“I’m not looking for a mate.”
“Oh my God.”
“That’s when I decided it was time to pish or go home. So I clenched my teeth together really tight, and then I whispered nice and loud, “Pish, pish, pish,” and I waited. The mockingbird stopped singing, but he didn’t come out like the other birds, he just stayed still. I thought about pishing a second time, but I was a little afraid he might attack. Benny said that happens sometimes with mockingbirds, and I know it’s true because I read about it on my favorite birding website when I got home.”
“God save me from birding websites.” The door swung back and Jocelyn stepped into the hall at last. “Has anyone ever told you how irritating you are?”
She was still wearing her black T-shirt, but she’d traded the Hated skirt for a pair of shorts and the boots for flip-flops. She looked like a kid again, one who’d gotten into her mother’s black eyeliner. Now if I could just change the color of that hair.
“I guess it depends on what you think is irritating,” I said.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered, and walked past me and down the stairs.
Hurray for the mockingbird! Hurray for pishing!
I followed her down and went straight to Mark’s laptop to check my e-mail again, but there was still nothing from Liz, which was weird because she usually sends me a bunch of e-mails every day. But today, she’d been as silent as Jocelyn.
“A person could starve to death in this place.”
Jocelyn was standing in front of the fridge with the door open, staring at the shelves. There wasn’t much in there—a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, and a small jar of peanut butter. Mark must have forgotten what the shopping is like on the Island.
“This is gay,” Jocelyn muttered, and slammed the door. “What am I supposed to eat?”
“Your dad left a lasagne in the freezer, or I have this.” I held up the money he gave me before he left—five twenty-dollar bills all rolled up nice and neat and held together with an elastic. “He said we could go out for dinner if you like.”
“Of course I’d like.” She tried to snatch the roll from me, but I shoved it down the front of my T-shirt, tucking it into my bra so it wouldn’t fall out on the floor.
Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed. “I thought retards were supposed to be kind and gentle.”
“I am kind. And I’m smart enough to know that I have to hold on to the money if I want to be sure my dinner is paid for.” I headed for the door. “Let’s go. There are plenty of restaurants on Centre Island.”
“There’s two.”
“And that’s twice as many as we have on Ward’s.” I looked back. “You coming?”
She didn’t move and I was afraid she might call my bluff and head back to the bedroom. But hunger must have won out because she grabbed her cell phone and her iPod and pushed past me out the door. “How far is it?”
“About a ten-minute ride.” I kicked back the stand on my own bike and pointed to a blue Raleigh by the porch. “Your dad had that one brought over for you.”
She glanced over at the bike, then bent her head over her phone and pressed some numbers. “This is so lame. Why aren’t there at least buses?”
“Because the Island is a park, and parks don’t have buses or subways or cars.”
“Well, they should,” she said and put the phone to her ear.
Across the road, a couple of girls about her age came around the side of the house, walking on stilts and laughing. The Watts twins, Brianne and Kiley. Nice girls but a little rambunctious. At least that’s what their mom said the last time my mom did her hair.
I waved and the twins waved back. “You’re really good on those,” I said. “Are you going to be in the show this year?”
“Yup,” Kiley said. “How about you?”
“Not this year.” I pointed to Jocelyn. “This is Jocelyn. She’s living here for the summer.”
“I’m not living here, I’m a prisoner.”
The girls looked at me funny and I felt my face warm. “She’s not really a prisoner. Not in that way.”
Kiley nodded and then smiled at Jocelyn. “You want to try the stilts?”
Jocelyn scowled. “You won’t believe what they’re doing,” she said into the phone.
“It’s not that hard,” Brianne said. “And it’s kind of an Island tradition. Most of the kids who live here learn.”
“Like I said, I do not live here, and I do not want to try your lame stilts.”
I shrugged my shoulders at the twins and they shrugged back and stilt-walked across the lawn and down the other side of the house to the backyard.
“That was rude,” I said when they were gone.
