The Butterfly Code

by Wyshynski, Sue

  “Mr. Lawyer-in-Training?”

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  Ella jolts into focus. “He what?”

  I stare at the menu, not reading it. “I liked him. No, I loved him. But … I guess not enough to move to Nebraska.”

  “Nebraska?”

  “He’s from there.”

  “And you didn’t want to go?”

  “It’s like he didn’t even see me—who I am. I’ve been invited to join the New York Philharmonic in the fall. The New York Philharmonic! How could he not realize how big that is?”

  “So? Long-distance relationship. People do it.”

  “Not Trey. You should have seen his face when I told him I had to stay.”

  “Lawyers make pretty good money.”

  “Ella! Seriously?”

  “What?” She grins at me.

  “Very funny. One minute you think you’re in love and the next you’re being asked to change and follow their rules, and pretty soon you’re living a life so far from what you intended you don’t recognize yourself anymore.”

  “That’s reality. We all give in at some point.”

  “Not me.” I’m one to talk as I sit here scanning the street for signs of Hunter.

  I’m not even sure what’s driving this desire to see him again. Is it because I’m curious about what he and Dad are involved in? Because I’m dying to know what he’d wanted to ask me? Or simply because I can’t stop thinking of his thumb dragging softly across my collarbone and sending electric sparks through my body?

  Maybe all three.

  The door bangs open, emitting steamy pancake-and-sausage-scented clouds. A harried guy with a pierced lip approaches, rag in hand. He throws the rag down and makes quick swipes across the damp enamel. An ant scuttles out of reach and escapes off the far side.

  With his free hand, the guy plunks down a set of salt and pepper shakers.

  Ella gives his bent, gel-spiked head an appreciative gaze.

  When he glances at her, she offers up a flirtatious giggle.

  “Your server will be out in a minute,” he says, and shoves the rag in his back pocket. He disappears inside.

  Ella sinks back in her plastic seat, watching him go.

  “Speaking of guys, what happened with Finn?” I say. “You split up?”

  She picks at a chip in the enamel. “Yeah.”

  I remember how she’d worshipped him. “Sorry. Well, it’s his loss.”

  Softly, she says, “I really liked him. Sometimes I look at my parents and I wonder if I’ll ever have that. You know?”

  From above, misty rays struggle to work their way through the cloud cover. My muscles are clenched with cold. I nod. The door bangs open.

  Our server takes our order and disappears back inside.

  “Anyway!” Ella says brightly. “What’s up with you? How long are you staying?”

  “I’m not sure,” I reply when a black SUV pulls into view. It slows. My heart starts racing. Could it be him? The passenger window buzzes down. A girl around our age with brown hair and freckles sticks her head out. I’m actually relieved.

  “Ella!” she yells. “What are you doing out there? Don’t you know it’s freezing?”

  Ella snorts and goes to talk to her. The rear window rolls down. All three girls in the car crane to look at me.

  I wave, self-conscious, wondering what it must be like to have the comfort of lifelong neighbors and school friends.

  Across the street, a touristy couple browses the postcard rack at the Whaler’s Gift Shop. Mismatched layers of clothing make me think they’re wearing everything in their suitcase at once. The woman shivers and tucks her hands into her armpits. The guy circles his arm around her. A minute later, they disappear into the used bookstore.

  Ella’s question burns through me. Is it normal I don’t want to get married? Am I becoming my parents, mimicking Mom’s refusal to marry Dad, or even live in the same town? Why couldn’t Mom fit him into her life? I know she loved him.

  So then why? What kept them apart? Had growing up in the foster system made her a loner? Or was it her genetic research? Could she have found her lab work so important that she didn’t want the distractions of a full-time family? She made time for me.

  If she were alive, I could ask her. Along with so many unanswered questions. Such as: What was she working on that was so important that people chased her down and killed her for it?

  Hunter’s a researcher. He may enjoy his work, but he couldn’t be like Mom. There’s no way I could imagine a guy like him dying for his job.

