“Someone had to be!”
“You like it that way!” Bella shouts. “You act like I’m a big thorn in your side, but without me, without the bad sister, you wouldn’t look half as good. In fact, you’d look—”
“What? Huh? What?” I challenge.
“You’d look ordinary!” she says, pointing at me. “You’d look scared! Your life is just a bunch of habits you can’t get out of. Which is the truth of it, isn’t it? You’re just scared!”
Her words feel like a punch in the stomach.
“Don’t,” Daniel begs, but Bella continues.
“You knew why I had to leave. You knew. You could have helped me. You should have helped me. You did nothing. I needed you!” Her voice cracks.
I ignore her sadness, the anger in me bubbling over like boiling water. “Are you going to tell them what you did?”
“What I did?” Her face is wet and confused.
“You talk about how I let you down. How you needed me and how awful I was. How about you?”
She frowns, unsure.
“With him? With my . . . I saw you, Bella! I saw you.”
“What are you talking about?” She glances around, as if someone else might have the answer.
“At the barbecue! I saw you!”
Her hand goes to her mouth. I feel a wave of satisfaction, but it’s followed instantly by nausea.
Bella shakes her head, her voice steady now. “This whole time, that’s what it’s been about? That stupid—”
“What?” Daniel says. “What is she talking about?”
The lights are so bright now—two blinding headlights. And red and blue lights, circling, hitting the trunks of the trees. We become black figures, dense as statues, glued in place like pieces in a diorama. The music is extinguished and the forest seems to reverberate with the sudden silence.
Vinnie stumbles out of the cabin. He sees me and points. “Hey, cuscinu!” He’s got a huge grin on his face and a stain down the front of his shirt. I stare at him and then back to my sister, whose hand is now shielding her face, protecting her eyes from the glare of the lights.
“Nice flowers!” says Vinnie, pointing to my hair.
Reaching up, I feel the crown of daisies Huia made for me earlier, the flowers soft and wilted.
“Oh, who called the cops?” Vinnie slurs, his arm dropping. Then he falls down the steps and laughs into the soil.
Banana Bread
Perfect for an afternoon snack; serve in slices either plain or brushed with butter and grilled in the oven.
6 ounces walnuts
3 large ripe bananas
11/4 cups light brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2/3 cup whole milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
21/4 cups all-purpose flour
11/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
PREPARATION
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 91/2 x 5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper.
Place the walnuts on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes. Remove, roughly chop, and set aside. (Leave the oven on.)
In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Beat in the brown sugar and eggs until combined. Slowly stir in the oil. Then stir in the milk, followed by the salt, stirring as you go. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture gradually to the banana-milk mixture. Stir until thoroughly combined. Stir in the walnuts.
Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and bake until a skewer or knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
May be wrapped in foil and kept for up to 5 days or frozen for several weeks.
Chapter Fourteen
• • • •
There are two police officers, one tall and lanky, the other shorter and older, with his shirt threatening to jump out of the waistband of his pants. I hear Jack call him Bob.
Bella rushes to Vinnie, who’s still sprawled on the ground, giggling.
“Sorry, guys,” Jack tells the cops. “It’s wrapping up. I just got here.”
“We got a call after we spoke to you,” the older cop says. “Mrs. Gardner. She was quite insistent.”
Daniel turns to me. “I was trying to explain . . . about Mom . . . she heard about the party.”
Bella has her arm around Vinnie and is trying to help him up, but he’s much bigger than her and uncooperative. I see now that she’s sober and capable, whispering urgently to Vinnie, trying to get him to his feet before the police are through speaking with Jack.
I turn my attention back to Daniel, my heart still beating fast. “It’s her cabin. I mean, it’s fair—that she should call the police,” I mumble.
“It’s not that bad,” he says, embarrassed. “Bella said she’d sort it out with Vinnie.”
