Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (61 page)

"And if he's not?"

"Follow the path back here."

But there he'd be
, she could have added, watching Jody cross the yard.

The forest spread out indefinitely on either side of the narrow path that was little more than a sandy trail. The trees themselves were spaced somewhat far apart, but the dense shrub layer below made it difficult to see beyond several feet off the trail. Feeling a bit uneasy in the unfamiliar surroundings, Jody picked her way quietly on sandaled feet, wondering if maybe she should have waited at the cabin for Jeremy instead of setting out through the woods like Red Riding Hood.

And she wondered, too, if maybe she should have stolen a peek in that old mirror hanging over the sink in Miz Tuesday's bathroom before going out to find Jeremy. Lord knew just how bad she might look, in the cotton shift, her hair pulled up in an elastic, and her face dotted with Miz Tuesday's ointment, which was, gratefully, pale in color and hopefully would not eat the skin off her face.

Jody had sensed a change in Jeremy the minute they had crossed Miz Tuesday's threshold, a quiet resignation, as if he'd finally exhaled a breath he'd been holding for a long, long time. There was no question that something here was the key to doors that were long ago locked, and instinctively, Jody knew that, if they were to share more than a few fun-filled days at the beach together, Jeremy would not only have to unlock those doors himself, he'd have to share whatever waited behind them with her. She wondered if he could.

The path ended abruptly, and the gray sand with its sparse covering of poor grass spread out around her in a wide clearing mat bore signs of fire from sometime in the past. Fifty or so feet away from the charred remains of a house, Jeremy sat, still as a stone, his back against a fallen log. From the end of the path, Jody waited and watched for some movement on his part, but he appeared to be in a trance.

Jody walked to the log and sat behind him, wrapped her arms around him protectively, and waited.

Finally, he said, "There's nothing left."

"What was here before, Jeremy?"

"My home. My mother. My brother. My stepfather."

"Did you lose them in a fire?"

"If I'd been home that night, I could have saved them."

"How do you know that you wouldn't have been trapped inside with them?"

"I could have saved them," he repeated sadly. "There was no one here to save them."

He leaned back against her, and let her rock him gently, side to side, and he told her what had happened that night, long ago, how he had left home a cocky fifteen-year-old hell-bent on enjoying a wild Fourth of July at the beach with his friends, how he had returned to find that his world had been destroyed and replaced by a nightmare of flames and smoke.

Then, abruptly, he fell silent. It had been so long since he had put his memories into words that he seemed stunned by them.

"Then what happened, Jeremy?" Jody asked to draw him back. "After the fire, where did you go? Where did you stay?"

"I went to live with my aunt—my father's sister—and her family in Tuckerton."

"What happened to your father?"

"He was killed in a boating accident when I was two. My mother remarried about three years later. My stepfather had lived in the Pines all his life. When he was growing up, he picked blueberries in the summer, harvested cranberries in the fall. And he carved decoys— ducks, geese, loons. Mostly, he supported his family by building Barnegat sneakboxes—small rowboats that he'd sell to hunters or fishermen—but he was a real artisan when it came to carving. His decoys were in great demand, the colors and the carvings were so exacting, so beautiful. Whenever I think about him, I remember that he worked very hard. And that he loved my mother very, very much." He cleared his throat, then continued. "Anyway, my aunt had married a high school teacher. They had a son my age, T.J.—"

"Your partner."

"Yes. We'd been close since we were little kids. After I moved in with them, we grew even closer. My aunt never forced me to come back here, and I never did."

"Jeremy, I'm so sorry."

His right hand dragged through his hair. "They never did determine what caused the fire. I have relived every detail of that night a thousand times in my head, trying to piece it together, trying to figure out just what happened. I never really did. Not even after several years of investigative training."

"You mean, training to become a private investigator?"

"No, I mean when I joined the FBI."

"You were in the FBI?" Jody hadn't meant to let her jaw drop, but there it was, almost to her chest.

"I was recruited right out of Princeton."

"May I ask how you managed to get
there
?"

"T.J.'s father's brother was one of the assistant football coaches there. He came to watch T.J. and me play several times in high school. Our grades were very good, our SAT's were high… and we both applied. I didn't expect to get in, but…" He shrugged. "Anyway, we both graduated and we both joined the FBI."

"This must have haunted you, all these years." Jody said softly.

He nodded. "Every day. I think about it every day."

"But you never came back."

He shook his head. "There really was nothing here for me, Jody, other than some very painful memories. I never wanted to stand in this spot again."

"But you're standing here now."

"You needed Miz Tuesday," he said simply.

He had traded her pain for his own, pure and simple. The knowledge of how much he had paid for Miz Tuesday's floral bath and herbal ointment all but knocked the wind from her lungs. Jody sat back down on the fallen log and waited while he poked here and there about the remains of the house. She watched as he sifted through ashes in the fireplace that stood along what had once been an outside wall. Occasionally he would pick something up and examine it, sometimes pocketing whatever it was that he found, but most often just dropping the object where he'd found it

Finally, after close to an hour had passed, he looked over to where she sat and said, "There just isn't anything here, Jody."

She went to him and took his hand. "Well, at least you finally came back, Jeremy. You can't tell me that you're not glad to be back."

