The Leaving (9 page)

“Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?” she asked. Because hiding the truth about some possible wrongdoing—something involving Max—and becoming
terrorists
were completely different things.

Weren’t they?

Sam shrugged. “I’m saying you shouldn’t trust them.”

“I never said I did! I went on camera to say that!”

“Are you
enjoying
all this?” Sam tilted his head. “The attention?”

Avery breathed hard. She was about to end it—because it was over—but if she cut Sam out of the picture, who did she have?

Was
she enjoying it?

That would be messed up.

“I’m not enjoying it
at all
. I’m a
mess
.” She started crying and he reached across the table and took her hand. She said, “How could you even say that?

He said “I’m sorry” and got up and came around to her side and pulled her up and kissed her. She let him because she wanted to feel something a normal teenager should be feeling. Something giddy like lust or a crush. Or something sad but typical like heartbreak. A feeling that had pop songs written about it, so you could play them on repeat and deal and move on.

No such luck.

There was no sidestepping this, no way out but through.

“Who’s saying all that terrorist stuff, anyway?” she asked then.

Even if that theory was nonsense, there
must
be people out there with information. People who’d seen them?

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said.

“Well, do they have any ideas about what the supposed target will be?” How do you get information out of people?

“I don’t know. Mall? School? Playground?”

She almost laughed. “You think someone would do all this? Go to
this length
? Eleven years in the planning. To blow up a playground?”

Money
was how you got people to talk.

She’d break up with him after this whole thing was over.

In the meantime, she’d talk to her dad about posting a reward for information leading to Max.

A big one.

S
c
a
r
l
et
t

Steve hadn’t let up all afternoon. He wanted dinner tonight.

If a 4:30 early-bird special qualified as “tonight.”

“And there he is,” Tamara said, as they entered the main dining room.

A salad bar stabbed full of long silver spoons ran down one side of the room. Windows facing the beach down the other.

Only one news van had followed them from the medical office to the outlets, then the phone store and home (so her mother could change) and here; it had been stopped from entering the restaurant parking lot by a burly valet.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Steve stood, came out from behind the table, embraced Tamara, then turned to Scarlett. “And you. It’s a pleasure.” He held out his hand to shake.

Scarlett took it, shook.

He was fit, compact, with a balding head and a small graying mustache, neatly trimmed. His eyes were borderline feminine—with thick lashes. He wore a necklace of twisted gold that peeked out at the neckline of a cream button-down shirt that was tucked into belted jeans.

“I have to say.” Steve was shaking his head. “Let’s just say I sure am
happy to meet you.” He looked at Tamara. “This woman is one tough cookie, right? She’s been through a lot.”

“Yes,” Scarlett said. “She is. She has.”

Haven’t I, too?

Am I a tough cookie???

Do people
like
tough cookies?

The table was round and too big for them and Scarlett wished some of the others were here with her, wondered what they were all doing for dinner on this, their first day back.

Were there big family gatherings, full of hugs and happy tears?

Were Lucas and his brother surrounded by shocked, grieving relatives and casseroles?

And what about Max’s family? Were they sitting at their table, hoping for the doorbell to ring, for it all to change to happy just like that?

She didn’t belong here with these two people.

The view, at least, was lovely.

A long pier.

The water blue like ripe berries.

White clouds like chalk.

A burst of rainbow colors—someone parasailing by.

Just outside the restaurant, by a more casual outdoor seating area, a group of six girls and boys—close friends or cousins?—were laughing and running around in the sand.

Climbing up onto a big rock and then jumping off it.

Over and over again.

C l i m b. Jump.    C l i m b. Jump.    C l i m b. Jump.

“Do I have cousins?” she said.

Her mother looked at her like she’d just said something inappropriate. “No, your uncle Tom never married.”

Scarlett nodded.

Another loss.

Then she said, “So you met at a bar?”

“Yes. A bartender who doesn’t drink.” He leaned over and kissed Tamara. “Speaking of which”—drinks were being delivered to the table by a waiter carrying a small, round black tray—“I ordered your old favorite. I figured she’s back. We can celebrate. Right?”

Her mother raised her glass. “What a great idea!”

“Are you sure about that?” Scarlett asked.

“It’s just one little treat,” Steve said. “Right, Tammy? You know, after so many years.”

Tammy.

Scarlett’s skin felt prickly.

Was it a big deal?

Did it really matter?

She was becoming increasingly convinced, as the day wore on, that she wasn’t going to be sticking around that long anyway. This just didn’t feel like . . . home? Probably she’d spend a year in high school there, apply to college, then . . . leave.

