Peyton hurried down the hall to her room. How long had she been gone? Ten minutes, probably. The rainbowfish were sluggish in the morning. They might not even be awake. She set the tank on her dresser, dropped in the Stress Coat to condition the water, and picked up her net.
“What’s the matter?” Dana said. She’d followed her.
“My fish had babies.”
She came right up beside Peyton, and they both looked through the glass. The tiny fish hadn’t moved, though the adult endlers were beginning to stir. It was the sunlight starting to make its way into the room. She could have had all males, but she had felt sorry for them, living in that male-dominated world, showing off their stripes and flashy fins only for each other. She’d had to include two females.
Oops, over there, a rainbowfish darted through the doorway in the fake lighthouse. Peyton dipped in her net. She might be able to scoop them all up in one try.
There.
Carefully, catching the drips with her hand, Peyton carried the net over to the little tank and lowered it into the waiting water. The newborn fish were still for a moment, then suddenly zipped apart, like something had exploded in their midst. Peyton laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Dana had her hands on her knees, peering into the little tank. “I thought fish produced eggs.”
“Not these ones.” They looked like guppies now, but when they grew up, the males would develop all sorts of coloring—orange bellies, black tails, blue backs. Peyton nudged the small tank to face the bigger tank so the mommies could watch their babies play.
“Were their parents going to eat them?”
“Their mothers might. The rainbowfish definitely would.” They were normally mellow fish. It wouldn’t be a problem once the fry got bigger. Peyton pressed the light switch on the bigger tank, and the fish there came alive. She picked up the container of fish food and dusted some flakes onto the water’s surface.
“Will the babies eat the same thing?” Dana wanted to know.
“Just less of it. A fish’s stomach is the same size as its eye.”
“Cool.”
It was cool, all the intricate ways in which nature played itself out. As Peyton set down the fish food, she saw Dana had picked up the container of Stress Coat. “That’s not food,” she said.
Dana raised her gaze to hers, then set down the bottle. “Right.”
The bathroom door closed, and the water pipes shuddered themselves awake. Peyton’s dad, starting his morning routine.
“Excuse me,” she said, and Dana moved aside.
Peyton carried the paper towels she’d used to clean out the tank into the kitchen and pulled out the trash bin from under the sink. There, beneath the banana peels and damp coffee grounds, she spied the solid brown lip of a bottle. Beer? She poked away a plastic wrapper to reveal the sturdy shoulders of a whiskey bottle.
Her dad had tricked her, waiting until she’d gone to bed before pulling out the hard stuff. And here she’d been, all stupidly happy about her new fish. She’d let him trick her into thinking he was okay. Or maybe not. Maybe he hadn’t been hiding this from her at all. Maybe the person he’d been trying to fool was Dana.
Did he think Dana could do something, keep him from drinking the way he had? If so, then Peyton should show Dana the bottle. It was scary, thinking about her dad slipping back to that distant place and leaving Peyton all alone. The last time, Peyton had had her mom. Who did she have now? Not Dana, that was for sure. Dana wasn’t someone Peyton could ever trust.
Peyton dropped the paper towels on top of the bottle, making sure it was completely covered, then pushed the trash bin back into place. She had to accept the truth. With her mom gone, she had no one.
Except, maybe, Eric.
THIRTY-ONE
[DANA]
SURPRISE, I TOLD JULIE WHEN SHE GOT UP THAT morning. I held up the knitting. She’d been right. It made a much better blanket than sweater.
How come you’re up so early? she said, yawning.
The baby had hiccups.
She sat beside me, fingered the rows. Dana, this is great.
I’m almost done. All I need to do is figure out how to end it.
Let’s see, she said. What were the directions again?
A Closed sign hung in Lakeside’s window. Still, someone might have arrived early to start getting ready for the lunch crowd. I rapped on the door and peered through the glass. A man emerged from the gloom inside. Fred. He grinned when he saw me.
“Looking for coffee, huh? You can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can’t take the Minnesota out of the girl.”
The interior was cool and dark, heavy with the compressed odors of stale cooking oil and beer.
“Cream, right?” He brought two cups over and we sat at the counter. “So what’s up? I know you didn’t come all the way down here for a cup of French roast.”
I took a sip. Perfect. “I wanted to ask you about that salesman from the other night.” Mr. Specialty Chemicals. I had scanned the description on the bottle in Peyton’s room, and the word had leaped out at me. Chemicals.
He scratched his arm. “I wouldn’t have guessed he was your type.”
“Ha-ha. Would you happen to know if he’s still in town?”
“Let’s see. Probably. You couldn’t shut the guy up about that big deal he was closing in on and how he was thinking about buying a lake house. Can you see him ice fishing?”
“You know where he’s staying?”
“Don’t have a clue. Try the Tremont, though. It’s got the cheapest rates in town, and given how lousy a tipper the guy was, I’d say that would be the place for him.”
It turned out to be the third place I tried. I was at the reception desk when I heard that East Coast twang behind me. There he was, ruddy-faced, sparse hair swept back over a square forehead, striding across the lobby to keep up with a man in jeans and a sports coat.
