The Beresfords (17 page)

“It’s my fault—bathroom breaks,” Aunt Terri put in hastily, “but we have the cooler here. You can dig out the sandwich fixings. What could possibly have happened to them? You don’t think they got in an accident, do you, Tom?”

“If they did we didn’t run across it, and we were bringing up the rear.”

“I bet they stopped for lunch,” Rachel grumbled. She rolled a slice of cheese in a slice of ham and shoved it in her mouth. “It’s so inconsiderate! What were the rest of us supposed to do, while they wasted time? I had to go pee in the woods.”

“Speaking of which,” said Aunt Terri with a worried look. She wasn’t the only one concerned. “How long ago did Jonathan leave? Will he be back soon?”

Rachel consulted her pair of Swatches. “It’s been about fifteen minutes. I thought it was longer.”

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The property management office was all the way near the state line, and with the traffic it might be another forty-five minutes before they returned. Aunt Terri made the same calculation. “I don’t know why they bothered. Surely Julie and Eric will get here before then. And I don’t think it was a good idea to leave you here alone. What about that rash of break-ins?”

Rolling her eyes, Rachel popped the top on a soda can. “
Sheez
—I’d be thrilled if a burglar showed up. Then he could break the window and open the door and it wouldn’t be our fault. Jonathan wanted me to go with them, but Caroline said it would be better if someone stayed to explain what was going on and chew her brother out whenever he got here. I suspect she wanted some alone time.”

“I’m going for a swim,” said Tom.

“Me, too,” Rachel said as he peeled off his shirt. “Now that my bag is here. I’m not waiting around for stupid Julie and Eric Grant.” She gave me a questioning look. I suspect she wanted me along more to stick it to Eric and Julie (look what fun we’re all having without you!) than for the pleasure of my company. I shook my head. My first priority was to find a place to pee, and the fewer people around, the better.

When their footsteps died away, Aunt Terri tore a paper towel in half and shared with me. Toilet paper. “Just bury it afterward. It’ll biodegrade.”

The Beresfords corporately did not do a lot of roughing it, probably because of Aunt Marie. There had been one fatal camping trip before I came to live with them, but family vacations thereafter were spent at the cabin or in a lodge, at the very least. All of which is to say, I had never been obligated to pee in the great wide open and would have spent much longer scouting the perfect location if not for my urgency. As it was I dashed among the trees as if shot from a bow, caring only that I headed away from Aunt Terri and away from the Waterhole. Nor did I want a lake view from my perch, knowing that in such a scenic place, boaters frequently carried binoculars.

I was burying my used paper when I heard the scream. High—climbing—and then broken off as if a lid slammed shut on it. It came from the direction of the house. Aunt Terri? Heart hammering, I dropped the stick in my hand. Then I picked it back up, my mind full of burglars and marauders. Should I go first to the Waterhole for Tom? Or try to scare them off myself? But then I heard voices and running footsteps. Tom and Rachel were already coming. The thought gave me courage, and I stumbled from my woodland ladies room to intersect them.

For a moment I could not make sense of what I saw. There was the overdue 280ZX, engine clicking as it cooled, doors flung open. There was Eric hugging Julie and rocking her while she cried against his shoulder. “
Shhhh
…
shhhh
…” he soothed. There were Tom and Rachel, streaming wet and huddled over something.

“It—it was an accident!” sobbed Julie.

Eric shushed her again but she shoved him away. “I’ve done it, haven’t I?” she asked wildly. “I’ve killed her!”

“God, just about,” said Tom. “Quit blubbering like an idiot and go call 9-1-1.”

The mental pieces fell into place for me. Aghast, I drew nearer until I heard Aunt Terri give a low moan. She lay in a heap on the ground, blood running freely from her forehead.

“Hand me one of the towels, Frannie,” Rachel said. “Don’t move her, Tom!”

“What kind of idiot backs over her own aunt?” Tom complained.