  Ella returns as our server brings out our food. Heaps of crispy fries in a paper-lined basket. Grilled turkey club sandwiches with ruffled leaves of lettuce. I wasn’t all that hungry, but now my stomach rumbles.

  “Hello, hangover cure.” Ella dives in.

  I spread mustard on my sandwich and take a bite. Between the salty bacon, turkey, lettuce, and tomato, it’s delicious.

  Ella gestures with a french fry at the spot where the SUV had been. “It’s like high school never ended. So anyway, I never got to hear what’s up with you.”

  We chat happily until the food is gone and a breeze rattles our table, sending paper napkins cartwheeling into the air. They fly away so fast I can’t catch them.

  Ella says, “Let’s go. You ready?”

  “Sure. Thanks for dragging me out, by the way.”

  “You’re like Gage. Way too focused on your projects. Someone has to pull you into the real world once in a while.” She shoots me a grin. “Even if it means eating lunch on the sidewalk like a pair of outcasts.”

  “I’ll be your outcast buddy anytime.”

  We pay and head for Ella’s Honda coupe. She fishes in her deep shoulder bag for her keys. This is not New York. No yellow cabs idle on corners, no crowds jostle their way onto buses, no pedestrians fight up and downstream. There’s no traffic at all. I’m in Deep Cove, that’s for sure.

  It’s wonderful.

  Overhead, the thunderheads have rolled inland. They loom like hunchback ogres, brooding in the distance.

  With a pop, the doors unlock. I climb in. Stale cigarette air blends with Ella’s familiar sweet perfume and clings to my face as she pulls onto the two-lane street. I crank down the window to let the breeze in.

  That’s when I hear it. The throaty roar of a powerful engine.

  I can’t see the car making it, but I hear it coming. The rumble grows, snarling as the driver downshifts. My pulse jumps, begins to pound. My eyes fasten on the vehicle in the distance, expectant. My mouth is open, my lips dry.

  Ella leans forward and snaps on the radio. A country crooner bursts through the speakers.

  It’s all wrong. It doesn’t match the car I can see clearly now, growing larger in the distance. The music should be dark and low, powerful and gripping. A deep bass, pounding in time to my slamming heart.

  The light at the one main intersection turns from yellow to red. Ella rolls to a stop as Hunter does the same on the far side. I suck in my breath, holding it, trying to keep Ella from noticing my agitation.

  He’s alone in the driver’s seat. Sunglasses cover his eyes, so I trace the shape of his jaw. His neck. His shoulders. His left hand on the steering wheel.

  My hand clutches the door, so hard my fingers hurt.

  I’m not sure what I expect him to do. Acknowledge me somehow? Acknowledge that he sees me? Because I know he does. His head is turned a fraction toward me. And I know he’s aware of me here, staring, as clearly as I know the sky is blue.

  The light changes.

  Hunter’s car purrs to life and slowly crosses the intersection, just as Ella’s does the same. We’re no more than ten feet apart, despite the metal and glass that separate us. Through my open window, wind pulses against my face, smelling faintly of motor fuel. I grip tighter to the door handle and turn to watch him pass.

  My stomach sinks as he keeps his gaze fastened straight ahead. And even from here, from the distance, with the
metal and road between us, I sense his dislike. His speed increases and he drives past.

  I think I must be getting sick. Because I want to press my hands to my face.

  Five

  “So,” Ella says, cutting into my thoughts as she guides the car toward Dad’s. “I never did ask you what happened last night when you went back into the club.”

  “What do you mean?” I say with feigned brightness. “I went to the bathroom.”

  “Oh, come on, Aeris.” She shoots me a look.

  I don’t really want to admit my awkward conversation. I bite my lip, searching for something to say.

  “There’s no point in it,” she says. “You’re not his type.”

  I pause. “I never said I was.”

  She ignores this. “Oh, he’s hot, no question. I’d do him in a second. But that’s all he’s after.”

  I slip my cold hands under my knees and clasp them tight together.

  On a laugh, Ella says, “I’m serious. Don’t waste your time. The girls he’s interested in are here for a weekend or two, and then they’re gone.”

