by Eve Yohalem
Outside on a table, someone had left a burger with only one bite taken out of it and a full cup of fries. We snagged them and walked the mile home with Otis between us.
Ed finally called right when we got to my house. Jules said, “At Blue’s,” and then listened without saying anything more, head down, hair hiding her face. After a minute, she covered the speaker with her hand and whispered, “He says he’s done with all the fans and he’ll pick me up. Or he can pick us both up. For a beach picnic.”
Where we can get mobbed by fans again.
“Or we can go to my house.”
And play board games with Anna.
“What do you want to do, Blue?” Jules asked.
I thought about that. What did I want to do?
I opened the screen door. “Tell him you’re staying here with us tonight.”
We found Mom in the kitchen. Flour dusted the counters, the table, and the floor around her feet like a thin coat of snow. Even the peanut butter sandwich next to her—Mom’s go-to dinner when she doesn’t feel like cooking—was floury. Otis, who cleans floors better than any mop, got right to work.
“I’m making that potato-rosemary bread we keep talking about,” she said. “You can have it for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Can Jules sleep over?”
“Hmmm.” Mom pretended to think about it. “For a price.” She plopped a lump of dough in front of Jules and then another one in front of me. “Knead.”
Jules followed my lead. We washed and dried our hands, and then we each sprinkled a patch of flour on the table. Then, using the heels of our hands, we pushed the dough forward, folded it, turned it a quarter turn, then pushed again, adding a little flour when it got too sticky.
“That’s right, Jules,” Mom said. “Really lean into it.”
The dough smelled of warmed yeast and fresh-cut rosemary from Mom’s herb garden. Delicious.
“How was dinner?” Mom asked. She kneaded her dough twice as fast as we kneaded ours; Mom is a champion dough kneader.
I waited for Jules to answer—I didn’t know what she’d want to tell my mother about her disaster of a night—but she stayed quiet with her eyes on her dough. So I jumped in and said, “It was okay. Really crowded, though, because of the jazz jam. Do you mind if we go up to my room?”
Mom must have noticed Jules’s sad mood because she said, “Of course not. You two go ahead. I’ll do the cleaning up.”
Upstairs, Jules studied my bookshelf with its pictures of the Gutter Girls and me and Nora, cool rocks I’d found at the beach, and other knickknacks. “Do you do stuff like that a lot? Make bread with your mom, I mean?”
I do, especially when it’s not summer. Mom and I do puzzles together, and I help her plant the herb garden every year. We also have an ongoing game of gin rummy with scores somewhere in the thousands.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Do you do stuff with your mom?”
Jules picked up my New York City snow globe and rocked it gently from side to side. “We go shopping. And she used to read to me a lot when I was little.” She put the globe back on the shelf and watched the snow fall. “You’re so lucky, Blue.”
I’d never thought of myself as lucky. But now I wondered which was worse: having diabetes or having parents like Jules’s.
“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said. “All those people at the restaurant—it was awful.”
Jules half smiled. “Thanks.”
The crowds weren’t the worst part, though, and we both knew it.
Otis nudged Jules’s hand and she sank into the beanbag chair, after which he stretched the front half of his body across her lap. I sat next to them on the floor.
“Is it always like that with your dad?” I asked.
Jules nodded, just once, like her head was too heavy to do more. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“That’s hard,” I said. “Really really hard.”
We were both quiet after that. Not an awkward quiet, a sad quiet. Jules stared down at Otis and stroked his head, and I tried to think of what I could possibly say that would make her feel better. Finally, since I had no magic words, I reached for a beat-up box on the bottom shelf.
“Would you like to do this oversized fifty-piece dinosaur puzzle for ages four and up with me?”
Jules looked at me holding the box like a display model with a goofy smile on my face. She gave a little laugh. “Who wouldn’t?”
She squirmed out from under Otis, and we dumped the pieces on the rug. Jules took the blue T. rex and I took the pink stegosaurus. When we finished, we swapped and started again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
True Fact: Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. (TF supplied by some guy named Murphy.)
