Seven Tears into the Sea (15 page)

“No, but—are you sure you couldn't see anything?” Nana asked. “Bringing your own insights to it could be helpful.”

“Oh, Nana, quit!”

Thelma slammed back into the kitchen, propped one black canvas shoe up on a kitchen chair and retied her laces. I was amazed she was flexible enough to do it.

“I need you to do some raking,” she declared. “For the big bonfires on the beach, we'll all contribute garden trimmings. I've left a rake just your size,” she nodded to me, “out there. Just gather any loose bits of brush down toward the beach. Start in front and work all the way toward the back.”

And so I did, wondering if the bonfires I remembered as a child could really have been so huge. Of course they couldn't. Not if people had actually jumped over them.

I thought of my auburn hair loose and a dress like the white one I'd borrowed from Nana. Both flying around me as I jumped a bonfire. How cool would that look?

Safety-Dad would have a fit, except he wouldn't be here. He was camping in Colorado. There was no way he could stop me.

I'd worked my way from the front of the Inn, back to Nana's garden. It was in pretty good shape. There weren't many trimmings to rake up. I looked down at the sweep of white beach. They'd light the bonfires there.

I stopped. My hands tightened on the rake. Daring the flames, diving from Mirage Point, kissing a stranger on the beach—where was all this outrageous stuff coming from?

Would I even imagine doing those things if Jill and Mandi were here?

I looked over the white shore, saw it meet the rolling waves and broad blue sky. On Midsummer's Eve the sky
would be black, flecked with hot red sparks.

As we'd driven through Siena Bay we'd seen the banners for Midsummer Madness, and Jill and Mandi had promised to come back for it. After Jill got my message and talked to Mandi, I bet they would.

But what if Jesse stayed mad? After all, I'd given him a pretty good shove and called him a liar. Not to mention he'd thought I'd told him to sit and stay, like an obedient dog.

That had been my silliest mistake. Jesse was barely civilized, let alone a pet.

My mind veered back to the Midsummer competitions. Didn't the jumpers go in pairs? Didn't they hold hands?

I felt excited, then warm and lazy, as if my blood were thickening as I thought of Jesse's long legs and black hair, a little too shaggy. With him, I could soar over the flames.

“Sunstroke,” Thelma said from the shade. “That's the only excuse for smilin' when you're workin' so hard. Unless you're thinking about that boy.”

“What boy?” I asked automatically. Then, because she'd been the one to tell me his name, after all, I said, “Oh, Jesse?”

“That's the one. I was sweeping the upstairs hall and looked toward Cook's Cottage, and darned if he's not sitting on your front step.”

I held the rake straight up.

“You did?” My heart beat out of control. “He is? How long ago?”

“Pret' near three minutes,” Thelma said. “Long as it took me to come down and say it. Do you want me to take that rake, or are you planning to dance with it?”

I should have put the rake back in the garden shed, but if she was willing …

“Thanks,” I told Thelma. I started off then looked back at her.

Thelma had lied to the police about seeing me on Mirage Point, and I was beginning to wonder why. If she liked me now, she'd probably liked me then, but there were lots of reasons for lying.

Sometimes you lie to protect people.

S
COTCHBROOM
(Cytisus scoparius)

A
ttractive but deserving of its reputation as a garden bully, scotchbroom self-sows aggressively, where it's wanted and often where it's not. For hundreds of years it has been used for ritual witches' brooms. Trimming back with a weed whacker may keep it in check.

Just sitting on my step Jesse took my breath away.

His hands hung between knees canted out to the sides, and he smiled as if I'd brought Christmas.

He wore a long-sleeve black shirt, blue jeans, and he was barefoot.

“How's this for wearing clothes?” he asked.

I couldn't remember exactly what I'd told him. Something to do with me being less edgy if he wore a shirt. “It's great,” I said. “But you must be too warm.”

“
Clothes
are too warm,” he said.

I laughed. He might be flushed from heat, but he was trying to please me.

“I want you to go swimming with me,” he said.

“You didn't have to wait,” I said. “You could have left me a note.”

He considered his palms, then turned them down, examining both sides of his hands as if they were useless. “I can't write.”

Every missionary impulse I had, flared alive.

“Or read?” I asked because they seemed to go together and because he didn't seem embarrassed to tell me.

“I can read a little,” he said. “Signs and colors.”

When he pointed toward the highway, I swallowed hard. Logging trucks loaded with five-hundred-year-old redwood trees came barreling down this highway. If you didn't read the warning signs, the trucks would surprise you. I couldn't drown out the imagined sound of a truck horn blaring.

“But you can't read eyes,” he said in a pitying tone.

Is that what he did when he seemed to be reading minds? That wasn't possible, and yet I turned away, a little ashamed as I considered what Mandi and Jill would think of him. He wouldn't fit in—probably anywhere. But part of me—most of me—didn't care.

Jesse prowled away from my step. The nest over my head was silent as I watched him stare toward the highway that led to Siena Bay. There wasn't a car in sight so I didn't know what he was watching.

“Come swim with me,” he said. “Now.”

I would have agreed if he hadn't added
now
. I'd already gotten off on the wrong foot letting him kiss me as if he had a right to.

I wouldn't let him boss me around, but I studied Jesse and discovered I didn't want to fight him. Or change him. Why would I want to change a guy who took my breath away?

I liked the way he looked. I liked that he didn't act conceited even though I couldn't stop gawking at him. I even liked how he got his feelings hurt when I didn't believe him. He had some kind of integrity. And he'd promised to protect me with his life! Primitive, but it packed a punch.

With a scrape and a clang, a truck bottomed out taking a turn off the highway and onto Little Beach Road. My driveway. I saw a rooster tail of sparks where the oil pan scraped the asphalt and skidded onto the gravel.

