Covet

by James, Ella

“Are you okay?” He’s frowning.

  “Of course.”

  “Are you, though?”

  “I am. Why do you ask?” My heart pounds so hard, I worry a bit for myself.

  “You look like a ghost, Finley. When I touched your shoulder in there, your whole body tensed up. You won’t look at me.”

  And I didn’t return to him last night.

  I look into his eyes and find them cool, his prince’s face unreadable.

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’m trying to keep…proper.”

  “Where’d you go last night?”

  I can see the hurt in his hard features. It’s there in the tightness of his jaw. He looks down at his shoes, and my gaze follows. They’re boots, made of brown leather, and they look quite fine. I watch as a breath moves through his thick shoulders.

  Then those piercing eyes are holding mine. He blinks, biting his cheek on the inside. There’s something like the shadow of a smile, as if he’d like to but he can’t. And he says, “It’s okay.” I can tell he means it, which is sort of awful.

  “No it’s not. I’m sorry.” I’m looking at my own shoes now—worn Mary Janes. “I went to the clinic, and the visitors were there late. Then I worried you were sleeping.” I swallow hard and force myself to look up at him. “How are you feeling? Did you rest?”

  He rubs a hand back through his hair, revealing scabbed gashes across his knuckles. “I’m okay.”

  I can hear the tightness in his voice. His face, though, is flawlessly impassive.

  “I need to give you a check-over. Particularly your blood pressure, and I’d like a look at that shoulder. Could you come to the clinic in a bit, perhaps? Or I could come to you if you’d prefer.”

  It’s there for a mere instant: the tiniest chink in his armor. His brows crease and his mouth tightens before he locks it all away. He nods once, jaw hard.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says in forced tones. “I’ll come by.”

  “To the clinic? Will that be all right? I’ve got to make a house call. Afterward, I’ll be there all day.”

  “Not a problem.” His jaw remains hard as his gaze laps at me. “You feel okay, Siren? You sure?”

  I nod, as I can’t seem to speak.

  “Good.”

  I can feel how much he wants to touch me as he starts to turn away. How much it hurts him as he walks around the café. His body moves with easy grace, but I just know. He rounds the café’s front, and I hear voices rise in greeting.

  Fog kisses my face. I take a few steps back, pressing my shoulder blades against the café’s white-washed brick wall. For the longest time, I stand there alone.

  Soon, he’ll understand. But I can’t tell him.

  Twenty-Three

  Declan

  After I talk to Finley, I kind of lose my grip on things. It’s like walking on a wire from one high-rise to the other. I can’t look down. I don’t have good balance.

  If I’m not paying attention, my teeth chatter. My hands always shake, so I have to keep them fisted or shoved in a pocket. Someone wants to shake one, and I have to squeeze them hard enough so they can’t tell. The space behind my forehead feels empty, and there’s a heaviness behind my eyes that reminds me a little bit of being drunk. It’s hard to keep them open sometimes, nearly impossible to act normal.

  Following a conversation makes my chest go tight just from the effort of it. I try to smile and laugh at the right times, but time’s not steady for me. Sometimes it rushes by, a breaking wave that kind of startles me with its fast passage. Other times, it feels as thick as honey. I know it’s just detox—this shit’s always like a bad trip—but that doesn’t keep my mouth from going dry, my palms from sweating. Doesn’t make it any easier to thank the cook and try to keep track of who to say bye to before I walk out on my plastic legs.

  I’ve gotta drive back to the cottage. I make it past the village before pulling over to get sick. My palms are wet around the steering wheel. Inside the house, I walk past a box of fruits and veggies someone brought this morning and sit on the couch’s edge to take my shoes off. When my fingers shake too much to do the laces, I lie back with them still on, stare at the ceiling.

  Now’s one of those moments where everything feels big and forceful. I feel kind of untethered. Need to sleep, but I don’t think I can. I lie on my side. My mind races, all bad stuff and nonsense. My shoe connecting with Laurent’s ribs, and his blood sinking into that rug. Walking into my shared bathroom. The haunted feeling stalks me across time.

