“Me, too.” On Anna’s party and on Hannah’s costume. Granted, times were different than when she was sixteen, and of course the situation was entirely dissimilar, but throwing a party like this for Anna was beyond her wildest imaginings. “I appreciate it. All of it. Thank you.”
“I’m not finished. This one’s a special order.” She made a little hoopla of coming up with a second, smaller flower box and extracting a solitary blood red hibiscus, which she tucked behind Hannah’s right ear. They both looked in the mirror and nodded approval—it was like a Hawaiian tiara.
“Special order. You mean someone sent it to me? Like a hostess gift.”
That Grady. . .
Lyndsey grinned eloquently. “You only get a flower for behind your right ear for one reason. And a big, bright one like that is practically screaming it.”
“What? Screaming what?”
“That you’re single and ready for romance and marriage.”
Her arm swung up to attack the flower but Lyndsey caught her wrist.
“Who sent it?”
Shaking the aggression out of Hannah’s hand the woman reached in the small box and withdrew the card. “It says Wear it. Love, Joe. Is this someone who wants to be your boyfriend? Or is he a boyfriend who wants to talk marriage?”
“He’s the pain in my ass who wants me to find someone and live happily ever after.”
“Well, the way you look tonight that very well might happen. Now, I’ve got several more things to do so if you don’t need me any longer I’m going to leave you. Come down any time in the next fifteen to twenty minutes. We serve fruit punch to the teens, but there’s beer in the kitchen if you’d like. You look great. So relax and enjoy the party and . . . let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Lyndsey left, creating a vacuum of silence and stillness in the room that made Hannah incredibly nervous—like waiting for the other shoe to drop or like lighting the fuse and waiting for the explosion. You begin to wonder if the fuse fizzled out or if it was wired incorrectly; if the explosive got wet or if everything is fine and you simply need to be patient one or two seconds longer.
Anna would be the other shoe, the explosion . . . or the atomic meltdown if this wasn’t something she wanted. With one last glance in the mirror, she hesitated and then freed the bloom from behind her ear. “Very subtle, Joe, but it’s the last thing in the world I need right now.”
She couldn’t toss it in the trash—too pricey—so she’d float it in one of the table bowls in the front yard with the others, the cost of which she wouldn’t think about.
“Daddy? Where are you?”
“I’m here, baby,” Grady said, responding to the panic in Lucy’s voice—grabbing his keys and heading for his front door. Chest tight. Adrenaline pumping. “Where are you?”
“Anna’s party. Why aren’t you here?”
His steps slowed but his heart continued to race. “Oh. I thought I’d stop by later for some cake. I didn’t want to put a damper on all the fun.”
“No, I mean, why aren’t you here with the other cops?”
“What other cops?”
“That new Deputy Jenx and Freddy Murphy.”
“Don’t call him Freddy, honey, he doesn’t like it.”
“Oh, yeah . . . well, shutting down Anna’s party and arresting the neighbors and half the kids from the high school seems like a real Freddy thing to do, if you ask me.”
“What’s he doing?” Grady’s staff consisted of ten full-time deputies and nine part-time. Fred Murphy was full-time, sensible, and trustworthy, which is why he’d partnered him with the new deputy—to show him around and teach him the ropes. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not okay. They’re ruining Anna’s party . . . not that it wasn’t way weird to begin with, but Anna didn’t want to hurt Hannah’s feelings because you could tell she’d gone to a lot of trouble. They cooked a pig in the front yard and everything.”
“They . . . Why?”
“Then Deputy Jenx said the torches were illegal and wanted to arrest Hannah, but the party lady said they were hers and that the Open Air Burning Guidelines for the Commonwealth of Virginia were being followed to the letter.” An involuntary laugh. “She’s a piece of work, Dad. The first time the cops came because someone complained about the noise so she went door-to-door inviting all the neighbors over for birthday cake. And they came. We were actually starting to have some fun. The Ripley kids started all the trouble and then the cops showed up again. It wasn’t Cal’s fault, I swear.”
