Even in Paradise

by Chelsey Philpot

  But when the blond woman turned away from the window, the smile melted from my face like sugar dissolving in hot water.

  “Your dad told me where to find you.”

  “Mrs. Buchanan,” I choked. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

  “Teresa.”

  “Why are you here?”

  She shifted away from the window slowly, as if the movement hurt her. “She disappeared yesterday. Joe and I, Boom and I, we don’t want to send police or strangers. She’d just keep running.” Her voice quivered. “Charlotte, I am immensely sorry for how things ended at Bradley’s party. I was scared. I wasn’t thinking . . . but I need you to talk to Julia and bring her back.” She clasped her hands against the edge of the table. “Sebastian . . . Sebastian said you would know where she’d go . . . that she’d listen to you. He said that out of all of us, you should be the one to bring her home.”

  His name was enough to make my throat feel like it was closing. I hadn’t seen him since the party or talked to him in days. It felt like my words were scratching me as I spoke. “Why would he think that? Julia . . . she won’t answer any of my calls or texts.”

  Mrs. Buchanan looked down at her hands, her long fingers twisting her wedding band almost like she was trying to pull it off. “Joe’s left for Vermont this morning to start a new project, but before he went, we agreed with Sebastian.” She leaned across the table as if she were about to touch me, but then dropped her arm, seeing something in my expression that made her reconsider. “Charlotte, please. Go talk to her. Bargain her anything. Just get her home.”

  “What if she won’t come?”

  “Convince her.”

  “Mrs. Buchanan—”

  “Please. Please just try. If you’re her friend . . . if your time with my family meant anything to you, you’ll bring her home. I can’t—” She closed her eyes as she spoke next. “I can’t do it all again. I’m not that strong.”

  “I know that you give the Cross family money,” I said without realizing what I meant until the words were out of my mouth. I was sick of secrets, sick of all I knew, and even more of what I didn’t.

  Remembering the packed tables behind me, I whispered, “I know that Gus was driving the car, not David . . . so you, you and Boom, pay for things. I went to the farm. I saw.”

  She stared out the window for a long minute, looking at the snow-topped mountains. “Charlotte, you need to talk to Julia about that. Tell her.” She swallowed hard. “Tell her it doesn’t matter anymore.” I could see her reflection in the glass. She was a marble statue left too long outside; time and weather had taken their toll. She was worn. Defeated. Unreachably sad.

  The click of knives and forks against thin china, and delicate wineglasses pinged against half-filled water glasses, and meaningless conversations floated into the silence between us. Busboys yelled at the waiters and waitresses, who yelled at the bartenders, who yelled back and forth to each other and the hostess, who spoke louder than all of them to couples, and families, and wedding parties escaping for spa weekends. The din filled my head. I couldn’t think. I could only feel.

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Buchanan wiped at her eyes with the back of her right hand, opened her small leather purse, and took out a white envelope. “To pay for the gas and incidentals. Anything you need, you know you can call. More money. A rental car. Anything. I’ve left the check blank.”

  She rose in one fluid motion, slipping the envelope into my hand and then picking her way through the tables the same way I’d seen her weave through her own crowded parties.

  I ran after her, ignoring the cries of “Miss” from my neglected tables. I caught up with her right after she passed the hostess stand. “Wait! How is everyone?”

  She paused in the center of the restaurant entrance, oblivious that customers had to duck around her to get in and out. She glanced over her shoulder for only the briefest of moments, knowing what I really meant. “He misses you.” The noise surged as she left, but I thought I heard her say, “We all miss you.”

  Or maybe I only heard what I wanted so desperately to be true.

  “What a rich bitch,” Zack muttered behind me. “She totally f’d up the table and didn’t even order anything.”

  I gripped the hostess podium with two hands. “Zack, take over my tables for me, okay?”

  “Huh?”

  I didn’t stop to explain. I tore the envelope into shreds, scattering the remnants on a tray of dishes a busboy had abandoned nearby. I untied my apron as I walked through the staff door. I would get demoted to kitchen prep or fired. I didn’t care.

