The Edge of the Light

by Elizabeth George

  “Got a Skype date with Sara-Jane,” she said.

  “More Europe plans?”

  “Endless Europe plans.” Then she was gone, saying, “Later, ’kay?” The other two girls were left in the showers.

  Jenn flipped another shower on and stepped beneath the water. She dunked her head into it while next to her, Cynthia removed the scrunchie that held her hair back from her face, allowing it to fall to her shoulder blades. She squeezed shampoo into her palm. She said, “You’ve got the funds for the All Island team now, right?”

  “Thanks to Gertie and Giselle,” Jenn said. “Yeah, I’m good. If I make the team, I can—”

  “When, not if,” Cynthia told her. “You’ve got to go into the tryouts with confidence. And there’s not a single reason for you to be anything less than totally sure you’re going to make the team.”

  “Easier for you to say than me,” Jenn told her. “I got plenty of ways to screw things up.”

  “Don’t think about those ways, then,” Cynthia said. “Here, want some shampoo?”

  She handed over the bottle and began to suds up her hair. She worked up a large amount of lather, which oozed down her breasts and across her stomach and between her legs. Jenn said, “Thanks,” and turned away. Not that she had anything to hide from Cynthia or anyone else, since she was flat as a board with boobs the size of mushroom caps. The rest of her had no shape at all, a source of unending embarrassment to her.

  Jenn squeezed a dab of shampoo into her close-cropped hair. She began to do the sudsing thing. She said, “At least this year I’ve done everything I can to put myself into a position to make the team. So if I don’t make, it’s not like I didn’t give it everything.”

  “What happened last year?”

  Jenn didn’t want to say. The distracting proximity of Annie Taylor was too embarrassing to go into. Annie Taylor and her presence in Jenn’s life and in the life of Langley was the main reason Jenn had completely blown the tryouts last year, and she didn’t want to come close to that happening again. She settled on saying, “I was an idiot is basically what happened.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Jenn glanced in Cynthia’s direction. She was covered with shampoo suds, which she was apparently also using as her soap. She dunked her head under the water again, saying, “God, it feels so good when the sweat’s washed off.”

  Jenn rinsed her hair of shampoo. “Well, it’s true,” she said in reference to her idiocy.

  Cynthia reached for another plastic bottle and squeezed a quarter-size daub of something into her palm. She gestured for Jenn to extend her own hand, saying, “Conditioner. You want? Never mind. Wait. I’ll do it for you.”

  She worked it into her own hair and then crossed to Jenn’s to do the same for Jenn. The other girl’s fingers were strong, and the pressure of them against Jenn’s skull was soothing. She figured this was what a massage was like, and she thought how she could just stand there forever with the warm water beating against her and her head loving the stroke of someone else’s fingers upon it.

  “Feels good, huh?” Cynthia said. “Next time, I’ll make you do me.”

  Since tryouts were tomorrow, Jenn didn’t see how there would be a next time. She wondered if Cynthia wanted there to be one. She wondered if she did, too.

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY dawned glorious. The tryouts for the team were taking place up in Coupeville, on the field at the high school. Girls could easily converge upon this spot: driving south from the northernmost town of Oak Harbor, driving north from the southernmost town of Clinton.

  To Jenn’s surprise, all of the Richardsons intended to go along and to cheer their efforts to make the team, so shortly after seven-thirty she and Cynthia climbed into Cynthia’s Honda while the rest of the family piled into their SUV. They headed for the highway where the annual invasion of Scotch broom made bursts of bright yellow flowers along the road’s shoulders and within the island’s empty fields.

  There were going to be two full days of activities. At the end of the first day there would be an A team comprising girls who had definitely been chosen by the coaches and a B team comprising girls whom the coaches would like to see on the second day.

  “The key is to try to get chosen the first day,” Cynthia told Jenn. “So make sure you don’t hold anything back.”

  “You, too,” Jenn said.

  “Oh. I’m not trying out,” Cynthia told her.