“Never mind,” I told the front desk clerk. “I found him.”
“Come on, man,” he was saying. “Let me talk to my boss, see if I can rework the figures.”
The other man looked familiar. Doug Miller? Couple of years older than me, he’d been at Julie’s funeral, though he hadn’t come to the house afterward.
“You know you can’t beat our quality.”
Doug mumbled something, too quietly for me to make out.
The salesman shook his head. “Why haul me all the way out here for nothing?”
Doug passed me on his way to the front door, gave me a quick nod. I nodded back as I walked over to where the salesman stood, stuffing papers into a soft-sided briefcase.
“Hey,” I said.
He glanced up, his gaze blank, then he brought me into focus. “Hey.” He rested his hand on his briefcase, giving me his full attention. “I’ve been looking for you. You never warned me about the mosquitoes.” He snapped the flaps on his briefcase. “I thought Florida was bad. Heck, this town even makes New Orleans look like a paradise.”
“It’s one of our hidden treasures. So how did your meeting go?”
“Guess you heard. They totally played me on this one, brought me in to make the other guy blink. I’d told my boss the deal was in the bag.” He picked up his case. “My wife already traded in her minivan.”
“You’re talking about Gerkey’s?”
“Didn’t have the decency to tell me this on the phone. They had to let me drag myself out here and wait around for a week before delivering the news. That’s no way to treat a guy.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.” We began walking to the elevator. “You said you sell specialty chemicals?”
“That’s right.” He punched the elevator button. “The wave of the future.”
“What’s special about the chemicals in hand lotion? I’ve looked at the ingredients—”
“They’re not there. You won’t find them listed on the label.”
“Why’s that?”
“People are touchy about what goes on their skin.” He snorted and watched t
he elevator door. “Like socks don’t touch you.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but he’d said something the other night in the bar. What was it? “Are you talking about nanotechnology?”
His eyebrows pinched together. “How did you know that?”
“You told me. What’s so special about nanotechnology?”
“It just means small.”
The elevator door slid open. I moved to keep him focused on me, and put my hand on his forearm. “How small? As small as a grain of salt?”
“A grain of salt would be a planet to a nanoparticle.”
There it was. My heart gave a funny little hiccup of recognition. I’d had my monitor set to pick up particles the size of asbestos fibers. Nano-sized particles would have slipped right by, undetected by the monitor’s sensors. The answer had been there all along. “You know,” I said, “I never got your name.”
“Greg,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about nanotechnology, Greg. I’d love to hear more. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“I’ve been inside this hotel for days now, waiting for a phone call. Get me out into the sun and you’ve got a deal.”
See? Julie had said, her hands on mine, guiding and patient. All you have to do is carry this loop over to the other needle, and draw it tight.
THIRTY-TWO
[PEYTON]
SEA SPONGES LOOK LIKE PLANTS BUT THEY’RE ANIMALS, the only ones of their kind. Eyeless, limbless, mouthless, organless, bloodless, and nerveless, they’re the most basic animals in the ocean. They absorb nutrients from the water that flows through their pores and up into their big central column. It’s like they’re eating. Plants can’t do that.
They’re thickly laced with tiny bones that make them hard and crunchy, and they’re bitter with poisons. They can grow on any rocky surface, and they grow quickly. If the water plops a baby sponge onto a coral reef, the sponge can, and will, quickly overtake the coral, so the coral’s not happy to see one floating its way.
For all their lack of personality and flavor, sea sponges are still among the most popular creatures in the water. Their multiple crevices and great wide-open bowls make fantastic hiding places for other animals, who hunker down to escape predators. They don’t mean to be helpful, and they’d probably prefer to be alone, but there you have it. It’s the price they pay for staying stuck in the same place and never going anywhere.
Hannah was at it again. Every time Mr. Connolly asked a review question, Hannah waved her hand to answer. Sometimes, she even stood. As if he couldn’t see her, right there in the front row.
“Maybe she’ll break an ankle,” the kid beside Peyton hissed to Brenna, and Brenna grinned back.
Peyton wished they’d shut up. She was jotting things down as quickly as she could, her mind filling with questions every time Mr. Connolly said something, but emptying just as quickly when he moved on to the next topic. Cell mitosis. Cytokinesis. The list was endless.
Mr. Connolly wheeled around the front of the classroom, enjoying the repartee and lively discussion. He wouldn’t flunk her, not when he knew it would go on her college transcript. She nibbled a hangnail. Would he?
After the bell rang, he waved to her as she was filing out the door. “Got a minute?”
“Sure.” She held her books to her chest while he closed down the PowerPoint slide show and shut the lid on the computer.
“Have you made a decision yet about that project we discussed?”
His eyes weren’t an ordinary blue. They were more like navy, and they looked right through a person. She dropped her gaze to her string bracelet and twisted it around her wrist. “I guess,” she mumbled.
“That a yes?”
She shrugged, nodded.
“Okay. Well, what about volunteers?”
“I can ask the Hofseths and probably the Stahlbergs.” It was the least they could do for constantly butting into her life. Maybe Ronni would ask her husband, too, so that would make five people. Too bad she was only doing blood type. It would be cool to track LT’s schizophrenia through the family. Maybe next year she could do something like that.
