Unraveling Isobel (4 page)

“You're a girl. You're supposed to like pink.”

“Tell me you did
not
just say that.”

“What? Pink doesn't go with your goth image?”

“My image isn't goth,” I said through clenched teeth.

“What is it then?”

“Nothing. I'm capable of coming up with my own look instead of dressing like a clone.”

“Dressing all in black is being a rebel clone. Low rent.”

“Fuck you.”

“Isobel!” My mom and Dick appeared in the doorway. My mom's face was flushed. I had the sense she wasn't impressed with my language choice.

“Did you hear what he said to me?” I asked her.

“No, and we don't want to know.” Dick crossed his arms and gave both Nathaniel and me a stern look. “We're not going to get in the middle of you two. Do you think we can't see what you're doing? We're a family now. You can't ask your mom to take your side any more than Nathaniel can expect me to take his. The two of you are going to have to work things out on your own, and I would hope that you could learn to do it without resorting to foul language.”

“But she—” Nathaniel started to say.

“Nathaniel, remember your breeding,” Dick barked. Nathaniel swallowed whatever he was about to say and stood up straight as if he were in a military prep school. “Honestly, you two are acting like children.”

“She wants this as her bedroom,” Nathaniel said, biting off
each word. “I was trying to explain to her that wasn't possible.”

I wasn't backing down. “You said I could pick out whatever bedroom I wanted. No one is using this room, so what's the big deal?” This was the room I wanted. Not only was it the only room I could possibly imagine myself living in for the next year, it was also separate from the rest of the house. I needed some distance if I was going to survive.

“How did you even get up here?” Nathaniel asked. “The door to this floor is kept locked.”

“It wasn't locked,” I said.

“It's always locked.”

“Okay, you busted me. I jimmied the lock, just a little trick I learned on the wrong side of the tracks with my low-rent buddies.”

“Isobel, honestly. What has gotten into you?” My mom shook her head as if she didn't know me.

“The door wasn't locked,” I repeated.

“This was my sister's room,” Nathaniel said.

The air was suddenly sucked out of the space. My mom looked at me as if she blamed me for bringing up this awkward issue. How was I supposed to know this was Evelyn's room? It wasn't as if there was a nameplate on the door, and there wasn't a thing left on the walls or shelf that would indicate it belonged to anyone. Besides, why would her bedroom have been so far away from the others? I suddenly remembered the stuffed zebra. Shit. I bet that belonged to Evelyn too. The zebra was propped up next
to the duffel bag at my feet. It didn't look like anyone had seen him yet. With a silent apology, I nudged him under the bed with my foot so he was out of sight. I didn't need to be accused of poaching the dead girl's toys in addition to her room.

“If Isobel wants this room, it should be hers,” Dick said. I couldn't tell who was most surprised by his announcement.

“Dad!” Nathaniel looked shocked. I could tell he had expected his dad to back him up on this one.

“She can pick something else,” my mom rushed in to say. “She doesn't need to be a bother.”

“We can't keep this room a shrine to the past.” Dick gave a weak smile. “I should have realized a girl would want her own bathroom and some space to herself. You go ahead and move your things up here.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“This was Evie's room,” Nathaniel said again. His jaw was tight and it looked to me like his eyes were starting to tear up.

“The house is centuries old. If we saved rooms for all the people who were gone, we would have run out of rooms by now. We'd be forced to sleep in the garage.” Dick chuckled, but I could tell Nathaniel didn't find the situation even remotely funny. I couldn't really blame him. His mom and sister hadn't even been gone a year and Dick was acting like it was no big deal. “Nathaniel can show you where the linens are kept, Isobel, so you can make up your bed. Now, you get settled, and your mom and I will rustle up some sandwiches for dinner. It's been a
long day. Later we can play a round of Scrabble together.” Dick clapped his hands like he was a kindergarten teacher and it was activity time. My mom was giving him a tearful smile like she couldn't believe how brave and caring he was being by letting me have the bedroom.

Nathaniel and I stared at each other. I wasn't sure where things had gotten so off track between us. Actually, we'd never really been
on
track. When I met him, I thought he looked rich, like when he was a baby his diapers had been cashmere. He came across as the kind of person who would never hang out with someone like me, and so far, that had proven to be the case.

“Look,” I began, but before I could say another word, Nathaniel turned around and left, slamming the door behind him.

“I'll talk to him.” Dick followed him out, treating the door more gently.

Now that we were alone, my mom shot me a look.

“I didn't do anything. Dick told me to pick out a bedroom.”

“Would you
please
call him Richard?” My mom paced the room and then stopped to gaze out the window. “I know you're not happy, but is it asking too much that you try to make this work?”

“Mom, this is my senior year—” I began.

“This is the beginning of the rest of my life,” she cut in. “Do you know how many things I put on hold for you? How much I sacrificed over the years? Now I have a chance to start over.
We
have a chance to start over. Having Richard as a stepfather is going to open doors for you, too. Can't you give me one year of your life when I've given you seventeen?”

I loved how she had this way of making my entire existence a burden to her when I hadn't asked to be born in the first place. “You don't believe me, but I'm doing the best I can. I'm here. I'm trying, but it's hard. I don't know anyone.”

“You know Nathaniel.”

“Nathaniel hates me,” I pointed out.

“He doesn't hate you. He's just having a hard time with all of this.”

“Welcome to the party.”

