Even in Paradise

by Chelsey Philpot

  Piper ignored my sarcasm and reached across me, her arm briefly touching my shoulder, to grab my Magic 8 Ball from a box I hadn’t quite been able to close. She straightened up and shut her eyes tightly. She had the pained expression of someone hit by a sudden migraine. When she opened them she just looked tired. “I know I haven’t been a peach to you.”

  I shrugged. “You spent half of last year and most of this giving me the death stare.”

  “Listen, I’m trying.”

  I didn’t say anything. I pulled at the loose strings dangling from the hem of my dress. It was old anyway.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a bitch.” She tugged at the top of her dress, before whispering, “I’m sorry that I ever met Julia Buchanan.”

  I drew my knees up to my chest, even though I was probably flashing every grandparent on campus, and hugged them. I couldn’t pull my body tightly enough together to keep myself from feeling like I was falling apart. “You don’t mean that,” I said into my legs.

  “No, I suppose I don’t . . . but maybe I’d be a nicer person now if I hadn’t.” Piper shifted on the cardboard box next to me. The drizzle had eased, but the air still hung with the weight of water, and heat, and all the good-byes and uncertainties that clouded any campus on any graduation day.

  St. Anne’s was my home. Before Arcadia, it was the place where I felt most at peace, and in that moment, I already missed it.

  My dorm room, with shadows from the trees outside the windows running up my walls like streaks of dark paint. The quad saturated with so much color it became like a box of crayons each fall. The library, cool and soaring in the early-setting winter sun. The studio full of sawdust and half-finished projects and empty paper coffee cups. I was still there, but I already felt like I should prepare myself for the pain of leaving. The beauty of those memories that weren’t even memories yet made me generous.

  “It’s okay. I wish it could have been different—that no one had gotten hurt.”

  Piper studied the Magic 8 Ball as if it might actually contain the secret to her future.

  I straightened up and pretended to be fascinated by a family across the quad. A girl from my environmental science class was trying to shove an armchair into the back of an SUV while her dad pulled from the inside.

  Piper slumped at the waist. Her blond hair was starting to frizz and her blue eyes were tight at the corners like she was pinching them to keep from crying. “I was only a bitch because I was protecting Julia. Most people don’t get her and she used to be my best friend so . . .”

  I gave her my best you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me stare.

  “Whatever,” Piper said as she wiped at the corner of her left eye with her free hand. “I might have been jealous and trying to scare you away from her, too.”

  “Didn’t work.”

  “Yeah, I know. It was stupid.” She looked up from the Magic 8 Ball. “Before you were Julia’s person, I was her person.” She shivered and I saw goose bumps rise on her arms. “But last spring, like a week after you came to her room that time, I figured a Buchanan secret out, and after that she couldn’t stand to be around me.” She looked at the quad as though she was noticing where we were for the first time since sitting down. “God, I’m so glad to get out of this place.”

  I was still watching the father and daughter in the SUV. I could see the girl’s mouth move as if she were counting, and then she gave a gigantic push as the outline of her dad inside the vehicle gave a huge pull. The chair slid into the car.

  What do you know?

  “I think I’m going to miss it,” I said. “What did you find out? About Julia? About the Buchanans?”

  “Ha, you really think I’d tell you that?” Piper said, shaking her head. “If I had to find out the hard way, you do, too.”

  “I doubt I’ll get the chance.”

  “Now that we’ve had our moment,” she said as she slid off the box. She turned back abruptly, remembering the Magic 8 Ball in her hands.

  She gave it a little shake. “Will it all turn out okay?”

  She turned the ball over, and her forehead was wrinkled as she read. “‘Better not tell you now.’ Well, that’s beyond not helpful.” She slipped the ball back into the open box and walked away, her heels once again clicking on the wet middle path through the quad.

  TEXTS #3

  C: Graduation was miserable w/out U

  C: Call me?

  C: Do u want me to come out to ACK?