Had Jesse heard them coming? Had he known they were headed for my cottage before he demanded I go swimming with him?

Raucous voices mixed with the cadence of rap, and I imagined they'd already been drinking. In fact, I imagined I heard the sound of beer cans, tossed in the truck bed from too many empty six-packs, tumbling around too.

Some movement in Jesse's neck and shoulders signaled a male on alert, like he was raising his hackles. He was totally focused on the guys, not on me. They had no
idea how ready he was for them.

Then I recognized the boys from the alley. Zack, Roscoe, and a guy who, as he climbed out of the truck, proved to be a really strange shape. Roscoe called him Perch, and that's about how he was shaped. Wide, but like he'd been steamrollered. He wasn't fat from front to back, just across.

Thelma had said Jesse used to be part of Zack's crew. Maybe it was seeing him that made them look at home as they started up my hill.

But maybe there were other reasons. Like, they'd hung out here before. Isolated, without streetlights or police cruisers passing by, the cottage might appeal to them.

I thought of the wet footprint. And the rusty razor.

Jesse said, “Get inside.”

His intentions were good so I didn't bristle at the order.

“I'm not afraid of them,” I told him.

Jesse gave me a frustrated look, but he didn't argue.

It would have been too late anyway. They were already there.

Roscoe and Perch looked surprised to see him, and a little uneasy.

That night in the alley maybe Jesse hadn't been hanging around with them. Maybe he'd been keeping watch over me.

But why? I meant it when I said they didn't scare me.
Perch might hurt me if he fell on me, and Roscoe had that little-dog attitude. I like little dogs, but it's as if they breed them down so that all of the nerves from a big dog have to be wound into a tighter bundle.

Zack was a little scary. Partly because of what Thelma had said, because I remembered the little kid beating his bike with a rock and launching an arrow at a sea lion. Partly because his shirt hung open just enough to show a really creepy tattoo.

A dagger pierced the vacant-eyed skull inked into Zack's skin. The words below it said,
CRY LATER
.

Zack must have misinterpreted my expression, because he was practically massaging me with his eyes.

Jesse stepped a little closer to me.

“Jesse,” Zack nodded, forgetting all about me.

There was none of that “my man,” hand-slapping stuff like guys do when they're glad to see each other. If they'd ever been friends, something had gone wrong.

Jesse's dark eyes touched each of the guys individually.

“Hi Zack, Perch, Roscoe.” He smiled, then, as if he'd remembered that crack I'd made about manners, added, “Do you know Gwennie?”

I cringed. He'd have to start calling me Gwen.

“Me and Gwennie go way back,” Zack said, and slouched closer to me, insinuating we'd been more than friends.

“We were both kids here,” I explained. Then I sat back down on my porch, hoping I could just fade out of this drama.

“Who woulda guessed pudgy little Gwennie Cook'd turn out so nice.”

I wanted to smack him, but that would be a bad idea. Jesse would pounce. I could see him watching me for a cue to jump all three of them.

Though Jesse looked stronger and smarter, three against one were bad odds. And I would bet they had knives.

I considered Roscoe's baggy pants. He could hide an Uzi in there, and no one would notice. Jesse's bravery would count for nothing against a gun. So I just stayed quiet, sitting on my porch, staring at nothing, as if I hadn't even heard Zack's leering remark.

Perch leaned into Roscoe's face and gave a burp. Roscoe reciprocated.

Forget the Uzi,
I told myself.

But Zack's eyes looked dreamy. Maybe he was stoned, but I think it was an act to make Jesse relax. It made my nerves crank up even tighter.

“Jesse was here as a kid too, you know,” Zack said.

This was news. I didn't trust Zack's sociable tone, but Jesse did. His killer stare turned friendly.

“Yeah, we bummed on the beach,
finding
wallets and spare change.” Zack winked at me then his mouth
turned down in a grimace. “He bought bait on the pier with his share. Anchovies, that cruddy bay shrimp, mussels, and ate 'em on our boat watchin'
Sesame Street
. Can you believe that?”

“
Sesame Street
!” Roscoe yowled.

“Yeah? You really got off on that baby show, Jess?” Perch asked.

“Couldn't get enough of it,” Zack said, and then his lower lip protruded. “He was always too good to sleep over, too.”

Living on a boat would be cramped. The television would be jammed between stacks of unpaid bills and a microwave oven. Food wrappers would be strewn over fishermen's boots and slickers, and it would be dark and smelly. Where would you do your homework?

And Zack's dad was rumored to beat him. I imagined Zack as that little blond kid I'd known, looking up as heavy feet crossed the deck overhead. He'd try not to cower.

Weak things aren't safe around him,
Thelma had said, but she'd been talking about Zack.

“I don't sleep indoors.” Jesse's matter-of-fact tone snapped me back to my sunny yard, but his thoughts had flowed in the same direction, because next he asked, “Does the old man still discipline you?”

Roscoe shuffled back from Zack. Perch licked his lips and gave a nervous laugh. Anyone could see this was
something Zack didn't like to talk about.

“Discipline” was an odd word for what must have happened on that fishing boat. Making low wages, drinking too much—after all, Red O'Malley's bar hadn't stayed open all these years because tourists dropped by for cocktails—maybe “discipline” was what Zack's dad had called it.

“He hasn't tried for years,” Zack said as his eyes narrowed. “Maybe you'd like to.”

Roscoe elbowed Perch as if they were gonna have some fun, now.

But Jesse missed the dare. “Why? Have you done something?”

“Not yet,” Zack said. He looked up as a shadow flitted overhead. “Hey, what's that?”