SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  She said, “Allergies,” with a faint smile.

  Seth thought this was baloney. It was hardly the time of year for allergies. But he also thought, Whatever, chick, and he told her what he needed and wanted. First was a tutor. Second was passing the GED.

  She seemed to rouse herself at this. “Good for you. What’re your plans?”

  He said, “Same as before. Professional guitar. But I want to take care of this thing first.”

  “Still playing gypsy jazz, though, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Course,” he said. “With the trio. But I’ll probably do something on the side, too, at least for a while. I’m good at carpentry, so I figure I’ll work part-time with a contractor.”

  She looked at him earnestly. “And you’re okay with that, Seth? I know that lots of island people have jobs that support the art they do, but I remember how intent you were on the guitar and nothing else.”

  “Still am,” he said. “But I figure I need to be realistic, too. It’s time.”

  “SETH? SETH!”

  He knew who it was. He’d been close to a clean getaway from the school, but the pep rally had altered the schedule for the day and now Hayley had seen him. She had also seen Gus, and she was saying, “You’ve got Gus back? Great,” as she crossed the parking lot to the VW.

  Seth felt awkward around her because he hadn’t seen her since the morning she’d come by the Star Store asking him to help Becca. He still wasn’t sure why she’d done that, considering how the last couple of their encounters had gone before that early-morning visit.

  She stopped on Gus’s side of the car. The window was down, and she let the Labrador slobber on her in his usual enthusiastic greeting. She said hi to Seth and he said hi to her and then there seemed to be nothing else to say at all until Hayley asked him if he’d heard about Derric.

  He said, “Yeah. You hear about Gus?”

  “You mean about Gus knocking Derric off the path?” And when he nodded, she said, “Yeah.” She looked to the edge of the parking lot, where the maple trees were finally shedding the rest of their russet leaves. She said, “I’m sorry for what I thought . . . about you pushing Derric.”

  He shifted his weight. “S’okay. It’s not like you turned me in or anything. And anyway, I’m sorry for what I thought, too.”

  “About what?”

  “You and Derric hooking up.”

  “He’s always been my friend, Seth. We were kissing and I know that hurt your feelings, but that was all we did. Just that one time.”

  “I get it now.”

  Both of them hung their heads, examining their feet and the damp ground they stood on. It seemed to Seth that they’d said all they had to say to each other, so he reached for the handle of his door. At the same moment, Hayley said, “That day at the farm when you came over to tell my mom about Lyme disease . . . ?”

  He said, “Yeah?”

  “That’s when I knew you hadn’t hurt Derric. See, I’ve been worried about . . . about stuff in my life and none of it has to do with you. You just took the heat for it.”

  Seth thought about this and said, “Your dad.”

  She looked at him across the top of the old VW. She swallowed hard. “Seth, I can’t be anyone’s girlfriend right now. There’s too much going on at home. It’s just too hard.” She brushed her hair off her face in that gesture she had that Seth had always loved seeing, but when she did it now, he felt the pain of it, in a place beneath his heart. She said, “I thought my life was going to be so simple. I’d graduate here, go to U-dub on a scholarship. Then I’d go into the Peace Corps for a few years. Then I’d go to grad school. Only it’s not working out that way. And you know . . . it hurts.”

  “I get that,” Seth said.

  “So I can’t be your girlfriend or anyone else’s. I don’t even want to be. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s how things are right now.”

  Seth thought about this: about how things were for all of them. He said, “What about being someone’s friend, Hayl?”

  “Sure. I can be someone’s friend. I can be your friend.”

  “I’m okay with that,” he told her. “But c’n I ask you something?” And when she nodded, “What were you doing in the woods that day? Why’d you hide the truck?”

  She didn’t answer at first, and Seth knew she was trying to decide how much more to tell him. She finally replied with, “I thought Mrs. Kinsale could help make my dad better. We met in the woods to talk about that.”

  “Why’d you think she could make him better?”

