The Summer Everything Changed (30 page)

It had been a week since that fateful night, the night when everything had changed again, but this time for the better. Isobel and Gwen were hunkered down in Isobel's room, on her bed, survivors of a crisis that had almost torn apart their friendship for good.

“I've never cried as continuously as I've cried since the night Jeff stormed into our house,” Isobel admitted. “I feel like I'm crying for every sad thing that ever happened in my life, from losing my favorite toy when I was two to—well, to losing my perfect family a few years back.”

Gwen reached out and squeezed Isobel's hand. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “I wish I could turn back time . . . Remember how I told you I'd heard that Jeff was a troublemaker?”

“Yeah. The day Jeff came by with the daylilies. The stolen daylilies.”

“Pilfered from Mrs. Baker, right. I still can't believe she went to the police about a few stolen flowers! But I'm glad she did.”

Isobel laughed. “Gardeners are a special lot. Passionate doesn't even begin to describe them.”

“Anyway,” Gwen went on, “a few weeks after that I asked my parents if they had ever heard anything more specific about Jeff. They had, but couldn't be sure any of it was true or just malicious gossip, considering their source.”

“Who was. . . ?”

“A woman who manages one of the laundry places for tourists in Wells. Seems she dated Jack Otten briefly way back when, before he married his wife. I guess she's still angry with him for breaking up with her. My dads say she's always ready with a bad word about everyone in that family.”

“Oh. Nothing like a woman scorned . . .”

“Right. Only her tales about Jeff turned out not to be tall, after all. Anyway, at the time I was afraid I was being unfairly prejudiced so I decided not to say anything more to you. Clearly, I made the wrong choice. I'm so sorry, Isobel. I can't say that often enough.”

Isobel smiled. “That's okay. I wouldn't have believed you if you had shown me written proof and photographic evidence of Jeff's being a jerk. Do you know what I found out? The day before he attacked my mom and me, I didn't hear from him at all. Turns out he was with one of his criminal buddies in New Hampshire, robbing local stores and generally being a public nuisance. They even got pulled over for speeding, but somehow, probably because of Jeff's so-called charm, they didn't get a ticket.”

“How do you know all this?”

Isobel smiled. “Flynn, of course. Hey, will you tell me what those threatening texts actually said?”

Gwen grimaced. “Trust me, you don't need to know the details. But they were definitely from Jeff, and that's when I knew that whatever rumors had been going around about him were true. I'm ashamed, Isobel. I know I should have told my parents but I was so afraid. See, Jeff had threatened to hurt you if I continued to see you.”

Isobel leaped off the bed. “What! But I thought Jeff had threatened to hurt you if we spent time together. I think he felt threatened by you, and by our relationship. What an idiot I was!”

“Me, too! Here we were, both trying to protect each other . . . It's a sick, dark comedy. And I had no idea of how to get you away from Jeff, or of how you could get yourself away, or even if you wanted to get away!” “I didn't want to get away,” Isobel admitted, sinking down again on the bed. “Not for a while. And then . . . I did. Desperately.”

Gwen sighed. “How could this have happened to us, of all people? We're smart and savvy and yet . . . we allowed some jerk to control our lives.”

“Like my mom says, people like Jeff, liars and abusers, are very, very skilled at manipulating people. Even super-smart people get fooled by them.”

“Yeah. It's frightening. Well, one good thing came out of all this.”

“What?” Isobel asked. “Aside from the fact that we both learned some valuable lessons.”

“Yeah, but more importantly, no more ‘Izzy'!”

“I shudder to think that I allowed him to call me that! And get this. Flynn told my mom that Jeff wasn't working for his father at all. And he isn't going back to college, either. He got kicked out for cheating. Seems it wasn't his first offense. Big surprise.”

“I wonder what he would have told you in September when he failed to drive off into the sunset?”

“Some lie, I'm sure,” Isobel said. “But I was beyond believing anything he said. All I wanted was to get away from him without putting anyone in harm's way. Myself included. Do you know I actually believed him when he told me he volunteered at a retirement home!”

“Doing what, poking the residents with a pointy stick? What a piece of crap.”

Isobel laughed. “How eloquent!”

“Don't hate me for asking this. But aren't you still afraid of Jeff, even a little?”

“No.” Isobel's reply was emphatic. “Now, I'm furious. Finally. And I don't feel one little bit bad about being angry.”

“Good. I'm really glad to hear that. Though I have to admit, I'm still a wee bit afraid of him. Crazy, isn't it?”

