Summerlost (7 page)

5.

On the ride home we stopped by the new theater construction site.

They were pouring the foundations.

“Just big craters filled with cement,” Leo said. “No tunnels there. No mysteries.”

“What is it with you and those tunnels?”

“They're the only place we know Lisette went that we haven't been,” Leo reminded me. “Maybe we'll see her ghost.”

“You can't really believe that,” I said.

“Other people say they did,” Leo said. “And even if we don't, this is our last chance to know for sure. At the end of the summer, the old theater and the tunnels are going to be destroyed.
We'll never know
.”

When the policeman came to follow up with my mother about the accident, I hid out in the hallway by the living room and eavesdropped on their conversation. She asked him so many questions. Some she'd asked before.
How could this happen? Did they suffer? Why was that driver on the road?

He said he thought it happened fast, both for my dad and
Ben and for the drunk driver who hit them, but for the rest of the questions he said,
We just don't know.

We just don't know.

Some things are gone for good. You can't get them back. You can't know what happened. Ever.

“Meg wondered if I wanted to volunteer,” I said. “Maybe if I worked in the costume shop I could find something out about the tunnels. Maybe about Lisette too. Meg's been working here for a long time.”

“That would be
great
.” Leo looked impressed.

I decided to take advantage of that.

“But you have to pay me equally for the tour stuff from now on,” I said.

“All right.”

“And never, ever say that we're cousins again.”

“Got it.”

“And—”

“Come
on
. Don't you think that's enough?”

“There might be more,” I told him. “I'll let you know when I think of the rest.”

6.

My uncle Nick came over that night to help my mom with the deck. I was always glad when he did because then my mom wasn't alone out there. She wanted to finish the deck before we left for the summer and it was taking longer than she'd expected, so she often worked late, when the night cooled things off.

Nick had strung up a light in the back so they could see in the dark while they worked. I hoped it would scare the turkey vultures away but they didn't leave. Sometimes I'd hear the sanding stop and when I looked down either Nick would have gone home or he and my mom would be talking.

Ben and I could never really talk the way Miles and I did, but I got to understand Ben anyway. At first, during the earlier years, he would scream and yell and you couldn't say a lot to him. But then when things sort of evened out, when he'd had some therapy and my parents knew how to help him more, you could have short almost-conversations with him. Like he would say, “Do you want a LEGO set for Christmas?” and I would say, “No, I want a camera for Christmas. Do
you
want a
LEGO set for Christmas, Ben?” He would grin really big and say yes and I knew I'd said what he wanted me to say.

Also when we went skiing together I could tell from the look on his face that he felt the way I did. Peaceful. Good. I saw him breathing deep when we went on the trails and I knew it was because he smelled the pine trees. We looked a lot alike when his face was at rest. I had never noticed it until I saw a picture that my dad showed us from one of the days we were up on the mountain.

We didn't deal with skiing last winter. My mom didn't get out the ski rack or the skis. She wasn't as good as my dad, and driving in the snow scared her, even though she was the one who had lived in it all her life and my dad was from Portland, where it didn't snow nearly as much. We didn't even talk about going skiing. And I wasn't mad. I didn't want to go either. Maybe Miles did, but if so, he didn't say.

7.

I was changing into my black jeans and black T-shirt early in the morning when I heard Miles hollering out and my mom hurrying down the hall to his room.

He didn't usually have nightmares. Not even after the accident.

I tiptoed down the hall to the room and I heard my mother soothing him and Miles saying something about Harley.

Uh-oh.

I pushed open the door. “Everything okay?”

“Miles had a bad dream,” Mom said, looking shaky. “He dreamed he was buried alive.”

“It's okay, Mom,” Miles said. And then, before I could stop him, he said, “It's from a show that Cedar and I have been watching.”

“What?” Mom asked, turning to look at me. “What kind of a show has people who are buried alive?”

“It's not real,” Miles said. He was still sweating but his voice sounded back to normal. “No one is
really
buried alive on
Times of Our Seasons
. It's fake.”

“You've been letting Miles watch
Times of Our Seasons
?” Mom said, and I could tell she was
mad.
“You shouldn't even be watching that. Let alone Miles!”

“I know,” I said. “I'm sorry. We watched it one day and got sucked in.”

“That show is trashy,” Mom said. “All soap operas are. And this one sounds
sick
.”

“Mom,” Miles said, starting to panic now that he was fully awake and knew what he'd done. “You have to let us finish. We need to see what happens to Harley.”

“Absolutely not,” Mom said.

“We won't watch it anymore,” I told my mom. “I promise.”

“We have to,” Miles said. “We
have
to see Harley get out!”

“No, you don't,” Mom said. “You absolutely do not. Cedar Lee, we need to have a talk.”

8.

