Kiss River (5 page)

Dennis is the one who told me I should read
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
I am the library’s best customer. I read more than anyone I know. I am the top reader in my school, although I guess since there are only twenty-three students in my whole school, and most of them are younger than me, that’s not saying much. But I read even better than the older ones. I’d finished all the Nancy Drews, and then Mrs. Cady told my parents I should be allowed to read whatever I want. They said it was all right with them. So I am now reading
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
and a
book of stories by Eudora Welty, and I discuss them with Dennis on the weekends. I was reading at the kitchen table yesterday, taking notes with my pencil right on the tabletop, because I didn’t have any paper right there and the table is porcelain and the notes will wash right off, but Mama yelled at me anyhow.

Mama says I’m not allowed to call Dennis by his first name. I’m supposed to call him Mr. Kittering, like I do with other adults. But Dennis laughs at me when I call him that. So around him, I call him Dennis. When I talk to Mama, though, I call him Mr. Kittering.

The lantern’s getting low on oil, so I am going to turn it off now and go to bed. I’m afraid of having nightmares tonight after seeing that ship burn, but at least if I wake up afraid, I’ll be able to see the light fill up my room and know I’m safe.

G
ina was touching him. Clay felt the heat of her body next to him in his bed, and he held his breath as she slipped her hand beneath the sheet, over his chest, lower. Lower. Touching him, teasing him.
This is a dream,
he told himself.
He wasn’t responsible if it was only a dream.
She smiled at him with those lovely white teeth before tossing the sheet aside and lowering her head, her mouth, to where he wanted it to be. He waited to feel her lips and her tongue on him, but instead, he was jolted awake by the touch of something cold and damp against his arm. Opening his eyes, he turned to find the bed empty next to him and Sasha nudging his arm with his nose. Clay groaned and rolled onto his back.

He hated the weekend because he had no real need to go into his office, no way to lose himself in his work. During the week, he’d go in early and stay late, and that seemed to keep his mind occupied well enough to save him from too many disturbing thoughts. But the weekends were different. There was plenty of work to keep him busy around the keeper’s house, of course, but
it was solitary work, for the most part, and gave him too much time to think. Some weekends, he went diving with his long-time buddy, Kenny Gallo, but Kenny had to work today. Clay decided he would replace the rotting boards in the cover of the old cistern on the south side of the house. That would take him most of the day and he would wear his Walkman and listen to jazz. Terri had hated jazz, so he would hear nothing that would remind him of her. A decent plan. He did this every day before he got out of bed: planned the day so that every minute was filled and safe from thoughts of Terri and any guilt that might accompany them. Maybe later, when he was done with the cistern and Kenny got out of work, they could meet at Shorty’s Grill and just hang out for a while. He relished spending time with Kenny these days. Kenny didn’t expect—or even want—him to talk about anything heavier than the results of the latest ball game.

Sasha nudged his arm again, and he patted the bed, inviting him up. Sasha was another source of guilt. Poor dog. He had to miss the old days, when he and Terri’s dog, Raven, were constantly on the go, being challenged and rewarded and the center of the universe. Back then, Clay and Terri had lived in Manteo, on a large, treed lot with a huge pile of rubble in the backyard. Clay had dragged other people’s castoffs into the woods behind their house: old appliances, huge chunks of concrete, narrow boards suspended between sawhorses, even an abandoned, totaled Mustang. That was where he’d trained dogs for search and rescue work. Not only Sasha and Raven, but dogs from other search and rescue teams who traveled to see him. Because he was the best. Or at least, he had been, once. Sometimes he missed Raven nearly as much as he did Terri. A shepherd-Lab mix, Raven had been the finest, keenest rescue dog Clay had ever worked with, and she’d been a bit wasted on Terri. Terri had been an interior designer, and she had never truly enjoyed the work with the dogs. Clay didn’t like to think about that fact. He’d ignored Terri’s lack of interest in search and rescue, because he didn’t want to see it.

He still owned the house in Manteo, although he hadn’t really lived there since late November, shortly after Terri died. He’d tried staying there for a while, but he couldn’t tolerate the loneliness, and he’d quickly retreated to the spare room in the cot
tage Lacey used to rent in Kill Devil Hills. Then Lacey arranged for both of them to live here in the keeper’s house. Leave it to Lacey. She could find a solution to anyone’s problems—except, perhaps, her own. For once, he was grateful for his sister’s ability to play the role of savior.

