I would have liked to watch the movie trailer, but Jocelyn kept flipping channels while she talked. CSI. Law & Order. Two and a Half Men. The cheese monks again. She was back at The Simpsons when my mom banged open the front door and hollered, “Mark’s hurt. I need you now!”
That brought Jocelyn to her feet, the phone and remote still on the couch while we both raced to the door. “What happened?” she demanded.
“Liz happened,” my mom said as Mark limped through the door.
Jocelyn looked at me. “Who’s Liz?”
“My sister.”
“She was at the protest,” my mom said.
“Why?” I asked.
My mom threw up her hands. “Who knows why she does anything? But when Mark spotted her, she ran off like some sort of criminal. He went after her, a taxi came out of nowhere, and the next thing I know, he’s on the ground. Did Liz care? Of course not. That girl is so—”
“Why aren’t you in a hospital?” Jocelyn cut in.
“Because even the paramedics agreed that I’m fine.” He looked over at my mom. “And Liz didn’t run like a criminal. She ran because she was scared.”
“Of what?” my mom asked.
“You, mostly.” He tried to smile at Jocelyn. “Hi, honey. Have you had dinner?”
“I don’t care about dinner. Where exactly did the taxi hit you?”
Before he could answer, Mary Anne and the rest of the protesters came through the door, everyone talking at the same time about Liz and her friends and how lucky Mark had been with that taxi. On the television, Homer Simpson chased a dog with a fluffy tail.
When no one was looking, Jocelyn shoved me against the wall. “Is your whole family whacked?”
I shoved her back. “We’re not whacked. My sister just doesn’t get along with my mom.”
“Your sister doesn’t get along with anyone,” my mom said. “And if I ever hear of you speaking to her, if she ever tries to contact you—”
“Ruby, relax,” Mary Anne said, putting an arm around her shoulder, trying to lead her away from me, to keep my secret safe. “Why don’t you sit down? In fact, why doesn’t everybody sit down. Grace and I will make a pot of tea.”
“What we need is ice.” My mom brushed Mary Anne’s arm aside and pointed a finger at me. “I meant it, Grace. If Liz ever contacts you, I want you to tell me right away.”
“Ruby, let it go,” Mark said. “And I don’t need ice.”
But my mom already had the fridge open and ice cube trays in her hands and we both knew there was no point arguing. While Jocelyn sat with her dad and the protesters found spots on the floor, I put on the kettle and tried to make sense of what was going on, tried to put the pieces together, but nothing fit right. I needed to talk to Liz, find out what was going on, why she’d been at the protest.
I knew she had a cell phone, but I never called because lately my mom had started checking the history on our phone all the time. Writing down what came in, what went out. “I’m on the phone so much every day,” she’d say. “I can’t be expected to remember everything.”
I didn’t really get what she was talking about, but I understood that there could be no more secret calls made from our house. But if I could sneak out for a minute, I could use Mary Anne’s phone. All I needed was for my mom to stop watching me.
She held the ice pack out to Mark. “Put that on your knee. Jocelyn, don’t let him take it off for ten minutes.”
Mark closed his eyes. “Does anyone have an aspirin?”
“I have Advil,” one of the Bobs said and brought him the bottle with a glass of water.
Jocelyn crouched down on the floor in front of him. “Will you finally admit that this whole Island thing was a horrible mistake so we can go home?”
He reached out to touch her hair. “Honey, please,” was all he said, but everyone could tell what was coming next, including Jocelyn.
“I don’t believe this.” She ran up the stairs to her room and slammed the door. This time, she took her cell phone.
“She’ll be fine,” Mark said.
“But what about you?” my mom asked.
On the other side of the room, Homer Simpson cheered, Lisa blew her saxophone, and my mom looked confused. “What the hell is that?”
“The Simpsons,” Mary Anne said. “It’s that episode where—”
My mom put her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t care what it is. Someone turn off the noise!”