“I can ask my folks and my sister if they’d be willing to participate.”
That was totally weird, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Besides, that made four more people. “Okay.”
The sunlight skimmed smoothly along his cheek then stopped at the tiny strip of dark bristles along one side of his jaw. He’d missed that area, shaving that morning.
“I hear you’re moving into Manufacturing,” he said. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“You don’t think I can handle it?”
“You’ve got a lot going on.”
What did she have going on? Nothing, and since when was it his business? “Can I go?”
“You’ve got a lot of schoolwork to get through this summer. Not just my class, but language arts. Math. You’re slipping in Spanish, too. None of the teachers wants to give you an incomplete. Working full-time at the same time may be too much for you.”
He’d talked to every one of her teachers? Who did he think he was, her guidance counselor? “I have to get to my next class.”
“Peyton, I’m sorry, but I think it’s time we had a talk with your father. If he knew—”
Her cheeks flamed. No way was he going to talk to her father about any of this! Her dad didn’t need this. “I told you I can handle it.”
He shook his head. “I care about you, Peyton. I think you could go far. I think you could be anything you wanted to be.”
“Why do you care what I could be? That’s not your job. Knowing my aunt doesn’t make you part of my family.”
He frowned and Peyton knew she’d crossed a line. But all he said was, “Let me know if you have any trouble getting volunteers.”
And he was just a teacher again. Nothing more.
Lake Avenue was quiet. The oaks arched overhead, dappling the sidewalk with afternoon shadows. Peyton was tired. She felt like this had been the longest day ever. Eric waved at one of the volunteer firefighters out in front of the fire station, hosing down the engine. His uncle. Eric had another firefighter uncle, but he was nowhere in sight. Good thing, too. He was the joker who liked to squirt Eric with the hose whenever they walked by.
“Guess what?” Peyton said. “My endlers had babies.”
“Those the ones that eat their babies?”
“I saved them this time.” They stopped at the intersection. “In a couple of weeks they’ll be big enough to go back into the tank with their mom and dad.”
“Maybe you should just get rid of the mom.”
Casually said, then Eric’s cheeks flamed. He stared at the red light. “Sorry.”
“Stop it,” she said. “You can’t do that, watch everything you say.”
He nodded, but he still didn’t look at her. The light changed and they began to cross the intersection. She could tell he was still feeling bad. “I saw Mrs. Stahlberg not wearing a bra this morning,” she said, helping him.
“Gross,” he said. But he gave her a smile, letting her know he appreciated the effort.
“I’ve got to do this stupid blood-type project. Do you think your mom would let me use your family?”
“Sure. You can ask her when you come over tonight.”
“I’m coming over?”
“We got that Spanish vocab test, right?”
She’d forgotten. “Right.” They used to study at Peyton’s house, taking over the living room with their books and papers. Peyton liked hearing her parents in the kitchen, talking about their day. But that stopped when Peyton’s mom started taking longer and longer naps. Now she and Eric didn’t even consider going anywhere but his house.
“Whoa,” Eric said, and she followed his gaze to where a large, fat man crouched in the Stahlbergs’ bushes. “Is LT vacuuming the dirt?”
LT had his back to them, his arm moving back and forth, the insect buzzing of a vacuum cleaner going. “He i
s so messed up.” She raised her voice. “LT.”
LT rocked around. A gray Dustbuster drooped in his hand. He smiled and fumbled with the switch. “Hi, Peyton. Hi, Eric.” Straightening, he brushed off his gray sweatpants. He was wearing the same gray hoodie, too, and no doubt those were the same sheets of tinfoil smushed all around his head.
“You better get out of there,” Peyton told him. “Your mom just sprayed poison.”
“Yeah?” He hastily stepped out with big goose feet, and something red fell out of his pocket and onto the ground. “Can you see the poison on me, Peyton? Is it on my clothes?”
“No. You’re good.” She had no idea. But it wouldn’t help to tell him that. He’d only freak out more than he usually did.
“Why are you vacuuming out here?” Eric asked.
That was Eric, thinking you could get a straight answer out of a crazy person.
“Looking for particles.”
Good luck with that one. The whole yard was filled with particles, of dirt, plants, air. “Well, you’d better stop messing with your mom’s rosebushes.”
“I guess.” He wiped the top of the Dustbuster with his sleeve. “I’ll ask Dana. She can help me.”
“Are you talking about her going to the plant yesterday?” Peyton asked.
“She had a machine that looked like this, and it could see the electricity.”
“I don’t think—” Eric began, and Peyton put a hand on his arm.
“You know she didn’t find anything, right, LT?”
“Not there. But what about here?” He hunched his shoulders. “What if it’s what made me this way?”
So he knew how he was. He understood he was different.
“You can’t detect electricity with a Dustbuster,” Eric said.
“Oh.” LT frowned down at the machine in his hand.
Peyton was tired of this crazy conversation. She bent to pick up the red thing that had fallen out of his pocket. A small, thin book, fringed with yellow Post-it notes.
“Stop!” LT shrieked. “Don’t touch that!”
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