  C: Is ur mom still mad? Family time still?

  C: K. U know where I am when you’re ready. Feel better, Julia

  C: I’m sorry. I miss u

  S: Graduation?

  C: Awful

  S: Ugh! Wish I’d been there. Things still messy here

  S: Mum & Boom r wrecks. Sophie keeping it all together

  C: Julia?

  S: Arms feeling better but really quiet

  S: Think J’s sad about graduation. Maybe missing Gus. Def missing u

  S: J might go to grandma’s for bit. All up in air. Really not talking much

  C: Tell J CM for me

  S: CM?

  C: J will know what it means

  S: I love u

  C: I love u 2

  THIRTY

  THE CROSS FARM WAS FARTHER out on Cape Cod than I thought it would be.

  Rosalie and I left St. Anne’s right after we had packed up our parents’ cars and sent them driving north. We went east, toward Hyannis. Once we left downtown with its coffee shops and antique stores, the asphalt road turned into narrow dirt where the gravel pinged against the side of Rosalie’s car as frequently as insects smashed against the windshield.

  “Disgusting!” Rosalie said after a particularly fat bug hit her side. “These things have a death wish or something.” She had to pump the windshield washer button twice, and even then the wipers spread the bug guts around more than they got rid of them. “Remind me again why we’re doing this.”

  “Because I need to figure something out.” I lifted my head from where I had been resting it against the window. “Julia didn’t want to come out here, and Sebastian . . . he’s . . . never mind. I need to know why.”

  “Charlotte, I realize he’s your boyfriend and Julia’s . . . like your soul mate or something—”

  “Are you being mean?”

  “Come on, it’s kind of true, eh? But you gotta let go. Her sister died. That sucks. She set her house on fire. That sucks. Sebastian hasn’t asked you to come out there. That—”

  “It was only the boathouse,” I said. “Just the boathouse caught fire.” I slumped back against the passenger door.

  We didn’t speak again until I saw the bright wooden sign announcing the Cross Family Farm with a smaller one below declaring, “Strawberries are in season!”

  “This is it. Turn here.”

  Cotton ball clouds drifted against a freshly washed June sky. A huge maroon barn that looked like something out of a milk commercial stood at the end of the drive. Beyond it, a yellow and brown field was dotted with cows, sheep, and possibly llamas; it was hard to tell what they were.

  The weathered white farmhouse on our left was comfortably shabby and uneven, as though it had been put together with glue in some places and now the stickiness was losing hold. Flower boxes guarded a freshly painted blue farm stand like a protective barrier.

  Rosalie pulled to a stop, raising a cloud of dirt that made my eyes water when I slid out of the car. Otherwise, the air was sweet and salty, full of cut hay and the nearby ocean.

  “Be careful where you step,” Rosalie yelled, slamming her door and stepping gingerly around the car. “I bet there are cow patties everywhere.”

  “Actually, they are called manure, and the cows stay in field always.”

  Rosalie and I both turned at the heavily accented words. The most beautiful girl I had seen outside of a magazine approached us from the direction of the plant fields on the right of the barn.

  She coul
dn’t have been much older than us. Her practically white blond hair was in a tight bun on the top of her head, and that, coupled with her height and posture, gave her the appearance of a ballerina picking her way around farm tools and wheelbarrows. When she was just feet from us, I saw that the dramatic angles of her face were tempered by her full lips, which guarded slightly crooked white teeth. She wore her beauty with the ease that comes from a lifetime of being stared at.

  “Holy . . .” Rosalie whispered.

  I nodded, still staring.

  “Can I be of help to you? We are not open on Mondays, but strawberries are in the barn if you like.” The girl wiped her hands on her jean shorts, then shaded her eyes to look at us.

  “Yeah, actually.” I swallowed loudly. “We’re here to talk to the Crosses. Mr. and Mrs. Cross, that is. Are they around?”

  “No, they are away today.” She emphasized her words like each one was the end of her sentence.

