Tumble & Fall (19 page)

Tonight, a few hours hold the universe. A cosmic shift. A forever change in whatever he thought he was starting to know. A mirror of disbelief.

Also: a prostitute.

Her name is Camille, and she stands at the foot of the bed, unwrapping one of what appear to be many silk scarves from around her bare shoulders. Beneath them she wears a cream-colored camisole, lacy and detailed around her neck and cleavage, and flowing black pants that swish around her bare feet when she moves. A collection of silver and turquoise bangles snakes up around her wrist and forearm, and as she turns, Caden notices markings on the back of her toned triceps. It’s a tattoo of a tree branch, dark and spindly with pink and red blossoms that crawl up around her back.

Caden shifts on the bed, pressing the points of his shoulder blades against the shiny brass headboard. Camille catches his eye as she wraps the scarves around a bedpost. If it were physically possible to wink without winking, this is what she does.

*   *   *

“Camille is a healer,” Arthur said in the kitchen, after showing Camille to the den. “I’ve known her for years.”

Caden felt something inside of him drop.
Camille is a healer?

“What kind of healer?” he asked, piling the dirty dishes into the sink with a clatter.

Arthur stared at him, his gaze blank and unfaltering. “Sit down,” he said quietly, nodding at a chair beside the small kitchen table.

“No thanks.”

Caden turned off the faucet and shook his hands dry. He stared through the window at the inky night sky, the blue-black silhouette of the mountains framed like a photograph. His stomach turned and he wondered if it was the rabbit.

*   *   *

“Do you like music?” Camille asks. She stands with her hands on her hips, her head held at an angle, and her long auburn hair falling loose over one shoulder.

Caden isn’t sure if it’s a general conversation piece, or if she is about to pull a Mary Poppins and find a musical instrument at the bottom of her floppy leather purse: a tiny flute, maybe, or a ukulele. It’s crazy, he knows, but with the way this night is going, not much would surprise him.

“Yeah. I guess.” Caden realizes too late that he’s squeezing the stiff fabric of the floral bedspread between his fingers, clenched in stubborn fists at his sides. Arthur had told him which room to use, the one at the end of the hall. Caden tries not to imagine what else has gone on in this bed. “I like music.” He feels like a foreign exchange student, off balance in a second language, helpless in a world of new customs.

Like the one where you give your son a prostitute.

Camille smiles and moves quickly around the room, with an easy familiarity. She opens a tall wooden hutch and presses a button on a concealed stereo system, adjusting the volume until soft, smooth jazz plays from somewhere in the area of Caden’s left elbow. Small speakers, he discovers, have been installed behind the matching end tables. As far as secret love dens go, Arthur has spared no details, though he might have sprung for more comfortable bedding. Caden remembers the luxurious sheets in his room at Hart Haven. He wonders who was in charge of the decorating there.

*   *   *

“What about Sophie?” Caden asked.

She was all Caden could think about. He’d seen her face more than a few times since they’d been gone, usually when he closed his eyes at night, but quickly found it was better to pretend they’d never met. In what world was it fair that his father would end up with someone like Sophie?

It wasn’t the rabbit. Caden felt like he was going to be sick.

Arthur looked at him, long and hard, as if waiting for something to happen. “Caden,” he said finally, his voice careful and measured. “She’s here for you.”

*   *   *

“I’m here for you,” Camille says now, perched on the other side of the mattress. Like Sophie, she is of indeterminate age, although in an entirely different way. Her body is slender and flawless, her porcelain skin glows, but there is something older, harsher, hidden in her eyes. She’s probably near forty, Caden decides, though she could easily pass for much younger.

Caden clears his throat. “Okay.”

Camille reaches her hand toward him on the bed. Caden watches as her fingers crawl nearer to his kneecap, his legs squeezed together with his feet planted solidly on the floor. He is still wearing his shoes.

Her hand is on his knee, light and fluttery, like a hummingbird. A woman’s hand. A woman’s fingers. He tries to feel aroused, or at least not totally somewhere else. She’s not unattractive. She smells sweet and feminine. When she looks at him and smiles, her eyes get warmer.

