Summer with My Sisters (30 page)

E
vie felt unutterably weary. There had been a string of nasty customers, as if someone had put out a sign at the town line inviting all rude and impatient people to come by The Clamshell that afternoon. And the guy that was supposed to relieve her on her breaks had never shown up, which meant that Evie hadn’t gotten any breaks. Billy had covered for her during her lunch hour, which had been only a half hour as he had an appointment with a roofer that couldn’t be put off.

Only an hour left to her shift. Surely, she could survive another hour.

The door to the restaurant swung open and a group of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, came tumbling in. They were talking and laughing loudly, and for a second Evie wondered if they were drunk. She remembered overhearing some of the conversations between the people at the party Joel had taken her to earlier that summer, how she had felt so utterly alone and alienated from their world, how she had felt so envious of their freedom from worry, of their carelessness and their mindless assumption that the world was theirs for the taking. These teens were also from that other, enviable world.

Suddenly, Evie felt tears threatening and she turned her back to the order counter to grasp hold of her self-possession. As she did so her elbow caught the china mug in which Billy drank his coffee and it fell to the floor, shattered. The teenage girls laughed uproariously and as Evie hurried aside to get a broom and dustpan she thought she heard the words
clumsy
and
bitch
.

“I’ll take their order,” her coworker Marcus said, patting Evie on her shoulder as he passed.

Grateful for that small act of kindness, Evie began to sweep up the shards. One large jagged piece had flown under the big freestanding shelves on which were stacked various stainless steel bowls. Evie bent down and reached for it with her left hand, cutting herself across the palm in the process. “Damn,” she muttered, hastily sweeping up the remaining bits and pieces of china and dumping the lot in the trash. Then, she went to the cabinet in the kitchen where the first aid kit was kept. It was pretty depleted—there was no antiseptic or antibacterial cream—but she did find a few Band-Aids. They were all a little too narrow to cover the cut entirely so she put two side to side and used a third placed crosswise on top to hold them down. It would have to do for now, at least until she could get home that afternoon.

Home. Evie knew she shouldn’t be thinking of the Higginses’ house as home—it would only hurt that much worse when she had to leave—but she couldn’t help it. It
felt
like home, or almost. A place where she could be safe. But for how long? Like Allie, maybe her time as a houseguest was drawing to a close.

Evie took a deep breath and walked back out to the order counter.

“What happened to you?” Marcus asked.

Evie looked at her hand. The blood was already seeping through the bandages.

“I cut myself on the broken mug,” she said.

Marcus frowned. “That looks pretty ugly.”

Evie shrugged, though the sight of the blood had made her feel a bit queasy. “It’s okay,” she said. “I just bleed a lot.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow skeptically. “If you say so. Just don’t drip blood onto a customer’s fries. I doubt Billy can afford a lawsuit.”

A
little before three o’clock in the afternoon, Poppy settled on the front porch in the old wicker rocking chair her father had loved to wait for her friend Julie. The chair could use a new coat of paint and she made a mental note to get to the chore her mother had so enjoyed. Since Poppy had been back home this summer with her sisters she had finally begun to understand that there was pleasure to be found in the simplest of tasks when they were done in the service of other people. Pleasure and something more. It was like Jon had said the other evening on the beach. There was value in maintaining normalcy for those you loved. There was value in being reliable.

Poppy smiled to herself. That magical evening! She hadn’t told anyone, not even Allie, what had happened with Jon. At least for a while she wanted to hold the memory of that wonderful kiss all to herself. She remembered something that Allie had said not long before, when they had been talking about Evie. Secrecy, Allie believed, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Poppy agreed.

On the ride back to the house that evening Jon had held her hand (when he didn’t have to shift) and Poppy had found the gesture inordinately romantic. She remembered thinking that
this
was love. She had never known romantic love before and yet, somehow, she recognized it. Jon had kissed her again before she got out of his truck and he had waited until she was safely inside before driving away. Poppy had stood in the hall, watching through the windows alongside the door as he disappeared down the drive. Briefly she wondered if Allie and her sisters had witnessed Jon’s kiss. But when she found them all in the living room a few minutes later, absorbed in a movie, it was clear they had not, and for that she was glad.