  Jenn stared at her, completely nonplussed. “What? But then why did you . . . ?”

  “I need to stay in shape for UV,” Cynthia said. “Plus, there was you.”

  Jenn wasn’t sure what she meant by this. “Me?”

  “I wanted to help you out. So did Lexie. It was a challenge for us. Well, mostly it was a challenge for me, and Lexie went along, since she was working out anyway.”

  “Don’t you want to be on the team?” Jenn wasn’t sure how she felt about being on the All Island Girls’ Soccer team if Cynthia wasn’t going to be there with her.

  She had her path already, Cynthia explained. During the coming summer, she would stay in shape, but no way did she want to risk getting hurt when University of Virginia was waiting for her to join their team.

  “But how come your family . . . ?”

  All of the Richardsons were going to the tryouts in a show of support for Jenn, Cynthia told her. Cynthia glanced at her, then back at the road and the family’s SUV before them. “You make the A team, and we’re celebrating, you and me. That’s why we’re going in separate cars. The rest of the fam . . . ? They’ll have had enough soccer at that point, believe me.”

  In Coupeville, the family set up a picnic area about thirty yards away from the tryout activities. This featured a card table and camping chairs with cup holders in them, one for every member of the family and another for Jenn.

  There were more people at the All Island tryout than Jenn had expected. Fifty girls had shown up, and it seemed that each of them had brought along supporters, whether family, friends, boyfriends, or personal coaches. There was even a team of little girls who’d come to watch and perhaps get some pointers. They had their uniforms on, and they were jumping around energetically.

  Jenn looked among the throng. She told Cynthia that she was checking everything out, but the truth was that she was thinking about what it all meant or if it had to mean anything at all that both Cynthia Richardson and Lexie Olanov had shown such kindness to her.

  Five women with clipboards and whistles came onto the field from the parking lot. One of them blew her whistle and yelled, “Let’s get this going,” and gestured for the potential players to gather around. She turned out to be the head coach, a former UW player who worked privately with girls on the Olympic team. Without any formalities, she assigned the girls and the other coaches to individual stations around the field where their skills would be tested.

  Jenn shot looks at her competition as she walked with them to the first station. Some of the girls she recognized because she’d played against them before. Some were strangers to her.

  From the number of girls and the number of stations, Jenn could tell that this first round of tryouts would last the entire day. During this time, the coaches would be looking at everything: shooting, ball control, speed, flexibility while running, aggression with the ball, guarding . . . the entire package.

  As Jenn made her way through the first three stations, she recognized how much she owed Cynthia and Lexie. She was in the best shape she’d ever been in. Her speed had increased, her ball control had improved, and her coordination was excellent. As she went through the paces being demanded of her, Jenn found herself getting back to the joy of playing soccer.

  There was a break for lunch. Jenn rejoined the Richardsons, where Cynthia’s mom was unpacking an impressive picnic basket onto the card table while Brian Richardson voiced his concerns
over the length of time the potato salad had gone without a serious control of the temperature which, he intoned, should be no more than thirty-eight degrees, although a brief period at a higher temperature would not actually hurt anyone, since the eggs had only just now been added and most people knew that eggs kept in their shells could—

  “Brian,” the rest of his family said at the same time.

  “Whoops. Asperger’s moment,” was his reply, and he lowered his gaze to the astronomy book he’d brought with him.

  Jenn laughed with the others. Then she heard a cry of “Jenn! Jenn!” and she swung round to see Petey hurtling across the lawn from the parking lot. Andy was not far behind him. At some distance to the boys, Jenn saw her dad sauntering in their wake.

  Away from what Jenn thought of as his natural habitat, Bruce McDaniels was even more of an oddity than he was at Possession Point, with his long gray hair ringing a very bald pate and his outfit comprising a striped T-shirt, white patent leather loafers of a vintage Jenn could only guess at, striped black-and-white knee socks, and khaki shorts over which his beer belly burgeoned like a life preserver. He’d shaved in honor of the occasion, and no matter his get-up and overall appearance, Jenn was happy to see him.

