by Nora Roberts
a book deal in cooperation with Thomas David Bowes and his wife, and the media circus began anew.
As the new year began they all sat together in the front parlor, with a fire snapping, and the glittering holiday tree shining like hope in the window.
Harry made hot chocolate, and Mason sat on the floor with his fondest wish: a puppy that had greeted him on Christmas morning. He’d named the pup Kong after his favorite game.
It should have felt good, Naomi thought. The puppy, the hot chocolate, and the tree Harry said would stay up until Twelfth Night.
But something was wrong, and she felt it deep inside. So her chocolate sat, going cold in the tall mug.
“Harry and I have some news,” Seth began, and Naomi’s stomach knotted.
They’d be sent away. Too much trouble, all the reporters, and the people who walked or drove by to stare.
Someone had egged the house on Halloween, and worse, written on Seth’s car:
KILLER’S FAG KIN
Mama lost her job at the café because they found out where she worked, and the manager let her go.
“It’s big news,” he continued, taking Harry’s hand.
Naomi couldn’t look up, couldn’t stand to see his face when he said they had to live somewhere else.
“Harry and I are opening a restaurant.”
She looked up then, stunned. Felt the knots begin to uncoil.
“We found a great space, and figured it was time to have our own.” Harry winked. “We’ve even got the name. The Spot.”
“Spot’s a dog,” Mason said, and wrestled with the deliriously happy puppy.
“Not this spot. It’s The Spot because that’s just what it’s going to be. The spot everyone wants to go.”
“Where is it?” As delirious as the puppy, Naomi picked up her chocolate. “Can we go see it?”
“You bet. The thing is, it’s in New York.”
“You’re moving away.”
“We’re all moving. To New York City. The West Village. New place, new house, new start.”
Naomi looked at her mother, who only sat with her fingers twisted together.
“But you have this house. This is your house.”
“The one in New York will be our house. All of us.” Still smiling, Seth patted Harry’s leg. “Wait until you see it. It’s fabulous.”
“You’re moving because of us. Because of the people who won’t leave us alone.”
Before Seth could speak, Harry shook his head. “That’s not altogether wrong, not altogether right. I’ve wanted my own restaurant for a long time, and this feels like the right time, the right place. The fact is, it’s been hard for Seth to work while being bothered, and we both feel the house here? It’s closed in now.”
“We’ve talked it all out, Harry, me, your mama. This is best for all of us. If you don’t object to it, we’ll have your names changed legally to Carson. I’ve given my notice at work, and so has Harry. I’m not pretending when I say I’m pretty excited about this. I know you’ll have to change schools again.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Naomi sent Mason a sharp look in case he said different.
“And therapists,” Seth continued, “but we have good recommendations there.”
“I don’t need to go anymore. I don’t,” Naomi insisted. “I’d say if I did. If this is a new place and all that, I can be new, too. I want to cut my hair.”
“Oh, Naomi,” Susan said.
“I want to. I don’t want to look like the girl they’ve been taking pictures of. I can do it myself.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Seth gave his good laugh. “I draw that line. We’ll take you to the salon, and get it done right. She’s heading toward thirteen, Suze. It should be up to her.”
“They can still find us. But maybe they won’t if I don’t look the same. Mason already looks some different than he did, ’cause he’s bigger and his hair’s longer now. And it’s darker than it was. I don’t care what my name is, as long as it’s not Bowes. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, Mama.”
Susan said nothing, only continued to stare down at her hands, fingers twisting in her lap.
“Can Kong go to New York? I can’t leave him.”
“Mason, my man.” Harry snatched the puppy up from where it waggled. “This here is one urban-canine-to-be. Of course he’s going.”
“I know this is uprooting everyone, and it’s my doing.”
“No, Susie. I think they would have run us to ground sooner or later anyway. We didn’t take enough precautions. Now we will. New place, new start.” Seth grinned at Naomi. “New look.”
“When?” Naomi asked.
“The house goes on the market tomorrow, and the agent is champing at the bit. One way or the other, we move over your spring break. It’s a four-bedroom, so, Mason, you’ll have your own room. How about that?”
“Me and Kong!”
“You and Kong.”
“Can we have bunk beds?”
“Bunk beds it is. Naomi? You okay with this?”
“I’m fine with it. You can have friends over again. You’ll have to make some new ones, but you can have parties again. You couldn’t have your annual Christmas party this year or go out on New Year’s like you always do.”