At exactly three o’clock, Julie drove up to the house in the ancient station wagon that Poppy remembered had once belonged to Julie’s parents. Poppy went down the steps to meet her.

“Should you be driving?” she asked, watching her friend climb out of the car with some difficulty.

“You mean, how do I fit behind the steering wheel?”

“That, too.”

“It’s not easy. Will you help me get this monster out?”

Virginia let herself out of the back seat while Poppy helped Julie remove Michael, who was quite a sturdy boy—built like his father—from his car seat.

“Why don’t you all go out back to the garden?” Poppy suggested. “I’ll meet you there with lemonade and cookies.”

Julie and the kids made their way to the garden and Poppy hurriedly gathered the refreshments. A few minutes later she found her friend settled in one of the Adirondack chairs and the kids chasing a yellow butterfly.

“I’m definitely going to need your help getting out of this chair,” Julie said. “I kind of fell in.”

Poppy laughed. “No worries. How do you feel?”

“Besides massive and lumbering? Fine. Actually, this has been the easiest of my three pregnancies.”

“And the last? Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”

A shout of glee from Virginia caused Poppy to look over her shoulder. “I found a worm!” she cried, holding up the wriggling creature for the adults to see.

“That’s nice,” Julie called back. “But now put him back where you found him. He has to get home to his family.”

With a frown, Virginia complied.

“How do they feel about getting a new brother or sister?” Poppy asked.

“Virginia is excited to help play mommy. Michael wants to know if the baby will be deaf like him.”

“What do you tell him?”

“What
can
I tell him? That we don’t know yet. But that if he—or she—is deaf, Michael can help teach him—or her—to sign.”

“When did Michael learn to sign?” Poppy asked.

“Just as soon as we did! His coordination is still that of the average five-year-old, of course, but he has no trouble making his thoughts known!”

“Hey, remember when we were kids and we used to build fairy houses in the woods behind your house?”

“And you had a really cool swing set and jungle gym,” Julie said. “If you weren’t so generous about letting me use it I would have been jealous.”

“I forgot all about that! Daisy was always falling off the jungle gym, that’s why my parents got rid of it.”

“Fun times. Except for Daisy’s bumps and bruises.”

“They
were
fun.”
And so innocent,
Poppy thought.
So fleeting.

“Have you seen Jon lately?”

Poppy was glad she was wearing sunglasses; she had felt her eyes widen at Julie’s question. “Yes,” she said casually. “I saw him on Tuesday.”

Julie finished her glass of lemonade before she said, “He kissed you, didn’t he?”

Poppy choked on a sip of her own drink. “What!” she exclaimed.

“Well?” Julie asked, grinning.

“I have no idea how you knew that, but yes. He did. And I kissed him back.” Poppy leaned forward and lowered her voice though there was no one but Virginia to hear and she was too young to care about the adults’ conversation. “Julie, I . . . I’ve never felt this way before. And I have no idea what, if anything, will happen next. . . .”

“Time will tell. Remember, Jon’s not going anywhere.”

Maybe I’m not, either,
Poppy thought
. Maybe Yorktide is where I’ll stay. . . .
The possibility didn’t at all frighten her the way it had at the beginning of the summer.

“You know,” she said, “I don’t have a very good track record romantically speaking. I’m so afraid that I’ll do or say the wrong thing and ruin things with Jon before they’ve even begun.”

Julie sighed. “Poppy, I’ve told you this before. You think—and worry—too much! And really, you’ve got to work on your self-esteem! Do you know how odd it is, plain ol’ Julie Mayer, farm wife and cheese maker, having to tell tall, gorgeous, college grad Poppy Higgins, whose famous parents left her this beautiful quirky home and an amazing legacy, to have some faith in herself?”

The children made an appearance at just that moment. Both, Poppy noted, had grass stains on their shorts.

“You’re pretty,” Virginia announced.

“Thank you. You’re pretty, too. And fast.”

“I’m the fastest-est person in my class.”

Poppy smiled. “Wow.”

“Want to know how to sign? Michael will show you.”

Poppy shot a look at Julie, who shrugged. “Uh, sure.”