Mary Anne grabbed the controller and pressed the button. The room fell suddenly, scarily quiet. “Ruby,” she asked, “are you okay?”
My mom lowered her hands and opened her eyes. “Of course I’m okay. It’s just been a long day.” She looked around. “Everybody needs to leave. Mark has to get some rest.”
She didn’t say good-bye to any of them, not even Mary Anne. Just turned to me and said, “You need to go home and cancel all of tomorrow’s appointments. Tell everyone we’ll be closed for the day.” Both Mark and I started to argue, to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but she held up a hand. “There are no buts. Mark, you’re probably still in shock, so I’m staying here tonight to keep an eye on you. I won’t argue with you about this, but it means I won’t be in any shape to work tomorrow and Grace needs to make those calls. It’s summer so there aren’t many anyway.”
That wasn’t the point. My mother always said, Cancel an appointment, lose a client. That’s the only thing you can count on in this business, Grace.
Our client list was already shrinking. She never said anything, but I could tell all the same and we couldn’t afford to lose any more. “I can do the work,” I said.
She rose and went into the kitchen. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just do as I say. I’m going to make tea.”
I looked over at Mark. “I can do it,” I whispered to him.
“I know you can.”
“What’s in this oven?” my mother called.
“Lasagne,” I said. “It needs another thirty minutes.”
“Then what good is it.” She opened the fridge. “Is that all you brought?” She closed the fridge and said, “I’ll get some groceries in for you tomorrow.”
“Your mom’s a little tense right now,” Mark whispered to me. “It’s probably easier to make the calls.”
He was right, as always. I sat down on the arm of the couch beside him and lowered my voice. “Can you do me a favor? Can you lend me your cell phone? I want to call Liz.”
He pulled the phone from his pocket and handed it to me. That was what I had always loved about Mark. I didn’t have to explain myself, or answer a million questions. He just trusted me.
“Make sure you tell her I’m not hurt and I’m not mad. But I am worried about her, and I’d like her to call.”
I nodded and slipped the phone into my pocket.
“One more thing.” He paused and checked on my mom’s whereabouts. “I want you to keep the phone for yourself.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I use my BlackBerry for everything. This number was strictly for Jocelyn, in case of an emergency. But she’s older now and refuses to call it anymore, so what’s the point carrying around an extra phone? Plus, it’s time you had one of your own.”
“Thank you!” I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.
“Just remember to tell Liz to call me.”
“I will.” I rose and headed for the door. “I’ll go home and start making those calls,” I said to my mom on my way by.
“Come back as soon as you’re done. I want to keep an eye on Mark tonight, and I’m sure he won’t mind if you sleep on the couch.”
“Plenty of room,” he said.
“I don’t really have to,” I said. “I’ll be okay alone.”
My mother’s hands came down hard on the counter. “Grace, will you please stop arguing every little thing. Just come back here when you’re done.”
I lowered my head and walked out the door, got on my bike
, and rode home. When I was inside, I went straight to my room for my bird book and flipped it open to the page where I kept Liz’s number. Then I opened the cell phone the way I’d watched other people do it and I pressed the numbers but the line just rang and rang and finally her voice mail came on, What the hell do you want now? followed by a beep.
“Liz? It’s me, your sister, Grace. I have to talk to you. I have Mark’s phone. I don’t know the number. Call me as soon as you can.”
I closed the phone and slipped it back into my pocket and then I checked my e-mail. An offer for a credit card and a Nigerian prince wanting to send me money. Nothing interesting. I signed into Hotmail and checked my secret e-mail account, the one Liz opened for me. More junk, but nothing from Liz. I logged out and deleted the history in the browser, then went back into the kitchen. The sun was starting to set and the house was quiet with just me in it. No radio, no TV. Just the crickets outside the window, making their own kind of music.