Harry gave the wiggling dog to Seth. “Do you hear everything?”
“Mostly, I do. And Mama won’t go to the prison from New York. I know you’ve only been a few times since . . . since you signed those papers, but when you did you came back sad. New York’s farther away. The farther away, the better.”
“I’m trying, Naomi.”
“Mama, you’re doing so much better. Just like you said.” Out of love, and out of duty, Naomi got up to squeeze into the chair with her mother, wrapped around her. “This will be even better. I just know it.”
“New York, here we come?” Seth said.
“New York, here we come!” Mason shook his fists in the air. “Can we go to see the Knicks? Can we?”
“Nick who?” Seth said, and made Mason laugh and laugh.
—
The house sold within two weeks, and for ten thousand over asking price. They stayed busy packing up. And Naomi heard how Seth paid the movers extra to come at night, take things off in small trucks, a bit at a time.
In March, when spring break came with sweeping winds and some spitting snow, they left Georgetown in the middle of the night, like thieves.
She watched the house recede through the windows, felt a hard tug. But then she faced forward, flipped her fingers through the hair Seth had dubbed “Naomi: The Short and Sassy.”
A new look, she thought, a new place, a new start.
She wouldn’t look back.
Four
New York, 2002
At sixteen Naomi Carson lived a life Naomi Bowes could never have imagined. She had a pretty room in a lovely old brownstone in a city full of color and movement. Seth and Harry spoiled her with a generous allowance, shopping trips, tickets to concerts, and most of all with trust that gave her freedom.
She did her best to earn the indulgences. She studied hard, got exceptional grades—with an eye focused on Providence College in Rhode Island and a degree in photography.
They’d given her a little point-and-shoot Fuji for her first Christmas in New York, and her love affair began. Her interest blossomed, her skill improved—and netted her a serious Nikon for her sixteenth birthday.
With it, she’d joined the yearbook committee and newspaper at her high school as official photographer, and racked up experience and an impressive portfolio she hoped to use to get into the college of her choice.
She’d worked hard to lose her accent, wanting more than anything to be just like the other girls, to have nothing left of those first twelve years. Hints of it could slip through, but by the time she’d started high school, the slips were rare.
She had friends, dated now and again, though unlike most of her contemporaries she didn’t want a steady boyfriend. Too much d
rama, from what she’d observed.
And while she liked kissing—if the boy was any good at it—she wasn’t ready to be touched. Thought maybe she never would be.
She had let Mark Ryder touch her breast—she’d finally grown some, but accepted that they were never going to amount to much. She’d wanted to see what it felt like, but instead of making her excited, it just made her nervous and uncomfortable.
Mark hadn’t been happy that was all she let him do—and not much of that. Naomi figured that was his damage and ignored him when he accused her of being a tease, being frigid, being a freak.
At sixteen she hit five-ten—most of it leg—and was willow slim and pretty enough that boys wanted to touch her breasts. She’d let her hair grow to shoulder length, mostly so she could tie it back when she took pictures.
When she won a photography competition, Seth rewarded her with a trip to the salon for highlights and lowlights in her dark blonde hair.
Mason hit a growth spurt around twelve and was first-string center of his school’s basketball team.
Sometimes it irritated her to know that her little brother was smarter than she was. Sometimes it made her proud. Either way, he was whip-smart, good-looking, and affable. So he enjoyed the attention and admiration of the girls who fluttered around him, and he had a core circle of guys to hang with.
Days could go by without her giving Pine Meadows and all that had happened there a thought. For days she was just a regular teenager, worrying about her grades, her wardrobe, listening to music, meeting friends for pizza.
She kept in touch with Ashley, mostly through email. Ashley had never gone back to Morgantown and lost a whole year before she’d transferred to Penn State.
When she’d graduated, Naomi sent her a card and a framed photo she’d taken herself of a cherry tree full of pink blooms and promise.
On her twenty-first birthday, in the first spring of the new century, Ashley gave herself a gift. She took the train to New York to spend a whole day with Naomi.
Whenever she looked back at that day, Naomi remembered her own nerves—what should she wear, what should she say—and the speechless pleasure of seeing Ashley waiting, as promised, on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
So pretty, Naomi thought, with long, long blonde hair dancing in the crazy spring breeze. All the nerves, the sudden shyness, vanished the instant Ashley saw her, rushed to her, arms wide.
“You’re so tall! You’re taller than me. Half of everybody is, but I— Naomi.” She held tight, swayed back and forth, back and forth.