  “Greetings one and all,” he said magnificently and with a bow. “Bruce McDaniels, paterfamilias. We’ve come to offer our support to Jennifer. I hoped to do it from a distance, but I fear Jenn’s rambunctious siblings escaped my control.”

  From this little speech, Jenn knew how out of place he felt. She went to him and hugged him hard. “Thanks for coming, Dad,” she said into his ear.

  “We miss you at home, Jennie-Jenn,” was his quiet reply. “Your mom intended to come today, but she got a call for a ride over town, and you know how it is.”

  What he meant was that Kate had to go because of the money. She couldn’t turn down an expensive fare whenever it happened, even if it had been the middle of the night.

  Jenn wanted to believe that her father was telling the truth about Kate, but she couldn’t quite get there. The fifth commandment still hung between them.

  Mrs. Richardson was giving each of the boys a leg of fried chicken and smiling at their whoops of joy. She asked Bruce to join them, but he held up his hands in a gesture of refusal. “Ate on the way,” he told her. “So did the boys. The last thing they ought to be doing is eating more.”

  Jenn knew eating had consisted of PBJs, but she still felt embarrassed that Petey and Andy fell upon the food like members of the Donner party. Bruce called the boys to him. At least they came, happily gnawing and casting longing looks at the rest of the spread. Mrs. Richardson said, “Are you sure?” and Mr. Richardson said, “There’s plenty to go around.”

  But Bruce was firm, and he was equally firm about where they would go to watch the second half of the tryouts, which was at a distance from anything edible, such as the Richardsons’ bag of oatmeal raisin cookies, at which Petey and Andy were liable to throw themselves. He made another bow, and they walked off, with Petey shouting “Good luck, Jenn!” and Andy talking loudly about potato salad.

  When the whistle blew for the second half of the tryouts to begin, the activity to which Jenn’s group was sent dealt with control of the ball. If she was going to play the position she wanted—center midfielder—Jenn knew she had to be a star here. She was grateful when Cynthia walked her over to the activity, reminding her of what to pay attention to when she was performing. At the end, when it was time for Jenn’s group to move to the next station, the coach at that station, who was writing something on the paperwork her clipboard held, looked up and said, “Good job, McDaniels,” and Jenn heard Cynthia, close by, whoop. Then she punched the air.

  That filled Jenn up unexpectedly, more than the coach’s words. She grinned to herself and made easy work of the rest of the tryouts. Nothing could touch her. She was invincible. Still, she was thrilled when her name was the second one called to be a part of A team and therefore not required to attend the next day’s tryout. The Richardsons surrounded her. The McDaniels contingent broke through. Jenn felt herself swept up in her father’s arms, her little brothers hugging her around her waist.

  “Jennie-Jenn-Jenn,” her dad said in triumph. “What a day for you, my girl!”

  “It’s because of Cynthia,” Jenn told her father. “I couldn’t’ve done it without her help.”

  “Indeed, indeed,” Bruce agreed. He embraced Cynthia as well.

  Jenn wondered if he would have done so had he known about the confusion of feelings she had for the older girl.

  40

  Becca knew Derric’s dad wasn’t going to change his mind about her revealing her true identity to his son. The only thing that might keep him from insisting she do it n-o-w was if he understood the dangers facing Hannah Armstrong because of what she could hear when she wasn’t using her AUD box and what she could see when visions came upon her. Yet Becca couldn’t tell him any of that.

  She was still trying to develop some strategy—any strategy—a day later when a car passed her on Newman Road and made the turn into Ralph Darrow’s driveway some 150 yards ahead of her. It was a car that Becca didn’t recognize, so she felt cautious. Her caution morphed into having a bad feeling, mostly due to her previous conversations with Debbie Grieder, Dave Mathieson, and Mrs. Kinsale. Because of this, she slowed down, and when she got to the property and saw the car parked next to Jake’s, she glided down the new driveway and decided not to enter the house till she knew what was going on.