I was almost late to meet Leo. After my mother grounded me for two weeks from everything except work and running (which basically amounted to my not being grounded since those were the only places I went, but I didn't point that out), and said that she was canceling our television service
this very morning,
she did a double take. “Why are you wearing jeans to go running?”

“I'm not,” I said. “I was getting dressed when I heard Miles and I threw on the first thing I found.” It was a pretty good lie. I went over to my drawer and pulled out a pair of old black track pants, the kind that people wear who don't actually go running.

“You're going to be too hot,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I promise. I've worn these before. It's fine.”

She went back to bed and I wore the track pants out the door in case she was watching from her window.

“I thought of something else I need from you,” I said when I caught up with Leo.

“What?” he asked.

“My brother and I need a place to watch
Times of Our Seasons
.”

“What on earth is
Times of Our Seasons
?”

“A really trashy soap opera,” I said.

“Seriously?”

“I'm very serious,” I said. Miles was never going to get over this if he didn't see Harley get out of that box. And she would. I knew it.

Wouldn't she?

9.

In the city where I really lived, there are some pretty fancy hotels. They had nice restaurants, and lobbies with chandeliers, and a couple of them even had ballrooms.

The Iron Creek Hotel, where Lisette Chamberlain died, was not like that.

According to Leo, it also wasn't like that back in Lisette Chamberlain's time.

“It was better back then,” he told the people when he gave the tour, “but it was never, like,
fancy
. It was the best hotel in town, but that isn't saying a lot.”

Still, the Iron Creek Hotel was the best stop on the tour, and a lot of it was due to Paige, the weekday front-desk clerk.

She worked from six to eleven every morning during the week and she had a crush on one of Leo's older brothers, so Leo had talked her into letting us bring the tour inside the hotel.

“What does she get in return?” I'd asked him.

“Zach's phone number,” he said. “At the end of the summer.”

Paige was really fun. She had long, gorgeous hair that she always wore braided in some cool way and she also had glasses and wore motorcycle boots with her hotel uniform. Her voice
was really sweet but most of the things she said were not.

It was my turn to lead the hotel part of the tour.

“As you're aware,” I said, to our clients (this time it was a family, with a mom who was clearly
way
more into it than her kids and husband, and also an older man, like sixty-five), “Lisette Chamberlain died in the Iron Creek Hotel under mysterious circumstances.”

Someone walked into the lobby and asked Leo where the continental breakfast was.

He pointed them in the right direction.

“What mysterious circumstances?” asked one of the kids. He was about ten and had spiky hair and an attitude. “Like drugs? Suicide?”

“No,” I said.

“Murder?” asked his younger brother.

“Let me show you the room where she died,” I said, “and I'll finish the rest of the story.”

The hotel hadn't wanted to turn the room into a shrine or anything and they needed the space, but for a while no one wanted to stay in that room because they thought it was bad luck. So the management had turned it into a housekeeping closet.

When you went inside you saw towels folded on white shelves. Bright blue bottles of Windex shining like jewels. Jugs of bleach. You smelled fake lavender, the scent of the soaps and lotions they used to stock the bathrooms. It was a huge closet.
You could definitely tell it had once been a room, and the bathroom was still one the hotel staff could use.

“This is where Lisette Chamberlain died,” I said. “It didn't look like this, of course. The bed was over there, where the towels are now. But the bathroom is similar. They've changed the tile and the fixtures, but the footprint of the room is the same.”

“Did she die
in the bathroom
?” the older boy asked. The younger one cracked up.

“No,” I said. I glanced back at Leo and he rolled his eyes. “She died in her bed. They found her there when she didn't check out on the day she was supposed to leave.”

“So how did she die?” asked the older boy. “Are you
sure
it wasn't drugs?” The old man gave him the evil eye.

“She died of a heart attack,” I said. “She was all alone.”

The older boy gave a big sigh of boredom. The dad checked his watch. The mom asked Leo a question about Lisette. The old man's eyes met mine, and for a second, there was that odd understanding that happens sometimes between perfect strangers.

It would be terrible to die of a heart attack, and all alone.

It's terrible to die.

Everyone filed out and Leo started telling them about our next stop, the cemetery.

I was the last one left so I closed the door.

10.

“This guy is a
really
bad actor,” Leo said.

“We know,” Miles and I said.

“His hair is so weird,” Leo said.

“We
know
,” Miles and I said.

We sat in Leo's basement, on his couch. He had turned on
Times of Our Seasons
for us. We came fifteen minutes before the show started with our sandwiches and our chocolate milk. I'd made a sandwich for Leo too. He peeled off the top piece of bread and looked at the peanut butter and banana and said, “You guys are so weird,” but he ate it anyway.

It was the first time I'd met some of Leo's family. His parents were at work but he had two older brothers who were both in high school and who played football. Jeremy and Zach. They were huge. They were sweaty. They paid almost no attention to us or to Leo at all after they said
Hi.
But they weren't mean or anything. They made their own sandwiches and then sat down at the table in the dining room.

