zac's off somewhere goofing around, so hurry up. I'm starving." The machine beeped once more, then stopped.

Hallie sat back. On the wall next to the fridge she saw a big bulletin board covered with children's drawings and a couple of newspaper clippings—one with Chris's name highlighted where he'd scored points in a basketball game at the high school, another where Zac's name had been circled in red on the listing of local honor-roll students. She could hear Kyle moving around in the next room, the rattle as he picked up his keys, the creak of the worn oak floorboards under his feet. Hallie felt the tension between her shoulder blades ease.

There was a sound at the back door. A black and orange tortoiseshell cat pushed its way through the cat door and then paused. It looked her over, apparently found her completely unimpressive, and sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and began to wash itself.

Kyle came back into the kitchen. "Chris is starving." He rolled his eyes. "He'll eat anything, so it's your call. Anchovies or no?"

She grimaced.

"I take that as a no," Kyle said, and laughed. "Hey, you pest," he said, leaning down to rub the tortie cat under the chin. "I know you'll always vote for fish, but you'll have to wait here for leftovers." He glanced at Hallie. "Have you two been formally introduced?"

"Not yet. Is this my namesake?"

Kyle picked the cat up. She immediately began to knead his chest with her paws. "Boy, Windy's told you everything about us, hasn't she?"

"She was homesick for this place, and everything in it, right down to your Halloween cat." Hallie went over to where Kyle stood with the cat.

"She doesn't bite," he said softly.

Hallie pulled her hands out of her pockets and ran a hand over the tortie-cat's sleek fur. "Hello, Miss Hallie," she whispered. Halloween just dug her paws into Kyle's chest and purred louder.
We have more in common than our names
, Hallie thought.
She can't keep her paws off his chest either.

Kyle set the cat down. He grabbed a second jacket from the peg by the door. "This isn't quite your size, but it'll keep you from freezing." He helped her on with it.

"Are you sure this isn't bigger than the one you're wearing?"

He chuckled. "It's the smallest one I've got. Honest." He looked her over. "Maybe I can find one of the boys' around. I think all of Windy's stuff from college is still in the dirty laundry pile. She brought home a truckload of laundry."

"I know. I share a closet with her." She began rolling up the sleeves. "It'll be fine, as long as we aren't going to a formal-dress pizza parlor. And as long as you're not too embarrassed to be seen with me."

"Not likely," Kyle said quietly.

He turned out the light and opened the back door. "Let's go."

~*~

"Why are we pulling over?" Hallie asked.

Kyle pulled his red pickup as far onto the shoulder of the road as he could, and turned on the emergency flashers in the fog. "Returning to the scene of the crime, my dear."

Hallie looked around her. "This is it?"

"Yup. You want to wait here?"

"I'll come along. I'd like to see what happened, too."

When they got out, Hallie could see the broken railing, with the truck's flashers reflecting on the bare, twisted metal.

"Hold my hand," Kyle said. Hallie instinctively shoved her hands in her pockets. "I'm serious." His breath made white puffs in the headlights' glare. "I don't want you tripping going down the hill. You've been dizzy." Reluctantly, she gave him her hand.

She knew her hand must feel weird to him, all rough and twisted, but he didn't comment on it.

He led the way down. As they walked, Hallie could see she must have travelled through the broken railing and down a grassy hill that sloped gently for about fifty feet until it reached the wet field, where the shiny pink Bug now sat, splattered with mud.

When they reached the bottom, he got her two cardboard boxes out of the back seat, and relocked the car.

Kyle picked up both boxes, stacked one on top of the other. "I see you travel light."

"Yup. Nothing more than I can carry."

"You must have left a lot of stuff in storage. Windy came back from college with more dirty laundry than this."

She didn't say anything, feeling for some reason ashamed to admit that these two cardboard boxes contained everything she owned in the world.

He was standing there holding the boxes and looking at her. "Lead the way, my dear."

Hallie reached to take a box. "Don't be ridiculous. I can carry my own stuff."

He stepped back. "I don't want you to hurt your hands."

"They're not crippled. They're just ugly." Her voice came out sounding angry. She wasn't angry, she told herself. It was just that her hands weren't a subject she wanted to discuss with anyone, especially not him. She reached again to take the box.

She snatched the box away from him more roughly than she meant to, and lost her balance. He reached out to steady her with one hand before she could fall in the mud.

"It's all right. You won't fall." The voice was soothing, and the hand on her shoulder was gentle. She felt an urge to relax into his arms and let him make everything all right, but she quickly shook it off and backed away. She didn't need his help, she didn't need his reassurance, and she didn't need him making her feel like he was going to take care of her. She knew far too well that knights in shining armor got tarnished real fast.

"Come on," she said gruffly. She headed back to the road, leaving him to follow in her wake.