With the music off, the party does seem smaller than it first appeared. As though the sound had taken up space. I glance around, looking again for the couple by the tree, but they too seem to have disappeared. Up the driveway, two cars slowly pull away. The taller policeman turns to watch them, asks his superior something.
Vinnie is finally on his feet. He grins at me and slurs, “Heyyyy, Frankie. You weren’t here. Sorry. Party got a tiny bit”—he shows me an inch of space between his thumb and forefinger—“out of hand.”
“This is your doing?” I say.
Bella is steadying Vinnie, her hand wedged into his armpit. She locks eyes with me.
“Awww, it’s not so bad,” Vinnie implores, his voice sliding.
“Vaffanculo, Vinnie,” I hiss at him.
Daniel is with Jack now, both men speaking with the cops. I can hear them making a case for letting us deal with Vinnie. The three of us stare at one another.
Vinnie giggles. “Look at that, huh? A family reunion! Come on, you two. It’s happy time!”
“No, it’s not, dickhead,” Bella says, shaking her head. She helps Vinnie to one of the chairs and he falls into it like a sack of flour. She turns to me, seems to steel herself. “I’m sorry. What I said was mean.”
“I saw you,” I say again. My voice is strange, some of the fight gone out of it.
“So you said. At the barbecue. The summer before I left, right?”
“You were kissing,” I accuse.
Vinnie glances up at us, his mouth a slack, drunken O.
“No. We weren’t,” Bella says firmly. “Didn’t you ever ask him about it? You spent all this time punishing me instead?”
I don’t reply.
I never asked Alex about it. I didn’t want to know what had happened, or why. I didn’t want to know if he liked kissing my sister, if he thought she was pretty, if he wanted her more than he wanted me. I’d thought about it a lot, and then time had covered it over, made it smooth. And hard. Lately, I’d begun thinking about it again. Now we were going to be married. Should I ask him? What would I say? I saw you once; it’s been on my mind, not always but sometimes. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. And then there were the questions behind the questions; the ones I didn’t want to ask; the ones that might come spilling out after. Do you really want to get married? Do you really love me?
“You were kissing,” I repeat, wanting, strangely, to be right about this. I see Bella’s dark hair swinging as she leans in, her raspberry red lips. Evidence.
“No, Frankie.” She sighs. “I tried . . . I’m not proud of that . . . but he said no. We didn’t kiss. He wouldn’t.” She takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know that you saw.”
“Well, I was there and I did see,” I say angrily, but somehow the picture seems less vivid now, less spiky. I’d expected Bella to be horrified, mortified, but she just looks pale and tired, as I imagine I look. I’m suddenly exhausted.
“I’m sorry, Frankie,” she says again. “Nothing happened.”
The older policeman is at my elbow. “Good evening, miss. Bob Skinner. I understand you’re staying here?”
He gestures towards the cabin, and I nod.
“It’s . . . Well, Mrs. Barbara Gardner has contacted us and technically you’re trespassing, I’m afraid to say.”
I nod again and glance at Daniel.
“But . . .” The cop takes a deep breath that lifts his gut and makes his pants sag a little. He reaches to hoist them up, then scratches his neck. “I heard about your circumstances from young Mr. Gardner here, and Jack’s a very helpful . . . presence on Chuckanut . . .”
I look between Daniel and Jack, who are saying nothing.
Bob continues. “As I understand it, you weren’t the instigator here.”
Vinnie snorts from the chair. Bella presses a hand against his shoulder to quiet him.
“Officer, there’s someone coming to pick up my cousin very shortly,” she says. “She should be here in just a few minutes.”
In Bella’s shadow the stain on Vinnie’s shirt is less noticeable, and he’s looking down into his lap, which is a mercy as the officers probably can’t see his red, glazed eyes.
As if on cue, another car pulls into the driveway behind the cop car and dims its lights. We all watch as Giulia, Zio Mario’s daughter, walks up the drive. Her hair is dyed blond and lifted off her neck in a long, sleek ponytail. She’s wearing tight jeans tucked into coffee-colored boots. She spots Bella first, raises her eyebrows, then nods to Bob and his counterpart.