  I can’t help but think of Finley. She looked like a painting come to life wearing that beige blouse with her hair down. I cover my face with both hands.

  Don’t.

  I can’t hang onto anything else, though. I get a pillow, hold it to my chest, and close my eyes.

  “Try to relax, darling.”

  I think of her hands in mine, and it works like a pill.

  I’m extra grateful for the little bit of sleep when I wake up mid-afternoon and can’t stop shaking. My joints hurt so much, I can barely move. Somehow I make it to the tub and sink into the hot water. I stay there for hours, running more hot water when it cools.

  When I awaken to a dark room and a quiet cottage, I pull some clothes on and step onto the back porch. A crescent moon hangs over the cliffs. A long way below, waves break against the rock. I pull my boots off and walk over the scrubby grass with my bare feet. I fold my arms and press my lips together till the tightness in my throat abates a little.

  Then I go into the kitchen, open the cutlery drawer. They’re there on the countertop, though—knives encased in a wood block. I choose a chef’s knife and an apple. Wash the apple. Wash my arm. I prop it on the counter, palm up. Shut my eyes as I run the tip over the soft hump of my veins. Median cubital…cephalic. Old friends.

  I get a good, deep breath just feeling that slight sting. I can’t put it where I want it, though—not if I want to wear short sleeves when I help dig trenches for the cable.

  I roll up my shirt sleeve to the shoulder. My heart pounds. My lungs lock up.

  With my fingers bent around the blade and the tip held at a slight angle, I press down, take a deep, slow breath, and draw a line around the inside of my bicep. The release is not unlike what Finley’s hands did for me. In the rush I get right after, I laugh. Didn’t even check for gauze…

  But she’s got some. I wrap it. Think of taking Advil for the joint pain, then decide I want to feel it.

  I clean the knife off. Slide it back into the block. Then I use the paring knife to peel the apple.

  I like apples.

  I like cigarettes.

  I put my boots back on and head into the dark.

  * * *

  Finley

  “And then?”

  “And then he kissed me!” Holly grins like a naughty child, and I stop breathing—and walking—on the right side of Upper Lane.

  “Did he really?” I ask when I can breathe.

  Baby presses against my legs, reminding me I still possess them.

  Holly nods, still smiling smugly.

  “He kissed you on the lips?” The gray clouds tilt.

  “Well, no—not on the lips of course. How forward would that be? His mouth was here…” She points to her forehead, and I begin to burn.

  “As you were dancing?”

  She nods, red lips still upturned smugly. “As we were dancing.”

  Holly whirls and skips ahead of me, her yellow skirt bouncing around her lean legs. “Homer Carnegie kissed me,” she sing-songs.

  We’re en route to the Brauns’ cottage, so I’ve no choice but to follow along behind her. “And you were drinking liquor?”

  “Just a bit.” She grins over her shoulder. “Dot saw, too. You should have seen her green eyes.”

  Holly’s smirk makes me feel as if I’m running out of air. I tug at my collar.

  “Why…would he be doing that?” It’s asked more to myself than her.

  “Well, he is an athlete,” she says, “but I
’ve heard athletes can be quite unruly off the field. Maura told Blair and me that she looked him up just weeks ago back on the café computer and the world wide web still painted him as quite the bad boy.”

  Holly gives a little growl, complete with cat-scratch miming. “Blair danced with him near as much as I did. Little trollop. She’s so twiggy, though, and all the acne…” Holly shrugs, and I gape at her back.

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “Well I’m only speaking truth! She’s lovely on the inside, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Not for dancing…”

  I’d quite like to strangle Holly.

  My new…ignited feeling doesn’t leave me. Not as we wash the sore on Mr. Braun’s foot nor as we pretend to savor Mrs. Braun’s flavorless porridge. Nor when we walk back to the clinic, where we work our way through several more appointments. Holly stands as my assistant at times. Today she offered. I know why now.

  When she leaves at four-thirty to “get a soak” in preparation for the night’s festivities, I drop into a crouch and rub Baby around her soft ears.