At the top of the hill she set the box down and stopped to catch her breath. She leaned against the hood of the truck, and took deep breaths to calm herself while she listened to the incessant ticking of the truck's emergency flashers. Her hands ached from that little show of bravado. Stupid. She had nothing to prove to Kyle.

It wasn't his fault he reminded her of things she'd rather forget. He wasn't offering to be her knight in shining armor. He was just a friendly guy who was trying to be a good host to his kid sister's roommate. "I'm sorry," she said when he caught up to her. "I didn't mean to snap at you."

"No problem. You've had a rough day. I'm surprised you didn't slug me." He smiled.
What was with these Madrigals? Didn't they ever get upset about anything?

He picked up both boxes, and this time she didn't protest.

He put the boxes in the back of the truck while she got in the cab. She watched while he walked across the road and slowly examined the dirt and weeds, then came back and did the same on the side with the broken railing.

"Nothing," he said when he got in the truck. He started the engine. "I guess we're left where we started from. A lot of questions and no answers."

Hallie looked at her own reflection in the side window. No answers.

~*~

Oceanside Pizzeria seemed an apt name for the place, though it wasn't really
at
the ocean, but actually on the ocean itself, planted at the very end of the Pajaro Bay wharf. Its walls of plate glass windows captured views of the open water on the bay side, and of the town on the inland side. Their booth faced toward the shore, and Hallie found herself gazing out the window, fascinated. A thin fog covered the land and water, but she could see blurry lights through the mist. Brightly lit Victorian houses dotted the cliff's edge above the beach, and the wharf itself was a ribbon of light snaking back toward the shore. But the village, in fact the entire skyline it seemed, was dominated by the multicolored, constantly swirling glow of the massive roller coaster and towering Ferris wheel of Pajaro Beach right down on the sand itself.

"You really own it?" she asked.

"Yup. We own half the town," Chris said cheerfully. He was a slender echo of his big brother, tall and lanky, but without lines around his eyes. He sat drumming on the tabletop with a pair of breadsticks with the same restless energy that Hallie supposed time and responsibility had muted just a bit in Kyle.

Kyle raised his eyebrows at Chris, and Chris immediately put his "drumsticks" back on his plate.

"If you own half the town how come you work sweeping floors for minimum wage?"

"We're flat broke," said Chris. "Well, not really," he amended after a glance at Kyle. "We're pretty comfortable. But we're land-poor, you see. We'd have money if we sold something, but what could we sell?"

"The unicorns or the roller coaster. Yeah, I see what you mean."

"Exactly."

"The land this town was built on was originally part of the Madrigal Rancho, but our ancestors sold it off in chunks over the years," Kyle explained. "Now we're left with about 800 acres of the ranch itself up on the mountain, a few downtown businesses, and the amusement park." He smiled. "Don't take Chris's sob-story too seriously. We're turning profits on both the ranch and the park—he's just got Ferrari tastes and a '78 Datsun budget, and he's not getting anything he doesn't work for."

"Spoken like a responsible guardian," Hallie said.

"Hmph," Chris snorted. Then he added, "Kyle was gonna sell Pajaro Beach. When we were just kids. But he changed his mind."

"After the fire," Kyle said. "Did Windy tell you?" She saw sadness in his eyes; for the first time his unstoppable good cheer gave way.

"Our parents died, you know," Chris said. "When we were babies. The fire wiped out the whole south half of the park—the log ride, an antique Ferris wheel and carousel, some funky old bumper cars." He munched on his breadstick. "It's all been rebuilt now, of course. That big Ferris wheel's new." He pointed out the window.

"Doesn't it bother you to work there?" she asked.

"Of course not. Their ghosts are there."

"Ghosts?"

Kyle's smile was back. "My great-grandmother planted the cherry trees—remember, the ones the white deer was munching on?—just before she died. Our barn is filled with all kinds of odd stuff our grandfather collected—Windy'll corral you into a tour of her favorite bits of it before the summer's over—"

"—And the park was our great-grandfather's grand scheme to get tourists to come here back at the turn of the century," Chris finished the thought. "The merry-go-round he ordered from back East arrived the day his first son was stillborn, in 1927. Then our parents died trying to save the park he built. See? We're surrounded by ghosts."

"How sad."

Kyle smiled. "Life goes on. You can't mourn forever. We're all surrounded by the ghosts of our pasts."

"What's that a quote from?" Chris asked idly.

"Heck if I know. Hey, Matt," Kyle said. A man with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail and somber brown eyes looked up from across the room. "What's a guy gotta do to get something to eat around here?"

The man came over, an intimidating, almost ninja-looking guy. Hallie sat back in her chair and put her hands in her lap.

"You might try introducing me to the lovely lady." He smiled, but his eyes, fathomlessly dark, just frightened her.

"Ah. Matt DiPietro, this is Hallie Reed. She's mine," Kyle added in a stage whisper.