Julie let out another wail, and Eric said, “She didn’t back over her. She just bumped her, I think. She forgot to set the brake.”

“The car was in neutral—it’s not like I gunned it,” Julie protested, her hysterical tears yielding to defensiveness, now that her aunt was not, in fact, dead. “I didn’t even see her there! What was she doing by the trees instead of in the house?”

“No one could get in the damned house because
you
had the damned keys, Julie,” Rachel snapped.

“And you’re supposed to be using the damned keys to get in the damned house to call 9-1-1,” added Tom.

Julie’s mouth fell into an O of comprehension. Still she stood rooted to the spot until Tom jerked his chin at me. “Frannie, you call.”

I obeyed, prying the leather key fob from Julie’s frozen fingers.

It was stuffy inside. If Aunt Terri were there, and not lying in the dirt unconscious, run over by her niece, she would surely march through the cabin, throwing the windows open and running a finger along surfaces to determine how recently housekeeping had been by. As it was, I settled for sitting on the Formica kitchen counter and winding open both sides of the greenhouse window while I answered the questions from dispatch.

It didn’t take long, and after I hung up I noticed the light on the answering machine blinking. Expecting it to be Jonathan, I pressed the message playback button with my toe. Aunt Marie would never bother to call, though she might make Paola do it, if it occurred to her to worry.

“Du-u-u-
uuude
,” came the altogether unexpected voice of Tom’s friend Steve—or was this one Dave? “Got our
magnifico
hotel room at Harrah’s and the items discussed. View’s awesome. Steve’s already scouting out the slot machine girls. Wish you were here. Magic number 625. Davey out.” Dave, then. And clearly, being disinvited from the Beresford cabin didn’t prevent the twosome from making a weekend of it. They were probably happier across the state line anyway—no commute.

For an instant, my finger hovered over the delete button. The last thing I wanted was Tom running off with Steve and Dave to get into trouble. We were supposed to be on a family trip—hitting Aunt Terri with the car notwithstanding. But then there was the reference to the “items discussed.” Maybe Tom knew his friends were in South Lake, and deleting the message wouldn’t change anything except to cause some delay and confusion. Finally I left it alone. I was not skilled in the arts of deception. I could keep secrets, but I could not tell lies. Or at least not effectively enough to make them worthwhile.

When I emerged into sunlight again I was infinitely glad to find a third car now parked under the trees: Jonathan’s Civic. “…Too much traffic,” he was telling the group gathered around our mangled aunt, “I figured it made more sense to turn back and break in if you two didn’t show up.” He was crouched beside Aunt Terri. Julie had begun to whimper again, but I heard another groan. “Don’t try to move,” Jonathan soothed Aunt Terri. “We’re getting help.” Catching sight of me hesitating on the porch, he called, “Are they coming, Frannie?”

When I nodded, all eyes slid back to the victim. She was regaining consciousness, her left hand patting around on the dirt and pine needles until Jonathan grasped it. I couldn’t help myself—seeing that Caroline Grant was standing a few feet apart from my cousin, I squeezed between them, hunkering down next to him.

His gaze met mine, rueful and searching. I knew what he meant:
the weekend’s off to a great start, isn’t it?

“Will you call Aunt Marie?” I asked.

He sighed. “I’ll have to. I’ll have to go to the hospital with the paramedics, too.”

“Shut up already,” Tom barked at the sniffling Julie. “Or go inside. It’s not like your crying is going to make a difference.”

“Quit being such a jerk,” Julie retorted in a voice thick with tears. “Can’t a person feel bad?”

“Why don’t you give me the tour?” Caroline Grant suggested, putting an arm around Julie. “Jonathan’s got it covered, so there’s nothing more you can do here.” Jonathan threw her a look both grateful and flattered as she led Julie away.

I tugged on the hem of his sleeve. “Can I come with you to the hospital?”

He shook his head. “But stay by the phone for my call, okay?”

“Yes.” I shifted to my knees. “What else should I do?”