  “Ouch. How on earth do you know that?”

  “Girls are always falling all over him, trying to get his attention. Like, everywhere he goes. I’m sure he takes advantage of it. What guy in his position wouldn’t? He’s got looks, money—he can do whatever he wants. But I know you. One-night-stands aren’t your style.”

  “Like I said, I’m really not interested.” After what I sensed from him, it’s true.

  “Good. I’d hate to see you get hurt.” She accelerates out of town. Her phone beeps once, and she paws it free from her purse. “Gage,” she says, glancing at the screen.

  The car weaves over the rumble strip, making the tires clatter a warning.

  “Watch the road,” I say.

  “I got it,” she replies, adjusting course as she reads.

  “Maybe you should pull over?”

  “I’m done, okay?” She drops the phone in her lap. “Gage wants to know if you want to come to his place for a boat ride tomorrow.”

  “Ella, right now, me and Gage …”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s complicated. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea.”

  “Good enough. So are we on for a boat ride or what?”

  I pause, and then a laugh escapes me. “Maybe, but not tomorrow.” Ella can drill her way through anything.

  “Good enough. You won’t believe what he’s done to his place since last summer.”

  I picture Gage’s secluded bay slanting down to the rocky shore. There are half a dozen log cabins positioned in a semicircle around a stone lodge house. The place used to be a popular vacation spot for weekly out-of-towners, but that was fifty years ago. The owners abandoned the buildings and left them to rot. Gage bought them last August and moved into the central lodge.

  “He’s really fixed it up. Some of his buddies have taken over the cabins. You’ve met a few—Troy, Carter.”

  “Sounds like they’ve got a compound going on down there.”

  “That’s funny. It kind of is.”

  A thought strikes. You can actually see part of the Phoenix Research Lab from Gage’s private cove. If you peer up at the jutting finger of land rising from the beach, it’s there, stretched out high above. He and I looked at it together when the lab opened last summer.

  Gage and Hunter are neighbors, even though you’d need wings to travel between them.

  “What’s up with the research lab?” I blurt. “Everyone’s acting so strange about it.”

  Ella laughs. “What do you expect? This is a small town, we need something to gossip about.”

  “It’s more than gossip.”

  “Aeris, it’s a lab that researches highly contagious diseases. Of course people are going to gossip.”

  “I can see being curious. This goes beyond that.”

  “You’ve seen them, Hunter, Victoria. They’re strange. They don’t fit in. They’re gorgeous, they’re rich, and they’re working on some dangerous project right in our backyards.” Now her voice holds an edge. “Who wants that in their neighborhood?”

  “No one, but I’m guessing it has safeguards.” I frown. “Why is Gage so against them?”

  She sighs. “I’m not completely clear on this—you know how he can be. From what I can tell, Gage is convinced Hunter has connections with the experimental military project that—” Her voice catches and she falls silent. “God, you wonder why he hates people like that? Gage practically died. And my brother—”

  Worry for Gage bubbles up inside me. “Your brother’s sick?”

  “No,” she whispers. “My other brother. My baby brother.”

  Softly, I say, “You mean, Max?” I try to grasp what she’s saying.

  “Yes.”

  “You mean it was this project that—so Gage and Max were together when Max died?” Is this the awful tragedy they’d refused to talk about?

  She nods.

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry you lost him.”

  A stretch of trees pass us by. Dad’s house comes up on the right. She pulls into the drive.

  “We don’t talk about it much.” Ella puts the car in park and slumps back. “Max and Gage were exposed to some experimental research in the military. I don’t know a whole lot. He keeps silent. The government shut the whole thing down after Max … died.”

  I’m stunned. I can’t believe Dad never told me about this.

  “What kind of research was it?”

  She shrugs, turns away, and speaks out her window. “The whole thing was covered up. The soldiers were only released after interest groups put pressure on the military. The families tried to hold the government accountable, but Gage, Max, and the other guys had signed consent waivers. Supposedly they knew the dangers. I’ve given up asking. And now they’re all living down in Gage’s cove.”