So, the old Manteo house stood empty. He could probably rent it, if he could find someone who didn’t mind a pile of trash in their backyard, but he didn’t have the motivation to fix up the house on the inside to get it ready for a tenant. He’d always been known for his energy, his need to constantly be on the go, but the truth was, he didn’t feel like doing much of anything these days. He knew he was not well. Not in his head or his heart. But that was another thing he didn’t want to think about.

So strange, living with Lacey. It reminded him of when he was a kid, living with his mother. Feed the hungry, clothe the poor. Did you inherit that sort of thing? It was almost spooky. And she
always
had something to feed him. He could look in the pantry and see nothing. She could take that nothing and turn it into something delicious. She was taking care of him, and he was letting her. His little sister.

He heard voices in the hall outside his room. Lacey’s and the deeper voice, the voice of the woman who had been about to give him a blow job before Sasha had ruined it. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye this morning.
It was a dream, Terri,
he thought to himself.
Out of my control.

He would wait a while before getting up. Maybe Gina would be gone by then and he wouldn’t have to look at her long hair and dark eyes and faintly pointed chin across the table from him over his bowl of cold cereal.

Sasha, though, was not going to cooperate. He jumped from the bed and began whining at the door, which was colored green and blue from sunlight pouring through the stained-glass panel in the window. Sasha’s handsome brown eyes pleaded with his master. No choice now. Clay had to get up and let him out.

“Hold on just a minute, boy,” he said as he dressed. Sasha sat down by the door, eyeing him patiently, his tail thumping against the old wooden floor.

He made Sasha wait another minute while he used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then he followed the dog downstairs.

The kitchen smelled of good coffee, homemade waffles and the yeasty aroma of rising bread. He could see the bowl of dough on the counter, covered with a dish towel. Lacey made whole wheat bread every other week, just as their mother had. Right now, she was seated at the table across from Gina, the steaming waffle iron next to her plate.

“Huckleberry waffles,” Lacey said, looking at him, and he knew she had been up early, picking the huckleberries from the bushes at the edge of the woods and kneading her bread dough.

Gina glanced up at him. “They’re delicious,” she said, reaching for the syrup with the slender ruby-ringed hand that had touched him in his sleep. She had the phone book open on the table next to her plate, her finger marking her place on one of the yellow pages. The portable phone rested next to the book, and her large, heavy camera hung around her neck.

He merely nodded at the women as he walked outside with Sasha. Standing on the porch, he breathed in the already hot morning air as the Lab ran off to the woods. Sasha reappeared, running across the sandy yard, then leaping up the porch steps with one wild jump before stopping short in front of the screen door. He sat down, as he’d been trained to do, turning his head to look at his master, waiting for him to enter the kitchen first. Sasha knew very well the pecking order in this house.

Lacey already had Sasha’s food in the bowl, and the dog dived into it with gusto.

Gina laughed. “I’ve never seen a dog eat like that,” she said.

“Do you have a dog?” Clay poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across from her. He reached for the handle on the waffle iron and looked at his sister. “Is this ready yet?” he asked.

“Wait till the steam stops.” Lacey put a plate in front of him and sat down again herself.

“When I was a kid,” Gina said. “I don’t have one now. I work long hours, so it wouldn’t be fair.”

Clay opened the waffle iron and used his fork to extract the berry-marbled waffle from the grill. “What are you looking for in the phone book?” he asked.

“A room,” she said. “I tried a couple of places already, but no
luck. I thought I’d try this place next.” She looked down at the book. “Suiter’s Inn.”

“No, not that one,” Clay said.

“Is that the one near Shorty’s Grill?” Lacey asked him, and he nodded. “It’s a bit seedy, Gina. You shouldn’t stay there.”

“I can’t pay a lot,” Gina said, her finger still on the page in the phone book. “I might have to settle for something a little less luxurious than the Ritz.”

“What area do you want to be in?” Clay asked.

Gina shrugged. “Near Kiss River, I guess. But anyplace on the northern part of the Outer Banks would do.”

“Maybe there’s a cottage available,” Clay said. “Maybe someone had to cancel their reservation at the last minute. That happens. Then you’d have something for a week or two. How long were you planning to stay?”

“No more than that,” she said.

“I’ll try Nola,” Lacey said, reaching across the table for the phone.

