I opened the front door and closed it behind me, stopping for a moment to listen to the sounds of our house. RD loved me. I'd had sex and RD loved me. I almost stepped on Addie when I turned to go up the stairs.
"Where were you?" Addie sniffed. "You're not supposed to go out."
My heart felt like a drumbeat in my chest. "I went for a walk."
"Cassie? Addie?" Aunt Lucy called downstairs. I froze. She must have come home while I was out. Why hadn’t I checked the garage? "Are you girls up?"
Addie jumped up.
"Just getting a glass of water," I called as Addie leaned into me. I stroked her wild curls with shaking hands. What had just happened?
"Next time, take me with you. You never let me go anywhere with you."
"I just went for a walk."
"Promise me next time I go, too, or I'll tell Aunt Lucy, and no more lies. Promise." Addie talked to her hands, avoiding my face. I felt so guilty I reached out and touched the top of her head.
"I promise Addie, I do."
"Good. Can I sleep in your room tonight?" Addie asked.
"Yes," I said, taking her hand. Aunt Lucy stood at the top of the stairs. She had on Mom's blue, terrycloth robe.
"That's Mom's," Addie said, holding my hand even tighter.
"She's letting me borrow it." Aunt Lucy pulled at her belt as if it weren't tight enough. "I thought you girls were in bed."
"I was," I started to say, hoping she didn't notice my sweats.
"Cassie got me a drink of water. I was scared to go downstairs by myself," Addie said. Amazing. My little sister came up with an alibi like a pro. Aunt Lucy studied our faces; I held my breath.
"Well, goodnight then." Aunt Lucy went back into her bedroom. She was probably too tired to notice my clothes. Besides, she wasn't a mom. She didn't have radar. Addie and I went into my room and closed the door. She jumped right into my lavender double bed and pulled the covers up under her chin.
"'Night, Cassie." She closed her eyes while I took off my sweats and changed into pajamas. I took the clothes I'd worn in the boathouse and stuffed them in the back of my closet.
"You know," Addie said sleepily. "You should make less noise when you sneak out. I heard you."
I froze.
"If you're not careful, you'll get caught and then you'll be in big trouble." She yawned.
"You heard me? When?" Had Addie seen me outside with RD? Had she followed me? Did she know what I'd done in the boathouse?
"I heard you walk up the porch," she said. "You stomp."
The porch. She'd heard me coming back inside. I was alone on the porch. She'd only been up for a few minutes. This was getting way too stressful.
"'Night, Cassie."
"'Night, Addie-day." When I climbed into bed, Addie breathed evenly with sleep. I wrestled some covers away from her and closed my eyes. My mind kept taking me back to RD. I saw the ceiling rafters in the boathouse and the silhouette of the single, un-lit light bulb swaying against the window. I heard the sound of waves washing against the dock mixing with RD's breathing and the rustle of us moving in the darkness.
I floated above us in my mind's eye, looking down as if these things were happening to someone else. This was someone else's story. I silently cried as I remembered the feel of RD's breath against my neck, his lips on my face and his hands holding my arms as he moved inside of me. It all seemed like a dream. I felt like it wasn't me. If you asked me today, I'd say I wasn't even there.
Chapter 22
I woke up to Addie poking my shoulder with her finger. "Cassie. Cassie. Cassie."
"What?" I rolled over and looked at the clock. Ten o’clock. “What?” I jumped out of bed, yanking clothes out of my laundry pile. "I was supposed to be at work at nine! Why didn't you wake me up?"
Addie rolled her eyes. She stood beside my bed like a stalker. "You don't have to work today. Mariah gave you the day off because everybody feels sorry for us. Aunt Lucy wants you to take me to the Butterfly House."
I jumped up and down, pulling on jeans, my pajama top still on. "Nobody feels sorry for us," I said.
"They do, too, 'cause Mom's so sick and if she dies we'll be alone."
How could Addie just state the truth without choking?
