by E. Lockhart
I am silent.
Gat is silent.
I reach out and touch him. Just the feel of his forearm beneath the thin cotton of his shirt makes me ache to kiss him again.
“You know what’s terrifying?” Gat says, not looking at me. “What’s terrifying is he’s turned out to be right.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“Oh yes, he has.”
“Gat, wait.”
But he has gone into his room and shut the door.
I am alone in the dark hallway.
40
Once upon a time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. The girls grew up as lovely as the day was long. They made grand marriages, too, but the arrival of the first grandchild brought disappointment. The youngest princess produced a daughter so very, very tiny that her mother took to keeping her in a pocket, where the girl went unnoticed. Eventually, normal-sized grandchildren arrived, and the king and queen forgot the existence of the tiny princess almost completely.
When the too-small princess grew older, she passed most of her days and nights hardly ever leaving her tiny bed. There was very little reason for her to get up, so solitary was she.
One day, she ventured to the palace library and was delighted to find what good company books could be. She began going there often. One morning, as she read, a mouse appeared on the table. He stood upright and wore a small velvet jacket. His whiskers were clean and his fur was brown. “You read just as I do,” he said, “walking back and forth across the pages.” He stepped forward and made a low bow.
The mouse charmed the tiny princess with stories of his adventures. He told her of trolls who steal people’s feet and gods who abandon the poor. He asked questions about the universe and searched continually for answers. He thought wounds needed attention. In turn, the princess told the mouse fairy tales, drew him pixilated portraits, and made him little crayon drawings. She laughed and argued with him. She felt awake for the first time in her life.
It was not long before they loved each other dearly.
When she presented her suitor to her family, however, the princess met with difficulty. “He is only a mouse!” cried the king in disdain, while the queen screamed and ran from the throne room in fear. Indeed, the entire kingdom, from royalty to servants, viewed the mouse suitor with suspicion and discomfort. “He is unnatural,” people said of him. “An animal masquerading as a person.”
The tiny princess did not hesitate. She and the mouse left the palace and traveled far, far away. In a foreign land they were married, made a home for themselves, filled it with books and chocolate, and lived happily ever after.
If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.
41
A giant wields a rusty saw. He gloats and hums as he works, slicing through my forehead and into the mind behind it.
I have less than four weeks to find out the truth.
Granddad calls me Mirren.
The twins are stealing sleeping pills and diamond earrings.
Mummy argued with the aunts over the Boston house.
Bess hates Cuddledown.
Carrie roams the island at night.
Will has bad dreams.
Gat is Heathcliff.
Gat thinks I do not know him.
And maybe he is right.
I take pills. Drink water. The room is dark.
Mummy stands in the doorway, watching me. I do not speak to her.
I am in bed for two days. Every now and then the sharp pain wanes to an ache. Then, if I am alone, I sit up and write on the cluster of notes above my bed. Questions more than answers.
The morning I feel better, Granddad comes over to Windemere early. He’s wearing white linen pants and a blue sport jacket. I am in shorts and a T-shirt, throwing balls for the dogs in the yard. Mummy is already up at New Clairmont.
“I’m heading to Edgartown,” Granddad says, scratching Bosh’s ears. “You want to come? If you don’t mind an old man’s company.”
“I don’t know,” I joke. “I’m so busy with these spit-covered tennis balls. Could be all day.”
“I’ll take you to the bookstore, Cady. Buy you presents like I used to.”
“How about fudge?”
Granddad laughs. “Sure, fudge.”
“Did Mummy put you up to this?”
“No.” He scratches his tufty white hair. “But Bess doesn’t want me driving the motorboat alone. She says I could get disoriented.”
“I’m not allowed to drive the motorboat, either.”
“I know,” he says, holding up the keys. “But Bess and Penny aren’t boss here. I am.”
We decide to eat breakfast in town. We want to get the boat away from the Beechwood dock before the aunts catch us.
Edgartown is a nautical, sweetie-pie village on Martha’s Vineyard. It takes twenty minutes to get there. It’s all white picket fences and white wooden homes with flowery yards. Shops sell tourist stuff, ice cream, pricey clothes, antique jewelry. Boats leave from the harbor for fishing trips and scenic cruises.
Granddad seems like his old self. He’s tossing money around. Treats me to espresso and croissants at a little bakery with stools by a window, then tries to buy me books at the Edgartown bookshop. When I refuse the gift, he shakes his head at my giveaway project but doesn’t lecture. Instead he asks for my help picking out presents for the littles and a floral design book for Ginny, the housekeeper. We place a big order at Murdick’s Fudge: chocolate, chocolate walnut, peanut-butter, and penuche.
Browsing in one of the art galleries, we run into Granddad’s lawyer, a narrow, graying fellow named Richard Thatcher. “So this is Cadence the first,” says Thatcher, shaking my hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“He does the estate,” says Granddad, by way of explanation.
