The Edge of the Light

by Elizabeth George

  16

  Everything at Ralph Darrow’s place trundled along. Grand did what he was supposed to do with physical therapy and language practice, and the two home health care aides showed up on time and were useful in assisting him. Prynne turned up promptly at seven in the morning to take the day shift of calming everyone’s concerns. Becca got home after school as soon as she could manage it via bus and bike in order to do the same until the next morning. The only problem was Seth’s aunt. But mostly Brenda remained offstage, making thunder noises by rattling pans.

  Still, Becca worried about where this Aunt Brenda thing was heading. Seth told her the situation was no big deal because his dad had had Grand sign some papers about his health care a couple of years back. So Rich was the one with power, not Brenda. But Becca wasn’t sure this was the case. Yet until something more happened with Brenda Sloan—like her showing up with the sheriff or something—there wasn’t much Becca could do. She only wished Grand was making more progress. Physically, he was more adept. But his language skills were not improving. No one was sure why. And until he acquired the necessary language to express himself, there would always need to be someone with him in case an emergency developed.

  Even his whispers had not greatly improved. They were still choppy, and although Becca could pick up his memory visions, his whispers weren’t able to clarify what those visions meant.

  “Hey you,” was the greeting of the second home health care aide to Becca about a week later. “How’s love treating you, girl? You engaged to that gorgeous hunk of yours yet? Better get on it ’cause the two of you . . . ? You’re gonna make some bee-you-tee-ful, babies.” She was called Celia Black, and she was a tiny birdlike thing of extraordinary strength. From Oklahoma originally, she spoke with a marked midwestern accent and the kind of small town friendliness that made her a good fit on the island.

  “I figure graduating from high school might be a better goal right now,” Becca told her.

  Celia hooted. “Don’t give me that one. I know kids.”

  “Need any help with anything?” Becca asked.

  “Nope. Me and Ralphie here just about got things under control.” She and Grand were seated at the chess table across the living room. She held up one of the flash cards for Ralph. A bright green tractor was pictured on it. “He’s being the ornery one today, though. Come on now, Ralphie, you knew this yesterday.”

  Becca crossed the room to the chess table, plucking the earbud of the AUD box from her ear and removing the box itself from the waistband of her jeans. She bent to Ralph Darrow and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Hey, Grand,” she said. “You being ornery like Celia says?”

  Ralph turned his head. He said, “Beck,” in that new voice he had that struggled for sound. But what he had on his mind was more than that. Tooper ole came to her, as did Tybassle. The first she figured out fairly quickly. Grand didn’t appreciate being called Ralphie. At seventy-plus years old, who would? Ralphie made him feel like a toddler. Tooper ole meant two years old. The second, though . . . Becca had to think about that one. Tybassle. But then it came to her. Thai. Basil. Near the highway, in a small area of businesses developed from a square of repurposed historic buildings called Bayview Corner, there was a Thai restaurant: the Basil Café. She went into the kitchen, looked into the fridge and then called out to Celia, “Hey, what d’you think about Thai food for dinner? If I call in an order to the Basil Café, could you pick it up? I got the cash.”

  Celia said to Ralph, “You want Thai food, Ralphie?” And when Ralph Darrow growled in reply, “I don’t think he wants it, Becca.”

  “Try it by calling him Ralph, maybe. Or Mr. Darrow. That might make a difference.”

  “Why?”

  “Just a feeling I have.” Becca came to the doorway, leaned against the jamb. She held a takeaway menu in her hand.

  Celia said to Ralph, “You want me to call you Ralph? Or Mr. Darrow, honey? I c’n do that easy as anything.”

  “Mr. Darrow might be the best,” Becca said. “That’s what Jake calls him, and he does anything Jake asks him to do.”

  “Yeah? Well, heck, then. Mr. Darrow it is. You give me that menu, Becky, hon. Me and Mr. Darrow’ll decide what eats we want.”

  Becca cringed at Becky but she decided one baby step at a time would be best. She handed Celia the menu and said, “Isn’t Prynne here? Did she take off already?”