And then I remembered the night before. Mom's broken glass on the kitchen floor. Aunt Lucy telling us about the allergic reaction. Sneaking out into the night with RD. My knees buckled and I hit the edge of the bed before I fell. I'd had sex with RD. Oh, my God. I'd had sex. In the back of my closet, my sweats from last night were balled up, crammed in the back like evidence of a crime. But it wasn't a crime, was it? I still had the note from RD after we’d kissed, was that safe to keep? "We should hurry since the butterflies nap later in the day,” Addie said.
"I don't think I'm up for the Butterfly House." I walked into the bathroom. Addie followed.
"Cassie! You have to. It will be fun. Aunt Lucy says Mom'll be home by the time we're back."
I wondered what that meant. When Mom came home, would she be herself again or would she have disappeared even more? My sister stood next to me as I brushed my teeth. Her curly, red hair was pulled back in two perfect French braids. I wondered if Aunt Lucy had done Addie’s hair while she watched cartoons just like Mom. My stomach tightened thinking of Aunt Lucy making breakfast for Addie and braiding her hair. She was slowly taking over Mom’s world. Maybe I needed to pay a little more attention to my sister.
I spit.
"Fine. Get dressed. And I'll go," I said.
Addie’s face lit up. “Okay, I’ll be super fast. Super duper.” Her feet thundered on the hardwood as she ran down the hall.
I went back into my room and took RD's note from my jewelry box, reading it for the hundredth time. His words calmed me, reminding me of how good it felt to be with him, erasing some of my confusion about what had happened in the boathouse. "You make the stars shine brighter." My body felt warm thinking about how he'd looked at me in the woods the first night we’d kissed. But we’d crossed a line, a voice inside me whispered. We'd crossed a line and now the note felt more like evidence than a keepsake. I had no choice. I ripped it into pieces and threw the scraps into the wastebasket by my desk. I wasn't going to make any stupid mistakes.
My cell phone rang. It was RD. I took a deep breath before I answered, but I still felt breathless. "Hi."
"Hey, how are you?" He sounded so normal, relaxed even. I could hear halyards in the background and the sound of his feet against the dock. I'd noticed that he paced when he talked.
"I'm..." I suddenly felt so embarrassed. Looking over my shoulder, I checked to be sure no one was listening even though my door was closed. "I'm taking Addie to the Butterfly House and then Mom's maybe coming home," I said. I didn't want to talk about the night before; I wasn't sure how to start. "I probably can't work on the boat with you until after, maybe tomorrow, even. I’m not sure what’s going to happen."
"That's cool. You've got a lot going on. Don't worry about me." Hearing RD be so calm, I felt stupid for feeling so mixed up about everything.
“Okay,” I said.
"I keep forgetting to tell you that I have your paycheck. If you’re going to be busy, I can just leave it at the restaurant for you."
My stomach dropped. Nobody knew I had a second job. I did not want RD delivering anything to the Hideaway.
"I know we never negotiated an hourly rate and I feel kind of weird about it," he said. "You know… what we did, what happened last night..."
I didn’t want to talk about what we’d done in the boathouse, not on the phone. "It’s no big deal,” I said. “And don’t worry about paying me.” My face felt hot.
“You know that’s not your job, Cassie. Being with you just happened…”
I froze at the sound of footsteps starting up the stairs, heavy feet, bigger than Addie's. "Aunt Lucy's coming. I gotta go.”
"Okay, we can talk later, but I’ll swing by the Hideaway now. It’s no problem."
I didn
’t have time to argue with him. “Okay, later then,” I said, hanging up just as Aunt Lucy half-knocked and opened my door. I needed to get to the Hideaway. I could not handle being caught lying to Mom about working for RD, not today.
"Am I interrupting?" Aunt Lucy had on shorts and, for the first time, I didn't think she looked as shiny. She had stopped ironing all of her clothes, which either meant she was loosening up or giving up. "Were you on the phone? You didn't have to get off."
"It was just a friend," I said. I wondered if she could tell from my face what I'd done the night before.
"Cassandra, before your Mom comes home, I wanted to talk to you..." Her voice trailed off. Aunt Lucy stared at her hands and looked sad, spinning a silver, braided ring around her finger. "We need to talk about the future." The word future paralyzed me.
"Cassie,” Addie called from down the hall. "Let's go!"
We both looked at the open door instead of each other.