“Cal? Why are there Ripley kids there? Look, I’m right around the corner. Where are you now?”
“Across the street. Hannah said invite anyone who might want to come, and I guess they overheard us talking about it yesterday at the track meet or something because they showed up a couple hours ago, and at first it was okay because we didn’t know half the people who showed up anyway but Biscuit said he thought they might have stuff in their cars. You know, like stuff to drink and pot maybe, because they started yelling and saying nasty things to the dancers and . . . Oh! There you are. I see you now.”
Grady dragged his gaze from the mingling mob ahead of his cruiser to scan the other side of the street for his daughter. She waved and started walking toward him in a hurry, her slim young body graceful and . . . beautiful in fact, in the colorful sarong that wrapped around her and tied at the back of her neck. He endured a crimp in his heart at this sudden vision of things to come and swallowed the urge in him to command her to stop growing up.
She still talked to him via her cell phone. “ . . . I couldn’t tell if that guy pushed her first or just said something, but Cal jumped him and Hannah staggered backward . . . he was only trying to help her ask the Ripley kids to leave, but then she tripped on the hem of her dress and fell into one of the fat Hawaiian guys who was carving the pig; he was caught off guard and started tipping forward over the food, waving his big knife around at these two old ladies who showed up from down the block; they screamed, one ran off in one direction and the other one threw her plate of food up in the air, some of it landed on her face and I guess she couldn’t see because she bumped into the fat Hawaiian guy again and he finally fell face-first into the middle of the food table and she sort of bounced off him and fell in the fish pond. She’s screaming and then suddenly the table with the fat guy and all the food on it falls on the ground and he’s yelling and swearing. This all takes about two seconds it seems like,” she said to his face as she reached the vehicle and he got out to check her over, make sure she was in fact all right. They both flipped their phones closed and she went on. “Meanwhile, Cal’s fighting the Ripley kid who came with friends, so Cal’s friends had to step in, too and by the time the cops got here everything was such a mess . . . Anna covered her face and ran inside, up to her room. I think she was crying. I was going to go with her, but when I saw you weren’t here . . .”
“It’s good you called me, honey.” He slipped an arm around her shoulder to comfort her and noted the chill on her skin—and, okay, the amount of skin exposed. “Want my jacket?”
“Mine’s inside. I didn’t get cold until I left all the fires and the people to call you. And it wasn’t a half-bad party . . . well, pretty weird at first but once you got into it, you didn’t have to pretend to be having fun anymore. Even Stacie Wymer and Lilliann Ness said they were having fun and they never have fun anywhere. So . . . so don’t be too hard on Hannah, okay?”
He looked down at his daughter in surprise. “First off, why would I be hard on Hannah; and second, when did you start defending her?”
She shrugged. “I guess it isn’t her fault she’s Anna’s aunt from Baltimore and, it’s like Anna says, ‘she’s trying.’ ”
“Yes, she is,” he said, planting a proud kiss on the top of her head. “Come on. Let’s go see what’s going on now.”
Together they walked a hundred feet up the street to the back of the crowd. Unwilling to step in unle
ss needed, he assessed the situation quickly. No blood anywhere—that’s always a good sign and despite the fact that the James’s front yard looked like a typhoon hit it and it was now a . . . a South Pacific disaster area, people were having animated discussions and chuckling among themselves; righting chairs and collecting bowls and plates—some were clearly a moving crew.
Deputies Murphy and Jenx had eight young men, a miserable-looking Cal included, handcuffed and sitting on the curb in two groups of five and three—Ripley kids and Turchen County kids, separating them to keep the peace. Teenagers and a few adults were wandering off to their cars to go home. Some were heading into the house to change their clothes or to get their jackets. Most stopped to speak to someone standing on the porch. An enormous blue and yellow macaw blocked his view of her, but he didn’t need to see her to know who it was.
“Sheriff.” Fred Murphy, looking confused and concerned, stepped away from the witnesses he was interviewing and came toward him. Lucy made a huffy noise and departed in the opposite direction—hopefully to find her clothes. “Sorry to bring you out on this—”
He stopped when Grady held up his hand. “Not here as the sheriff tonight, Fred. Just a dad . . . and a friend. You seem to have all the hard work done anyway.” He motioned with his head to the teens on the curb.
