The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) (22 page)

Her blood; Eliza's blood.

It shocked her anew, every time she saw it.

Oh, she wished she could cry. She felt like it, she almost could . . .

She watched the blood spring out of the little sixteenth-of-an-inch cut and trickle down her arm, and she felt the searing anguish in her chest, knowing that everyone was just blood and bone, and death could come so suddenly and take it all away, and love could be replaced by rage, and both could be left with nowhere to go . . .

And she let the red blood spill off her arm, onto the dark, rare wood of the grandfathers' desk, and she watched her blood drop run down Poseidon's mahogany face, into the ocean waves curling at his feet, and with her teeth gritted but no tears in her eyes, Eliza rubbed her blood into the king's face, into the sea.

21

S
ATURDAY WAS A LONG, LOVELY, TERRIBLE DAY. TO
Annie,
it felt like going to a movie she loved and finding out that, instead of watching it, she was actually
in
it; in fact, it was her life. It was like having, on a temporary basis at least, most of her wishes come true. As well as fears she didn't know she had . . .

It started with Eliza being dropped off at nine-thirty. Her dad pulled his truck into the driveway, and Annie's mom went out to speak to him about returning at six-thirty, for dinner, all of them together. The reason Eliza was allowed to come so early was that they'd promised to do two hours of homework, and they decided to get it out of the way first thing.

While their parents consulted in the driveway, the girls went up to Annie's room, where Annie offered Eliza her desk.

“No, that's okay,” Eliza said, plopping down. “I want your bed.”

“But it's so much easier to concentrate at the desk,” Annie said.

“Well, thank you. I know it is, but I'm into sloth. My body doesn't feel like being upright today.”

“Are you eating?”

Eliza shook her head. “But don't tell. My father was threatening to send me back to Banquo if I didn't start. He's so . . . upsetting.”

“I think he's worried about you,” Annie said, feeling worried herself. Eliza looked skinnier than she'd seen her before, as if each and every one of her cells was malnourished and fading away.

“He doesn't have to be,” Eliza said. “I'm the one in our house who worries. About HIM. He's the bane of my existence.”

“Your father?” Annie asked, marveling yet horrified by Eliza speaking of her father that way.

“Yes. Ever since his business nearly went under, he's been so different. Hardly ever laughs. And talk about not eating. If middle-aged men could be anorexic, he'd be a candidate. Ever since last year . . .”

“But wasn't that when your mother died?”

Eliza had sprawled on Annie's bed, and she looked up at her with a glint in her eyes. “Yes. And you know how that changes everything.”

“So, maybe your father is just sad.”

“Well, it's very complicated,” Eliza said, hugging Annie's pillow as if it were a baby, kissing its forehead. “And I thank you for wanting to figure it out for me, but that's the trouble with family secrets: If we told them, we think we'd die. So . . . what do you have for homework? I have English.”

“I have French.” Annie smiled, thrilled by the mention of family secrets . . . because she had a few of her own, and it was early, and the day was long. And just then the door opened, and her mother—as if prompted by Mr. Connolly—came in with a plate of cut-up fruit.

“Here, you two,” she said. “Something to keep your brains happy while you study.”

“Mmm, apples and pears,” Eliza said, beaming as if she had just been handed a platter of silver and gold. “I LOVE them. Thank you SO much!”

“You're welcome, Eliza. We're glad you could come today.”

“So am I,” Eliza said, still beaming.

When her mother had left the room, Annie grabbed a few slices, then passed the plate to Eliza. She shook her head, declining. “No, thank you.”

“But I thought you said you loved them.”

“I do,” Eliza said, pulling her English book from her backpack. “I'm just not going to eat them.”

Annie nodded. She understood and respected Eliza's desire. The girls did their work—Eliza on the bed, Annie at the desk. The French homework was very hard, but very beautiful, as the music of the language came off the page . . . In French class, and while studying, Annie became small and chic, a delightful gamine, the kind of girl her father would have thought was beautiful.

Annie whispered the dialogue at her desk, enraptured by the music of the words, and loving that she had a friend in her room. It made the pain of missing her father a little duller. “You can read it out loud,” came the voice from the bed.