"I should really take her," I said.
"We can talk about it later, I guess." She brushed off her shorts like they were dusty. They weren't. I guess she wasn’t that relaxed. "Thanks for taking Addie today. You girls need a little fun and I've got to get some things set up at the house before your mom comes home."
She got up and gave me a hug. "You're a good girl, you know that?" All I could think of while she held me was how disappointed she'd be in me if she knew the truth.
Addie wanted to go straight to the Butterfly House. "I don't know why we have to go to the stupid Hideaway. It's your day off. Mariah said you didn't have to."
"Addie, you can stay in the car. I'm just going to run in." Damage control. I figured the sooner I grabbed the paycheck I wasn't supposed to get, the better.
"Still, it seems dumb. A day off is a day off. If you always go in when you're not supposed to be working, it makes it seem like you're working."
"Please, Addie. Can you just let it be for once?" I parked and left her in the car, running up the hill.
"Hey, Cass, my fabulous co-server." Nick smiled when I walked into the restaurant. "We are so slammed." He squeezed my arm and ran into the kitchen. There were, like, five people. I could have served them all half asleep. This was no rush.
Mariah stood behind the counter, holding court with Harbormaster Bill and one of the regulars. I caught her eye and waved, trying to gauge from her expression if I was going to get the third degree about my moonlighting. Her face dropped when she saw me and I swallowed as she put down the coffee pot and made a beeline straight for me.
"I can explain," I offered.
"What are you doing here?" She hugged me, her fingers gripping my arms so tight it almost hurt. "It's your day off, you silly girl."
"I'm okay, Mariah. Seriously." A couple in a booth by the window hushed their voices. I wondered if they knew about Mom since the woman cocked her head to the side, her smile sympathetic. I hated this kind of attention.
"Did you do something different with your hair?" Suddenly Nick stood beside me, a stack of menus under his arm. "You look different."
"Nope, not a thing.”
"Einstein, go bus table four," Mariah said, nodding at a booth in the corner "Honey, your Aunt Lucy told me about your mom being in the hospital." Mariah held my shoulders at arm’s length and stared at me while she spoke using her serious voice. She even stopped popping her gum. "If you need anything... I mean it, anything. You call me, I don't care what time it is." She squinted her eyes. "Einstein's right. Something's different about you. Do you feel okay?" She felt my forehead.
Oh, my God. She could tell I'd had sex. Mariah could probably feel sex with her fingertips. "I'm fine. Did anyone drop anything off..?" I let my voice trail off, praying that she'd just throw me a lifeline. I didn't know what else to say.
"Oh, yeah, it was weird. RD came by earlier. Are you working for him?"
"No, not really. I just helped him one day and he insisted on paying me."
Through the kitchen door, we heard the muffled sound of dishes crashing to the floor. "Give me strength," she whispered, holding her forehead. "I put the envelope in the register. Go help yourself." She grabbed me and gave me a tight hug, followed by a quick kiss on the cheek. "Love you, precious girl. I gotta go clean up a mess." She sighed as she grabbed a towel and headed into the kitchen to help.
Mariah kept the key to the cash register behind the coffeemaker on the back counter. I looked in the drawer, lifting the cash box. A few receipts, a key to the freezer in the back, an extra house key to Mariah's I recognized from the hand-painted daisies she'd added. No envelope. Nothing. "Hey, Mariah! I called when she came out of the kitchen. "Are you sure it's here?"
"What?" She delivered two plates of pancakes to the worried-looking couple by the window. "Yeah, I put it there myself. It was..." She walked over and looked in the drawer. "Right there, but it's gone, honey. Crap, was it a lot of cash? I think I put it there, but you know there was a rush. Maybe I put it in the back? I'm sorry."
"I’m sure it's here." I pulled all the receipts out and lifted them up as if I expected an envelope to be attached to them.
"It was a light blue envelope and it had your name on it with a drawing on the back?" She shrugged. "I thought that was weird."
“Oh?” I imagined my name written in RD's careful, even script, and the drawing. My heart hammered. What if he'd left me more than just money? But he wouldn't be that bold, would he?