I thought about that. About crickets making music and hoping to find a mate in the dark. Then I thought about the mockingbird and wondered if Benny was right—if he really would be out there all night, singing in the dark until a lady mockingbird came to find him. I wanted to know more than anything, but I didn’t dare go to the lighthouse because right now I had calls to make.
The appointment book was on the counter by the phone. I flipped it open to Saturday and stared at the names. Six calls were all I had to make. Four for my mom and two for me. A couple of my mom’s clients would be okay with changing the date, but Marla Cohen was mine and she wasn’t the kind to let her roots go an extra week. Cancel an appointment, lose a client. I didn’t want to lose Marla. She was funny and she always gave me a tip even though my mom told everyone not to. “Just come back, that’s tip enough for us,” she liked to say. Maybe it was for her, but I never said no to Marla’s money.
I didn’t want to make the call, but I picked up the phone anyway and pushed Marla’s buttons. Let it ring once, twice. On the third one I hung up and stared at the phone. It wasn’t like I needed help to do Marla’s hair. My mom always said the final result was fine and Marla never complained. It was just dumb to cancel that appointment.
I moved on to the next name on the list, Audrey DeSanto, my mom’s ten o’clock. Cut and blow-dry, exactly the same way every time. I punched in the number and hung up again after two rings. This whole thing was dumb. Six appointments just weren’t that many. I could do this.
I closed the book. I wouldn’t tell my mom, I’d just come home early in the morning and show her she was wrong. I could so do the work.
I pushed the book away, drummed my fingers on the counter. If I went back to Mark’s now she’d ask me about the calls, and I needed time to think about what I was going to say. So I could sit here and think, or I could go look for the mockingbird and think. I drummed my fingers again. It wouldn’t take long to get to the lighthouse and back. The bird was either singing or he wasn’t, and if he wasn’t I’d just come straight back and go to Mark’s. But if he was …
I walked over to the fridge, took out the brick of cheese, made myself a sandwich, and ate it while I tried to figure out what to do. I looked up at the clock above the table. It was almost nine. By the time I got to the lighthouse, looked for the bird, and came back it would be after ten. It wouldn’t take that long to make six phone calls. So what would I tell my mother when she asked what I’d been doing all that time?
Maybe that I went for a walk on the beach. It was a nice night, it would make sense. Only she didn’t like me to go walking in the dark on the beach. Who knows who’s out there, Grace? You need to be careful. Stay away from strangers.
Stay away from men is what she meant. Strange men, park men, men I’d known since I was little. Stay away from them all, is what she meant. No good can come of it, Grace. You know that as well as I do.
I suppose I did, but I never went looking for men anymore anyway. I only went looking for planes and birds, and what was wrong with trying to find a bird at night? Nothing, that’s what. And if I was lucky, Liz would call before I got back and she could tell me what to say to my mom. But if I wasn’t lucky? I’d think about that on the way home.
I grabbed my bird book and my binoculars and the flashlight my mom kept plugged into the wall beside the kitchen table, and I went back outside. I rolled my bike to the gate and lifted the latch as quietly as I could. We might not be friends with all the neighbors, but that wouldn’t stop a few of them from reporting every move I made anyway.
Once I was clear of the narrow streets, I pedaled full out, going as fast as I could past the ferry dock and the playing field and the sailboats returning for the night. When I rolled by Algonquin bridge my heart was beating so loudly I was sure my mom would hear it all the way over at Mark’s house. But I kept my head down and my feet moving and by the time I reached the dock at Centre Island, my heart was doing just fine, and I wasn’t thinking about my mom or Marla or anything but finding that mockingbird.
The rides and the parks on Centre were closed for the night, so the road past the dock was almost deserted. Just a few stragglers sitting by the fountains and a couple of artists carrying easels and paint boxes back to the retreat at Gibraltar Point. I was the only one going farther, and even before I reached the lighthouse I could already hear that bird singing and singing.
It was a little weird, hearing a bird at night. Like I was hearing something private, something special, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I rolled my bike across the grass to the big front door of the lighthouse.