Now, Isobel squeezed Gwen's hand. “You know,” she said, “Quentin spoke to me. It was right before Jeff's midnight performance in our kitchen.”

“What do you mean, he spoke to you?”

“I can't break a confidence, but I can say he told me he knows someone who was hurt by Jeff. A girl. He said he hadn't spoken to me before because he was hoping Jeff had changed. But I guess some people just don't. Or can't. Or won't. Anyway, Quentin apologized for not warning me sooner. I guess he was just trying to be fair.”

Gwen sighed. “Good people trying to do the kind thing— to give a guy the benefit of the doubt—and what was the result? Disaster. It really sucks.”

“Quentin is a good person. No lying, no pretense. You have good taste, Gwen. Have you noticed his face is kind of delicate in that Johnny Depp kind of way?”

“Have I noticed? Am I blind? And that smile! I think I'm going to squeal! And I am so not the squealing type! People who dress like I do generally don't go around squealing.”

Isobel laughed. “So, are you two formally a couple?”

“No, but I'm hoping. Do you know, he thinks it's cool that I have the guts to dye my hair weird colors?”

“Really?” Isobel sighed. “Boy, are you lucky. Not that you don't deserve it. Quentin likes you just the way you are. Jeff liked his own image of me, an Isobel that didn't actually exist.”

“I wonder if that's common with abusers. I mean, I wonder if they tend to see people how they want to see them. Or, if they're incapable of accepting that another person is an entirely separate being and that she has the right to be that entirely separate being.”

“Abusers as egoists?” Isobel said. “It's an interesting notion.”

Gwen clapped her hands together; because she was wearing ten rings, one on each finger, it made quite a noise. “I think we need to have some fun. Now.”

“Fun is a Gwentastic idea!”

“Then it's settled.” Gwen held out her hand for her friend to take. “Ice cream from Goldenrod Kisses. Let's go.”

Catherine and Charlie came by the inn one morning a little over a week after Jeff's performance in the Bessire kitchen.

“Here,” she said, handing Louise, who was sitting at the table, a travel magazine. “There's an article in there about some of the most awful inns in the country. I laughed out loud.”

Louise smiled. “Thanks. I'm in the mood for something amusing right about now . . .”

“Look, Louise.” Catherine took a seat next to her friend. “I have to apologize to you again. I feel like I really let you and Isobel down.”

“Don't blame yourself—” Louise began but Catherine cut her off.

“No, hear me out. I'm furious with myself for not knowing something was wrong with Jeff. I should have known. I was too complacent. And I should have listened to Princess Charlene. She knew the truth, and she wasn't afraid to make a ruckus about it.”

Louise sighed. “And all I did was make excuses for Jeff . . . I'll never ignore Charlie's warnings again.”

As if in approval of that vow, Charlie put her front paws up on Louise's knees and smiled.

Catherine and her companion left soon after for their second morning constitutional. Louise remained where she was; she had felt beyond tired since the night of Jeff's intrusion.

Jeff Otten. Her instincts had been dulled by his charm and his good looks. It hurt her to admit it now, but she had felt relieved that Isobel had a boyfriend to occupy her time. Even when Isobel's behavior had begun to change, Louise had convinced herself that Isobel was just experiencing episodes of the usual adolescent angst—and she had turned her attention to the business of the inn.

Now she knew that the return of the nightmares (there had been none since Jeff's attack) had indeed been warnings from her subconscious. On the surface Ted Dunbar and Jeff Otten were so very different. But some deep instinct had tried to warn her that handsome, polite Jeff was at bottom the same person as Ted. A coward and a bully.

There had been moments since Jeff's attack on her family when Louise felt she would never break free of the guilt and shame that gripped her for not having seen what was happening to her daughter. Her worst sin was that she had succumbed to her own largely unconscious prejudices. In her volunteer work she had counseled the message that “it could happen to anyone,” and yet, deep down, she just hadn't been able or willing to believe that it could happen to her own flesh and blood. She had been unforgivably blind and unconsciously arrogant, quick to assume the worst about that couple down in Kittery earlier in the summer yet failing to identify her own child as a victim.

How could she ever make it up to Isobel? She felt it would take a lifetime to atone for her neglect. As a small start, she had rescheduled their special day in Portland, with a visit to the spa, lunch, and shopping. Catherine and Flynn had agreed to play innkeepers for the day . . .

“Hi, Mom.”

Isobel came loping into the kitchen and sat in the chair Catherine had vacated.

“How are you?” Louise asked. “And don't say fine. Give me something real.”

Isobel smiled. “Okay. Are you ready for a revelation?”

