Siren

by Tricia Rayburn

  “And you’re never closed.”

  “And we pool the tips.”

  I nodded. “So the staff has to deal.”

  “Through me. I’m the buffer, the filter, the translator, whatever. If Z comes running in here screaming about a slow dish, I come running in after her to calm her down.” She paused with one hand on the swinging door. “I’m great at my job—that part of it anyway—but even if I wasn’t, they’d still have to deal.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She grinned. “Our family owns the restaurant. Betty’s my grandmother.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, she was through the kitchen door.

  Thankfully, the morning passed quickly. I followed Paige’s lead the whole time, noting how efficiently she moved despite her slippery fingers. There were only two near misses: a coffee cup and bread dish, both of which I lunged for and saved from shattering.

  “How is it noon already?” I asked four hours later as we stood behind the bar, folding napkins.

  “Would you please go tend to your old-man friend?”

  Zara flew up next to us. My head throbbed instantly, and I wondered if I could be so anxious around a person that my frazzled nerves caused such an immediate, painful physical reaction.

  “Um, Z, kind of busy,” Paige said.

  “Um, P—no one’s busier than me. And I don’t have time or patience today for that guy’s stupid games.”

  “You never have patience. And you just have to know how to talk to Oliver.”

  I could tell Zara struggled with which bothered her more—that there was a customer she couldn’t win over, or that there was something Paige knew how to do better than her.

  Zara frowned. “I’ll try one more time. If he doesn’t bite, I’m over it. For good.”

  Paige spread the napkin she’d been folding across the counter, rested her elbows on it, and grinned. “Ready for a break?”

  I leaned against the counter next to her. “Who’s Oliver?”

  “Zara’s archnemesis.” She turned to me. “Sorry. I sounded pretty happy about that, didn’t I?”

  “Overjoyed, actually.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said, watching Zara zigzag through the room toward an older man with hair whiter and frizzier than Big Poppa’s. She checked her watch. “Twelve oh two. Right on time.”

  Zara stopped a few feet away from the table. She tightened her ponytail and adjusted her apron. Her shoulders lifted and dropped as she took a deep breath.

  “Oliver is the one customer she can’t get,” Paige said. “He comes in at the same time every day and always sits in her section. She’s done everything—offered complimentary meals, discounts, a bigger table even though space is money and he’s always by himself. Seriously, she’s given it everything she has.”

  “Why doesn’t he sit in someone else’s section?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know. We’ve offered, and he refuses. But the best part is his reaction. Look at what he does when she tries talking to him—it’s classic.”

  We were too far away, and it was too noisy to hear—but there was no mistaking his reaction, which was to completely ignore her. She spoke, then waited. Spoke again, and waited again. On the third attempt she seemed to point out breakfast suggestions on the menu lying on the table, and when that didn’t inspire conversation, she scowled at Paige over her shoulder.

  “It’s like she’s not even there.” Paige sighed happily.

  It was true. Not only did Oliver not say anything, he also stared out the window like Zara was one of the tall potted plants displayed throughout the dining room.

  I grabbed another napkin and resumed folding as Zara stormed toward us.

  “Uh-oh,” Paige said.

  Zara had stopped in the middle of the room. She leaned down and listened to one of her customers, whose frown and full plate of food indicated a problem.

  “This isn’t going to be good—she’s already fired up.” Paige turned toward me. “Congratulations, Vanessa! You’re being promoted.”

  My hands froze mid-fold. I didn’t want to be promoted. I didn’t even really want to work there. I just wanted not to be me for a few hours.

  “I need you to take Oliver’s order. He’ll want two slices of whole-wheat toast with grape jelly, a boiled egg, half a grapefruit, and a cup of Earl Grey. Super easy. Just smile and let him tell you himself.”

  “Louis!” Zara shouted. “Did you wake up this morning, smile at yourself in the mirror, and think how glad you were to work at IHOP?”