  “When will they be back?” I felt Rosalie shift to stand beside me.

  “Not until very late. They pick their daughter up from college today and it is long drive.” She sighed, still shading her eyes. “But if you have questions about farm, I am Helen. I have worked here many summers. If you want, I can answer. But I have to keep working. Come with me.” She started walking toward the plant fields.

  Rosalie and I glanced at each other. She shrugged, and then we both followed.

  Helen plopped down in the middle of a row of strawberry plants, picked up a trowel, and started loosening the soil around the roots. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Where are you from?” Rosalie said.

  “I am from Romania. I come over every summer to work for Cross family. They are great people. Very nice family. But this is not why you are here, no?”

  “Actually . . .” I cleared my throat. “We wanted to ask about David, about the Crosses’ son.”

  Helen stopped digging.

  “Were you here? When the accident happened?”

  Helen nodded, but didn’t look up. In the quiet that followed I heard the jumping of gravel as a dump truck passed by on the road, and I noticed that some hidden insects were maintaining a steady buzzing like an orchestra warming up before a performance.

  “We want to find out more about what happened that day.” Rosalie uncrossed her arms, stepping forward. “We were friends with David when he was little.”

  I shot her a poisoned look.

  “What?” she mouthed.

  “You knew David?” Helen’s face was so full of hope, or maybe it was happiness or maybe it was awe, or maybe it was all three, that I couldn’t help myself. I nodded. Even squinting into the sun she was stunning.

  “Everyone loved David,” she said. “He was so nice. Never made fun at my bad English. Took me to a movie my first summer. It was first time I see American movie. It was kind of movie he liked, lots of cars . . . big explosions.” She smiled, though her eyes were glistening. “The worst movie I see in my life . . . but I was happy because he took me.”

  “He sounds . . . yeah, he was wicked sweet,” I said. Helen looked back at the ground and so didn’t see me punch Rosalie, hard, in her right shoulder.

  Rosalie clutched her arm. “Bitch!”

  Helen didn’t understand her or didn’t care. “The accident summer . . . that was very, very bad summer. For Cara and Jon, the Crosses, and me. Like it happened yesterday. All the time.” She picked up her trowel and started loosening the soil again—this time furiously, as if she was digging against stone.

  “What about after the accident?” I knelt on the ground beside Helen, letting my knees fold into the freshly turned dirt. I wanted to touch her shoulder, to help her weed, to do anything to comfort her, but I sensed that she wasn’t the kind of girl who liked help from anybody—especially strangers. “Did the Crosses keep in touch with—”

  “David was a good driver. Never speeds. Drove the tractor since the pedals were at reach of his feet, he told me. Drove me to the airport at the end of every summer. He was very, very good driver.” Her voice caught. “Something must have been wrong with car. He was a very good driver.”

  “Hey, well speaking of driving,” Rosalie said as she pointed at the huge truck parked by the side of the barn. “The Crosses must be doing well. That truck looks brand new, eh?” Her attempt at cheerfulness felt as natural as a snowstorm in July.

  Helen snorted. “There is no money in farming. Augustine’s family has been very generous.” Her sarcasm was not lost in translation.

  “They gave them a truck?” I said.

  Helen stood up just enough to shuffle to the next set of plants, forcing Rosalie and me to follow her. She started digging again. “Truck is nothing. After car crash, we have new spreader, baler, and Becca, David’s sister, go to the Dartmouth University. Very smart girl. Smarter even than David. First, there was no money. Dartmouth University is very expensive, you know? So she decide maybe go to the community university and work for year. But after David dies, suddenly there is money and the Dartmouth University lets her in spring semester. Just her. Nobody else,” Helen said, tearing a handful of brown leaves off a plant. “As they say, you do the mathematics.”

  She ripped at the plants in such a way that her motions seemed in sync with the buzz of the insect orchestra.