  “Haven’t seen hide or hair,” Celia told her. “She here, Ralphie? Whoops. Mr. Darrow?”

  Ralph pointed at the ceiling. “No white,” were the words he managed.

  Becca figured he meant that Prynne was upstairs. Maybe Not right was what he was trying to say, she thought. If that was the case, either he didn’t want her up above or something was wrong with Prynne.

  Becca said to him, “I’ll check on her, Grand.”

  She went to the stairs. In Ralph’s former bedroom overlooking the garden, Prynne lay on the bed. Her arm was across her eyes in the manner of someone with a head-splitting migraine.

  Becca stood quite still but got nothing at all from Prynne, which suggested she was deeply asleep. She crossed the room and touched her shoulder in a featherlike gesture against the sweater Prynne was wearing. Immediately, her vision altered and she saw the same young bearded man she’d glimpsed before. This time, though, he was with two little kids. They wore small backpacks, and one of them also carried a red lunch box with TOOTSIE ROLL written in white upon it. They were climbing into an old VW van. The young man looked up. His expression marked him as deeply irritated. He gave an arm wave that clearly said “Get out of here,” and that was it. The vision lasted less than five seconds. But it was crystal clear.

  Prynne stirred. Things get unfair when it’s too much came from her. She murmured, “Hey. Whoa,” as she lowered her arm from her eyes and saw Becca. She was, Becca realized, utterly stoned.

  She knew Prynne did weed. But she wasn’t supposed to smoke at Ralph’s, and anyway, there was no scent of weed in the air. Not that that mattered because she was there to keep on top of things, to keep an eye on what was going on with Grand, and to help out wherever it was necessary. She wasn’t there to get high.

  “What are you doing?” Becca whispered tersely. “What did you take? And don’t say nothing because I’m not an idiot.”

  Prynne blinked twice, more an exercising of her eyelids to see if they still functioned rather than anything else. “Damn. Sorry,” she told Becca. “I just . . . I didn’t think it would do anything.”

  “What?”

  “Weed oil.”

  “Weed oil? Are you crazy? How d’you think Seth would feel if he knew that when you’re here, with Grand, and everyone’s depending on you . . .”

  “Chill,” Prynne said. “I just took a teaspoon. I didn’t know how strong it was. And nothing was going on anyway except Jake helping Grand eat lunch.”

  “So you’ve been stoned since lunchtime? Oh that’s just great, Prynne. And where’d you get weed oil anyway?”

  “There’s the shop . . . you know . . . over by the lumber place.”

  “You bought it? You’re telling me you also have a fake ID?”

  Prynne swung her legs over the side of the bed. She’d removed her eye patch but she wasn’t wearing her glass eye, so Becca had her first look at what childhood cancer had done to Prynne. She wanted to feel a little bad for her, but she was so ticked off that she also wanted to smack her.

  Prynne reached for the eye patch and fastened it around her head. She said, “I’m sorry. I just went inside to see what they had and this guy was buying some and he told me it was righteous. I sort of said I was so totally looking forward to being twenty-one and he sort of said he’d give me a sample if I wanted some.”

  “Wait. Are you saying that you went there today? While you were supposed to be here with Grand?”

  “Nothing was going on here
!” Prynne said hotly. “I was gone, like, twenty minutes. And Jake said I could go, okay? He and Grand were playing chess and I needed to get some tampons because it’s not like Grand exactly keeps them here and I don’t know where yours are. So that’s what happened and I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would affect me like this. But it’s not like I committed some capital crime.”

  Can’t do it won’t do can’t I knew comprised a rush of words like the wind blowing Becca’s hair back. Seth and that’s it for me the best person and who am I really I screw up.

  Becca saw that Prynne was more upset with herself than she was with Becca. It was time to back off. Prynne had blown it, but she wasn’t a bad person. She said, “Okay. Sorry. I freaked out. But you can’t do it again. You know that, right?”

  “Course.” Prynne got to her feet. She swayed a little. Becca grabbed her arm.