  I knew where Julia Buchanan would be.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

  The smudges beneath her glassy eyes were like purple bruises. She was sitting cross-legged in our little stone alcove, and her skin was so pale that under the light of the stained glass windows it looked almost translucent.

  “Mum and Boom sent you, didn’t they?”

  “I’m here because I want to be.” I lowered down to the floor a few feet away—not ready to fold myself in beside her just yet. The chapel stone was a welcome cool against my sticky legs. The air conditioning in the truck had blown before I crossed the state line into Massachusetts, and the open windows had only let in more humid July.

  “Your hair’s growing out,” she said, reaching forward to spin some strands between her fingers. “That’s too bad. I loved your hair.”

  I scooted a couple of inches closer so she didn’t have to reach so far, a couple inches, but no more. I was afraid that any closer and she would disappear into a wisp of smoke or a pile of dust.

  “Where’d you stay last night?”

  She dropped her hand and picked up Aloysius. I had not noticed him at her feet. “Here. There. Everywhere. Nowhere. What does it matter?”

  “Julia,” I said. “Can we go somewhere? Get an iced coffee? We haven’t talked since the party—”

  “Now you want to talk? You. Left. Me.” Julia twisted Aloysius in her hands and her face crumpled inward. She braced her legs against the floor, as if she was getting ready to spring over me and run for the chapel door.

  “Hey,” I said, louder than I’d meant to. “You left me, too. Do you know what it was like to go through the final weeks without you? I had to pack up your stuff with Sophie. I had to wait through graduation, hoping they would call your name but not surprised when they didn’t.” I listened to my words echo through the cavernous nave before I continued.

  “Since the party I’ve barely spoken to any of you. Sebastian hasn’t called me in days. . . .” I took a deep breath and clenched my hands so hard that my nails dug into my palms. “And then all of a sudden your mom comes all the way to New Hampshire.”

  “Tu as raison,” Julia whispered into Aloysius’s matted fur. “I abandoned you, too.”

  “It’s okay, you needed—”

  “I thought it would all be easier . . . I did so many things to try and make it easier. I thought it would hurt less by now, but it doesn’t. Ça fait encore plus mal.”

  “Tell me what you mean.” I crossed my legs and turned so I was looking at her, so I was her mirror.

  “Coming to St. Anne’s, sneaking around campus at night, the prank, the surprise for Bradley . . . they were all the kinds of things Gus did when she was alive.”

  “Julia, I know Gus was your sister . . . and amazing, and you should love her, but she wasn’t perfect. I—”

  “I’m not upset that she wasn’t perfect, Charlie,” Julia said. “I just . . . just wish that she had gotten the chance to be great. She never got the chance.” She slapped a palm against the floor. “She would have been so much better than me. It’s not fair.”

  “Julia, that’s not true. You can’t think that way. It’s not like because she died you got to live. It doesn’t work like that.”

  She sniffled and rested Aloysius across one of her bony knees. She petted his patchy fur. “Whe
n I was little and we were all in the car at night, I would tilt my head and look out through the window to find the moon. Even if I was stuck in the middle, I would lean across Bradley or Sebastian or Gus to make sure I could follow it. I wouldn’t take my eyes off it, not even if I was sleepy and it was late. I was afraid that if I stopped looking the moon wouldn’t follow us home. It’s like even as a kid I knew I couldn’t do much for them, but if I could give them the moon then maybe—” She dropped Aloysius and pressed her fists to her eyes.

  “Oh, Julia—”

  “I need to know . . . if you loved me . . . for me,” Julia said, gulping for air between words. “Not because I needed saving or for my family, but for me. Just plain broken, foiré, crazy me.”

  I didn’t care if she tried to run. I grabbed her arms and pulled her until our foreheads were touching, our bodies so close I could feel her breath mixing with my own. “You’re not crazy, Julia,” I said. “You’re just more alive than all the boring people out there.” I started smoothing her hair, knowing I would never be able to work my fingers through the tangles. “Julia, I need to tell you something. Rosalie and I went to talk to David’s family. We saw the farm.”

