by Annie Cosby
“Are you saying you would stay if I asked you?” I said.
We were looking each other in the eyes, but he was the one that finally backed down with a small laugh. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re eighteen. I believe what’s meant to happen will happen.”
I looked at the cabin wall. Decorated with gaudy prints of birds and pheasants. “I don’t think I buy that,” I said. “That only leads to a life of idleness. I’ve been waiting for things to happen all my life. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
We lapsed into another silence.
“Let’s not talk about the future anymore,” I finally said. I burrowed down beneath the blanket. He pulled his arm out from under my head to dig something out of his pocket. It was the tin whistle.
It reminded me instantly of my conversations with Mr. Hall. I wanted to tell Rory everything I’d heard, every single thing Mr. Hall had said, but it seemed too big for me to get my words around. And I was way too scared to broach the topic of his own mysterious parentage. I finally ventured forth with, “I never knew her first name.”
“What?”
“Mrs. O’Leary. I never knew her first name was Lia.”
“Yeah, short for Cordelia. But everyone always called her Mrs. O’Leary, for as long as I can remember. Even Mr. O’Leary.”
“You knew him,” I said, as I watched his fingers deftly twirl the whistle around themselves.
“Yeah, but I was just a little kid when he died. He taught me to play this,” he indicated the whistle, “but I don’t remember him much.”
“The way Mr. Hall tells it, Mr. O’Leary sounds kind of mean.”
Rory shrugged. “He really loved her, and she loved him. But sometimes that isn’t enough.”
Love not enough? This struck me the wrong way. “When isn’t that enough?” I said.
He thought about this. “Well, when somebody belongs somewhere …” He struggled with his words. “I guess you just have to be where you belong … Mrs. O’Leary never felt like she belonged here in Oyster Beach.”
“That sounds just like … she told me something once,” I said.
“Oh yeah? She tends to do that a lot.” He was trying to lighten the mood.
I smirked. “I mean something that didn’t ring true to me.”
“Yes that is odd, her stories are always so realistic.”
I laughed outright. “You know what I mean! She seems so open and accepting of everyone—and everything. But then one day she told me, completely seriously, she said, that we need to let things be in their places. Even me. That everything has a place.”
“I think so, too.”
I looked up at him seriously. “That doesn’t make sense. That just sounds like an opportunity to tell people to go back to where they came from. Doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t be here?”
“Oh, Cora,” he sighed, his eyebrows scrunched up. “Where you belong is not necessarily where you came from. It’s wherever you want to be. That’s where your place is.” He paused, still flipping the whistle absently. “And I don’t think our place is always where we expect it to be.”
I moved my cheek to his chest and thought about his words. Maybe I’d misunderstood Mrs. O’Leary. She wasn’t telling me I belonged with Owen Carlton and other heirs, she was telling me I needed to figure out where I felt I belonged.
I fell asleep to the sound of the tin whistle and the feeling of Rory breathing, his chest rising and falling below my cheek as he tried to play quietly.
Chaillfidh Seamus Ar
Seamus’s Shed
The next morning, Rory woke me up by gently kissing my forehead.
“No,” I moaned. “I want to sleep.”
“We have to get up now; I have to go to work.”
Work. The Ritzes. My stomach plummeted from whatever glorious dream I’d been in.
He set about tidying everything and returning things back to their proper places, just how we’d found it, while I put my damp clothes back on. Then he went to the front office, replacing the key ring and dumping the wet towels in a big bin. Nobody was there manning the desk yet.
Really dodged a bullet there, I thought. I couldn’t imagine facing kindly Mrs. O’Brien with tousled hair and rumpled, barely dry clothes. Talk about the walk of shame.
“You want to see Mr. O’Leary’s shed?” Rory asked.
I hesitated only a moment at the thought of running into one of the Ritzes. I nodded and felt high as a million clouds as we walked down the boardwalk hand-in-hand. I defied a Ritz to say anything about this—or the boy I was holding hands with. I secretly hoped someone from the big houses would see me as I walked into the Ritz yard with the hired help.
