Starcrossed (2 page)

big hits as croissant fillers.

Still in her early thirties, Kate was creative and intelligent. When

she’d partnered up with Jerry she revamped the back of the News

Store and turned it into a haven for the island’s artists and writers,

somehow managing to do it without turning up the snob factor.

Kate was careful to make sure that anyone who loved baked goods

and real coffee—from suits to poets, working-class townies to corporate

raiders—would feel comfortable sitting down at her counter

and reading a newspaper. She had a way of making everyone feel

welcome. Helen adored her.

When Helen got to work the next day, Kate was trying to stock a

delivery of flour and sugar. It was pathetic.

“Lennie! Thank god you’re early. Do you think you could help

me . . . ?” Kate gestured toward the forty-pound sacks.

“I got it. No, don’t tug the corner like that, you’ll hurt your back,”

Helen warned, rushing to stop Kate’s ineffectual pulling. “Why

didn’t Louis do this for you? Wasn’t he working this morning?”

Helen asked, referring to one of the other workers on the schedule.

“The delivery came after Louis left. I tried to stall until you got

here, but a customer nearly tripped and I had to at least pretend I

was going to move the blasted thing,” Kate said.

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“I’ll take care of the flour if you fix me a snack,” Helen said cajolingly

as she stooped to pick up the sack.

“Deal,” Kate replied gratefully, and bustled off with a smile.

Helen waited until Kate’s back was turned, lifted the sack of flour

easily on her shoulder, and sauntered toward the workstation,

where she opened the sack and poured some flour into the smaller

plastic container Kate used in the kitchen. While Helen neatly

stacked the rest of the delivery in the storeroom, Kate poured her a

bubbly pink lemonade, the kind that Helen loved, from France, one

of the many foreign places she was dying to visit.

“It’s not that you’re so freakishly strong for someone so thin that

bothers me. What really pisses me off,” Kate said as she sliced

some cherries and cheese for Helen to snack on, “is that you never

get winded. Not even in this heat.”

“I get winded,” Helen lied.

“You sigh. Big difference.”

“I’ve just got bigger lungs than you.”

“But since you’re taller, you’d need more oxygen, wouldn’t you?”

They clinked glasses and sipped their lemonade, calling it even.

Kate was a bit shorter and plumper than Helen, but that didn’t

make her either short or fat. Helen always thought of the word

zaftig when she saw Kate, which she had a notion meant “sexy

curvy.” She never used it, though, in case Kate took it the wrong

way.

“Is the book club on tonight?” Helen asked.

“Uh-huh. But I doubt anyone will want to talk about Kundera,”

Kate said with a smirk, jingling the ice cubes in her glass.

“Why? Hot gossip?”

“Smokin’ hot. This crazy-big family just moved to the island.”

“The place in ’Sconset?” Helen asked. At Kate’s nod, she rolled

her eyes.

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“Oh-ho! Too good to dish with the rest of us?” Kate teased, flicking

the condensed water from the side of her glass in Helen’s

direction.

Helen play-shrieked, and then had to leave Kate for a moment to

ring up a few customers. As soon as she finished the transactions,

she came back and continued the conversation.

“No. I just don’t think it’s that strange for a big family to buy a

big property. Especially if they’re going to live in it year-round. It

makes more sense than some old wealthy couple buying a summer

home that’s so huge they get lost on the way to the mailbox.”

“True,” Kate conceded. “But I really thought you’d be more interested

in the Delos family. You’ll be graduating with a few of them.”

Helen stood there as Delos ran around her head. The name

meant nothing to her. How could it? But some echoey part of her

brain kept repeating “Delos” over and over.

“Lennie? Where’d you go?” Kate asked. She was interrupted by

the first members of the book club coming early, wound-up and

already in the throes of wild speculation.

Kate’s prediction was right. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

was no match for the arrival of new year-rounders, especially since

the rumor mill had revealed that they were moving here from

Spain. Apparently, they were Boston natives who had moved to

Europe three years ago in order to be closer to their extended family,

but now, suddenly, they’d decided to move back. It was the

“suddenly” part that everyone spent the most time discussing. The

school secretary had hinted to a few of the book club members that

the kids had been enrolled so far past the normal date that the parents

had practically had to bribe their way in, and all sorts of special

agreements had to be made to ship their furniture over in time

for their arrival. It seemed like the Delos family had left Spain in a

hurry, and the book club agreed that there must have been some

kind of falling-out with their cousins.

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The one thing Helen could confidently gather from all the chatter

was that the Delos family was rather unconventional. There were

two fathers who were brothers, their younger sister, one mother

(one of the fathers was a widower), and five kids, all living together

on the property. The entire family was supposed to be unbelievably

smart and beautiful and wealthy. Helen rolled her eyes when she

heard the parts of the gossip that elevated the Delos family to

mythic proportions. In fact, she could barely stand it.

Helen tried to stay behind the register and ignore the excited

whispering, but it was impossible. Every time she heard one of the

members of the Delos family mentioned by name, it drew her attention

as if it had been shouted, irritating her. She left the register

and went over to the magazine rack, straightening the shelves just

to give her hands something to do. Even so, she couldn’t help but

hear how scandalized the book club was to find out that Cassandra

Delos, who was thirteen, had skipped a grade and was going to be

attending high school. She was supposed to be exceptionally

bright, but on the whole, the book club disapproved of children

skipping grades, probably because none of their children had ever

managed it.

They don’t like to be separated, Helen thought. It’s safer if they

stick together. That’s the real reason why Cassandra skipped a

grade.

