Lock and Key (11 page)

“It was an accident,” Nate told her, returning for the last box. “I’m sorry.”

Harriet sighed, leaning back against the bumper again and closing her eyes. “No,” she said, “it’s me. I’m just under this massive deadline, and I’m way behind, and I just knew I wasn’t going to get to the shipping place before they closed—”

“—which is why you have us,” Nate finished for her, shutting his own back door with a bang. “I’m taking them over right now. No worries.”

“They all need to go Ground, not Next Day,” she told him. “I can’t afford Next Day.”

“I know.”

“And be sure you get the tracking information, because they’re promised by the end of the week, and there’s been bad weather out West. . . .”

“Done,” Nate told her, pulling his door open.

Harriet considered this as she stood there clutching her coffee cup. “Did you drop off that stuff at the cleaners yesterday? ”

“Ready on Thursday,” Nate told her.

“What about the bank deposit?” she asked.

“Dad did it this morning. Receipt is in the envelope in your mailbox.”

“Did he remember to—”

“—lock it back? Yes. The key is where you said to leave it. Anything else?”

Harriet drew in a breath, as if about to ask another question, then slowly let it out. “No,” she said slowly. “At least not right at this moment.”

Nate slid behind the wheel. “I’ll e-mail you all the tracking info as soon as I get home. Okay?”

“All right,” she said, although she sounded uncertain as he cranked the engine. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Call if you need us.”

She nodded but was still standing by her bumper, gripping her cup and looking uncertain, as we pulled away. I waited until we’d turned onto the main road again before saying, “That’s resting assured?”

“No,” Nate said, his voice tired. “That’s Harriet.”

By the time we pulled up to Cora’s, it was five thirty. Only a little over an hour had passed since he’d picked me up, and yet it felt like so much longer. As I gathered up my stuff, pushing the door open, his phone rang again; he glanced at the display, then back at me. “Dad’s getting nervous,” he said. “I better go. I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”

I looked over at him, again taking in his solid good looks and friendly expression. Fine, so he was a nice guy, and maybe not entirely the dim jock that I’d pegged him as at first glance. Plus, he had helped me out, not once but twice, and maybe to him this meant my previous feelings about a carpool would no longer be an issue. But I could not so easily forget Peyton earlier on the other end of that pay-phone line, how quickly she had turned me down at the one moment I’d really needed her.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

Nate nodded, flipping his phone open, and I shut the door between us. I wasn’t sure whether he had noticed I hadn’t answered his question, or if he’d even care. Either way, by the time I was halfway down the walk, he was gone.

Earlier that morning, after we’d set up my schedule, Jamie headed off to work and Mr. Thackray started to walk me off to my English class. We were about halfway there when I suddenly heard Jamie calling after us.

“Hold up!”

I turned around, looking down the hallway, which was rapidly filling with people streaming out of their first class, and spotted him bobbing through the crowd. When he reached us, slightly out of breath, he smiled and held his hand out to me, gesturing for me to do the same.

My first instinct was to hesitate, wondering what else he could possibly offer me. But when I opened up my hand, palm flat, and he dropped a key into it, it seemed ridiculous to have expected anything else.

“In case you beat us home,” he said. “Have a good day!”

At the time, I’d nodded, closing my hand around the key and slipping it into my pocket, where I’d totally forgotten about it until now, as I walked up to the front door of the house and pulled it out. It was small and on a single silver fob, with the words WILDFLOWER RIDGE engraved on the other side. Weird how it had been there all day, and I hadn’t even felt it or noticed. The one around my neck I was always aware of, both its weight and presence, but maybe that was because it was closer to me, where it couldn’t be missed.

Cora’s door swung open almost soundlessly, revealing the big, airy foyer. Like at the yellow house, everything was still and quiet, but in a different way. Not untouched or forgotten, but more expectant. As if even a house knew the difference between someone simply stepping out for while and being gone for good.

I shut the door behind me. From the foyer, I could see into the living room, where the sun was already beginning to sink in the sky, disappearing behind the trees, casting that special kind of warm light you only get right before sunset.