“First grandchild,” says Thatcher. “There’s never anything to match that feeling.”
“She’s got a great head on her shoulders, too,” Granddad says. “Sinclair blood through and through.”
This speaking in stock phrases, he has always done it. “Never complain, never explain.” “Don’t take no for an answer.” But it grates when he’s using them about me. A good head on my shoulders? My actual head is fucking broken in countless medically diagnosed ways—and half of me comes from the unfaithful Eastman side of the family. I am not going to college next year, I’ve given up all the sports I used to do and clubs I used to be part of; I’m high on Percocet half the time and I’m not even nice to my little cousins.
Still, Granddad’s face is glowing as he talks about me, and at least today he knows I am not Mirren.
“She looks like you,” says Thatcher.
“Doesn’t she? Except she’s good-looking.”
“Thank you,” I say. “But if you want the full resemblance I have to tuft up my hair.”
This makes Granddad smile. “It’s from the boat,” he says to Thatcher. “Didn’t bring a hat.”
“It’s always tufty,” I tell Thatcher.
“I know,” he says.
The men shake hands and Granddad hooks his arm through mine as we leave the gallery. “He’s taken good care of you,” he tells me.
“Mr. Thatcher?”
He nods. “But don’t tell your mother. She’ll stir up trouble again.”
42
On the way home, a memory comes.
Summer fifteen, a morning in early July. Granddad was making espresso in the Clairmont kitchen. I was eating jam and baguette toast at the table. It was just the two of us.
“I love that goose,” I said, pointing. A cream goose statue sat on the sideboard.
“It’s been there since you, Johnny, and Mirren were three,” said Granddad. “That’s the year Tipper and I took that trip to China.” He chuckled. “She bou
ght a lot of art there. We had a guide, an art specialist.” He came over to the toaster and popped the piece of bread I had in there for myself.
“Hey!” I objected.
“Shush, I’m the granddad. I can take the toast when I want to.” He sat down with his espresso and spread butter on the baguette. “This art specialist girl took us to antiques shops and helped us navigate the auction houses,” he said. “She spoke four languages. You wouldn’t think to look at her. Little slip of a China girl.”
“Don’t say China girl. Hello?”
He ignored me. “Tipper bought jewelry and had the idea of buying animal sculptures for the houses here.”
“Does that include the toad in Cuddledown?”
“Sure, the ivory toad,” said Granddad. “And we bought two elephants, I know.”
“Those are in Windemere.”
“And monkeys for in Red Gate. There were four monkeys.”
“Isn’t ivory illegal?” I asked.
“Oh, some places. But you can get it. Your gran loved ivory. She traveled to China when she was a child.”
“Is it elephant tusks?”
“That or rhino.”
There he was, Granddad. His white hair still thick, the lines on his face deep from all those days on the sailboat. His heavy jaw like an old film star.
You can get it, he said, about the ivory.
One of his mottos: Don’t take no for an answer.
It had always seemed a heroic way to live. He would say it when advising us to pursue our ambitions. When encouraging Johnny to try training for a marathon, or when I failed to win the reading prize in seventh grade. It was something he said when talking about his business strategies, and how he got Gran to marry him. “I asked her four times before she said yes,” he’d always say, retelling one of his favorite Sinclair family legends. “I wore her down. She said yes to shut me up.”
Now, at the breakfast table, watching him eat my toast, “Don’t take no for an answer” seemed like the attitude of a privileged guy who didn’t care who got hurt, so long as his wife had the cute statues she wanted to display in her summerhouses.
I walked over and picked up the goose. “People shouldn’t buy ivory,” I said. “It’s illegal for a reason. Gat was reading the other day about—”
“Don’t tell me what that boy is reading,” snapped Granddad. “I’m informed. I get all the papers.”
“Sorry. But he’s made me think about—”
“Cadence.”
“You could put the statues up for auction and then donate the money to wildlife conservation.”
“Then I wouldn’t have the statues. They were very dear to Tipper.”
“But—”
Granddad barked, “Do not tell me what to do with my money, Cady. That money is not yours.”
“Okay.”
“You are not to tell me how to dispose of what is mine, is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Not ever.”
“Yes, Granddad.”
I had the urge to snatch the goose and fling it across the room.
Would it break when it hit the fireplace? Would it shatter?
I balled my hands into fists.
It was the first time we’d talked about Granny Tipper since her death.
Granddad docks the boat and ties it up.
“Do you still miss Gran?” I ask him as we head toward New Clairmont. “Because I miss her. We never talk about her.”
“A part of me died,” he says. “And it was the best part.”
“You think so?” I ask.
“That is all there is to say about it,” says Granddad.
43
I find the Liars in the Cuddledown yard. The grass is littered with tennis racquets and drink bottles, food wrappers and beach towels. The three of them lie on cotton blankets, wearing sunglasses and eating potato chips.
