And what if it wasn’t false? What if he meant it?
It didn’t matter.
She wasn’t a big enough fool to love him again.
GINGER INHALED THE pungent scent of redwood trees as she watched a hawk circling high overhead, silhouetted against the bright blue sky.
Where had Izzy gone? Down the path to the lake, most likely. She’d taken off to walk the dog, and that was generally the way they went. Three days since her and Marcus’s arrival, and the girl already had a daily routine. She spent much of her time at the beach, sunning herself, swimming or just playing with the dog.
Ginger strolled past the grove of redwood trees, past blackberry bushes heavy with ripe fruit, past the mighty oak that stretched its branches over most of her backyard, and down the sloped path toward the lake. Up ahead to the left, she could see Izzy sitting on the beach, Lulu prancing around her, begging for attention.
Izzy’s attention was elsewhere, though. She was staring out at the lake, or maybe past it to the horizon, her expression dark. A gentle breeze caught her long, dark hair and sent it fanning out slightly over her shoulders. She wore a gray T-shirt stretched tight over her thin frame, with a pair of faded jeans and white flip-flops.
And she appeared not to notice Ginger’s approach. When Ginger finally sat down beside her and Lulu focused all her efforts on getting the attention of her owner, Izzy responded by glancing at Ginger. It was easy to see that the girl had been crying. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red and still damp.
“What?” Izzy said as a greeting.
Ginger tried to remember what it felt like to be thirteen. All she could recall was the utter misery. Awkwardness, self-consciousness, lack of confidence… She hadn’t truly recovered from those same afflictions until her late twenties or early thirties. But then, she hadn’t been nearly as naturally graceful as Izzy.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she said.
The girl exhaled, clearly not interested. Ginger gave Lulu a thorough tummy rub, and the little dog edged her way onto her lap, clearly in ecstasy over the attention.
“Did Marcus tell you why he thought I’d be a good person for you guys to stay with this summer?”
“No.” There was no hint of interest in the single-word response.
Ginger had hoped for a friendlier start to their conversation. She’d hoped to ease into the things she wanted to say, cushioning them with kindness. But Izzy was having none of that, so she decided to get to the point.
“One reason he brought you here is that I lost my parents when I was a kid.”
Izzy glanced over at her, her expression more hostile now. Then she looked away again, back to the horizon.
“I was nine when it happened.” Ginger could tell the story now without getting knocked down by grief, but for years she couldn’t speak about it.
For years she hadn’t talked about it. She’d simply gone about her life, knowing that people whispered about her behind her back. She’d endured their pitying looks—reveled in them, at times—but on the rare occasions when she’d opened her mouth and tried to tell the story to some curious person who asked about her family, her throat would close up and she couldn’t get a word out.
She didn’t cry, though. People always seemed impressed by that, as if her stoicism was some kind of virtue. Actually, the opposite was true, she’d found out during therapy. She’d been unable to grieve for her parents as a kid because the loss had been too big.
It had taken a therapist to point out that the reason she couldn’t get close to men romantically was because she hadn’t grieved for her parents yet. And that had finally set her on the path to crying the river of tears she needed to release.
“You mean like they died or what?” Izzy finally asked, her voice barely audible above the lapping of the water against the shore.
“Yes, they died.”
“How did it happen?” Again, the quiet voice, though this time it was slightly more audible.
“They were in a car accident. A drunk driver—a car full of teenagers on their way to a party after the prom. My parents had gone out for dinner and were on their way home, but they never arrived. I was woken up later by the babysitter and the police knocking on the door.”
Ginger stared out at the horizon, too, her chest tight. She didn’t usually go into any details when she told people this story, but she’d vowed to give Izzy as much detail as she wanted if it would help her.
“So, what happened to you? Did you have to go to a foster home or something?”
“My grandmother was still alive. She took me in and raised me.”
Izzy sat silent for a while. Ginger focused on the little dog, who lay contentedly in the crook of her crossed legs. She stroked her light brown fur, paying special attention to her favorite spots behind the ears and at the base of her spine.
“I know this sounds weird, but…did you ever get mad at your parents?”
Ginger knew she had to tread carefully here. “For leaving me behind?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Izzy sounded a little defensive, as if she were embarrassed now that she’d dared to ask the question.
“Sure,” Ginger told her. “And then I’d feel guilty for getting mad, and then I’d hate myself.”
“Yeah.” Izzy gave a heavy sigh.
“That’s normal, Izzy. It’s totally normal. We spend our whole childhood knowing it’s our parents’ job to take care of us, and it’s hard to accept that they’re not going to be around anymore to do it.”
“It’s stupid.” Izzy sounded angry now. “It’s not like my mom wanted to get cancer.”
“No, she didn’t. And she didn’t want to leave you.”
“But she never even thought of finding my dad for me before she died. That makes me mad, too.”
It made Ginger mad, as well, but she would never tell Izzy that. “Maybe she did think of it, but figured he wouldn’t be able to help.”
Izzy rolled her eyes.
“How did Nina become your guardian?”