Two days later, it was pouring rain. Zero visibility. The water so murky and choppy that trying to find the treasure would be like looking for a penny in a washing machine on suds cycle. The Windfall, on the other hand, didn’t need eyes, human or mechanical. Not when they had towable underwater machines capable of detecting the presence of iron by disturbances in the magnetic field.
Which was why they were out treasure hunting, and I was in the garage grooming Otis. Because just like it’s Otis’s job to take care of me, it’s my job to take care of him.
Otis loves being groomed. He goes to his happy place—stands very straight with his eyes half-closed, and every now and then his whole coat shivers.
A car pulled into the driveway with Jules’s dad’s yoga instructor at the wheel. Jules got out, and the car drove away.
“This blows,” Jules said.
I put down the comb and picked up the nail clipper. Otis gave me a front paw. “Agreed.” I snipped. “But I have a plan. We need to make sure Fitz was telling the truth about the permits. Maybe he made the whole thing up just to get rid of us. And if he does have one of these permit things, maybe there’s an exception for students or something like that. Other paw.”
Otis obliged.
“Good,” Jules said. “And even if there’s no exception, we keep looking anyway. What’s he going to do? Tow us out of the water?”
Otis rolled onto his back so I could do his rear paws and Jules could rub his belly at the same time. I didn’t like to think about what the Windfall would do if we kept looking. Fitz had a tough reputation: When he bought his airline, he fired the president—who also happened to be his wife. For his kids’ tenth birthdays, he made each of them spend a week alone in a Maine forest with nothing but a canteen and a hunting knife. One time, on a bet, he went waterskiing behind a blimp with a broken arm. I learned all this on the Internet.
“Teeth.”
Otis pretended not to hear me. He hates getting his teeth brushed. If his breath didn’t smell like fish I wouldn’t bother, but it does so I do.
“Teeth, Otis,” I said, using my I mean it voice.
He stuck his nose in Jules’s armpit. She laughed.
“Give me back my dog’s head or I’ll tell him to lick your face,” I said.
“Ew.” Jules pushed Otis away.
Otis knew he was defeated. He drooped his head and bared his fangs. I pulled up his lip and brushed.
After I finished, I stood up. “Okay, let’s go talk to Laurie.”
“Aren’t you going to wash your hands?” Jules said.
Why would I? “Of course,” I said.
Since there was no lightning, we motored to town in the boat. We had a choice: wear foul-weather gear and be hot but dry, or wear bathing suits and be cool but wet. We picked cool but wet. The water was rough, so we all wore life vests, including Otis.
“Can I be totally honest with you for a minute?” Jules said, over the sound of the engine.
“When do you ever hold anything back?” We entered the channel to the harbor, and I dropped our speed to five miles an hour.
“Fair point. The thing is, these tankinis you wear? They’re hideous. Do you want me to go with you to the surf shop to find something cuter?”
> That feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? It happened to my entire body.
Why is it that when there’s something you’re mortified about—say, a giant pimple on the end of your nose, or finding out you’ve been walking around with toilet paper stuck to your shoe for half a day, or maybe wearing an ugly bathing suit to cover up a weird machine that’s stuck in your body—hearing somebody else talk about the thing out loud is even more mortifying than the thing itself?
“Thanks,” I said through numb lips. “But I’m good.” Except no, I’m not good, and can we please talk about humidifiers or toe fungus or pretty much anything else?
“You mean you actually like wearing a mom-suit?”
I could tell Jules wasn’t going to let it drop. To her, I was a fashion emergency. “It’s not a question of like. I need a two-piece so I can get to my infusion set, and the tank top covers that and my pump.”
“Who cares if people see your infusion whatever? If it were me, I’d rock a bikini and let my diabetes flag fly.”
Easy for you to say. You don’t have a catheter tube hanging out of your belly.