  “Paige,” I said as she walked backward toward the kitchen door that still swung back and forth from Zara shooting through. “I don’t think—”

  “Gotta go!” she called behind her as the shouting escalated in the kitchen.

  My eyes stayed on the swinging door until it slowed to a stop. Knowing I had no choice, mostly because I liked Paige and didn’t want to disappoint her, I turned and headed across the room; before long I stood where Zara had moments ago, clutching a notepad and pen.

  “Oliver?” I said this so quietly he probably wouldn’t have heard me had I leaned down and spoken two inches from his ear. And even that was doubtful, since I could see a small brown hearing aid peeking out from a patch of white fuzz.

  It took about ten seconds for his eyes to find me. They landed first on the mermaid logo swimming along my apron and lingered there, expressionless, before traveling slowly up.

  He didn’t look happy, but at least he was acknowledging me. Bolstered by the progress, I smiled wider.

  “Hi,” I tried again, proud when I could actually hear myself.

  His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to consider how to respond.

  I glanced once more toward the kitchen door. My heart lifted when the door swung open, but dropped again when another harried-looking waitress emerged. I turned back to Oliver just as he finished fiddling with his hearing aid. I was about to introduce myself as Paige’s friend but refrained when his eyes grew from suspicious slits to stunned discs.

  “Whole-wheat toast, right? With grape jelly? And a hard-boiled egg and a cup of tea?” I plowed ahead, determined to get out of there. “What kind was it again—chamomile? Lemon? How about I just bring you every flavor they have, and you can choose?”

  He stared at me, and I willed his eyes to blink. When they didn’t, I held his gaze and slowly reached down for the menu. My fingers hovered a half inch above Betty’s lunch specials when he slapped one hand down.

  I jumped back. The dining room buzz softened, and nearby diners watched us curiously.

  His eyes were as big as Frisbees as he lifted the menu from the table. He held it toward me and pointed to the small print at the bottom of the page. I hesitated before leaning forward to read what he wanted me to, trying not to notice that his pointer finger was gray, and peeling at the knuckle, and shaking.

  “Earl Grey?”

  His finger vibrated sharply, then tapped the menu once.

  “Earl Grey,” I repeated, backing away. “Great. I’ll get that order in right away.”

  I spun around and bolted for the kitchen door.

  “You don’t seem to understand what your mistakes can do to us.”

  I grabbed my head as I pushed through the swinging door.

  “The woman is allergic to cheese!” Zara yelled. “Pass-out, fall-to-the-floor, rush-me-by-ambulance-to-the-nearest-ER-before-I-die allergic. And what do you do? Fill her omelet with American and pour melted cheddar on top.”

  “That is today’s omelet special,” Louis shouted back. “If the woman didn’t want cheese, she shouldn’t have ordered it. Or maybe her waitress didn’t fully explain to her what was in today’s omelet special?”

  “Okay, people,” Paige yelled above both of them, banging a wooden spoon against an empty pot. “We have neither the time nor the manpower to continue this stimulating debate. The woman saw the cheese before she ate it—no harm, no foul. Louis will whip up the omelet of her choice, and Zara will apolo
gize and comp her meal.”

  I hurried behind a counter as Zara charged through the kitchen, her dark ponytail flying behind her.

  “I got Oliver’s order,” I said when Paige turned to me. “Where do I—”

  “You got Oliver’s order?”

  I paused. “Yes?”

  “You are a rock star.” She grabbed a tray from a table behind her. “Others have tried, and no one has succeeded but me. And now, you.”

  I eyed the tray when she placed it on the counter in front of me. It was Oliver’s order, right down to the steaming cup of tea.

  “I wasn’t positive he’d take to you—which says nothing about you, but loads about him—so I put in the order as soon as I came back here.”

  “Great,” I said. “But are you sure you don’t want to take it out?”

  “I should stick around until Z comes back. Sometimes the aftershocks do more damage than the main event.” She started after Louis, who was banging pots around the stove top. “Oh, and you might want to ask how his writing’s going, or compliment his drawings.”

  I was about to ask what she meant when Zara burst through the door again.