“It was honest.” Jocelyn hung up the phone, hooked her iPod into her ears, and threw a leg over the bike. “I want to go to the Carousel restaurant. And just so you know, you are not eating with me when we get there. My friends are coming over on the next ferry. I’m having dinner with them.”
“That’s okay. But I still have the money.”
“You’ll have to give me half when we get there.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“Listen, Short Bus …”
“No, you listen. I’m not retarded and if you say that one more time—”
“You’ll what? Tell on me? Beat me up?” She pointed to her chin. “Go ahead. Right here. My father’s a lawyer. I dare you to hit me.”
I knew it was wrong, but if I’d had a can of iced tea right then, I’d have pitched it at her and not because I couldn’t help it either. And I wouldn’t have felt a bit bad about it after. “You’re not a nice person.”
“And you’re an idiot.”
“I’m not giving you the money.”
She came a step closer. “Wanna bet?”
I was really glad when Jocelyn’s phone started ringing because it meant I didn’t have to bet her about the money. And I didn’t care when she flipped me the bird and said into the phone, “Don’t worry, I’m on my way.” Or when she turned her back and started talking like I couldn’t hear her, saying things like “Everyone here is making me crazy” and “I can’t believe they live like this.” But when she looked right at me over her shoulder and said, “And the blond retard is the worst,” my skin got all hot, and I could hear that horrible buzzing inside my head again.
I was worried because this would be the second time in less than a week, and I’d been doing so good for months and months, even my mom said so. “Those breathing techniques are really working for you,” she’d said more than a few times now.
I knew Liz wouldn’t tell anyone what happened on the beach, but Jocelyn would tell everybody everywhere, and nothing good could come of that. Nothing good for me anyway.
So I tried to breathe it all away, tried to stay calm and focus like my mom always said to do, but it wasn’t working, it never did, in spite of what she wanted to think. And when I closed my eyes, stupid Jocelyn said, “Oh my God, now she’s doing some kind of meditating thing. Wait, I’ll take a picture and send it to you,” and I opened my eyes in time to hear the click.
“This is too good,” she said into the phone, and the buzzing got louder.
“Not now,” I whispered and closed my eyes again. “Not now, please.”
This time I gritted my teeth and concentrated harder. Kept breathing slowly, in and out, in and out, while the buzzing got louder and louder.
“She’s talking to herself too,” Jocelyn said, and when I peeked, I saw that she was smiling for the first time since she got here. “Hold on,” she said, then raised her phone and took another picture. “She is such a freak,” she said to her friend, and I watched my hand reach down and pick up a rock.
“No!” I yelled. “Not now!”
“Grace?” someone said. I jerked my head around. Kiley and Brianne were by the gate on their stilts. “Are you okay?” Kiley asked.
“She’s fucking nuts,” Jocelyn said to them. “Want to see the pictures?”
&
nbsp; I saw the twins shake their heads and back away from Jocelyn’s pictures. They really were getting good on those stilts. And when I realized the buzzing had quieted, I told myself not to think about the buzzing anymore. To think about the mockingbird instead and Benny and how I was glad he’d been there to tell me what kind of bird it was. And how I was going to go back and find that bird and how I hoped he was making the truck noise again. And then I made my fingers release that rock.
“I’m fine,” I said to Kiley, probably too loudly if the look on her face was anything to go by, and I knew I had to get away. Had to get back into the house as fast as I could, but Jocelyn took another picture and that was it.
I snatched the phone right out of her hand and I told her friend, “Jocelyn can’t talk right now,” and then I snapped that phone shut right in her face. She didn’t say anything, just stood there with her mouth open.
And suddenly the buzzing in my head stopped altogether, like it was as surprised as Jocelyn, and didn’t know what to do next. So I kept on not thinking about it and I hopped on my bike instead, and I could hear Kiley and Brianne cheering as I took off.