“She was my mom’s best friend and my godmother. They thought since I knew her and grew up around her, I’d be okay with going to live with her.”
“And were you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not okay with any of it.”
Ginger wasn’t quite sure what “any of it” referred to, exactly, but she didn’t think now was the time to press for details. She would try another tack.
“It was brave of you to contact Marcus like you did.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said flatly.
“He’s a good person,” Ginger said, hoping to reassure her, “but it’s going to take him a little time to learn how to be a father.”
“Are you, like, his girlfriend or something?” There was an edge in Izzy’s voice.
Ginger, inexplicably, felt her face flush. “No, it’s like he told you—we’re old friends from college.”
Izzy studied her closely. “You don’t look at him like he’s just an old friend.”
Ouch.
Ginger’s first instinct was to deny, deny, deny, but she didn’t want to lie to Izzy. The girl would see right through her, and they’d never establish any kind of trust.
“Well, however you think I look at him, all we’ve ever been is friends.”
“You like him,” she said, and this time it was a clear statement of fact. “And not just as a friend.”
Ginger laughed. The last thing she wanted was hostile, manipulative Izzy going back Marcus to report that Ginger had a crush on him. But the teenager had managed to back her into a corner, and she didn’t see any way out. “Why do you say that?” she asked in as neutral a tone as she could.
“I’m not stupid.”
Ginger shrugged, giving in to defeat. After all, hadn’t she invited Marcus to stay with her in order to get over her old feelings for him?
Lulu, spotting a small bird nearby, jumped up from Ginger’s lap and pranced over to investigate.
What was she about to s
ay to Izzy was probably too mature for the girl to understand, but she had vowed to be honest with her.
“Okay, well, here’s the deal,” Ginger said. “I have a long history of going for emotionally unavailable men. My therapist says it’s my way of not having to get too close to anyone. Self-sabotage, basically. I fear abandonment, since my parents abandoned me in a sense. So I fall for men who won’t ever fall for me, since that means they’ll never get close enough to leave me.”
“What’s self-sabotage?”
“It’s when your subconscious—the part of your brain that you’re not aware of—leads you to do things that are in conflict with what your conscious mind thinks it wants.”
Izzy scrunched up her forehead. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. I agree.”
“I guess it’s the same for me—like, how being mad at my mom for dying makes no sense.”
Lulu barked at something in the woods, and Ginger turned to see that the bird she’d been pursuing a few moments ago had perched on a nearby tree branch, frustrating the dog.
“We all want to feel there’s someone to blame for the bad stuff that happens,” Ginger said, relieved that the conversation had neatly traveled away from her feelings for Marcus, and equally relieved that she’d managed to both distract Izzy from her sadness and chip away at a bit of her hostility.
“So you like Marcus because he’s emotionally unavailable? What does that mean?”
Okay, so she’d congratulated herself too soon. Ginger sighed.
“In your dad’s case, it just means that he’s always seen me as a friend, not a potential girlfriend.”
“But people can go from being friends to boyfriend and girlfriend, can’t they?”
Marcus’s daughter was certainly persistent. “Sure, it happens.”
“So why couldn’t it happen with you two?”
Ginger wanted to tell Izzy it wasn’t any of her business, but she was scared of ruining the little progress she’d made in gaining the girl’s trust.
“Good question,” she said vaguely.
The wind was starting to pick up. At this time of day, the change of temperature often caused a strong breeze to sweep across the lake and chase away those who, like Ginger and Izzy, hadn’t brought a warm jacket along for the evening.
When Izzy shivered, Ginger took the opportunity to change the subject.
“Would you like to come back to the house and help me make dinner?” she asked.
“I don’t like to cook.”
“Really? Have you ever tried?”
The girl shrugged. “I’ve made eggs, but I burn them.”
“Maybe what you need is a little instruction so you can enjoy the process.”
For a moment Ginger was sure Izzy would refuse, but instead the girl stood up and caught Lulu in her arms to put her leash back on.
“I thought we could make a few pizzas. Sound good?”
“Whatever. So long as they’re vegetarian.”
They headed back toward the cottage in silence until they reached the oak tree.
“When your parents died,” Izzy asked, “did you have nightmares?”
Ginger stopped walking. “Are you having insomnia?”
The girl nodded, staring down at the dirt path.
“I did. I had horrible nightmares, and I had a hard time sleeping.”
She chose not to add that they’d gone on for years, that even in her twenties she’d slept with the lights on because she was so scared of what awaited her in her dreams. But she made a mental note to talk to Marcus about making an appointment for Izzy to see a therapist as soon as possible. Maybe she could prevent Izzy’s grief from warping her life as much as Ginger’s had warped hers.
“What kind of nightmares?” Izzy asked as they began walking toward the house again.
Lulu, sensing familiar territory, tugged against the leash and Izzy released it so the dog could run up onto the rear deck and wait at the door. She pranced there in excitement, brown eyes cast back at them in eager expectation of dinner.