  “He loved Augustine very much. He would bring her here all the time and take her out on the tractor or in the truck . . . they laugh very much,” Helen said. Though her voice was without bitterness or jealousy, it was what she didn’t say that struck me: She had loved him, too. She had loved him, but couldn’t compete with the dazzling, rich girl who had won David instead.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t know whether I was sympathizing with her broken heart or apologizing for a family who had had theirs broken, too.

  “It is not your fault.” She hiccupped into the dirt, then turned her beautiful face up toward Rosalie and me. Even with her red-rimmed eyes she was the reason artists painted portraits. “People are not to be treated like toys to break. You know this?”

  I nodded.

  “I think Buchanan family do not.”

  Rosalie and I left Helen in the strawberry field. We barely spoke on the drive into Hyannis until she hugged me good-bye at the bus station. I stared out the window the entire long ride home.

  If I could have unlearned what I had learned, I would have. I would have chosen ignorance over doubt. But I could no more go back to believing that everything the Buchanans had led me to think was true than I could swim across the Atlantic.

  David had been an excellent driver, Helen said. But the Buchanans’ gifts and Sebastian’s and Julia’s strange behavior told me that perhaps Gus had not.

  My only distraction from my suspicion was the stone I had worked out of the soil for my memory box. I passed the time by running my fingers over its pointed edges, clutching it in my palm so hard it hurt.

  AT LEAST

  In over a year of searching, Julia and I had discovered nothing and everything. Gus hadn’t been a saint. She hadn’t been without flaws.

  She was a sailing star, a girl in love, a prankster, and a person who made an enormous mistake. And like with any legend, the real version of her could never live up to the memory.

  But at least she was no longer a stranger.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I SPENT MOST OF THE first day I was home in my makeshift bedroom, looking out the windows or at the boxes that I had no intention of unpacking.

  I spent most of the second day staring at my phone, willing it to ring with Julia’s or Sebastian’s number.

  By the third day, I couldn’t stand to be in the house anymore. So I wasn’t. I walked the ski trails at Wycliffe Mountain until my legs ached from all the snowless black diamonds and my feet were blistered.

  By the fourth day, I was so tired of my own company that I went and begged for my old job at the resort. I gave no end date and signed up for every double shift the restaurant would give me. An
y moment where I was not working I spent in the garage. Hammering. Pounding. Welding. Anything that kept me from thinking.

  But I did not touch the half-done sculpture in the corner.

  “Table four asked for you.” Zack snapped his gum loudly, as if daring the manager on duty to come remind him yet again of the rule against chewing gum while working. But then again, Zack had neglected to take out his nose ring and button his black vest, so the gum was probably at the bottom of his violation list. He was lucky the resort was swamped that July. Management was too concerned with the delivery of shrimp cocktails and martinis to go through the ritual of firing and rehiring him.

  “Why?” I was focused on refilling salt and pepper shakers for table eight.

  “Dunno.” He snapped his gum again. “But she looks like a wine-spritzer-and-salad kinda lady, so if you give me table ten we’ll call it even.”

  “Fine. Cool.” I’d never been wicked friendly with my coworkers, but that summer I was particularly low on the sociability scale. Though everyone was nice enough to my face—Emily, the bartender, even invited me to a few house parties and bonfires—I got the sense that they all were smiling behind cupped hands, glad to see me brought down a peg or two. I’d gone off to a fancy boarding school, and where had it gotten me? No college. No plans for the future. Broken in so many places I didn’t know where to begin repairs.

  I slapped the shakers on table eight and glanced at the harried young parents who probably couldn’t wait to drop their french-fry-throwing kids off with the summer camp staff. I took my pad of paper out of my apron as I wove my way to the two-person window table. Table four looked over the golf course and the White Mountains, and I was surprised the hostess hadn’t made a party of one sit at the bar, but maybe the wine spritzer woman’s persuasiveness would translate to a generous tip for me. I forced my mouth into my best fake smile.