"No. I can't say that I'm not" He sighed and looked overhead to the tall pines that stretched above him. "I never realized how much I still miss this place. I never imagined how much like
home
it would feel, how familiar it all would be even after so many years."

A bird trilled melodically from a nearby branch, bringing a smile to his face. "That's a pine warbler. I haven't heard one in years."

Jody looked up and followed the small buff-yellow bird as it hopped from branch to branch overhead.

"Are you ready to go back to Miz Tuesday's?" she asked.

Jeremy nodded and took the hand she held out to him. "I guess I should have prepared you for her."

Jody smiled. "I don't know how you could prepare anyone for Miz Tuesday."

She's one of a kind, all right How does the sunburn feel?"

"Much, much better." Jody shook her head. "I don't really know what was in the bathwater, and I'm not sure about what's in the ointment I almost think I'm better off
not
knowing. But whatever it is, it's taken the fire out of my skin, and I've all but forgotten that I have blisters."

He peered down at her. "They haven't disappeared," he told her, "but they do seem to be drying up a little."

"Maybe I'll get lucky and they won't scar," she said as they walked from the clearing to the path without having decided to do so.

"Well, that was the whole idea."

"You're quite a man, Jeremy Noble," she told him when they had reached the edge of the path and he had stopped to look back at the remains of his childhood home. "I know it wasn't easy, coming back here. I'll never forget that you did this for me."

Jody leaned up and kissed him very lightly on the tip of his chin. It was the best her swollen lips could do at the time. She would, she promised herself, make it up to him later. As often as he would let her.

"How old do you suppose Miz Tuesday is?" Jody asked as they followed the path through the woods.

"Oh, over one hundred."

"You think Miz Tuesday is more than one hundred years old?"

"Sure. I know she is. She was old when I first met her. Old the last time I saw her. And she'll live forever." He grinned. "Everyone in the Pines knows that."

"She's pretty savvy for a woman that old."

"Miz Tuesday is savvy for a woman of any age," he assured her. "I've never met anyone like her. She's a legend around here, you know. When I was little, there was a story going around about how she fought the Jersey Devil over in the cedar swamp and won."

Jody laughed. "Who's the Jersey Devil?"

"Not 'who,' darlin,' what. According to local legend, a Mrs. Leeds, who lived somewhere in Atlantic County— the exact whereabouts depends on who is telling the story—had twelve children. When she learned that she was expecting yet another child, she was said to have proclaimed angrily, 'I hope this one is a devil.' And sure enough, she got her wish."

"She gave birth to a baby devil?"

"So they say."

"And what exactly does this 'devil' look like?"

"Let's see, I think it had the face of a horse—with horns, of course—and a body that sort of resembles a kangaroo. Wings, like a bird. Cloven feet, like a pig. A forked tail."

"And how big is this thing? Just so I don't confuse it with any other horse-pig-bird-kangaroo."

"Well, that, too, depends on…"

"… who's telling the story. Gotcha." She laughed. "And people claim to have seen this thing."

"On and off for the past two hundred years."

"Must have been that Jersey lightnin'."

Jeremy laughed and squeezed her hand.

"What's Miz Tuesday's real name?"

"That is her name, as far as I know," he said as they came to the end of the path, where the subject of their conversation was leaning into her garden and gathering a blossom here, a leaf or two there. "I've never heard her referred to any other way."

"You find what you were looking for, boy?" the old woman asked without turning around.

"I think so," Jeremy told her.

She continued clipping her plants. "Then you'll be going. I'll be giving her"—she nodded in Jody's direction—"some for her bath, some for to keep on the blisters."

"Thank you, Miz Tuesday." Jeremy said softly.

"You won't stay away as long next time. You'll be back twice before Christmas," she told him.

"Will I, now?"

"Yes. The second time, she'll be with you." Miz Tuesday turned toward her cabin and added slyly, "No scars, she'll have."

"If Miz Tuesday says it's so," Jeremy said to Jody as they followed Miz Tuesday down the path of crushed oyster shells, "it's so."

Miz Tuesday handed Jody a small container and said, "This for the blisters. This"—she held up a small bag— "for the bathwater."

"Thank you, Miz Tuesday. I'm very grateful." Jody tucked everything into her shoulder bag. "I don't know how to thank you." Jody reached out to touch the old woman's arm.

"Bring the boy back again." The old woman almost smiled. Just bring the boy back."

The early evening sky had remained cloudy and a bit of a breeze had picked up by the time the Maxima pulled back into the parking lot of the Sea View Motel. Jeremy had been silent for most of the drive back from Miz Tuesday's. Clearly, for him, the trip to his childhood home had been both emotional and cathartic. Jody reached for his hand as they walked to the end of the concrete path that led from the parking lot to the boardwalk. Beyond the nearly deserted beach, choppy waves doused the sand with white foam.

Jody squeezed his hand and asked, "How does a walk on the beach sound?"

He looked off in the distance to where a storm was just beginning to gather and nodded. "I think it's a good day for it."

Jody wasn't sure if he was referring to a walk or to a storm.

"I think I'd like to stop back at my room first and change, though. It was sweet of Miz Tuesday to let me keep Martha's dress, but I think that a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt might be more apropos."