Virginia signed to her brother and then looked back to Poppy. “I told him to show you how to say ‘you are pretty and nice.’ ”

Michael did. Poppy tried to mimic his hands, but he was simply too fast for her. “Could he do it more slowly?” Poppy asked. So Michael did, but still Poppy found her hands not doing what she wanted them to do. Suddenly, both Julie and the children burst out laughing.

“You just said, ‘I’m a bubble,’ ” her friend told her.

Poppy put her hands to her face. “Yikes! A bubble? Signing is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

Michael signed to his sister, who then turned to Poppy. “He says, practice makes perfect.”

“He’s a smart guy!”

“Well, we have to be going,” Julie announced. “Mack’s going to be home for dinner tonight, which has been a pretty rare thing lately what with his taking on some overtime. We’re going to make a celebration of it. There’s only one problem standing in the way. . . .”

“What’s that?” Poppy asked.

“Getting me out of this chair.”

“W
hen did this happen?” Daisy asked. She had accidentally walked in on Evie in the upstairs bathroom a few minutes before. Evie had been standing at the sink, letting warm water dribble along her left palm, and wincing.

Now back in Poppy’s old bedroom, Evie shrugged and dabbed at the wound with a dry towel. “A day or two ago. I don’t remember exactly.”

“I really think you should get that checked out,” Daisy said, frowning. “I mean, I saw that you were wearing a bandage, of course, but I had no idea the cut was so bad.”

“What do you mean checked out?” Evie said, holding the towel over her hand. “By a doctor?”

“Of course by a doctor.” Daisy swiftly pulled the towel from Evie’s hand. “A wound that deep could easily get infected. In fact, it looks to me like it
is
infected. See how it’s all red and puffy around the edges.”

Evie sank onto the edge of the bed. “No,” she said. “No doctors.”

“Why not?”

“You
know
why, Daisy! What if I get found out?”

Daisy shook her head. “You mean, what if the doctor finds out you’re using a fake ID? So what? It’s not a crime.” Or was it? Daisy realized she wasn’t at all sure of Evie’s legal situation. If she weren’t sworn to secrecy she would ask Freddie. . . .

“There’s no record anywhere of Evie Jones. Not the Evie Jones I’m pretending to be. I made her up. She isn’t real.”

“But . . . But why would anyone check to see you’re who you say you are? And anyway, you’re eighteen. You can’t be sent back to live with your father’s disgusting friends.”
But could she be charged with a crime?
Daisy wondered.

Evie put her uninjured right hand to her forehead. “I know, I know. It’s just that I want to leave my past behind me. I want none of it to exist anymore. I want to forget my life before now ever happened. I don’t want anyone of them to know where I am.”

Daisy was beginning to feel as if she was missing something in Evie’s arguments, but she couldn’t put her finger on what, exactly, it was. “But—”

“Besides,” Evie interrupted, “I have no health insurance and I have no money to pay a doctor.”

“I’ll pay for you,” Daisy said promptly. “I have about fifty dollars stashed in my room and more in the bank.” Money was nothing when a friend’s health was concerned, of that Daisy was one hundred percent sure.

Evie shook her head. “I can’t take money from you. You’re already being so generous, letting me stay here.”

“Then what about Joel? We could ask if he has any money he could lend you.”

“I know, but please, Daisy, please! Don’t say anything to anyone, not even to Joel. The cut really isn’t as bad as you think. I’m sure that in a day or two it’ll be completely healed.”

Daisy looked down at her friend’s hand and wasn’t at all sure of that, but she knew that to further press Evie at this point was not the way to make her change her mind.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I promise I won’t say anything to anyone. You look exhausted. You should probably get to bed. Do you want me to put a new bandage on for you?”

“No, thanks,” Evie said, and Daisy thought she looked about to cry. “I can do it myself.”

Daisy lay on her bed. Her mind was in a whirl. It was what she wanted to be, a friend at hand for Evie. But things had gotten complicated. Well, more complicated. Keeping someone’s secrets was a tricky business. It could make you feel as if you were doing something very wrong. As if you were hurting that person, and not helping at all.