  I felt her stiffen, but I kept going. “I know Gus was driving, not David. And it’s okay. You, Sebastian, your mom, Bradley, Sophie, Boom, you’ve all been trying to protect her. I get it. And I’m not going to—”

  She tried to dip under my arms to move away from me, but I gripped her shoulders, not letting her slide backward any more than the length of my arms. “Julia, it’s okay. I understand they did it to protect Gus.”

  “Oh, Charlie, I thought you would have figured it out,” she said, shaking her head. “Or that maybe Sebastian would crack and tell you. He’s never been that good at keeping secrets.”

  “What do you mean?” I dropped my arms and leaned back as much as I could in the small space so I could see her expression. Her eyes were as murky as jars full of unstirred paint. She could hide anything behind those eyes.

  “I thought he would have told you how they all played their parts. Mon Dieu. Even Cordelia figured out so much on her own.”

  “Julia.” Her name had grown barbed edges and hurt my throat. “I don’t understand.” The floor felt so cold under my fingertips, I had to resist the urge to rest my hot face against the stone.

  When she looked at me then, I felt her hurt like the heat coming off a bonfire. A pain so consuming and terrible, it was like falling into black.

  And then I knew.

  “You . . . you were driving. It wasn’t David . . . or Gus. It was you,” I said.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. Her voice was as even and emotionless as a waiter reciting a menu. “Gus and David had been drinking. He didn’t want me to drive.” Julia was crying, but seemed not to notice, not even when the tears dripped off her chin and fell on the stone. “Gus . . . she told him it would be okay. I was fourteen, but Gus let me drive her car all the time. She told him she trusted me. I didn’t even see the bridge until we were at the edge . . . and then it was too late.”

  Julia lowered her head, her hands clasped together in front of her face. “Why did she trust me?”

  “Oh, Julia.” I grabbed her and pulled her toward me, tightening my arms when she tried to break loose and relaxing them once she collapsed against me, sobbing so hard she was hiccupping. I could feel her heart beating through her ribs where my hands clung to her back.

  “I’m the reason it all went to shit . . . I was alive, was the logic. David and Gus were dead,” Julia said in between sobs. “I had my whole life in front of me—why ruin that, too? A future with a capital F. Not that it mattered, I’ve gone and screwed it up anyway.” She wiped her nose against her shoulder as she pushed me away.

  “You were only a kid. You shouldn’t even—”

  “No bullshit, Charlie. Not from you.” She shook her head and wiped at her eyes with her sleeves. “Go home. Go home and make things right with Sebastian and make art and go to college and be happy. I want you to be happy.”

  “No. I’m not leaving without you.”

  “You don’t have much choice. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  She fell forward until her knees were pressed to her chest and her hands were pressed to her beautiful face.

  I wrapped my arms around her again.

  “I’m just so tired. Très, très fatiguée.”

  “Shhhh.” I smoothed her hair back with one hand and clutched her to me with my other. I rested my chin on her head and held her as if my touch alone could absorb her despair. I would have taken it all from her if I could have.

  “A slow march into the ocean, letting saltwater creep over you inch by inch until the last wave crashes and you go under. That’s what it feels like to be trapped in my head. A slow walk into water.” Julia clutched at the front of my shirt and tugged until my face was right next to hers and she could whisper in my ear.

  “I tried to bargain with God right after she died. Once I was awake in the hospital and I realized what had happened, I asked him to take me instead. Gus was the best of us, so I begged him.” She let go of my shirt and crumpled down into herself again. “Now I just wonder if he’ll take me at all.”

  I was out of thoughts. I was out of everything. So I did the only thing I could do. I held her, whispering, “Contra mundum. Contra mundum,” until she was empty as well.

  When she had no more tears left, we crawled out of our hiding spot and crossed the empty campus to the truck.

  In Hyannis, I let go of her hand only when our arms couldn’t stretch any farther up the boarding ramp to the ferry. I stood on the dock until I couldn’t pick her out from the other figures on the top deck—and even after that I lingered.

