by Lucy Kevin
“How did you get into filmmaking?”
“You know how they have screenings at the old theater in town? My sisters used to take me to everything that played, especially the black and whites.” Her expression softened as she talked about her childhood and her family. “What’s your favorite movie?”
Joel shrugged. “I don’t really have one. I’ve never watched a lot of movies.”
Her eyebrows went up. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I didn’t have four older sisters taking me to see movies,” Joel pointed out.
“But movies—” Hanna still sounded like she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. “—they’re such an important form of storytelling.”
“And storytelling is important to you, isn’t it?” His family had always been more concerned with making sure that he stayed grounded in the real world and that he followed the “rules” of that world, but clearly, the Walkers had encouraged Hanna to dream.
“Of course it’s important,” Hanna insisted. “Not just to me, but to everyone. Stories are how we understand things. How we make sense of them. How we pass ideas on to other people. Without stories, we probably wouldn’t know half of what we do.” She studied him over the rim of her mug. “When was the last time you went to see a movie?”
“Last year, maybe?”
“In that case, maybe you and I should go sometime?”
Part of Joel wanted to accept her invitation right there and then. But there were the archives to think about, among other issues. Like the fact that her family had betrayed his and had been enemies ever since.
Pushing back his chair, he said, “If we don’t get to the historical society soon, we won’t be able to go at all.”
The archives were in a small annex next to the island’s library and they decided to leave his car and walk over from the cafe. But they were only halfway there when the sky split open with rain again, the wind even stronger than it had been before.
And wouldn’t you know it, they were standing right in front of the movie theater when the storm came again, fierce enough that they’d be doubly soaked if they kept on walking. Hanna took hold of his hand, pulling him back in the direction of the theater.
“You see,” she said, “even the weather wants you to see more movies.”
“It’s certainly determined to push the two of us into cover. But what about the archives?”
“Come on Joel,” Hanna said. “It will be fun, and the archives will still be there when we’re finished.”
The theater was showing the classic Bogart and Bacall movie The Big Sleep. Apparently, though, film noir wasn’t all that popular on the island, because there were only a couple of other people in the theater. It made the whole place seem bigger—just him and Hanna while the Raymond Chandler story played out in front of them.
The movie was okay, Joel decided, but more than half the time, he found himself watching Hanna rather than the screen, unable to look away when her lips moved in synch with some of the lines of dialogue.
“There’s a lot of symbolism in this next part,” Hanna whispered at one point. “Not just the usual noir stuff of dark lighting to show the hidden darkness of the city, it’s all about…sorry, I shouldn’t be talking over the movie.”
“No, that’s fine,” Joel whispered back.
Would she be surprised if she knew how much he was enjoying being with her, especially while she was utterly engrossed in something she loved so much? Enjoying it so much, in fact, that when the movie ended and the theater manager announced that an obscure Japanese monster movie would be screening next, and Hanna’s face lit up, Joel almost decided to stay for a double feature.
He had never seriously considered the possibility of watching plastic monsters crush Tokyo—let alone alongside Hanna Walker—until that point. Yet he actually did consider it, at least until he looked at his watch and saw how late it was.
“Hanna, the archives.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Hanna said. “I guess we’ll just have to catch it another time.”
Another time. Joel actually found himself smiling at that thought as they made their way out of the theater and back down the street to the archives.
He had a key, and let them both in. Inside, there were rows and rows of shelves holding hundreds of boxes. Benjamin and the others from the historical society did their best with the cataloguing and interpretation, but plenty of the documents there still weren’t in any real order.
“This is amazing,” Hanna said, clearly marveling at the sheer volume of files.
“If you’ll let me know where you’d like to begin, hopefully it won’t take me too long to find what you’re looking for. Despite how disorganized it looks, there’s actually some rhyme and reason to it all.”
“More perfect chaos,” she said with a smile, and then, “Why don’t we start with the police reports of Poppy’s death, along with the papers for the business sale.”
He was pleased by how quickly he was able to find the reports. Hanna made some notes on the buyout, but the police report was what she really stared at for a long while.
“Is there a Coast Guard’s report on Poppy’s missing boat?”
Joel looked for one, and found it after a couple of minutes of searching. It didn’t say much.
“They didn’t find her body,” Hanna said, her camera still trained on the reports, just as it had been since they’d begun to comb through the historic documents. “And they never found any sign of the boat, either.”
“It’s a big ocean,” Joel pointed out.
“It is.” But Hanna didn’t sound convinced. “But Poppy’s poem…do you think it was a suicide note? Milton says she was too happy, and the poem talks about new starts, not death. What if we have this all wrong? What if everyone has it wrong?” She paused then, looking deeply concerned, as if she didn’t want to have to ask the question they were both clearly thinking.
Their eyes were locked on one another’s as he spoke them aloud. “What if she isn’t dead?”
CHAPTER NINE
“But that’s just…you can’t be right.”
