Blue Moon Bay (4 page)

Uncle Herbert's place, Harmony Shores Funeral Home, was only a few blocks farther, just past the post office and the Ranch House Bank.

“Let me off here, okay?” I said, suddenly not ready to face my family.

Gary glanced over his shoulder. “Here? At the hardware store?”

His wife swiveled in her seat, giving me a quizzical look. “We can drive you all the way.”

“It's all right. My uncle's place isn't far.” Somehow, I couldn't imagine pulling in with Gary and family in tow. Harmony Shores was a stately old estate, a classic example of nineteenth century Greek Revival architecture, but strangers tended to find the idea of a combined residence and funeral home rather odd.

When Mom, Clay, and I had moved into the gardener's cottage out back following my father's death, there'd been no end to the whispers. Couple that with the dark, drab, chain-laden and somewhat vampirish style of dress I'd adopted as a protest when my father had moved us to Moses Lake, and I'd looked way too much like I might be sleeping in one of the coffins myself. Kids can be merciless, and when your mother is the reason the prodigal son left town in the first place, so can adults.

Gazing at the hardware store now, I remembered passing by on my way to the pharmacy and wishing Blaine Underhill would come out to help some customer with an inner tube or a fishing pole. In my teenage imagination, Blaine would look my way, and against all social mores and at risk to his reputation, discover his undeniable attraction to the skinny girl in the dark clothes and ridiculous goth makeup job.

It was an insane fantasy with which I both entertained and tortured myself throughout my senior year of high school. It kept me tromping back to chemistry class, day after day, and it broke my heart night after night. I wanted Blaine Underhill to love me; he didn't even know who I was.

Such are the twisted dreams of teenage girls.

It didn't occur to me until I was actually on the hardware store sidewalk, hugging Gary and family good-bye, that Blaine Underhill's family might still own the hardware store. The Underhills had been in Moses Lake since long before the Corps of Engineers ousted a settlement of Mennonites from the farms in the valley, then dammed the river and created the lake.

Blaine had been a prince in this small town; his stepmother was the queen and his dad the banker. When I could get away from home long enough, I used to stand in the convenience store, catty-corner from the hardware store, peeking out the window while I pretended to peruse the magazines. I'd watch Blaine there in his football jersey, his dark brown hair curling on his suntanned neck as he sorted through the inner tubes for kids in swimsuits, or carried bags for little old ladies, or flirted with girls in bikinis. If there'd been a pin-up poster of Blaine Underhill in
Teen Time
magazine, I would have bought it and tacked it on my wall in some secret place.

“ . . . that okay?”

I realized that Gary was talking to me, and I hadn't heard a thing.

“Sorry,” I answered, noticing that he'd unloaded my suitcase and laptop on the sidewalk. I whirled a hand by my ear, rolling my eyes apologetically. “Had my head in the past there for a minute. This town hasn't changed at all.”

“There's something comforting about a place that doesn't change.” Gary couldn't have known how wrong he was about that. My sweet memories of childhood visits to Moses Lake had been permanently painted over by the blackness of that senior year in high school. I'd spent the first three months of our stay trying to punish my father for marooning us on the family farm outside town, and the other six months living in the tiny gardener's cottage behind Uncle Herbert's funeral home, mired in the grief and guilt that followed my father's death.

Standing in the middle of town now, I sensed that those emotions could be as potent as ever if I let them, so I concentrated on expressing gratitude to the Good Samaritans who'd spent their anniversary saving me from disaster. “I really don't even know how to thank you. If there's ever anything I can do to pay you back—advice on the clinic designs, anything, really—please let me know. When I get back to Seattle, I'll send money for the gas.”

Smiling pleasantly, Gary lifted a hand. “No money needed. It's a blessing to be a blessing. That's what my mother always said. Just pass it on to someone else when you get the chance. Can we pray for you before we go?”

Gary's wife smiled expectantly, and his daughters extended their hands, ready to form a prayer circle on my behalf.

I felt the momentary culture shock of having been asked that question, of being back below the Mason-Dixon line, where such an inquiry was considered perfectly natural. Nine years in the city—and not that I hadn't met plenty of passionate churchgoers—but I'd couldn't recall anyone coming right out and asking me that. Typically, I didn't run in those sorts of circles.

“Sure.” I could hardly say no after all they had done for me. Slipping in somewhat awkwardly between Gary's daughters, I closed my eyes and bowed my head, and for some reason, thought of Trish. She was actually quite spiritual herself, in the broader sense of the word. She thought it was ridiculous when I told her that I'd grown up in church with my father and didn't have issues with it, but I just didn't want to go anymore.
That's like saying you believe fatty foods cause heart attacks and then eating fried chicken all day,
she pointed out.
I mean, if what you do and what you believe are two different things, it's a guilt trap, right?