  “Okay, let’s try this—it’s very complicated,” Zara yelled across the kitchen. “She wants a mushroom and spinach omelet. I’m no chef, but I’m pretty sure that means eggs, mushrooms, and spinach without American, cheddar, or Swiss.”

  As Louis banged around even louder, I lifted the tray from the counter and moved toward the door. Keeping an eye on the water splashing in the teacup, I somehow made it through the dining room without knocking into anyone or dropping anything. I was so relieved to be almost done with the task I didn’t notice the notebook and charcoal pencils spread across Oliver’s table until I put down his plate of toast.

  “How’s the writing going?” I glanced at the open notebook. The pages were filled with small, messy script, but I managed to make out the bigger words across the top. “‘A Complete History of Winter Harbor, Volume Five? I didn’t know there was that much to know about such a small town.’”

  Oliver yanked the notebook toward his chest, revealing a sketch pad underneath. His gray, shaky pointer finger jabbed the sketch pad, and my arm jerked in surprise, sending a few drops of steaming water over the teacup’s edge. When my eyes fell to the drawing, they grew as wide as Oliver’s.

  Because the drawing clearly depicted a very specific place that was impossible to imagine unless you’d been there.

  Chione Cliffs.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I DON’T GET IT,” I said to Simon at the beach the next day. “I mean, I don’t get going in water so deep your feet can’t touch the ground without your head going under—but what I really don’t get is voluntarily going in water that could pull you out and suck you down as soon as it hits your ankles.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want the surfing lesson I booked for you today?” Simon sounded disappointed.

  I looked at him. “You booked me a surfing lesson?” He didn’t know everything about the accident two years ago, but he knew enough not to sign me up for a repeat performance.

  He smiled. “Yes. And after that we’re going skydiving. And bungee jumping. And if there’s time, we might try walking through fire.”

  “Glad I wore my flame-resistant Nikes.”

  He gave me a small smile, then started walking toward a cluster of cars parked down the beach.

  I followed him, thinking again how happy I’d been to hear his knock on the back door two hours before. The Subaru hadn’t been in the driveway when I returned from Betty’s in the early evening yesterday and didn’t appear again until almost midnight. As soon as I saw it, I was able to relax enough to lie down on the couch and try to sleep. My eyes had snapped open at five, and by six I’d showered and lowered the volume on the TV and radio so I wouldn’t miss Simon if he knocked. He’d come over at eight, bearing more smoothies and egg sandwiches. By eight thirty, we were in the Subaru, heading toward Beacon Beach, Caleb’s friends’ favorite surfing spot.

  And now we were going to find out if his friends knew anything we didn’t.

  “It’s messed up,” a guy in a wet suit was saying as I neared the half circle of beat-up Jeeps and pickups. “He just took off. Zack went to go pick him up for this barbecue we were having, and he wasn’t there.”

  “And there’s been nothing since then?” Simon asked. “No calls? E-mails?”

  The guy—his name was Mark, which I remembered from a picture of Caleb and his friends that Justine had taken last summer—shook his head. “Nothing. Not a word. We just figured it was too much for him.”

  “Too much?” Simon asked.

  Noticing me there, Mark nodded toward me. “This cutie your girlfriend?”

  “Actually—” I started, my cheeks warming.

  “So you’re, like, crazy in love,” he continued before I could clarify Simon’s and my relationship. “You open your eyes in the morning and your first thought is her. You wonder how she is. What she’s doing. When you can see her again. Those thoughts stay with you all day. You share them with whoever will listen—including your best friends, who of course respect you but, after a while, out of the kind of concern only real friends have, seriously question your sanity. And you make all sorts of plans—big plans, like, post–high school—when the rest of us can barely wrap our heads around the fact that we only have two years left to get a clue.”

  “I sound obsessed,” Simon said, reaching over to tug gently on my ponytail.