An hour later, sitting with her sister and grandmother on the living room couch, Emily was reacting to the idea that Poppy Peterson might not have passed away in 1951 pretty much the way Hanna had suspected she would. For her part, Ava was listening quietly from an armchair. At least she wasn’t brushing it all away as nonsense.
It was just the three of them for the moment. Rachel had taken Charlotte to a sleepover, while Paige was teaching a late class at the studio. Before Hanna had gone away to college, this would have seemed far too quiet. It had actually been pretty tricky getting used to having her own place when she left for school.
“Seriously, Hanna,” Emily said, “you can’t just go around coming up with ideas like this to make your documentary more exciting. I mean, what if someone sues you?”
“Who would sue me?” Hanna asked, slightly amused for once by her sister’s overprotectiveness. “I’m not libeling anyone. The idea that Poppy might be alive doesn’t imply that anyone else has done anything wrong. Maybe just the opposite, in fact.”
“What about Joel Peterson?” Emily suggested. “I bet he wasn’t pleased when you started suggesting this about his great aunt.”
“Actually,” she told her sister, “Joel’s the one who asked the question.” But she’d already been thinking it.
“Given how emotional this all is for him, I think he’s being really reasonable about everything.” Then again, it wasn’t always easy to figure out what Joel was feeling and thinking. Especially when it came to her. There were moments when it seemed obvious that he was attracted to her, yet even when they were completely alone in the attic, and then the cave, he hadn’t done anything. She’d felt his eyes on her at the movie theater too, but again, he hadn’t made a move.
“A Peterson being reasonable?” Emily said. “That would be a first.”
“You don’t know him,” Hanna insisted.
“I know his family has held a grudge against us for sixty years. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
“You don’t know all the facts,” Hanna shot back.
“Neither do you.”
“Girls.” Ava didn’t need more than one word to stop them. “What have I told you about fighting over this?”
“Sorry Grams,” Emily said, “but Hanna, this sounds less and less like you’re making a simple documentary. It seems that you’re determined to dredge up everything you can with an investigation that no one wants. And now you’ve even started adding in parts that can’t be true.”
“Why can’t it?”
“Poppy Peterson drowned,” Emily insisted.
“There’s no direct evidence of that. We know she took a boat out in a storm. We know she didn’t come back. No one found her or the boat. Plus there are other inconsistencies.” Like a suicide note that seemed far too hopeful to be written by someone who was planning to end her life.
“Don’t you think that if there were inconsistencies, someone would have picked up on them at the time? If there had been any suspicion about it, don’t you think people would have looked into it?”
“I only know that it doesn’t look right, so I’m looking into this.”
Emily stood up. “You’re impossible sometimes, Hanna.”
Her oldest sister walked out, going through to the kitchen. Hanna could hear her pulling a tin of flour out of the pantry to begin baking. It was what she always did when she was annoyed.
“I’ll talk to her, honey,” Ava promised. “Right now she can’t see that this is the path you have to go down. But I do, and I’ll find a way to get her to understand that.”
“She thinks that I’m still a little girl who she can tell what to do.” Hanna couldn’t keep a trace of anger out of her voice.
Ava moved to sit next to her. “Your sister did a lot to look after all of you after your mother passed away. Do you think that she’s going to stop caring just because you’re all grown up? Emily just wants what she thinks is best for everyone.”
“And then gets angry when she doesn’t get what she wants.”
Ava shook her head sharply. “That’s not Emily being angry, Hanna. She’s just worried, that’s all. Maybe she’s even right to be, a little.”
Hanna looked straight into her grandmother’s warm eyes. “Are you saying I shouldn’t do this?”
Ava smiled. “We’ve had that conversation. You know I think you should follow your dreams, no matter what. Now, I’m going to go talk to your sister.”
“This would be a lot easier if you’d talk to me, Grams, by telling me what really happened.”
Ava put a hand over hers. “We’ve had that conversation, too. You know I can’t do that, sweetheart. You wouldn’t want me breaking my promises, now would you?”
Hanna could remember when she was a little girl how she’d been able to say anything to Ava, secure in the knowledge that she wouldn’t tell anyone else. When her grandmother promised something, she kept that promise. No matter what. Grams wouldn’t be Grams if she went around telling secrets.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Her grandmother gave her a kiss on the forehead before she headed into the kitchen, just as the front door opened and Paige and Rachel walked in, both looking tired: Paige from her dance class, and Rachel…well, she seemed tired and stressed out pretty often.
“Emily’s baking, huh?” Paige said as she looked through to the kitchen. She was dressed in tights and a leotard, the way she so often seemed to be. On the rare occasions she dressed up to perform, it came as a shock even to Hanna just how beautiful her sister could be. “Which means the two of you have been fighting, haven’t you. Is it about your documentary again?”
That was the thing with having so many sisters. The odds on keeping anything a secret for more than a few minutes were pretty much nonexistent.
“I just said that I think there’s a chance Poppy Peterson might not have died and she freaked out.”
“Well,” Rachel chipped in as she sat down on one side of Hanna and Paige sat on the other, “saying that Poppy might not be dead is a pretty big bomb to drop on everyone.”