  There he was again. That guy. Youngish, bearded, smiling at her, making an O with his lips and then giving a grin. Then he was gone, and Prynne was there. Becca wanted to ask who he was and how he fit into Prynne’s life. She wanted to know because of Seth. But there was no way that she could ask the questions. It was part of the curse of the seeing and the hearing with which she was both afflicted and blessed.

  She said to Prynne, “You better not leave till you come down from that stuff. No way do you want to be on the road.”

  “Got it,” Prynne said. She was quiet as Becca headed toward the door. Before Becca left the room altogether, she spoke again, though. “Please don’t tell Seth, okay?”

  17

  Jenn had buried the hatchet with Squat before they saw the first of the posters that had gone up around the school during the lunch hour. They were hard to miss. Someone with a talent for drawing had created a bunch of steam punk images that were collecting a crowd at every poster: imaginative trains, outrageous flying machines, cars with parachutes attached, submarines that looked like giant squids. You just had to walk over to see what they were advertising.

  Jenn and Squat worked their way to the front of the group standing before a poster that featured one of the flying machines. It turned out to be an announcement for something called the Rainbow Prom. Seeing this, Jenn figured at first that it was all about coming up with a dance to make it seem as if winter was actually going to end someday. Rain and rainbows . . .

  “Don’t be such a concrete head,” Squat said in reply to her observation. He glanced around at the other kids and then worked his way out of the group, taking Jenn with him.

  “What?” she said.

  “Rainbow, Jenn. Rainbow prom.”

  “So?”

  “It’s a dance for bent twigs.”

  Jenn was processing this and deciding how she felt about the expression bent twigs when Squat went on, perhaps assuming she’d not picked up on what he meant. He said. “Those living on the other side of normal? Girls into girls? Guys into guys? Guys into being girls? Girls into being guys? You get my meaning?” To emphasize his point, Squat held up his hands and made a cross with them, as if to ward off vampires. “Save me!” he joked.

  He got noticed. Jenn saw the smirks on some faces of kids who’d looked at the poster. She also saw the scowls on the faces of others. She was about to tell Squat to keep his opinions to himself when Becca walked up and saw the poster. She said to Jenn, “Cool! A prom! When is it?”

  “You’d actually go?” Jenn asked her.

  “Huh? Wouldn’t you? You probably don’t even need a date. But if you want one . . .” She turned to Squat. “Why don’t you take Jenn to the prom?”

  “You whacked out?” he demanded. “No frigging way. It might be catching.”

  “What might be catching?”

  He pointed to the smaller print at the bottom of the sign. This indicated that the prom was being sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance on campus. Becca said, after reading this, “But if it’s gay and straight, anyone can go.”

  Squat’s reply was, “Oh sure. Anyone can go, long as they don’t care if someone of the same sex puts hands on their personal parts. That, however, ain’t going to be me.”

  Jenn found that she’d become even more irritated as he’d gone on. She said to him, “What is your problem, Squat? The way you act . . . It’s like you’re already one of them and you have to pretend that—”

  “Oh right,” Squat scoffed. “I’m one of them like you’re one of them, Jenn.” He gave her a shrewd look. “And maybe you are. Out there on the track every day now, aren’t you?”

  “You keeping tabs on me now?”

  Jenn saw Becca fiddling with her hearing thingy, working on the earbud as if it was dirty. She said, “Hey, you guys . . .” in the tone of someone who was trying to pour balm on a sore.

  Squat, however, wasn’t to be mollified. He said, “You better start thinking about what you’re doing, Jenn.”

  To which Jenn said, “And you better stop.”

  • • •

  SHE WAS STILL ticked off at him after school as she banged into the locker room to change into her training clothes. She’d thought she knew Squat better than anyone. His older brother was a creep and a half, but Squat had always been live-and-let-live and all the rest. She couldn’t figure out what was happening with him.

  At her locker, she dropped her backpack and went for the lock. Then she saw that beneath it stood a pair of shoes. They were identical to kind that both Cynthia and Lexie wore. She could tell they were only slightly used.