“Yes, sir.” Then seeming to recall who Cal was, he stammered. “I—I . . . He . . .”
“I understand, Fred. Treat him like you would anyone else.”
“Nobody wants to press charges so I’m going to call their parents to come get them. Sometimes getting the parents out of bed and out here in the streets with their kids is more than just a wakeup call, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. It’s a good idea. And when all the others have left you can turn mine loose. Is he okay?”
Murphy glanced behind him at Cal, then turned his back more fully so no one could see what he was saying. “Little split on his lip. It’s stopped bleeding already. But the guy in the red shirt and his pal in the Grateful Dead T-shirt there are going to remember the feel of his fist in their face for a good long while. I think the one has a broken nose. Ambulance is on its way to check out both of them. Story is Red Shirt said something to the little Benson girl, it’s her party by the way . . . well, you know that. Anyway, your boy told him where to go and what to do when he got there and started moving the girl away when Red Shirt sucker-punched him. Then all hell broke loose, I hear. They said that big ass bird over there got upset and was dive bombing people for a while but I have this . . .” he looked at his notebook “ . . . Lyndsey Makel, the caterer’s word that it won’t hurt anyone and it’ll calm down when everyone else does . . . which I see it has.” He watched the bird bobbing on the front porch railing. “The aunt’s over there. She’s not taking this too well.”
So maybe this wasn’t a bad thing after all, he thought, veering off track a little. He’d been wondering how to provoke Hannah’s temper since she got here. She’d gone to a great deal of trouble on this party. Beyond the limits of any party he knew of for a teen . . . or an adult for that matter. He imagined she was seriously mad about this—fire-eatin’, ass-chewin’, head-bashin’ mad.
One last glance at Cal caught the boy staring at him, shamefaced and worried. It had to be hell being a sheriff’s kid. And Cal was no angel. He’d pushed and tested his limits like any other young man—harder a couple of times because he was the sheriff’s son—but certainly not as often or as far as he could have. And part of that refrain, he knew, aside from Cal being a good person in general was in deference to him—to spare him the embarrassment and concern.
Before walking away from Deputy Murphy he scowled over his shoulder at Cal, then winked at him and watched the tension drain from his posture. They could talk later.
He skirted tables and chairs and stood for a moment to watch two burly men load a palm tree on a tip dolly. Not something you saw everyday in Clearfield.
He nodded to people who spoke to him and patiently listened while the neighbors explained again what they’d seen and how the chaos had progressed to pandemonium. Several were elderly so he made sure the excitement hadn’t been too much for them and asked if they needed help getting home.
“I understand you’re the sheriff,” said a small blond woman in a Hawaiian dress who stepped up to him with a small covered plate with two plastic forks taped to the top. “I’m Lyndsey Makel, events planner for Anytime Party and Catering. Hannah wanted me to save this for you when the crowd started to expand, in case you didn’t make it in time: birthday cake for you and your mother.
“Now she’s agreed to pay for any damages incurred that our insurance doesn’t cover and between the two of us, we’ve decided we wouldn’t know where to start pressing charges against any of the guests . . . I mean, these things happen from time to time . . . more often at the Punk Rock–Heavy Metal karaoke parties, that’s true, but anywhere you have raging hormones—”
He showed her his palm to stop her and she stared at it as if she didn’t recognize it. “I’m not here in an official capacity tonight. I’m the father of two of the guests and a friend of Anna’s . . . and Hannah. I’ve come to see what I can do to help.”
“Oh. Well, we retain a cleanup crew that will handle most of this—”
“I meant, I’ve come to see if there’s anything I can do to make her feel better.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Anna’s upstairs with a—”
“Hannah.”
“Oh. Well, I doubt there’s much you can do but . . . well, just don’t get her started again, okay?”
“Started again?”
“She’s very upset.”