Harbormaster Bill sat at the counter eating a farmer’s breakfast. "So, what'd you lose?" he belted so the whole restaurant could hear.
"A paycheck," Mariah said. "Cassie's been working for RD."
“Worked,” I said.
"Maybe it fell behind the counter," Bill offered, taking another bite.
Addie was right. I should have gone straight to the Butterfly House. Now the entire restaurant was aware I had a second job, a job working for a guy that I was most definitely not supposed to be having sex with.
"It's nothing." I stood behind the counter, wishing I'd never come. "Really, you guys don't need to look."
"Look for what?" Nick asked, walking up behind me so quickly it scared me.
"Nothing," I said. I could feel the tension in my voice. "It's nothing, really."
Nick walked around the counter. He joined the search. "It's a blue envelope?"
Having the entire restaurant search for RD's paycheck was certainly not on my to-do list. Mariah checked under every item on the back counter and started opening silverware drawers. "Shit, Cassie. I'm sorry. I don't know. I thought I put it in there. Unless someone took it but, God, I usually lock that drawer." She leaned against the counter and looked at Nick and me, chewing her gum with a frenzied passion.
"Cassie!" Addie flung the front door open, the chimes ringing. "You said two minutes and now I have to pee."
"Fine! Pee!" I shouted at my sister. Head spinning, I wanted everybody to just leave me alone. "Please, just forget about it already. Addie, go pee and then we're out of here!"
The woman who had looked at me with sympathy earlier wrinkled her nose with distaste. I had lost my temper in a public place again, evidence to the world that I was unstable and, most likely, out of my mind.
Mariah looked at me with wide eyes. "Okay hon', we'll quit looking." She used that tone TV cops use when talking to a mental patient standing on the rail of a bridge. "If I find it, I'll call the house."
"No, don't," I said. I did not need Aunt Lucy or Mom answering a call about the job I wasn't supposed to have. “I’m sure it will turn up.”
Addie came out of the bathroom wiping her hands on her jean shorts. Nick leaned across the counter on his elbows. “Have fun on your day off you two,” he said, smiling at us both. “Going somewhere special?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes we are. The butterfly house.” Addie beamed.
“Cool, just the two of you then?” Nick asked, his voice searching. He glanced at me and then looked away. I could not believe that he was actually try
ing to mine for information about my personal life.
“So, that is none of your business,” I said. His jaw dropped. “And we have to catch a ferry. Bye Mariah. Come on, Addie. Lets go.”
As Addie and I walked down the steps to the car, I couldn’t help but think about how an imaginary boyfriend had changed the dynamics between Nick and me. It was as if the balance of power had shifted. For once, Nick seemed to be searching for my approval. I wasn’t the one hanging on his every word.
I’d have to invent an imaginary break up at some point, but for now I kind of enjoyed seeing Nick squirm for a change. Maybe making up a boyfriend that afternoon hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
Chapter 23
Aunt Lucy's silver SUV was parked in the drive when we got home that afternoon. We ran in the front door in time to see Aunt Lucy helping Mom upstairs. Mom looked so thin compared to Aunt Lucy. I could see the bones in her back sticking through her t-shirt. When had my mother disappeared? Where was she going? I thought back to her clothes in the weeks before learning she was sick. Bulky sweaters, long skirts, lots of layers even on warm days. She'd been hiding from us for so long that, now that we could really see her, it was like looking at a bright light that burned our eyes.
Mom and Aunt Lucy turned when they heard the creak of the front door. "Hey, girls." Mom stood on the stairs looking like she might fall over. "Addie-day!" Her face lit up when she saw my sister. Addie stood at the bottom of the stairs, all smiles. I saw her face tighten for a moment but her lips didn't even quiver. I could have hugged my sister for acting so brave.
"Hi, mama," she said.
"I just need some rest, peaches, and then Mom will be as good as new, don't you worry." Mom turned and took the next step, Aunt Lucy helping her.
It was all a lie and I knew it. Mom's words, Aunt Lucy's smile, Addie's hope. Every one of us stood there, pretending. We needed to believe we all believed. We'd built this house of cards together and none of us knew how to bring it down.
Lie to Me (an OddRocket title) Page 13