“I have to be.”

“Toward the end I started to get really angry with you for having brought us here to Maine, even though I know that an abusive relationship can happen anywhere. But I felt so trapped and so isolated . . . I just didn't know who to blame . . . other than Jeff, of course, but for some reason I couldn't blame him, not for a long time.”

Louise swallowed her tears. “That was hard to hear, but I'm glad you told me. No more withholding the important stuff.”

“Right. It's time to be brave.”

“I'm just sorry you had to learn bravery through fear. I had hoped to teach you another way . . .”

Isobel smiled. “You did, Mom. You do all the time. It wasn't fear that made me run into the kitchen when I saw Jeff grab you. It was love. Okay, and it was also anger. I mean, all I could think of in that split second was, how dare he touch my mother!”

Louise took her daughter's hand. “And all I could think in that moment was,
Is she crazy? Run away!
”

“There's something I just don't understand, Mom. How could Jeff's mother keep her mouth shut knowing her son had a history of hitting girls? I mean, I know she's his mother and mothers don't like to think badly of their children, but . . . It just doesn't make sense to me.”

“You were expecting a show of female solidarity?”

“I guess I was,” Isobel admitted.

“Well, the maternal bond is strong enough to cause a fair amount of poor judgment at times. I'm not sure how much we can blame Sally Otten. Though she and her husband certainly weren't doing Jeff any favors by bailing him out of trouble over and over again. All they were doing was making it easier for his behavior to deteriorate. And on some level, I'm sure they knew that.”

“How do you stand being a parent? It must be brutal!”

Louise laughed. “At times it is brutal, even with a wonderful child like you. But it's worth the trouble, trust me.”

“I wonder if Mrs. Otten would have acted differently if she had a daughter. I mean, then she would have had to do something to stop Jeff, right?”

Louise shrugged. “Hard to say. Remember, we know almost nothing about her. Maybe Jeff was the apple of her eye when he was little and she can't let go of that image. I suspect we'll never know what really goes on in that house.”

A
thump
from the hall announced the arrival of the mail being dropped through the slot in the front door. “I'll get it,” Louise said. When she returned to the kitchen, she was already sorting through the stack of envelopes. “There had better be a check in here from . . . Well, speak of the devil. Or rather, his mother.”

“What is it?” Isobel asked.

“A letter from Mrs. Otten. It's addressed to you.”

“Oh.” Isobel's expression was hard to read.

“Do you want me to read it first?”

“No, it's okay.” Isobel took the letter from her mother, opened the envelope, and read the contents of the single sheet of heavy, old-fashioned writing paper. The note left her unmoved. “Here,” she said, handing it to her mother.

Louise scanned the page. “It's carefully worded, all right,” she said after a moment. “She admits no personal responsibility or guilt, but at least she doesn't ask you to go easy on her precious little boy. ‘I'm sorry you had to endure such a trial.' Well, I guess she knows the game is up.”

“I actually feel a little bit sorry for her,” Isobel said, taking back the letter and folding it into the envelope. “It can't be pleasant to know your child is a criminal. Maybe she even blames herself for the way he is.”

“You know, there is another possibility we didn't consider. Well, that I didn't consider before now. It might explain Sally Otten's letting Jeff run wild.”

“What do you mean?”

Louise grimaced. “Maybe she was—is—afraid of Jeff. Maybe he was abusing her, too.”

Isobel clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh no, that's too awful! But it would explain her keeping quiet, especially if Jeff had threatened her.”

“It would be a dreadful way to live, a prisoner to your own child, in your own home. And who knows what part Jack Otten played in the whole scheme. Besides enabler.”

“Do you think someone like Jeff will ever change?” Isobel asked after a moment. “I mean, really change?”

“I have no way of knowing that. I suppose only a psychiatrist could determine what someone like Jeff Otten is capable of becoming, good or bad.”

“You know,” Isobel said, “near the end I was thinking of him as evil, like he was possessed by a demon spirit. And I'd never even believed in evil or demons before that.”

Louise put out her arms and Isobel went into her embrace. “Oh Isobel, I'm so sorry. I so wish I could magically erase the past months!”

“Me, too. But maybe not. Maybe I learned some valuable lessons thanks to creepy Jeff Otten. Like, how to stand up for myself. And how to say no, even if it makes another person angry.” Isobel laughed, but it was a shaky laugh. “Well, I'm not so sure I'm okay with anger yet . . . It really frightens me . . .”

“We'll get past this,” Louise said. “I promise. Do you believe me?”

Isobel nodded. “I do.”