I was still just standing there watching this, when I heard a tippity-tapping noise coming from my left. I glanced over; it was Roscoe, making his way through the kitchen. When he saw me, his ears perked up straight on his head. Then he sat down and just stared at me.

I stayed where I was, wondering if he was going to start barking at me again, which after starting a new school and breaking into my old house was going to be the last thing I could take today. Thankfully, he didn’t. Instead, he just began to lick himself, loudly. I figured this signaled it was safe to continue on to the kitchen, which I did, giving him a wide berth as I passed.

On the island, there was a sticky note, and even though it had been years since I’d seen it, I immediately recognized my sister’s super neat handwriting, each letter so perfect you had to wonder if she’d done a rough draft first.
J,
it said,
Lasagna is in the fridge, put it in (350) as soon as you get home. See you by seven at the latest. Love, me.

I picked the note up off the counter, reading it again. If nothing else, this made it clear to me that my sister had, in fact, finally gotten everything she wanted. Not just the things that made up the life she’d no doubt dreamed of—the house, the job, the security—all those nights in our shared room, but someone to share it with. To come home to and have dinner with, to leave a note for. Such simple, stupid things, and yet in the end, they were the true proof of a real life.

Which was why, after she’d worked so hard to get here, it had to really suck to suddenly have me drop back in at the very moment she’d started to think she’d left the old life behind for good.
Oh, well,
I thought. The least I could do was put in the lasagna.

I walked over to the oven and preheated it, then found the pan in the fridge and put it on the counter. I was pulling off the Saran wrap when I felt something against my leg. Looking down, I saw Roscoe had at some point crossed the room and was now sitting between my feet, looking up at me.

My first thought was that he had peed on the floor and was waiting for me to yell at him. But then I realized he was shaking, bouncing back and forth slightly from one of my ankles to the other. “What?” I asked him, and in response he burrowed down farther, pressing himself more tightly against me. All the while, he kept his big bug eyes on me, as if pleading, but for what, I had no idea.

Great,
I thought. Just what I needed: the dog dies on my watch, thereby officially cementing my status as a complete blight on the household. I sighed, then stepped carefully around Roscoe to the phone, picking it up and dialing Jamie’s cell-phone number, which was at the top of a list posted nearby. Before I was even done, Roscoe had shuffled across the floor, resituating himself at my feet, the shaking now going at full force. I kept my eyes on him as the phone rang twice, and then, thankfully, Jamie picked up.

“Something’s wrong with the dog,” I reported.

“Ruby?” he said. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” I swallowed, looking down at Roscoe again, who in turn scooted closer, pressing his face into my calf. “I’m sorry to bother you, but he’s just acting really . . . sick. Or something. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Sick? Is he throwing up?”

“No.”

“Does he have the runs?”

I made a face. “No,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. I just came home and Cora had left this note about the lasagna, so I put it in and—”

“Oh,” he said slowly. “Okay. It’s all right, you can relax. He’s not sick.”

“He’s not?”

“Nope. He’s just scared.”

“Of lasagna?”

“Of the oven.” He sighed. “We don’t really understand it. I think it may have something to do with this incident involving some Tater Tots and the smoke detector.”

I looked down at Roscoe, who was still in full-on tremulous mode. You had to wonder how such a thing affected a little dog like that—it couldn’t be good for his nervous system. “So,” I said as he stared up at me, clearly terrified, “how do you make it stop?”

“You can’t,” he said. “He’ll do it the entire time the oven’s on. Sometimes he goes and hides under a bed or the sofa. The best thing is to just act normal. If he drives you too crazy, just shut him in the laundry room.”

“Oh,” I said as the dog rearranged himself, wedging himself between my shoe and the cabinet behind me. “Okay.”

“Look, I’m breaking up,” he said, “but I’ll be home soon. Just—”

There was a buzz, and then he was gone, dropping off altogether. I hung up, replacing the phone carefully on its base. I wasn’t sure what “soon” meant, but I hoped it meant he was only a few blocks away, as I was not much of an animal person. Still, looking down at Roscoe trembling against my leg, it seemed kind of mean to just shut him up in a small space, considering the state he was in.