“You came. It’s the most special birthday there is, and you came here.”
“I’m having the most special birthday there is because of you. I wanted to spend it with you. I wanted to meet you here, even though it’s awesome corny, because I wanted to say that everything I can see from here is because of you. And I wanted to give you this.”
Ashley took a small wrapped box out of her purse.
“But it’s your birthday. I have a present for you.”
“Let’s save mine for later—over lunch maybe. I really want you to have this now, and here, high in the sky. You brought me out of the ground, Naomi, and now we’re standing high in the sky. Open it, okay?”
Overwhelmed, Naomi opened the box and stared at the pendant. Three thin silver chains held an oval with a purple iris suspended in its center.
“It’s beautiful. It’s just beautiful.”
“I have to say it was my mom’s idea. She said how flowers have meanings. This one, the iris, it has a couple of them. One of the meanings is valor, and another is friendship. You qualify for both. I hope you like it.”
“I do. I love it. Ashley—”
“Let’s not cry. I want to cry, too, but let’s not cry today. Let’s put the necklace on, and then you have to show me some of the city. I’ve never been to New York.”
“Okay. Okay.” It was as hard, she learned, to hold back happy tears as tears of misery. “Where do you want to go first? It’s your special day.”
“I’m a girl. I want to go shopping!” Ashley laughed as she helped Naomi fasten the necklace. “And I want to go someplace where I can have a glass of champagne at lunch. I’m legal!”
“I love you,” Naomi blurted out, then flushed. “That sounds weird, I—”
“No, no, it doesn’t. We’ve got something between us nobody else does. We’re the only ones who really understand what it took for both of us to get right here, right now. I love you back. We’re going to be friends forever.”
The therapist—she had gone back for nearly a year after her mother hit one of those deep dips—asked Naomi how she felt when she saw Ashley; Naomi said it made her remember the light.
Her mother worked as a waitress in Harry’s restaurant. She did all right—except when she didn’t. Her mother sometimes went into the dark, and forgot to remember the light. But she had a job, and when she went into the dark, Harry held the job for her.
Her doctor called it depression, but Naomi knew that as bad as depression could be, the dark times were worse.
In the dark times her mother took too many pills. Once when she’d taken too many she’d had to go to the hospital. She’d taken the too many pills right after Simon Vance’s book came out, and there were big ads for it all over the city.
He’d titled it Blood in the Ground: The Legacy of Thomas David Bowes, and all the bookstores had big displays. Vance, a serious man with a polished, academic style, hyped it all over the talk shows, did in-depth interviews in magazines and newspapers. In those interviews, on those talk shows, Naomi’s name came up as often as her father’s.
That tie, that blood and bloody tie, brought back the nightmares.
Whenever Naomi saw those ads, those displays, she knew a terrible part of her life beat inside them.
It made her afraid, and it made her ashamed.
So she understood her mother’s fear, her mother’s shame, and trod carefully.
But when her mother remembered the light, things were good, even simple. Her favorite picture was one she’d taken of her mother dancing with her uncle, at a party in the summer. The light had been good, inside and out, and her mother had looked so pretty laughing into her brother’s face. She’d given it to Susan, along with one she’d taken with a timer of her mother, her brother, and herself sitting on the patio of the brownstone in the springtime.
When the dark came back, and her mother needed to stay in bed with the curtains shut tight, Naomi would take her food on a tray. She’d know how deep the dark was if she saw those pictures lying facedown, as if her mother couldn’t bear the sight of her own happiness.
Still, weeks would go by—sometimes even months—when everything seemed as normal as normal could be. When it was all about studying or fretting over a test; bickering with Mason, who could be the bane of her existence; or wondering what she should wear to a movie date.
She was at the movies—not on a date, but with a big group of friends (and Mason with a group of his) getting ready to see Spider-Man. She had popcorn and an orange soda and settled down to enjoy the previews when the houselights dimmed.
Her friend Jamie immediately started making out with her boyfriend of the moment, but Naomi ignored them—and the smacking noises Mason’s group made in the row behind her.
She loved movies, and truth be told she liked movies like Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings more than the love stories her girlfriends sighed over.
She liked movies where people had to do something, overcome something. Even if it meant getting bitten by a radioactive spider to do and overcome.
The screen filled with the point of view of someone driving a truck. She knew about point of view from studying photography. A man’s point of view, she noted—one wearing a wedding ring.
She liked noticing the details.