Leave.

Leaving.

Would that word ever be normal again?

She pictured herself someplace cooler, someplace with autumn, and a proper winter, in an Adirondack chair, maybe staring at a lake.

Just . . .

. . . staring.

She said, “Well, I guess you’ve earned it.”

She ordered a ginger ale. Then she turned her attention to the menu, not entirely sure what foods she even liked. Steve said, several times, that money was no object, that dinner was his treat, so that was good, at least. At the phone store, Tammy had done a lot of complaining about how expensive it was. Scarlett ordered shrimp cocktail and then a blackened grouper entrée and crossed her fingers that she wasn’t harboring some fatal shellfish allergy.

Too quickly, her mother ordered another drink and said, “Steve here thinks you and me need to make some smart moves right about now.”

“Yeah?” Scarlett slurped the last of her ginger ale loudly.

You and I, Tammy
.

You and I
.

“I see dollar signs.” He sat back in his seat, folded his napkin, and put it on the table in front of him.

Now Scarlett saw them, too. They lit up behind her eyelids when she blinked.

She held her eyes closed for a moment and saw spinning, like slot machines.

“Where are these dollars coming from?” she asked.

“Everyone wants to know your story.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “You can’t see it, but there’s not a table in here that hasn’t talked about you. Pointed us out.”

“Do you think I should go on TV?” They’d seen Sarah and Adam on one show briefly during their quick stop at the house. On the small screen, they had good clothes and haircuts and looked like strangers.

“Maybe, maybe not. If that’s not your thing, there are other ways.”

“Such as?”

“There are book deals, for starters.”

The chatter in the room had become newly distracting, now that she knew some of it might be about her. She said, “I don’t think I actually like to write.”

“That’s even better.” He flagged a waiter over. “You sell your life rights and they’ll hire someone to write the book for you, and then you just sit back and let the royalties roll in.”

“Sorry,” she said.

        /
     /
      /
  /
             /
                       /
                        /
       /            /

Life rights?

Right to life?

              /
      /
       /
                  /
                   /
         /
           //

“Not interested.”

He ordered another vodka on the rocks. “Someone’s going to do it. I’m just saying . . . why not you?”

        /
             /
              /
                   /
                    /

“Yeah, why not you?”
Tammy
said, and Scarlett wondered whether Adam and Sarah had already inked book deals. “You were always reading, reading, reading. Couldn’t get you to stop reading. If you love books so much—”

“When I was five?”

“Yes,” Tammy said.

“I knew how to read before kindergarten,” Scarlett said, but it was a question for Tammy. Now that she was thinking of her as that—Tammy—she couldn’t un-think it.

“Yes, ma’am.” Tammy’s foundation wasn’t quite the right match for her skin.

“In this book of mine,” Scarlett said, “is it aliens who did it?”

“You wouldn’t have to say for sure.” Tammy gave Steve a look and said, “As I’ve said,
no one
can say for sure. But I bet it’d sell like hotcakes if it was aliens.”

“Maybe
you
should write a book!” Scarlett said.

“Maybe I will!” Tammy took a pull off her drink with a slim red cocktail straw, then looked out the window, like there was something really fascinating out there.

The silence felt tight around Scarlett’s throat.

An invisible necktie of awkwardness and anger.

Steve said, “You do know how to tell a good story, Tammy. I remember those nights I’d just sit at the bar, when there was hardly anyone else there, and I’d be thinking,
Damn, she sure can talk
.”

Looking at the ocean, Scarlett tried to hatch an escape plan.

She should run to the end of the pier, jump off, and hope to be rescued by the crew of some boat bound for a faraway land.

Or she could just walk toward the shore and into the water until it
buried her. Maybe hope for some dolphin or manatee or mermaid to deliver her to some fantastical underwater city? Or maybe just to . . . wherever she’d been before?

Steve was still talking. “Then I got to wondering what else you might be good at,” he said, and Scarlett’s mother said, “Oh, stop.”

Yes.

Please.

Stop
.

“Seriously, though. A book,” Steve said. “Promise us you’ll think about it?”

Lucas

Lucas half expected a flock of birds or bats to fly out of the RV, but it was eerily quiet.

Dead still.

He followed his brother into the dim compartment, swatting at thick spiderwebs. Ryan turned on a lamp that flooded the room with golden light. There were Post-its and articles on every wall and cabinet door; even the windows were mostly covered.