“One of the most recurrent dreams was that I’d be crossing a bridge on foot,” Ginger began. “Sometimes it would look like the Golden Gate Bridge, sometimes the Richmond Bridge, sometimes the Bay Bridge—but there wouldn’t be much of a bridge to cross. There’d just be a few rickety boards on metal supports, and I could see the water down below, and every time I moved, one of the boards would feel like it was giving way and I’d almost fall.”
“Oh.”
They reached the back door, where the rickety screen reminded Ginger of yet another repair that needed to be made on her money-sink of a home, and went into the house. While Izzy fed the dog, Ginger got out the fixings for dinner.
She hadn’t thought about those dreams in at least a few years. Relatively benign as they sounded when she described them, they’d always made her wake up with a scream caught in her throat, her body drenched in sweat.
In real life, she had no fear of bridges, but in her dreams they were objects of sheer terror. And when she thought of Izzy, her young life caught in that same cycle of sleepless hell, Ginger vowed she’d do whatever she could to make things easier for the girl.
CHAPTER TEN
IZZY CAUGHT ON TO chopping vegetables. She liked the fact that Ginger didn’t fuss over her handling such a sharp knife. She’d simply showed her how to hold it safely, warned her to keep her fingers tucked away from the blade and taught her how to chop a green pepper.
Easy.
She worked her way through peppers and onions, and was now chopping mushrooms for the pizzas. She was happy that they didn’t have to keep talking. Ginger had put on some kind of African music that made the house feel alive.
Izzy didn’t really want to like Ginger. Most of the time she wanted the woman to go away, which didn’t make much sense when she and Marcus were staying at her house. But she kind of liked Promise Lake.
She wondered if Marcus might consider getting them their own place here once the summer was over. Or would he want to go back to Amsterdam? Or somewhere totally different? She didn’t want any more changes, and she was terrified of asking him the most important question—what came next?
What came after this getting-to-know-you vacation?
She liked the name Promise Lake. It sounded soothing, somehow.
Hopeful.
Full of good things to come.
That was how Izzy wanted to feel.
And she liked the sounds of the forest and the lake—they were somehow more like quiet than noise. The birds, the bugs, the frogs, the rustling of the trees that reminded her of breathing—it all worked its way inside her and made her feel calm in a way she hadn’t felt in Nina’s house in the city, where everything had seemed cold and mechanical.
Izzy even liked this broken-down house, with its crooked floors and crumbling walls. The light that poured through the big windows felt quiet and happy, and the bright, pretty colors Ginger had painted the walls made every room feel as if it were welcoming her to come in.
Most of all, she liked sleeping in what clearly had been meant to be a girl’s room. Ginger had told her that she hoped to someday adopt a child. Some stupid, stupid part of her thought maybe Ginger wouldn’t need to adopt a little girl from China if she got together with Marcus. Then Izzy would be—
No.
Stop it.
That was by far the stupidest thought that had ever tried to form in her head, and she wasn’t going to go there. It was the kind of ridiculous fantasy some girl in a Disney movie would have—thinking everything would work out hunky-dory in the end and everyone would live happily-freaking-after…blah blah blah.
Like her mother had told her in one of their talks after the cancer had gotten bad, life never worked out like the fairy tales and Disney movies. Well, except in one way. The mom really did die sometimes.
But Izzy really, really didn’t want to like Ginger, even if that crazy part of her wished for something more. She cou
ldn’t stand to lose anybody else. And if Marcus was really the kind of guy her mother had said he was, the kind who didn’t do settling down or family life, then where did that leave them?
Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed Ginger to admit that she looked at Marcus like she was starving and he was a big fat steak. But Izzy hadn’t been able to help herself. Some hard little part of her had wanted to get under Ginger’s skin and find a place that would hurt.
But now…
Now that she knew about Ginger’s parents…
Now what?
If Izzy believed in angels, she might think one had just swooped into her life to guide her out of this hell and into a better place.
Was that what Ginger was supposed to be? Did angels come with curly Muppet hair and outfits from Old Navy’s two-years-ago collection? Maybe in kids’ movies they did.
“Hey,” she said, mostly to distract herself from more corny thoughts. “When’s Marcus coming back?”
“Anytime now. He went to the hardware store in town to pick up some lumber and supplies to work on the house.”
“I thought he was a writer. How does he know how to fix houses?”
“He used to work construction during the summers in college, and before that he was taught carpentry on the commune where he lived for a while with his parents.”
“I thought his parents split up.”
“They did, but they still lived on the commune separately, until he was about fourteen, I think. Then he moved to Amsterdam with his dad for his high school years.”
“Do you think he’ll want to move back there?”
“With you?” Ginger asked. “No, I don’t think so. But maybe that’s something he should talk to you about, huh?”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“I think he wants to here stay in the U.S. The threats and all…”
How much would it have sucked if her dad had been killed? And only a few months after her mother died. Well, at least the universe wasn’t that cruel.
Izzy glanced over at Ginger, who was rolling pizza dough into lopsided round shapes. The universe had been that cruel to Ginger.
Losing both parents at the same time? Unexpected tears welled up in Izzy’s eyes, and she dropped her knife on the cutting board. No, she wasn’t going to start bawling again.
The One That Got Away Page 9