Jocelyn didn’t move for three full seconds, which gave me a decent head start. Then she hollered, “Give me back my phone, you fucking retard,” and I knew she was coming after me.
She wasn’t very good on a bike, so she probably wouldn’t have ever caught up to me, but I was afraid I’d lose her and then Mark would worry and I’d be in trouble. So I stopped when I got close to the ferry dock and I waited. The next ferry wasn’t due for a half hour so I was the only one there right now, but soon the people would start coming and even though I had no idea what I was going to do, I really hoped Jocelyn got there before they did so I could find out.
I saw her come around the corner and start pedaling faster when she spotted me. When she pulled up close to me, I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped my bike and ran to the railing at the end of the dock. And that’s when the idea hit me.
“Stop right there,” I said, and held her phone out over the water.
Her bike clattered to the ground and she came toward me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Give me back my phone.”
“I’ll drop it,” I said, letting the phone dangle between my thumb and first finger. “And no one will blame me because I’m a retard, remember?”
Her eyes narrowed to nasty slits and her face went as red as her hair. She looked kind of like a cartoon only it would have been better with steam coming out of her ears. “Give me back my phone right now.”
“Why? So you can take more pictures and call me more names?”
Her eyes followed the phone as I swung it back and forth between my fingers. “Okay, you win. No more pictures, no more names. Just give me the phone.”
I laughed and held the phone still. “You really do think I’m stupid. As soon as I give it back you’ll just say it again.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“You’ll have to do better than that.” I lifted her phone, opened it, and then glanced over at her. “Who will I get if I push redial?”
“Don’t you dare.”
I smiled. “Or you’ll what? Tell on me? Beat me up?”
It was her turn to close her eyes and take a deep breath, and if I’d known how to take a picture, I would have done it right then.
“Look,” she said. “I won’t call you retard anymore. I give you my word.”
“You’ll have to give me something else too.”
“What else?”
“Something important. Like your iPod. Give me that and if you don’t call me names for two full weeks, I’ll give it back.”
“Forget it.”
I shrugged. “Have it your way,” I said, and stuck my arm out over the railing again. “Bombs away—”
“Wait!” she called, and I could see that she really wanted to add something else, something worse than anything she’d said yet, but she didn’t. She just took her iPod out of her pocket, unlooped the earplugs from around her neck and held the whole thing out to me. “Two weeks,” she said. “And I know where to find you.”
I wanted to punch a fist in the air and cheer the way Kiley and Brianne had, but that would have been rude, so I just took the iPod with one hand and gave her the phone with the other. The moment she had it, she flipped that thing open, hit a button, and turned away from me.
I told her, “I’m right behind you,” and I stayed there too, turning the wheel on the iPod and trying to get the earplugs to stay in my ears while she talked to her friend about the ferry schedule and when were they coming and how she wished she could get off this f-ing Island.
But she didn’t once call me a retard or anything else and that felt really good because I’d won, all on my own, without the breathing or the focusing or any of that other stuff that never worked anyway.
Even if she told on me later, even if my mom grounded me for a week, I knew I wouldn’t care, and I wouldn’t give back the iPod either. It was mine for two whole weeks, fair and square, and I was going to use it. All I had to do was figure out how turn it on.
RUBY
Another flight touched down on the other side of the gap just as Dean Martin’s voice floated by me on a breeze too hot to be refreshing, asking that time-honored question, “Ain’t that a kick in the head?” The taxi driver with the Rat Pack taste snickered. Another grinned and a little boy on the passing shuttle turned in his seat to stare at me—the lone protester on the grassy knoll.
“Fine,” I called to the traitors under Mark’s canopy. “We’ll take a break. But don’t get too comfortable. We reassemble in fifteen minutes.”
Mark saluted me with a bottle of water and Mary Anne had the grace to look guilty, but the rest were too busy checking out what Mark had in his cooler to even hear me. “Fifteen minutes,” I muttered, and carried the drum back to the table. Laid it carefully on the grass and used the edge of my sleeve to wipe the sweat from my face. Pretended not to notice Mary Anne fanning her face with her straw hat as she crossed the no-man’s land between the two camps.