“Oh, Frannie.” He smiled his golden smile on me. “Just having you here makes it better. But you could pray for Aunt Terri.”

“Yes.” I said again, his praise of me filling me up like warm butterscotch. “Yes. I will.”

He returned his gaze to our unfortunate aunt, applying an index finger to her wrist. She was blinking now and uttered a low “
ow
-w-w-w.”

“Thank God,” said Jonathan. “Hang in there, Aunt Terri. You’ve been in a bit of an accident, but the ambulance is on its way.”

“Dear Lord,” she grunted, raising her free hand to the towel Rachel still pressed to her forehead. “Ugh.” Her hand fell back.

In the distance we heard the faint
whoo
-a-
whoo
-a-
whoo
-a
of the ambulance.

“About time,” said Tom.

As the siren grew louder and heads turned, I
scooched
another inch closer to my cousin. Our knees touched. He looked back at me.

“You think she’ll be okay, don’t you, Jonathan?” I asked, wanting something—anything—I didn’t know—just something
more
from him.

His gentle smile beamed at me again, all the reward I could ask.

“With you praying, Frannie, I know it.”

As soon as the ambulance pulled away with Aunt Terri loaded on the gurney and Jonathan in the passenger seat, the rest of us went inside. Tom thwarted me in my first command to wait by the phone, making off with the cordless handset. The light continued to blink on the answering machine—I suppose the content of Dave’s message was less important than the fact that he left one.

Eric Grant tried a few feeble jokes with Julie as she slid open the living room windows, to which she responded by going in the back bedroom and slamming the door. He then turned to Rachel who was
combing
out her damp hair. “Hey, gorgeous. Wanna show me the lake? I might get lost if I go by myself.”

“If you get lost looking for a lake that big and that close, there’s no hope for you,” Rachel retorted. Her quick fingers wove a thick French braid. She was still bitter about Julie getting to ride shotgun with him for hours and hours.

“There isn’t any hope for me,” Eric said in a lower voice while his sister made a show of curling up on the loveseat and reaching for one of Aunt Marie’s old magazines. “Not if you’re upset with me.”

“Whatever,” said Rachel, not appeased.

“What could I do?” he went on, trying to catch her averted eyes. “It would’ve been rude to say I didn’t want her to ride with me. And now that that’s gotten it over with, it’ll be me and you on the way home.”

Rachel made a face, but she didn’t move away when he leaned against the back of the sectional with her, their arms touching. “Know what I was thinking of, the whole way up?” he murmured. “What do you say—” the rest of his suggestion was lost to me as he whispered it in her ear, but, from what I witnessed at the Carnival, I had my guesses. Rachel colored, debating within herself, but then shrugged and said a shade too loudly, “Well, fine. If you want to really want to see it now.”

I bit my lip. Should I do something? What could I do? This was all going so very, very wrong! If only Jonathan were there, or Julie hadn’t run over our overbearing aunt. I cast a troubled glance at Caroline Grant, but she continued to flip the pages of her magazine, oblivious. Or not caring. Sprinting to the doorway, I called to the couple at the edge of the path where they were hand in hand now. “Rachel! Shouldn’t we—shouldn’t we unload the car first? Aunt Terri would say we should unload the car. All that food—”

Rachel merely tugged on Eric and called back over her shoulder, “If it needs to go in the fridge, you do it, Frannie. The rest can wait.”

Caroline Grant finally looked up from pictures of Margaret Thatcher hanging wallpaper when I rolled and wrestled the cooler into the kitchen. “Surely that can wait,” she echoed Rachel. “Couldn’t Tom do it?”

How many months had she known Tom, and she could say that with a straight face? I only shook my head and flung the thing open, trying not to imagine Rachel and Eric having another woodland tryst. I’d made as much noise as I could outside with the trunk lid and shifting contents around, for all the good it would do. Eric Grant and Rachel didn’t care about anyone but themselves—doing what they were doing with Aunt Terri in the emergency room! I wished they would lie down right where I peed an hour ago.