Trish would have loved the sight of me standing on the sidewalk, hand in hand with the dentist's family as they prayed for my journey.

When the prayers ended, I did feel better, in a strange way—as if perhaps some special blessing had been called down and might ease my return to Moses Lake. Nearby, the white wooden steeple of Lakeshore Community Church glistened in the late-afternoon sunlight, as if in punctuation.

Gary's wife looked up at it and said, “It's a gorgeous day. Let's take a drive around the lake before we head back home. We can do the anniversary dinner tomorrow night.”

Gary agreed, and even the girls looked toward the lake, placid in its deep blue winter coat.

“What a pretty little town,” Gary's wife remarked, and I was startled by the chasm between their perspectives and mine. To me, this place would never again be beautiful.

Even so, I took a moment to describe some of the sights they might see on their drive—the cliffs above Eagle Eye bridge; the historic marker that told the legend of the Wailing Woman, whose voice could be heard moaning through the cliffs; the spire-like rock formations north of the dam, where tourists pulled off at the scenic turnout to watch bald eagles nesting. I finished by telling them about Catfish Charley's, my great-uncle's floating fried food Mecca, where they could eat batter-crisp fish while being watched by Charley, the hundred-pound primordial catfish who'd been greeting diners from his tank for as long as I could remember.

“I think they're only open on weekends in the winter, come to think of it, but if you want some dinner before you head back, the food is good at the Waterbird, over by the dam,” I added, and then I realized that the Waterbird might not even be there anymore. It's funny how the mind believes that the places of your childhood will always be waiting for you to come back to them. “I mean, I guess it's still around. Anyway, the view of the lake is beautiful there, and it's sort of a tradition—people go in and sign the back wall of the store, sometimes leave a favorite quote. The legend is that if you sign the wall of wisdom with someone, you'll return to Moses Lake together again.”

A lump rose in my throat. My father and I had signed the wall together when I was a girl. Every time we visited after that, we went by the Waterbird to look at our handiwork, touching the quote like a talisman. When we moved to Moses Lake that final year, I'd refused to visit the wall with Dad. I'd broken the chain. . . .

As I told Gary's family good-bye and watched them drive off, the blessing they'd pronounced over me seemed to fly away with them, rolling down the main street of Moses Lake, growing smaller, and smaller, until it drifted out of sight, and I was once again all alone, with no ID, no phone, and no money, in the last place I ever thought I'd find myself.

The man who troubles the water

might soon enough drown in it.

—Fisherman's proverb
(via Catfish Charley, feeding lakesiders since 1946)

I
'd barely been in Moses Lake ten minutes, and I could already feel the place winding around me, quietly and efficiently, a spider twisting silken threads about an errant moth before it can break loose and fly away.

The bells on the hardware store door jingled, and my mind tripped over itself. “May I help ye-ew?” The question traversed the parking lot in a long, sticky-sweet Southern drawl, and for an instant, I was like an astronaut being pulled into a black hole, lost in time and space. I turned to find Blaine Underhill's stepmother, a ghost from yesteryear, standing in the hardware store doorway, wearing a peach-colored pantsuit, her puffy hair still the same brassy shade of blond, pulled back in a pearl-toned headband. “Do you need directions to someplace, hon?”

The word
hon
took me by surprise. Even though some of the Moses Lake ladies had attempted to adopt me as a somewhat lost cause after my father's death, I was never
hon
to Mrs. Underhill. She couldn't quite forgive me for being the product of the unwelcome union of my father and the freewheeling out-of-towner who stole him away.

Clearly, she didn't recognize me now. I hadn't considered the possibility that, while the people of Moses Lake still loomed large in my mind, they might not even remember me. It was strangely pathetic to think that I'd been reacting all these years to people for whom I was just a temporary blip on the radar.

“No, I'm fine,” I answered, and then started walking, conscious of Mrs. Underhill staring after me, no doubt wondering why I was dragging luggage along the side of the highway. She was probably thinking,
What an odd little thing. . . .

I headed out of town, past Lakeshore Community Church, its brown stone walls warming in the winter sunlight beneath a patina of dust and moss. The doors to the squatty low-ceilinged fellowship hall were open, a half-dozen cars parked out front. An elderly woman in a red coat was trying to wrestle a wheelchair from the trunk of her car. After glancing back and forth between her and the door a couple times, wishing someone would come out and help her before she hurt herself, I parked my suitcase near the road and jogged across the gravel parking lot. The suede boots that had set me back a week's salary squished in a layer of creamy, limestone-colored goo as I skirted puddles left behind by a winter rain.