“Ruby, don’t take it personally,” she said, holding out a peace offering as she drew up beside me—one of those bloody bottles of water. “The sun is brutal and a few minutes’ rest won’t hurt a thing.”
“It’s not the rest I object to, it’s Mark.” I eyed the offering. “And doesn’t it strike you odd that we’re marching in the name of air quality yet you’re drinking water from a plastic bottle that arrived in an SUV?”
“Not for an instant.” She plunked the bottle on the table and her hat back on her head. “Now stop being hateful and come sit in the shade. There’s fresh fruit in that cooler. And a box of the most wonderful little pastries.”
“I’m fine right here. I have eco-friendly water, chocolate granola bars, and a perfectly good hat to keep the sun off my head.” To prove the point, I dragged my bag out from under the table and withdrew a stainless steel water bottle, a box of bars, and one hot-pink baseball cap with Foxy embroidered across the front.
Mary Anne laughed and picked up the cap. “You have to be kidding.”
I sighed. If only.
Mary Anne and I have always agreed that no thinking adult should ever wear a baseball cap. They’re unflattering, highly impractical in terms of real sun protection, and they lower your perceived IQ by ten points the moment you pull one on—turn it backward and you can make that twenty or more. Which is why she wears wide-brimmed straw, and I wear a Tilley. One made of sturdy cotton duck with brass grommets and a brim that protects my face and my neck.
That hat is timeless, easy to care for, and has seen me through more canoe races and protest marches than I can count. It is absolutely perfect for days like this, and I’d have been wearing it right then if I’d been able to find it. But it wasn’t on the hook by the door where I always left it, or in the bathroom or any of the bedrooms. And I couldn’t think where else it might be with Grace shoving her damn tube of sunscreen unde
r my nose every two seconds.
“You need protection,” she kept saying, as though there hadn’t been sunscreen in every jar of cream I’d bought since I turned thirty. But who needed to reapply the stuff ten times a day?
I tried reasoning with her, but she only covered her ears and kept shouting, “Use it, use it, use it,” until I finally gave in and dabbed more on my nose. I didn’t argue when she slipped the tube into my bag either, hoping that would be the end of it. But when I still couldn’t locate my Tilley, she dropped the pink baseball cap in there as well, insisting, “You’ll need this too.”
Sadly, she was right. The heat was unbearable and the sun a torture. It was either run into Mark’s shade before I melted or break down and wear the damn cap.
“I rarely kid,” I said, snatching the thing back from Mary Anne and jamming it on my head. “Besides, I can use an image update.” I turned the cap backward. “See? Instantly hip.”
She laughed again. “Whatever you say, Foxy.” But she couldn’t resist turning my hat around the right way. “Are you coming or not?”
“Not.” I sat down and tugged the bill lower on my forehead, grateful there were no mirrors around, that I could only imagine how ridiculous I looked. “One of us should be here in case someone stops by to sign the petition.” I smiled up at her. “You can join me if you want.”
“No one is going to stop by, and you know it.” She sat down beside me anyway and pulled the box of granola bars toward her. “Why are you so annoyed with Mark anyway?”
I flicked up the lid on my water bottle. “Because he’s pushy. First he moves back to the Island without so much as a heads-up. Then he roars in here bearing pastries and shade and everyone acts like it’s perfectly okay.”
“Because it is okay. Mark’s a wonderful man and everyone likes him.” She waited while I took a few gulps of my guilt-free water, then handed me a bar and took one for herself. “While I don’t for an instant believe his story about returning to the Island for his daughter’s sake, having seen the girl, I’m sure it can’t hurt. But judging by the way he looks at you when he thinks no one else is watching, I’d say he’s come to his senses at last and has returned to win fair lady’s heart once more. And how can he do that if he’s not pushy?”
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