  “It was just . . . It was something I thought, something about who she is and how she is. But I was wrong. The things she does for people . . . they don’t work that way. She explained that to me.”

  Seth wondered about all this. He thought Hayley probably meant that Diana Kinsale practiced alternative medicine because there were practitioners of all sorts of things around the island: from eastern medicine to dowsing for lost articles. He’d never taken Mrs. Kinsale for one of these individuals, but he was learning fast that there was a lot he didn’t know about people he saw every day.

  He said, “I’m sorry, then. I wish she could’ve helped him.”

  “So do I. But no one can.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Tears came to her eyes, but she didn’t shed them. “You know, Seth. You know. It’s why I can’t be anyone’s girlfriend, why I’m not going away to college, why there’s no Peace Corps in my future. He’s going to die. It’ll take a while but he’s going to die. We all know it but we don’t mention it. It’s just the way things are.”

  “But he only seems a little clumsy,” Seth said.

  “Clumsy is how it begins.” She brushed at her eyes and added quickly, “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to pick up Brooke.”

  He nodded and she hurried away. As he watched her go, Seth thought about how you never really knew anyone, not even the people you thought you knew. He also thought how you never learned a single thing about them as long as you only stayed in your head trying to understand what was inside theirs.

  * * *

  FORTY-FIVE

  Becca locked her bike at the information kiosk on the edge of the meadow. Saratoga Woods rose up the hillside in an army of silent Douglas firs, but Becca knew she wasn’t going to be alone in the forest. Diana Kinsale’s truck was in the parking lot. She didn’t want to be seen on this particular mission, however. So once she had the bike locked, she quickly took the sealed plastic bag and its contents from her backpack.

  Across the meadow, she climbed Meadow Loop Trail. The day was cool but bright, and the trail was dappled with sunlight. It hardly seemed the place any longer where Derric had had such a terrible fall.

  At the bottom of Derric’s little trail, Becca looked right and left and listened hard to make sure she’d be able to get up to the teepee of trees in secrecy. There was still no sound other than the cry of the blue Steller’s jays above her, so she picked her way up the steep hillside.

  Derric’s hideaway was as before: dry and secure. Becca worked her way to the back and wedged the package into the spot where she’d found it. As she did so, she wished that things were different for Derric. She wished he would tell his parents the truth. But she knew this was his truth to tell and not hers. She had her own secrets, and perhaps it was this that they recognized in each other, the thing that felt like a bond between them.

  After she had put the package safely into its place, she crawled back out. She waited again, listening for noises that would indicate someone coming along the trail. But Derric had chosen his hiding spot well: The Meadow Loop Trail was rarely used.

  Becca didn’t see Diana and her dogs until she was unlocking her bike. At that point, Diana emerged from the trees, coming from Wood Nymph Way, which was not across the meadow but rather just to the west of Saratoga Road. It led through the forest in an entirely different direction from the trails from the meadow.

  Diana said, “Hello, girl with bike,” a
s the dogs began to circle Becca, bumping into her in their usual pack greeting. “This is becoming something of a tradition. You, the bike, the dogs, me, the truck . . . Are you coming or going?”

  “Going,” Becca said.

  “Would you like a ride back to town?”

  Becca said that she would and, as before, Diana lifted the bike into the bed of the pickup. Once everyone was in his proper place, they set off for town.

  Diana said, “Debbie tells me you’re back at the motel,” and when Becca wondered about this, Diana added, “We’ve had coffee a few times, Debbie and I. Want me to drive you there? To the motel, I mean.”

  Becca said yes, that would be fine, and Diana added that she needed to make a stop first at the cemetery. She wanted to check on a corkscrew willow that she’d planted to shelter both Charlie’s grave and the concrete bench that was part of it. Becca was agreeable to this. She hadn’t been to Reese’s grave recently. It would be good to clear from it whatever dead leaves had blown there.

  When Diana parked the truck, she let the dogs out for a run. Becca walked across the lawn to Reese’s grave while Diana strode to Charlie’s, where the willow made a pretty sight at one end of the bench.