“Feeling better?” asks Mirren.
I nod.
“We missed you.”
They have baby oil spread on their bodies. Two bottles of it lie on the grass. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get burned?” I ask.
“I don’t believe in sun block anymore,” says Johnny.
“He’s decided the scientists are corrupt and the whole sun block industry is a moneymaking fraud,” says Mirren.
“Have you ever seen sun poisoning?” I ask. “The skin literally bubbles.”
“It’s a dumb idea,” says Mirren. “We’re just bored out of our minds, that’s all.” But she slathers baby oil on her arms as she’s speaking.
I lie down next to Johnny.
I open a bag of barbeque potato chips.
I stare at Gat’s chest.
Mirren reads aloud a bit of a book about Jane Goodall.
We listen to some music off my iPhone, the speaker tinny.
“Why don’t you believe in sun block again?” I ask Johnny.
“It’s a conspiracy,” he says. “To sell a lot of lotion that nobody needs.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I won’t burn,” he says. “You’ll see.”
“But why are you putting on baby oil?”
“Oh, that’s not part of the experiment,” Johnny says. “I just like to be as greasy as possible at all times.”
Gat catches me in the kitchen, looking for food. There isn’t much. “Last time I saw you was again suboptimal,” he says. “In the hallway a couple nights ago.”
“Yeah.” My hands are shaking.
“Sorry.”
“All right.”
“Can we start over?”
“We can’t start over every day, Gat.”
“Why not?” He jumps to sit on the counter. “Maybe this is a summer of second chances.”
“Second, sure. But after that it gets ridiculous.”
“So just be normal,” he says, “at least for today. Let’s pretend I’m not a mess, let’s pretend you’re not angry. Let’s act like we’re friends and forget what happened.”
I don’t want to pretend.
I don’t want to be friends.
I don’t want to forget. I am trying to remember.
“Just for a day or two, until things start to seem all right again,” says Gat, seeing my hesitation. “We’ll just hang out until it all stops being such a big deal.”
I want to know everything, understand everything; I want to hold Gat close and run my hands over him and never let him go. But perhaps this is the only way we can start.
Be normal, now. Right now.
Because you are. Because you can be.
“I’ve learned how to do that,” I say.
I hand him the bag of fudge Granddad and I bought in Edgartown, and the way his face lights up at the chocolate tugs at my heart.
44
Next day Mirren and I take the small motorboat to Edgartown without permission.
The boys don’t want to come. They are going kayaking.
I drive and Mirren trails her hand in the wake.
Mirren isn’t wearing much: a daisy-print bikini top and a denim miniskirt. She walks down the cobblestone sidewalks of Edgartown talking about Drake Loggerhead and how it feels to have “sexual intercourse” with him. That’s what she calls it every time; her answer about how it feels has to do with the scent of beach roses mixed with roller coasters and fireworks.
She also talks about what clothes she wants to buy for freshman year at Pomona and movies she wants to see and projects she wants to do this summer, like find a place on the Vineyard to ride horses and start making ice cream again. Honestly, she doesn’t stop chattering for half an hour.
I wish I had her life. A boyfriend, plans, college in California. Mirren is going off into her sunshine future, whereas I am going back to Dickinson Academy to another year of snow and suffoc
ation.
I buy a small bag of fudge at Murdick’s, even though there’s some left from yesterday. We sit on a shady bench, Mirren still talking.
Another memory comes.
Summer fifteen, Mirren sat next to Taft and Will on the steps of our favorite Edgartown clam shack. The boys had plastic rainbow pinwheels. Taft’s face was smeared with fudge he’d eaten earlier. We were waiting for Bess, because she had Mirren’s shoes. We couldn’t go indoors without them.
Mirren’s feet were dirty and her toenails painted blue.
We had been waiting a while when Gat came out of the shop down the block. He had a stack of books under his arm. He ran toward us at top speed, as if in a ridiculous hurry to catch us, even though we were sitting still.
Then he stopped short. The book on top was Being and Nothingness by Sartre. He still had the words written on the backs of his hands. A recommendation from Granddad.
Gat bowed, foolishly, clownishly, and presented me with the book at the bottom of the pile: it was a novel by Jaclyn Moriarty. I’d been reading her all summer.
I opened the book to the title page. It was inscribed. For Cady with everything, everything. Gat.
“I remember waiting for your shoes so we could go into the clam shack,” I tell Mirren. She has stopped talking now and looks at me expectantly. “Pinwheels,” I say. “Gat giving me a book.”
“So your memories are coming back,” Mirren says. “That’s great!”
“The aunties fought about the estate.”
She shrugs. “A bit.”
“And Granddad and I, we had this argument about his ivory statues.”
“Yeah. We talked about it at the time.”
“Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why did Gat disappear after my accident?”