But no one was around. Mr. O’Leary’s shed was near the back of the property, a dark, one-room, wooden building. There were a few roof tiles missing; it was obvious this little building hadn’t been kept up—the inhabitant had probably always been too busy keeping up the rest of the property to work on his own little corner of it.
Rory led me inside, where four bare walls stood over a sea of boxes. There was a high wooden counter that ran the length of the room, a mess of tools and things spread along it. There were nails all over the wall above it, but all were empty now. Opposite the counter there was a group of iron chairs and a workbench arranged in a circle. And boxes—boxes everywhere.
“What are the chairs for?” I said.
“This was like his den,” Rory explained. “He used to have company here. His friends, like Mr. Hall, and townspeople would visit. He had all kinds of stuff here—not just work stuff. And it was decorated and everything.” He paused and gestured toward the door. “There were posters all around there. And he kept a lot of personal stuff here. I don’t know why he wouldn’t keep it at home. Like these animal skins.” He picked something leathery up from a big wooden trunk that was under the counter. “There’s another smaller one just like it. Mr. Hall said there used to be three, but one was lost a long time ago. They were Mr. O’Leary’s most prized possessions—worth a lot, I guess.” He put it back and picked up a big knot of fishing wire. “He kept a lot of his fishing collection here, too. This, on the other hand, can’t be worth anything.” He dropped the tangle back into the trunk. “I think this was his home away from home.”
“Did Mrs. O’Leary ever come here?” I asked.
Rory shrugged. “I don’t know; I doubt it. I think it was kind of his place to get away from everything at home. He used to bring Aidan and me here when we were kids. But I don’t remember ever seeing her here.”
I gazed thoughtfully around, trying to imagine what it must have looked like, what it must have been for the mysterious fisherman. If the Ritzes ever appeared here to give instructions, orders. I somehow doubted that a Ritz would step foot in here. He brought Aidan and Rory here, but none of the other O’Brien children? They were younger than the rest, it made sense. But the things Mr. Hall had implied wouldn’t leave me, either. I wondered if Mr. O’Leary had been in here shortly before his boat went down. Maybe it was the last place he was—collecting his fishing stuff before departing. Never to return.
“Anyway, I’ll be done here in a few days,” Rory said. “I’m going through everything. Broken stuff gets tossed in a pile for Mr. Hall to look at. Everything else boxed up, cleaned up, moved out.”
“Moved out where? Who’s taking all his stuff?” I asked.
Rory shrugged. “Somebody suggested selling it.” He put a foot on the big wooden trunk. “There’s gotta be a fortune’s worth of junk in here. Mrs. O’Leary could use the money. She doesn’t seem interested in any of this stuff, but who couldn’t use extra cash?” He threw me a glance. “Well, you know what I mean …”
But it made me uneasy. Mrs. O’Leary had money stuffed in books in her little house. Who knew how much of it. Did she really need the money? What would she need it for? Apparently Rory didn’t know about the stashed cash.
“So will I see you tonight?” Rory broke into my thoughts.
> I grinned. “Only if you want to.”
He didn’t answer, but slipped his arms around my waist and kissed me. Then he pulled away. “I think I do,” he said.
I headed for the door. “Meet me somewhere at eight?”
“The jetty?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t until I was outside the Pink Palace, shoes in hand, last night’s damp clothes smelling a bit like must, that I realized I was in for round two. My parents. It had been a long time since we’d had a fight of this magnitude. This time, I was determined not to give in as easily as I usually did. This was about the rest of my life. I took a deep breath and began to climb the back stairs.
But I was wrong. When I passed my father in the kitchen, he didn’t say a word to me. He may have been giving me the silent treatment, but it wasn’t a whole lot different than our day-to-day interaction. In the living room, Mom was suspiciously quiet, lifting a few fingers in greeting. That could only mean that the wrath of my father was still on its way.