“Here, let me help you,” I said, and unfortunately startled her off-balance. She caught herself against the car, with a bug-eyed look. Such was usually the way with my awkward attempts at random acts of kindness. I wasn't meant to be folksy and friendly, but I had promised Gary that I would pay it forward. If not for an act of kindness, I'd still be standing at the bus station, or worse yet, sleeping in an airport chair in Denver.

“Oh!” the woman gasped, catching her breath and squinting at me through glasses thick enough to make me wonder if she'd driven herself here. Something about her was familiar, but I couldn't decide what. “Oh, well, all right. Aren't you sweet?” She pulled and stretched the words, adding extra syllables on
ri-ight
and
swe-eet
. Scanning the parking lot, she tried to figure out where I'd come from.

She motioned to the sidewalk in front of the fellowship hall. “Just set it up there, hon. It's my cousin's. I was tryin' to make room back here for the casseroles.”

Casseroles. Why did it not surprise me that the casserole ladies were on the move again today?

A blue piece of cardboard tangled in the spokes of the wheelchair as I pulled it out, and I rested the chair against the trunk rim for a moment, wiggling the paper loose and dropping it into the trunk. It flipped over and slid partway under a folded navy-and-gold Moses Lake High stadium blanket. I found myself cocking my head to read, from the bottom up, the bold, white letters on the royal blue sign.
Precinct 4. County Commission. Underhill. Blaine. Vote for.

Huh . . . Looked like Blaine Underhill hadn't strayed far from the hometown. “You shouldn't be lifting this thing on your own,” I said, noticing that there was a rather large stack of Blaine Underhill signs wedged against the side of the trunk.

The woman noticed that I was staring. “That's my grandson.” Reaching into her oversized purse, she whipped out a flyer printed on red paper. “Are you a resident of the county?” A brow lifted with a hopeful look, and I gathered that my vote was about to be solicited.

“Just visiting.” Now I knew why she looked familiar. This was the infamous Mama B. When I used to walk by the football stadium on my way home from school, she was always perched on the bleachers next to Blaine Underhill's father, the two of them watching practice, making sure their golden boy was getting the kind of treatment he deserved. If she wasn't telling the coaches what to do, Mama B was checking up on the teachers, shuffling through the school halls with a pug-nosed pocket pooch in her handbag, pointing out girls whose hemlines were too short and boys who had hair over their collars.

More than once, she'd cornered me and let me know that my oversized black T-shirts were “unbecoming on a young lady,” and that if I'd drop by the variety store, she'd be happy to help me look for something more appropriate. Perhaps in a nice shade of blue or mauve. She felt sure there was a cute figure underneath my misguided wardrobe, and she wondered if I'd ever thought about entering the Miss Moses Lake contest.

Thank goodness she didn't recognize me now. I didn't bother to introduce myself as I carried the wheelchair to the sidewalk and set it against the front of the church.

“Thank ya, sweetie.” She held out the Vote for Blaine flyer. “Here. Pass this along to someone while you're here. Tell them Blaine Underhill's their man. It's about time we cleaned up that county commission.”

I felt obliged to take the pamphlet, and then I quickly backed away, folding it and stuffing it into my jacket pocket.

I could feel Mama B's curious stare following me across the parking lot. “Where'd you say you were stayin'?” she called. A propane delivery truck passed by in a
whoosh
, and I pretended not to hear. Swirls of asphalt-scented air skittered across the parking lot in the truck's wake, and I made a hasty exit, my suitcase bumping along behind me. Mama B hollered at the propane driver, informing him that the speed limit through town was thirty-five.

Dry winter grass crackled under my feet as I left the pavement and moved into the ditch alongside the rural highway, traversing the short distance to the tall limestone pillars and rusting iron gate that marked the entrance to Uncle Herbert's driveway. The sign hanging in the shade of lofty magnolias still read
Harmony Shores Funeral Home and Chapel
, even though the place had been closed since Uncle Herbert's health problems had forced him to shut down the business. It was a beautiful old place, if you didn't find sleeping in the bedrooms above the funeral chapel strangely morbid. Unfortunately, I did, and the usual chill accompanied me through the gate and followed me up the long, tree-lined drive. A shudder gripped me like a fist, squeezing the air from my lungs. A voice in my head was urging,
Run, just run
.

Pulling in a fortifying breath, I veered off across the grass toward the memory gardens, my suitcase bumping over twigs and pecan shucks. Dampness from the soil seeped through my suede boots, making them soggy and chilly by the time I reached a stone path, where holly bushes and magnolias provided secluded alcoves in which grieving families could reflect privately.