“I don't want to interrupt your English.”

“That's okay. It's Dickens—
Great Expectations
. I can do it with my eyes closed. Some of us
live
Dickens . . . especially when he writes about orphans and tragedy . . .” She sighed loudly and scratched her arm, making Annie want to see beneath her sleeves, to see whether there were any new scars there. “Life with me is,” Eliza concluded, “unfortunately, one big chapter out of Dickens, urchins and skullduggery and hunger and dirty streets and evil people out on the roof whispering to sleeping girls . . . so please, go ahead now: Read your French lesson to me.”

“What evil people?”

“People FOLLOW me,” Eliza said, baring her teeth and making claws with her fingers. “The EVIL people . . .”

“Really?” Annie said, shivering with the pleasure of such creative playing.

“Yes . . . everywhere I go, I feel them there, but then I look over my shoulder, and they're GONE. Only to return in the night . . .”

“What do they do in the night?”

“Call my name—‘Eliza, your mother wants you.' ”

“I wish my father would call me.”

“It's not really my mother,” Eliza whispered. “It's just my crazy head.”

“You're not crazy.”

“Sometimes I'm worried that I am.” But then Eliza smiled. “It's really not too bad, though. It's a good way to be in touch with all the beloveds . . . You know, last night I had a talk with the two grannies and told them you and I are the newest best friends at Hubbard's Point. Hey, maybe it's one of them calling at my window!”

“Maybe!” Annie said, her head spinning as it often did when Eliza got going—what MUST it be like to be in Eliza's mind? So Annie read her dialogue out loud, perfecting her pronunciation a little more as she went along, thrilled to have an audience, a friend, a fellow passenger in the lifeboat.

A LITTLE LATER, ONE MOVIE REEL ENDED, AND THE FILM
changed.

After homework, when the two girls decided to take their lunches as a picnic over to Little Beach—so Eliza could chuck hers along the way, big surprise—Eliza took note of the black car driving by.

“Ooh,” she said. “Cops, right?”

“Mmm,” Annie said, frowning and feeling embarrassed.

“They're digging up dirt on your dad?”

“Mmm,” Annie said, her shoulders caving in a little more.

“Don't be ashamed,” Eliza said, squeezing her hand. “So, your dad wasn't perfect. Who is?”

Annie couldn't quite speak at first. She watched the unmarked car cruise past, like a shark on wheels: black car, white death. “I thought my father
was
perfect,” she said, her voice failing her.

“I know, Annie. I thought my mother was, too.”

“When did you find out she wasn't?”

Eliza stared at Annie as they walked, as if trying to make up her mind about whether she could go the whole way and confide in her or not.

“Whatever she did, it couldn't have been as bad as my dad.”

The two girls walked down the beach road, away from the boardwalk their nondead parents had built. When they got to the foot of the rocky path leading up to the pine- and cedar-studded hill, Eliza tilted her head back and looked.

“What's that?” she asked.

“The path to Little Beach,” Annie said. She half expected Eliza—in her long black spandex dress and platform shoes—to protest. But instead, Eliza's eyes widened with interest.

“This looks just like a place where secrets can be told!” she exclaimed. “A hidden, enchanted path where good girls can tell each other terrible and amazing things . . . and where the evil people will never find them!”

“You're kidding about the evil people, right?” Annie asked nervously.

“I think so,” Eliza said.

Satisfied, Annie felt a magical tingle go down her spine. The deliciousness of talking about terrible and amazing things, of not having to hide the truth, made her take Eliza's hand and help her up the steep path. The trees grew along the trailside, branches interlocking overhead, sending dappled green sunlight spilling onto their shoulders.

Once in the woods, the first thing Eliza did was to unwrap the sandwich Annie's mother had made and throw it into the bushes.

“For the birds,” she explained. Then, “Oh—I should have asked if you wanted it . . . you could have had two.”

“I only want half of mine,” Annie said, removing from the plastic wrap part of her turkey sandwich, tossing it after Eliza's.

“You're losing a lot of weight,” Eliza said.

“You can tell?”

“Yes. Pounds are melting from your frame. Be careful you don't tip over into the land of anorexia. Once you start, it's hard to break the addiction. Starvation is like a drug. Who needs heroin?”