“Officers.” Giulia holds out her hand. “Giulia Caputo.” The tall policeman shakes her hand first, then Bob. They’re both silent.
“Right. Mettiamo quest’idiota nella macchina,” she says to my sister, speaking in that secret language between cousins. Let’s get this idiot in the car. She flashes a smile at Bob. “Family, eh?”
Vinnie mumbles something as Bella takes one arm and Giulia takes the other.
“Ah, ma’am,” Bob starts, but Giulia is busy telling Bella, in Italian peppered with a few Sicilian insults, what a fool Vinnie is, how she was on a date, and how much she wants to drop him on his fat head. The officers blink and listen to her voice, her tongue licking the Italian vowels. Her lips are glossy and her eyelashes are long and dark.
Daniel rushes to assist Bella, and soon enough Vinnie is bundled into Giulia’s car.
“We’ll look after him,” Giulia says, lifting her eyes to Bob’s. “Don’t you worry. He’s not going to get off easy. Right, Frankie?”
I agree with a nod. I’m thinking of killing him myself.
Giulia whispers to me to take care of myself, then adds, “Statti bene. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with this numbskull.”
“Well,” Bob says uselessly.
When we look around there’s no longer much evidence of a party. A few cans, the bonfire to put out, although it’s died down considerably, the music off, the cars and crowd slid away like snakes into the bushes.
Jack steps forward. “Before you go, Bob . . .”
“Well, I’m not sure we’re finished here yet.”
“Merriem and I were stuck on something the other day. I suddenly thought, Bob Skinner’s our man.”
“Merriem?”
“Uh-huh. About morels. You’re a morels man, aren’t you?”
“Morels? Ah, yes . . .”
Giulia’s car pulls away, the taillights a pair of red eyes. Giulia’s right: if the aunties find out that Vinnie’s been causing me trouble, that the police came, he won’t hear the end of it. A night in a cell would be preferable to the wrath of the aunties.
I notice that Huia’s let go of her dad’s hand and the taller policeman is now showing her the controls inside the police car. He’d switched off the siren lights but at her request he puts them on again. Bob Skinner glances at the car and the lights, then turns back to Jack and resumes their conversation about morels. They start discussing the areas of the forest that had some fire last summer. “Fire brings more morels,” Bob explains, gesturing with thick fingers. Jack gives me the thumbs-up behind his back.
I walk inside the cabin. It smells of stale alcohol and the full ashtray on the table. The quilt on the bed is crumpled and there’s a plastic bag half full of garbage by the counter. I wonder if Bella tried to tidy up before I got here.
I find a bucket under the sink and fill it with water. I go back outside and pour the water over the fire, watch the crimson embers sizzle and smoke. The night air seems full and heavy. The police car lights flash blue and red into the blackness, though they are less menacing now that they’re just for show, for Huia. Jack and Bob are still deep in conversation about wild mushrooms. Something seems to lean against me. It makes me turn but there’s no one there. Still, I feel a weight in the space beside me. I turn back to the fire and the weight seems to follow.
I hold my breath. Please don’t go.
My chest feels like it’s going to fracture.
You didn’t kiss her.
Of course not.
But instead of making it all better, resolved, I still feel empty and confused.
* * *
I take myself off to bed. No one seems to notice. I get under the covers in my clothes.
I lay my hand against the sheet and will Alex to take it. Yearn for the weight of another hand, real or ghostly, to fill it. I lie in the dark and long for him in a way that reminds me of an earlier time.