I pictured myself strolling along the beach in a bikini, shoulders back, head high, flying my diabetes flag. Shining sun, rolling waves, some little kid screeching, What’s that? The mom offering an apologetic smile. Hush, sweetie, it’s not nice to stare.
“Point taken,” I said.
“It’s just a suggestion,” Jules said. “As your friend.”
“I said point taken.”
Jules held up her hands. “Okay. I was just trying to help.”
We found Laurie in the harbormaster’s office on the wharf. She looked up from her desk and smiled when we walked in. Laurie has tan skin with white lines around her eyes from squinting in the sun. Like Pop Pop’s but not so tigerish.
“Hey, girls. Hi there, Otis.” Laurie got up and gave Otis a big rub. His tail wagged like a loose garden hose with the water running full blast. The fact that she didn’t mind getting sprayed by my wet dog made me like Laurie even more. “How’s everything going with the diabetes benefit?” she asked. “It’s coming up soon, right?”
Ugh.
“July Fourth,” Jules said.
Three days away. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Awkward pause while I tried to figure out how to ask Laurie what I wanted to ask her without telling her why I wanted to know. Finally, lightning struck my brain. “I’m doing this science project for school—”
“Because she failed the class,” Jules interrupted.
I mentally glared at her. “I have to collect water samples in Gardiner’s Bay.” I explained what happened with Fitz and how I needed to be in the bay for my project. “Is it true? Does he really have one of these permit things?”
“I’m afraid he does,” Laurie said.
Jules and I exchanged a look of misery.
“So nobody’s allowed to go near the area?” Jules asked. “Not even students?”
“Sorry, girls,” Laurie said, shaking her head. “Not without the Windfall’s permission.”
Jules looked as hopeless as I felt. We slunk to the door, and I had my hand on the knob when Laurie said:
“You know, Blue, it’s funny that the Windfall is searching in Gardiner’s Bay, because that’s where your grandfather searched for years.”
“He did?” Something that maybe possibly could have been a spark of hope started to flicker in me.
“Yup. I used to see him out there all the time when I was in high school. You should ask your dad about it.”
Jules raised her eyebrows at me, which I took to mean Did you know that your grandfather spent years searching for treasure right where we’re looking? I shook my head. There were so many other places to look that I’d never asked him about Gardiner’s Bay, and he’d never mentioned it.
I flung open the door. “Thanks, Laurie!” I called over my shoulder.
Jules, Otis, and I ran outside, oblivious to the rain waterfalling off the eaves of the harbormaster’s office.
Fitz or no Fitz, no way were we stopping now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
True Fact: In 2008, some miners accidentally found a five-hundred-year-old shipwreck with a chest full of gold… in the Namibian desert. (TF supplied by Scouring the Seas.)
“Why does he have to be dead?” Jules wailed.
Seriously? “Gosh, Jules. I’m really sorry my grandfather got cancer.”
“Don’t feel bad.” She patted my back. “It’s not your fault. It’s just, this would be so much easier if we could ask him what he knew about Gardiner’s Bay.”
The thing was, I knew exactly how Jules felt. Or rather, she knew exactly how I felt. There had been so many times I wished I could talk to Pop Pop. So many questions I wanted to ask.
What do you think, Pop Pop—does that rock look like a dog’s head to you?
You know, BB, it just might.
I tried to remember the last time I’d heard Pop Pop’s voice in my head or imagined him steering the boat next to me. It had been… a while.
I closed my eyes. I could still smell his smell and see his tiger stripes. But when I tried to remember his voice, I only heard the soft rasp from last winter, when he was sick, like when you can’t remember some of the lyrics to a song and you have to make them up.
What would I have left of Pop Pop if I lost more words to his song?
I bent over to retrieve Otis’s already full water bowl so Jules wouldn’t see the expression on my face, then carried it to the kitchen sink to empty and refill it.
“Let’s go ask your dad about it,” Jules said, following me.