  At Reese’s grave, Becca dropped to her knees. The lawn was damp from recent rains, and the fallen leaves were sodden. She began to gather them and when she got to the stone, she noticed something with a rush of surprise and pleasure. Reese’s mildewed picture had been replaced with another. It was a school picture of her, grinning happily, and it was protected on the stone with a new cover of Plexiglas, sealed properly. Only one person could have done this, Becca thought. When she looked around, she saw her.

  Debbie Grieder had seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She was sitting next to Diana on the bench at Charlie’s grave as if they’d intended to meet each other all along. Diana had her arm around Debbie’s shoulder. They were speaking.

  As Becca watched them, Debbie rose. She turned and came toward Reese’s grave. In her hands, she carried a pot of chrysanthemums, brilliantly yellow against the black fleece that she was wearing.

  She lowered herself to her knees next to Becca. Together they looked at Reese’s grave. Now . . . hurts . . . making you free I don’t believe came from Debbie. What she said, though, was, “I appreciate how you fixed her grave, Becca.”

  “It seemed sort of lonely.”

  “It was good of you to do it. You’ve done a lot of good things. I couldn’t see that at first but I see it now.”

  “Oh. Gosh.” Becca wasn’t sure what else to say. She had the feeling that Debbie wanted to tell her something, but she didn’t know how to encourage her.

  Debbie, though, didn’t need encouragement. She said, “Ms. Ward hit her when she was riding her bike on Langley Road. That part of what I told you was true. The part that was a lie was whose fault it was.”

  Becca was silent. She knew something big was coming. She hardly dared to breathe because she also knew that, somehow, it was important that Debbie finished what she had to say.

  “I was dead drunk,” Debbie said. “I was coming down the stairs. I fell and hit my head and sliced it open. That’s what this scar is.” She pointed to the jagged route across her forehead. “There was blood everywhere. Reese wanted to call nine-one-one, but I screamed at her no. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to see. But she was afraid because of the blood. So she got on her bike and she set out to find Sean because I was screaming ‘No ambulance’ and she didn’t know what else to do. I guess I said ‘Get Sean for God’s sake’ and because she was a good girl, she wanted to help me. She was on Langley Road and she was in a panic because for all she knew her mother was going to bleed to death before she could find her brother. A deer jumped out and she wasn’t prepared. She swerved, right into Ms. Ward’s path. And that’s how she died.”

  Becca said, “Oh gosh. I’m so sorry.”

  Sorry isn’t . . . it won’t . . . past returning came to her along with the power of Debbie Grieder’s sorrow. Debbie said to her, “You don’t ever pay for a crime like that. You live with it, but you never pay.” She reached out and touched Reese’s name on the gravestone. She said, “I couldn’t come here. I couldn’t face looking at her picture and knowing I was the person who’d trampled the light of her and had made it go out. People say to me that her death made me finally stop drinking so some good came out of it. What I say is I’d drink myself into the grave if it would only bring my little girl back.”

  “That makes sense,” Becca said. “I think both parts of it make sense.”

  Debbie rested back on her heels and gazed at Becca. She said, “Outside of my AA meetings, I’ve never told anyone that story. Everyone probably knows, but no one says anything to me about it. So what kind of almost-fifteen-year-old fairy are you, Becca King, that I’d talk to you about all this?”

  “I’m just some kid you decided to help,” Becca told her. “Because, I think, that’s what you do.”

  “I suppose,” Debbie said. “You want to go back to the motel together?”

  Becca nodded. “I’d like that a bunch.”

  Epilogue

  It was three weeks later when Hayley Cartwright stopped Becca on her way to her English class. She said, “Seth’s playing jazz tonight with his trio. Over at Prima Bistro. Want to go?” Hayley added with an impish smile, “Derric’s going, by the way. I’m picking him up. You in?”