  “You have no idea.” Mark bent down and lifted his board from the sand. “You live and breathe this girl. You talk about her all the time, you hang out with your friends less and less, you’re blind to other girls, no matter how hot or into you they are—and some of them are extremely hot and into you—and eventually, you break and actually say you love her.”

  Simon looked down, suddenly interested in the multicolored rocks at his feet.

  “Not only that, you tell your friends you love her. Which, as you know, is about as major as you can get.”

  “I’m obsessed and a sap.” Simon nodded. “Backbone, anyone?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Mark said with a shrug. “Your friends aren’t. They might think you’re a little out there, but they know you wouldn’t be for any other girl. It’s just because it’s her. She’s different.”

  I felt my face turn pink and silently reminded myself that Simon and I weren’t really the couple in question.

  “Anyway, this girl is it for you. Food, water, oxygen, sleep—all details. All inconsequential.” Mark sighed and looked toward the water. “And then she’s dead. Done. Gone. Washed up like a fish.”

  My knees gave slightly. Of course that’s where the sweet story was going, but just like the way it really happened with Caleb and Justine, the tragic twist still seemed to come out of nowhere. “And then what?” I asked, mostly because Simon was watching me carefully, and I wanted to let him know that I was okay.

  Mark turned back to us. “And then you run. Because the only thing worse than her being gone is that you’re still here.”

  Simon paused, apparently trying to understand the perspective of someone who had spent much more time with his brother than he had in the past year. “But why not hang around your—my—friends? And family? And everyone else who cares about me? Why just disappear without saying where I’m going?”

  “If she was gone,” he said, nodding at me again, “would you really want the looks? The questions? The nice but pointless attempts at sympathy? Especially from people who really no longer knew you as you without her?”

  I tried to process this. Caleb had loved Justine. Not just liked her. Not just enjoyed having a reliable make-out partner. Had Justine felt the same way? And if he was so important to her, if they were so important to each other, why had she done her best to convince everyone that their relationship was just a casual summer fling? She’d even hung out with several guys from Hawthorne Prep during the school year; i
f she’d felt that strongly about Caleb, why bother with anyone else?

  “No, I guess I wouldn’t,” Simon said finally, pulling me back into the conversation.

  “Dude, what are you waiting for?”

  Three guys in wet suits, looking simultaneously excited and exhausted and dragging their boards in the sand behind them, made their way toward us.

  “If you don’t get out there soon, it’ll be too late,” one of the surfers warned Mark.

  Simon looked to the water, his internal weatherman alerted.

  “Hey,” the surfer said, noticing Simon and clapping him on the shoulder. “Bummer about Caleb’s girl, man. He’ll be back once the fog lifts.”

  “It’s insane out there,” another surfer continued. “The waves were about half the size twenty minutes ago, and they just keep coming faster and stronger and higher.”

  “Is that normal?” I asked.

  “Not even close,” Mark said.

  “They’re big even for winter waves, when colliding fronts really stir things up.” Simon eyed the water warily.

  “Well,” Mark said, attaching the strap at one end of his board around his ankle, “hats off to global warming. Bad for mankind, great for Maine-kind.”

  “Just one more thing,” Simon called after Mark as he started for the water. “Did you know Caleb quit the marina last year? And was working at the Lighthouse?”

  Mark stopped short. “What?”

  “We talked to Monty a few days ago. He said Caleb stopped showing without warning last summer. He found out where he went from one of the Lighthouse backers.”

  Mark exchanged looks with the other surfers, who’d all dropped to the sand to recover.

  “You didn’t know?” Simon prompted when they didn’t say anything.

  “No,” Mark said, continuing toward the water. “And I’m surprised to hear it, considering how hard Caleb tried to keep the Lighthouse dark.”

  “He went to every town board meeting for a year,” one of the surfers explained. “He made flyers, talked to the papers. He even started a petition and went door-to-door, collecting hundreds of signatures. He was so against the Lighthouse coming—he thought it would destroy the town and put people like Monty out of business. He even met with the money guys, all by himself. He cornered them at one of the town meetings and wouldn’t let them leave until they agreed to a lunch.”