I grabbed the flashlight, but I didn’t turn it on yet because I didn’t want to attract attention, and besides, I knew this place pretty well. Liz and I used to come here for midnight picnics in the summer. Once our mom and Mark were asleep, Liz would wake me up and we’d climb out her window and walk our bikes to the end of the street so no one would hear us.
Then we’d ride as fast as we could to the lighthouse, taking our bikes around the back and through the trees to the clearing by the lagoon. Then Liz would prop the flashlight against a rock so the light went up into the air. And we’d sit on our sweaters and eat squashed cheese sandwiches, and she’d put the flashlight under her chin and tell stories about zombies in motorboats or vampires who lived in the woods. Sometimes, if it was raining and we couldn’t go to the lighthouse, we’d eat our sandwiches in her room and she’d tell the same kind of stories, but they were always scarier here because everyone knew that the lighthouse was haunted.
The plaque outside says that in 1815 John Rademuller, the lighthouse keeper, disappeared. But the truth is that Mr. Rademuller was also a bootlegger and he was murdered by three drunken sailors who tossed him off the top of the lighthouse when he wouldn’t give them any more rum. When they realized he was dead, they cut his body into pieces and buried them all over the Island so they wouldn’t get caught. Ever since, people say they can hear thumping and moaning from inside the lighthouse, and other people have seen him walking around, looking for his bits.
Liz always said she didn’t believe in ghosts, but I think she was disappointed that we never heard a thing in all the times we came here—something I was truly grateful for. And as I walked around behind the lighthouse with my flashlight, I was grateful all over again that the only things I heard were a million crickets and one lonely mockingbird.
His singing didn’t stop even when I flicked on the light. Then again, it’s not a big beam. Not like those million-candle ones you see in the Canadian Tire flyers. “More like a birthday candle,” Liz said one time when we were here, and the two of us were searching for the underwear she lost by accident the night before.
We could have used a million candles that night for sure, but tonight the light was just enough to check the branches without scaring the bird away. After Benny told me earlier it was a mockingbird making all the noise, I checked my book as soon as I got home, and now I knew I was looking for a bird about the size of a robin with smoky grey feathers
. They weren’t beautiful like indigo buntings or cardinals, but none of those other birds sang at night. And they couldn’t imitate things the way the mockingbird did either!
I’d never head a bird that sounded like a dog before, or a cat, or another kind of bird altogether, and standing there in the dark, I thought it was the neatest thing ever. But Benny said it could backfire sometimes because a lady mockingbird picked her mate based on how well he sang. And if his singing sounded like a chain saw or a truck backing up, he was probably going to wait a long time to be picked.
But that wasn’t a problem for my mockingbird. He was singing beautifully, just like the recording on the website, with a little barking and meowing every now and then, so any ladies going by would know how talented he was. That didn’t make him easy for me to find, of course. Every time I saw a movement in the branches, by the time I focused my light on the spot, he was gone, teasing me from another branch somewhere in that same tree. I knew I couldn’t stay long, my mom would be looking for me soon, so I had no choice. I clamped my teeth together and I pished in the woods for the second time that day.
This time it worked. That bird came right out, in fact he flew down to see what all the bother was, and he sat on a branch not six feet away from me. We stayed like that for almost a full minute, just looking at each other, until he flew away and started up all over again.
I couldn’t believe it! I’d found the night singer! I punched a fist in the air and I whooped and I spun in a circle so the light made crazy patterns on the trees.
“Oh my Gawd, you are such a geek.”
I froze and stuck the flashlight out in front of me. Jocelyn lifted a hand in front of her face. “Put that down,” she said, and I said, “What are you doing here?” and she said, “Watching you be a loser.”
She walked toward me. “Does your mom know you’re out here?” I didn’t answer and she laughed. “I didn’t think so.” She walked in a little circle around me. “This is going to cost you.”
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