  “They’re mine. I thought you could wear ’em.”

  Jenn looked up. Lexie and Cynthia had just come around the corner into the aisle where they, too, had their lockers. Lexie was the one who’d spoken.

  “Don’t you need them?” Jenn asked. Shoes like this? She would wear them till they fell apart. Then she saw that Lexie’s own shoes were new, and she realized that the other girl saw her as a charity case. The fact that she was one, the fact that her whole family was one . . . Jenn couldn’t stand the idea that people knew about the McDaniels family’s poverty. You couldn’t register for the food bank, for the family support center, for Holiday House at Christmas, and for year-round free lunches without everyone knowing you were in a bad way. But Jenn didn’t talk about this, and unlike Petey and Andy, she didn’t take part in anything that would mark her as needy. So she said, “I don’t want . . .” Only, she did. She wanted the shoes and she wanted what they might do to improve her performance.

  Lexie said, “You don’t have to take ’em. I get new ones every year, no matter what. I figured if you’re the same size, you can use those. I’m not going to, and they’re just going to end up at the thrift store.”

  Jenn said, “Okay. Thanks,” but the thought of wearing Lexie’s shoes any longer than was absolutely necessary prompted Jenn to bring up the busboy job that Lexie had mentioned. That job would give her what she needed: not only to pay for her place on the All Island Girls’ Soccer team, should she make it, but also to buy what she needed for training. Among that stuff would be good shoes, new shoes so that she could return these others to Lexie.

  She didn’t want to consider why taking them—not to mention wearing them—was such an issue for her. She just told herself she wanted to be able to do things on her own.

  In the cause of this, she said to Lexie, “I been thinking a lot about that job you told me about.”

  Lexie turned from her locker where she’d just pulled out her training clothes. Before she replied, she jerked her hoodie off and removed her bra. Jenn glanced away, but it was to see Cynthia watching her with a thoughtful look on her face. Jenn moved her own gaze back to Lexie who was getting into a sports bra and reaching for sweats.

  Lexie said, “G & G’s? The busboy job?”

  “If it’s still open, I sort of want to apply.”

  “Sure,” Lexie said. “It’s still open. They tried out one kid but he was a total bust. So if you want
to see if you c’n do it, cool. I’m working tonight. I c’n drive you up there.”

  “Oh, I can take the bus,” Jenn said quickly. “I’m, like, not totally sure what time I can get there. Got to talk to my mom and everything. You know?”

  Lexie zipped her top. She put up the hood. She said, “Whatever. It’s up to you.” And then to Cynthia, “You doing weights first?”

  “Not today,” Cynthia said.

  “Okay.” And to Jenn, “See you on the track,” before she went through the far doors that led to the fields.

  Jenn didn’t like being left alone with Cynthia because she had the feeling that Cynthia knew more about her than she knew about herself. Which, she soon saw, Cynthia made clear enough with what she said next.

  “You could have taken the ride, Jenn,” she told her. “We generally don’t bite unless someone asks to be bitten.”

  18

  What Seth knew was that nobody needed any more stress, least of all his mom. She’d been ordered by her doctor to do as little as possible, all in the cause of healing. Her guts had been cut into and her whole digestive system had been more or less untangled, and she had a way to go to come back from that. She was in good condition, but even for someone in good condition, major surgery was serious. So when Seth got home from work several days later, he knew something was up the second he looked at his mom’s face. When she asked him if he’d come into her bedroom, he figured it had to do with Prynne, who was in the kitchen area making tacos for dinner.

  “This is very strange, Seth,” was how his mom began. “I phoned the pharmacy today to renew my prescription for my pain pills, and they told me it wasn’t time yet. But I had only two pills left. When I told them, they said that even if I’d been taking two each day, I should still have eight remaining.”

  Seth frowned. “Maybe you took more than one when you were feeling rotten. Or maybe you forgot you already took one a couple of times and you took a second when the first didn’t work fast enough.”