  “Everything is horrid. Simply horrid,” I whisper against her fluff.

  Declan never dropped by the clinic on that first day we were back. The next morning, I had planned to seek him out after I stopped at the warehouse to get a bit more washing soap. There I heard Tad Price and Weston Green discussing how they’d spent time at the bar with “Homer.” Maura laughed behind the counter, revealing she was there as well.

  “Some of us were there much later than you teenieboppers,” she said, haughty. “Mr. Brenton didn’t lock the door till half past two. He’s quite enamored with our new friend, much as anyone. He had Homer signing cards.”

  I left the depot with a sinking feeling, but that didn’t stop me seeking him out. I’m the fill-in for Doctor, therefore it’s my duty to check up on Declan. I found his green Land Rover parked at Mrs. White’s and later heard he’d taken an interest in her orchids. After that, he and Mayor Acton walked the village, charting a course for the new cable. I lost track of him during a house call, but someone said he’d been invited to supper with Rachel’s older sister and her husband, Steven, the village electrician.

  The next day, Monday, the crew began digging trenches right at dawn and worked quite late. That was the first night Holly saw him at the bar, although I suppose he might have gone before.

  Yesterday, I walked over to the digging site—they’re moving slowly along Lower Lane—and delivered some of the goodies people baked for me. I’ll never eat them all. Some of the men thanked me, but Declan scarcely looked up.

  Now, having heard what Holly reported, I feel…horrid. There’s no other word. My throat aches. I feel ill at ease in my own skin.

  When the phone rings, I rush over to it. I don’t feel the normal flare of dread accompanying calls that come when Doctor’s gone, because there’s dread inside my heart already.

  I answer, and who is it but the man himself?

  “Finley. How are you?”

  “I’m quite well. How are you?”

  “Head above water,” he says. “Went on a short trip, so I’ve been away the last two days. I had my mobile phone of course.”

  “I didn’t call.”

  “How are you faring? How is everything?” He means the patients.

  “Everyone is well enough. Mr. Braun has got another foot sore. Holly helped me irrigate it.”

  “Is there pus?”

  “Not much at all. We caught it early, and I applied the Bacitracin.”

  “Very well then.” There’s a pause in which my senses prickle. Then he says, in low tones, “What of our Homer?”

  I swallow at his use of the word our. “Honestly…I don’t quite know. I asked him to the clinic for a check-up and he never dropped in.”

  Static cracks between us. I imagine a line stretching over the ocean. “Wonder if he’s got something from somewhere else.”

  “Something?” I ask.

  “A sort of painkiller. Tell me there was nothing at your Gammy’s house.”

  “Of course not. Why would there be? I’d have moved it here if there had been.”

  “At least you’ve some sense.”

  I swallow my retort. It’s always better not to anger Doctor.

  “Is he draining the bar dry?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t go there, you know.”

  “Yes, but have you ears?”

  I grit my teeth. “I’ve not heard that. That he’s draining it dry.”

  “But is he going?”

  “That I have heard.”

  “Well, it makes a bit of sense, then. If he doesn’t want a check-up, you can’t force him. Let him be.”

  “I will.”

  We talk a bit more before someone knocks on the door. It’s a fine excuse to end the call. I find Anna on the porch, holding a foil-covered plate, wearing a tired smile.

  “Give me refuge. Kayti won’t stop wailing. I had to get out or I’d have gone mad.” She holds the plate out. “I made friendship bread. And iced it.”

  She gives me a wry smile, and I tug her inside. “It’s cold and wet out. Take off your coat and sit a bit. We’ll walk over—” I gesture to the adjoining house— “and I’ll make you some chamomile with sugar,” I say, teasing her in return for her icing jab.

  “We need our sugar,” she agrees. “It’s all that keeps me going some days.”

  She leans down to stroke Baby. When she stands back up, she tilts her head, giving me a curious look. “You look like you need the icing, love. Why aren’t you eating?”

  “Oh, sod off, I’m eating plenty.”

  “You’re a wretched liar.”

  “You’re just wretched.”