“We're using the TV downstairs,” Leo called out to them as we left the kitchen.

“What are you watching?” one of them, I think Jeremy, called back.

“
Times of Our Seasons
,” Leo said.

His brothers started laughing.

We got the show turned on in time to see the people finish walking on the beach and the clock ticking. Miles leaned forward.

It didn't start with Harley's story. It started with another story, one about a twin who was pretending to be his brother in order to steal his girlfriend and money. His brother was on a business trip, which was really not a business trip, but something involving some kind of super-secret spy activity.

“You kiss differently,” the girlfriend murmured to the twin.

“Really?” he said. “Better?”

Miles buried his face in a pillow in embarrassment and I stared straight ahead. This was mortifying. I hadn't thought about what this would be like to watch RIGHT NEXT to Leo.

But Leo didn't seem uncomfortable. He was cracking up. “This doesn't even make
sense
.”

“We
know
,” Miles and I said.

“We only care about the Harley storyline,” I said.

The bad-twin couple finally finished kissing and then there she was. In the coffin.

“That's Harley,” Miles said, pointing to her.

“I figured,” said Leo.

“We still don't know how she goes to the bathroom,” Miles said, and that made Leo laugh again.

“Shhhh,” I hissed at them both, and they went quiet.

It was a big day.

We found out how Celeste had managed to make Harley look dead long enough to fool everyone for the funeral and everything.

Herbs.

“Wow,” Miles said, sitting back when the scene had finished. “That was a good one.”

“It was?” Leo asked.

“Information-wise,” I said, “yes. We found out something we didn't know before.”

“Harley's not a very good actor either,” Leo said, and when I glared at him he put his hands in the air. “I'm just saying.”

“Was Lisette Chamberlain a good actor when she was in soap operas?” I asked. “I've only seen her in her movies.”

“Wait,” Leo said. “You mean you've never seen footage of her actually onstage at Summerlost?”

“No,” I said. “Have you? Does that exist?”

“I have and it does,” Leo said.

One of Leo's brothers rumbled down the stairs and we went quiet for a second.

“You can check out the old plays from the Summerlost film archives,” Leo said. “I have a card. My mom helped me get it.”

“Is your family really into Lisette Chamberlain or something?”

“No,” Leo said. “Only me.”

“But they're really into the Summerlost Festival, then.”

“Nope,” Leo said. “Everyone else is really into football. I like football too, but watching it. Not playing it like Zach and Jeremy.”

Leo didn't only not fit in with the kids who teased him. He also didn't seem to fit in with his own family.

We went back upstairs.

“Thanks, Leo,” I said when we got to the front door.

“No problem,” Leo said.

Zach came up behind Leo. “Are you the Lee kids?” he asked. “The ones who moved in a little while ago?”

“Yes,” Leo said, sounding annoyed. “We
told
you that when they first came in.”

“Everyone in the neighborhood is mad at your mom,” Zach said to Miles and me. “Because she's going to rent the house to college kids during the year.”

“It's zoned for it,” I said. I sounded snotty but I didn't care. I'd heard Uncle Nick telling my mom that people were bugged that we were going to rent it out since no one else on the street did.

“I know,” Zach said, walking over to the sink and dumping his dishes into it. “And there's always the chance you'll rent to girls. Hot college girls.
I
have no problem with it.”

“We
are
going to rent to girls,” Miles said. “Mom says they take better care of things than guys do.”

“We want to come back every summer,” I said, “and renting the house is the only way we can afford to keep it.”

“We'll stand up for you,” Leo said. “We'll try to sway the neighbors.”

“For sure,” said Zach. Then he rumpled Leo's hair and Leo shoved him away. But they were both grinning.

I don't know what Miles thought about while we walked home but I thought about Leo. I guess I was wrong about him fitting in with his family. And I should have realized that he would fit in because that's one thing I do know for sure. That it is possible to be different and still belong to your family. For them to love you like crazy.

Ever since the accident I've worried that Ben didn't know that. Or feel that.

I think he did.

He had to, right?

I mean, we set up our whole lives around him. All the therapy. All the going to restaurants during the not-busy hours so that he wouldn't freak out in a crowd. All the humoring him when he wanted to wear his Halloween costume for months at a time. We listened to him say the same things over and over when he got stressed out. We glared at strangers when they gave Ben dirty looks. It was hard sometimes but we all did it, for years.

It's not only the hard stuff I remember about Ben. I
remember his ruffly hair, how he screamed but sometimes laughed. I remember his eyes wild and also very, very deep. I remember him when he was a baby and a toddler and he was cute and funny and none of us, including Ben, had any idea how things were going to turn out. And how he started to talk more again that last year and liked me to hold his hand when we watched scary parts in movies. He'd let go right when the scary part was over but when it was happening he held on
tight.

I loved him. I finally loved him again, and then he was gone.