There’s got to be a solution,
Daisy thought. Yes. Antibiotics. She would get her hands on some antibiotics—but how did you do that without a prescription? You borrowed them from someone, with her permission. Or you stole them from someone, without her permission. The trouble was, as far as Daisy knew, no one at the house was taking antibiotics, but they
might
be. Allie might keep any medication she was taking in her room. But it would be such a terrible violation of the laws of hospitality, to essentially break into Allie’s bedroom and steal from her.

Daisy sighed. No, it was a desperate, ridiculous idea. She was horrified that she had contemplated committing a crime, even if it was for a good cause. There had to be another way to help! Maybe Violet knew of a natural, herbal cure for infection.. . . But going to Violet would involve breaking the promise of secrecy she had made to Evie.

What else, what else! All right, Daisy thought, if Evie wouldn’t see a doctor in private practice, maybe she could be persuaded to go to the emergency room, although Daisy wasn’t at all sure how it actually worked when you went to the ER. The only time she had been there was when she had broken her ankle falling off her tricycle and her parents had taken care of everything. Would Evie be asked to show identification? That was what she was so afraid of, being found a fraud....

Daisy rubbed her eyes and realized she felt more desperate for help than she had felt in a very, very long time. What would her father suggest she do? Suddenly, Daisy remembered something he used to say about having the courage to make an unpopular decision when your conscience told you it was the right thing to do. And what was her conscience telling her to do now?

“Thanks, Dad,” Daisy whispered. There was nothing for it. She was going to have to break her promise to Evie—one of them, anyway—and turn to one of the adults in her life for help. It might mean the end of her friendship with Evie and that would be so, so sad, but Evie’s life could be at stake and to save her was worth any sacrifice.

Now—to whom would she go for help? Allie. Allie was the oldest adult close to hand and she was definitely smart, but she had gone to bed early with a bad headache. Daisy supposed she could wait until morning to talk with Allie, but . . . No. She thought of the wound, so raw and puffy and hot, and knew that she had to act now. Poppy. She would have to trust in Poppy. There was a reason Oliver Higgins had chosen Poppy to be legal guardians of her two sisters. He had had faith in her.

Daisy very quietly opened the door to her room and peered down the hall. Evie’s door was closed. Quickly she walked to what had once been her parents’ room and knocked.

“Come in,” Poppy called.

Daisy opened the door and quietly closed it behind her.

“What’s up?” Poppy asked. “You look worried.”

“I am worried,” Daisy said. And she told Poppy that Evie was on her own and in dire need of their help. “She’s got a really bad cut on the palm of her hand. It’s infected Poppy, I’m sure of it.”

“Wait a minute, what do you mean she’s on her own?” Poppy asked, her hand over her heart. “Is she a runaway?”

“No.”
Be careful, Daisy!
“Well, she
was
a runaway. After her mother died of cancer her father sent her to live with some old friend of his. The man treated her badly so she left. But she’s an adult now. She’s eighteen. She just doesn’t have anyone to turn to but us.”

“What about her father? Where’s he now?”

“I don’t know,” Daisy admitted. “I don’t know if Evie knows. He’s an alcoholic. I don’t think he’d be of much help even if we knew where to find him.”

Evie. Good. She hadn’t slipped and called her Sophie. At least she wasn’t breaking every promise she had made to her friend.

Poppy frowned. “I wish you had told me this before.”

“Why? Would you have refused to let Evie stay here?”

“Of course not. It’s just that I would like to have known the truth. I mean, she’s living under my roof, she’s my guest, and that means I’m at least partly responsible for what happens to her. Never mind. What’s done is done. All that matters is that we convince Evie to get medical attention.”

“Well, that’s kind of the problem,” Daisy said. “She absolutely refuses to see a doctor. She told me once she’s afraid of needles so maybe that’s why. I really tried to persuade her, but I got nowhere. Do you think you could convince her to go to the ER?”

“I can try.”

“Thank you, Poppy.”

“Don’t thank me until I succeed. If I manage to succeed.”

“You will.” Daisy so hoped that she was right. But she knew that by not telling Poppy about Evie’s real identity, by not telling her the whole truth, she might be setting her sister up to fail. And that wouldn’t solve the problem that was Evie.