“Just relax, okay? ” I said, untangling myself from around him and walking to the foyer to my bag. For a moment he stayed where he was, but then he started to follow me. The last thing I wanted was any kind of company, so I started up the stairs at a quick clip, hoping he’d get the message and stay behind. Surprisingly, it worked; when I got to the top of the stairs and looked down, he was still in the foyer. Staring up at me looking pitiful, but still there.

Up in my room, I washed my face, then slid Cora’s sweater off and lay back across the bed. I don’t know how long I was there, staring out the windows at the last of the sunset, before Roscoe came into the room. He was moving slowly, almost sideways, like a crab. When he saw that I’d noticed him, his ears went flat on his head, as if he was expecting to be ejected but couldn’t help taking a shot anyway.

For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then, tentatively, he came closer, then a bit closer still, until finally he was wedged between my feet, with the bed behind him. When he started shaking again, his tags jingling softly, I rolled my eyes. I wanted to tell him to cut it out, that we all had our problems, that I was the last person he should come looking to for solace. But instead, I surprised myself by saying none of this as I sat up, reaching a hand down to his head. The moment I touched him, he was still.

Chapter Four

At first, it just a rumbling, punctuated by the occasional shout: the kind of thing that you’re aware of, distantly, and yet can still manage to ignore. Right as my clock flipped over to 8:00, though, the real noise began.

I sat up in bed, startled, as the room suddenly filled with the clanking of metal hitting rock. It wasn’t until I got up and went out on my balcony and saw the backhoe that it all started to make sense.

“Jamie!”

I glanced to my right, where I could see my sister, in her pajamas, standing on her own balcony. She was clutching the railing, looking down at her husband, who was on the back lawn looking entirely too awake, a mug of coffee in his hands and Roscoe at his feet. When he looked up and saw her, he grinned. “Great, right? ” he said. “You can really visualize it now!”

Most of Cora’s response to this was lost in the ensuing din as the backhoe dug once more into the lawn, scooping up more earth from within Jamie’s circle of rocks and swinging to the side to dump it on the already sizable pile there. As it moved back, gears grinding, to go in again, I just caught the end, when she was saying, “. . . Saturday morning, when some people might want to
sleep
.”

“Honey, it’s the pond, though,” Jamie replied, as if he had heard every word. “We talked about this. Remember?”

Cora just looked at him, running a hand through her hair, which was sticking up on one side. Then, without further comment, she went inside. Jamie watched her go, his face quizzical. “Hey!” he shouted when he saw me. The backhoe dug down again, with an even louder clank. “Pretty cool, don’t you think? If we’re lucky, we’ll have it lined by tonight.”

I nodded, watching as the machine dumped another load of dirt onto the pile. Jamie was right, you could really picture it now: there was a big difference between a theoretical pond and a huge hole in the ground. Still, it was hard to imagine what he wanted—a total ecosystem, a real body of water, with fish and everything—seeming at home in the middle of such a flat, square yard. Even with the best landscaping, it would still look as if it had fallen from the sky.

Back inside, I flopped back into bed, although sleeping was clearly no longer an option. Hard to believe that the previous Saturday, I’d been at the yellow house, waking up on the couch with our old moldy afghan curled around me. Fast-forward a week, and here I was at Cora’s. My basic needs were certainly being met—running water, heat, food—but it was still strange to be here. Everything felt so temporary, including me, that I hadn’t even unpacked yet— my bag was still right by the bed, where I was living out of it like I was on a vacation, about to check out at any moment. Sure, it meant the little bit of stuff I had was that much more wrinkled, but rolling over every morning and seeing all my worldly possessions right there beside me made me feel somewhat in control of my situation. Which I needed, considering that everything else seemed completely out of my hands.

“The bus?” Jamie said that first night, when he mentioned Nate picking me up and I told him I’d prefer alternate transportation. “Are you serious?”