“I don't do drugs,” Annie said firmly.

“Me, neither . . . except my PRN.”

“Your what?”

“At the hospital. Tranquilizers on demand. They didn't want us getting too upset—outwardly, at least. How we felt inside was another story; they couldn't do anything about that. Being upset inside was why we were there.”

“Why
were
you at the hospital?” Annie asked as they walked through the dark, twisting path, two girls in a fairy tale, on their way to the sorcerer father's cell . . .

“You want the whole story?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it's not pretty,” Eliza said. “And it's about my mother . . . and your father.”

“MY father?” Annie asked, shocked.

“Yes. So be sure you really want to hear . . .”

“Tell me!”

Eliza put up her hand and motioned Annie forward. They walked in silence for another minute, and then they came out of the darkness—miraculously, like being born—into the sunlight of Little Beach. Usually this was the part of the walk where Annie relaxed, but right now every muscle in her body was tense, as if she knew she was about to meet a monster. And what was that crackle in the woods—like someone following them? She forced herself to shake off the fear; Eliza had just spooked her.

But when they'd walked about halfway down the first beach, toward the “Super Simmy” shark rock, she stopped to listen: someone
was
walking in the woods, just out of sight. She definitely heard twigs and leaves snapping under someone's feet. “Do you hear that?” she asked Eliza.

“Hmm,” Eliza said, listening.

“Is it the evil people?” Annie whispered.

“Yes!” Eliza said, making her scary face. “They want to hear the story, too. Are you ready to hear?”

“I guess so,” Annie said, watching the woods, but seeing nothing there, knowing that she was playing on the edge of craziness with her friend.

“Your dad was my trustee,” Eliza said.

Annie scrunched up her nose, trying to remember what a trustee was. Museums had them, she knew, because her father had been one for the art museum. She didn't want to seem dumb, but why did Eliza need one?

“See, my grandfather was very rich,” Eliza said, almost apologetically. “His father owned whaling ships, and they used to sail the seas, killing beautiful and gentle whales. He owned a whole fleet . . . and then he invested in a shipping line . . . and then he diversified and invested in power companies.”

“Oh,” Annie said. One of her grandfathers had sold ice, and the other had built stone walls.

“Grandfather Day—Obadiah Day—set up a trust, which means he put tons of money in the bank in a special account that can't be touched.”

“So what good is it?”

“Oh,” Eliza said. “It earns interest. We can spend the interest all we want.”

“You and your dad?”

“Um, actually, just me,” Eliza said. “I say ‘we,' but I mean me. I basically pay for everything.”

“You mean, you buy your own things?”

“No. I pay for everything. Our expenses, my dad's business costs . . . it costs a lot to be a wooden boatbuilder. In fact, my mom used to tease him and say she was bankrolling his hobby.”

“But . . . he charges a lot for the boats he makes,” Annie said. “My mother told me.”

“Sure, because the materials cost so much. He uses really expensive wood. Sometimes it's rare, from Zanzibar or Costa Rica. Do you know how much it costs to get a load of goose teak here from Lamu? A fortune. And his labor is expensive. But because he builds each boat by hand, himself, he doesn't make a lot.”

“But he's the best at what he does. My mom told me that, too.”

“Sure he is,” Eliza said. “I'm just saying my mother told me his job is like a hobby. And she paid for him to do it.”

“Did he mind that?” Annie felt confused. In her house, her dad had been so proud about her mom not working. He liked being “the breadwinner.”

Eliza shrugged. “I don't think he cared. Or cares. He's different from anyone else I know; he loves his work, he loves the sea, he loves me. He loved my mother. Certain things are important to my dad. As long as he has them, he's fine.”

“You said,” Annie said, swallowing, “that my dad was your trustee.”

“Yes. He supervised the trust. Along with my mom.”

“That's how they knew each other?”

Eliza nodded, picking up some small shells, letting them jingle in her palm. The girls continued to walk, between the huge rock and the overgrowth of poison ivy—a sorcerer's way of blocking people from passing by, but Annie showed Eliza how to go sideways, back to the rock, to avoid touching the glossy green leaves—to the second beach.