  We step through the door into the house. Baby’s hooves click on the hardwood floor behind us. Of all the homes here on the island, only Doctor’s has hardwood. The rest have mostly cement flooring. I suppose the wood is meant to lure physicians. I find the clicking sound of it a bit unpleasant.

  I fill the teapot and Anna slumps down at the kitchen table. She runs her hand over a braided placemat. “I like these. Where did they come from?”

  “Gammy’s. I thought they added a bit of something.”

  “Certainly. Makes the place more homey.” She sighs. “Tell me, Finley. Tell me what’s the matter. I can see it plainly.”

  I set the teapot on the stove, glad for an excuse to put my back to her. “Nothing is.”

  “You’ve had quite a week. Are you terribly tired?” When I turn around, her lovely Anna face is soft. “Are you lonely? Was it very frightening to be below the ground? You never really told me.”

  My eyes fill with tears, and Anna rushes up to hug me. “Oh, I’m sorry, dearie.”

  I weep only for a moment. When she pulls away, her freckled face is filled with understanding. “It makes perfect sense that it…reminded you.”

  I nod and swallow, staring at the floor.

  “It’s good at least you weren’t alone. Freddy helped with the digging today and said Declan is a humble, kind man. Not at all like what you might imagine.”

  I nod.

  “Have you spoken much with him? Are you two dear friends now?”

  I press my lips together and shrug. I have to summon all my courage to lie compellingly to Anna. “We are friends, I would say. It was good to have him with me. He was always kind and understanding, just as Freddy said.”

  “I’m so glad of that. I suppose you heard about the dinner tomorrow?”

  “Come again?”

  “They’re doing a dinner for you—for the two of you. Celebratory. It’s at the Burger Joint.” Anna laughs, and I realize I’m scowling.

  “Don’t you want to tell the story one more time?” She grins. “About the Atkins bars and how you dug fair Declan out?”

  “I didn’t dig him out.”

  She shrugs. “That’s what he told Freddy. We all know you can be overmodest. At times,” she teases.

  “Do you think
I ought to go?”

  Anna chortles as she uncovers the plate she brought. “You’ll have to at least stop in, you goose. You can sit with Freddy and me. Holly’s working on the setup, and you can guess where she’s seating herself.”

  I groan, and Anna makes a sympathetic face. “I know that’s got to gnaw at you a bit. It’s understandable.”

  I nod once. I’ve confided in Anna about my feelings regarding Declan’s father and my mother. The strangeness of knowing Mum was telling me Prince Declan stories just before he and his father arrived. And she’d been writing letters to Charles Carnegie. It’s quite difficult to name the feeling it brings me. I suppose it’s one of…fate. Making me think of the oddness of it. If they’d survived the outing on the boat, would I have grown up in America?

  I can’t put my thoughts into words, so I nod again. “I can’t imagine losing Holly or Dot,” I say softly.

  “I can’t imagine being swept away.” She smiles, a bit dreamy, and I think of the seething ocean—not of Declan—as I say, “I wouldn’t want to be.”

  I make Anna’s tea, and we eat too much friendship bread. She heads home a bit after nine, and I tuck in early, falling right away into a dream in which I’m locked inside the clinic, pacing the wide room alone as my hair grows down past my backside and turns gray. Doctor grabs my backside, his hand squeezing.

  Sometime after midnight, noise breaks through the dreaming. I open my eyes to find Baby curled up on the rug beside the bed. As I sink back into dreamland, I hear it once more: the sound of someone knocking. A peek out the door reveals an empty stoop.

  Twenty-Four

  Declan

  “So how was she?”

  I stop with my foot on the shovel and look across the trench at Mark. He’s got his cap off, re-tying the red bandana he wears as a sweatband underneath.

  “How was who?” I get another scoop of dirt and toss it over my shoulder.

  “Oh, you know…the doctor’s lady.”

  I frown. “Finley?”

  He nods, fitting his cap back over the bandana. He goes back to digging on his side. I look up and down the trench. With the island’s only mechanical digger broken, we’ve spread out, one person digging every four or five feet on opposite sides of the trench.