“Nathaniel is sensitive because of what happened to his mom and sister.”

“What
did
happen? Was it a car accident?” My mom had always been vague about how Dick's first wife and Evelyn had died. It didn't seem like the kind of thing I could ask a lot of questions about without coming across like an insensitive jerk. For some reason, with all the wedding planning there had never been a good time to bring up the dead first wife.

“No, it was a boating accident.”

My knowledge of sailboats and yachts was pretty sketchy. All I could picture was some kind of
Titanic
-type incident, but there weren't even any icebergs out here. What else could happen to a boat? Did it run into another boat? Isn't the ocean big enough that they shouldn't run into anything else?

“Wow.” I was at a loss for anything else to say. How did Nathaniel stand this house, with the sound of the ocean in the background like a constant reminder? No wonder the guy was edgy.

“Richard says Nathaniel hasn't been the same since the accident. He withdrew from his friends, quit the soccer team, and won't talk about it with Richard no matter how hard he tries. He won't even step foot on the boat.”

“Dick kept the boat?” My voice came out a little screechy, and my mom raised an eyebrow. “I mean, Richard still has the boat? Isn't that weird?” By weird I meant disturbing as hell, and morbid, but I was trying to be more balanced in my communication style.

“If it were just any boat, that would be one thing, but it's a handmade wooden sailboat from the 1950s. It's been in his family a long time. Richard's dad was the one who restored it.”

“Huh.” Maybe Dick's dad had restored it, but his wife and daughter had
died
on it. I'm all for family memories, but this felt wrong on so many levels.

“It was an accident, after all. It wasn't like it was the boat's fault.” Mom's face flushed, which told me that she thought it was creepy too, but she wasn't going to admit it. “He understands how upsetting it is, especially for Nathaniel, so he keeps it locked in the boathouse for now.”

My mom started picking at her thumbnail the way she always does when she's stressed. During most of my childhood,
she had raw, bloody cuticles from where she would tear the skin off. She'd stopped in the past few months. For the wedding, she'd even gotten a manicure. “I'll try harder,” I said, giving in.

My mom gave me a huge smile. I could see her take a deep breath. She crossed the room with a quick stride and hugged me.

“That's all I can ask, just give it a try. Richard likes you. He's trying really hard to make you feel at home here.”

I didn't bother telling her that the harder Dick tried, the more it made me want to run away. My mom brushed the hair out of my eyes and slipped out of the room. I could hear the waves outside. I sat down on the bed and pulled the zebra out from underneath.

“Looks like it's just you and me, buddy.”

When you're seventeen and the only friend you have in town is a stuffed animal that doesn't even belong to you, I think it's safe to say your life is officially in the shitter.

Chapter 4

“
Y
ou did
not
move into the dead girl's room!” Anita's voice screeched through my cell phone. My best friend has two volume settings—mute and screaming. She's never going to make it as a librarian, that's for sure. She has never understood the concept of using your inside voice. Then again, “moderation” isn't a term I would ever use when describing Anita.

“It's the nicest bedroom in the place.” I looked around the room from my vantage point of the center of the bed. After a dinner where Dick and my mom pretended everything was fine and Nathaniel ignored me completely, I decided against an evening of board games, no matter how fun Dick tried to make it sound. Apparently his mom was some big Scrabble nut, so he wanted to carry on another fine family tradition. Most likely there was an heirloom Wickham Scrabble set with tiles some
distant relative whittled out of trees that used to grow on the estate property.

Instead I went up to my room to get organized. I made the bed and hung my poster on the far wall. I stuck Mr. Stripes back under the bed so I wouldn't be accused of stuffie stealing. I unpacked a bunch of postcards of paintings that I had bought from the art museum in Seattle or had picked up at the various galleries, and made them into a collage on the wall above my bed. I piled my books onto the shelves and stuck the few other things I had brought around the room so it felt more like my own space. I stared out the window. I'd never had a room with a view before, unless you count looking directly into our neighbor's house. Mr. Turken tended to dance around in his boxers a lot. I usually kept my curtains shut. The wind was picking up now and it looked like it was going to turn into a big storm.

“I can hardly hear you,” Anita yelled in my ear.

“I know, the reception here sucks. I didn't want to call you on the landline in case Dick has a rule about long-distance charges.”

“Dick's a dick. Let's talk about someone more interesting. How's lover boy?”

“He's my stepbrother now, remember? Most states have laws against sleeping with a sibling.”

“He's not your real brother, which means he's fair game. Totally legit. Besides, could he be better looking? It's always open season on someone that hot. If you don't want him, I'll swim over there and take him off your hands.”

“He's not on my hands. He can't stand me.”

“Not stand you? With all your wit and charm? He must be playing hard to get.”

“More like impossible to get. Besides, he's my stepbrother. I'm hoping that somewhere on this island there will be someone who is reasonably attractive, not a weirdo,
and
not related to me.”

“Negative energy! Blow it out. You want to attract positive energy. Think white-light stuff. Happy thoughts.”

I suddenly missed her like crazy. “I wish I was there. This sucks.”

“Just remember, by this time next year we'll be roommates.” We had already vowed to apply to the University of Washington and get an apartment together near campus. “Visualize the end goal so the universe knows what you want. Besides, you're living on an island in the middle of nowhere. Think of it like an artist's retreat. People pay big money to go to those things, and you're there for free. You can get a bunch of stuff done for your portfolio without being distracted by civilization and stuff.”