Helen had no idea where the thought had come from, but she

knew it was true. She also knew she had to get as far away from the

gossip as she could or she was going to start yelling at Kate’s

friends. She needed to make herself as busy as possible.

As she wiped down the shelves and stocked the candy jars, she

mentally ticked the kids off in her head. Hector is a year older

than Jason and Ariadne, who are twins. Lucas and Cassandra

are brother and sister, cousins to the other three.

She changed the water for the flowers and rang up a few customers.

Hector wouldn’t be there the first day of school because he

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was still in Spain with his aunt Pandora, though no one in town

knew why.

Helen pulled on a pair of shoulder-length rubber gloves, a long

apron, and dug through the garbage for stray recycling items. Lucas,

Jason, and Ariadne are all going to be in my grade. So I’m

surrounded.

She went to the back kitchen and put a load in the industrial

dishwasher. She mopped the floors and started counting the

money. Lucas is such a stupid name. It’s all wrong. It sticks out

like a sore thumb.

“Lennie?”

“What! Dad! Can’t you see I’m counting?” Helen said, slamming

her hands down on the counter so hard she made a stack of quarters

jump. Jerry held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“It’s the first day of school tomorrow,” he reminded her in his

most reasonable voice.

“I know,” she responded blankly, still unaccountably irritable but

trying not to take it out on her father.

“It’s almost eleven, honey,” he said. Kate came out from the back

to check on the noise.

“You’re still here? I’m really sorry, Jerry,” she said, looking perplexed.

“Helen, I told you to lock the front and go home at nine.”

They both stared at Helen, who had arranged every bill and every

coin in neat stacks.

“I got sidetracked,” Helen said lamely.

After sharing a worried glance with Jerry, Kate took over counting

the change and sent them home. Still in a daze, Helen gave

Kate a kiss good-bye and tried to figure out how she had missed

out on the last three hours of her life.

Jerry put Helen’s bike on the back of the Pig and started the engine

without a word. He glanced over at her a few times as they

drove home, but he didn’t say anything until they parked in the

driveway.

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“Did you eat?” he asked softly, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t . . . yes?” Helen had no idea what or when she’d last

eaten. She vaguely remembered Kate cutting her some cherries.

“Are you nervous about the first day of school? Junior year’s a big

one.”

“I guess I must be,” she said absentmindedly. Jerry glanced over

at her and bit his lower lip. He exhaled before speaking.

“I’ve been thinking maybe you should talk to Dr. Cunningham

about those phobia pills. You know, the kind for people who have a

hard time in crowds? Agoraphobia! That’s what it’s called,” he

burst out, remembering. “Do you think that could help you?”

Helen smiled and ran the charm of her necklace along its chain.

“I don’t think so, Dad. I’m not afraid of strangers, I’m just shy.”

She knew she was lying. It wasn’t just that she was shy. Any time

she extended herself and attracted attention, even accidentally, her

stomach hurt so badly it felt almost like the stomach flu or menstrual

cramps—really bad menstrual cramps—but she’d sooner

light her hair on fire than tell her father that.

“And you’re okay with that? I know you’d never ask, but do you

want help? Because I think this is holding you back. . . .” Jerry said,

starting in on one of their oldest fights.

Helen cut him off at the pass. “I’m fine! Really. I don’t want to

talk to Dr. Cunningham, I don’t want drugs. I just want to go inside

and eat,” she said in a rush. She got out of the Jeep.

Her father watched her with a small smile as she plucked her

heavy, old-fashioned bike off the rack on the back of the Jeep and

placed it on the ground. She rang the bell on her handlebar jauntily

and gave her dad a grin.

“See, I’m just peachy,” she said.

“If you knew how hard what you just did would be for an average

girl your age, you’d get what I’m saying. You aren’t average, Helen.

You try to come off that way, but you’re not. You’re like her,” he

said, his voice drifting off.

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For the thousandth time Helen cursed the mother she didn’t remember

for breaking her father’s sweet heart. How could anyone

leave such a good guy without so much as a good-bye? Without so

much as a photo to remember her by?

“You win! I’m not average, I’m special—just like everyone else,”

Helen teased, anxious to cheer him up. She nudged him with her

hip as she walked past him, wheeling her bike into the garage.

“Now, what is there to eat? I’m starving, and it’s your week to be

kitchen slave.”

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Chapter Two

Still without her own car, Helen had to ride her bike to

school the next morning. Normally at a quarter to eight, it

would be cool out, even a little chilly with the wind blowing

off the water, but as soon as she woke up, Helen could

feel the hot, humid air lying on her body like a wet fur coat.

She had kicked her sheets off in the middle of the night, wriggled

out of her T-shirt, drank the entire glass of water on her nightstand,

and still she woke up exhausted by the heat. It was very unisland

weather, and Helen absolutely did not want to get up and go

to school.

She pedaled slowly in an attempt to avoid spending the rest of

the day smelling like phys ed. She didn’t usually sweat much, but

she’d woken up so lethargic that morning she couldn’t remember if

she had put on deodorant. She flapped her elbows like chicken

wings trying to catch a whiff of herself as she rode, and was relieved

to smell the fruity-powdery scent of some kind of protection.

It was faint, so she must have put it on yesterday, but it only

needed to hold on until track practice after school. Which would be

a miracle, but oh well.

As she cruised down Surfside Road she could feel the baby hairs

around her face pulling loose in the wind and sticking to her

cheeks and forehead. It was a short ride from her house to school,

but in the humidity, her carefully arranged first-day-of-school

hairdo was a big old mess by the time she locked her crummy bike