“Upset?” Once again he had visions of the fire-blue rage in a young girl’s eyes as she slammed Josh Greenborn’s face into the seat on the bus that long-ago afternoon. “She got violent?”
She frowned. “She said she might be violently ill, but once she started to cry she got over that.”
“She cried?” He remembered seeing her cry once, too. He craned his neck to see around the support pillar on the front porch. He curled his toes inside his shoes to keep himself from flying up the steps and taking her into his arms.
Even wretched, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Maybe because she was wretched and still smiling at guests and thanking them for coming on their way out of the house. But either way, for the second time that night, his chest filled with emotion and grew tight; adrenaline pumped through his veins and his muscles tensed for action. Yet where his path and actions had been crystal clear to him when his daughter called, this time he felt like a fish out of water, flopping and twisting around on the dock.
“Certainly not like I would have cried, God knows,” the blonde went on. “But her eyes got misty, and when Anna ran off I thought she’d lose it for sure, but . . . I think she’s holding out for all the guests to leave . . . so be careful.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as they turned away from each other. He spoke to a couple more citizens and then slowly but surely came to the bottom of the steps and looked up at her.
Stunning in the long red Hawaiian dress with the white-and-red lei, her skin smooth and pale, her healthy dark hair tucked behind one ear . . . it was her bare feet that did him in.
Hannah glanced down at him and while the fake but very convincing smile remained on her lips, the armor dropped from her eyes and she connected with her place in his soul as if she’d never been away—as if she instinctively knew she’d be safe there.
“Are you thinking of arresting me, too?” she asked, walking toward him like the goddess Laka or Pele or Hinakuluiau or one of those other goddesses with too many vowels in her name.
He shook his head—something stuck in his throat.
“Then don’t speak to me at all. Don’t tell me I screwed up.” He opened his mouth to contradict her and she stuck her finger in his face—his mother being the only other woman allowed to do so without remark. “And don’t try to make me feel bet
ter.” She reined in her finger self-consciously. “I knew it the moment I saw Anna’s face when she got here. I thought it was a little over the top, but Lyndsey assured me it was only a larger version of a small backyard celebration and not the equivalent of a Hawaiian circus that would embarrass and humiliate Anna in front of her friends. Not that it’s Lyndsey’s fault, at all. I take full responsibility. I gave her no guidelines, no . . . nothing. I just threw my checkbook at her and told her to throw a party and she did. She . . . she’s been great . . . aside from the broken window out back and that poor woman who landed in the koi pool, which wasn’t her fault either and . . . and the fight, of course, but how do you plan for those sorts of things?”
He glanced down at the thick lei of white and red flowers hanging around her neck and blinked twice as he realized the scent of it was filling his head, blurring his thoughts like smoke from a bonfire would distort his vision. Warm skin on skin, panting breath, power and passion—his mind spiraled.
“And Anna . . . God, she’s such a great kid, Grady. So tough. I would have jumped into that damn pig oven and died if it had been me, but she and Lucy both put on happy faces and tried to make the best of it to spare my feelings. Wholeheartedly, you know? They put on the sarongs, tried the hula lessons . . . ate poke, for God’s sake.” She bobbed her head a little, distracted. “Lucy’s hair clashed a little with her pareo but she was great.” She refocused; he tried to. “Just great. She’s a great kid, Grady. Anna’s so lucky to have her. When the fight broke out that stupid bird went berserk, and they were on the porch trying to calm it down and then everything went to hell in slow motion. The bird swooped by my head and I looked over at Anna, her eyes were huge. She was in complete shock”—Hannah sliced the air in front of her with her hands—“everyone was screaming at once—the guy in the food, the lady in the pool, the cops, the bird, Anna’s friends, the neighbors . . .” She sighed, deflated. “She just covered her face and ran inside. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to face her. How can I possibly apologize for all this? Me, of all people, inflicting this on her. I spent my whole life in this town miserable and ashamed and embarrassed and trying not to draw unwanted attention to myself so I wouldn’t stand out like some sort of freak and—”
What Happened to Hannah Page 22