  “Who? You mean Troy and Carter—they were part of this?”

  “Yep. Them and the other six soldiers who were released.”

  “All of them?”

  “It’s good for them, I think. To be together.”

  I’m not exactly sure I agree, although I don’t know why.

  “Anyway,” Ella says, “whatever those people did to Gage, he’s different now. Physically. Mentally. Worse, he’s never forgiven himself. For being the survivor.”

  My heart stutters. I know exactly how he feels.

  “It’s not his fault,” Ella says. “I’ve told him a million times. But then he says Max looked up to him. He promised Max everything would be all right. Max died believing him.”

  My heart aches for my old friend. So many things make sense. His attitude. His bleak silences. We have more than our youthful memories in common. He lost his brother, and I lost my mom.

  “So now you know why Gage gets all broody. I don’t know if it’s guilt or rage or …” She stops.

  “Maybe he’s just sad?”

  “Yeah.” Her voice is a hoarse whisper. “Max was special. I miss him. Sometimes I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Not knowing what to say, I reach across and give her an awkward hug.

  When she pulls away, she wipes her face on her sleeve. “Seriously!” She lets out a gravelly laugh. “I have no idea where that came from. I mean, it’s been three years. We’re moving on. Max would want us to. Right?”

  Before I can reply, she twists the radio knob, turning up the volume. Country music pours out. Digging in her purse, she fishes for a cigarette and lights it.

  I know now that Gage went through a terrible tragedy during our lost years.

  But it didn’t happen here. Not in Dad’s sleepy coastal town.

  Whatever happened was an accident, a horrible accident.

  The Phoenix Research Lab couldn’t have anything to do with it. It isn’t the military. Their mission is to cure sick people. Much as I love and respect Gage like a brother, I’m not sure how he thinks the two could be connected. It sounds to me more like a general
distrust of anything research related.

  “Thanks for taking me to lunch,” I say.

  “Yep. Later, kiddo.”

  “We’re out of coffee. Do you mind if I borrow the Range Rover?” I ask Dad over the phone as I search the kitchen cupboards one last time.

  It’s Monday afternoon and I need a caffeine boost.

  In the background, the shop sounds busy. “Sure. You know where the keys are?”

  “Yep, I found the extra set. Thanks, Dad.”

  “Drive safe.”

  My manuscript lies open on the table. Blank staves stare back at me. I’m working on my new composition, but I can’t make headway. The song could be good. Possibly my best. But it won’t be anything if I don’t finish it.

  Worrying a lock of hair, I wonder if it’s time to step out of my comfort zone. Try writing in a coffee shop. Other people swear by it. I close the manuscript and stuff it into my book bag.

  After filling Sammy’s bowls, I detour to the guest bedroom and change into a white eyelet blouse, jeans, and chocolate oxfords. Then I grab the keys, climb into the Range Rover, and back out of the driveway.

  White-knuckling the steering wheel with one hand, I lurch through the gears with the other. It always takes a while to get the hang of driving again. The road twists and turns. Potholes and buckled pavement rattle the car. My feet are tense against the pedals.

  Fifteen minutes later, I reach the gas station on the outskirts of town, and then I’m cruising slowly down Main Street. My muscles relax. At this speed, driving is almost fun.

  Half a dozen people poke along the street. There’s a lone white car at the traffic light. Plenty of available parking spots on either side. This is what life should be like. Easy, unharried, uncrowded.

  I park in front of the Foggy Joe.

  The smell of fresh-brewed coffee greets me as I push inside.

  It’s empty, except for one customer. A guy with headphones hunches over his computer in such deep concentration he’s either cracking genetic code or hacking into the White House.

  At the counter, the barista rouses himself from his texting just long enough to fill my order.

  I cart the coffee and my laptop to the battered window seat.

  Sitting, I take a sip of the hottest liquid I have ever consumed. Reflexes send the scalding liquid shooting back out. As I jerk forward, I’m clutching the cup so hard the plastic lid squeezes off. Coffee splatters across the table, my bare arms, and my chest.