  Julia told me she’d call once she got to Arcadia.

  She never did.

  PHONE CALL #3

  “Yes? Hello, may I please speak with Mrs. Catherine in admissions?”

  “Please hold.”

  “But I’ve been holding,” I said, even though there was no one on the other end of the phone to hear me. Classical music played in the ear that was pressed against the kitchen phone while the sounds of whatever morning cartoons Sam and AJ were watching in the TV room played in the other.

  “Miss Ryder?”

  “Yes!” I jumped in the spindly wooden chair. “I mean, yes. Hi. I know it’s early, but I just want to leave a message for—”

  “Please hold.”

  “Jesus!” I clutched my free hand to my forehead because it was all I could do to keep myself from smacking it against the kitchen table.

  “Charlotte.” Sam padded into the kitchen and tugged at my sleeve. “Hey, Charlotte. I didn’t mean to answer, but it was buzzing so bad it fell off the coffee table.” I raised my head and saw him holding my cell phone in his marker-stained hands.

  “What is it with people in this family not being able to keep their fingers off my phone?” I squeezed the kitchen portable between my shoulder and my ear and grabbed my cell out of Sam’s hands, holding it to my chest. “Who is it?”

  Sam shrugged. “He didn’t say.” He raised his thumb to his mouth, saw the look I gave him and lowered it.

  “He didn’t say? You’re sure . . . it’s a he?” I hated that my voice caught.

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, he sounded growly. Like a bear.”

  I closed my eyes and inhaled before taking the cell away from my chest. “Hello?”

  “Charlie?”

  His voice wasn’t like a bear’s. It was deep and heavy, but hearing it felt like floating.

  “Hi.”

  Sam shuffled up to my side and ducked under the arm holding the kitchen phone to lean against me. The looping classical music now filled the kitchen as I let the portable slip away from my ear.

  “Boom’s gone,” he said. He sounded like a wave had come crashing down on him and left him flailing and gasping for air.


  I dropped the kitchen phone. It landed with a crack on the linoleum floor. Sam slid out from under my arm and began gathering the parts that had flown around the room. I tried to speak, but my brain wouldn’t work. The words were there, but finding them was like swimming toward a light in the water. I couldn’t reach them.

  “Boom. Has. Passed. Away.” He was speaking in starts and pauses like he was reading from a prepared speech but couldn’t quite make out the handwriting. “I’m sorry . . . wasn’t able to call sooner . . . arrangements . . . Mum won’t come downstairs and Bradley’s useless. Cordelia’s trying, but . . .” His voice caught on a sob he wouldn’t let himself give in to. “But, it’s not fair. She’s too little . . . it’s not fair that she has to go through it again.”

  I heard the tears in the words he couldn’t say. I inhaled and held it. Sam stood watching me, his mouth in an “O.” But like me, he said nothing.

  “Boom was trying to get back . . . to the island . . . you got Julia home . . . thanks for getting her home . . .” He trailed off, and for a moment there was only the crackle of static between us.

  “Sebastian, what happened? Please.” My phone was shaking against my ear and I had to curl my left hand into a fist to keep it still.

  “Charlie, he wanted to get home, but all the ferries were closed. The waves were too high. The charter planes weren’t even running. He . . . he paid this guy to take him in his fishing boat. But the waves were too high.”

  “I—”

  “There was a big wave. They were almost to the point where you can see the lighthouse . . . the fisherman made it.” He stopped speaking, but there was anguish in his silence.

  “Oh, Sebastian. I’m—”

  “The fisherman . . . he said he saw Boom right before he went under. Boom was holding on to a life jacket, but he let go . . . no, he was holding on to a life jacket and then he lost his grip. There was a wave or . . .” There was black silence again.

  I shivered, and once I started I wasn’t able to stop. I could imagine him pacing that library floor, walking where the wood was worn smoothest by footsteps and time. I could picture him in his rumpled clothes, the shadows under his eyes from not sleeping.