What the Waves Know (17 page)

“Can you pull those boards really quick, so I can tape behind them?” Remy tapped Riley on the shoulder, pointing.

Giving me a hard glance, Riley pushed past me and wiggled the teeth of the bar under the nails, pulling them free with a groan from the wood. Remy took the paper cup from the sheriff's hand and sipped at his coffee.

“That should do it,” Riley said, stepping back so Remy could tape off the hole. When she turned, he gave the crowbar a toss, letting it fall at my feet.

“Did
I
break this window?” She shot a look over her shoulder. Snapping to, I realized I'd been staring at Riley. Blushing, I grabbed the tape and helped her finish it off.

“I'm gonna get a soda,” Riley said, going into Herman's.

“Hurry up,” the sheriff yelled after him. “I've got to get back to the station.”

A few minutes later, Riley reappeared with a can of cola, heading for the cruiser. “I'm gonna drop him by the pier. You ladies have this under control?” the sheriff asked.

“It's as good as done,” Remy puffed, handing the mallet to me.

As the police cruiser pulled away from the curb, I noticed two familiar figures standing across the street. Lindsey and Carly were sitting on a bike rack watching us. Our eyes met for only an instant, but it was long enough for Lindsey to toss her hair over one shoulder with a laugh.

“It's festival week,” Remy explained, following my gaze. “No school. Sort of a fall break.” She turned back toward the window. “Okay, goggles tight?”

I gave the band behind my head a tug and followed her back to the window.

“Okay, stand right here,” Remy directed, pointing to the spot in front of her. “Before you swing I want you to look in that glass.”

I stared at the spot where she had pointed. Through the hole, I saw Betsey ringing up a customer and gazing back at me, perplexed.

“Look again.” Remy fiddled with a loose cuticle on her thumbnail.

It took a full minute before what she was looking at took shape and pulled into focus, and a grin worked over my lips. There in the reflection, I saw Lindsey and Carly perched like vultures on the metal rack behind me.

“Now go ahead and hit it like you damn well mean it.”

Smashing at the window like it was Lindsey's skull, I did not stop until there was nothing left but small chunks, like bits of icicles, clinging to the edges.

“You should consider doing something about that habit,” Remy said, standing back and checking my progress.

I looked at her inquisitively.

“You know, the urge you get to smash windows whenever those girls are around.” She gazed across the street where the two girls were pretending not to watch. “At least this time your steam came in handy.”

Three hours later,
we'd carved loose the remaining shards of glass and Remy was driving in the last nail to board up the window until the new pane arrived. When she was done, Mr. Herman hobbled out to have a look.

“What about scraping the grooves?”

“Did it,” Remy said, tossing the mallet into the trunk.

“There's still the matter of the chipped paint around the edges.”

“Not today. I've got a ferry to run this afternoon. Besides, that can be taken care of once the new glass is set.”

“Make sure it is,” he grumbled. “And it'll need to be glazed, too.”

“Right,” Remy answered, opening the passenger door and cueing me to get in. “Ready?” She looked at me.

“I didn't hear an apology,” Mr. Herman said.

I looked at Remy, wide-eyed.

“Well?”

“She doesn't speak, Maynard,” Remy interjected. “I told you that the other day.”

“That's not how I understand it. Word is she can speak when she wants.”

I stared at Mr. Herman in disbelief. Through the open door, I saw a thin woman with a sharp nose gaze up from the box of cookies she was laying on the checkout belt.

“Well, you should know better than to believe the half-cocked gossip of a bunch of bored housewives. Now leave her alone.”

“For your information, your nephew told me, not three
hours ago. Says he heard her for himself out on the bluff. And since she can talk when she chooses, I think I'm owed an apology.”

“Then let
me
apologize,” Remy chirped. “I'm sorry you're so bitter. I'm sure it's not entirely your fault you're a hostile old windbag.” Mr. Herman looked like he'd been slapped as a cloud of anger swept over his face. I grabbed Remy's arm, trying to tug her out the door before things got any worse. “Oh, and the next time someone gets accosted outside your door by the riffraff on this island, I might have to start sending people to Salva's instead. You know, for their own safety.”

