Island Girl (50 page)

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Authors: Lynda Simmons

BOOK: Island Girl
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“For the full amount,” I repeated, and would have gotten out of the car so I could hear the rest of what Jim was saying if the rain hadn’t still been coming down hard.
I checked the clock on the dash. Two ten. By the time I got home, changed, got back in the car . . . “I’ll be there at four to pick it up.”
“No good. Champlain is on summer hours. They close at three.”
“Then I’ll pick it up at your office.”
“Nope, I’ll be on my way up north at the same time.” I could hear the bastard smiling when he said, “Since Vandergroot and I both take Mondays off, I guess we’ll see you Tuesday.”
The cheering in the car had stopped. Brenda said, “Hold on, Mitch,” and all I could think was,
Three more days of Hal.
I glanced down at my shorts and tank top. What the hell. Jim had heard about the expensive suit. He didn’t need to see it. “I’m leaving now, Jim. I’ll be in Oakville by three.”
“I’ll wait for you at reception. You’re not to go past that desk. And if you’re later than three ten, you’ll have to wait until Tuesday.”
“I’ll see you at three,” I said, and closed the phone.
Brenda said, “Gotta go, Mitch. We have to be in Oakville in less than an hour.”
The thunder and lightning stopped as we pulled onto the highway, but the drive was slow, with rain still falling and the water so deep at times we could see the tires making waves as we drove. We pulled into the lot at five past three. Brenda took me as close as she could to the front door, but it would still be a thirty-foot dash through stubborn rain and huge puddles in sandals. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t slip halfway there and end up on my butt in one of them.
“Have we got a bag or something I can put the draft in?”
Brenda had a zipper-lock bag with cookies for the kids in her purse. She handed three each to Nadia, Ethan, and Aaron, then sent the bag back to me. I zipped it up and pushed it into my back pocket. “Wish me luck.”
Ethan leaned over and hugged me, pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Good luck.”
I threw back the door to a chorus of voices calling, “Good luck.” “Don’t get too wet.” “We love you, Liz.”
“Limitless joy,” Nadia hollered, as I ran full out for that front door.
Fortunately, the rain was warm and I was grateful for shorts as I splashed through the puddles. Jeans would have been heavy and dragging by the time I reached that door, but the shorts were light and clinging nicely to my ass—the perfect complement to the wet T-shirt thing I had going on when I walked into the reception area.
The icy cold blast of the air-conditioning made for an even more interesting visual and I was pleased to see Jim’s mouth drop open and the police officer with him swallow hard. Silver linings, as Great-Grandma Lucy used to say. Silver linings.
I smiled sweetly. “Nice to see you again, Jim.”
I walked toward them, dripping all over the expensive marble and sliding a little in my sandals—prompting a helping hand from the nice police officer who was there, I supposed, to make sure I didn’t violate the inner sanctum again. If nothing else, we had shaken things up at Champlain Aerospace.
A crowd hovered at the doorway to the offices and I flashed them a smile, twiddled my fingers, then turned my full attention to Jim, who had finally composed himself enough to say, “Nice to see you too, Liz. I only wish it could have been under different circumstances.”
As I watched him pull an envelope from his jacket, I took the zipper-lock bag from my back pocket nice and slow. “As you can see, I’m a little wet. Can you open the envelope and show me the draft? I wouldn’t want to ruin it and have to get you to issue another one.”
He opened the envelope and I sidled up beside him, not close enough to get him wet but close enough to feel the heat coming off him. Everything looked to be in order, so I stepped back and held open the bag. “Just drop that puppy in here and I’ll be on my way.”
With the draft safely tucked inside the bag, I zipped up the top and held out a reasonably dry hand to Jim. “It’s been a pleasure.”
He shook my hand and walked with me to the door. “It took moxie to pull this off, Liz.”
I smiled up at him. “I think the word you’re looking for is balls.”
He laughed and opened the door. “What would you say to a drink some night?”
“I’d have to say no.” I smiled as I stepped outside. “You see, I don’t drink anymore.”
The door closed between us. I turned around to see that the rain had finally stopped and Mitch’s black pickup was parked beside the clown car. He and the kids, along with the staff of Sideshow Legal, were all standing outside, giving me a standing ovation as I came back through the puddles.
Nadia put her fingers in her mouth and whistled, the boys jumped up and down, and Brenda started to cry when Mitch took the zipper-lock bag and started pumping my hand.
“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t hug you,” he said. “But you’re a little wet and I have to get to the bank.”
“I am, and you do,” I said, laughing and bending over at the waist to give Brenda and the boys a safe, long-distance hug.
“We’re taking you and Nadia for dinner tonight,” Mitch said.
“Decide where you’d like to go,” Brenda said, walking with him to the truck. “And make sure it’s expensive!”
The boys splashed along beside them and Nadia stepped forward at last, wrapping her arms around me and lifting me up off the ground.
“Limitless joy,” I grunted, which was a mistake because I thought she might crack a rib when she hugged me harder.
GRACE
 