I stayed carefully away from them, and the next day, I was too consumed in my own world to notice whether my father was talking to me. I had big plans with Rory.
I slipped out of the Pink Palace around nine that evening and met him at the resort.
He was sitting on the edge of the pool, watching his brother Aidan clean the water with a net on a long pole. The pool was closed. We’d purposely waited until after dark when it closed to resort guests. There was just a sliver of the moon out tonight; it lent an eerie effect to the reflections on the water’s surface. Almost sinister. But that interpretation was probably produced more by my imagination than any grounding in reality.
Rory jumped up when he heard my footsteps on the boardwalk.
“Hey!” he said brightly. “Come meet my brother Aidan.”
“We met briefly,” I said, putting on as friendly a face as I could. It probably wasn’t very convincing, considering the nerves that were clenching my stomach.
“Hi,” Aidan said. As I’d noticed before, he was a mini Rory. Only a bit shorter and with slightly darker hair. And, of course, he was considerably quieter. I found myself wondering which brother was more like Mr. O’Leary.
Rory was beaming, but Aidan and I were both clearly out of things to say. I watched Aidan pull the pole apart and stow it in a wooden cabinet at the side of the pool. Seriously the polar opposite of Rory. They were twins to the eye, but he was the introverted, quiet opposite to Rory’s friendly exuberance. Who must their mother have been to produce such similar, yet strikingly different boys?
“Thanks, for, uh, cleaning the pool,” I said lamely.
Jesus, shut up, I chided myself. He’s not the pool boy. Well, technically, he may have been. But God he had Rory’s eyes—the same exact big, round, brown eyes.
Aidan nodded absently. “Good luck,” he murmured before disappearing into the resort office. I blushed profusely. How embarrassing to be known as the girl who couldn’t swim. He could probably swim every bit as well as his older brother. His older brother who was already getting into the pool.
“Come on!” he called happily.
It looked cold. But that was a lame excuse. I finally settled on, “Rory, I’m kinda scared.” And not completely comfortable in a swimming suit, but I wasn’t about to admit that out loud.
He waded to the side of the pool and held his hand out to me. “Sit down.”
I pulled off my shorts and t-shirt and unconsciously hunched over, shrinking into myself. What happened to that confident, flirty girl in the Ritz pool? She’s definitely gone.
I sat down on the side of the pool, lowering my feet in with a gasp. It was, indeed, cold. I took his hand, goose bumps running up my arms and legs.
“You have nothing to worry about; you’ve got the best teacher in Oyster Beach,” he said.
I nodded. I was full of a thousand emotions and I didn’t know which one was evident on my face. I was scared, of course; my mother’s irrational fear of losing another loved one to the mysterious power of water had definitely had a dark effect on me. I was embarrassed, too, not just to be in a swimming suit in front of this gorgeous boy, but to not know something so typically childish. And I was angry. I was angry at her for messing this all up for me. Gretel. She was nothing to me, not even a real person, but she’d caused so much pain. If she hadn’t gotten into that pool and drowned, who knows what would be different now? I certainly wouldn’t be in this position. Maybe we wouldn’t even be at the beach. Maybe my mom wouldn’t have been such a tight ball of nerves and generally crazy for the entirety of my life. And I would have had a sister. A small pang pricked at my tummy. She had never been a real person to me. But she could have been. She should have been.
“You ready to get in?” Rory said.
“How about you swim a little first?” I tried to stall. “Just so I can see what it’s supposed to look like,” I added lamely.
“I think you’ve seen me swim enough, it’s your turn to try.”
I looked at him sharply. Were we finally going to broach the subject of my—well—those mornings at the pier? “You—?”
He let my unfinished question fall to oblivion. His face said it didn’t matter; my face was undoubtedly saying I was confused. His hand in mine felt like electricity as I remembered those mornings back when I didn’t know him. It had been a long time since I’d thought of that time; it felt so unnatural to remember a time when I didn’t know Rory.