Remy slammed the driver's door shut with more force than necessary and we drove the rest of the way to the pier in silence, with me trying to untangle what Mr. Herman had said. I hadn't spoken to a single soul on this island, and it wasn't until we skidded to a stop beside the Yemaya statue that I figured out what he was talking about. It was Riley who'd told Mr. Herman I could speak, which wasn't entirely factual since a gasp is not truly a word.

Sometimes, when I least expected it, tiny shreds of the knot in my throat broke free—not whole words but stray syllables. It had happened at my grandfather's funeral when they'd opened the casket and a small
oooowww,
as soft as a cat's meow, had popped into the air and gotten caught up in the groan of the coffin hinges. I remember how it felt, too, like a tiny chameleon skittling up my throat and hiccupping into the world, leaving a small
empty pocket inside me and a dizzying whirl in my ears. But nobody else had ever heard. Until now.

Mr. O'Malley was just docking the boat when we arrived. A deck full of passengers shuffled toward the steps in a rush to be first off. Leading the pack, a woman with a toy poodle draped over one arm tottered forward in spiked fuchsia heels. The dog's fur had been tufted into a white fountain sprouting over a pink ribbon between its ears.

“Good Lord Almighty.” Remy sighed, shaking her head at the woman. “Looks like Mr. O'Malley picked up a crew from Bloomingdale's Tacky Gear for the Fat and Wealthy department.”

I tried to force a grin, fighting the sick feeling left behind by the sight of Riley grabbing the tie line on the ferry and wrapping it three times around a piling.
This property belongs to my grandfather,
I remembered him saying. He was Remy's nephew, Mr. O'Malley's grandson, which explained why every time I turned around he was standing there in the shadows. Then the kiss Remy had met the sheriff with pulled sharply into focus: he was not her boyfriend but her brother.

“Why the blazes do you people drag fleabags around with you everywhere you go?” Remy shook her head across the pier at the woman and her dog. “Though this time I've got to admit, I'm split right down the middle about which one's worse, the dog or the owner.” She sighed. I did not point out that, for all her proclamation about disliking
dogs, on more than one occasion I'd caught her sneaking Luke treats. “I'd better let her off and fast before the cream puff and her damn poodle get overexcited and pee the deck.”

The white heads of ten-foot swells sloshed over the break wall, rolling inland in a foamy curl. The
Mirabel
teetered and tossed along with them, back and forth, bumping clumsily into place.

“Riley! Tie that off and come here.”

He looked up, flipping the hair out of his eye. His expression darkened when he saw me.

“Let's go! We've got to get these people off and turn this boat around.”

Riley gave the knot a yank and sauntered over to Remy. “Here's the log.” He handed her a clipboard, which she propelled at me without hesitation before heading for the ramp.

“Izabella's going to guide people off.” Her eyes bobbed between us. Though busying myself with the names on the clipboard, I caught the fringe of a look that passed between them. “Show her where to stand when you drop the ramp.”

“I'm busy.” He started to walk away. Remy caught him by the back of the shirt.

“Not as busy as me. Now show her.”

“Why can't Grandpa show her?” He pointed at Mr. O'Malley, who was now sitting on a large reel of rope
beside the ferry while Telly guided the cars out from the lower deck.

“Because Grandpa isn't feeling well. And I told you to do it, so go.”

“Come on,” Riley snapped, leading me over to the boat. “Just hand people a map and one of these when they get off the boat.” He kicked a box of flyers for the Yemaya Festival set haphazardly on the wharf, sending three of them fluttering onto the boards like broken-winged moths.

“Steamship wharf is right here,” he said, poking a finger at a red star on the map fixed to the clipboard. “Main Street's right there. If anyone asks you where something is just send them to Main Street, doesn't matter what it is. Unless it's a taxi. Anyone needs a taxi, just wave to Telly and he'll sign them up.”

What about my Yemaya Stone?
I thought, glancing at his pocket.
Is that on Main Street?

Of all the people on Tillings, what were the chances that this one belonged to Remy? That Riley hated me was clear, even if the reason was not, but I wasn't too keen on him, either. Forget that he was cute, or had the greenest eyes in the whole wide world.

“Think you can manage that?”