It happened after a trip to Italy, and I vowed never to go again. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Italy. The romantic version—with your lover pressed against your side in the summer heat as you sip a pale lager or a glass of Carricante with the sun sinking—is gorgeous. My Italy wasn’t that version. My Italy was full of relatives and long, hot drives in the car with Papa swearing at the map; afternoons spent with relatives speaking too fast and in too strong a dialect for me to keep up. My Italy was drifting off into daydreams about Alex. I missed him so much it was an endless ache. When I got back, I covered him in kisses and clung too tightly to him as though he might evaporate. He smiled down at me and, ever so slightly, leaned away. That tiny pulling away felt so huge, like a rip in the tide, a dragging away from the shore. I don’t want you so close, it said. I don’t want you.
I kept a smile on my face, spoke about my trip and the food and the weather. Alex asked polite questions, looked interested, grinned. But there was something in his eyes, a wandering, taking him away to someplace else.
“What have you been up to?” I asked.
He talked about helping his mom clear the yard, his part-time job at his dad’s office, surfing. I saw that wandering again. My throat tightened. When he put his arm around me it felt different. It was a different arm, a different touch.
“Did you . . . meet someone?” I wanted to sound nonchalant, but couldn’t.
“What?”
I cleared my throat, made a shrug. “Did you meet someone else?”
“No. No, of course not.” He ruffled my hair. “Why would you think that?”
I wanted to say, because everything feels different. Your touch, the way you look at me. Everything. Instead I said, “I just really missed you.”
He gave me a sideways hug. “Yeah, me too, Frankie.”
It was warm, but not like before. Not like, I want to be next to you my whole life. Alex had wanted me since high school. He had wanted me before I knew it. His wanting me had made everything brighter. His wanting me made me feel like someone worth wanting. I wasn’t sure what I would be without it; what would be left.
I told Papa I didn’t want to go to Italy again. I told him I was too old for it. Alex became more affectionate again. He came back to me, just not quite the way it had been. Never as full of boundless love; like at Cape Disappointment, with the sparkling water running over our skin. Certainly no longer a sweet, teenage love. That’s what happens, I told myself. People grow up. We can’t be teenagers forever.
It’s a mature kind of love; we’re becoming adults.
I believed that he hadn’t met another woman. I believed he wouldn’t lie to me about it. But perhaps he had met someone else. We had created a little him-and-me world; a world I loved to be in twenty-four hours a day. Without me around, without my arm in his, my head next to his on the pillow, without our dates, dinners, and plans, perhaps he had met someone. Perhaps he had met himself. An Alex Gardner outside of our little universe. And perhaps he missed him.
It was never anything to do with Bella. The two things were entirely unconnected. But I had linked them together in my mind. The panic, the fear of losing him, of not knowing what would be left without him. I had heaped the blame on her, in huge doses. Bella was right: I was scared. I had been scared of losing Alex and it had been easier to blame her. That made sense. She was unreliable. She wrecked things. She was trouble. It was far easier to hate Bella for a kiss that never really happened than to face the coolness, the space, between Alex and me. Hating Bella gave me something to do. Losing Alex just left me dumb and empty-handed.
A loss that had started long before the ocean took him for good.
Chapter Fifteen
• • • •
When I wake in the morning, the cabin smells worse than the night before. My clothes stink of bonfire smoke and ash; my hair is dirty and greasy. In all the time I’ve been staying here I’ve not really missed a shower. Until now. Now I want a shower more than I want a coffee.
Outside, a bird is calling as though its heart will break if it doesn’t get a response. Finally a mate replies and they twitter to each other across the roof of the cabin. I’d forgotten to draw the curtains and sunlight now pours in the window and across the floor. It’s the heat that’s making everything smell worse—the alcohol spilled on the floorboards, garbage still in its bag, cigarette ash and butts in the ashtray.
When I walk out the front door I see Bella’s car, the only one left among tire marks. She’s curled up on the driver’s seat, her head resting on her hands. Next to her, on the passenger seat, is Daniel. He’s flat on his back, with his mouth open. Alex used to fall asleep like that sometimes. On the couch, watching reruns of hockey games.
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