Pausing, I gazed at the treetops and did a poor imitation of the yoga breathing I'd learned from a fitness-guru-slash-boyfriend who'd tried to convince me that meditation would help my tension problems. At the time I'd laughed flippantly and told him I couldn't imagine what he was talking about. Me, tense?

Now I wished I'd paid more attention. The muscles in my back were as twisted and knotted as a string of used rubber bands in the corner of a junk drawer. I jerked at the sound of cars coming up the drive, and a charley horse kicked up its heels near my spine.

That odd temptation to bolt for the woods stirred me again. Instead, I did the mature thing and ducked behind the holly bushes, peeking through the limbs as three cars rolled past. I recognized the one in the lead, and I knew whose little gray head that was peering over the steering wheel. Mama B. That would be the church ladies behind her. Apparently, they had arrived on another reconnaissance mission, with food in hand, of course. The fact that the casserole ladies were so interested in what was going on at Harmony Shores was not a good sign.

The third car pulled in, and I peered through the leaves, undercover-agent style. The silver Cadillac rolled to a stop behind the first two vehicles, and doors opened on both sides. The puffy blond hair and peach pantsuit were unmistakable. The venerable Mrs. Underhill, whose stepson I was supposed to help elect to the county commission. She came bearing a foil-wrapped plate, and she had someone with her.

The holly bushes combed my hair as I leaned closer. Who was that with her? Someone young, svelte, and blond in a perky above-the-knee skirt and high heels. Blaine Underhill had a couple of half-sisters, as I recalled, but they didn't look like that. The Underhill girls had the misfortune of having the same figure as their father. They were stocky, muscular, and athletic. When we graduated from high school, they were entering middle school, and Mrs. Underhill was still cramming them into ruffled gowns and making them stroll the catwalk at beauty pageants, and attend cotillion classes. The kids at school used to tease Blaine about it, and ask him if his stepmother expected him to make a bid for Cotton Queen one of these days, too.

The girl with Mrs. Underhill today was definitely not one of Blaine's half-sisters.

She trotted up the steps, the dress swaying back and forth across her knees. My brother, of all people, answered the door, his dishwater blond hair sporting a bad case of bed head. I noted, in the split second before the newest visitors reached the porch, that Clay didn't seem to have changed much. Same rumpled look—khaki shorts, washed-out T-shirt, flip-flops. Mom's soft, slightly curly hair and hazel eyes, a green tone where mine were brown. His face had matured a little in the . . . how long had it been since I'd seen him, other than on his Facebook posts from the far parts of the universe?

Three-and-a-half years.
He'd called on the Fourth of July. Just called me out of the blue. He was a hundred miles from Seattle on a bicycle tour—not the organized kind with other people, but a solitary, unplanned journey of his own making. He'd been rained on for three days, was running a fever, and wanted to know if I'd like to come get him. He wasn't complaining about the conditions, really. It was more like he was offering me the opportunity, and he was fine, either way. Maybe the choice between biking in the rain with a fever and visiting with me was pretty much a toss-up. He probably knew I'd ask why he was out of college for the summer and not working anywhere.

The girl in the cute dress tackled Clay with an exuberant hug. I watched in fascination, my mouth dropping open. What in the world was going on? Who was the girl, and why was my brother . . . slipping an arm around her waist and lifting her off her feet?

The casserole ladies twittered, giggled, and seemed delighted—
even
Mrs. Underhill. They politely pretended to be commenting on the condition of the memory gardens, as Clay gave the girl a peck and then set her down again.

Suddenly the ladies were looking in my direction, pointing, and I was cognizant of the idiotic position I'd put myself in, hiding in the bushes, spying on the funeral home. Another thought followed—something petty, and immature, and born of sibling rivalry. It wasn't fair that I was hiding in the bushes while Clay was getting hugs and cookie plates. Moses Lake had always loved Clay. The year we lived here, he was a cute, gap-toothed fourth grader—goofy, precocious, innocent, a little charmer who was easy to like. After my father's death, Clay had slipped neatly under the sheltering wings of not only his school teacher, but his Sunday school teachers and a half-dozen adopted grannies around town, including Mama B. They loved him then, and apparently still loved him now.

“There's someone over there,” one of the ladies observed. “In the bushes . . . Look!”

“Where?” That was Mrs. Underhill's voice, the sound shrill, all traces of sugar-and-honey sweetness gone. That was the voice I remembered—the one that sent chills through me, back when there were secrets to hide. Mrs. Underhill loved nothing better than to ferret out people's secrets and spread them around. In particular, she wanted to find out what was
really
going on in the little cottage behind the funeral home. She was certain that, in some way or another, the authorities needed to be involved. She would've liked nothing better than for child welfare services to swoop in and take us away from my mother. It would have proven her right about everything and proven that my father should have married
her
years ago, instead of my mother.