  Leaving her bike at the side of Grand’s house, she crept around the back of it where the window to the bedroom above and the bedroom below looked into the forest. She reached the house’s north corner. From here, the space was open. Lawn gave way to a few of Grand’s rhodies and some of his specimen trees. But not far from the house, a massive cedar drooped its lacy branches nearly to the ground.

  Becca darted to this tree. Under the cover of its curtain-like boughs, she was able to get a very good look at the living room window. She was unsurprised at the sight in the living room of a young woman with sunny California blonde-streaked hair. Dave Mathieson would have told the San Diego reporter that Ralph Darrow was the man who found the ringing cell phone in the parking lot of Saratoga Woods. It would be Olivia Bolding’s logical next step, and here she was.

  She was at the chess table where Grand was sitting. She was showing him what Becca figured were the altered photographs of Hannah Armstrong. Grand was fingering them but he didn’t appear to be acknowledging the resemblance between Hannah Armstrong and Becca King.

  Prynne passed the table on her way to the kitchen. She, too, didn’t seem to be saying anything about what she saw printed. But the fact that the reporter showed them to Prynne at all was enough to tell Becca that at some point someone was going to see the pictures, recognize who was in them, and betray her. It wouldn’t be done maliciously. More likely was the possibility of someone saying, “Hey. That looks like Becca King.”

  Olivia Bolding didn’t remain long in Grand’s house. Becca saw her head away from the chess table, and in a moment, she could hear voices on the front porch. Olivia and Jake were speaking, and although Becca couldn’t make out the words, they seemed to constitute a casual good-bye. She thanked her stars that Jake Burns was there and not Celia Black. She could only imagine Celia giving the pictures a glance and saying in her Celia way, “Oh hey, isn’t she the spitting image of our Becca!”

  Becca waited until she heard a car start in the parking area at the top of the hill. Even then she waited another two minutes to make certain it was safe to leave her hiding place. She quickly crossed the lawn to the house and made fast work of getting inside.

  Everything seemed normal. Prynne was the one to tell her that some reporter had been there talking to Grand about a cell phone he’d found in the woods something like eighteen months ago. She showed them all some pictures of this Hannah chick who looked like s
he’d had an amazing television makeover, Prynne added. But all that came of it was Grand saying ring woods, and the reporter chick had decided this meant he’d heard a phone ringing in Saratoga Woods. She said she was heading there next, although Prynne couldn’t figure out why.

  As she spoke, nothing came from her in whispers. In fact, nothing had come from Prynne in whispers since Becca had given Seth the black tar heroin. Becca couldn’t work out what this meant, but she understood that Prynne couldn’t become her problem. She didn’t want her to be an addict, but what was going to happen with her and with Seth had moved out of her hands the moment Becca had given Seth the tobacco tin.

  She crossed the living room to Grand. He watched her with those twinkly eyes of his. She caught his whisper—Green Gabe—and for a moment, she didn’t follow his meaning. But then she saw his memory in the quickest of flashes. His hands were holding her childhood copy of Anne of Green Gables, the only item from her life in San Diego that she’d brought with her. Those hands opened the book and through Grand’s eyes within the vision, she saw the inscription to “my sweet Hannah” that her grandmother had written.

  She knelt by his chair and put her head in his lap. She murmured, “I just couldn’t tell you,” and she felt his hand descend with infinite gentleness onto her hair.

  41

  Seth figured that since his family was paying Prynne for the hours that she was at Grand’s, she’d been able to buy dope all along, and she had to have it hidden all over the place. But she also had to know that someone had found that one tin in Grand’s workshop and removed it. So she was probably waiting to be unmasked. And Becca and Jake were waiting for him to do the unmasking, which Seth knew he had to accomplish before someone else—like Aunt Brenda—came across another stash somewhere. Brenda hadn’t been around much since being awarded guardianship of Grand, but Seth knew that was only Round One. She’d be back when whatever her plans were stood in place.