What I Saw and How I Lied (16 page)

Twyla Deary was a thin woman in a housedress, with a skinny auburn braid that ran down her back. She had a thick Southern accent and a habit of repeating part of what she'd just said. She had set up a pot of coffee and had made plates and plates of sandwiches, and after clucking over me and saying "Don't you worry, dearie, things have a way of turning out just fine, now don't you worry now" and handing me a sandwich with her homemade marmalade and cream cheese, she ran back to the kitchen to make more food.

She put me to work, too, because "idle hands make twice the worry." I was happy to cut bread into slices and make more coffee and lemonade for the barefoot children who came shyly knocking on the frame of the open back door.

Their house had survived better than many I'd seen

("Because my Bud made sure we were snug and tight, he went through the 1928 hurricane when he was a boy, so Bud is the only living soul who's prepared for Armageddon. Prepared for Armageddon, I tell you"), but there was a river running outside the front door. I'd had to take off my shoes to wade to the porch with Officer Deary.

I had a marmalade sandwich on a flowered plate for comfort, and people I didn't know coming in and out the door saying "Now, how did you fare, Twyla?" while they couldn't wait to tell their own hurricane stories. Then came the whispers about "that poor child, parents lost at sea, maybe," and finally I had to double over, grab fistfuls of my skirt in my hands and do what I'd forgotten to do during the whole last night: pray.

A few hours later, Sheriff Bud Deary waded through the water and arrived, grimy and wet and exhausted, to tell me my parents had been found. Joe and Bev had been blown off-course, had brought the boat into the mangroves near Munyon Island, wherever that was, and left the boat in a hurricane hole. They'd gotten ashore by wading and swimming, tying themselves together with rope. They couldn't make it back, so they broke into a restaurant and rode out the storm there.

"A hurricane hole?" I shook my head, remembering the night Peter had mentioned it.

"Your parents stumbled on it, I guess. They were lucky to get to shore."

They were alive. Alive. Mom. I felt her invade me, and I let her in. I started laughing and crying, the relief was so real. I felt Twyla patting me on the back, saying
there, there
over and over.

And then I stopped on a dime. There was something wrong. Something I wasn't hearing.

I was so breathless I could only get out one word. "Peter?"

"A family friend, I understand." The way his voice went so gentle then — I knew.

"He went overboard when they were in the ocean. The engine died, he was trying to fix it below, in the engine well. There was a rogue wave. According to your parents, he got hit in the head by something — a wrench, they think — and he came up topside. He seemed okay, but he must have been dizzy, because he went over. They said it happened so quick. One minute he was there, they could see him, and the next minute a swell came — the wind was gusting about that time, maybe forty miles per hour — and he got knocked off his feet. They tried to get him in the boat, your mother took the helm, your dad threw him all the life preservers, but they saw him go down."

"But he's a good swimmer," I said.

"Jesus is merciful,"Twyla said. "Jesus is merciful, child. Your parents are safe."

"He's not dead, no matter what you think," I said. "He grew up around the water. Maybe he swam to shore, maybe he'll turn up, just the way they did. Things are crazy everywhere, you said."

The sheriff exchanged a glance with his Twyla.

"Your parents are trying to get up here to you," he said. "The Clearview Hotel here in West Palm is open. They'll take you in. Your parents will be here by afternoon. Police escort."

"He could have swam to shore!" I shouted. Because if I could get him to say it, it would be true.

"Twyla, honey, pack her a couple of sandwiches," he said instead.

"I'll do that right now. Don't you worry, ladybug," Twyla said, patting my shoulder. "Don't you worry now."

Ladybug and pussycat, nicknames to call a girl you pity. Did he pity me?

Peter, please come back so you can tell me. Tell me if you love me.

I'll die if I don't know if you love me.

You swam to shore. It was hard but you did it because you're so strong. You walked and walked until you found shelter. Now you're trying to get back here.

I will be Twyla Deary. I will say everything twice until you come back to me. I will find the thing to do that will bring you back.

Live.

Live.

They got to me late that afternoon. Mom's white and pink sundress was filthy. She was barefoot. Joe looked worse. His pants looked like he'd used them for a mop in a fish store. His shirt was missing a button or two, open at his throat. I could see how thick his throat was, the black hair curling up in a snaky line. The policeman who had brought them stood back a couple of paces while they hurried to me outside the hotel's front door.

Mom put her arms around me. "Baby, I thought I'd never see you again." I smelled water standing in a drain, and something else, sharp, like ammonia.

I stepped back before she was ready, maybe. Joe leaned over and kissed me. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"What about Peter? What happened?" I could feel the policeman's eyes on me, and I wondered why he didn't go.

"It was a terrible storm," Joe said.

"We almost drowned," Mom said. "I need a bath." She said it in a way that was almost angry, like we were standing in her way. She wasn't herself. I knew that, I could see that she hardly knew where she was, or if she was standing up straight.

"I'll let you folks get settled," the policeman said. "If there's any word, I'll come by."

"Thank you, officer," Joe said in his best-manners voice.

As we walked through the lobby, my mother pressed close to me.

"It was like an awful dream," she said. "Like it wasn't happening to me at all."

"We made it to shelter, but I thought the building would blow out to sea any minute," Joe said. "I'll tell you one thing: I'm through with Florida."

I showed them our room. No more suite for us. We had two double beds and a couch, the furniture all crowded together. It was dark. They hadn't taken off the shutters over the windows yet. I switched on the light.

"Glad this place has electricity," Joe said.

"It was so dark where we were," Mom said.

She saw the open suitcase on the bed and started to go through it. She shook out her blue cocktail dress. "This is the only thing you brought for me? Honestly! How do you expect me to wear this in broad daylight!"