“Who’s Nola?” Gina asked.

“An old family friend,” Lacey said, dialing. “She’s also a Realtor and she’d be able to find out what’s available.”

Gina and Clay ate quietly while Lacey spoke with Nola. She pulled the phone book toward her to write a few notes in the margin of the page, but from the conversation, Clay could tell that the news was not good. Lacey hung up the phone and wrinkled her freckled nose at their guest.

“She could only find one cottage available,” she said, reading from her notes. “It’s soundside in Duck and it’s sixteen hundred dollars a week.”

Gina shook her head. “I can’t do it, then,” she said. “But if I can’t find something here, maybe there’d be a room available on the other side of that long bridge. That would be close enough, and—”

“Stay here,” Clay said, the words surprising him as they slipped out of his mouth. He didn’t need to look at Lacey to know she was astonished by the invitation, but he also knew she wouldn’t mind. She’d probably been thinking the same thing herself, but had been afraid to suggest it because of how he might
react. “You can rent the room you’re in for a hundred a week,” he said.

“I…I…” Gina stammered. “That’s so nice of you.” She looked at Lacey. “Are you sure that’s all right with you? Do you two want to talk it over in private, or—”

“It’s great with me,” Lacey interrupted her.

“You have to charge more than that, though,” Gina said. “I’m not
that
broke. I can—”

“It’s a token amount,” Clay said. “We’ll put it into the keeper’s house conservation fund.” He was aware he was not acting rationally, but he hadn’t felt rational in a long, long time.

“Well, thanks,” Gina said. Her hand shook a bit as she lifted her glass of orange juice to her lips. She took a sip, then set it down again. “That’s a huge relief to me. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Clay said. He extracted another waffle from the iron and offered it to Gina, but she shook her head again. He put it on his own plate, then poured more batter into the grill.

“Do you mind a check from my bank in Bellingham?” Gina asked. “Or I could get some money from an ATM and—”

“A check is fine,” Clay said.

Gina sat back from the table, finished with her breakfast but not with conversation. “I thought I would call your father today, and see if I could talk to him about raising the lens.” She looked at him, then Lacey. “It’s been ten years, right? Maybe he and the other people who objected to raising it ten years ago have mellowed about the idea by now.”

“You’re talking about our father,” Clay said with a halfhearted laugh. “Mellow, he ain’t.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Lacey said. “You’re exactly like him.”

He couldn’t argue with her. As much as Lacey looked like their mother, he resembled Alec O’Neill. So much so, that when one of the old-timers spotted him and Lacey together in the grocery store a few weeks ago, he’d thought they were Alec and Annie. It had taken them quite a while to convince him of the truth. And although Clay didn’t like to admit it, he was no more mellow than their father. He had both Alec’s wiry build and the bundled, hyper sort of energy that accompanied it.

“Dad’s off this afternoon,” Lacey said. “I think you should just go to his house and talk to him.”

“Call first, though,” Clay said.

“I don’t think she should call,” Lacey said, her tone more pondering than argumentative. “He might just blow her off if she calls.”

“He can blow her off just as easily at his front door,” Clay argued. His father would be kind about it, but it was doubtful he’d have any interest in talking to anyone about the Kiss River light.

Gina followed their conversation as if watching a Ping-Pong match.

“Well,
we
can call him, then,” Lacey said.

“No, no.” Gina held up a hand. “You two have done too much already. Let me take care of this on my own. Okay?” She looked at each of them in turn, and they nodded. “Can you give me his address and phone number?” she asked.

Lacey stood and walked over to one of the kitchen drawers, then returned to the table with a notepad. In her seat again, she jotted down the address. “I’d go with you,” she said, “but today I have two kids to tutor, a three-hour shift on the crisis hot line and an appointment to donate blood at two-thirty. Not to mention bread to bake.”

Gina stared at her. “I thought today was your day off?”

Lacey dismissed her question with a wave of her hand. “It’s all fun for me,” she said.

“Where do you do your stained glass?” Gina asked.

“I share a studio in Kill Devil Hills,” she said. “But I do some work here, too, in the sunroom.” She pushed the pad across the table to Gina. “His house is on the sound in Sanderling.” Pointing to the camera hanging around Gina’s neck, she added, “You know, he used to take pictures constantly of the lighthouse. He’ll have a thousand for you to look at if you ask him.”