  Becca thought about this. Seeing Derric outside of school and outside of his get-togethers with Josh would be great, but she hesitated. Mostly it was a safety issue. She was becoming more comfortable out and about on the island, but always in the back of her mind lingered Laurel’s warnings about keeping her head low. Still, Prima Bistro seemed secure enough. It wasn’t out in the open. It sat on First Street up above the Star Store, a small restaurant and bar where local musicians played in the evenings. At this time of year, only Langley people went to the place. Tourists were long gone, and they wouldn’t be back till Memorial Day.

  She said, “I’m in.”

  “Pick you up at seven-thirty, then.”

  Becca was ready. She’d found a pair of jeans at the thrift store, along with a top and a hip-length cardigan. She threw on a belt and borrowed a scarf from Debbie. She looked okay, she thought, aside from the glasses and the hair. She eased up on the makeup for the evening. A little compromise wouldn’t kill anyone, she figured.

  Derric was in the Cartwrights’ farm pickup waiting when Becca dashed through the rain to it. He flashed that smile of his and patted the seat. “Put it here,” he told her as he scooted over.

  “You’ll have to share the seat belt,” Hayley told them.

  “Not a problem,” Derric said, and put his arm around Becca to fit them both in.

  Becca saw Hayley’s small smile. What a matchmaker, she thought. But she didn’t mind. She liked the feeling of Derric’s arm around her. She liked the feeling of his hip pressed close to hers.

  “How’s the leg?” she asked him, tapping on the cast.

  “Hurts some,” he said. “I guess it’s getting better.”

  They took off. It was a very short jaunt into town, and Becca knew she could have walked it. Hayley knew it, too, and so did Derric. But Hayley, it seemed, had plans for them.

  She’d reserved a table. It wasn’t one close to the spot set aside for the evening’s musicians, though. Instead it was tucked into a corner, where the only light came from a single candle. “Wow, pretty romantic,” she said. “You two take the far side. I’m sitting here.”

  Sitting here meant sitting with her back to them and her front facing the musicians. It was logical, considering that Seth and the two other young men of the trio were taking their places to start playing. But it was also obvious, and Becca grew hot with embarrassment.

  Derric, however, said, “Cool. Thanks, Hayley,” and when he and Becca sat, he moved his chair close to hers and said, “This is great. I haven’t been out of the house except to go to school. That chick Courtne
y—she leads the Bible study group?—she keeps asking me to come to their meetings, but I’m not much for the Bible. This is better.”

  “Yeah. Me neither,” Becca said. “The Bible I mean.” Then she didn’t know what else to say. She wanted to ask him questions about his letters to Rejoice, about whether he’d told his parents about her. But she had the feeling that the magic of the evening would be spoiled somehow if she asked about his sister, so she said nothing. Those questions could wait.

  Seth and the other members of the trio began to play. As she had been the day she’d heard them rehearsing at South Whidbey Commons, Becca was at once engaged by the gypsy jazz. She watched the musicians’ fingers moving on the strings with a speed that looked nearly impossible to her. Seth was amazing on guitar, she thought.

  She looked at Derric. He was smiling at her. “Pretty cool, huh?” he said. “Next September I’ll take you to the festival. There’s gypsy jazz all over town. Seth’ll probably be performing.”

  The idea of next September warmed Becca throughout. For a moment, even, she forgot about Laurel, about British Columbia and the town of Nelson, where her mom was setting up their home. It was enough to think of next September and being with Derric. They’d listen to the music together. They’d sit shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand.

  He took hers, as if sharing her thought. He twined his fingers with hers, leaned over, and said, “Thanks.”

  She looked at him. “What for?”

  “Everything.” He kissed her.

  The softest lips, the sweetest breath, she thought. She wanted the kiss and the evening to go on forever.

  “Think Mrs. Grieder’ll care if you come over for Thanksgiving dinner?” he asked her, close to her mouth, so close that she wanted him to kiss her again. Which he did when Becca said Mrs. Grieder wouldn’t mind at all. And then he added with a smile, “What about Christmas?”

  Becca felt light-headed. It was a special moment, and she promised herself she would never forget it.