"I didn't know what to bring," I said. "I didn't think.”

“I'll go back to the Mirage," Joe said. "I'll get your clothes, Bev."

"No!" Mom's voice was sharp and on the edge of something. "Don't make waves, Joe."

It was a funny choice of words, but none of us laughed.

"He wasn't what you thought," Mom whispered to me that night. We lay together in one of the double beds. Joe snored in the other one. "He wasn't what I thought, either. Joe set me straight. I should have known what he was, the way he went after you that way."

I was curled up, facing the wall. She was behind me, her voice thick and urgent.

"He followed us down here, you know. He was blackmailing Joe. He was holding something over his head. Peter thought Joe owed him money. They had some deal, and Peter thought one thing and Joe thought another. That's all. And so Peter said he'd go to the Graysons and tell them Joe was a welsher, that he'd walk away from a debt. You and I know that isn't true. The thing is, though, this came at a really bad time for Joe. You know he just opened up two more businesses. He put all of our cash into them. So he was trapped. That's why Peter made up to us and took us places. He flattered us and we liked his company because of that. Peter went after you behind my — behind
our
backs. He was using you, too. Evie? Are you listening?"

No, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all.

But it
looked
like that.

I wanted to put the pillow over my ears. I wished she'd just shut up. So much noise was in my head.

"I'm just lucky I showed up that night at his house. Who knows what could have happened? Nothing happened before that, right, baby?"

I didn't answer her.

"Because if it did, it's all right. You shouldn't feel... he was trying to get at Joe any way he could. Nothing was your fault. Nothing, baby. I had to tell Joe what happened. He doesn't blame you. Not in the least. But the thing is ... we probably shouldn't tell anyone about any of this. Better to just keep our mouths shut, since Peter's missing. Joe wants to head back to New York. We're going to go back just as soon as we can. Won't you like that? Don't you miss your friends?"

No, I didn't miss my friends.

"We don't belong here."

No, we didn't belong here.

"If we can just get home, everything will be all right." She said this like it was true.

"We can be just like we were. I promise, Evie. You're the most important thing in the world to me," she whispered.

"Mom." I gulped in air so I could get the question out. "What really happened? Tell me. What happened on the boat?"

She rolled away from me. "Just what we said, baby. Now go to sleep."

I walked through the fallen trees and branches to the bridge over to the island. The lake was still cloudy and thick from the storm but the sun was out. The sky was blue again. Just a few blocks from me, you couldn't walk along the path beside the lake, the water was so deep. They said you could take a rowboat down the main street in Delray Beach. The tiki huts were gone and so was the boardwalk. The roof had been blown off the casino in Lake Worth.

We'll be back!
he'd yelled it at me, waving as the boat took off.

Think of all the people in the world who said
Be back soon!
and didn't come back. That's what we found out during the war.

People kept saying about the hurricane,
At least it's not as bad as '28.
Because no matter how bad something is, there's always something worse to compare it to. Some people find that comforting for some reason. I didn't.

Joe wanted to leave, but he couldn't get to his car. There was no gas, anyway. You could only buy a buck at most, not enough to get you very far. We were stuck.

"I'm guessing you wouldn't want to leave yet, anyway," Officer Deary said when he dropped by the next day. "Not with your friend still missing."

We kept the radio on all the time. My head was full of music. The songs told me what would happen. I'd be seeing him in all the old familiar places. I wouldn't want to walk without him. These foolish things reminded me of him. Won't you tell him please to put on some speed. My dream would be here beside me.

He would come back. He would tell me the truth behind the lies. We would fill up his blue convertible with gas and we would take off, the way we had on those other long, hot afternoons, when there was nobody in the world but us.

The hotel sent our suitcases over. Joe got a ride over to pick up his car. He said it seemed like hundreds of palm trees were blown down. Green coconuts were lying smashed on the streets.

The roads weren't bad north of us. And he had found a place to sell him a tank full of gas. We were leaving tomorrow. After a good night's sleep and with a thermos full of coffee, because he'd drive all day and all night if he had to, as far as he could, just to get home.

Mom kept the lamp on the vanity burning all night long. I lay on my side and watched the shaft of light on the floor. I listened to her turn over in bed. I fell asleep to the sound of restless legs and whispering sheets. The sounds merged together in my head, in my dreams, and I wasn't sure if I'd heard Joe and Mom whispering together or if I'd been dreaming.

We were packing the car before sunup when the cruiser pulled up. Officer Deary got out. "Taking off?"

We all stopped what we were doing, Mom with a suitcase ready to slide in the trunk, me carrying a stack of magazines. Joe put his hand on my shoulder. "I like to get an early start."

"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stay for a few more days," the sheriff said.

"Officer Deary, we've been here for two days since the hurricane," Joe said. "You have my address in New York. I have several businesses to run. This delay is costing me."

Officer Deary nodded a few times. "I appreciate that, I surely do. I know how busy you Northerners are. Peter Coleridge's body has been found."

I gasped. The sentence had come without warning. There was no /
came here to tell you
or
I have news.

It was the word
body.
I could see it, something heavy, like a log, not like a person, turning with the waves, bumping up on a beach.

Mom dropped the suitcase. Pebbles shifted, a fallen palm leaf blew, the fronds
tap-tap-tapping
against the trunk of the tree.

"We'd like to ask you and your wife some questions," Officer Deary said. "Right now."

They left, and I was left with this, that Peter was dead. I couldn't cry. You have to have your arms open and your mouth open and your heart. My heart was a fist.

Maybe it wasn't him that they found, maybe it was someone else. Someone not as lucky as Peter, not as golden, not as charmed.

Could I go back, why couldn't I go back, why couldn't I stop them from taking out the boat, why couldn't I go back and stop Peter from going?