*   *   *

“I wanted to do this for you,” Arthur said. He took a step forward and Caden wondered just how many times, in the history of fathers and sons, a version of this conversation had taken place. Maybe it was more common than he thought. Maybe it’s what dads do. He wouldn’t know, he realized with a sudden chill. He never had one.

“Camille is an old friend, and a wonderful person,” Arthur continued. “She knows a lot about … many things. Yoga, Eastern philosophy, religion, the healing arts. I think you’ll find her very interesting to talk to.”

Caden felt his eyes burning, his hands going cold. “Interesting to talk to?”

*   *   *

“Don’t be nervous,” Camille says lightly, running her hand slowly up his leg.

“I’m not.” Caden tries to smile but his lips are dry and he feels a sharp tingle where they’ve cracked. He wipes his mouth, hoping not to find it chapped or bleeding. She’s a professional, he knows, but he imagines that even hookers have standards.

“Good,” Camille says. “We could just talk for a while, if you like.”

She moves her hand up to the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. It’s the one piece of his own clothing he brought with him to the lodge, gray and faded and still smelling faintly of the organic laundry detergent Carly uses at home. He tries to focus on the brush of Camille’s fingers on his neck as she pulls the zipper down, but now he’s thinking about his sister. There’s a woman prepared to seduce him, prepared to do anything he wants her to do, and he’s thinking about his sister.

“No,” he says, too loud. “I mean, that’s okay. We don’t have to talk.”

Camille tugs the zipper free and pushes the sweatshirt down from his shoulders. He feels her hands on his chest and wishes there was more to him. He feels small, like a child, like he’s a little boy and she’s …

Ramona. He sees Ramona as she was when he left for the beach that night, passed out on the couch. It’s Ramona’s fault. If she hadn’t cheated, none of this would have happened. Arthur would have stuck around. Everything would have been different. Caden would be different. Better. Somebody who knew what to do when a woman put her hand on his knee, his chest.

*   *   *

Arthur glanced behind him at the kitchen door, swung open. He stood over Caden, the broad range of his shoulders dark and looming as the peaks of the mountain outside.

“Camille is a friend,” he said softly. “If I’ve made a mistake bringing her here, I apologize. How you choose to spend your evening is entirely up to you. But she is here, and you will not treat her with anything but respect. Do you understand me?”

The hairs on the back of Caden’s neck prickled and stood up.

“Do you understand me, Caden?”

Caden shrugged. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Good.” Arthur gripped Caden’s shoulder in his palm, his fingers wide and strong, as he’d done in the dining room. Only this time, it didn’t feel like something Caden wanted to remember.

Arthur pushed open the door, the light from the den shining, soft and yellow, from the far end of the darkened hall.

“Coming?”

*   *   *

Caden closes his eyes. Not Ramona. It’s Arthur. It’s a test. His father is testing him. He wants to see what sort of man Caden has become. To know, for certain, if his son is worth saving.

Caden grabs Camille’s wrists and holds them tight against the bed. He feels full of something, he doesn’t know what. His fingers are firm and twisting. He feels the faint tremor of her pulse.

“Caden.”

His eyes still closed, he feels her struggle, her body tight and tense as she pulls her fingers free.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

Caden opens his eyes. Camille is staring at him, like she was expecting somebody else. There’s something small and different in her eyes. A flickering uncertainty. A hint of fear.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m really sorry.”

Camille shifts beside him, lowering her feet to the floor. Her slender toes barely touch the carpet, hovering near the tops of his sneakers.

Like a toy on a spring, he bolts from the bed. He shuffles through the room and sprints down the hall, stumbling down the stairs. He tugs open the heavy front door, the cool mountain air washing over him.

He runs, like a spooked horse, frantic and wild, not toward, but away.

SIENNA

“There it is,” Owen shouts and points to an opening between the trees. They have been hiking for so long that Sienna has cramps in the soles of her feet and wishes she’d thought to bring sneakers. In her hurry to sneak out of the house, she hadn’t brought much, just a backpack full of T-shirts, a toothbrush (no toothpaste), and, for reasons she still can’t explain, the miniature sewing kit Mom kept in the guest bathroom closet.