Rachel was the next eldest after Emily, and had always been gorgeous; yet these days she didn’t seem to have the confidence that should have come with her position in the family and her looks. Even the way she dressed, in plain clothes that wouldn’t matter when little Charlotte made a mess of them, seemed designed to avert attention.
“I know it is, but even Joel didn’t react half as badly to the idea as Emily did.”
“Joel Peterson?” Paige asked.
“And it’s just ‘Joel’ now?” Rachel said. She and Paige glanced at one another. Hanna could guess a lot about that look, or maybe it was just the way she was feeling about him that made her feel they could see right through her.
“There’s nothing going on between us.”
“But that’s not for want of you wishing there was, right?” Paige guessed with a smile.
Hanna could feel herself starting to blush, and that was just as telling as anything she could have said.
“We’re not blind, you know,” Paige said. “We can see the way you look every time you mention him.”
“She’s had a crush on him since school,” Rachel added. “Used to follow him around everywhere.”
“I’m right here, you know.” She thought about standing up and walking out, but not only would that have been childish, it also wouldn’t stop the others from just following her. Anyway, it was almost a relief to be able to talk about Joel.
“Is this just an extension of the crush you had on him when you were younger?” Paige asked. “I mean, he’s quite a few years older than you.”
“Seven years isn’t that big of an age difference,” she protested, “and this isn’t some schoolgirl crush.”
And yet, it was only as she said the words aloud that Hanna realized just how strong her feelings for Joel were growing.
“Plus, he’s a Peterson,” Rachel said.
“Who cares?” Hanna exclaimed, more frustrated than ever about the family feud that had taken over the island in the 50s and only seemed to grow in power with every decade that passed. “Do either of you actually think that there’s something wrong with Joel just because he’s a Peterson?”
“Well, no,” Rachel admitted. Paige also shook her head.
“It seems to me like half the time, everyone is more concerned about what they think we ought to be feeling than with what we do feel.” Hanna turned to Rachel. “Joel told me that when you had parties down near the bluffs, you’d keep to the opposite end of the party from him. Did you do that because you hated him?”
“No, but he was still a Peterson. I mean, it’s just…there, isn’t it? In any case, does he feel the same way about you?”
Hanna hesitated. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Maybe.”
“He hasn’t said, or done, anything though?” Paige asked.
Hanna shook her head. She’d come back to the house tonight so excited after finally looking through the historical documents in the archives, yet now she felt on the verge of breaking into tears. Paige and Rachel seemed to sense that at the same time, because they both reached out to put an arm around her.
“Just because he’s holding back now, doesn’t mean he will hold back forever,” Paige assured her. “You’re amazing, Hanna. He’s got to see that.”
But Rachel, in typical Rachel style, took a different approach. “And if things go wrong, we’ll be here for you.”
Emily came back in then, but before Hanna could say anything, Paige let her know, “We’ve just been talking about Joel...and Hanna’s feelings for him.”
Emily simply stared at Hanna, before finally saying, “Couldn’t you pick someone better to have a crush on?”
“It’s not a crush!” Hanna insisted again. Just because she was the youngest didn’t mean she didn’t know what was inside her own mind and heart
. “You don’t know him, Emily. He doesn’t have what we have together. He doesn’t have a family to support him, to laugh with him, to cry with him. Can you imagine how lonely that would be?”
“There are days when I think it would be quieter,” Emily said with a faint smile. “But yes, I can see that it would be hard to be all alone like he is. Still, though, I just don’t see how it can work between you. Not with all of this family history, and all of these issues with Grams and what happened to his great aunt in the way.” Emily paused and pinned Hanna with a very serious look. “Is this part of why you’re so adamant about continuing to work on the documentary? So that you can be close to him?”
“Of course I want to be close to him,” Hanna said, knowing there was no point in denying that now, “but even if he doesn’t end up feeling the same way about me that I feel about him, I’d still need to finish my research and filming. Because I’m not the only one who needs to know what happened. Joel needs to know too, and I just want to give him the truth. I want to give all of us the truth, whatever it turns out to be.”
“Come on, Emily,” Paige said. “Lighten up a little.”
“You can see how she feels about him,” Rachel agreed.
Emily sighed, but sat down next to them all on the sofa. “I still think that this is a really bad idea. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Any of you.”
“Hadn’t you noticed?” Rachel said. “We’re all grown up now. We get to make mistakes and get hurt.”
“And we also get to make seemingly crazy choices,” Paige added, “like Hanna falling for Joel, that might end up being the right ones.”
“Looks like I’m outvoted then,” Emily said.
Hanna knew that no one but her actually got a vote on her love life. Still, it was nice to know that her sisters approved. Or, if they didn’t exactly approve, they were at least willing to back her up.
Had Joel ever had that kind of support? Had he ever had anyone willing to go along with him even if they thought he was wrong, the way Emily was? Or to fight for his choices like Paige and Rachel had? Or to love him through right and wrong the way Grams did, no matter what?