Before I could answer, he'd hoisted himself up a side ladder on the boat and was pulling the pin free to drop the ramp.

The cream puff and her poodle pushed ahead of ev
eryone else. Halfway down, the woman stalled—bringing the whole parade to a halt—and reached her free hand into her blouse between her breasts. Extracting a handkerchief, she dabbed the beads of sweat blooming over her brow and collarbone. When she was satisfied, she tucked the cloth back into her shirt, the corner sticking out of her collar, and marched straight for me. When at last they reached the bottom of the ramp, I handed the woman a map and flyer just like I'd been told.

“Can you please tell me where the Brass Lantern Inn is?”

I pointed to Main Street.

“Over there?” She smushed her nose up, squinting at the map. “Are you sure? Because they said take a left out of Steamship Wharf. That's not left.” Turning the map sideways, she ran a finger along the names of hotels. I glanced down, pretending to look with her. “I don't see it on here anywhere.”

I pointed to Main Street on the map while the poodle sniffed at my shoulder, leaving a wet spot.

“But they said left.” Her voice raised a notch, causing several passengers to gaze back at us as they stepped off the ramp, and I felt my chest tighten. The palms of my hands grew clammy, making the clipboard difficult to grasp. Hanging off a rope above me as he wiped a splotch of ketchup from the side of the boat, I felt Riley watching.

“Ahh . . .” Barely audible, a second strangled hiss came out of my mouth.

“Are you okay?” The woman looked at me oddly.

“Go to Main Street and take your second left. The Brass Lantern's three blocks down on the right.” Still in midair like a chimpanzee, Riley continued to scrub, never looking down at the woman.

“Second left,” she repeated. “Maybe I should take a taxi. These legs aren't what they used to be. And Pixie doesn't really like to walk much anymore.”

“Over there,” Riley pointed at Telly, who was walking away. Thankfully, the only other passengers left were those waiting for a taxi, so they followed the cream puff and Pixie toward Telly in a small frenzied herd.

I found Remy and Mr. O'Malley bickering inside the ticket stand. I tapped on the window. Remy unlatched the door, clutching tight to a mop, and relieved me of my clipboard.

“Just look at the thermometer, you old polar bear. Forty-one degrees! Cold enough to preserve your frozen carcass for thirty days before rinsing it down the disposal,” she scolded from behind a gray wool knit scarf, yanking a glove from each hand and waving her fingers in front of the small space heater. “Get your jacket from the car before Telly takes off with it.”

“I'm not cold.” Mr. O'Malley poked a mound of sweet sticky tobacco into his pipe, choking back a cough so determined it turned his face bright red and shuddered his whole body.

“Good Lord have mercy! There's your reason for feeling
no cold. Your body's so damn heated from trying to cough up a lung, you're generating enough electricity to warm half the island. I'm going to be stuck half way across this bay with you hacking up a vital organ. Are you looking at the thermometer? Put your glasses on, old man!”

“My eyes are good enough.” Mr. O'Malley lit his pipe, fixing his gaze out the window while I pulled my sleeve over my knuckles.

“Then it's your mind that's going,” she shot back. “It'll be twenty degrees cooler on the ocean. Not to mention that you've been under the weather all week. You'll freeze to death.”

“I expect I'll be good,” announced Mr. O'Malley.

“Mmm hmm. Good and dead from pneumonia.”

“Then I guess I won't be cold.”

“Get your damn jacket.” Remy handed me the mop as Mr. O'Malley pushed his way out of the stand, leaving a puff of smoke sweetening the air behind him. As he passed, he tossed me a wink and I gave him a grin. In my mind, this is what my father and I would have been like if he hadn't gone—him barreling off across the waves with me chasing after him waving a life preserver in the air. Someone else might have heard the exchanges between Remy and Mr. O'Malley as bickering, but I knew the truth. This was their way of saying, “I love you more than all the stars in the galaxy.” Even if the sentence did end in “you stubborn old goat.”

“Bring Riley that mop. You can grab a bottle of Comet
and help me with the bathrooms on the ferry.” The growl in Remy's voice said she'd gained some small satisfaction in being able to make somebody do what she wanted without argument.