“So, are you ready to get in?” he repeated.
I took a deep breath and nodded.
He put his hands on my hips and lifted me into the pool, pulling me slowly through the water to the middle. It was like flying, fluttering free through the water, yet held so firmly to him.
He stopped in the middle, standing up, but my feet just barely grazed the bottom. I wouldn’t let go of his hand. We had a long night ahead of us.
“We’ll start with floating,” he said.
We were wrapped in the same towel, perched on a lounge chair and kissing softly when Aidan appeared again.
I jumped up, self-consciously pulling the towel around me. Rory laughed as my flustered reaction pulled the fluffy towel off his shoulders. God he was hot when his hair was wet and sticking up in all directions, after he rubbed it with the towel (and my fingers may have contributed a bit, too). It also helped, of course, that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
I grabbed my clothes and tried to pull them on without letting the towel fall. My suit was still damp but I was too embarrassed to even look Aidan in the face, much less strut around in a swimming suit.
“What’s up?” Rory asked him.
“Mom’s looking for you,” he said. He eyed me awkwardly struggling with the towel and my t-shirt. “And she wants to know who you’re with.”
“I—we’ve—I’ve met your mom,” I stammered.
“I’ll be right in,” Rory told Aidan.
Aidan grinned and left.
Maybe I wasn’t an Olympic swimmer. And maybe we’d spent more time kissing than actually practicing swimming. But maybe that was all I needed. The pool wasn’t a sinister thing anymore, not after the night I’d just had in it. It would forever be associated with Rory’s hands and his laugh.
“Meet me at the pier tomorrow?” I said, as I left.
“Always,” he said.
I passed Aidan near the office on my way out. He barely looked up from the book he was reading by the beam of a porch light. I hesitated; my instinct was to say something but he seemed more like the type of person who was a lot happier with as little conversation as possible. A little like me.
I finally resolved on a simple, “Bye.”
“Maybe next time you guys will actually get around to swimming.”
I grinned. He was all jokes. Maybe he wasn’t so different from Rory, after all.
Briseadh Isteach agus Briseadh Amach
Breaking In and Breaking Out
Princess was the only one that jumped up to greet me when I wa
lked in the door. Granted, she was the only one to ever jump up to sniff my shoes, but the silence was alarming that night. Maybe they had been sitting there in the dining room in perfect chilled silence the whole evening, or maybe they’d seen me coming, but that’s how both my mother and father were when I entered.
And then I realized they weren’t alone. Captain Harville was there, standing awkwardly between them by the table.
He looked about to speak, but throwing a glance at my parents, he realized the delinquent wasn’t to be treated with congeniality. Instead he just nodded a quick hello. He looked extremely uncomfortable.
“Hi,” I said brightly, hoping to break the tension.
“Where have you been?” Dad said by way of a response.
“I was just—”
“We don’t need to talk about that,” Mom said gently. “Right now.” She took a calming breath. “Captain Harville came to speak with you.”
“It needn’t sound as formal as all that,” Captain Harville said. He held his hat in his hand and twisted it nervously. “There was a break-in down at the Ritzes’ and I was just doing the rounds of everybody who may know something, may have seen anything unusual around the Ritz house recently.”
I froze. A break-in? Had someone seen us at their pool? We’d left everything exactly the way we’d found it. But it was still trespassing.
“When did it happen?” I said, willing my voice not to break.
“Last night.”
I let out a deep breath, willing my cheeks to go back to their normal color. We’d been nowhere near the Ritz house last night. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know anything. I don’t hang out with the Ritz kids anymore.”
“That’s not why he’s here,” Dad cut in sharply. “Actually that’s exactly why he’s here. As a matter of fact, if you were friendly with that family, he wouldn’t be here at all. He’s here because you’re so damned friendly with that handyman Ritz hired.”
“That has nothing—”
“Officer, what was it that was broken into, exactly?” Dad said pointedly.