“My dad’s on a job in Water Mill. We can’t ride our bikes ten miles in the rain to interrupt him in the middle of his work to ask him about his father hunting for treasure back in the twentieth century.” Plus, with the way Dad feels about treasure, we’d be crazy to try to talk to him in front of everybody at work.
“You’re right. He might get suspicious. We’ll stay here and wait for him to come home.” Jules took Otis’s bowl from my hands and put it back on the floor. “If it turns out your dad doesn’t know anything, though, what do you want to do about Fitz?”
I knew exactly what I wanted to do about Fitz. “Like you said, what’s he going to do? Tow us out of the water?”
Jules grinned. “Good.”
It took precisely six episodes of bad TV, one frozen chicken burrito, two rounds of checkers, and a totally lame hide-and-seek game with Otis (you can’t play hide-and-seek with a scent-alert dog; they have no ability to hide and they find you in about thirty seconds) for Dad to get home.
We heard his truck in the driveway and ran downstairs to meet him.
“Hi, girls.” Dad tossed his keys on the table by the front door. His hair was gray with plaster dust. This time of year everybody in the Hamptons wants their guest houses built yesterday. Dad got down on his knees to rub Otis’s head and so Otis could give his face a welcome lick. “Mom’s on her way home with dinner. Jules, you want to stay?”
“No thanks, Mr. Broen. My dad’s girlfriend’s trainer is picking me up soon.” Jules beamed laser eyes at me.
“Hey, Dad. You’ll never believe it. Jules and I ran into Laurie today. You know, Laurie from the marina? It was totally random and coincidental, and she happened to mention to us that Pop Pop—you know, your father, Jerry?—that when he used to hunt for treasure, he’d do it in Gardiner’s Bay. Just like Fitz Fitzgibbons!”
Jules looked at me like I’d grown three heads, which, because I’d developed the ability to see things from her point of view, I took to mean Worst liar ever!
Which was pretty much true.
Dad blinked at me. Maybe I had grown three heads. “I thought you couldn’t work on your water project because of the weather. What were you doing at the marina?” he asked.
Before I could make things worse, Jules said, “We motored into town so I could get new sunglasses. I just broke my third pair of Ray-Bans. My dad is so mad a
t me. Eye health is really important to him, and sun damage is a leading cause of blindness.”
This time Dad blinked at Jules. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.” He grabbed the mail from the hall table.
Jules and I leaned against the counter while Dad flipped through the mail. He gave up after the third bill and got a beer out of the fridge. “So Laurie talked to you about Pop Pop, huh? What did she say?”
“Just what I told you. Is it true?”
I expected Dad would refuse to talk about it, but he took a long swig and nodded. “Yeah. He studied all the currents and old charts and weather maps, and he came up with this whole big theory that Gardiner’s Bay was where he was going to find the family treasure.” Dad said “family treasure” in the woo-woo way that most people would say “UFO” or “Bigfoot.”
Pop Pop’s reasons didn’t sound mythical to me, though. They sounded logical. Provable. The hair on my arms prickled.
Dad went on, “He used to drag me out on the boat with him all the time. We’d lean over the side of his dinghy and stare into the water for days, just like you used to do with him.”
I crossed all my fingers, willing Dad to give the answer I wanted to hear, before I asked, “Did you ever find anything?”
“Tons of stuff.” Dad went to sit at the kitchen table, and Jules and I followed him. “A chunk of somebody’s rudder, an old rubber tire, some nice driftwood. One time Pop Pop found a mug that he was convinced came from one of those German spy boats that landed off Amagansett during World War Two.”
“But no actual treasure?” Jules asked.
Dad took another swig of beer. “Oh, no. We found treasure.”
The prickles on my arms turned to chills. “Well?” I asked, and then, when Dad didn’t say anything: “What was it?”
“Ambergris.” Dad plunked the can on the table.
“What’s amber grease?” Jules and I almost shouted at the same time.
Amber was valuable, wasn’t it? And gold-colored? Maybe the treasure was more than gold bars and coins. Maybe it was gems, too, maybe—