She had waited until after they’d left. It took a few hours and the promise of ice cream when they got back, but Dad ultimately convinced Ryan to go for a walk after dinner. With most kids, Sienna knew, not even extra dessert would have done the trick, but Dad was starting at somewhat of an advantage. Ryan loved walks, especially when they involved flashlights, the woods, and insects of any kind.

Sienna listened to the complicated negotiation through her bedroom door. She felt a twinge of guilt, thinking that maybe she should go with them. But she was already running late. She waited until she heard the screen door slap shut and Denny turning on the shower, the clanks and groaning of pipes in the wall, before grabbing her bag and hurrying out the front door.

At the end of the driveway, she heard footsteps. Of course, Sienna panicked—Ryan had forgotten something crucial, like his special pencil. But it was only a sad-looking woman walking slow, the orange glow of a cigarette lit up between her fingers. Sienna waited for the woman to pass, thinking she looked familiar. Didn’t she have anybody to be with today? She thought of Dad, the look on his face when she’d walked through the door. She imagined what he’d look like when he realized she was gone. Again.

She took a deep breath and kept walking.

Now, after a crowded carpool across the island and a seemingly endless hike up the side of a cliff, a crumbling structure peeks into view, the brick bones of a barn long forgotten. A tall, lopsided chimney breaks through the tops of the trees, and chips of red clay and stone are scattered all around the sandy pit.

“What is this place?” Sienna asks.

“It used to be an actual brickyard,” Owen answers. They are, at last, on level ground, and Sienna feels her legs settling back into the familiar, easy rhythm of simply
walking.
“Boats used to sail right up to those docks and load up with materials. The barn was eventually built out of bricks that weren’t good enough to sell.”

“Is that why it’s in such bad shape?” Sienna asks.

“Nah.” Owen hops over a waist-high stone wall, a border that seems to enclose the entire area, marking where the woods end and the shoreline begins. “It was a hurricane, I think.”

Sienna nods, trying not to think about the irony of trying to avoid one natural disaster in a place that’s already been demolished by another.

As they get closer to the barn, Sienna starts to make out a few familiar faces from last night, but mostly, the group—there must be close to fifty of them—is full of people she hasn’t met. They seem to be of all ages, some kids like them, a bunch of young families, and a handful of men her dad’s age, swarming around the open structure. They are all focused, hard at work, but there’s a sense of easy comfort and routine, as if it’s not so different from what they do every day.

Owen takes Sienna’s hand and squeezes it. “Ready?”

Sienna nods and follows him into the barn. She’s not sure exactly what she’d been expecting, but it’s clear right away that whatever it was, she was wrong. This is a highly organized operation, basking in the harsh glow of industrial lights. There are hulking pieces of machinery, enormous planks of treated wood, rubber tires the size of full-grown men, and pulley systems that, at first, make Sienna want to run and duck for cover.

The “boat” itself takes up the majority of the indoor space, accessed from platforms on the ground and scaffolding that juts out from the barn loft above. The wheels have been attached and the whole structure sits perched on a wooden ramp, angled down toward the opening that faces the ocean. The whole thing appears to be one pulley-snap away from rolling out to sea, whether or not it’s ready.

The buzzing progress doesn’t stop for introductions, but Owen carefully leads Sienna around the sprawling space, greeting friends and offering quick explanations of how each fits into the microcosm of his island life. Friends from elementary school. His old soccer coach. The shellfish warden and his wife. Jeremy introduces them to his father, Rex, a ruggedly handsome man who looks too young to have a kid their age. Rex looks up from his nail-gun long enough to greet them, and asks Jeremy to check on the “pit crew.”

Sienna raises an eyebrow and the three of them make their way into the belly of the boat, hopping over cables and loose floorboards. “So what do you think?” Jeremy asks as they weave around the upper deck.

Owen laughs. “It’s incredible,” he raves, running a hand along the reinforced beams that cross the boat’s wide center frame.