“Grace.”
The voice was familiar. Calling softly. Bringing me up from a sound sleep.
“Grace, wake up.”
I opened my eyes. Blinked at the dark. “Liz?”
Warm breath on my forehead. “No, idiot. It’s Jocelyn.”
I smiled at the shadow above me. “Hi, Jocelyn.”
“Hi, Grace.” I could hear her smiling back. “It’s time to get up.”
Get up? I turned my head to the window. Saw moonlight on the black trees outside. “It’s still dark. We can’t go biking in the dark.” I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes again. “I don’t want to go today anyway. Maybe tomorrow.”
She climbed on the bed and bounced up and down by my feet. “This is the fourth morning in a row you’ve said that.”
“It is not.”
She bounced harder. “Doesn’t matter because we’re not going biking. Now get up.”
“No.”
“You are such a pain.” She climbed off the bed, grabbed my arm, and tried to drag me over the side. But even if I wasn’t completely awake, she was still smaller than me and I did not want to end up on the floor. So she did instead, plop, right on her butt.
“Asshole,” she muttered, and scrambled to her feet. “If that woke your mom up, then we are totally screwed.”
“My mom takes sleeping pills, so I don’t think that would be enough. And why would we be screwed?” I propped the pillow under my head and opened my eyes really wide as though that would help me see in the dark. All I could make out were the shapes of my furniture against the walls, black holes where I knew there were posters, and Jocelyn’s shadow crossing the room, opening the door and checking the kitchen anyway. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“I’ve had enough surprises.” I turned my head. Stared at the grey square that was my window. “I don’t think I can take any more.”
“You’ll like this one, I promise.” She plunked a canvas bag beside me. Started digging around inside. “But it’s not going to be dark for long, which means you’ll miss it if you don’t come with me this minute.”
“Are you planning ghost stories at the lighthouse? Because if you are—”
“It’s better than ghost stories. So stop arguing.”
“Why won’t you tell me what it is?”
“Because that would ruin everything.” She pulled a flashlight out of the bag and clicked it on. “I brought this so you can see to get dressed.”
She stuck it under her chin and made scary noises the way Liz used to do.
I smiled, but I guess she couldn’t see me because she said, “Well, I thought it was funny,” and put the flashlight in my hand instead. “You need to find some shorts, fast.”
I didn’t use the light to look for shorts. I used it to check the clock instead. “It’s four A.M.” I turned off the light and laid it down beside my head. “I’m going back to sleep.”
“I don’t think so.” She shone the light in my face.
I put a hand in front of my eyes. “Why are you being so awful?”
“If I’m being awful, then I learned it from you.” She knocked my hand away. “Get up, get up, get up, get up—”
“Okay, okay, you win!” I threw my feet over the side and sat on the edge of the bed.
You’re up before the birds, Grace
, my mom used to whisper when I was little and standing beside her bed in the dark. She never minded me being there, and she never took me back to my own bed either. She just lifted the covers and said,
Hop in
, and she and Mark would make room for me in the middle.
I guess that’s why I didn’t mind when William used to get up early too. Everything was so quiet and dark, it felt like we were the only ones awake in the whole world. Just me and William and a little night-light shaped like a swan. Liz gave it to me when I brought him home from the hospital. She said it would give me enough light to see what I needed to see in order to take care of the baby but not so much that he’d wake up completely and not go back to sleep.
She’d read all the books about babies, and when she said I wasn’t to play with him at night, I figured she wasn’t being mean, she just knew more than I did. She said I could talk to him and change him and feed him and then I could take him back to bed with me, which was my favorite part because he loved to snuggle. It didn’t take long to figure out that Liz was right about the light, because every night, William and I would go right back to sleep. And lots of times, Liz would already be gone to work when we woke up again. Lots of times.
Jocelyn shoved the flashlight in my hand again. “You’ve got one minute to get dressed.” She went out into the hall. “Otherwise, you’re going in your jammies.”
It was a good thing I knew where my shorts were because I don’t wear jammies in the summer. Just underwear and a camisole. And like Jocelyn said, it wasn’t going to be dark out there much longer.
I pulled on my shorts and tugged a T-shirt over my camisole—I’d Rather Be Sailing, which was a lie—and walked into the kitchen. Outside, the streetlights were still on, making it easier to see her waiting for me by the back door. “Did you make sandwiches?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you at least pack some cookies?”
“Why would I?”
I shook my head. “You don’t do this kind of thing much, do you?
She swung her bag up over her shoulder and held open the door. “Just get on your bike.”
No sandwiches, no cookies. None of it made sense. Then again, we weren’t going to tell ghost stories, so what did I know? Not much, as usual.
We passed the ferry dock and I realized she might be right. It might have been four days since I’d gone riding. Four days making centerpieces and watching the mockingbirds. Relaxing. Enjoying my summer like I was supposed to. Going to bed early. Getting up late. And eating.
I don’t know why, but ever since Chez Ruby closed, I’d been hungry all the time. An ache in my stomach always there, a giant hole begging for ice cream or leftover cake or another hamburger. Anything at all as long as it filled that spot for a while.
Four days of eating and lying around didn’t seem like much until we reached the bridge and suddenly it felt like ten. My legs were already stiff and my whole body felt heavy. “How far are we going?” I asked, that hole in my stomach wide awake now too. Making me wish I’d slapped some cheese sandwiches together. Grabbed a whole box of cookies.
“Gibraltar Point. Be quiet until we’re past the fire station.”
That was the first thing she’d said that made sense.
But even when we were past the disc golf course and on our way to Centre, we didn’t talk. Just kept following the dull yellow glow of the streetlights past the empty pier where the moon sat watching us to the even lonelier road heading out toward the lighthouse. Even though the birds were starting to stir, it was still too early for the artists, so no one was around to see two bikes gliding past the retreat and turning left onto the first path leading down to the lake.
Jocelyn stopped at the end of the path and got off her bike. “You are going to love this!” she said, grabbing her bag and my hand and running with me across the grass onto a small, secluded beach shouting, “We’re here! We’re here!”
I had no trouble at all seeing Kylie, Brianne, and Courtney racing toward us, the three of them screeching and talking at once, as usual. “Oh my God, Grace!” “Wait till you see, Grace!” “This is the coolest thing ever!”

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